Authentic Praise
When using the technique Authentic Praise, you actively look for opportunities to recognise success, using words that are proportionate to the quality of performance you are seeing or hearing.
For example, if something is good, you might say, ‘That’s good’, ‘Well done’ or ‘Nice’, and reserve terms such as ‘Excellent’, ‘Superb’ and ‘Amazing’ for performance that genuinely merits these.
Why use this technique?
If we overuse overly superlative language, over time, its impact is likely to be lessened. Students can become sceptical about how genuine we are being, undermining trust. They might also become satisfied with performance that is ‘good’, rather than ‘great’, because their teacher used a superlative that the performance didn’t actually merit.
Notes and tips
At its best, Authentic Praise focuses on specific aspects of learning, rather than being general. For example, “I really like the way you’ve used imagery in this paragraph” is a better example of Authentic Praise than saying, “I really like this paragraph”. The specificity shows that you’ve looked at the work closely and can help communicate that your praise is authentic, as opposed to throwaway.
Focused reflection
How well do you currently use this technique?
Is it a technique you will focus on developing?
If so, what are the key features you will focus on (things to do, and not do)?