Evaluate student contributions through praising, encouraging, quoting students' words, and gestures¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The article presents four evaluation techniques for communicative reading classrooms. Praising recognises students' capabilities, with poor students needing it more to rebuild self-confidence, though older students come to value peer recognition over verbal praise. Encouragement should replace sarcastic comments, treating errors as natural and inevitable. Quoting students' own words when presenting answers is described as achieving "better results ... than using oral praise". Gestures and expressions serve cognitive, emotional and organisational functions in classroom interaction and should not be ignored.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Gestures must be unambiguous and easy to understand
• A positive teacher attitude toward students' mistakes

Constraints¶

• Praise is unnecessary for specially simple questions; students of different ages have different needs for recognition

Target Learners¶

• English majors in English Reading classes, with particular attention to poor students' self-confidence

Target Learning Goals¶

• Self-confidence and higher aspirations for achievement
• Self-monitoring of progress
• Willingness to keep participating

Related Strategies¶

• Use indirect correction and self-correction to avoid face-threatening error treatment
• PQP (Praise-Question-Polish)
• Apply six questioning techniques in whole-class discussion: simplify, moderate, provoke thought, challenge, follow up, and relate to students

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Yonghong Gao. (2008). Implementing Communicative Activities in English Reading Class. English Language Teaching, Vol. 1, No. 1. https://journals.cces.net/index.php/elt