Page 20 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

Chapter 2. Pilot study Abstract
Research has shown that feedback significantly improves language skills (Lyster & Saito, 2010). However, modern foreign language teachers find it difficult to give adaptive feedback on speaking skills in standard classes of 30 students (Corda, Koenraad & Visser, 2012). In this study we first discuss how modern foreign language teachers regularly give feedback on speaking skills in relation to adaptive feedback. We then present a teaching approach based on self- evaluation by the student to facilitate teacher’s adaptive feedback in everyday teaching illustrated with the aid of two practical case studies. It was explored whether self-evaluation by students can help teachers to gain insight in individual student’s needs regarding speaking skills and to adapt their intended feedback to meet these needs. The self-evaluation was tested on a small scale by three French teachers who taught the final 3 years at three different secondary schools in two year 5 pre-university classes and one year 4 pre-university class. In each class 5 or 6 students were chosen at random (n=17). We analysed the self-evaluation forms completed by the 17 selected students and described how the students evaluated their own work. In open structured interviews held with the three teachers it was investigated whether their intended feedback and evaluation had shifted by seeing the self-evaluations. Finally, the teachers were asked to evaluate the potential practicality of the evaluation procedure itself. The results of this pilot study showed that the self-evaluation procedure seemed to encourage students to make concrete plans; teachers reported increased insight into their learners’ learning process regarding speaking skills and showed shifts in their intended feedback after seeing the self-evaluations in order to attune their feedback. Furthermore, teachers evaluated the self-evaluation as a possible practical application in teaching practice.
2.1 Introduction
Speaking skills are an important component of the examinations programme for modern foreign languages in both higher general secondary education and pre-university education in the Netherlands (e.g. College voor Toetsen en Examens, 2020). Students have to achieve the attainment levels that are linked to the levels defined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR, Council of Europe, 2001). The CEFR describes what the foreign language speaker can do (the can-do statements) and how well he can do it, but not
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