The Effect Of Self-correction On English Writing

The present study attempts to investigate the effect of self-correction on senior middle school students' English writing. Three questions are discussed: (1) Do senior students benefit from self-correction in their English writing? (2) What's the effect of self-correction on senior students' English writing? (3) Which is more effective in revising senior students' English writings, self-correction or teacher revision?The study is based on the theory of information processing and the theory of student-centered learning. According to the theory of information processing, both noticing and self-consciousness are important in language input and language learning (Skehan, 1998). As to learner-centeredness, Tarone and Yule (2000) as well as Nunan (2001) suggest identifying the local needs of popular L2 learners and then trying to meet those needs. Nunan also advocates that the center of teaching should be learners and learning process rather than teachers or textbooks. Nunan encourages learners to move towards the fully autonomous end of the pedagogical continuum.This research is an experimental study undertaken in No.27 Middle School of Lanzhou within 16 weeks from March to June, 2005. The subjects were the students from two intact classes of the same level in Senior Grade One. One class was chosen randomly to serve as the Experimental Class, and the other was the Control Class. Each of the classes consisted of 60 students. During the period of the research, the students in both classes were required to write a short essay in English. Then the Experimental Class was trained to apply self-correction while the Control Class continued to adopt teacher revision. The students both in the Experimental Class and in the Control Class took three tests (pretest, mid-test, posttest) on English writing during the whole research process and at the end of the experiment all of the subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire on how they liked to revise their English writings. The results show that: (1) Senior middle school students benefit from self-correction in their English writing. Self-correction can help senior middle school students not only make a significant achievement in their English writing but also improve their English writing ability. (2) Self-correction has significantly positive effect on senior students' English writing. When usingself-correction, students come to have a more clear aim in their English learning and writing and they are more active in their learning process and more responsible for their English writing. (3) When revising their English writings, the senior students adopted both self-correction and teacher revision as they are compatible and complementary forms in revising the students' English writings, but self-correction was more effective than teacher revision in correcting some grammatical and lexical errors in senior students' English writings, so the senior students preferred self-correction to teacher revision.Generally speaking, senior middle school students can benefit from self-correction in their English writing. Self-correction has a significantly positive effect on senior students' English writing and it is more effective than teacher revision in correcting some grammatical and lexical errors in senior students' English writings. So, the positive role of self-correction should be paid attention to in the teaching of English writing in senior middle schools in order that students' English writing ability can be improved.