Most instructor feedback on students’ written output tends to be asynchronous, which means that it functions equally well in F2F and remote instructional settings.
When students hand in written work in a F2F course they have three options:
- physical paper: handwritten on a piece of notebook paper or a printed document file (e.g., Word / Google Doc)
- email: typed directly into the email, or as an attached file
- shared file: Google Doc / Dropbox
The only adjustment required for remotely taught courses is the creation of PDF files from the paper options (using a smartphone camera), which are then sent via email or posted in Canvas.
The instructor’s feedback in a remotely taught course depends on the medium:
- Word documents and PDFs can be read and marked by using a tablet/pencil combination such as an iPad and stylus.
- Word documents can be marked with color highlights to indicate problematic sections of text, Comments, and insertions via Track Changes.
- Google Docs can be marked with comments and revised, and the revisions saved as a new document.
(Instructors who are not familiar with these methods can consult the YouTube tutorials at the bottom of this page.)
In addition to these, instructors can take advantage of the Chat function in Zoom, which allows them to provide synchronous feedback on writing with a similar range of options as in synchronous oral feedback, i.e., from implicitly corrective recasts to explicitly corrective interventions. Chat also allows instructors to give written feedback to the whole group (using the “Everyone” setting) or to individual students (“Private”) — an option that is unavailable in F2F teaching.
Instructors may also want to consider giving group feedback, i.e., comments directed at the entire class rather than to specific students:
“In face-to-face classrooms group feedback is usually oral, synchronous, and in-class, but in [remote classroom] environments it is beneficial to explore written feedback as a tool providing group feedback. […] Since all students are in the same online environment, the instructor can be sure that the feedback has been delivered to all students in an equal manner and also ensure that students have access to the feedback whenever they need it.”
Girons & Swinehart, p. 39
References & Resources
Girons, A. and Swinehart, N. (2020). Teaching Languages in Blended Synchronous Learning Classrooms. Georgetown, VA: Georgetown University Press.
Meskill, C. and Anthony, N. (2015). Teaching Languages Online (2nd ed.). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. (pp. 62ff, 111ff.)
How to use "Track Changes" in Microsoft Word: [7:29]
Share with others in Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides: [2:32]
How to read and annotate PDFs on an iPad: [7:08]
Marking up documents in Word for iOS using iPad Pro and Apple Pencil: [3:07]