This is a guest post by Ethan Miller. Ethan is a dedicated private ESL teacher. Apart from his passion for teaching, Ethan loves to write and holds a degree in creative writing. When he is not teaching or writing his book, Ethan loves to blog and is a huge fan of educational technology. You can check out his blog Essay Writing Tips and Help on WordPress.
Being a teacher is a tough job. Handling kids in classroom, planning lessons, preparing tests, correcting test papers, attending parent teacher meetings and teacher conferences – all this while trying to cover the vast syllabus prescribed for the academic year…Phew! Things can become a tad bit overwhelming.
But apart from the above demands of a teaching job, a teacher is also responsible for the overall academic growth of students. And in order to help a student perform better, a teacher needs to use the tools of feedback and criticism. Criticizing comes easily to most of us, but a majority of teachers fail to come up with constructive criticism, often leaving students feeling angry or worthless. Even if the intention is not to be harsh, feedback can convey the wrong message to students if not delivered correctly. And this, in turn, can have an adverse effect on their behavior.
Constructive criticism ensures that your message is conveyed without hurting the feelings of a student and gives them direction to improve. Here’s how you can master the art of constructive criticism:
Don’t make it personal
When you are giving negative feedback, try not to point out the old mistakes of the student as it will make him/her feel miserable. We all have biases and you may not be fond of a certain student, but that bias should not come in the way of constructive criticism. Talk about the issue at hand, rather than making personal remarks and criticizing the student.
Mind your tone
When we criticize, we tend to go overboard and pay little attention to the tone of our speech. A sentence can be interpreted differently depending on the tone. Always use a friendly or nonjudgmental tone while conveying a difficult message to a student.
Who is it for and Why?
Giving feedback to a student is not an avenue for teachers to release stress or boost their ego. Don’t let external factors influence your feedback. The idea behind criticism is to motivate the students to improve.
Be Specific
Avoid vague criticisms as it will only make the student feel victimized. A teacher must specifically point out what the student is doing wrong so that they can focus on correcting it.
Sandwich Method
When you are critiquing a student’s performance, follow the sandwich method of criticism. According to this method, if you can sandwich a negative comment between two positive comments, then the impact of the negative comment reduces considerably.
Suggest. Don’t Order.
Always follow criticism with suggestions to improve. Do not give orders as students might think of it as punishment. Instead, just guide them on how to improve their performance and leave it to the students to either accept or reject your suggestions.
Every teacher needs to be stern in certain situations, but they should refrain from being hurtful and harsh while giving feedback. Follow these simple rules of constructive criticism and effectively communicate with your students.
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