Effects Of Teacher Written Feedback On Non-English Majors' Writing

Writing is very important in foreign language teaching. As to non-English majors who are studying in EFL environment in China, teacher feedback is a vital form of language input and it has been an important part in writing instruction since the process approach to writing was introduced in the last 1960s and 1970s. So far, many foreign language teachers and researchers have focused on this topic and a large number of researches have been done abroad and at home.A number of experimental studies demonstrated that teacher feedback has a positive on student writings. Fathman & Whalley'(1990) study showed that commenting on content played an active role in improving the quality of students'writings. However, students benefited most from both form and content feedback. Yang Jingqing (1996) did a similar study on non-English majors in Grade Two. The result was almost the same. Ashwell (2000)'study demonstrated that content followed by form feedback or form followed by content did not have an effect on student writings. Fazio'(2001) study indicated that methods of feedback did not have an effect on student writings. However, the effects of teacher feedback on each aspect of linguistic, such as grammar, lexicon, organization and argumentation have not been explored extensively. This paper attempts to explore the effects of teacher written feedback on each aspect of students'writing. The specific research questions are: (1) Can both the form + content and the content teacher written feedback only make significant changes in quality of students'argument writing? (2) If any, in what areas (grammar, lexicon, global organization, local organization, and argumentation) do they show the most changes? (3) What are students'perceptions, attitudes, and expectations from the teacher?Based on the theory of the process approach to writing, noticing theory and output hypothesis theory, the present study chose 30 students randomly at the Chinese Department from Lan Zhou City College to participate the experiment, which lasted about 10 weeks. The participants were randomly divided into two groups before carrying on the experiment and one group of students received both the form and content feedback while the other group of students only received a set of comment on content. Both groups were asked to fill out a questionnaire immediately after the experiment.The main findings are the following through data analysis:(1) The writing quality in both groups improved a lot after receiving teacher written feedback. In contrast, the form and content teacher feedback was more effective than content feedback only.(2) The students who received both the form and content feedback improved a lot in grammar, lexicon, local organization, global organization, and argumentation. While those who received content feedback improved much in lexicon, local organization and argumentation.(3) The students who received both the form and content feedback outperformed those who only received a set of comment on the content in grammar, global organization, and argumentation. Student questionnaire indicated that students had a positive attitude towards teacher feedback. They expected teachers'direct feedback, and they also wanted to gain some writing skills from teachers. The present study demonstrates that teacher written feedback plays an important role in foreign language writing, and it may shed light on foreign language writing though some limitations still exist.The thesis is constructed as follows:Chapter one presents the importance, the aims, the significance and the construction of the present study.Chapter two introduces the related definition, the previous researcher on teacher feedback both abroad and at home, and the current state.Chapter three provides the theoretical bases, including process writing theory, noticing theory, interaction theory and output hypothesis.Chapter four addresses the research design, consisting of the research questions, the participants, research instrument, experiment procedure, scoring, and data collection.Chapter five introduces data analysis and results, including the findings of holistic scoring, the findings of analytic scoring, and the findings of the questionnaire.Chapter six presents discussions and conclusions, consisting of the main findings, teaching pedagogical implications, the limitations of the current study, and the further research.