Unit 33 - Giving feedback

What is giving feedback?

Feedback is giving information to someone about their learning and/or showing them that you have understood (or not) what they have said. In the classroom, teachers can give feedback to learners, and learners can give feedback to the teacher.

Example	Focus	Purpose
Oral: ‘Well done. That was very good. It was much better than last time. You really thought about the presentation.’	Progress, effort, achievement.	Encouraging the learner and telling her she did well (praising).
Oral: ‘Have another look at number four. There’s a problem with spelling and I think there are more than two people.’	Language and content.	Identifying where there was a problem and prompting what the learner needs to do to correct her own answer.
Oral: ‘Let’s look at the new structure on the board again. I think some of you have misunderstood how we use it.’	Language.	Reviewing a problematic language area with the whole class in an encouraging way.
Written: ‘What an amazing story! You’ve used adjectives very well this time, but there were a few problems with past tenses. Have a look at the irregular verb list at the back of the textbook.’	Content, ideas, language, both strengths and weaknesses.	Giving a personal response to the piece of work in order to encourage the learner. Identifying a positive aspect of the work (adjectives) and also giving exact information about one problem area and about where the learner could find useful reference material.
Oral: ‘You’ve made good progress in all your work this month. Your written work is much more accurate.’	Language and progress.	Informing the learner of her progress and identifying an area where particular progress has been made; encouraging.
Written: ‘B/70%. Have a look at grammar section 5 at the back of the coursebook and check again the difference in meaning between the past simple and the past perfect.’	Language.	Giving a grade and informing the learner of what the problem  was  with their work and telling them exactly what they need to review and how.
Oral: ‘You’ve done the pairwork activities quite well this week, but I heard too much Spanish and not enough English.’	Language, achievement and behaviour.	Encouraging learners, but also informing them about inappropriate behaviour. Monitoring students’ behaviour over several lessons to give feedback on changes, e.g. improvements in behaviour or worsening of behaviour.

Reference:

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2012). The TKT Teaching Knowledge Test Course Modules 1,2 and 3 (Vol. Second edition). United Kingdom: Cambridge English.