Effects Of Direct And Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback On Chinese High School Students’ Accurate Use Of English Prepositions

Vocabulary is the basic element of language,and the High School English Curriculum requires students to learn words in depth and to be able to use them accurately.Prepositions,as a kind of multi-sense word,have complex extended meanings,which are difficult for English learners to learn.Therefore,how to improve learners’ accuracy in using prepositions has emerged as an important research area in the study of second language acquisition.This study aims to investigate the effects of direct CF and metalinguistic CF on high school students’ accurate use of prepositions,and further explore which type of feedback(direct CF or metalinguistic CF)was more helpful for students with different language proficiency.The three research questions are presented as follows:1)Does written corrective feedback improve students’ accurate use of prepositions?2)Is there any difference between the effects of direct CF and metalinguistic CF on students’ accurate use of prepositions? If yes,which type is more effective?3)How does the learners’ English proficiency influence the effect of written CF on the accurate use of English prepositions?The design of this investigation was quasi-experimental.The research tools included a pre-test,an immediate post-test,a delayed post-test,and a semi-structured interview.Fifty students of grade 2 in a key senior high school in central China participated in this study.They were divided into 2 groups.One group received direct CF,and the other received metalinguistic CF.To better give metalinguistic explanations,the teacher used conceptual metaphor theory when giving metalinguistic CF.6 high-level students and 6low-level students were selected from each group.The impact of learners’ English language competency on the efficacy of written corrective feedback was further investigated by contrasting the effects of two groups of high-level students and two groups of low-level students.After analyzing and comparing the changes in the three tests for each group and combining the contents of the semi-structured interviews,the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis showed that 1)Direct CF and metalinguistic CF have positive effects on students’ accurate use of prepositions;2)Direct CF and metalinguistic CF have similar effects on the accuracy irrespective of learners’ language proficiency;3)For highlevel students,direct CF and metalinguistic CF are helpful and have equal effects.For lowlevel students,direct CF and metalinguistic CF are also effective,and metalinguistic CF has a better effect in the long run.This study contributes to providing positive evidence for the value of written corrective feedback on learners’ foreign language learning.Teachers should select appropriate written corrective feedback strategies based on learners’ differences,and when giving the metalinguistic CF,teachers could integrate conceptual metaphor theory into it.