The Importance of Feedback

for English Learners

Kate Bridgman
Virtual English Language Fellow (VELF)
 SWBAT (Students will be able to):
 Description
In this class, we will examine the importance of student feedback
Content Objective
 Understand different types of feedback for speaking and writing
 Explore the value of paragraph frames in writing

Language Objective
Speak about the differences between Social (BICS) and Academic (CALP)
language

Respond and write using paragraph frames.

 Expertise

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 Assessments and Feedback

SummativeEvaluation Formative
Score or grade Given continuously
“Assessment of “Assessment for
learning” learning”
Feedback is one of the most
powerful influences on
Learning.

(Hattie & Timperley, 2007)

 Feedback in a Language Class

Error correction-  Feedback

improving the Improving the fluency,
accuracy or complexity of
learner’s accuracy speaking and writing.

Motivating learners

Developing learner
autonomy.
Comments and prompts lead to
more learning gains than providing
scores, and are more likely to
contribute to learning when they
are not accompanied by scores

(Lee, 2017)

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 Characteristics of Effective Feedback
 !. Effective feedback is about learning tasks.
 2. Effective feedback is specific and related to learning
goals.
 3. Effective feedback is timely.
 4. Effective feedback involves the learner.
 5. Effective feedback is a careful balance of positive and
negative.
 Feedback

Teachers have to balance different

linguistic and interpersonal objectives
when deciding what kind of
feedback to give, how to give it and
who to give it to (Hyland & Hyland,
2019)
 What to Consider?
 What sort of feedback is most beneficial to learners?
 What aspect of a learner’s performance will most benefit
from feedback?
 Teachers or peer?
 How would feedback be given: directly or indirectly?
Orally or in writing?
 When will learners most benefit from feedback?
 Corrective Feedback
 Focus on learners’ errors specifically on grammatical errors.

Some learners may expect the teacher to correct

all the errors in their written work, but
comprehensive error correction has little to
recommend it.

For corrective feedback on both speaking and

writing, less is often more (Lee,2017)
 Types of Corrective Feedback
1. Explicit correction
2. Recast
3. Clarification requestion
4. Metalinguistic clues
5. Elicitation.
6. Repetition
 Explicit Correction
Clearly indicating that the student's utterance was incorrect,
the teacher provides the correct form.

Student: the coyote, the bison and the cr...crane."

 Teacher:" And the crane. We say crane."
 Recast
 Without directly indicating that the student's utterance was
incorrect, the teacher implicitly reformulates the student's
error, or provides the correction.

Student: I go to the park yesterday.

Teacher: Oh great, you went to the park yesterday.
 Clarification Request

By using phrases like "Excuse me?" or "I don't

understand," the teacher indicates that the message has not
been understood or that the student's utterance contained
some kind of mistake and that a repetition or a
reformulation is required.
 Metalinguistic Clues
 Without providing the correct form, the teacher poses
questions or provides comments or information related to the
formation of the student's utterance (for example, "Do we say
it like that?" "That's not how you say it in French," and "Is it
feminine?").
 Elicitation Feedback
The teacher directly elicits the correct form from the student
by asking questions (e.g., "How do we say that in French?"),
by pausing to allow the student to complete the teacher's
utterance (e.g., "It's a....") or by asking students to
reformulate the utterance (e.g., "Say that again."). Elicitation
questions differ from questions that are defined as
metalinguistic clues in that they require more than a yes/no
response.
 Repetition Feedback
The teacher repeats the student's error and adjusts
intonation to draw student’s attention to it.
 Indirect and Direct Feedback

May include less anxiety in learners,

More likely to lead to learning because it requires
learners to do more of the work themselves
Some like direct feedback because there is less
rick of learners misunderstanding the teacher’s
words.
Feedback on Speaking

 Wait to until the end

 Does not interrupt the flow
 Less anxiety
 Focus on whole class for error
 Easier to combine feedback on
 positive and error correction
Feedback on Writing

Timing? On the spot?

Written feedback
Oral feedback
Illustrative (whole
group) feedback
Conference
Time consuming This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
 Peer Feedback
 Can be benefit for both
Some students are not
students
receptive to peer
 Raises student responsibility
feedback
and provides additional
opportunities for Hyper focus on
improvement grammatical
 Independent learning. accuracy instead of
 Many learners are receptive fluency and content.
to peer feedback.
 Reduces teacher’s
workload
 Peer Feedback
Make sure both learners give and receive
the feedback.
Focus the feedback. Give checklist and
guidelines.
Encourage more global feedback- overall
communication.
Provide a model on how the peer
feedback should look and sound.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
 Works Cited
 Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
https://www.cambridge.org/files/4415/8594/0876/Giving_Feedback
minipaper_ONLINE.pdf.
 Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of
Educational Research, 77(1), pp. 81–112.
 Hyland, K. (2019). What messages do students take from teacher feedback?
In Hyland, K. and Hyland, F. (Eds.) Feedback in Second Language Writing.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 265–284.
 Lee, I. (2019). Teacher written corrective feedback: Less is more. Language
Teaching, 52(4), pp. 524–536.