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Correcting and Giving Feedback
Correction and feedback can be used to motivate and
encourage learning and give a student a sense of their own ability.
Here are a few ideas on how to correct and give feedback effectively.
- If correcting an individual student, try to do it on a one-to-one
basis, not in front of the whole class, unless the language point
is applicable to all the students.
- Make whole-class correction and feedback general and don't name
individual students.
- When you monitor your class doing a task, make a note of some
of the mistakes you hear and wind the task up with a brief, whole-class
correction activity.
- As a teacher, don't try to record every mistake you hear, but
focus on a certain aspect, such as the intonation of question
forms or the level of first language features in the pronunciation
of vocabulary items.
- Tell your students, in advance of the task that you set, what
you are listening for, e.g. the correct pronunciation of past
tense verbs, so that they will be more aware of what they are
saying and have the opportunity to correct themselves or each
other.
- Ask the class what they feel are their problem areas and monitor
their performance based on those points.
- Remember to give feedback on what they're doing well and on
areas where you can see that they've made progress.
It's very important that students get a sense of progress as they
learn a language. Encourage students to think about how they are
getting on. Ask them to identify areas where they could make improvements
and build this into the everyday practice of your class. Use the
Feedback and Progress Table
given here as a way of focusing feedback on particular aspects of
a student's spoken performance. You can adapt it so that it applies
to individual students and their needs. If it is used as a reference
point for discussion throughout the duration of the course, it is
also a way of charting a student's progress.
- Give each of your students a copy of the Feedback and Progress Table.
- Check that they understand all the statements and then ask them
to decide if they think it describes them. They can make a note
of how they feel about the statement in the notes column. They
might put 'Yes, I always do this.' or they may disagree and think
that they don't have this problem.
- This is not a group activity, this is personal reflection, so
it is suitable for homework.
- At the bottom of the table there are two blank lines. Students
should be encouraged to fill these in with any other problems
they think they have with their spoken English.
- Try to find time over the following week to discuss individually
the student's answers and give your impression of their performance,
as their teacher. (They may be better at speaking than they give
themselves credit for!)
- During the individual discussion, identify and note down a couple
of areas that the student can focus on improving.
- Monitor the students, based on the areas they want to improve
and after a couple of weeks have a quick chat to see if you and
they think that they have indeed made improvements.
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