The importance of feedback

The Importance of Feedback for Language Learners

Feedback is designed to make our lives better and the same for second language learners. It is vital that these learners receive quality feedback from their teachers showing where further work might be needed to progress.

WHY IS PROVIDING FEEDBACK IMPORTANT?

Feedback help students develop their language skills. It can provide a general indication of ability relating to key skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing) or to specific areas that need further work like pronunciation and grammar. Educators should aim to provide information that students need to improve and not to overwhelm them with too much feedback.

Feedback has three fundamental and interrelated purposes:

Improving the fluency, accuracy or complexity of students’ speaking and writing
Motivate students, and
Developing students’ autonomy.

Reflective feedback is vital in getting learners to evaluate their own ability and performance. This self-assessment gives the students the chance to lead their own learning and make the changes needed to improve.

HOW CAN INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT HIGH-QUALITY FEEDBACK?

Here are some ways in which technology can play a supporting role:

Use Google Drive to create a portfolio for each student/assessment task
Deploy survey forms to assess progress toward learning targets and understand how students are coping and feeling throughout the course
Video- or audio-recording of a task to self-evaluate
Chat functions can be invaluable for peer or co-constructed discussion
Students can receive immediate feedback on some of their key language skills via technology solutions such as SANAKO CONNECT

SANAKO solutions enable educators to:

Deliver a wide variety of easily adaptable templates for common language teaching activities through SANAKO Connect. This includes multiple choice quizzes, text entry, or gap-fill exercises.
Help demonstrate the progress students are making and simply provide feedback on areas for future development.
Share feedback with students via Connect’s messaging functionality.
Use Connect to easily review text-based assignments. Teachers can study the work submitted by individual students or use a whole class view to see their collective performance in specific assignments.

If you’d like to find out more about how SANAKO Connect could help to transform your approach to delivering high-quality feedback, please contact us now to arrange you FREE demo.