An investigation of the nature of feedback given to pre‐service English teachers during their practice teaching experience

Abstract

This study seeks to understand how university supervisors and cooperating teachers approach giving feedback during the practice teaching experience to preservice English language teachers and the nature of feedback they give through post-lesson conferences and written evaluations. The data for the study come from field notes of classroom observations, post-lesson conferences between student teachers and university supervisors, and student teachers and cooperating teachers, written evaluation sheets and documents. The findings indicated that the university supervisors encouraged reflection during their post-lesson conferences and helped the student teachers to evaluate their lessons more critically. The cooperating teachers' feedback was found to be more situation specific by focusing on certain instances about the classroom. This study also discussed different modes of giving feedback (oral feedback through post-lesson conferences and written feedback through evaluation sheets) to teacher candidates during practice teaching. Finally, this study makes suggestions for the supervisors and cooperating teachers about providing constructive feedback for the student teachers during practice teaching.

Understanding feedback: A learning theory perspective

“…From social cultural theory, feedback can help to identify and correct errors and can explain misunderstandings (Orsmond & Merry, 2011). Articles from behaviourism (e.g., Auld et al, 2010;Goodman et al, 2008), cognitivism (e.g., Shute, 2008), social cultural theory (Ackan & Tatar, 2010;Brinko, 1993;Yeh & Lo, 2009) and social constructivism (Colasante, 2011;Gielen et al, 2010) indicated that feedback should be specific and clear. Others used different terms: feedback should be concrete (Brinko, 1993) consistent (Brinko, 1993;Ovando, 2005; from social cultural theory), and descriptive (Fund, 2010;Kretlow & Bartholomew, 2010; from social constructivism).…”

“…From a behaviouristic (Ochieng' Ong'ondo and Borg, 2011) and social cultural theory (Ackan & Tatar, 2010) perspective, feedback can be directive. However, Ackan and Tatar (2010) suggested that directive feedback is not appropriate and they argued that it should elicit student teachers' reflection.…”

“…However, Ackan and Tatar (2010) suggested that directive feedback is not appropriate and they argued that it should elicit student teachers' reflection. Others made a distinction between explicit or implicit feedback (Baker & Bricker, 2010; from cognitivism) and between polite or direct feedback (McLaren et al, 2011; from social cultural theory).…”

“…Furthermore, these learning theories both suggested that feedback should be accurate and irrefutable (Brinko, 1993;Gielen et al, 2010) and feedback should be relevant and meaningful (Ackan & Tatar, 2010;Brinko, 1993;Martens et al, 2010;Ovando, 2005).…”

“…Articles based on cognitivism and social cultural theory suggested to take the receivers into account, for instance, by being encouraging (Ackan & Tatar, 2010;Hyland, 2001;Kluger & DeNisi, 1996) and by being attentive to the receivers' locus of control and self-esteem (Brinko, 1993). In addition, feedback should be supportive, according to authors from a cognitivistic (Hyland, 2001) and social constructivism (Li et al, 2010) point of view.…”