fifth blog entry

FIFTH BLOG ENTRY

HOW CAN SOMEONE GIVE EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK TO HIS/HER STUDENTS?

The most important characteristic about feedback is to help students to improve their job. Feedback doesn´t mean to give a negative criticism to our student’s efforts. We as teachers should know the importance of feedback, how to use it and when to use it.

There are two main ways of giving feedback, written and oral. The most common is oral feedback because teachers use it all the time. The reason is because oral feedback is more practical than written. For instance, suppose that you are in the classroom and your students are performing an activity. You heard that your students made some mistakes. For you is easier to give oral feedback to your students.  Why? Because in that way your students do not have to wait for feedback, they can receive it immediately. Also, because if your students do not agree with you or they have some doubts, they can ask you for more explanation. In that situation you can notice that teacher can offer feedback at the moment of speaking of until your students finish what they are saying or doing.

When we use written feedback is important to confirm that students are on the right track, stimulates the correction of errors, avoid comparison with other students, provide opportunities for students to think things through for themselves and also, provides students with the opportunities to respond.

To summarize, the heart of feedback should be the individual student and what they need to do to become a better student of your subject.