Is feedback necessary? Generally, yes
When learning students may not know what they have absorbed and it is important that we as teacher give them the feedback they need.
Most of the time, our mentors give students feedback through homework and they were usually written on their homework cards indicating what they should be improving on. Because this is Japan, privacy is very much valued, our mentors would only give feedback through homework or verbally but it was carried out individually if it was an on-the-spot occasion.
Unfortunately, feedback was not much used as it was an individual matter, unless and only if the situation was an emergency than I did not encounter feedback in other forms.
As far as I could notice, Ms. Bruce gave her students immediate feedback. The students were doing debates as their final project and of course, it was graded. Once all the students completed their debates. Ms. Bruce had the marks and comments summarized and call out the students in groups. She would first show them their marks before telling them what they lack at or which part of their speech were incorrect and needed to be improved; the marks and feedback would be revealed between the group mates. Once they were satisfied with the marks and comments, she would call up the next group of students.
As for other mentors, correcting the students as a way of improving the students could be seen throughout their classes. We would also go around helping out the students with their spelling. However, it must be done in moderation. According to Mr. Long, the students can be easily discouraged knowing that learning a foreign language can already be challenging for them, it is best to instill their interest and confidence (as well as their self-esteem in learning and accepting from mistakes) before being incredibly strict with them, not only that, Japanese schools such as Nichidai has a system that they are not supposed to fail in tests, thus most of the time I did not encounter much feedback that was considerably strict.
I noticed that only students with higher level English were able to accept feedback, such as the second year SGL class for example. Mr. Aron would immediately correct them if their pronunciation was wrong. But most of the time, the students absorb the information and feedback well as they understood that it was for their benefit to improve. Most of the time, I could see that the students in SGL class immediately notice the mistakes they made such as their pronunciation, and they would immediately change to the correct pronunciation when they repeat their sentence. So it was fresh to know that students, which I have correlated their exposure to foreign culture or their originally high confidence (or higher English level) to the ability to accept criticism or feedback. I see this as a sign that the students in Nichidai should not only be exposed more to foreign cultures but also their confidence level should be thoroughly worked on.
Mr. Long did not spoon feed the correction or the right answers to their students. He believes that they should discover on their own with the help of a teacher and that could another reason why the majority of our mentors did not immediately corrected them - they advised that we probe the students so that they can link. In other words, it was an indirect way of helping the students and was less "offensive" to the students who do not know you well. I personally feel that students did not accept feedback well as they did not receive praises from their parents and they would probably view receiving feedback as us teachers having problems with them or as a form of scolding. Being given feedback on the spot may be seen as being picked on as the faulty one for not being like the others. Although Ms. Jaimee did immediately correct them, she was to make sure that she means well to help and improve her students rather than toppling their confidence level.
Most of the time, our mentors give students feedback through homework and they were usually written on their homework cards indicating what they should be improving on. Because this is Japan, privacy is very much valued, our mentors would only give feedback through homework or verbally but it was carried out individually if it was an on-the-spot occasion.
Unfortunately, feedback was not much used as it was an individual matter, unless and only if the situation was an emergency than I did not encounter feedback in other forms.
As far as I could notice, Ms. Bruce gave her students immediate feedback. The students were doing debates as their final project and of course, it was graded. Once all the students completed their debates. Ms. Bruce had the marks and comments summarized and call out the students in groups. She would first show them their marks before telling them what they lack at or which part of their speech were incorrect and needed to be improved; the marks and feedback would be revealed between the group mates. Once they were satisfied with the marks and comments, she would call up the next group of students.
As for other mentors, correcting the students as a way of improving the students could be seen throughout their classes. We would also go around helping out the students with their spelling. However, it must be done in moderation. According to Mr. Long, the students can be easily discouraged knowing that learning a foreign language can already be challenging for them, it is best to instill their interest and confidence (as well as their self-esteem in learning and accepting from mistakes) before being incredibly strict with them, not only that, Japanese schools such as Nichidai has a system that they are not supposed to fail in tests, thus most of the time I did not encounter much feedback that was considerably strict.
I noticed that only students with higher level English were able to accept feedback, such as the second year SGL class for example. Mr. Aron would immediately correct them if their pronunciation was wrong. But most of the time, the students absorb the information and feedback well as they understood that it was for their benefit to improve. Most of the time, I could see that the students in SGL class immediately notice the mistakes they made such as their pronunciation, and they would immediately change to the correct pronunciation when they repeat their sentence. So it was fresh to know that students, which I have correlated their exposure to foreign culture or their originally high confidence (or higher English level) to the ability to accept criticism or feedback. I see this as a sign that the students in Nichidai should not only be exposed more to foreign cultures but also their confidence level should be thoroughly worked on.
Mr. Long did not spoon feed the correction or the right answers to their students. He believes that they should discover on their own with the help of a teacher and that could another reason why the majority of our mentors did not immediately corrected them - they advised that we probe the students so that they can link. In other words, it was an indirect way of helping the students and was less "offensive" to the students who do not know you well. I personally feel that students did not accept feedback well as they did not receive praises from their parents and they would probably view receiving feedback as us teachers having problems with them or as a form of scolding. Being given feedback on the spot may be seen as being picked on as the faulty one for not being like the others. Although Ms. Jaimee did immediately correct them, she was to make sure that she means well to help and improve her students rather than toppling their confidence level.
Personal thoughts
I agree that feedback should be thoroughly given to the students (and teachers as well) as it is meant for improving the students so that they can get better. The difference between Malaysia and Japan is was Malaysian students have accumulated their "thick skin", or like the students from Nexus and TisKL, they were generally capable of accepting feedback- perhaps to them and to us, based on the tone of the teacher`s words, we can immediately tell that these are meant to improve our skills and at the same time, it shows that the teachers care about our progress rather than leaving us in the dark. Whereas in Japan, remember the shoganai mentality, the students would be keeping the feedback as some form of negative comment from others and they did not accept this internally. They may be able to deal with it but, it does not mean that they wholeheartedly accept the situation as it is.
From this, I believe that gain a middle ground in distributing feedback to the students such as depending on the type of students - their personalities and attitudes could greatly benefit them.
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