From your understanding of Immediate and Delayed Feedback

evaluate your undergraduate level French Language teaching-learning

experience.
Feedback is information given to the learner about the learner's
performance relative to learning goals or outcomes. It should aim
towards improvement in students' learning. It can come from a teacher
or someone taking a teaching role, or from peers.
Feedback is meant to inform someone of where his or her performance
stands in comparison to a particular goal and what he or she needs to
do in order to reach that goal. Feedback is an essential part of language
learning and teaching that influences students’ learning and
achievement. This can be corrective feedback which focuses a learners’
attention on errors, or it can be non corrective in the form of praise or
encouragement.
Feedback helps both the teachers and their students meet the goals
and instructional means in learning and teaching. Using feedback in a
classroom can be as simple as writing a few notes on a student’s essay,
math homework, quiz, etc. Correcting a paper and writing or telling
students how to find the right answer allows them to understand the
concept better and know why they got it wrong and how they can
correct it. In language learning and teaching, varying types of feedback
can be provided to students. As in other disciplines, feedback that
motivates students’ language learning should receive particular
attention. On practical grounds, feedback for motivation and language
correction are a key concern for language educators.
Feedback is usually provided after the student’s response to a question
or completion of an exercise or exam. In teaching schemes, feedback
should provide information specifically relating to the learning process
so as to assist learners in understanding what they are learning and
what they have just learned.
Immediate feedback, which is provided as soon as the learner replies
to a question or completes an assignment, promotes retention of
learned information. However, delayed feedback, which is withheld for
a period of time, is more conducive to learning. . The timing of
feedback also plays a role in improved learning. Some researchers have
shown that delaying feedback although makes learning better might
lead to a desirable difficulty and makes students’ performance lower.
From my understanding now I will evaluate the experience of
immediate and delayed feedback.
At Undergraduate level I had a foreign language course on French
Language. As I am a student in Bangladesh, French was a foreign
language for me. When I got to know about the course I literally
became little bit nervous .The first thing which came in my mind is it
will be quite difficult to understand.
After few days I started to enjoy the course. It was a different
experience learning a totally different language. The reason of my
enjoying the class was only our course instructor. His teaching
technique made the class so. We followed a textbook of French
language from where we were taught French.
In the beginning we were taught the letters and numbers and gradually
the text. When our teacher used to read the text we were asked to
repeat it. It was some kind of drilling. Sometimes we were asked to
read the text according to the selection of the teacher. While reading if
we did any mistake he used to correct it immediately which is called
immediate feedback or sometimes he used to ask same question like
pronouncing a word to different students. Here what happened is that
he used to say the correct pronunciation of the word at last and this is
called delayed feedback.
From my personal experience which I think is that immediate feedback
is much better than delayed feedback as immediate feedback gives the
student the correct information in time. This will help him to think
about his errors immediately. But in the case of delayed feedback the
student sometime do not pay much attention later or lose their
interest.
There is a debate between immediate and delayed feedback among
which Hunter found that delayed feedback could be beneficial in
promoting both accuracy and communicative proficiency. On the other
hand there is an argument that immediate feedback break up the flow
of communication. Among this which I prefer most is the immediate
feedback.
I think immediate feedback makes the student much more motivational
to learn a new language. Feedback affects the learners’ motivation in
many different ways. Learners can receive feedback both in the form of
rewards. Receiving a reward or feedback for an action usually increases
the likelihood that the action will be repeated. Feedback can help shape
students’ learning and performance. Gass and Selinker (2001) stated
that motivation is a social psychological factor and a predictor of
success in L2 (second language) learning. They (2001) stated further, “It
makes sense that individuals who are motivated will learn another
language faster and to a greater degree”.
In our French class while we got feedback from our teacher we were
much more interested about the language. During the class hour the
teacher used to ask question from us. Immediately we had to give the
answer of it. This technique made us always remain conscious in the
classroom. Sometimes if someone gave wrong answer others had to
correct it this really helped the student who gave the wrong answer.
The one who gave the correct answer was praised by the teacher. This
led him to focus on the development of his skills through the mastery
of new material. But still the teacher used to give feedback for the
effort of the students who could not answer correctly. By this they learn
to improve their performance to achieve their goals regardless of their
poor performance which is considered as a temporary lapse in effort.
Burnett stated further that praise for hard work or effort could lead
students to display more adaptive achievement attributions after
failure than those praised for intelligence .I also really believe so. It
really happened with me in this course. It happened in the very
beginning when I was unable to catch French language. Teacher asked
me a question but I could not answer. I really felt bad for that moment
but our teacher made me assure that I can learn the language easily if I
take it easy. Then I made my mind and promised myself that by hook
or crook I will learn this language. So here was my teachers’ positive
feedback that made me to do so.
But there are also happened after one time failure, the students praised
for ability also displayed less task determination, less task enjoyment,
more low ability attributions, and worse task performance than
students praised for effort.
So in conclusion I must say that whether it is an immediate or delayed
feedback a teacher must provide students with meaningful feedback
through verbal and written forms. This will greatly improve the overall
success of the students. Feedback helps person work on his gray area
and builds positive vibes. Feedback should be constructive, efficient and
complete.