TESOL 2019

TEACHING TIP – FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 9:10 – 9:30

The Sweet Spot: Oral Feedback that

Prompts Changes (and Smiles)!
Overview:
How can we give our students the corrective feedback they desire in the
midst of class discussions and activities without disrupting the flow of
communication? This session introduces innovative metalinguistic cue
cards that provide light-hearted but effective opportunities for students to
quickly correct themselves and to solidify their language skills.
Description:
Reviewing available research on oral corrective feedback makes several
things abundantly clear. Most importantly, feedback is helpful for the
accuracy of language use by ELLs as they develop their lexical,
phonological and grammatical proficiency. (Lyster & Saito, 2010;
Mackey & Goo, 2007; Russell & Spada, 2006) Moreover, a meta-analysis
of classroom studies (Lyster & Saito, 2010) established that prompts, in
which learners are asked to correct themselves, are more effective at
producing lasting change than recasts, in which teachers provide the
correct form conversationally. Nonetheless, researchers have also
documented the prevailing tendency among teachers to use recasts with
adult learners more often than prompts. (Brown, 2016; Lyster & Ranta,
1997; Lyster, Saito & Sato, 2013) Alongside of this, researchers have also
found that while learners actually prefer receive corrective feedback,
teachers themselves are frequently reluctant to provide it out of concern
for disrupting the flow of communication or adding anxiety to the
language learning process. (Lyster, Saito & Sato, 2013).
This brief session explores an innovative approach of one university-level
ESL teacher to oral corrective feedback in light of these research insights.
After identifying several patterns of error that frequently emerged during
class discussions on academic topic, the instructor created a collection of
flashcards that used graphics to humorously highlight these specific errors
for the learners. During discussions, these cards were then displayed as
the errors occurred and became a kind of metalinguistic prompt by which
learners could quickly notice and correct their errors. During the session,
the speaker will not only discuss the specific errors that were selected for
correction but also share the cards themselves in hopes of sparking the
creativity of attendees to make and use cards of their own. The session
will conclude with a brief discussion on learner uptake in response to the
cards.

William C. Cole-French, Ed.M. || rev. 6-Mar-19