What is it?

Languages students often receive an abundance of feedback during their language classes, especially when the focus is on grammar. This type of feedback generally involves the tutor asking the class to talk about their responses to a set of exercises in small groups. Depending on the length of the activity, the teacher will then ask the class to regroup and discuss possible suggestions to the work in question. Based on these suggestions, the tutor will then guide the students to the correct response, either by asking them to reformulate their response or telling them the correct answer. Although most of this feedback is delivered orally, some tutors will often write more challenging sentences or vocabulary on the board to aid students’ learning.

This type of feedback is often carried out before and after grammar exams. During these sessions, language tutors will often go through problematic areas in order to ensure that students focus their revision accordingly or learn from their own as well as others’ weaknesses.

Before and after grammar exams, language tutors will often go through problematic areas with students in order to ensure that students focus their revision accordingly. These problematic areas are often based on topics that previous students have struggled with in the past.

How can students make the most of it?

Many students generally do not categorise this type of exercise as feedback as it is often incorporated into the lesson and not termed as such. However, it can be extremely useful for students especially when thinking about what aspects of the languages’ grammar they need to focus on. Students should therefore be encouraged to actively participate in lessons by contributing their own responses during in-class discussions in order to receive feedback on their own work. Moreover, students should listen attentively to the responses proposed by both their classmates and tutor to effectively participate in the lesson. It is also important that students write down the correct answer so that they can refer to these notes as a revision aid in future.