Why do you think language instructors correct some students mistakes and not others?

Question

Ok, I should have added a little more detail. This particular instructor usually corrected the students that were not as skilled but when the more advanced students made a mistake, they were not corrected...Any ideas?

Answer 1

That's wrong then. Either the teachers are lazy or their grading style is subjective.

Answer 2

I might still need more information to give you a full answer. Is it mainly a course for learning particular language (e.g. grammar) points or for conversation? If it is a conversation course with students at quite different levels of proficiency, the teacher might want the more advanced ones to concentrate on fluency practice.

When students are working on fluency, it can be better not to interrupt; therefore, many teachers will avoid correcting until afterward. Perhaps the teacher is taking notes and then, at the end or at next class, letting everyone know about errors she has been hearing a lot?

On the other hand, maybe the less skilled students are not yet ready for much fluency practice. If the teacher is doing more controlled practice exercises with them, it is probably appropriate to correct them more also.

Finally, in a grammar course, the teacher might correct only language points that have already been covered in that course and in previous levels. If you are one of the more skilled students (and have studied at other schools or by yourself), you might recognize errors that the others are making because you have already studied more advanced structures. But if the school you are learning at does not teach those points until a later course, the teacher could be right to ignore those errors. S/he needs to think about what is best for the whole class, and skipping ahead to deal with points that have not yet been taught might seriously confuse the group.

There are other possible reasons why a teacher would correct different groups of students differently; but as I said above, I would need more detail in order to do any more guessing.