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Two Things to Keep in Mind as L2 Instructors Give Feedback on Written Work




Weijia Feng 

     As instructors of English as a second language (L2), most of us have more or less experience teaching writing. For writing teachers, one important aspect of instruction is giving feedback. Hendrickson (1978) addressed five central questions about corrective feedback:

  • Should learners’ errors be corrected?
  • When should learners’ errors be corrected?
  • Which errors should be corrected?
  • How should errors be corrected?
  • Who should do the correcting?

 

     As we all know, giving feedback on writing is a significant responsibility, as proper feedback is essential and necessary for L2 learners. Rod & Natsuko (2014) describe corrective feedback as " it signals that something the learner has written does not conform to target language norms, in this respect it contrasts with other forms of input that provide the learner with positive evidence". For corrective feedback in spoken situations, instructors have the option of either correcting immediately after an error occurs; or, instructors can make a note of the errors and delay correction. For contract, written corrective feedback is recommended for use after the completion instead of immediately. Here are two points to keep in mind as we give feedback on students' written work: 

 

1. Be selective in the errors we correct

Massive amount of feedback could be overwhelming and frustrating to L2 learners. As Ur (1996) noted, too much feedback may simply distract, discourage and actually detract from the value of learning’ (p. 255). Corder (1967) distinguished between ‘errors’ and ‘mistakes’ to be: an error takes place as a result of lack of knowledge (errors in morphology or grammatical cases); a mistake is performance phenomenon, reflecting processing failures that arise as a result of competing plans, memory limitations and lack of automaticity. Based on this distinction, it’s generally recommended that instructors give feedback on ‘errors’ but leave it to learners to self-correct ‘mistakes’. (Rod & Natsuko, 2014) . 

 

2. Instead of being critical, try to give feedback in a more constructive & encouraging manner

Early reviewers of L1 and L2 composition research on the nature of teacher feedback were sharply critical of instructors’ responding behaviors, declaring them ineffective and an “exercise in futility” (Knoblauch & Brannon, 1981; Zamel, 1985). For beginners (especially beginners of young age), sharply critical feedback may easily discourage their interest and case them to lose motivation to keeping working hard on learning the target L2. However, for more intermediate and advanced level learners, especially adults (which means the ability of the learners behavior and cognition are relatively mature to receive critical feedback), a brief and straightforward feedback would be effective. As the old Chinese saying goes, "an affirmative compliment from instructors could make a miracle. " As Larry (2018) suggested, "describe at least one thing the student did well, with reference to the success criteria is always helpful. " 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References: 

1. Hendrickson, J. M. (1978) Error correction in foreign language teaching: recent theory, research, and practice. Modern Language Journal 62(8), 387–98.

2. Knoblauch, C. H., & Brannon, L. (1981). Teacher commentary on student writing: The state of the art. Freshman English News, 10 (Fall), 1–4. 

3. Larry, F. (2018) Response: Ways to Give Effective Feedback on Student Writing. Education Week Teacher. Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo. 

4. Rod, E. &Natsuko, S. (2014). Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research. Routledge Introductions to Applied Linguistics.

5. Ur, P. (1996) A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (2011) Grammar teaching research, theory, and practice. In E. Hinkel (ed.) Handbook of Research in Second Language Teaching and Learning Volume II (pp. 507–22). New York: Routledge. 

6. Zamel, V. (1985). Responding to student writing. TESOL Quarterly, 19, 79–102.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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