Anna's Teaching Tales #7

How Anna Turned Feedback from a Fiasco into an Art Form

Anna was on a roll. Her students were talking and for once everyone seemed engaged.
She moved from pair to pair, listening in, nodding, smiling...

…and then she pounced.

‘Past simple, not present perfect.’
‘Don’t forget the s… third person!’
‘Erm… that’s ‘he does,’ not ‘he do.’’

By the end of the task, she’d corrected every single error she’d heard. Out loud. In front of the whole class.
She thought she was being helpful.

But when she set up the next speaking activity… silence.

The students looked at her. Then at their papers. Then back at her.

And not one of them said a word.

Anna messaged me later, a bit baffled:
‘Jo, I don’t get it. I thought the speaking task had gone really well, but then in the second half, they just shut down.’

I asked her, ‘What kind of feedback did you give?’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I corrected everything.’

Ah. There it was.

👋 Quick hello if you’re new here! I’m Jo Gakonga. I’ve been teaching English for more than 35 years and training teachers on CELTA and MA TESOL courses for most of that time. I also run ELT-Training.com, where I make friendly, practical, video-based resources to help English teachers feel confident and supported. If that’s what you’re after, like and subscribe - I’ve got a new video every week.

Right… back to Anna.

The first thing she learned? Timing is everything.
When students are speaking, the focus should be fluency. That means letting them get the ideas out, even if the grammar isn’t perfect.

✅ Jo’s Tip: Don’t interrupt fluency to fix form. Let them talk. You can fix later.

Next, she changed how she corrected.
Instead of jumping in with ‘Wrong!’ or giving them the answer, she tried a different approach.

She paused, smiled and said:
‘Hmm… can you say that another way?’
Or
‘Have a think. What’s the past of ‘go’?’

She was still correcting but it felt like support, not judgement.

✅ Jo’s Tip: Make correction a conversation, not a slap on the wrist.

Then, she started using delayed feedback.
While students were speaking, she made quiet notes. A few great things they’d said. A few things to improve.
At the end of the activity, she popped them up on the board:

✅ ‘He explained it really clearly.’
❌ ‘She go to the party.’ → ‘She went to the party.’

They corrected the sentences together. It became a game.
No one felt embarrassed. And everyone learned something.

✅ Jo’s Tip: Use the board for post-task feedback. Focus on both good language and things to work on.

Finally—she stopped trying to correct everything.
Instead of jumping on every mistake, she focused on one or two things they’d been working on that week: maybe verb tenses or articles or pronunciation of regular pasts.

And guess what? The students started speaking again. More fluently. More confidently. Because they weren’t terrified of being interrupted every time they opened their mouths.

✅ Jo’s Tip: Choose your battles. Focus feedback on one or two things at a time.

Anna sent me a message a few days later:
‘Jo! I gave feedback at the end instead of during the task and it worked! They kept talking and I still got to correct the mistakes!’
Win-win, right?

So, if you want to give great feedback without crushing your learners’ confidence, remember:

• Don’t interrupt fluency, make notes instead
• Use gentle prompts, not harsh corrections
• Give feedback afterwards. Highlight both what went well and what needs work
• And don’t try to fix everything at once

And if this sounds like the kind of practical help you could use more of, head over to my website. I’ll see you there.