HANDOUT - FEDBACK AND ERROR TAXONOMY
1. What is the difference between an error and a mistake ?
MISTAKE-is the learners momentary failure to apply what they already know, due mainly to the demands of online processing or limited time for the reaction.
ERROR- represent a gap in the speaker's knowledge of the system.
Mistake can usually be self-corrected but errors cannot.
2. Various taxonomies for L2 learner errors have been used.
For example, Richards (1971), in one of the earliest error taxonomies, classifies errors by their linguistic type. He compiled a corpus of L2 English errors produced by speakers from 11 different L1 backgrounds. The errors in this corpus are classified as:
- errors in the production of the verb group, e.g. He was died last year. (be is not a possible auxiliary for die in English);
- errors in the distribution of verb groups, e.g. I am having my hair cut on Thursdays. (The progressive -ing is incompatible with a habitual interpretation);
- errors in the use of articles, e.g. She goes to bazaar every day;
- errors in the use of questions, e.g. Why this man is cold ?
- a dustbin category of miscellaneous errors, e.g. I am very lazy to stay at home. This is not fit to drink it.
3. What types of errors in written production are commonly used by teachers ?
-grammar errors (concerned with verb construction and grammatical structures like question, negatives)
I goed there yesterday.
-lexical errors She has worked as a nun in hospital.
-spelling errors SP. Now I fuly understand what he has been talking about.
-word order WO .
-punctuation If I were you I would go for it.
-articles I haven't seen such beautiful lady in my life.
-prepositions PREP.
Types of feedback
Feedback in conversations / spoken interaction:
4. What is INTERACTIONAL FEEDBACK ?
-reflects the type of feedback used in ordinary conversation outside the classroom,
- comment made by the teacher with no evaluative or corrective purpose, witch may enhance the teacher-s linguistic production
This type of feedback includes expressions of agreement, disagreement or acknowledgement and the teacher shows interest in the content and not the form. [This involves a teacher responding positively to the content and ignoring the error by moving on to topic continuation.]
S: ….because the battery's finish.
T: Oh, you need to get new batteries
S: I can take this one ?
T: Would you like to take this one ? Sure do ahead ?
5. What is PEDAGOGICAL FEEDBACK ?
- acknowledgment or comment made by teacher, with the purpose of correcting or evaluating the children's performance
6. Give the five types of pedagogical feedback (PF) as illustrated by the given examples:
1. PF - that evaluates the learners production positively
S: Mum put the... wallpaper on the wall
T: Good
2. PF - that evaluates the learners production negatively
S: Whenever I see a very big dog I am scardy.
T: No, scardy isn't a word
3. PF - that corrects the learner's production
S: Whenever I see a very big dog I am scardy.
T: No, scardy isn't a word. You must say scared
4. PF - that gives the learners a clue for the right answer
T: Yes, where does the bread come from: plants or animals?
S: I don't know
T: You remember what it's made from? It's made from wheat.
5. PF - that prompts the learners to respond
T: Can you tell me the right order?
S: I don't know
T: Come on!
Feedback in writing
7. DIRECT AND INDIRECT FEEDBACK
When does direct feedback occur ? -when teacher identifies an error and provides the correct form
When does indirect feedback occur ? -when teacher indicates that on error has been made but does not provide a correction
8. Give and explain the types of indirect feedback:
-minimal marking- using correction codes, that is the teacher points to the exact location of an error and the type of error involved and students are to correct it themselves,
- uncoded feedback-teacher underlines an error circles an error or places an error mark/tick in the margin which also laves the student to diagnose and correct the error.
According to Ferris (1999), during commenting on students' writings, teachers may directly correct the major word-order or word-choice problems which students cannot find (“untreatable errors”) and underline the grammar, spelling or mechanical mistakes (“treatable errors”) which encourages students' self-correction.
9. Apart from error feedback strategies, teacher commentary is also worth noting.
Teachers should:
- vary their feedback with marginal and end commentary
- combine the critical remarks with praise and suggestions
- use question forms/interrogative syntax (two mitigation strategies to tone down criticisms and reflect a positive, sympathetic relationship with student-writers)
- have in the mind a stock of tried and tested phrases to choose from and alter the phrases to fit specific students and their needs and personalities;
- use interesting face signs to make their comments more vivid and easy of approach.
10. Peer Feedback- Peer feedback, also referred to as peer response, peer editing and peer review, is another type of feedback recommended frequently by methodologists. It is a popular source of feedback in the EFL classroom. Peer feedback means working with someone of your own age - usually someone in the same class - to help improve, revise and edit his or her writing.
11. What are the good effects of peer-feedback ?
- cognitively: peer feedback can force students to exercise their thinking and help them enhance audience awareness
- linguistically: students exercise through peer review valuable opportunities to improve their reading and writing ability as they discuss such issues as writing contents, organizational patterns, grammatical structures and appropriate word choices.
- affectively: through peer feedback students gain confidence and reduce apprehension by seeing peers strength and weaknesses in writing and therefore generate more positive attitudes toward writing.
12. Disadvantages: some scientists reports that peer response cannot achieve good results because students do not have enough knowledge to detect and correct errors or students tend to withhold critical comments so as to maintain group harmony.
13. In order to make this kind of feedback work, the teacher's role here is to:
- establish a positive context for effective peer group response.
- set up the group properly,
- create a comfortable environment for students to establish peer trust and
- distribute a purposeful and appropriate peer feedback sheets for students to follow.
Teachers can select different modes of peer feedback according to the specific situations:
- oral (students read the paper and orally give the suggestions),
- written (read the papers and write comments to give back to the writer),
- written plus oral (write comments and orally discuss with the writer).
13. What is self-monitoring ?
-the students write marginal comments about problems in their evolving compositions to which the teacher respond
-Students are asked to point and annotate any doubts they have during writing process.
14. Positive sides of Self-monitoring:
- encourages students to look critically and analytically at their writings
- helps enhance students' learning autonomy.
- enables the teacher to give tailor-made feedback to individual students
- offers a match between the feedback that students want or expect and the feedback that is actually given.
It is found that self-monitoring is an effective way for students to improve the structure of their composition and is especially helpful to higher-proficiency learners.
15. What are disadvantages of self-monitoring ?
-not inapplicable to all the students, some self-monitoring students cannot adequately describe their concerns or cannot locate the problems in their writing, they ask general not specific question and write them down to casually
-many students prefer to rely on teacher rather than exercise their individual judgments
16. In addition, the effectiveness of self-monitoring technique partly depends on the feedback that the teacher provides. So teacher-student conference is encouraged after teacher looks over students' annotations.
The operating steps are as follows:
1. students read the writing, underline and annotate the problems for teacher feedback;
2. teacher responds to the writing and replies the written queries briefly and also adds further comments;
3. teachers and student schedule a time to meet and teacher explain the solution to students' problems and point out the other important issues that students may have ignored.