Using Feedback and Self-evaluation in Class to Lower Students’ Anxiety

1. Using Feedback and Self-evaluation in Class to Lower Students’ Anxiety Ji Xiaoting Foreign Languages College Tianjin Normal University

2. Introduction1.Problems • Students pay too much attention to the teacher’s evaluation and feedback, they are totally dependent on the teacher for feedback. • Students don’t care much about their classmates’ performance in class

3. Students feel nervous in class , especially when they present their own work or express their ideas • Students are not confident enough in class • Students seldom evaluate their own performance after finishing it.

4. Research Questions to be addressed • Can the feedback given by the teacher and peers or learners’ self-evaluation help reduce the learners’ anxiety?

5. Literature Review • Definition of Feedback “…in teaching, feedback refers to the comments or information learners receive on the success of a learning task, either from the teacher or from other learners” (Richards, John and Heidi,2000: 172)

6. ‘cognitive’ and ‘affective’ feedback “The former relates to actual understanding while the latter concerns the motivational support that interlocutors provide each other with during an interaction”( Vigil and Oller cited in Ellis 1994:584).

7. positive and negative feedback Positive feedback is a boost to their feelings of competence and self-determination( Brown2001：39)

8. Definition of self-evaluation “Checking one’s own performance on a language learning task after it has been completed or checking one’s own success in using a language” (Richards, John and Heidi,2000: 409)

9. Definition of Language Anxiety Language anxiety is “fear or apprehension occurring when a learner is expected to perform in the second or foreign language” ( Garder and MacIntyre cited in Arnold 2000).

10. Social-affective strategies that can be used in acquisition environments might include cooperation with peers or other English speakers to obtain feedback or pool information (Chamot 1986:82)

11. Informal impressions from former training • Informal impressions from training were that the effectiveness of strategy training could have been further enhanced with more structured directions to peers on providing feedback to the student making an oral presentation. The tendency of students to avoid offending another student by being critical, which initially was a problem, was averted by focusing the peer comments on formal portions of the oral presentation and by making the speaker responsible for ensuring that feedback was obtained (O’Malley 1987:143) .

12. Beliefs about evaluation die hard, mainly, it appears because of a confusion between social norms of evaluation and individual norms ( the former requiring an outside judge to handle, the latter implying no such requirement) and between optional and compulsory external evaluation. As a result, learners believe that only one form of evaluation is valid, i.e. external evaluation carried out by an “objective” judge. (Holec:157) )

13. Research Questions to be addressed • What can the feedback given by the teacher and peers or learners’ self-evaluation do? Can they help reduce the learners’ anxiety?

14. Experiment • Subjects The subjects involved in the study are 25, freshmen in the author’s university. They are all girls, English majors • Instruments interview, questionnaire, observation and students’ self-report.

15. Procedures In class, the author trained the students to give feedback to their classmates and do self-evaluation of their own performance in the process

16. At the beginning of the experiment, when students finished their group performance, they got comments and feedback from their classmates. (for this one, if students are evaluated separately, they may feel very nervous, but when the group is assessed and evaluated together, they may feel better,) • Later, when they did pairwork, (ie debate for two pairs) after they finished their debate, the students will self-evaluate their performance first, and then the classmates gave their feedback to them.

17. when students had discussion in their group, the teacher asked the organizer of the group to lead the discussion and give comments and feedback to the previous speaker • After students gave their feedback, the teacher took the turn to give feedback to the students for their performance. The teacher emphasized on the positive side and gave both cognitive and affective feedback,

18. Results of the Experiment • Results of the Interview results of the interview.doc Results of the questionnaire about 80% students felt that after practicing giving peer feedback, they can express their ideas easily. And when evaluated by others, they began to be feel calm. And about one-third like to be evaluated by their peers. And they found it helpful.

19. Self-evaluation When students begin doing that, they were not accustomed to it at first. After the training ,more than 60% students like

20. Discussion • Anxiety Anxiety arising out of poor performance, communication apprehension, tests, and fear of negative evaluation is likely to have a debilitating effect on L2 learning, (Ellis1994: 522).

21. Among the sources of language anxiety, fear of negative evaluation is one of them. So it can be seen that learners pay a lot of attention to the teacher’s and peers’ evaluation. If they don’t know how others view their performance or other’s feedback, they will worry more, so, if they can have the opportunity in class to know other’s opinion and evaluation, they may realize that their peers and teacher are really cooperative and supportive, so their language anxiety may be reduced, thus, volunteering to perform more in class.

22. They’re worried about others’ response or reaction towards their performance, so if they know their peers’ feedback and comments, if the comments are uttered in public, they will know it and they will feel ease instead of guessing and worrying about it all the time.

23. In Bailey’s (1983, cited in Ellis 1994) diary studies, it was also indicated that learners’ competitive nature can act as a source of anxiety. So, in class, if teachers try to design more cooperative activities instead of competitive ones, the students may get the chances to cooperate with each other in order to achieve the goal together, and when they try to give comments on each other’s performance, they may create a supportive environment.

24. And if learners can utter their own self –evaluation of their own performance, they may not worry more about it after class, since they have already shared their thoughts, happiness and worries together with their classmates or peers. So this self-evaluation which is considered as one part of the metacognitive strategy, can be used to lower anxiety, and can be used for affective strategy training.

25. Maslow’s need theory Maslow classified the first four needs ( physiological, safety, love, and esteem) as deficiency needs and argued that all humans experience these needs. People’s motivation to learn subject matter in the day’s lesson can be dramatically limited. “Needs for love and Belongingness (need for affection, feeling wanted, based on family and peers) (Henson: 382)

26. If students don’t feel secure in the classroom, they will not be motivated to pursue a higher-level need for knowledge. Students are more eager to learn in an environment that is comfortable and secure, both physiologically and psychologically. Also, be aware that students’ motivation to meet lower-level needs, such as belonging to their peer group, may be a prerequisite to their meeting those higher-level needs that their teachers set for them.(Henson:389)

27. Positive emotions and attitudes can make language learning more effective and enjoyable. ( Oxford:1990: 140)Self-encouragement via positive statements can change one’s feelings and attitudes and can indirectly reduce performance anxiety, ( Oxford, 1990: 142)Inhibited learners are paralyzed by actual or anticipated criticism from other people and from themselves, so they try to ensure that there are as few “chinks in their armor” as possible.

28. Self-encouragement and anxiety-reducing strategies can help learners lower their inhibition and take appropriate risks.( Oxford 1990: 142). When students are trained to evaluate their own performance in class, they begin to view themselves more objectively, and they really want to share what they thought of themselves with their peers, and meanwhile, the peers’ positive feedback on their performance added to their self-encouragement, thus more effective in reducing their anxiety.

29. Implications • When teachers give feedback, they should try to praise students, accept , discuss, refer to, or communicate understanding of past, present, or future feelings of students, in a non-threatening way. ( Brown, 2001: 163), they should tell students why what they have said or done is valued in a specific way instead of general “ok, very good”, when they finish a debate or discussion, they should point out which points are really valuable and to the point, so students will benefit a lot in this way

30. Peer feedback give students more opportunities to offer their feedback • Self-evaluation try to be more objective

31. References: • Arnold,J. 2000. Affect in Language Learning北京:外语教学与研究出版社 • Brown H, D. Teaching by Principles: A Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社 • Ellis, R. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition 上海：上海外语教育出版社 • Nunan, D.1998. Language Teaching Methodology: a textbook for teachers. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall International • Nunan, D. 1988.The Learner-centered Curriculum: A study in Second Language Teaching上海：上海外语教育出版社 • Richards C.J., John Platt and Heidi Platt 2000. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社