Speaking the same language: Developing a language-aware feedback culture

Abstract

Research suggests that feedback as part of assessment is often not delivered effectively. A key aspect of effective feedback delivery is that students need to understand feedback and also feel motivated to act on it. This article explores how educational developers can incorporate a language-aware approach to feedback when working with staff involved in learning and teaching in order to enable staff to make appropriate linguistic choices when providing feedback so that it is more comprehensible and motivational for students. It describes a piece of action research which explored and evaluated two teaching activities used on a PG Cert HE with staff at a post-1992 university, designed to promote critical awareness of the language used when giving feedback. We report on the staff evaluation of the activities devised and piloted, and consider how this project could be taken forward in future.

Keywords:

• Academic or staff development
• action research
• communication
• diversity
• feedback