Positive Feedback
I am a student like anyone else. It is great for me when I receive an evaluation with positive comments that show my strenghts and weakness in a respectful and peaceful way. Sometimes, using the same words that I probably misspelled so I have the opportunity to learn from them. My confidence goes up and I feel that I can do and improve my performance. It is really interesting because I am an adult so I can imagine how much, this simple and easy way to assess, can help young English learners. In my opinion, the main purpose of this kind of written comments, let you Know that every thing is possible. It is the opposite of receiving a paper full of red markers where the focus is to highlight your errors and make you feel bad because you are not able to do the tasks in the expected way so you are a great deception. I try as much as I can to tell my students that they can do whatever they want if they really want it. Each moment is the best opportunity to learn and grow better so I am going to apply this useful technique in class especially when I return evaluation. They will notice what they did awesome and the little things that they need to improve. If they have a good self esteem and self confidence they will acquire the language successfully.
Good reflection and questions.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many factors that go into providing feedback (e.g. Ls' age, proficiency levels, Ls' goals, program goals, pacing, etc.). Expectations are also important. For example, if I do not tell Japanese Ss (teen & adult) where they've made mistakes, they will often be upset. They WANT to know their errors. Then there is fluency and accuracy and how to balance them. It's all quite difficult.
Although I agree that a paper full of red marks can be quite discouraging, from what I've read, the most effective feedback balances praise with suggestions for improvement, and both should be specific. (That is, comments like "Great job," are not so helpful because they are too general; they don't tell Ss what was done well.)