On 18 Dec Diane Davies, Pam Rogerson-Revell and I presented a paper on speech styles in audio feedback at the A Word in Your Ear conference at Sheffield Hallam University. We reported on a small-scale study done into the use of audio feedback given by course tutors to students on their draft dissertations in the Social Sciences. The preliminary findings seem to provide good evidence for the following hypotheses:

• That linguistic strategies used to personalise feedback and establish ‘connection’ with the student are more prevalent in the audio mode
• That power relations between tutor and student are differently constituted in the language of audio and written feedback
• That intonation plays a key role in establishing (or failing to establish) a supportive tone in audio feedback and that written feedback may, by comparison, have a less supportive tone.

The DUCKLING presentation generated a lot of interest at the conference and was referred to by several speakers who presented after us.

Some of the common themes emerging from many of the presentations at the conference were:

• Audio feedback is most effective when combined with written feedback.
• Audio feedback is generally more focused on positive aspects of students' performance/ praise than written feedback.
  
• When students are given the opportunity to respond to audio feedback in some way (e.g. by commenting on a discussion board), they tend to spontaneously begin a conversation with the tutor, and often with their peers too, about the feedback. This conversation can be a very powerful component of the students' learning experience.

Gabi Witthaus, 23 Dec 2009