Some techniques of giving feedback in learning and teaching foreign languages

Methods and materials

There are different types of feedback that we often use in the classroom:

• •    Giving students an idea of how they have done after a speaking activity – looking at both their errors and the good things they have said.

• •    Asking students what they think about an activity they have done or to

reflect on their learning.

• •    Checking the answers to activities that the students have done.

Let us concentrate on the third one. So students have completed an exercise and now the teacher checks the answers. What alternative ways are available to us? Take a look at the following ideas:

• 1.    Give the students an answer key or put the answer key on the wall or the board.

• 2.    Give each student the answer to one or more questions – they read out for the class to check.

• 3.    One student has the answer key and plays the teacher.

• 4.    Get students to write the answers on the board.

• 5.    Get one student to read out his/her answers – the rest of the class see if they have the same.

• 6.    Course books sometimes encourage students to listen to the answers.

• 7.    Give the students a reading text with all the answers in.

• 8.    Students nominate each other to say the answer.

• 9.    Do it as a competition – students work in teams to check their answers and then get points.

• 10.    Teacher monitors while students are on task and makes a note of common problems to concentrate on in feedback.

Now, we have a question: Are these techniques useful? We try to answer to the question.

• 1.    To encourage learner autonomy – the teacher won’t always be there to provide answers. If you put the key on the wall, it also gets the students out of their seats for a few minutes. You can make it more fun by getting them to run to the walls, find the answers and go back to tell their partners – a bit like a running dictation or give half the answers to one person and the other half to their partner. They share their information like an information gap activity.

• 2.    Although the teacher provides the answers, the students are in control of the feedback.

• 3.    I saw this done really well in an observation. The student with the answer key has to be able to answer questions asked by the class to make it more effective.

• 4.    This is a good way to deal with early finishers.

• 5.    This works well if students have different answers to questions because they can discuss the answer and come to an agreed conclusion.

• 6.    A good way to introduce intensive listening into your classroom with a real purpose.

• 7.    An alternative way to get the students reading in your class. It practises scanning skills and, like 6, has a real purpose.

• 8.    A student-centered version of whole class feedback. It works better if students choose the questions to answer at random as it keeps them on their toes and encourages them to listen to each other.

• 9.    Makes the feedback more interesting and fun and could help to change

• 10.    This saves time going through answers which the students have got correct and gives more time to work on the answers they got wrong and think about the reasons why.

the pace of the lesson.

A further reason why the above techniques are useful, when compared to whole class feedback, is that error correction can be dealt with. For feedback to be effective and worthwhile, students need the opportunity to talk about their answers so that they can see why the correct answer is right and why the incorrect one is wrong. Through this way, we can encourage students to learn from their mistakes. It also gives us valuable feedback on our teaching. If students get used to be giving each other feedback after activities and introduce the appropriate task language, not only will the students get a chance to discuss their answers but they will also have an opportunity to use language. It could be a good opportunity to get them practicing, for example, agreeing and disagreeing, negotiating meaning etc. In this way, feedback has a real communicative purpose. Other things to do before getting class feedback:

• •    Getting students to check their answers in pairs is a good way to mix the students up and get them moving around for a few minutes.

• •    If you have a student who always finishes before everyone else, look at his/her answers and tell him/her how many he has got wrong but not which ones. This is a good way to keep an early finisher busy for a little while longer while the others catch up. It’s also a good way to get students to look at their answers again – something I find very few of my students do especially in tests or exams, so this is a good strategy to encourage.

In addition, we should consider some issues: the techniques of checking answers with the whole class. There are some issues to consider when choosing which technique is the most appropriate.

• •    Time – If it only took the students five minutes to complete the exercise but the feedback takes 15 minutes, then this probably isn’t the most efficient use of time.

• •    Level – Lower level students might have some difficulties in learning

• •    Activity type – we should know which of those activities are more suitable than others.

Conclusion

These techniques need to be introduced at an early stage so that students see them as part of everyday classroom life. If we use student-centered activities in our classrooms, it’s also important to support these with student-centered feedback. Feedback should be used to encourage students to work hard and indicate what they need to focus on when they are having difficulty.