Tag: Corrections

My Webinar: “Assessing and Marking Writing: Feedback Strategies to Involve the Learners”

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of hosting a webinar (my first ever!) for IATEFL’s TEA SIG. For those who weren’t able to join in, here’s a run down and a link to the video!

Assessing Marking Writing TEASIG PPT_002This talk provides teachers with time-efficient strategies for giving feedback on EFL learners’ writing which actively involve the learners. I present and evaluate several learner-centred feedback strategies that are applicable to giving feedback on written work in diverse contexts, by presenting summaries of published research which explores their efficacy. I also explain the mechanisms underpinning the strategies’ effectiveness, in order to further aid teachers in making informed choices pertaining to their specific class groups.

Watch the webinar recording here.

The webinar was followed by a live Facebook discussion. Check it out here.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the Facebook discussion: 

Clare Fielder  Someone asked: Have you ever tried developing an online digital dialogue around feedback points? Not exactly sure what you mean here, I’m afraid. I’ve used Google Docs to get peer review going – is that something in the direction you’re asking about?

Sharon Hartle Sharon Hartle I use wikispaces and learners can comment on specific points and then develop a dialogue. Here’s a quick clip of what I mean
Sharon Hartle's photo.
Clare Fielder Clare Fielder This sounds like something similar to Google Docs with the comments function. I used that last year with my students, most of them liked it, but lost energy and motivation for it by the end of term… Maybe because it’s just one more platform that they have to remember to check?
Sharon Hartle Sharon Hartle Once again, I think it is a question of guidance and structuring, as you said. If you limit it to asking them to comment on two posts, for instance, and then reintegrate it all into class it works well. It also remains for later reference, like now. 🙂
Clare Fielder Clare Fielder Our VLP doesn’t have this kind of function (well, it doesn’t work well and is hard to use) which is why I opted for Google. I definitely like the idea, because then students get feedback from various peers, not just the one who was given their work in class on peer review day! Also, you can include LDF into that – students can pose their questions on their work when they post it there, and then all the group members can help answer them! That’s a great idea!
Sharon Hartle Sharon Hartle I’ve also experimented with iAnnotate for ipad and Schoology, which is also good.
Clare Fielder Clare Fielder Yes, I agree, limiting it to two comments or so does help, but doesn’t encourage them to really engage in discussion and dialogue. But, as with everything in ELT, it depends! It depends on the students, context, goals, etc.
Where I am it’s all pretty low-tech. I still have chalk boards in my classrooms! 😀

Like · Reply · 5 July at 19:21
Sharon Hartle Sharon Hartle Well tech is only as good as tech does, isn’t it and there was a time when the blackboard was considered high tech 🙂
Clare FielderClare Fielder Only if you had coloured chalk! 😉
Sharon HartleSharon Hartle Thanks Clare, for staying around and developing this discussion, which is very interesting 🙂

 Unlike · Reply · 1 · 5 July at 19:23
 

For more information about IATEFL’s TEA SIG – Teaching, Evaluation & Assessment Special Interest Group – you can find their website here.

TEA-Sig

 

#BridgingtheGapChallenge Hand-Written vs Emailed Corrective Feedback on Writing

As part of the #BridgingtheGapChallenge, here is a summary of:

Farshi, S.S. & S.K. Safa, ‘The Effect of Two Types of Corrective Feedback on EFL Learners’ Writing Skill’, Advances in Language and Literary Studies, Vol 6/1, February 2015.

This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of giving hand-written or electronic (via email) feedback on EFL learners’ written work.

Participants & Procedure

Thirty-five adult participants were involved in the stud; Azeri-Turkish speakers, who were learning English at a language institute in Iran. They were divided into three separate class groups, which met twice a week for 7 weeks and taught by the same teacher. All groups covered the same material in class and were given a writing task each week based on the lesson’s focus. Depending on which group participants they were in, they received feedback on their work in a different format: Group A: Submitted paper-versions of their work and received hand-written feedback. Group B: Submit their work by email and received their feedback electronically. Group C: Submitted their work either on paper or by email, but received no feedback from the teacher. Groups A and B revised their paragraphs using the feedback they received. Before the study, students completed pre-test writing tasks (writing two separate paragraphs), graded by three teachers, and the KET proficiency test and were found to have comparable levels of proficiency in English. They post-test score was also based on two written paragraphs, graded by three teachers. The pre-test and post-test scores were given in numerical format, on a scale from 0-20 (where 20 is good).

Findings

A paired-samples T-test (test of significant difference) was used to compare participants’ pre-test and post-test scores. On the pre-test scores, there was no significant difference between the three groups. On the post-test scores (i.e. the grades students achieved on the assessment after having received the various feedbacks on their work for 7 weeks), both Group A’s and Group B’s scores were significantly higher than those of Group C, who had received no corrective feedback on their writing. The researchers conclude that both hand-written and electronic feedback therefore have a positive impact on students’ writing skill. The key finding, though, is the significant difference between the improvements shown by participants in Groups A and B; where Group B (who had received electronic feedback) scored significantly higher than Group A (hand-written feedback), which would seem to show that feedback received electronically is more effective at improving students’ writing than hand-written feedback is.

My Own Thoughts

I can postulate various explanations for the benefit of giving feedback electronically: it feels more personal to the students, the teacher can perhaps include more detailed feedback, it is motivating for students to use their electronic devices for the English learning, etc. It would have been interesting to see what the researchers thought were the explanations for their findings.

It would also be good to know what kind of level their learners were at in their English proficiency – perhaps the effectiveness of certain feedback formats depends on level?

And also, what kind of feedback exactly was given – actual corrections? simply underlining? Comments to start a dialogue? Use of a correction code? I wonder whether these differences might have an even more significant effect on students’ improvement than simply the mode of delivery of the feedback?

How to Mark Written Work Effectively – Preventing Future Errors

Most of the time when we mark pieces of written work by EFL learners, our aim is to provide feedback on their language usage which enables them to avoid repeating their errors in future writing. It is logical, then, that simply underlining and correcting errors, as is the most common marking method, may not be as effective at achieving this aim as we may hope. Here are a few different ways of marking written work and scaffolding students’ drafting, where the focus is clearly on preventing future errors.

1)      Search & Correct

–      In the margin of the line where an incorrect word/phrase has been used, an X is written by the tutor. The students are then asked to locate/identify the mistakes and correct them. This can also be done with correction symbols, which help to highlight the type of error, but no mistakes are underlined in the text, so students have to use their own judgment.Having to consider what they may have done wrong and finding a way to improve their own language helps means that learners are more likely to remember the correct version and the reasoning behind it, which should help them to avoid making the same mistake in future writing.

–      This method also saves the tutor’s time as they do not spend time correcting things that students actually are able to produce correctly but due to time pressure / lack of concentration have made mistakes with in this specific piece of work.

2)      References to Grammar Textbook or Dictionary

–      Mistakes are underlined in the text and numbered according to pages or passages in a grammar textbook or learners’ dictionary that the class is working with or the learners otherwise have access to. Students are then instructed to look up the explanations of the language structure or lexis they are attempting to use and are able to correct their own mistakes. They can then re-draft their writing, or simply use this information in their next piece of writing.

3)      Correction Table

–      The incorrect words/phrases are underlined in the text, with or without a correction symbol to denote the type of error. Students complete a table like the example below where they write out the underlined errors, and look up the correction themselves, inserting this and the related explanation into the column ‘reason & correction’, and noting the source of their information. These tables are useful for students in understanding their errors and for reference when in future writing assignments to avoid repeating mistakes. These tables allow each student to focus on their individual areas of difficulty. There’s no need for re-drafting.

Example extract from correction table:

Mistake Type of mistake Reason & Correction
 Source
1)…get used to be… Verb conjugation The expression ‘used to’ is either followed by a noun or by a gerund.Correct: get used to being OALD 7, key word ‘used’, p. 1689~ to sth/to doing sth
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How to Mark Written Work Effectively – Clarifying Errors

Here are a few more ways of giving corrective feedback on learners’ written work, this time focusing on ensuring that they clearly understand where they have made mistakes and which of these were most serious.

 

1)      Praise / Correction Box

  1. At the end of the piece of writing, the tutor writes a box with notes of the main areas in which errors have been made (particularly repetitive errors and those aspects which affect the grade, if one is being given), and aspects of the work that are particularly strong. The students can then re-draft their own work and work to correct errors in the areas specified, or simply refer to this box when writing their next assignment (then the tutor doesn’t have to check re-drafts).
  2. Such a box may look like this:

Well done

Needs work
–          Strong topic sentences that introduce paragraphs neatly. –          Indiscriminate use of ‘will’ to refer to future
–          Good use of transitions –          Erratic use of definite articles

(Bartram, M. & Walton, R., Correction: A Positive Approach to Language Mistakes (Hove: Language Teaching Publications, 1994), pp. 82-3.)

 

2)      Hot cards

  1. With each piece of work handed back, students receive a ‘hot card’ with the top 3 (or however many the tutor thinks appropriate) areas of mistakes – rather like in the correction box above. Students can use these to direct their proof reading in future writing, and can collate them to see the most frequently made errors. Extra homework can then also include doing some separate exercises specifically on the areas that occur most often on their hot cards.
  2. If invoice books are used to write out hot cards for each student, the tutor can also keep a record of the most frequent errors.

(Bartram, M. & Walton, R., Correction: A Positive Approach to Language Mistakes (Hove: Language Teaching Publications, 1994), p.87.

 

3)      Native Speaker examples

  1. Reformulating students’ utterances instead of merely underlining or correcting them provides students with more examples of ways to express their ideas more naturally. Sometimes, students’ writing can be virtually mistake-free but still not sound natural – providing alternative formulations of what they have written helps them to learn a more natural writing style.
  2. To save time when providing examples, look at a sample of a student’s work together in class and compare it to the tutor’s/native speaker’s reformulation, and ask students to assess the differences.

(Bartram, M. & Walton, R., Correction: A Positive Approach to Language Mistakes (Hove: Language Teaching Publications, 1994), pp. 90-1.

 

 

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How To Mark Written Work Effectively – Using Underlining

On many teacher training courses, the focus is placed so heavily on classroom behaviour and materials development, that many new teachers  are not shown effective ways of marking learners’ work. More experienced teachers, too, often stick to one method of correcting students‘ writing, without necessarily thinking about its effectiveness. Based on these considerations, I’ve started a series of posts on various ways to mark students’ written work, which may be time-saving for us teachers and more effective in promoting learning among our students.

Let’s start with the classic and a few variations…

English: Underlined text. Image created entire...
English: Underlined text. Image created entirely by myself. Ineligible for copyright because it’s just underlined text. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1)      Underling mistakes

  1. Underline & correct – the more times the word/phrase is underlined, the more serious the error. Re-drafting doesn’t make much sense here, as students will simply copy out the corrections of the tutor – although it makes them aware of their errors, the chances are they will not internalize the corrections.
  2. Underline with code – the incorrect words/phrases are underlined in the text, and symbols are used in the margin or above the underlined word to show the type of error. For example w.o. can indicate incorrect word order, or sp likewise incorrect spelling. Students are expected to diagnose their own problems and fix the errors. Students can re-draft the essay.
  3. Underline with number – the incorrect words/phrases are underlined in the text, and numbers are written in the margin or text to refer to the type of error or a longer comment. This is especially useful for common errors (saves tutor’s time writing the same comments frequently) and with errors which are more stylistic and not simply grammatical/lexical, e.g. “no new lines within a paragraph” or “topic sentence doesn’t introduce the whole idea of the paragraph”. Students can re-draft the essay
  4. Students can also work together to find & correct the mistakes in their essays. This is much more effective, as it’s always easier to see other people’s mistakes. Also, explaining corrections to each other helps clarify understanding of how the language works.

See also: