video feedback

Classroom Elements

Corrective Feedback

Remote learning tools offer a wide range of choices for providing feedback on students’ speaking and writing.

As they navigate new linguistic forms and learn new words, students crave feedback — and particularly so in a remote learning environment, where isolation may result in insecurities about their progress. Properly administered, the instructor's feedback can lead to durable gains in L2 proficiency, while also strengthening the students’ sense of being there, of being acknowledged and taken seriously as learners.

“Interaction and feedback are key when learning a foreign language, and data shows that those are subjects of concern for remote students …”

Girons and Swinehart, p. 38

Feedback on speaking:

Decisions regarding corrective feedback on spoken utterances are complex, to say the least. They involve considerations of learnability, student anxiety, saving face in front of peers, timing and scope, and the use of explicit vs. implicit feedback — not to mention the whole question of how effective oral corrective feedback actually is (Doughty & Varela 1998).

Assuming that instructors want to address spoken errors in pronunciation, vocabulary, or syntax, here are some ideas for doing so during the classroom session:

Main Session:

Share Screen:

Breakout Rooms





Feedback on writing:

The research on L2 writing suggests that the sooner corrective feedback is given, the more effective it is. Here too, a Zoom classroom has a distinct advantage over a F2F environment, in that instructors can see students' writing in real time and respond to it immediately and explicitly.


References & Resources

Doughty, C. and Varela, E. 1998. Communicative focus on form. In Doughty, C. and Williams, J. (eds.), Language Acquisition, Cambridge: CUP, 114-138.

Girons, A. and Swinehart, N. (2020). Feedback (Chapter 3, pp. 38-41). Teaching in Blended Synchronous Learning Classrooms. (Georgetown, MD: Georgetown University Press).

Lyster, R. (1998). Recasts, repetition and ambiguity in L2 classroom discourse. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 20, 51-81.

Meskill, C. and Anthony, N. (2015). Language learning and teaching in oral synchronous online environments: Providing explicit feedback / providing implicit feedback. Teaching Languages Online (2nd ed.). (Bristol: MM Textbooks), pp. 62-74.

Truscott, J. (1996). The case against grammar correction in L2 writing classes. Language Learning, 46(2), 327-369.

Van Breuningen, C. De Jong, N. and Kuiken, F. (2012). Evidence on the effectiveness of comprehensive error correction in second language writing. Language Learning, 62(1), 1-41.