Text 5

What should feedback be mainly on: language? content? organization?

The problem

When a student submits a piece of original writing, the most important thing about it is arguably its content: whether the ideas or events that are written about are significant and interesting. Then there is the organization and presentation: whether the ideas are arranged in a way that is easy to follow and pleasing to read. Finally, there is the question of language forms: whether the grammar, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation is of an acceptable standard of accuracy.

Many teachers are aware that content and organization are important, but find themselves relating mainly to language forms in their feedback, conveying the implicit message that these are what matters. This is for various reasons:

1. Mistakes in spelling or grammar catch the eye and seem to demand to be corrected; they are very difficult to ignore.

2. Students also want their language mistakes to be corrected. (Ask them! And see Leki,1991.)

3. Language mistakes are far more easily and quickly diagnosed and corrected than ones of content and organization.

Advice

We should, I think, correct language mistakes; our problem is how to do so without conveying the message that these are the only, or main, basis for evaluation of a piece of writing. One possibility is to note corrections within the body of the text, and devote comments at the end to matters of content and organization, followed by the evaluation. Alternatively, we may correct mistakes and make suggestions as to content and organization, but not evaluate; and give the evaluation only on the basis of the rewritten, polished version.

UR, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching - Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2009, p.170.