CORRECTION OF WRITTEN WORK

1. In your own experience of learning languages, what kinds of feedback did your teachers give you? How useful did you find this feedback?Consider the following comments made by learners of English. In each case attempt to define in what ways the expectations and ‘personal philosophies’ of the teacher and the learner are similar or appear to differ. Write your own considerations in the grid (no more than 20 words / comment) and save it as a Word.doc.

Example: Comment (a): From her own experience as a learner or from her training as a teacher, the teacher may have internalized the view that red ink is perceived by learners to be intimidating or discouraging. She appears not to have questioned this, or at least she has not solicited the views of this learner’s class. It may be the case that very few of her students share her reluctance to use red ink.

a. I wish the teacher would use red ink so that I could see things clearly.b. I wish the teacher would write in the corrections instead of using that code.c. She corrects every mistake. It’s really discouraging.d. She seems to think that grammar and spelling are everything.e. She writes really nice comments at the bottom.f. She goes over our mistakes individually, one by one. It’s such a waste of time.g. She writes ‘good’ at the bottom, but I know it isn’t.h. I’d love to know what other students write.

COMMENT YOUR OWN CONSIDERATIONS

b. I think the learner has a point as I also have been asked to do that but form the teacher’s point of view I would say that this would take a lot of time.

c. I think it is good to correct everything. Students should be explained that this is not a bad thing , it is only to make them understand where they are wrong and how to change it for the better.

d. It is not my case, actually, as my marks reflect other aspects, too, like originality and cohesion, ( especially in writing letters, narrations) etc.

e. I use to do so in order not to inhibit the student in trying again and improving his/her work. Sometimes I draw a smiling face or I just encourage them to go on.

f. I try to combine collective correction with individual correction. There are common mistakes but there are also the “original” ones.

g. I think that “ good” is rather ambiguous. It should be more explicit , and explain what “good”means for the teacher. O nthe other hand… a 50 % percentage of

correct items…cannot be good… so , it depends…

h. Sometimes it help the student to compare his work with the others’ but when it comes to writing, for exemple there are also differences of style, creativity, beaty of handwriting - elements which cannot be compared and ”taken” . Every student should be original, to my mind…