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Successive Feedback: Strategies for Written Teacher Commentary

Gulzora Mirzaeva


Writing is already a demanding creative process in our first languages, thus it requires extra time and effort from second language (L2) learners to become proficient writers in their target language. However, teacher feedback can alleviate L2 learners’ pain by directing them to the right path in this ongoing process. The following paragraphs describe the importance of feedback and how to deliver it.


Do students actually improve their writing after receiving feedback? How effective is teacher feedback in developing students’ L2 composition?

Yes, students benefit from your feedback. It is highly possible that students apply teacher commentary into their subsequent revisions. Hence, you can be proud that your students seriously consider your labor-intensive work and it is unlikely that they will ignore your comments (Ferris, 2011a). Your feedback plays a crucial role improving the quality of your students’ writings because they read your comments carefully and use them to produce better compositions in the long run. So, let’s have a look at what you can do to assist your students develop their L2 writing.


When is best to provide students with feedback?

Do not wait until students submit their final written work. If the feedback is given after they submit their final written assignment, they may not consider teacher feedback important and be reluctant to work on their errors as grades are the focal part of their motivation.

It is more effective for students to receive feedback at intermediate stages of their writing process because it gives them a chance  to see where they have erred and how they can be corrected. It also provides a better understanding of what should be done to improve their writing in general. After providing feedback, allow students enough time to reflect on your commentary and further progress their drafts toward their final work.


What should be included in teacher feedback?

A balance of praise and constructive criticism should be the core of your feedback. It is important to keep your criticism constructive because extremely critical feedback can lead to loss of learners’ interest in L2 writing. Feedback can be writing an endnote which you start and end with encouraging comments on the writer’s text. Here are some examples of positive phrases that you can use before moving to specific details or at the end of your comment and that motivates learners to write with more enthusiasm:

  1. “You have done a great job!”

  2. “Very good use of examples!”

  3. “I enjoyed reading your paper!”

  4. “I will look forward to reading your next draft!”

Should feedback be direct or indirect?

When it comes to error correction, you can choose to provide direct feedback (e.g., if a student wrote: “He have got two dogs”, the teacher would cross out ‘have’ and write ‘has’ over it) or indirect feedback (e.g., if a student wrote: “He have got two dogs”, the teacher would cross out ‘have’ and write VC (verb conjugation) above it; or underline or circle ‘have’) depending on the language proficiency level of your students. For example, beginning or elementary level students may find indirect feedback confusing and difficult to correct their errors by themselves, while upper proficiency level students can be quick at correcting errors by themselves once they know where the error was made looking at underlined or circled words.

According to Ferris (2003), students benefit more from indirect feedback than direct one because it engages students in the correction activity and helps them reflect upon it. However, it does not mean that direct feedback is useless. Direct correction can be very efficient to be used in idiomatic lexical errors such as collocations and prepositions.


Where in the text should error feedback be given?

Depending on the frequency as well as types of errors learners make and the type of feedback you are giving (direct or direct), you can have various feedback locations. It is better to leave an explicit endnote for content related or pragmatic errors, and repeated grammatical errors can be marked on the lines and explained at the end, whereas idiomatic lexical errors and minor language errors are better to be corrected on the spot.


You may find it daunting to deal with responding to your students’ writings as it takes time and causes anxiety. However, do not forget that your rewarding contribution leads your students to develop astounding compositions and your learners appreciate that. 


References

Ferris, D. R. (2003). Response to student writing: Research implications for second language students. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Ferris, D. R. (2011a). Treatment of error in second language student writing (2nd edition). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Ferris, D. R., & Hedgcock, J. S. (2014). Teaching L2 composition: Purpose, process, and practice (3rd edition). Routledge, New York, NY 10017 & Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN.

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