Teaching English Toolbox

Corrective Feedback

From DallE: a cute cat whose English is being corrected by the teacher in an elementary school classroom surreal

If learners don't make mistakes, then they are not trying or you are not letting them produce enough!! In the English language classroom, keep in mind that corrections should be there, but don't make unnecessary ones (such as regional pronunciations because with exposure, you will learn that any one English word has a million local variations like the word "roof" which can be:  (ruːf; ruf ; ro̅of; rʊf or roof)). 

Keep in mind when correcting learners that you should really only correct what matters! And what matters is probably a lot LESS than you think! English is a lingua franca, there are so many variations. Some quick tips are:

  • Pronunciation: Focus on INTELLIGIBILITY, not pronunciation! Here the Lingua Franca Core can help!
  • Speaking: Focus on strategic competence, fluency, intelligibility and accuracy, but watch out where your focus lies (if you are always correcting pronunciation, then try to focus on something else to give your learners a larger range of tips).
  • Spelling: Learners need opportunities to produce language without being corrected all the time - and if you use mini whiteboards and do quick drills frequently, then they will practice in a non-threatening environment and slowly uptake the correct spelling.
  • Writing: Use rubrics with many criteria so that you don't over-focus on spelling and you encourage more open writing activities.

Teacher actions

  • Modified input
  • Corrective feedback
  • Recasts (feedback that reformulates)
  • Metalinguistic clues
  • Elicitation (feedback that prompts)
  • Clarification requests (feedback that prompts)
  • Pushed output
  • Repetitions (feedback that prompts)

Learner actions

  • Noticing
  • Repair (target-like modified output, but not always long term)
  • Modified output (not always correct)
  • Uptake (can be right after a lesson or right after a correction)
  • Corrective reformulation
  • Acknowledging feedback
 
Examples of techniques to notice, illustrate, explain, correct errors (adapted from Kathleen Gallagher)
  1. Make a facial expression
  2. Encourage sentence completion (repeat only the correct part of an utterance)
  3. Say ‘Try again’ or ‘I don’t understand’
  4. Echo the error (word or phrase)
  5. Stress the incorrect word or phrase
  6. Ask ‘What do you mean by ________ ‘(complete with the incorrect word or phrase)
  7. Explain using grammatical terminology
  8. Give a correct use of the word or phrase instead
  9. Explain what the pupil’s utterance actually means
  10. Use a combination of known techniques
  11. Give the correct version and ask the pupil to repeat it
  12. Suggest an appropriate alternative word or phrase
  13. Explain what the pupil’s utterance actually means
  14. State the problem
  15. Ask a concept question
  16. Repeat what was said up till the error
  17. Repeat the problem word with a questioning intonation
  18. Show mouth shape, for sound problems
  19. Refer to the phonemic chart
  20. Draw a time line for tense problems
  21. Give another example of the structure pattern
  22. React to pupil's meaning but not to her intention.

 
Don’t bother correcting unless you give the learner time to self correct or at least repeat the utterance correctly.

Elicitation, Clarification requests and Metalinguistic clues are more effective than Repetition, Explicit correction and Recasts in the situation of 2-3 hours a week of the foreign language.

Example from a 5th Grade - Writing

This teacher works with a portfolio and has various writing tasks throughout the term. He develops criteria with his learners, often in German lessons so a similar list can be used in English. What are the principles of correction in these examples?

Adapted student work. ©PHZH (L. Buechel)
Example feedback to student writing. Image courtesy of Patrick Buechel

His corrections vary from learner to learner depending on what they individually need: some children get traditional corrections with just the mistake indicated and the child has to rewrite, some get a few points from the rubric that they can go back to in order to self-correct. The important thing is that learners have to somehow self-correct and that they produce language, and masses of it!

  • What are the principles behind corrections in the foreign language classroom? For speaking? For writing?
  • What correction techniques are there? Name them and give an example. Which ones are "better"? Why?
  • Do you know what a rubric is? Can you name criteria that might be on one that you can also use for feedback?