A Contrastive Study On The Effects Of Teacher Feedback And Computer Feedback On English Writing Proficiency Of Non-English Majors

Writing,as an important means of language output,plays a vital role in English learning.Therefore,improving students' English writing proficiency has been extensively studied by researchers and scholars.Recently,there is an increasing interest in computer feedback due to the rapid development of online automatic composition evaluation systems.In most studies of feedback on writing,attention has been given to studying the effects of teacher feedback,peer feedback,computer feedback;comparing the effects between teacher feedback and peer feedback.However,few studies were conducted to compare the effects between teacher feedback and computer feedback.Therefore,this paper aims at comparing the effects of teacher feedback and computer feedback on non-English majors' English writing proficiency in terms of English writing fluency,accuracy,complexity and overall quality.Altogether 56 non-English major freshmen in two classes from Chang'an University were selected as subjects based on the pretest results of their English proficiency and English writing proficiency.Then the two classes were assigned to experimental group and control group randomly.During the 12-week treatment,students in the two groups were assigned altogether six compositions.Students in the control group received teacher feedback,and students in the experimental group received computer feedback provided by JUKU Pigaiwang.All students took the posttest as the treatment ended.The scores of pretest and posttest were all recorded for analysis.Compositions in pretest and posttest were all collected to calculate the measurements of English writing proficiency in terms of fluency,accuracy and complexity according to Polio's definitions.Data were analyzed by means of Descriptives and t-tests.Major findings of this study are as follows:(1)Both teacher feedback and computer feedback have positive effects on non-English majors' English writing fluency,accuracy,complexity and overall quality.(2)Teacher feedback has greater effects on non-English majors' English writing fluency and accuracy than computer feedback does.(3)Computer feedback has much greater effects on non-English majors' English writing complexity and overall quality.The findings of the study suggest that teachers should combine teacher feedback with computer feedback to improve non-English majors' English writing proficiency.These findings may enrich the contrastive study on the effects of teacher feedback and computer feedback.Considering the limitations of current study,some suggestions are provided for further research.