Language Assessment - Theory with Practice
172
(5a)
Teacher (T): Beren, can you describe your hair?
Beren: I short black hair.
T: Wonderful, you HAVE short black hair. Remember, we use HAVE
when we talk about the features we ‘possess’.
In his/her feedback, the teacher repeats the rule for using HAVE after
s/he notices that it is missing in Beren’s
sentence
Learning point: Formative assessment feedback can be very helpful during
oral work.
However, the T should select the most appropriate way to react
after s/he notices the problem. The decision should be given after
considering the stage of the lesson, the type of the
activity and the mistake,
and the particular student who made a mistake (Harmer, 2007).
In Example (5a), the T, after considering the rules of sentence formation in
the mother tongue of the student (i.e., Turkish is a language in which
verbless sentences are possible) and the importance of such a
mistake in
English, decides to repeat the rule once again.
(5b)
T: Jale, look at this picture and describe Mary.
Jale: Mary are tall, short, slim.
T: Oh, interesting, what do ‘tall’ and ‘short’ mean? Let me show you.
[Note: The T notices that there are both grammar
and vocabulary
usage problems in this answer and chooses to focus on the more
problematic one].
Ali and Suzan come to the board, please.
[Note: Ali and Suzan are the tallest and shortest students in this class].
Ok, look, Ali IS tall, and Suzan IS short.
[Note: The T emphasises the verb IS in the sentences but does not
explain the rule one more time].
So, a person cannot be both TALL and SHORT. Ok? Now, look at Mary
again and describe her.
[Note: This time the T enunciates the adjectives TALL and SHORT
to focus Jale’s attention on their meaning].
Jale: Mary are tall and slim.
T: Great
[Note: Noticing that the grammar problem continues even after the
echoing feedback, the T takes a note and decides to spend some class
time revising this topic in class.]
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