Types of corrective feedback

When it comes to corrective feedback, none of the teachers might feel unfamiliar. They know they have to and should provide proper feedback to the learners for thier improvement.  Lyster and Ranta (1997: 203) propose six types of feedback. 

1. Clarification request 

It is used by giving a pretence as if the teacher missed that information or to draw attention to which mistakes of target forms learners produced.

S: She feels very boring to write an essay.

T: Pardon.

2. Explicit correction 

It's a direct correction to highlight the learners' mistakes.

S: He don't know him well.

T: We use 'doesn't' after 'He'. / You should say ....

3. Elicitation

Teachers usually use guessable clues to correct the learners, encouraging self-correction.

S: I didn't went there yesterday.

T: No, yesterday you didn't..? / didn't went?

4. Repetition

To signify the errors, teachers reiterate the mistakes with rising intonation.

S: This is the most cheapest one!

T: the most cheapest..?

5. Recast

Teachers reformulate the students' utterances, partly or wholly, to rectify the mistakes. 

S: I'll meet you on the library. 

T: You'll meet me in the library?

6. Metalinguistic feedback

It can be either in the form of comments, information or questions to spolight the ill-formed utterances. 

S: I go shopping yesterday.

T: No, use past tense!

When providing feedback, other ways, such as translation and paralinguistic signs, might be used to recognise and correct the mistakes. 

Most importantly, some factors to consider are implicit and explicit correction, delayed and immediate ones, teacher-led or student-led, and peer- or self-correction techniques. Feedback also should be actionable and understandable to show and measure progress.

Personally, if we, teachers, combine them effectively according to the needs and types of learners, the lesson will be fruitful and captivating for them. 

Author: Nyi Nyi