High School English Language Learners' Perception of Teachers' Verbal Feedback: Grade 11 in Focus

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Date

1999-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the kind of feeling high school English language learners have on their teachers' verbal feedback, their perception of the extent of information on the correctness or incorrectness of their responses contained in teachers' verbal feedback, their perception of the extent of explanation given in teachers' verbal feedback on the correctness or incorrectness of responses, and their perception of the kind of direction given in teachers' verbal feedback for better or improved responses or output. To achieve the objectives, four grade eleven English language lessons of four sections at the Higher 12 Comprehensive Secondary School here in Addis Ababa were recorded and extracts of classroom exchanges or discourses were transcribed to be used as basis for the study. The feedback types found in the lessons were categorized and ana lysed in terms of frequencies and percentages. Accordingly, the twenty types of feedback employed in the recorded lessons were used to develop a questionnaire so that the learners of the four sections from which the lessons were recorded could give their perception on these types of teachers' verbal feedback used in the four lessons and presented in the questionnaire. One hundred and sixty eight learners from the four sections filled in the questionnaire while twenty others from these sections were interviewed. Then, the results were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Some of the results showed that most of the respondents have positive feeling about all the feedback types employed in the four lessons except in the case of the provision ( Some of the results showed that most of the respondents have positive feeling about all the feedback types employed in the four lessons except in the case of the provision of "Interrupt" and "Simple Reproof Denial" which are found to provoke the feeling of learners negatively. The learners have positive feeling when they are praised by their teachers for their adequate or correct responses, and contrary to this, most of the learners have negative feeling when their teachers comment on their wrong or inadequate performance. All the respondents positively or favourably perceive the extent of information on correctness and/or incorrectness of responses contained in all the teachers' verbal feedback and have similar perception on the extent of explanation contained in all the teacher's verbal feedback except in the case of the provision of "Interrupt" where the majority of the respondents have negative or unfavourable perception as regards the extent of explanation contained. Except in the case of the provision of 'Interrupt' and 'Simple Reproof Denial, most learners positively perceive the kind of direction given in the teachers' verbal feedback, and, in general, the respondents' understanding of their teachers' verbal feedback is favourable or positive. On the basis of these findings, conclusions were drawn and possible recommendations put forward to hopefully help improve the English language teaching/learning process.

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Perception of Teachers

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