PART IV

LESSONS

According to Penny Ur (2000), feedback has two main distinguishable components: assessment and correction
(p. 242).

The assessment occurs with grades and oral or written comments. So, the student is just informed about his/her performance; there is no motivation or options to help the learner improve the practice. In correction, students have explanations, alternatives and information that says why it is right or wrong.

The relationship between assessment and correction

Assessment and correction are linked. Although it is possible to have assessment without correction because the teacher can give a grade without saying a comment.

The assessment is intrinsic to the concept of correction. Doing a correction means to give a grade saying the reason for that good or bad grade.

When teachers start a correction, they have to know that the percentage grade has to be justified with comments and suggestions for the students to improve it.

Approaches to the giving of feedback

Penny Ur brings different opinions about assessment and the correction of mistakes. The audio-lingualism used to say that negative assessment works as a punishment and that positive assessment is the better choice to promote learning. But, this concept is not appropriated to nowadays.

The negative assessment is also important in the process of learning. The students are more conscious about the role of a negative response; they can distinguish a negative assessment as a good thing and a negative assessment as a punishment. Of course there are exceptions, but the major know that negative information helps in the development of intelligent people.

The skill theory says that the learner needs feedback on how well he or she is doing (p.243) and it is totally truth, because the feedback is the teachers most important tool to guide the learning.

This is right just in parts, because the teacher has to know the best opportunities to make corrections. If the person is giving a presentation, it is not appropriated to interrupt her/him. The right thing to do is to write the mistakes and correct the student in the end of the presentation. Refuting the Monitor theory, correction contributes to the acquisition of language due to the fact of working as guidance in the choice of the better way to follow. It helps the student to have motivation to become a better speaker and to have conscious for not make the same mistake again.

Assessment

Penny Ur also brings other sources for assessment: teachers assessment, continuous assessment, self-assessment and portfolio. Among them, the self-assessment could be a good option since it gives more freedom for the learner and it can work as a tool for motivation. But, it is essential that the teachers assessment walks together with the process of learning.

Correcting mistakes in oral work

According to Penny Ur (2000), we give feedback on oral work through speech, on written work through writing (p. 246). On oral works, it is important to know the most appropriated situations to correct a learners mistake. Maybe, interrupting the speech of a person, the teacher is disturbing or discouraging the speaker instead of helping.

The interruption is accepted only when the student shows difficulties to continue the speech or when he/she asks for help. Although the oral corrections are made mainly by the teacher, the learner can also help in this process. The teacher can make the student think about the mistake; instead of saying directly where the mistake is, he/she could ask it for the speaker or for the other students. This technique can be effective on doing the learners reflect about the language.

Conclusions

The text of Penny Ur gives an interesting view about feedback and also about its components, assessment and correction. With the suggestions, techniques and questions found during the reading, the teacher can reflect and improve his/her practice. Both positive and negative feedback are important in the development of students knowledge, but it is essential to know how to give these feedbacks. To be polite is the main principle to be followed. The feedback has to work as a tool of cognitive learning and motivation. The teacher needs to use it to help the learners during the process and the students need to get the most important aspects to improve his/her knowledge.