Provide incidental corrective feedback through clarification requests, recasts, and a P.S.¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The author recommends gentle, incidental corrective feedback that preserves the journal's communicative nature: clarification and confirmation requests such as "What do you mean by….?", recasting errors in the teacher's response (responding to "I go the mall last weekend" with "You went to the mall last weekend. What did you buy?"), and writing corrections as a "P.S." to the student, which underscores the primary importance of meaningful dialogue and the secondary importance of correct grammar usage.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• The journal must already be established as a venue for meaningful communication before corrections are added

Constraints¶

• Corrections are less likely to hinder communication if grammar correction is withheld during the initial get-to-know-you phase

Target Learners¶

• adult ESL students

Target Learning Goals¶

• noticing and correcting language errors while maintaining authentic written dialogue

Related Strategies¶

• Design class-wide grammar lessons from common journal errors, and let students catalogue their own errors
• Put students in charge of soliciting grammatical feedback through pre-taught correction questions
• Use indirect correction and self-correction to avoid face-threatening error treatment
• Pre-teach target language forms deductively before journal entries incorporate them
• Use sample journal entries to inductively highlight target language elements

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Kimberly Miller Linnell. (2010). Using Dialogue Journals to Focus on Form. Journal of Adult Education Information Series, No. 1, Vol. 39. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ891083