Whole Class Feedback in the language classroom

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This is a quick and short post explaining how I go about 'Le Feedback' in my classroom. 

My year 9 have just completed a unit assessment at the end of which there is a 90 word essay to write.  As I go through the essays I do use some codes such as:

agr = agreement

VE = verb

? = sense

^ = missing word.

T = tense

There's nothing new here for language teachers - I think we all use something similar.  Certainly, my students know this code because they have it listed in the Class Notebooks or in their exercise books.  When marking these essays I tend to focus on a couple of grammatical areas and at this stage, given the work we have been doing, I look at adjectival agreement and verbs and verb endings.   

Then I focus on whole class, typical, errors and create a grid as follows: 


The errors have been drawn from the students' work and I have included errors that I believe they should have mastered by now .  This grid is then placed in each student's Class Notebook and as a class we go through each row.  There are steps that I would like my students to take.

  1. Did I make this error?  If yes, then highlight the error.  
  2. With their partner discuss what went wrong and more importantly how to get it right.
  3. Prepare to provide an explanation for the class (I will cold call on this, so all students will be prepared)
  4. Correct their error, if they made one, in the final column.  OR write a correct example of the error.
  5. Consider if there are elements they missed in their essay - such as the final row - time phrases - and add to their work.
In this way, I hope to cut down on the marking time but provide useful, detailed, meaningful feedback and a way in which students can easily improve their essays without me correcting every mistake in an essay.  And so, students will be actively focusing on the work they have done and will engage properly in the process.  

I will finally provide a GCSE mark grid, highlighting the positives of their work and talk through my rationale to the whole class about how I decide upon the number mark they receive.

So that is the process that I follow.  I would be interested to hear how others go about it.  Let me know in the comments below. 



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