Recommendations when giving feedback
It is always important to make our students feel confident about their performance, no matter the type of error or mistake. Having a positive attitude towards them when giving advices helps students to take it easy and have a better understanding when the teacher is providing useful information about how to improve, so if we do it the wrong way, they may feel discouraged. |
It is better if we are specific on what was good, what we like the most about the performance, so they can know that they are doing a good work. |
Pointing what the student need to improve in has to be clear: suggest what the learner can do to improve in the future, so they can know not only what the error was but also how to improve on it and make it better the next time. |
Try to do not be rude neither way too positive when giving feedback. If we point directly our students errors without considering how they can feel about it, there is going to be a problem. Perhaps, students suffer a lack of motivation; and, being too much positive may make them feel that you are treating them as dumbs. |
Avoid criticism, if you are going to say something it has to be useful. There is a place and time to give feedback to students. It is impolite and rude if a students is speaking and you interrup him every time he commits a mistake it his speech. |
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Definition of Feedback
Feedback is a fundamental element during the teaching and learning process of each individual learner since it allows not only the correction of errors during a written assignment, but also the establishment of rapport and consistent reationship between the learners and the teacher. Students react to feedback looking for teachers approval. (Gattegno in Nunan, 1995). |
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Good examples of giving feedback
Telling when a presentation topic is well done
"Very good job! Your slides had sequence and coherence, also the colors you've used were easy to see and you provide images related to your topic.This type of presentation can work even better in a different topic."
Here the teacher is highlighting what the student done good and that he is able to do more than that in many topics, not only what he is presenting. It is also well understood that the feedback was provided after the presentation. |
Private feedback
A teacher sends an e-mail for each student providing individual and written feedback, so the students do not feel pointed at the classroom. Also, the teacher takes advantage at the classroom to call students one by one, while the others are doing an activity, so the teacher can provide feedback privately about their performance on class.
A bad example of this situation could be to give indivudal feedback while the whole class is listening and points only in the mistakes. This can be rude and make the student feel useless or demotivated. |
Sandwich technique
Praising their strenghts and areas of good performance is a good way of to start giving group feedback, so it does not feel uncomfortable when pointing in the "opportunity areas" where they can develop a better performance; it is good to highlight the good things, but also to know what can be done better, so the teacher must take in consideration to say everything about the behavior he observed and what he expected or will expect in the future.
Students can reflect on what they have done and how they did it by listening to this, but they are allowed to participate by giving feedback between them and their classmates.
It is also important, at the end of the session, make them be aware of what they are capable to do by giving examples about other situations in which they successfully accomplished a good performance by certain behavior and strategies. So, students know that if they did it great in the past, they can do it better in the future. |
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