GIVING FEEDBACK
DAILY MAGIC SENTENCES
Feedback is an essential part of effective learning. That is the reason why the teachers should be aware of the different language frames, vocabulary and structures that they can use in different situations.
Feedback is a way of guiding the students on how to improve their learning. It provides the learners with information on their performance and which are their weaknesses and strengths. As feedback is understood as one of the most crucial parts of the learning experience, the teachers should know which language frames are appropriate according to each situation. The following grids show different types of feedback that the teacher can use to diversify the ways to say it. The blue tables show examples of positive feedback sentences or words. The orange ones are sentences that the teacher can use to indicate in which aspects the student should keep working. Finally, the green one gives examples for showing mistakes to students. All teachers should bear in mind that the objective of giving feedback is that the students learn through it, so it must be always constructive.
Besides, in the grids bellow you will find the “daily magic sentences”. That concept refers to the basic phrases that the students usually use in the English class.
Regarding the language frames provided above, we should be aware that if those are questions usually asked for the students we should provide them with resources that enable to express themselves. That is why I strongly recommend to have at class language support that helps them to say it correctly. For instance, the following picture would be a language support of how to ask to turn on or off the lights. If the teacher considers that this is an important sentence that the students use and they need guidance, the teacher could create language support and post it in the English class.
All this goes to show that an English teacher should be aware of the language needs and know how to provide the students with the help they need for the task or activity required. All teachers must bear in mind that there are some concepts which seem the same, but there are slightly differences among them, and teachers must know how to use them appropriately. For instance, classroom management language refers to the language that is used in the regular class, so to conduct the lesson. Whereas teaching language refers to the way that the teacher uses to teach the students the foreign language. Finally scaffolding language refers to all those strategies and supports that the teacher provides to the students. In fact, in this last section of scaffolding language we could differentiate among language support and scaffolding. Language support refers to a material that has been prepared in advance in order to help the students with the construction of a sentence. On the other hand scaffolding is something that is not planned and happened unexpectedly in a class. That would be when a student makes a mistake and the teacher "scaffolds" him, so guides him towards how doing it.
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To show how important is language support I will provide some examples of the ones I used when implementing my teaching unit of English in a fourth grade class. Here below you will find the materials prepared that provided them language support.
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Taking into account all the aspects that have been mentioned before. I would like to give some tips to future teachers. Because, as I claimed before it is very important how foreign language teachers use the language, because they are the role models of the students. For that reason, when thinking about the use of language or the language support that you can use when teaching, I consider that is important to bear in mind the following aspects:
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Get hands-on: Encourage participation
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Teach culture alongside the language
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Encourage students participation using English (if it is possible)
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Provide language support to help the students
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Do not use always the same word when giving feedback (i.g. great)
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Personalize feedback
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Wait and give the student time to answer
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Introduce new vocabulary step by step
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Use visual support and ICT
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If you want to know more about useful language support do not hesitate to visit the following blogs: