Hello All,
In my last post on schooling choices for the Bilingual child, I got a lot of questions about home language use that I wanted to address in this post.
For context, my child is a simultaneous bilingual, who is much stronger in Spanish than he is in English. He is an English Language learner; however, he will likely grow quickly in English as a young child. We create a “Spanish Only” relationship with him between my Colombian born husband and myself, however, we are learning to accept that our child also has monolingual relationships in English. He just turned 5 years old, and we are astounded at his ability to rhyme, create advinanzas and his adaptation and use of all different types of domain specific language in Spanish, and as we are overhearing, in English too. We have read to him only in Spanish since he was born, and can see, like my friend Heather Brook Robinson-Devine (owner of Books Del Sur) shares, reading and sharing books has been a key component of his language modeling and acquisition. Having said that, it is probably my absolute insistence upon a Spanish only relationship with my child that has made the most difference in terms of his Spanish development.

As a parent and an educator, I am very aware of effective feedback to kids in the learning process. In my own son’s learning I have gone through and continue to go through this learning process with our son. There are days when my son says…Mami, eres la mas mejor…and my first inclination is to repeat, Mami eres LA mejor. This is a common way that parent “teach” children language. I called it nagging when I grew up…but anyways, catch myself doing this.

When correcting your children to elicit the response in the target language, you must follow one rule. Your correction must lead your child to produce the language in the way you expect. Simply hearing your correct use will not support your child to make linguistic choices in the future.

Teachers and parents have a responsibility to help children grow in the ways they construct and communicate meaning. One of the ways we do this is in helping children to develop different uses of language for different purposes, and through this process we help students to develop registers of language for academic, social and specific purposes. As adults, we are often in the position to influence language use and language choice of our children, and ultimately we give lots of direct and indirect feedback to children about their language use and we should continue to…with this knowledge in mind.

There are many ways to provide feedback to students on their language; however, not all of the ways we provide feedback are as effective as some of the ways.

First and foremost, the purpose of language is to communicate meaning, and this should be at the forefront of any interaction even when engaging in error correction of oral language.

Not surprisingly, we instinctively correct students and each other most frequently by recasting. Recast is when a teacher or adult repeats a child’s use of language replacing the error for the standard use. A recast sounds like this:

child: I wanna drinkme some water.
Parent: I want to drink some water.
child: (says nothing)

Recasting has been found to be the most frequent type of error correction, and also the most widely accepted ineffective type of feedback on oral language errors.

Error Correction is another common type of feedback for oral language error correction. The adult in this case tells the child how to correct. Error correction sounds like this:
child: I wanna drinkme some water.
Parent: You should say want to drink instead of wanna drinkme
child: (says nothing)

Repetition of the error is another type of feedback that we often offer students. Repetition intends to highlight the error for the child to signify a problem and prompt an opportunity to self correct. Repetition may offer a child a prompt to self correct; however, if the student does not have the skill, this feedback could be construed as a mockery of home language register. Repetition sounds like this:

child: I wanna drinkme some water
Parent: wanna drinkme?
child: (student response varies)

Elicitation is yet another type of error correction or feedback. Elicitation utilizes a part of the child’s speech to prompt self correction and repetition of the standard register or form.
Elicitation sounds like:

child: I wanna drinkme some water
Parent: I want to…..
child: drink some water.

Metalinguistic Feedback is similar to error correction with the additional WHY. The teacher may provide information about the error to the student with the purpose that they understand why the language is used in this way. Metalinguistic Feedback sounds like:

child: I wanna drinkme some water
parent: We don’t say “drinkme” as in drink myself, rather we say “drink water”
chid: (varied responses)

Denial-basically when adults tell a child that their language use is incorrect. The purpose may be error feedback but often results in shaming. Denial sounds like.
child: I wanna drinkme some water
Parent: That’s now how we say it
child: (varied responses)

Ignorance error correction is feedback that is not verbal. Ignorance is when a child makes and error and the adult does nothing. There may be great reasons to do nothing, for example, when meaning is more important than form, the child is taking a risk, or is so excited about communicating the ideas, it may be inappropriate to give feedback. However, other times ignorance reflects a need to develop more skill in or adjusted beliefs about oral language feedback.
Ignorance sounds like this and it TOTALLY ineffective in producing a bilingual child:
child: I wanna drinkme some water
parent: Great! Let’s go get some now, I am thirsty too!

YOUR TURN: Think about the ways you provide feedback to students, and how students provide feedback to each other on their Oral Language Production.