Priming our English students to seek and apply ongoing feedback

How did top-ranking English Advanced student Jordan Ho shed light on why Year 12 English teachers might not receive as many practice essays as they would hope?

It would be a relatively common teacher assumption that a student’s failure to submit practice essays prior to School Assessed Coursework, trial exams and end of year exams as being due to general apathy or channeling their time into studying subjects other than English. There can of course be another really significant reason for a student’s reticence towards submitting practice English writing and that is the student’s fear of receiving negative feedback.?

This anxious attitude towards feedback was raised during an interview for Jeddle with Jonathon Boyle and 2023 HSC graduate Jordan Ho. Ho ranked first in NSW for English Advanced despite never speaking English at home. When asked about his thoughts and tips for achieving Year 12 English success, Ho included,

“don’t be afraid of receiving feedback.”?

This is an illuminating perspective for teachers to hear, as Ho was not encouraging his peers to do all the usual things: get organised, get busy, write more and just get stuck into it. Instead, he inadvertently suggested to English teachers just how important it is for them to take a considered and thoughtful approach to the feedback they provide, so that students feel enthusiastic about coming back for more.

Methods of providing feedback on English essays are many and varied. Some teachers like to annotate using a code, while others make no annotations, but write a lengthy comment. Some teachers might provide two comments regarding the strengths of the writing and two comments regarding areas for improvement. Some schools also ask students to write two areas they would like feedback on, at the top? of their practice essay if they wish to receive any feedback at all.

Given Ho’s insights into the relationships students have with feedback on their English writing, irrespective of the method of feedback adopted by teachers, it seems imperative that teachers take into account the individual student when providing their feedback.? A simple strategy is for the individual teacher to stand back, at the end of reading student work and ask themselves, “what can I write that will lead to progress with this skill, but also invite this student to submit more of their writing?” Another class activity that addresses misconceptions caused by the giving and receiving of feedback, is to list all the common thoughts students have when they receive specific annotations or feedback sentences. This discussion can create a shared understanding of what builds or erodes enthusiasm to seek further feedback.

Spending time at the beginning of the school year understanding what type of feedback works for individual students and providing them with simple strategies for interpreting it with a critical, open mindset would not be time wasted. Students who achieve high English study scores often make clear and methodical progress with each practice essay they submit. This is not because they are working harder and writing more.? It is because they understand the feedback provided to them, know how to apply it and can see its positive impact on their work through improved fluency and depth of ideas.

Getting to this point of effective engagement with feedback is the result of students methodically building a consistently confident attitude to their teacher’s feedback. This trusting attitude starts and is sustained from careful feedback choices and conversations laid down at the beginning of the year.?

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