Job Discussion Forums

[Laurence]

I'm interested in what other teachers do in the feedback stage of your lessons. By feedback, I mean the part of a class where students share their answers to exercises (discussions, sets of questions, etc).

This week we have been doing teacher training at my school. The feedback is oral and we just circulate, taking a small ammount of time each to summarise our main points. We're all quite motivated and interested in each others' reflections so it's pretty straightforward.

With my students, who are primary school children, circulated and balanced discussions rarely flow so nicely.
When we do feedback, we often check answers against questions written up or projected on the board - I do a lot of picture/word/definition/phonic-element matching activities, and I like projecting the same worksheets that I use in class, then getting students to complete the questions one by one over the top of the projection.


I want to get into more creative feedback techniques.


Anyone have any bright ideas to share?
How do you share the students' responses amongst the class?

[happigur1]

doesn't this post belong on another forum- as it doesn't really have much to do with "job-related"... I don't know.

Anyways, a technique I can think of (off the top of my head) is: think-pair-share. Have students "think" about the question, or do the worksheet on their own first. Next, "pair" so have students talk to another person about their answer and debate the right answer. Finally, "share" with the class the answer.

For my college kids, i usually like to mix the groups up (during group work). One method I did was using playing cards. So if they were in groups of four, all the "K" (king) go together, etc. Then, I will give them each a huge butcher paper and marker and have them complete an assignment on this. Afterwards, they went to the front of the class to share, with each person speaking. This way they have group members to back them up. Or, when time is limited, I have them pick a "leader" and one person to hold up the butcher paper so that the leader can read.

Other ways to mix up the groups, especially with young children: give them colored papers, give them pictures of animals, etc. I use to give them tasks, such as "match up the animal to the sound, etc." So the person with the card of the "duck" will be in the group with "quack" "yellow", etc. But this is a bit more tedious since my class periods are short.

I try to mix students in different groups because (1) they can make a new friend! (2) they are more likely to speak English to someone they don't know. If they are in the group with their friends, they are more likely to switch to Chinese...

One other thing you might want to do is take pictures. In the end of the year, make a slide show for the students. My students really enjoy and appreciate this- both young and college age!)

PM me if you want other suggestions. I will have to go into my files to look those up though!

[kev7161]

I strive to get a lot of feedback from my primary-aged students by doing a lot of student-centered activities. I also do the "share your answers with another student" kind of thing where they do the worksheet first on their own, then find someone else who has finished and see if they agree. If not, talk about why they don't agree. I'm amazed at how successful this activity is in most cases.

None of my students don't get a chance to NOT answer. I have their names on little ice cream sticks that I pull out of a cup. Instead of raising their hand, they get called upon. If they don't know the answer, that's fine. I ask them to call on another student who can help them. That's when several hands go up and a student can make their choice. I have kids come to the front of the class and present part of the lesson, such as explaining how to do a math problem or do listen-and-say with a list of words (they say the words, the class repeats after them). I've "trained" my students well enough now that if I say if there are any questions that I can clarify, they should ask . . . and they do! Students work in pairs and small groups often. They have reading groups as well where low-level are mixed with high-level. I do the same with play acting and other sorts of Spoken-English-based activities.

One of my favorite warm-up or cool-down activities is to take the first or last 5 minutes of class and have discussion time - - just simple things like "what did you do last night or last weekend?" or "what did you have for supper last night?" or "what movie have you gone to see lately?" Anything like that. It doesn't matter what the topic is because many like to share their answers. Once one starts, then many want to join in. Sadly, we rarely have enough time for everyone to share so I do it often throughout the week.