Giving verbal feedback on progress is a good way to help learners gain a better understanding of how they are getting on with a task.

This can be particularly useful for learners who struggle to perceive their own progress and for those who do not believe they can make much (or any) progress.

For example, we might have a learner who doubts their ability in literacy.

They do not believe they have what it takes to get better and feel there is little chance of them making progress.

These features are characteristic of a mindset in which the learner’s experience of learning is influenced by the guiding beliefs they have about themselves and what constitutes intelligence, ability and talent more widely.

As a teacher, we want this learner to develop a more realistic view of themselves – one in which they acknowledge the possibility for change, growth and development.

We want them to start seeing themselves as we see them.

That is, as someone who can make progress and get better by putting in effort, seeking support and learning from mistakes.

We know from working with them that they can do well and have done well.

What we now need to do is communicate this message to them.

So, we decide to give them verbal feedback about the progress they are making in individual lessons and across a sequence of lessons, using some or all of the following strategies:

1. During lessons, we speak to the learner on several occasions, each time drawing their attention to the progress they are making and explaining that this is a result of the decisions they’ve made and the effort they’ve put in.
2. When the learner doesn’t make the kind of progress we would like, we use verbal feedback to focus their attention on what they could do differently to change things. We work collaboratively with them and stop them from fixating on the idea that lack of progress is due to an inherent lack of ability.
3. We use a scale to help the learner talk to us about how much progress they feel they are making. A simple scale running from 1-10 will suffice, where 1 means no progress and 10 means excellent progress. We can then give the learner verbal feedback explaining what progress we believe they are making, linking this to the scale.
4. After a few lessons have passed, we work one-on-one with the learner, looking back over their work and giving them verbal feedback explaining how they have made progress, why they have made progress and what evidence there is to support this view.
5. At the end of a unit of work we take a few moments to speak to the learner, comparing where they were at when the unit began to where they are now. We point to the evidence in their work demonstrating the progress they’ve made. Our feedback helps the learner gain a more accurate, more realistic picture of what they have done and where they’ve been successful.

In each of these strategies, the underlying aim is to draw the learners’ perception of themselves and their work closer to our perception.

We are giving them access to our expertise as a teacher – our ability to objectively analyse what learners do, how they think, and the possibilities which are open to them.

Over time, verbal feedback of this type can have a powerful influence on learners, changing how they see themselves and what they think is possible when it comes to learning and achievement.