An ESL Teacher’s Pedagogy on

Corrective Feedback

By Kyle Wood
 Teacher Background

10 years teaching ESL to Korean Students

6 years teaching at Wizville Language Institute
Head Instructor for 3+ years
Teaches Kindergarten 7 years 3 & elementary students, (age7-
11),English Immersion Institute, average class size 10 students
Taught ESL Debate in Previous School
Earned a Celta Certification from the UK
Fluent in Korean
 Interview Environment

Local restaurant in our Yeonhui neighborhood

Lasted for about 1 hour & half

Covered personal L2 learning experience, CF beliefs

depending upon level & written or oral
communication, and strategies for new ESL teachers
providing CF
 Most Common Form of CF

 The teacher will generally push the student to self-correct

when prompted about their initial mistake via metalinguistic
clues, repetition, or elicitation.
 For reasons to believe Recasts (provides direct target model) is
often another common form of CF for the teacher. Often
corrects students natural language that is apparent outside of
class sessions. This is done by stating the correct utterance and
having the students repeat the model target structure.
 Disclaimer The teacher is a homeroomExample:
teacher at an English
SS: May I go bathroom?
Immersion school. A majority of CF is given in-between classes
 T: May I go (PAUSE)
or when students are using natural language.
bathroom?
SS: May I go to the
bathroom?
How CF Has Changed Over Teaching Career

Past Example: No. You

need to use the past
Explicit CF in the beginning years tense verb went.
lacked the experience and rules to help students learn at a
more proficient rate

Example: Remember
Present not GO, but (pause)…
Elicitation
Has a more in-depth understanding of English language
rules & Common Errors
Fluent in Korean which opens a conduit for understanding
the reasons why students are making L2 errors.
 CF Beliefs in Oral Communication

Understand students individually (prior knowledge) and uses a

holistic scale to determine the implicitness or explicitness of the
CF
Gives examples, be relatable, and approachable
Discusses the error at hand in efficient detail
Uses elicitation, prompts, clues to help students determine what
is the right or wrong utterance & why.
Focused CF
If students are making multiple mistakes he will hone in on the
most significant error or the most common erroneous utterance.
Offers the most simplified CF version possible to stay within
their ZPD. “CF should be contingent (i.e. provided only
when it is necessary) and tailored to the needs of
individual learners (Lantolf ,2000).
 CF Beliefs in Written Communication

Uses group feedback or Peer Assessment with young learners.

(Spell check, capitol letters…etc.)
Gives in class examples if students are making mistakes within
the same nature.
Always Positive – Always discrete about whom the student may
be when discussing an error with a class
Lower level students will tend to let them make the mistake and
then correct later.
Older level students will often point out the mistakes as they
are in the process of writing.
Providing focused feed back that highlights a certain pattern of
Selective correction is both more
linguistic errors. practical and more supportive of
students’ feelings (Katayama, 2007)
 Concluding Thoughts & Ideas

Highly Individualized Focused Feedback

 If students make multiple errors, he will help give
examples of the more pertinent ones at hand, but be covert
in correcting the more minute ones because it is outside
their ZPD. This is also a way to keep the parents happy.
Always balanced CF on writing samples
Alters the form of CF depending on students at hand
(registers the class before providing CF)

“Correct CF relies on its reactiveness, and is based on

what the learner acutally needs rather than what we
might imagine they need” (Hattie, 2009).