No, I don't think so. Mistakes and errors are considered natural, but not encouraged. From my experience, the teacher here in such cases play a major role in motivating or demotivating students to participate. If the teacher makes fun of students who make mistakes, or makes a big fuss of his students' mistakes, then this will kill students willing to participate again. But when mistakes are corrected friendly, then this will develop students' linguistic competences.

Yes I agree with Aida Mohammad Ali Bakeer but wouldn't you get frustrated when the grammatical errors are made by Masters students?... of English?

No, as the current methods of teaching neglect the two productive skills: speaking and writing. Students don't have chances to speak and use the language in real-life situations, and therefore, they will hesitate when using the language as they lack linguistic competences (vocabulary, grammar, etc.), self-confidence, and clarity. Ask your students to make presentations, and engage them in oral activities, where they will gain confidence and be aware of the skills used in communication that help them be accurate and fluent.

I agree with Aida that it very much depends on the manner in which the teacher corrects that makes the difference between motivating and demoralizing students. Once a relationship of trust has been established, and there is oral language being practiced, it becomes a natural practice (or can) to simply restate the incorrect grammatical phrase in the proper way so students can practice it. Simple, to the point, and only an explanation when necessary, keep the flow of oral language practice going...of course doing all this in the target language is key. And keeping a smile helps. Again as Aida mentions, students have inadequate practice in the two output modes of speaking and writing so I like to follow up any oral language practice with a writing practice closely related to the oral practice the students just engaged in. This reinforces the output focus in a second modality which helps with retention of both fluency and proper form. Any time students are asked to remember, interpret, then summarize through writing some part of an activity they just participated in, they will acquire both cognitive and experiential skills. Both of these of course are essential for language learning, acquisition and development.

I do not disagree with either Aida Mohammad Ali Bakeer or Catheryn Phipps Orive but my concern is the frequent inaccuracy in grammar despite long periods of study and practice. What would be your immediate response to these utterances:

S1; undergraduate; semester 5/6: *I am do this before;

S2: postgraduate; MA English: *I am not listen my name?

I think it depends on some personality factors; some students are shy, but others do not care whether the teacher discourages them by correcting their mistakes. In speaking classes teachers try to elicit a response from students in L2, so students are normally encouraged to say their points about a topic using the target language. Language teachers shouldn't forget that language is a communication tool. Therefore, if the response in L2 is clear and understandable by listener, teachers should not stop and correct them. It is advisable to correct mistakes after the discussion (in speaking classes).

Yes, I agree. The problem, however, is in EFL teacher preparation contexts when the speaker who is uttering those errors I mentioned is a potential school teacher of English in the making (S1) or a university teacher to be (S2)!

I would advise the learner of the foreign language to enroll in training courses of using the language orally where he/she would have the opportunity to express himself /herself freely. Such courses would develop adequate linguistic competences, which are very important to enable him/her to use the language fluently (clearly and with confidence). Practice would help learners to generate sentences appropriately and freely: Practice makes perfect.

The said learners are already in dedicated ELT courses in formal institutions; the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Languages, consecutively.

They should work on themselves and take courses in private sectors, preferably with native speaker if possible. Such courses are expected to enable them to generate sentences without hesitation after adequate period of time.

From the statements made (I am do this before; I am not listen my name?) I believe there is a clear misunderstanding of the syntax. In the first instance it would appear that there are two errors, one a misunderstanding of the verb "to Be" in it's auxiliary form, and another in the communication of a past tense utterance with the preposition 'before'. The second utterance is more a misunderstanding of the present progressive tense and the concurrency of utterance/experience it represents semantically. In both cases I would explicitly explain the error and how it leads to miscommunication then deliberately create several more practice sentences in writing as a DOL (Daily Oral Language) error recognition and correction practice so they could practice corrections together as a group. I would then have them see if they can come up with their own sentences to correct to check for understanding. The main goal of oral communication is understanding, and if understanding is impeded by significant syntactic errors, then we all should be assisting our learners in correcting them. They typically appreciate it in the end so they don't sound like fools anyway. We just need to do it carefully, with respect and clearly with the goal in mind: clear communication. Syntax structures thought so clear syntax = clear thinking. You might even try asking the students to clarify what they are thinking when they say those sentences? Tell them you are confused and you need help understanding what they mean. This will also force them to use circumlocution which inevitably leads to learning and the practice of communication. It may help them become aware of the error which is the starting point to learning the correction.

Thanks Catheryn Phipps Orive for seeing my point of view; the said errors are, from the accuracy perspective, serious to say the least, particularly for an MA student intent on becoming an English language teaching staff member at university.