‘Feedback on feedback’ makes language learning more successful

An award winning article by two OU academics presents a method which encourages foreign language students to engage in a constructive dialogue with their tutors. The method looks at students’ responses to different types of comments, which may lead either to a successful, or an unsuccessful dialogue.

The method can be used both for face-to-face and for distance learning. It was designed by María Fernández-Toro and Concha Furnborough, both lecturers in Spanish in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the OU, and key researchers behind the e-Feedback Evaluation Project (eFEP). The eFEP examines and evaluates the use of spoken and written e-feedback.

In the new study ten students were asked to make audio recordings of their reflections as they went through the comments and markings given by their teachers.  The students’ responses were then analysed and categorised. Interestingly, while all students were pleased to receive praise from their teachers, high achievers were reluctant to accept it at face value and wanted to know how their performance could be further improved.

Similarly they did not mind unexplained comments on their errors in simple matters, such as spelling. However they did tend to adopt a less effective approach when their tutors pointed to their mistakes in more complex areas without explaining them adequately. Sometimes this even led to students rejecting comments altogether as ‘patronising’.

The article, Eliciting students’ voices through screencast assisted ‘feedback on feedback’, was given the title of  ‘Best Research Paper Award’ at an annual conference of the European Distance and E-learning Network (EDEN), a gathering of 400 participants from 45 countries in Oslo, 12-15 June 2013.

Picture L to R: Albert Sangrà, Maria Fernández-Toro, Concha Furnborough, and António Teixeira, Professor of Distance Education, Universidade Aberta, Portugal, the new EDEN President.

Posted on 1 July 2013.