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SHORT ESSAY: An interview from a bilingual student and his/her teacher (from an
educational context: formal, non-formal, informal) regarding error feedback and its
impact on the teaching and learning procedure
Giantsidis Ioannis
introduction
SHORT ESSAY
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Error feedback is one of the most important parts of teaching and learning
procedure, though it arises a lot of questions like when should a teacher correct errors,
witch of these errors and in witch way. Lyster and Ranta (1997) tried to investigate
what kind of error-feedback teachers use in the classrooms and their research and
analysis provided us with six different types of error-feedback.
Sometimes tutors use more than one types of error feedback, which is called
multiple feedback.
The type of error-feedback that a teacher will use is a result of many factors,
like the kind of the mistake, the lessons goals, the teachers experience and
knowledge etc. When we examine and analyze the impact of error-feedback in the
students we also have to take into account many different variables like culture, age,
SHORT ESSAY
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Method
The English lessons take place for one hour per day, among other classes and
activities like Greek Language lessons, maths, seminars and other. The educational
context is informal and there is no obligation for students to attend the lessons. This
educational program cannot provide them with any kind of certification, but its aim is
to help them and provide them with useful for their daily life knowledge. The students
are divided into groups according their age and their proficiency level and command
of the language. This interview held during the break among the lessons and first I
interviewed the teacher alone and then the student alone. I informed them both that it
is confidential and that it will be used in my short essay for a university course I
attend. After my recordings, for which I used my mobile phone, I gathered them both,
thanked them and we discussed for a while about error feedback.
Results
Discourse analysis could be very useful tool in my effort to analyze the data
of this interview. First of all we identified the main themes and examined the way
they are expressed. Our main theme is the importance of error-feedback, the type of
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error feedback and its impact. This is the result of open coding and creating chunks of
data.
According to the answers of the teacher error feedback is very useful in the
learning procedure because all people can be taught by their mistakes and it can be
proved very useful for the teacher so as to revise his/her technics and very important
for students improvement. As she says only through this way the student will be
able to get his mistake and he will be able to think again about the theory that he has
been taught. She chooses which error feedback technique will apply according to the
kind of the mistake. She believes that pronunciation errors should be immediately and
explicitly corrected. Her answer to our question about
The student regards the error correction as positive and very helpful for him
to avoid the same mistakes in the future. He doesnt want to be immediately
interrupted and that depresses him. The research of Livingstone (2015) showed that
8.33% of the students prefer error correction during the process and 91.67% prefer it
afterwards. The student has a strong motivation for learning the target language, so he
feels happy to learn by his mistakes. He is not so in favor of direct explicit correction,
and he thinks that he can correct his mistakes by his own by studying harder and
yeah I can do it.
Discussion
On the other hand the student seems to have self-belief and no fear for
mistakes, which are characteristics of a good learner. It is not unusual that many
students have no participation in the classroom because they are shy or have a fear of
making mistakes. As we mentioned above, he has a good level of English command
and is supposed to have the ability of self-correction As advanced students and
helped by their language proficiency, they are assumed to be able to monitor any
deviance found in their own writing and at the same time will be able to correct them
altogether. (Muthim and Latief 2014 p. 249).
Though, we should take into account that how students respond to teacher feedback
on the fly (that is, as evinced in the immediate next turn or turns) also differs
remarkably across contexts, even in classrooms which at first glance fit a same
context profile. (Ortega 2009 p 76)
The truth is that there is much to be investigated. Teachers have to take all
this research into consideration in order to improve their teaching abilities and to
know witch type of error feedback they will use.
References
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Mitchell, R., Myles, F., & Marsden, E. (2013). Second language learning
theories (3rd Ed.). Groydon, UK: Routledge.
Appendix
-Hello
-Hello
-We are at Malakassa camp and we are teachers and we work for Save the Children
Organization.
-Ok Anna Maria I would like to ask you a question- How do you respond to an error?
-Ok first of all it depends on the mistake. If for example we have to do with mistake
based on pronunciation then immediately correct it. If the mistake has to do with
grammar or syntax then I don't correct it myself, I give it the chance to the students to
rethink and what I do first is I point out the mistake and then I leave the pupils to find
out what the mistake is, what kind of mistake they have made and then step by step I
help them to define first of all, to think themselves and retry another answer that
hopefully would be the correct one.
-Thank you very much. Do you think that the error feedback is important?
-Yes, of course its very important because only through this way the student will be
able to get his mistake and he will be able to think again about the theory that he has
been taught.
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-So, what do you think is the impact of the error feedback on teaching and learning
procedure both to the learning procedure and also to your students?
-So If we think that all people they can be taught by their mistakes I think that both
sides can be ,you know ,helped by the mistakes and errors, for example on the one
hand I you are teacher through the mistakes of your students you can also rethink, and
you can revise your one technics, learning and teaching technics, so you can get them
better and better, and on the other hand of course through their mistakes the students
will be able to get better students, ok and to overcome any kind of difficulties and
problems they can face.
-And the last question in your classroom how do you think or how is the reaction, the
respond of your students to error feedback?
-Aaa ok first of all he don't get angry, they don't get sad, but they try, they probably
get more curious to find out why they made a kind of mistake, so they try to think the
theory, they try to think what they already know and they try to find out the source of
their mistake and then to recover ,it and say the correct answer
-Bye
-Anna Maria.
-Yes, it is good because next time I want to speak, I don't repeat those mistakes.
- Is it better for you If the teacher immediate interrupt you and say that you have made
a mistake?
- Not, no that but they should let me to finish my word and after that, say my
mistakes.
And do you feel stress that you will make mistake or when you make
mistakes?
Not at all, a little bit yes, because nobody wants to make mistakes, but when
you make it you did it, so you should try next time to not do it again.
So how do you feel when you make a mistake and your teacher interrupt you?
I feel a little bit depressed, but I feel more happy because I learn new think
and I don't do mistakes next time.
And do you think you could correct your mistakes by your own?