This document provides guidance on effective feedback and error correction techniques for teachers. It discusses the importance of feedback for student learning while avoiding negative impacts to students. Key points covered include: - The difference between feedback and error correction - Challenges with providing feedback, such as students perceiving it as judgment - Principles for effective feedback, like focusing on learning rather than feelings - Techniques for softening feedback and correcting errors, including immediate vs delayed correction and explicit vs implicit methods - Factors to consider when deciding whether and how to correct errors, such as the error type and disruption potential The document encourages practicing these feedback strategies and provides examples and activities for teachers to apply the guidance

1. Office of Overseas Programming &
Training Support (OPATS)
Feedback and Error Correction
Global Standards for Education

2. Learning Objectives
 Identify: (a) what good feedback should do for
students, (b) what good feedback shouldn’t do to
students, (c) techniques that provide supportive
feedback.
 Analyze case studies of teacher-student
interactions to determine when and how to give
effective feedback.
 Practice using error correction techniques.

3. Let’s look at some feedback
samples:
What’s your impression here?
T = Teacher J = Juan
T: Juan, tell us about monarch butterflies.
J: Butterflies yellow. Fly Mexico. It warm Mexico.
Long time
T: Good
J: Me is right, Teacher?
T: Yes, good job, Juan.

4. How do you react to this
feedback?
T = Teacher, S1 = First Student S2 = Second
Student
T. Hello everyone. Did anyone do anything interesting
over the
weekend?
S1: Teacher, I see a good movie.
T: “I SAW a good movie. Often I SEE, yesterday I SAW..
I have
SEEN See, Saw, Seen. Did you forget our unit on
irregular verbs
last week? Today I see, Yesterday I saw, I have
seen...(teacher
calls on a second student) Victor, did you see a movie

5. Giving Feedback
GIVING FEEDBACK

6. Feedback vs. Error Correction?
 Feedback is any advice or reaction that
responds to communication (a student)
has produced.
 Error correction is focused more on
negative student production and aims to
help the student repair such errors in
the future.

7. What’s so tricky about feedback and error
correction?
Problem 1: Because we see giving feedback as a key
teacher role, we tend to perceive our advice as affectively
neutral: we aren’t criticizing—we’re just doing our job.
However, learners will tend to perceive any feedback as a
judgment on them.
Problem 2: Even when we try to be neutral in feedback,
our reactions and body language may often reveal when
we feel students have “missed the mark.”
Problem 3: Failure to give correction when it is needed.

8. Group Work
 Let’s devise some principles for giving quality,
meaningful feedback to students—in terms of our
evaluations during whole group classroom
participation.
Think about
 What good feedback should do for the student
 What good feedback shouldn’t do TO the
student
 Practices/techniques we can use to provide
supportive feedback.
.

9. Affective vs. Cognitive Feedback
All feedback is both “affective” (about “feelings”) and
cognitive (about “learning”). Some examples:
 Primarily Affective: “What kind of idiot are you?
“Wow, I like what you’ve done!
 Primarily Cognitive: “I think you’ve made an error.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
Note that both kinds of feedback can be positive, negative, or
neutral.

10. FEEDBACK VARIATIONS
Positive Affective/Positive Cognitive Negative Affective/ Positive Cognitive
Positive Affective/Negative Cognitive Negative Affective/Negative Cognitive
Can You Think of an Example for Each Box?

11. Softening Feedback
Hedges (which precede a correction or
modeling)—
 That’s pretty good…
 You’re on the right track…
 Thank you (for speaking)…
 That’s possible…

12. More Softeners
 Maybe…
 Okay… (drawn out with high-low-high intonation)
 That’s an interesting idea…
 I suppose that would work (you could say
that)…a different way might be….
 Uh-huh. Anyone else….?
 (more for content that form) That’s true...

13. Let’s Practice Giving Classroom Feedback
Analyzing/Observing an ESL/EFL Lesson (Revised – 8/1/10)
Ron Schwartz
UMBC
A. Analyzing/Observing an ESL/EFL Lesson
You have been asked to observe a new ESL/EFL teacher. The teacher is highly motivated,
shows great interest in the students, etc.... but lacks basic ESL/EFL skills. Below are
descriptions of some of the activities that you observed during the class. Analyze each and
make suggestions to the teacher for improvement. For each, you must work from theory to
practice in your comments to the teacher. You must also give examples of what you think the
teacher should do. Follow my example below. A help to do this test will be the handout
“Classroom Interactions: Observation Form With Comments, Explanations, And Examples.”
Example:
At the beginning of class, the students entered the class and sat down. The teacher immediately
said the following.
T: Open your books to page 7. Read the story.
Some students opened their books. Others talked with each other while a few looked confused.
The teacher sat at his desk going over some papers.
Your comments to the teacher:

14. Error Correction

15. All students say that they want error correction—
do you believe them?
 Importance of discussing feedback w/students
 Issues of peer correction
 Need to console learners for “stupid” mistakes.

16. Deciding When to Intervene –
some questions to ask
 Is the error global or local?
 How does the error relate to the learner’s
development?
 What is the type of activity engaged in? (fluency vs.
accuracy)
 Is it an error of target language or incidental
language?
 Is the error stigmatizing?
 Is correction likely to be disruptive?

17. If you do it, when to do it?
 Immediate Correction
 Delayed Correction

18. Correction Sheets—Again

19. How to do it? (1)
Explicit Correction (it’s clear and straight forward):
It’s “I’ve studied English for five years”, not “since five years.”
Repeat error as question (elicits, gives students a chance for
redemption)
“Since five years?
Request Clarification (non-intrusive, elicits, gives students a
chance for redemption)
“What was that?” “Could you repeat please?”

20. How to do it? (2)
Correct by stating (or asking a question) about the
rule/principle involved:
“Since” points to the beginning, “for” is about duration.
Question eliciting self or peer correction (focuses on error,
involves all learners):
Is it correct to say “since” five years?

21. How to do it? (3)
Modeling correct answer: also called “recasting.”
• less intrusive and confrontational than overt correction.
• but learners may focus on the meaning of the utterance and
not notice the correction of form:
•
Student says, “I’ve studied English *since five years.
The teacher provides a recast saying, “ I’ve studied English for five
years,”
The student replies, “Yes, that’s right,” thinking the teacher was unsure
of what the student said.
• This problem is particularly true of young learners who may
simply be developmentally incapable of noticing subtle
corrections of form.

22. How to do it? (4)
 In the language classroom, feedback can focus
on the language (correct vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation or spelling, etc.)
 Or it can focus on content: was the assignment
interesting to read? Did the pair put on an
interesting skit?
So Language Feedback focuses on the quality of
language produced and Content Feedback
addresses the quality of content.
An assignment could have good content but have
some language problems or vice versa.

23. Try the Error Correction Activity with Your Partner
1. Sao Paulo is the large city in the world.
2. Sonia can drive very good.
3. He has already starting
4. Mr. Wu cam to Singapore last year.
5. …

24. You have an exit ticket to
complete
However the Exit Ticket consists of --
• Matching activity
• A fill in the blank activity
• A true/false activity
• Some “to correct or not to correct” activities,
and you can do it in pairs!
Thanks!