ESL Term:

Affective Feedback

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affective feedback: Affective feedback is when teachers (or anybody) display signs about how interested they are in trying to understand the student. These signs come in the form of gestures, facial expressions, and intonations. Positive affective feedback will encourage the learner to continue even if it is clear that the listener cannot fully understand.  Negative affective feedback will stop a learner from speaking entirely and raise their affective filter.

Affective feedback can be contrasted with cognitive feedback, where a listener signals whether he or she understands what is being said.