> I wonder though - when your son says, "I catched the ball" do you purposely not correct him because that's the school's job?
Not thread parent, but parent nonetheless :) I'd say the ideal response would be ignoring that error but instead replying with "I caught the ball" in an appropriate situation. Kids learn languages by example, all we have to do is give good examples. Correcting "catched/ caught" puts focus on the error, not on the dozens of cases where grammar was fine. If done too often (e.g. not what you described), that can actually impede learning, as the kid could develop a self-perception of being constantly wrong.
In general the pedagogical ideal is creating a setting where learning can take place by itself. The role of the teacher is reduced to designing the setting. Your ball game example can be seen as such a setting: You two are just having fun together and talk about that, and the desired learning of the language just emerges out of the situation.
(I'm an eduactional scientist, so maybe at risk of over-theorizing trivial examples :) )
Not thread parent, but parent nonetheless :) I'd say the ideal response would be ignoring that error but instead replying with "I caught the ball" in an appropriate situation. Kids learn languages by example, all we have to do is give good examples. Correcting "catched/ caught" puts focus on the error, not on the dozens of cases where grammar was fine. If done too often (e.g. not what you described), that can actually impede learning, as the kid could develop a self-perception of being constantly wrong.
In general the pedagogical ideal is creating a setting where learning can take place by itself. The role of the teacher is reduced to designing the setting. Your ball game example can be seen as such a setting: You two are just having fun together and talk about that, and the desired learning of the language just emerges out of the situation.
(I'm an eduactional scientist, so maybe at risk of over-theorizing trivial examples :) )