A Study On Chinese EFL Learners' Writing And Revising Processes

This study investigates the writing and revising processes of Chinese EFL learners in light of the Output Hypothesis (Swain, 1985). Although output has been studied from various perspectives, few attempts have been made to inquire into the function of output in the revision activity. However, revision may be effective in encouraging learners to produce "pushed" output. The present study sets out to unveil how EFL learners tackle language problems while drafting and revising their compositions. Six participants in the present study were first-year university students majoring in English. The subjects' think-aloud protocols and textual drafts provided the basis for data collection. The study consisted of two phases: the draft phase and the revision phase, with a one-week interval between the two. In the draft phase, the subjects were required to write a continuation of a story. In the revision phase, they were asked to revise their first drafts, and then correct the errors underlined by the English NS teachers. During the two phases, the think-aloud of these 6 subjects was concurrently tape-recorded.The results lent support to Swain's Output Hypothesis from both the writing and revising perspectives. It was found that those EFL learners were capable of detecting and correcting the errors of their written drafts. Errors like verb/tense and spellings were easy to correct, but some "high-level" errors were difficult to correct, such as sentence structure errors. The findings show that identification of errors by the teachers appears to be an effective means of helping students correct their grammar errors. In addition, revision plays an important role in helping EFL learners improve language accuracy. This function deserves special consideration in second language instruction. Students should be given time and chances to revise their compositions. Teachers should devote more attention to developing students' ability to revise on their own.