Giving feedback to language learners

 

Figure 2. Examples of more or less direct techniques for giving corrective feedback on speaking or writing tasks

I N D I R E C T

D I R E C T

8

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In feedback on both spoken and written language, there 

appears to be a strong preference for indirect feedback on 

the part of language teaching methodologists and many 

teachers. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, it is 

thought that indirect feedback may induce less anxiety 

in learners, especially in the case of feedback on spoken 

language. Secondly, it is believed that indirect feedback 

is more likely to lead to learning because it requires 

learners to do more of the work themselves: they are 

required to take a more active role in their own learning, 

and this should help memorization and automatization. 

In feedback on writing, correction codes are popular 

with many teachers (see Figure 3). An interesting 

variation on correction codes has been offered by 

Valenzuela (2005), who suggests a colour system where 

good work as well as errors can be highlighted. 

G

grammar

T

tense

Ø

not necessary

MW

missing word

WC

word choice

/

start a new sentence

P

punctuation

WO

word order

ʎ

something is missing

Sp

spelling

WW

wrong word

???

very unclear