Remedial Teaching :

The word "remedial" is derived from the verb "to remedy". To remedy means to cure a defect, correct a fault or to remove a lacunae. Remedial teaching is thus a process of correction. It is a process which corrects the defects/ faults in the previous learning. It removes lacunae or gaps in the learning. The items which have been learnt wrongly or inadequately are to be corrected.

Identification, description, and explanation are the 3 stages of error analysis. The 4th logical step is error correction/remediation or remedial teaching. The focus of remedial teaching is the frequent errors committed by most of the students. Only the errors committed by maximum students, maximum number of times are to be corrected. Individual random errors are not the focus of such teaching.

Remedial teaching is particularly important at tertiary or college level. Most college level teaching of grammar is remedial teaching. A teacher's job is to introduce or teach new language items, practice them, test their learning and then remedy the faults in it. If language is taught and practiced properly at the earlier leveis (i.e. primary/secondary/higher secondary) then remediation at college level would be unnecessary. However this is never the case. And so remedial teaching is a must at the college level.

When the output of learning doesn't match the input of teaching, there is error. Also there is a human factor of forgetfulness. So remedial teaching is concerned with mis-learned items as well as forgotten items. It is easy to re-teach forgotten items but difficult to to remove wrongly learnt items. Thus RT completes incomplete learning and remedies wrong learning.

Causes of defective learning are as under :

1. Interference of the mother tongue habits in the learning of second language. Thus Indian students often write - "They was a great leader" because in Indian languages we use plural form of pronoun to show respect.

2.Sometimes the errors are result of overgeneralization of a rule. Students may use "bringed, swimmed, drinked' as past tense forms because they think that all verbs take suffix, -ed for past tense. This is over generalizing the rule.

3.Sometimes errors can be result of bad teaching from poorly trained or untrained teachers. If the teacher's English is bad, his teaching can not be effective.

Steps in remediation:

1. First step is detection or identification of error by the teacher

2. Second is the classification of error. The error can be systematic (e.g. -suffix -ed for all verbs in past tense) or unsystematic. It can be an error of grammar, spelling or pronunciation.

3. Explanation of error is the next step. Why did the learner make a mistake? It could be a result of i. ignorance of rule, ii. Half-learnt rule or ili. Wrong rule taught to him (e.g. "an' before vowel letters - a, e, i, 0, u and 'a' before consonant letters. What about 'an hour' or 'a university' then?)

4. The fourth step is supplying the correct rule and explanation of it. For example while using articles 'an' is used before vowel sounds and 'a' is used before consonant sounds. The pronunciation of the word 'hour' begins with a vowel so 'an' is used before it while the pronunciation of the word 'university' begins with a consonant /j/ so an' is used before it

5. Last step is to provide adequate practice for relearning he wrongly learnt item. Rules can not replace practice so rule-giving plus adequate practice is absolutely necessary in remedial teaching.

Remedial teaching is based on error analysis because the teacher has to know what is to be remedied or corrected. Error analysis is like diagnosis and remedial teaching is like treatment. RT may require alternative methods and materials of teaching, obviously because the earlier methods/material failed to achieve the learning targets. The sequence in RT is Test- Teach - Re-test. It will also involve lot of explanations repetitions and illustrations.