A toolkit for teacher development

Feedback
These materials provide an overview of Feedback and its use in English
language teaching. In this module, we discuss how feedback can be
used to support the learning process.

This module aimed at:

• In-service teachers of English as a foreign language at all stages of
education
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will have developed an
understanding of:
What feedback is

The importance of feedback in classroom

Types of feedback

Principles of giving effective feedback

Peer feedback
Think
• What is feedback?
• Why do we give feedback?
• Note your answers to these questions and then compare them with
the information on the next slide.
What is feedback?
• Recently, feedback is viewed as processes which involve “students
using information about their work for the purposes of improvement”
(Carless & Winstone, 2023, p. 152).

This emphasis on the student role in feedback processes highlights the

need for students to seek, make sense of, and use feedback comments,
and for teachers to support them to do so through designing feedback
processes effectively.
Why feedback?
Why are we doing this?
Feedback is a crucial element of teaching, learning and assessment
because:
• Feedback affords an opportunity for clarification of what is
expected.
• Providing feedback means giving students an idea about how their
work or learning process is going on.
Why feedback?
Why are we doing this?
Feedback is a crucial element of teaching, learning and assessment
because (cont.):
• Effective and relevant feedback assists learners to reflect on their
learning and the learning strategies so they can make adjustments
to make better progress at their learning stages.
• Feedback provides a foundation for positive student and teacher
relationship. When teachers and students share effective
feedback, they build a sense of trust amongst each other, they
build the trust to tell each other when they see points of
improvement.
 What makes
effective feedback?
Feedback is characterised as effective when it:
• Clarifies what good performance is
• Facilitates self-assessment
• Delivers high quality feedback information
• Encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning
• Encourages positive motivation and self-esteem
• Provides opportunities to close the gap
• Uses feedback to improve teaching and learning
What does good feedback do?

Reference to a
Educate Show next steps
specific skill

Be sensitive to
the needs and
Be timely
the attainment
of the individual
Types of feedback

Immediate feedback Delayed feedback

Immediate feedback

• Needs to be clear, supportive and constructive

• Places an emphasis on specific teaching skills: correction techniques
and questioning
• It helps to vary techniques: prompting, use of metalanguage,
recasting
Immediate feedback
• These are common phrases that can be used by teachers in their
classroom as immediate feedback or praise

Well-done! Good job! Can

Clever boy/girl! Excellent! everyone give Nam a
round of applause?

• Think:
• To what extent do you think these phrases provide meaningful feedback?
• Is clapping some one’s achievement, or asking the class to clap, a good use of
learning time?
Immediate feedback
Commentary
• Saying “Well-done!”, “Clever boy/girl!”, and clapping to acknowledge the
student’s achievement may not show the learners the skills they have used.
• Rather than clapping or praising the learner, it is better use of time to focus
on the skill used instead.
• The feedback could be more meaningful if it is extended, for example:
“Well-done! This shows me you know how to use “past tense” correctly.”
The next few slides will provide more information about the use of praise in
classrooms.
Praise
• Praise is “to express admiration or approval of the achievements or
characteristics of a person or thing”.
• How often do you praise your students? What effects that using
praise in your classrooms can have students? Take a few minutes to
think about this and make notes.
• Watch this video about the use of praise in classrooms.
• Compare your answers.
 Praise
Commentary
General praise
May make learners think that they
receive the praise more for their
general inherent ability than for the
specific thing they did.
May create a fixed mindset in
learners. Consequently, they tend
to avoid taking risks and avoid
failure so that they can maintain a
fixed view of themselves as being
intelligent or creative.
Behaviour-specific praise
Tends to lead learners to repeat the
desired behaviour.
But it is kind of manipulative and
doesn’t build up learners’
willingness to take risks and learn
actively.
Praising effort
Helps learners develop a growth
mindset, willing to challenge new
things and see failure as an
opportunity for growth.
May praise the effort of children
who are not using effective
learning strategies.
Praise
Commentary
• Overpraise
• can damage relationship with students.
• can make insecure learners more insecure.
• Praise may increase dependency on our reaction, encouraging
learners to please us.
• Praise may divide a class as when we praise one learner, others in the
class may think we have favourites.
Praise – key points to take away
Using praise in classroom is good, but
• Needs to be managed carefully – it’s possible to “over-praise.”
• Tend to focus more on learners’ self-esteem rather than on task
achievement.
• “…giving praise can have bad effects, particularly when it is not linked
to objective feedback about the work.” (Black and Wiliam, 1998)
Examples of immediate feedback

Below are some examples of giving feedback for particular purposes.

• Correcting a mistake: “Good try, but let’s look at it again”
• Asking for more information: “What did you mean by this bit?”
• Providing information: “What about trying this word …?”
• Appraising and praising: “Good thinking, that is a good idea”
• Confirming and moving forward: “Yes, that is right, now can you
think about …?”
Examples of immediate feedback

• Encouraging development: “So now, what would be the best way to …?”
• Focusing on strategies: “What did you do there to help you improve?”
• Redirecting learning: “That is a clear diagram, now move on to …”
• Agreeing next steps: “So now think about two changes you might make
to improve …”
• Targeting learning: “I like what you have done so far, but your work could
be better if you …”
• Encouraging reflection: “So what worked best for you today?”
If a learner’s answer is wrong,
what feedback could be given?

• “Weren’t you listening?” Or “Let’s go back to the beginning and try

each step again to see if we can work out where you go muddled.”
• “We have been through this many times.” Or “Think back to when we
did this previously – what helped you then?”
Answer key

• “Let’s go back to the beginning and try each step again to see if we
can work out where you go muddled.”
• “Think back to when we did this previously – what helped you then?”
Reflect

• Which of these types of feedback do you use in your classroom

practice?
• Which of types of feedback listed above will you integrate into your
classroom practice?
Delayed feedback
Can be:
• Oral “Provide feedback to students about
• Written their performance in a form that is non-
ego-involving and non-judgemental…”
Can be provided after: Herlen & Crick (2003)
• Classroom-based tasks
• Progress tests
• Summative tests
Task

• Please read three examples of feedback

• Make notes of which feedback example is likely to be more
effective.

Example 1
Sometimes I found it difficult to understand what you were saying (and so
did your partner). You really need to work on pronouncing your final
consonants e.g. words like left, first, month – you need to say these clearly.
Your grammar was fine.
Example 2
Your speaking is so much more confident now and you communicate
really well. Your grammar is quite accurate – just think about your
pronunciation. Keep working on your English – you’re doing well. It’s so
good to see!
Example 3
Your fluency has improved and you used the present perfect well in the
discussion. Sometimes you were a bit hard to understand because you
weren’t pronouncing final consonants. There are lessons in English
Pronunciation in Use Intermediate that can help you.
• Commentary
Example 3 is most effective because:

- It acknowledges some strengths.

- It refers to previous issues.
- It indicates a learning need.
- It recommends a learning resource.
Key takeaway
for giving feedback
Comment on the learner’s achievement – what they have done well.
Refer to previous problems/needs or specific criteria.

Highlight one or two new needs

Make a practical suggestion on how they can address this problem

• Another source of feedback is from peers. The next few slides walk
you through key aspects of peer feedback and how to train our
students of giving feedback to their peers.
Peer-feedback
• Peer feedback is a practice where one student gives feedback to
another.
• The concept of peer feedback is supported by
• Collaborative learning theory (Bruffee, 1984): learning is a social process.
• The concept of “Scaffolding” by Vygotsky (1978): the cognitive development
of individuals is a result of social interaction.
Peer-feedback
• Peer feedback allows students to play the role of the authors and
reviewers whose task is to give comments to their peers’ written work
(Hansen & Liu, 2005; Lam, 2010).
• It provides students with opportunities to communicate and interact
with their peers, and generate a source of information, negotiation of
meaning, and a sense of group cohesion.
• It increases student responsibility and autonomy and helps move
students from being passive learners to active learners.
Peer-feedback training
• Training is necessary for learners to conduct peer feedback.
• The training should
• equip the feedback givers with sufficient skills for reviewing tasks.
• raise their awareness in providing effective peer feedback to the writers.
• The training can be divided into three stages (Lam, 2010).
Stage 1: Modelling
The heart of the modelling stage is the four-step procedure that helps
the feedback givers to give a sound comment to the writer. The four
steps include:
- clarifying (what seems to be unclear)
- identifying (what seems to be wrong, e.g. grammar, spelling, word
choice, etc.)
- explaining your thoughts
- giving suggestions to improve the work.
Stage 2: Exploring
Allows the students to practice the four-step procedure.
In this stage, a guidance sheet for feedback givers should be given to
the students to follow.
After the students finished reviewing an example, they will give
feedback, exchange them with peers and discuss.
Stage 3: Consciousness-raising
Aims at enabling students to analyse the peer feedback that they give.
Similarly, students will be trained to analyse and respond to the
feedback properly.
Example of good peer feedback

The below examples can be considered effective feedback as they recognise the
area(s) that their friend did well or not so well and provide a practical suggestion.

You used many I noticed that you repeated the same

descriptive words, so I thought multiple times in the first two
could picture exactly paragraphs. One thing that helps me is
what you were talking reading my writing aloud. When I hear
about. repeated thoughts, I sometimes catch
these better than when I re-read it on the
computer screen or on paper.
Tools and Strategies
With support from technology,
• Google doc or Google sheet: where students can review or comment
on others’ work.
• video response and reflection applications such as Recap can be used
to record student work and thinking and can be shared with others to
provide feedback.

The next two slides give you two suggested strategies that can be
applied in your classroom for giving feedback by yourself (teacher
feedback) or your students (peer feedback).
Tools and Strategies
Two stars and a wish for younger students
• Students indicate two positive things about another
student’s work and give them stars
• Identify a wish about what the student might do next
time to improve part of their work
Tools and Strategies
Plus Minus and What’s next
• Identify what has been done well
and what could have been done
better based on the success criteria
• What’s next: can be used to set or
revise personal learning goals
What next?

You have now finished these materials on Giving Feedback. We hope

you have found them useful and enjoyable. Please let us know if you
have tried these materials in your classrooms and to what extent these
work. Please share your experience of using these materials on our
Facebook page!
Reference

Carless, D., & Winstone, N. (2023). Teacher feedback literacy

and its interplay with student feedback literacy. Teaching in
Higher Education, 28(1), 150–163.
Hansen, J. G., & Liu, J. (2005). Guiding principles for effective
peer response. ELT journal, 59(1), 31-38.
Lam, R. (2010). A peer review training workshop: Coaching
students to give and evaluate peer feedback. TESL Canada
Journal, 114-114.