Effects Of Automated Feedback On Chinese Senior High School Students’Writing Accuracy

Writing,as an important way of language output,plays a vital role in EFL learners’language acquisition.To improve EFL learners’ writing proficiency,besides effective writing teaching,timely and constructive writing feedback is also urgently needed.Automated writing evaluation systems,with the help of network technology,bring many conveniences for English writing.Among them,Juku is widely adopted now.Besides,English writing accuracy is very important for senior high school students since it is one of the criteria for evaluating writing quality.Therefore,this study aims to explore the effects of automated feedback on EFL students’ English writing accuracy in a China’s senior high school.Three research questions were addressed in the present study:(1)Does automated feedback affect Chinese senior high school students’ English writing accuracy?If yes,what are the effects?(2)Are there any differences in effects of automated feedback on Chinese senior high school students’ English writing accuracy across proficiency levels?If yes,what are the differences?(3)How do Chinese senior high school students perceive automated feedback?Supported by Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis,the researcher conducted a two-month quasi-experimental study to find answers to these questions.The participants were two parallel classes of Grade Two in a senior high school in S city.A comparative study weighing an automated feedback condition against no automated feedback condition was conducted.The research instruments included pretest,post-test,questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.The results of this study showed that:(1)Automated feedback can significantly improve Chinese senior high school students’ English writing accuracy.(2)Automated feedback can have different effects on English writing accuracy of senior high school students at different English proficiency levels.The low group came in first,the middle group was the second and the high group was the last.(3)Chinese senior high school students held mixed perceptions towards automated feedback.In light of the above findings,the researcher makes some suggestions for English writing teaching.In giving writing feedback EFL teachers are suggested to use automated feedback appropriately and make full use of automated feedback to check vocabulary,grammar and mechanical errors.EFL teachers also need to provide L2 learner at different English proficiency levels with individualized feedback suitable for their zone of proximal development.Furthermore,in combination with other feedback methods,EFL teachers are encouraged to provide diversified feedback.In the future,EFL teachers are suggested to further explore English writing teaching models suitable for senior high school students to effectively teach writing.