Month: September 2016

Feedback in Writing Teacher Education: 3 Suggestions

I’d like to continue my conversation about implementing issues related to feedback into teacher training/education programs. In today’s post, I provide three ideas that writing teacher educators can use in their preparatory courses: 1) helping teachers develop their philosophies about feedback, 2) giving teachers tools for continuing professional development, and 3) implementing observations of experienced teachers’ feedback performance. These suggestions are based on an analysis of the literature on teacher feedback.

1. Helping Teachers Develop Their Philosophies About Feedback

In order to help beginning teachers recognize their own views and beliefs about feedback, teacher training programs should encourage them to develop their philosophies about response to student writing. At the beginning of the course, for example, teachers would be asked to reflect on their learning experience and identify factors that could have shaped their views on feedback. Indeed, some teachers may not even realize that they had formed teaching philosophies prior to entering their first classroom, and most of these philosophies are informed by “their own learning histories” (Uysal, 2007, p. 243). However, research indicates that teachers tend to rely largely on their personal learning experience when they provide feedback and may even dismiss the principles taught to them during the teacher preparation course (Borg, 2003; Feuerherm, 2012). Therefore, understanding their philosophies about feedback could help novice instructors balance the influence of their own learning experiences with the theoretical knowledge gained from preservice training, which may not always be in agreement with each other.

Throughout the training course, as teachers gain more knowledge, both theoretical and practical, and as they engage in small teaching assignments or practicum (if applicable), these philosophies will be revised. Thus, by describing their beliefs about feedback, teachers would learn not only to identify the enactment of these beliefs in their actual feedback performance, but also see how they may change over time.

2. Giving Teachers Tools for Continuing Professional Development

Developing a teaching philosophy about feedback is one of the many tools that teacher education courses can give novice instructors to prepare them for their ongoing development as professionals. In fact, the growth of teacher knowledge does not end with the end of the training. Therefore, teacher education programs need to equip novice instructors with the tools for developing their feedback practices in the future. These tools, according to Uysal (2007), will help beginning teachers “find connection between their past learning, teacher education experiences, and current practices as a way of professional development” (p. 244).

To help teachers improve their feedback practices, you can encourage them, for example, to conduct action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988). They should also be encouraged to keep up with the current trends in the field. Language teaching methods and approaches are constantly developing, especially in such a dynamic field as second language writing. Therefore, teachers cannot master the subject fully without being in the same flow with it. To achieve this goal, novice instructors should be encouraged to participate in professional conferences, both as attendees and as presenters; read professional journals and perhaps even publish their own material; and be actively involved in the professional community of teachers.

3. Implementing Observations of Experienced Teachers’ Feedback Performance

Novice teachers can gain knowledge about feedback practices not only from relevant literature, but also from observing “real-world” experienced instructors. For example, preparatory courses could provide trainees with the opportunity to observe how other instructors implement peer-review activities in class or conduct writing conferences. By observing more experienced instructors, beginning teachers will learn “how teachers are supposed to talk to students,” “how to diagnose student learning,” “how to respond to student needs,” “how to engage and support students,” and “how to extent student thinking and writing” (Kennedy, 1998, p. 14). Surely these rather general statements can also be related to response to student writing.

The benefits of these observations include more than simply becoming familiar with feedback techniques. Classroom dynamics and interaction between teacher and students greatly affect the way teachers respond to student writing (Lee & Schallert, 2008). Therefore, if preservice teachers are given the opportunity to conduct several classroom observations and analyze the actual feedback of the teachers they observed, they may be able to see how teachers’ comments are linked to the nature of teacher-student interaction in the observed classroom. In other words, through these observations, novice instructors may better understand the socially and culturally contextualized dimension of feedback.

References

Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language teaching, 36(2), 81–109.

Feuerherm, E. (2012). Written feedback, student writing, and institutional policies: Implications for novice teacher development. CATESOL Journal, 23(1), 132–154.

Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. (1988). The action research planner. Melbourne, Australia: Deakin University.

Kennedy, M.M. (1998) Learning to teach writing: Does teacher education make a difference? New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lee, G., & Schallert, D. L. (2008). Constructing trust between teacher and students through feedback and revision cycles in an EFL writing classroom. Written Communication, 25(4), 506–537.

Uysal, H. H. (2007). Educating second language writing teachers: Issues and suggestions. In B. Johnston & K. Walls (Eds.) Voice and vision in language teacher education: Selected papers from the 4th International conference on language teacher education (pp. 239–248). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/feedback-in-writing-teacher-education-3-suggestions/

The Sentence

The Sentence
 
A group of words that contain a subject and a predicate and makes complete sense.   The words communicate an understandable message and  reveals a complete thought.
 

A group of words which begins with 
  • a capital letter 
  • ends with a full-stop (.)exclamation (!) or question mark (?) 

Happy Teaching!

from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-sentence.html

Grammarly: 1 Easy Step to Improved Writing

Writing is one area where students tend to lack confidence, so I am always on the lookout for resources that can help them. Previously, I shared Quill and NoRedInk, which both guide students through independent practice of writing and grammar skills. They really appeal to the teacher in me that believes students need to practice their way to mastery. Today’s post, however, is about an entirely different type of resource and one about which I feel some amount of conflict.

Let’s take a look at it first. Grammarly is a browser extension that works with both Chrome and Safari that is designed to proofread your work automatically. According to the site, “It checks for more than 250 types of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, enhances vocabulary usage, and suggests citations.” An ad for Grammarly on Facebook caught my eye, so I decided to try it. Who doesn’t want to improve their writing and avoid making embarrassing mistakes like using the wrong their, there, or they’re? Even if people know the rules, it is still easy to make mistakes from time to time.

Signing up was simple. I use Chrome, so I clicked “Add to Chrome” on the main page, clicked “Add extension” when it popped up, and then it installed. From there, I had the option to sign up with Facebook or enter my name, email, and a password to get started. Finally, I could choose the free or premium account and was on my way! The tour explained the primary features of Grammarly, and I was able to get started with my exploration.

The demo document that comes with the account really shows what Grammarly is all about. Errors are underlined and clicking on one brings up the rule or rules they violate and what they should be changed to, so it is like having a ton of mini-lessons tailored to the mistakes you have made. If it is not an actual error or the writer chooses not to make the change, then it can simply be ignored and the underline will disappear. Since I installed Grammarly as a Chrome extension, I hopped over to Facebook and typed “I are happy today.” which was automatically checked and I was able to view the suggestion to change the verb to am. The little green Grammarly circle also showed up in Gmail and other sites I visited with areas to input text, too. Besides the browser extension, Grammarly can be installed on your desktop and even as an add-in to Word using the same email and password as the online version. I was really impressed with my experience using it, and now that it is installed and the account has been made, the hard part is done, so I suppose I may as well keep it.

Here comes the conflict, though. As a teacher, do I really want my students using this? It seems a lot like cheating to me, especially if students just click through and accept the changes without reading through them. On the other hand, spellcheckers do the same thing for spelling, have been around forever, and are viewed as an acceptable resource to help us avoid mistakes. Shouldn’t students be able to utilize all available resources to help them succeed? I realize that in my ESL classes, I need students to be able to demonstrate their mastery of English grammar independently without the aid of something like Grammarly. Having said that, I teach adults and college students whose writing for work or university classes is about communicating, completing tasks, demonstrating understanding or in-depth thought on complex topics, and so much more than grammar rules.

So there you have it. Feel free to ponder this conundrum and share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/grammarly-1-easy-step-to-improved-writing/

Three Levels of Complexity in ESOL Placement

Placement testing is tough. Doing it well can be time consuming and resource intensive, and doing it with insufficient rigor can lead to “slippery” leveling, where, say, a level 3 one year is different in ability from a level 3 in future years.

I don’t have any all-encompassing answers to this problem, but in using a popular computer-adaptive test for placement purposes, I’ve begun to recognize a few broad categories that students can be broken into, according to the grammatical complexity of their utterances.

Level 1 – This level is marked by strings of simple sentences. Use of and may occur as well. Before you assume that a student is at this level, make sure you’re asking questions that call for more complex answers. Ask plenty of elaboration questions like why and tell me more. If students still answer in simple sentences, score them a level 1.

Level 2 – At the second level, students begin using more challenging coordinators like or and but, as well as subordinates like when, so, if, and because. The most common one you’ll hear is because, but double check that students are actually using the word correctly. Many students seem to use it as an all-purpose connector.

Level 3 – You have to listen closely to recognize this third level. It’s marked by relative clauses and noun clauses. Most often you’re listening for that and which introducing clauses that describe nouns, as in the house that I live in and my job, which I love. Also in this category are noun clauses, as in I made the decision that we would move to Texas.

Ask questions of increasing complexity to get a sense of what students are capable of. I generally find that students reach a pretty hard stop between each of these levels. That is, students are either using level 2 language constantly or not at all. The same levels, of course, could be found in student writing.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/three-levels-of-complexity-in-esol-placement/

👀October Workshops! Register Today 👀

Hello everyone!
Get ready for fall and sign up today for one of our October workshops!

 Download our flyer!
Our newest professional development offering:
Workshop #7

Parts of Speech – verbs, nouns, adjectives and more! 
FRIDAY OCTOBER 21, 2016 – Lane ESD, 1200 Highway 99 N, Eugene 97402
FRIDAY OCTOBER 28, 2016 – PORTLAND 
Does teaching grammar to students make you say “YIKES”? 
This Fun To Teach workshop will ease your anxiety about teaching the parts of speech
and types of sentences to students Kinder through 5th grade. Join us for a basic grammar boost, and learn about strategies and activities that engage students and increase writing abilities. This workshop is designed to help primary 1-5 teachers who:

  • feel uncertain about their knowledge of grammar and want to improve their confidence in teaching it
  • want more strategies and activities that teach to the Common Core and ELP Standards
  • want to increase student writing abilities and teach English grammar in a fun and engaging way
  • want to refresh their knowledge of English grammar and the terminology used to describe it

    What the workshop covers:
    Teaching activities and strategies related to parts of speech and types of sentences. 

    Workshop #6 

    ELD Models and Strategies for Co-Teaching – Push-in and Pull-out! 

    With inclusion on the rise, ELD and Classroom teachers are sharing classrooms more than ever and becoming effective co-teaching partners. Bring your team, co-teacher or just yourself and learn the models for co-teaching. 

    Understand when and how to use each model for effective instruction to second language learners and low language at risk students. Find out which strategies are best associated with each model and create make and take activities so you can use them in the classroom the next day! 

    Engaging, robust English acquisition happens throughout the day when ELD and Classroom teachers team up to enrich each lesson with rigorous language instruction.

OCTOBER 7, 2016 – PORTLAND, OREGON

Click here to register today!

Happy Teaching!
from Fun To Teach ESL – Teaching English as a Second Language http://esleld.blogspot.com/2016/09/october-workshops-register-today.html

#GoodCallsHome: From Twitter Hashtag to Education Movement

I’m happy to introduce guest bloggers Rik Rowe, a secondary math teacher from Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA, and Anabel Gonzalez, a Grade 7–12 ESL teacher from Mooresville, North Carolina, USA. Rik and Anabel met on Twitter while chatting on #GoodCallsHome, a movement to encourage teachers to make positive calls to the homes of their students. 

What started out as a simple hashtag, #GoodCallsHome, has evolved into a powerful movement that is changing lives and altering academic destinies. #GoodCallsHome is a undertaking that encourages teachers to commit themselves to making positive phone calls to the homes of at least two of their students each week in the hopes of reaching the families of every single learner by the end of the semester or year. But this goes beyond positive phone calls. #GoodCallsHome is a mindset shift for educators to proactively reach out to families, thereby establishing an invaluable parental rapport.

Are you intrigued, but think you don’t have the time? If you are like most educators, you probably have way too much on your plate already, and time is a precious commodity. However, investing a few minutes each week in making proactive phone calls home will generate much needed parental support. Students will know you have their best interest in mind which, for an English learner, may be the difference between graduating or dropping out.

The #GoodCallsHome inspiration originated from the parent of one of Rik Rowe’s learners. The learner was a hard-working student whose engagement in learning, class contributions, and discussion questions were at a higher level than he had previously witnessed, even in honors classes. During an Underclassman Awards Night, this young lady earned more honors than were typically awarded to a single student. She was cited as an exceptional individual, communicator, and contributor. During the reception following the awards ceremony, Rik had an inspiring conversation with the parents of this young lady. The most compelling moment was when the student’s dad asked him why he had not called home to share of the incredible learning their daughter was experiencing in class.

Rik was speechless. His initial thought was that he had had no reason to call home because everything was fine. The more he pondered the dad’s question, the more he realized that the student had given him every reason to make a positive call home, yet he had not taken the opportunity. Rik and the parents talked at length about the need for parents to know of the good things taking place in our schools. That dad then asked Rik if he would commit to communicating with the parents about the success of his students. Rik indicated that he would think seriously about making positive phone calls. And so #GoodCallsHome was born. To this day, the young lady’s dad and Rik share on Twitter about the profound impact educators across the country are making with weekly good calls home.

Coincidentally, Anabel felt the need to implement a more proactive approach to connecting with her learners’ families. Parent nights and meetings specifically targeted toward the families of English learners were not well attended. She was intrigued and inspired after seeing the #GoodCallsHome hashtag on Twitter. In the fall of 2014, Anabel stepped up her commitment to making positive phone calls home by adding #GoodCallsHome to her professional goals for the year.

Both Rik and Anabel agree that finding the hidden gems in every student to share with parents is not always easy, but they maintain an open mind and have always been able to find something to celebrate in each learner. Positive phone calls are a collaborative way to build trusting relationships: first with parents, and second with students. Once word gets around that they are making positive calls, behavioral issues start to diminish as students realize that their teachers are not only their teachers but also their allies.

Based on their experience, here are a few reactions you can expect when making good calls home:

  • Anxious Silence: When calling families who rarely receive calls from teachers, much less positive calls, you can expect parents to suspect that there’s a problem. Even if you immediately blurt out your good news, they tend to remain silent as they anticipate trouble or the other shoe to drop.
  • Defensiveness: Sadly, parents never expect teachers to take time to call with a compliment, and they feel suspicious and wonder what’s really behind your call. We find that it may take a few phone calls before parents let their guard down.
  • Tears: Some parents may become emotional, especially if it is the very first time a teacher has acknowledged their child’s strengths.

So why make these calls? Rik and Anabel make positive calls home because they truly care about the development and well-being of their students. They want to foster a support system that connects home and school. They want parents to be aware of the growth, perseverance, and grit that their students exhibit on the learning journey. There really is so much to share when you look at engagement, feedback, and communication that so often blooms into learning.

#GoodCallsHome has brought a heightened awareness of the power of positive calls and the encouragement and motivation that they generate. The perseverance through challenges, the tireless effort, and the commitment of learners to reach for higher levels of proficiency is inspiring educators across the United States. Weekly good calls home can translate into increased academic achievement and an improved overall school experience. Join the nationwide movement and watch the purposeful calls generate more meaningful relationships, deeper learning, and collaborative excitement between educators, parents, and learners!

Rik Rowe is a 16-year secondary math teacher from Wilmington, Massachusetts, and a connected educator with a passion for learning and a passion for empowering his learners to engage in exciting learning opportunities. He’s an avid reader and participates in many Twitter chats. Follow him on Twitter @RoweRikW.

Anabel Gonzalez began teaching in 1996 and is currently a secondary ESL teacher for the Mooresville Graded School District in North Carolina, serving English learners in rades 7–12. She is also a trainer for NCDPI’s English Learner Support Team. Follow her on Twitter @amgonza.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/goodcallshome-from-twitter-hashtag-to-education-movement/

Under the Ice in a Business English Class in Japan

Hello, ESPers worldwide!

One thing that I really like about the classroom is the opportunity to “create” on the spot. I love those “magical moments” when seemingly unconnected things are brought together to make a lesson. The joy is in seeing a connection and in making the connection visible to my students. In this TESOL Blog post, I share one example of how such a magical moment occurred.

A few days before a business English class, I watched a video titled, “Johanna: Under the Ice.” (If you have not seen the short video, I advise you to watch it now before you read the remainder of this blog post; it is fewer than 4 minutes.) The video is introduced with the following:

Finnish freediver Johanna Nordblad holds the world record for a 50-meter dive under ice. She discovered her love for the sport through cold-water treatment while recovering from a downhill biking accident that almost took her leg. British director and photographer Ian Derry captures her taking a plunge under the Arctic ice.

For me, the video was surprising and inspiring (as I explain toward the end of this blog post), so I wanted to show the video to my students in the business English class. At the same time, I was thinking that the video was in no way connected to the lesson I had planned for that day.

The lesson I had planned included doing one of the short, two-page, business case studies in Market Leader (Pre-Intermediate; Pearson ELT); in other words, a case study about choosing from 10 investment options in order to create an international ice cream business. I could see a clear connection with “leadership” in the lesson, as the students would be “communicating to create and to achieve a vision.” In order to help the students to see the connection between my conceptualization of leadership above and the business case study activity, I wrote the following questions on the board about the business case study:

  • What is the situation?
  • Is there a problem? If so, what is the problem?
  • What is the goal/vision/desired end-result?
  • What are the options for achieving the goal?
  • What action should be taken to achieve the goal?

It was after I had written the questions on the board that I saw the connection to the video. Accordingly, I began to answer the questions on the board about Johanna after the students had seen the video. (I.e., She was injured in a biking accident. She was about to lose her leg. She had the option of cold water treatment. She chose that option. She became a world record holder.) The video became an unexpected introduction to the business case study.

Over time, what has stayed with me about that video is the metaphor of “under the ice.” As a former competitive swimmer and water polo player, I could appreciate the joy of being in the water, but how many people would choose to put themselves under the ice? Then I thought about what you often hear people say in sports, “No pain, no gain.” In that sense, I did put myself under the ice as a swimmer and water polo player.

In the video, Johanna explains how being under the ice opened up a whole new world to her. From a metaphorical perspective, choosing to learn a foreign language or to live in a foreign country could also be considered to be putting oneself under the ice, because those who do so can gain a whole new world.

What can we conclude? From a leadership perspective, achieving a goal or vision may require going under the ice. As one leader shared with me, “It’s like physical exercise. You don’t like the work, but you like the results.” So, what does it mean to go under the ice in your context? Let’s all go under the ice!

All the best,

Kevin

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/under-the-ice-in-a-business-english-class-in-japan/

Homework for ELLs: Help or Hindrance?

Homework and school have gone hand-in-hand for so long that it’s mostly assumed, if not ingrained, that studying outside of the classroom is an essential part of any schooling experience. Like any other part of education, homework trends have come and gone, and currently some pushback against homework is emerging in the United States, possibly in response to cultures of high-stakes assessment and worksheet packets of test preparation that leave students uninspired at best and marginalized by the system at worst.

Recently, a post about a North Texas teacher went viral, in which she stated her “homework policy” for the school year would actually be a NO Homework policy, and that she would instead encourage learners to eat dinner with their families, exercise outside, and go to bed on time—factors which she argued (and much research agrees) can be greater predictors of student success than completing homework.

Time magazine also published a recent article on whether or not homework was helpful, in which it too looked at the North Texas teacher’s policy to see if there was something to it.  Key points from this article were that, although some research supports a relationship between homework completion and high achievement in schools, that relationship is not necessarily a causal one.  This means that it’s hard to tell if homework creates high achievers, or if students who are high achievers are just better at doing their homework. Also, it seems that homework might benefit older learners, but its benefit to younger learners remains ambiguous19.

Issues With Homework

Homework in the traditional sense can be problematic for both K–12 English learners and adults, for some similar and distinct reasons.  For school age ELLs, homework is rarely differentiated for students with different levels of proficiency, meaning that beginning-level ELLs might be given homework designed for fluent peers.  Some teachers might skirt this issue by giving ELLs no homework at all, but then ELLs who might benefit from some independent practice that matches their proficiency level are denied that opportunity.  Larger issues for school-age ELLs that can interfere with homework completion are the roles and responsibilities they might have in their own families, how familiar with the type of homework given in U.S. schools they and their families are, whether the homework allows the learners to draw on their L1 culture and language, and how well that homework is matched to the learner’s abilities in terms of both linguistic and content knowledge.  Older ELLs might also have after school jobs that last late into the evening, making hours of homework completion impossible.

Another issue with homework is that language itself is a communicative social act, but homework assignments are often done in isolation, and center around discrete skill reinforcement or rote memorization of words, numerical processes, or facts/dates. Some discrete skill practice in language can be helpful, but tasks that are largely unrelated to anything the student is interested in, or unconnected to larger content concepts, may be counterproductive. Also, many homework assignments that come from workbooks or textbooks may be seriously lacking in any type of cultural relevance to today’s diverse school-age population, making them even less motivating for students who can’t relate to the content. Finally, if teachers give or take away points for homework completion, they may be creating grading “black holes,” in which students have lost so many points for not completing their homework that it becomes nearly impossible to earn a high grade in a course, even when the student has good attendance and participates effectively during regular class time.

Creating Meaningful Homework Assignments

I think homework can be a useful way to extend learning, but I encourage teachers to craft it as carefully and thoughtfully as they would other types of assessments.  Some questions I would pose to teachers as they develop homework for their  ELLs, or any students for that matter, are the following:

  • What is the goal of the homework assignment?  What will students TRULY gain from completing it? (Being able to pass a test is not an intrinsically motivating reason, so this might be something like developing problem-solving skills.)
  • Does the homework assignment match what you have been doing in class with the learners?  (I.e., If you have been doing engaging collaborative exercises in class, but you give a packet of worksheets as homework, how authentic is the practice compared to the skills you are developing in class?) Does the homework assignment provide any kind of match to your learners’ interests, cultural backgrounds, or first languages spoken?
  • How much time do you think the assignment will take the different learners in your class?  (I.e., One assignment might take some learners 5 minutes and others 90 minutes.)
  • How can you differentiate homework assignments by content, process, or product for the diverse learners in your classroom?
  • How can you scaffold large projects into small, intermittent steps to help students manage their time?  How can you help them track their progress to completion?
  • How does this homework assignment connect with other assignments that they have either recently completed or will complete soon?
  • Can you focus students’ attention on “assignments” that have more to do with language use rather than discrete skill reinforcement, such as noticing English in their environments, watching movies or listening to music in English, noting  conversations they have using English, or allowing them to read entertaining texts in English?

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/homework-for-ells-help-or-hindrance/

3 Ways to Avoid Appropriating Student Writing

When I first started teaching writing, I remember asking myself questions that Joy Reid addressed in her article “Responding to ESL Students’ Texts: The Myths of Appropriation” (1994): “When might I interfere with their objectives or crush their creativity? In what ways might I assume control or ownership over their texts? What might I say that would deter them from becoming independent writers?” (p. 277).

I was confused by the two seemingly contradictory objectives of feedback. On the one hand, I knew I had to provide students with guidance and suggestions, and offer my recommendations on how they can improve their writing. On the other hand, I was supposed “not to interfere with their writing, not to impose control or authority over their […] writing” (Reid, 1994, p. 277). Then I turned to my own writing experience in English and realized that I wouldn’t have learned how to write if I hadn’t received meaningful feedback on my papers.

An impressive amount of work on feedback in the TESOL field provides evidence of the importance of this issue; many studies have proved that properly given feedback can positively influence the quality of student writing (Ferris, 2011). Unfortunately, far too often teachers have a fear of interfering with students’ work or coming off as someone who imposes authority over students’ learning processes. This doesn’t only relate to writing. Sometimes teachers are afraid to hurt students’ feelings by correcting their grammar or pronunciation mistakes, in a speaking class, for example. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this issue, nor do I impose my own opinion, but somehow I don’t think it should be about “hurting” or “not hurting” someone’s feelings. School is a place of learning—learning by trying, making mistakes, being corrected, and eventually improving and growing.

I believe that in a comfortable learning environment, with a positive and caring teacher attitude and trusting teacher-student relationships, a teacher can, and should, make positive changes in students’ learning by guiding, advising, and correcting—yes, correcting. From my own teaching practice, I have learned that positive teacher-student relationships also allow students to develop a sense of agency or ownership of their writing. And I believe that students can definitely challenge feedback that they receive on their papers.

1. Promote Interactivity With Writing Conferences

In fact, revision has to be interactive; therefore, teachers should involve students in the dialogue about their writing by giving them a chance to voice their opinion. For example, I found that writing conferences offer a great opportunity for me to establish a productive interpersonal relationship with students: They help me avoid giving irrelevant suggestions based on the misinterpretation of students’ ideas, and they also provide my students with the opportunity to articulate their writing intentions.

2. Allow Students to Request Feedback

In addition to one-on-one conferences (which are not feasible in some teaching contexts, as we know), I give my students a chance to request feedback. To illustrate, I ask them to provide a reflective note for each draft they submit, in which they identify strengths and weaknesses of their draft and ask for specific feedback on certain elements of the draft. Among many positive outcomes of implementing these reflective notes, I realized that they help me meet individual students’ needs and provide an appropriate amount of feedback without taking too much control over their writing (Shvidko, 2015). Students’ notes often contain questions about the concepts that they did not fully understand or needed more help with. For example, one time, several students expressed their difficulty to appropriately integrate quotations; another time, a few students asked me in their notes to give them feedback on the use of essay-level transitions. These kinds of requests and questions raise my awareness of what students need, and they also help students realize that the teacher is not controlling their writing, but providing the kind of feedback they asked for.

3. Balance Praise and Critique

Finally, I found that the right balance between praise and critique could also help me avoid appropriating students’ work. I believe that through my genuine compliments on their writing, students are able to recognize the progress they make and perceive me not only as an evaluator but also as an interested reader.

I can certainly see how feedback can turn into the appropriation of student writing, or the imposition of teacher authority and control over students’ creativity and agency. However, I believe that encouraging advice and pedagogical guidance have nothing to do with appropriation.

References

Shvidko, E. (2015). Beyond “giver-receiver” relationships: Facilitating an interactive revision process. Journal of Response to Writing, 1(2), 55–74.

Ferris, D. R. (2011). Treatment of error in second language student writing (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Reid, J. (1994). Responding to ESL students’ texts: The myths of appropriation. TESOL Quarterly, 28, 273–292.

from TESOL Blog http://blog.tesol.org/3-ways-to-avoid-appropriating-student-writing/