Unit 3 Feedback

Welcome to the third unit of this course. In this unit, we will discuss the importance of feedback
and how feedback should / could be used in your language classroom as a tool to enhance your
students´ performance in the target language. Use this unit as a tool to enrich your teaching
practice.

Competencies:
By the end of this Unit, students will be able to:

• Define what feedback is and its purpose in supporting effective language

development;
• Outline the existing relationship between assessment and feedback;
• Use suitable positive and negative feedback-giving strategies to support the
development of learners’ communication skills; and
• Identify types of corrective feedback given in actual classroom use and gauge their
application and usefulness.

Content of the Unit:

1. Introduction
2. Feedback: definition and purpose
3. Types of feedback: positive and negative feedback
a. Positive feedback
b. Negative feedback
c. Explicit correction
d. Repetition and rephrasing
e. Elicitation
f. Recast
g. Repetition
h. Metalinguistic clues
i. Clarification request
 4. Feedback in practice: What it looks like in the classroom
5. Summary and Conclusions
6. Assessment Plan
7. References
8. Key

Estimated Time

• 10 hours.

Assessment Plan

In order to successfully complete your work on this Unit you will be asked to do two
assessment tasks:

Unit 3 Final Task; this task represents 5 points of the overall grade. You will submit
this task through the UAS platform.

Unit 3 Discussion FORUM, this forum represents 5 points of the overall grade. You
will complete this forum on the UAS Platform.
 1. Introduction

The importance of feedback in language learning is generally discussed with widespread

agreement in the world of ELT (Harmer 2007. Ferris, 1997, Ellis 2009).

Feedback is seen by most authors (and teachers hopefully) as crucial for encouraging and
consolidating language learning. For instance, Writing, Black and William (1998) agree that
feedback has probably more effect on succeeding in learning a language than any other factor.

As a starting point in this unit, we can argue that suitable feedback can help learners to perform
better in the target language, and that giving feedback is part of our lives as teachers; however,
can not only discuss the importance of feedback and whether or not we have to give feedback,
we should also discuss HOW we give feedback.

In this unit, you will develop your abilities on how to give feedback effectively. Enjoy the unit.

2. Feedback: definition and purpose.

Before we start a discussion on the topic of feedback, it seems appropriate to start by defining
what feedback is.

Task 1) Let´s start this new by asking you two key questions:
What is feedback? Write your definition.
Some authors define feedback as follows:

• Wang (2006: 42) states, ‘feedback is the information about current performance that can
be used to improve future performance.’

• Ur (1996, p.242) states that ‘feedback is the information given to the learner about his or
her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving this
performance’

• Gass, Behney, and Plonsky (2013) pointed out, “Feedback is an important source of
information for learners. Most generally, it provides them with information about the
success (or, more likely, lack of success) of their utterances and gives additional
opportunities to focus on production or comprehension” (p. 359).

• Feedback shouldn’t be a judgment about another person’s character. Rather, feedback

is meant to be an objective message about behavior and consequences, either as
recognition of a job well done or a suggestion on how to improve on the job. The goal of
feedback is to encourage the recipient of the feedback to move forward by learning,
growing, and changing (Harvard, 2007, p. 4).

From the definitions above you can conclude that feedback is vital in all learning contexts as well
as an important part of any learning process (Brawdy& Byra, 1994; Clariana & Koul, 2006; Slavin,
2003).
As Slavin (2003, p.535) suggests “L2 learners need to be given the chance to see their progress
before any assessment, through providing feedback. Students should be able to see the
connection between the completed task and the provided feedback, or else “the informational
and motivational value of feedback will be diminished”, and the learners will continue to make
the same errors repeatedly in future (Slavin, 2003)

Now that we are more aware of the importance and the definition of feedback, we would like to
ask you:

Task 2)
What is the role of feedback in your language classroom? How often do
you give feedback to your students?

Traditionally, feedback takes the form of correction.

Stop and Think: How often do you correct your students and how?

You probably thought of different feedback strategies you have used to contribute to the overall
performance of your students. Hyland (2006: 102-103) claims that providing feedback to students
is often seen as one of the teachers´ most important tasks. Thus, the more frequent and
constructive feedback is, the more performance improvement can be done.

But then, what are the different types of feedback? Let´s analyze them in the coming section.
 3. Types of Feedback.

Based on Pica (1994, cited in Tabatabaei & Birjandi, 2009) feedback is the information that
learners receive about their language production, and gives them the opportunity to modify
their output.

By definition, feedback is responsive and thus can occur only after a given process. It means, that
feedback appears after students performed in the target language producing some evidence we
can judge.

There are two types of feedback:

• Positive feedback that consists of information that the process was successful,
• Negative feedback informs of failure.

Feedback consists of a wide variety of responses to learner output (what the learner produced)
and may contain information regarding the accuracy, communicative success, or content of
learner utterances or discourse, regardless of how the learner interprets and responds to such
information.

Let´s see it a little more in depth.

Negative feedback

• According to Carrol and Swain (1993), explicit negative feedback would be any feedback
that overtly states that a learner's output was not part of the language-to-be-learned.
Implicit negative feedback would include corrections (because learners must infer from
the interaction that their utterance was wrong) and such things as confirmation checks,
failures to understand, and requests for clarification (because learners must infer that
the form of their utterance is responsible for the interlocutor's comprehension
problems) (p. 361).

Corrective feedback

In Ellis, Loewen, and Erlam (2006) words, corrective feedback takes the form of
responses to learner utterances that contain an error. The responses can consist of:

(a) an indication that an error has been committed,

(b) provision of the correct target language form, or

(c) metalinguistic information about the nature of the error, or any combination
of these.

Corrective feedback differs in terms of how implicit or explicit it is. Corrective feedback
is described by Lightbown and Spada (1999) as “an indication to a learner that his or her
use of the target language is incorrect” (p.172), and it falls into two categories, explicit
or implicit, depending on the way the errors are corrected.
Explicit feedback, as Kim and Mathes (2001) stated, refers to the explicit provision of the correct
form, including specific grammatical information that students can refer to when an answer is
incorrect, whereas implicit feedback, such as elicitation, repetition, clarification requests, recasts
and metalinguistic feedback (Lochtman, 2002), allows learners to notice the error and correct it
with the help of the teacher.

Task 3) Strategies to provide feedback.

• What strategies do you commonly use to provide feedback (correct

students) in your language classroom?
• Do you ask students to repeat the sentence? Do you repeat the sentence
correctly? Etc. Write your ideas in the space below.

Corrective feedback is divided into six categories (Lyster & Ranta, 1997): 1).

• Explicit correction:

According to Lyster and Ranta (1997), explicit correction is “any feedback technique that
involves a teacher simply providing a student with the correct answer” (pp. 46-49). 2).
As the name suggests, explicit feedback falls at the explicit end of corrective feedback spectrum.
This kind of error correction, therefore, is characterized by an overt and clear indication of the
existence of an error and the provision of the target-like reformulation and can take two forms,
i.e. explicit correction and metalinguistic feedback (Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006).

In explicit correction, the teacher provides both positive and negative evidence by clearly saying
that what the learner has produced is erroneous, while in metalinguistic feedback he or she only
provides students with “comments, information, or questions related to the well-formedness”
(p.47) of their utterances (Lyster & Ranta, 1997)

Stop and Think: Have you used this strategy? How often do you use it? Do
you see any advantage or disadvantage in using it?

The communicatively intrusive nature of explicit feedback amplifies the provision of both
negative and positive evidence, potentially aiding learners in noticing the gap between their
interlanguage (their actual language level) and the target-like form. However, in providing the
target-like reformulation, explicit error correction reduces the need for the learner to produce a
modified response. Thus, explicit error correction, because it supplies the learner with both
positive and negative evidence, facilitates one type of processing, the noticing of an
interlanguage/target language difference, but reduces another type of processing, the modified
production of an interlanguage form to a more target-like form.

How does it look like in practice?

 Task 4) Strategy: Explicit Correction:

Description: The teacher indicates an error has been committed, identifies the error
and provides the correction.

Step 1) read the follow example of explicit correction.

• Learner: On May.
• Teacher: Not on May, In May. We say, “It will start in May.”

Step 2) Write an example of the last time you used this strategy in your language
classroom.

Step 3) Reflect.
• Did you give your student a chance to reformulate? Did it work as you think? Was it
useful?
Let´s now analyze another strategy you can use in your classroom.

• Recast:

According to Lyster and Ranta (1997), recast is defined as “a more implicit feedback technique
that involves the teacher’s reformulation of all or part of a student’s utterance, minus the error”
(pp. 46-49). 3).

According to Ellis and Sheen (2006, pp. 78-80), recasts are of various types including corrective
recasts (Doughty & Varela, 1998), corrective/non-corrective recasts (Farrar, 1992), full/partial
recasts, single/multiple recasts, single utterance/extended utterance recasts, and
simple/complex recasts (Ellis & Sheen, 2006).

Nelson, Denninger, Bonvillian, Kaplan, and Baker (1983) also propose two further classifications
of recasts, i.e. simple and complex recasts; the former deals with minimal changes to the child's
utterance while the latter is concerned with providing the child with substantial additions. It is
also mentioned that in terms of their linguistic development, children benefit from simple recasts
more than complex ones (Nelson et al., 1983)

Stop and Think: Have you used this strategy? Do you commonly use
simple or complex recasts?
 Task 5) Strategy: Recast

Description: The teacher incorporates the content words of the immediately

preceding incorrect utterance and changes and corrects the utterance in some
way (e.g., phonological, syntactic, morphological or lexical).

Step 1) read the follow example of explicit correction.

• Learner: I went there two times.
• Teacher: You´ve been. You´ve been there twice as a group?

Step 2) Write an example of the last time you used this strategy in your language
classroom.

Step 3) Reflect
• Did you give your student a chance to reformulate? Did it work as you think?
Was it useful?
 • Clarification request:

According to Lyster and Ranta (1997), clarification request is a “feedback type in which the
teacher asks a question indicating to the student that there is a problem with the language
utterance” (pp. 46-49). 4).

As said above, in this type of feedback the indicates that the utterance has been ill-formed or
misunderstood and that a reformulation or a repetition is required are identified as clarification
requests. This kind of feedback encapsulates “problems in either comprehension, accuracy, or
both” (Lyster &Ranta, 1997, p.47).

One of the advantages of this type of feedback is the fact that clarification requests, unlike
explicit error correction and recasts, can be more consistently relied upon to generate modified
output from learners since it might not supply the learners with any information concerning the
type or location of the error.

Task 6) Strategy: Clarification request

Description: The teacher indicates that he/she has not understood what the learner
said.

Step 1) read the follow example of explicit correction.

• Learner: What do you spend with your wife?
• Teacher: What?
Step 2) Write an example of the last time you used this strategy in your language
classroom.

Step 3) Reflect
• Do you think this strategy gave more opportunities for your students to
produce their own language? Or do you prefer the first two strategies
discussed before?
 • Repetition:

Another approach to provide corrective feedback is repetition which is less communicatively

intrusive in comparison to explicit error correction and hence falls at the implicit extreme on the
continuum of corrective feedback.

This feedback is simply the teachers or interlocutors’ repetition "of the ill-formed part of the
student's utterance, usually with a change in intonation" (Panova & Lyster, 2002, p.584) or like
Ranta (1997), defines it as “the type of the feedback that involves a teacher repeating wrong
utterance highlighting it with intonation” (pp. 46-49). 5).

Task 7) Strategy: Repetition

Description: The teacher repeats the learner utterance highlighting the
error by means of emphatic stress.

Step 1) read the follow example of explicit correction.

• Learner: I will showed you.
• Teacher: I will SHOWED you.
• Learner: I´ll show you.

Step 2) Write an example of the last time you used this strategy in your language
classroom.
 Let´s now analyze the last strategy in this unit.

• Metalinguistic feedback:

Much like explicit error correction, metalinguistic feedback- because it diverts the focus of
conversation towards rules or features of the target language- falls at the explicit end of the
corrective feedback spectrum.

Lyster and Ranta (1997) categorize metalinguistic feedback as “comments, information, or

questions related to the well-formedness of the student's utterance, without explicitly providing
the correct form” (e.g., Can you find an error?)” (pp. 46-49).

Task 8) Strategy: Metalinguistic feedback

Description: The teacher repeats the learner utterance highlighting the

error by means of emphatic stress.

Step 1) Watch the following video:

• https://youtu.be/JsMA44kclME

Step 2) Write an example of the last time you used this strategy in your language
classroom.
 4. Feedback in practice: What it looks like in the classroom.

Ellis (2009) has proposed the following explicit set of principles as general guidelines for
correcting learner errors.

1. Teachers should ascertain their students’ attitudes towards CF, appraise them of the
value of CF, and negotiate agreed goals for CF with them. The goals are likely to vary
according to the social and situational context.

2. CF (both oral and written) works and so teachers should not be afraid to correct
students’ errors. This is true for both accuracy and fluency work, so CF has a place in
both.

3. Focused CF is potentially more effective than unfocused CF, so teachers should identify
specific linguistic targets for correction in different lessons. This will occur naturally in
accuracy work based on a structure-of-the-day approach but can also be usefully applied
in fluency work.

4. Teachers should ensure that learners know they are being corrected (i.e., they should
not attempt to hide the corrective force of their CF moves from the learners). Whereas
it will generally be clear to learners that they are being corrected in the case of written
CF, it may not always be clear in the case of oral CF.

5. Teachers need to be able to implement a variety of oral and written CF strategies and to
adapt the specific strategies they use to the particular learner they are correcting. One
way of doing this is to start with a relatively implicit form of correction (e.g., simply
indicating that there is an error) and, if the learner is unable to self-correct, to move to a
 more explicit form (e.g., a direct correction). This requires that teachers be responsive
to the “feedback” they get from learners on their own corrective feedback.

6. Oral CF can be both immediate and delayed. Teachers need to experiment with the
timing of the CF. Written CF is almost invariably delayed.

7. Teachers need to create space following the corrective move for learners to uptake the
correction [3]. However, whether the correction is or is not appropriated should be left
to the learner (i.e., the teacher should not require the learner to produce the correct
form). In the case of written CF, learners need the opportunity to attend to the
corrections and revise their writing.

8. Teachers should be prepared to vary who, when, and how they correct in accordance
with the cognitive and affective needs of the individual learner. In effect this means they
do not need to follow a consistent set of procedures for all students.

9. Teachers should be prepared to correct a specific error on several occasions to enable

the learner to achieve full self-regulation.

10. Teachers should monitor the extent to which corrective feedback causes anxiety in
learners and should adapt the strategies they use to ensure that anxiety facilitates rather
than debilitates. These guidelines should not be presented to teachers as mandatory but
rather as a set of propositions that they can reflect on and debate (p. 12).

Now it is time to put into practice all of the strategies and suggestions we have detailed in this
unit, but before we do that let´s summarize this unit.
 5. Summary and Conclusions.

First at all, the guidelines presented in the previous section are not mandatory but rather a set
of propositions that you can reflect and discuss at school and among your peers to find the most
suitable approach to using them in your language classroom.

This unit seeks to help you in your teacher development. Richards and Farrell (2005) define
teacher development as follows:

Teacher development… seeks to facilitate growth of teacher´s understanding of teaching and

of themselves as teachers. It often involves different dimensions of a teacher´s practice as a basis
for reflective review…. (p.4)

The use of different strategies to provide feedback is an ideal dimension of “practice” that all
teachers need to make decisions about whether, how, and when to correct their students´
errors.

Providing feedback is a complex phenomenon and reaching an agreement on what strategy best
fits a situation demands practice and experience. Therefore, we encourage you to go and try
them all in your language classroom and find your own tone.

Let´s go to the final task to put some ideas into practice.

 6. Assessment Plan

Welcome to the end of Unit Task. Remember, this task should be uploaded to the
UAS Platform before Sunday at 10:00pm.

As we have discussed the different strategies to provide feedback it is time to

identify, analyze and reflect about how you use them in your language classroom.

Step 1) Record a class. It has to be a language class of any level. You can also use
a class that you have already recorded.

Step 2) Watch the video and identify the different feedback strategies you used
during that class.

Step 3) Complete the following chart.

• Column A) The strategy you used.

• Column B) the context in which it was used.
• Column C) Why you used that strategy.
• Column D) Would you change it (replace it) with a different strategy from the
ones discussed in this unit? Explain how and why.

Step 4) Your chart should include at least 4 examples you used (column A)
Step 5) After you complete your chart answer the following questions:
• How beneficial your feedback is?
• Are you providing students with enough feedback to improve their language
competencies?
• What caught your attention in this unit?

Step 6) Submit before Sunday at 10:00pm in the UAS Platform.

Your tutor,
Heidy Paredes

Discussion FORUM

Welcome to U3 FORUM.

This forum is an opportunity for you to share the product of your reflections regarding
the use of feedback in your language classroom.

Step 1) Read and answer the following questions:

• How important is feedback for you?

• From the types of feedback discussed in the Unit:
o Which one do you use the most? Explain and give an example.
o Which one caught your attention the most? Explain and say how you
plan to use it.
• What do you take away with you from this unit?
Step 2) Type your answers in two paragraphs. (250-300 words) Due date Tuesday.

Step 3) Read your partner´s contributions and reply with "feedback". Due date
Thursday.

Step 4) ANSWER the replies you received. Due date Saturday.

Step 5) ANSWER/COMMENT on the Forum´s Summary. Due date Monday.

Your tutor,

Heidy Paredes