The Effects Of Teacher Feedback, Peer Feedback And Self Feedback On Non-English Majors' Writing

Numerous researches abroad about the influence of different kinds of feedback on second language writing have been conducted, but the results were different. In China, there were fewer such studies. In addition, college teachers did not have enough time to comment students'writings. Based on this, the thesis aimed to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of teacher feedback, peer feedback and self feedback by comparing their influence on non-English majors'writings, in order to provide some help when teachers were commenting writings.The thesis was divided into six chapters. Chapter One introduced the background, meaning and purpose of this study. Chapter Two reviewed the domestic and foreign researches about teacher feedback, peer feedback and self feedback. Chapter Three described the theoretical framework, namely process writing theory, the zone of proximal development theory and negotiation of meaning. Chapter Four elaborated the research design. Illuminated by previous studies at home and abroad, the researcher designed three instruments, including feedback sheet, questionnaires and interviews, and the experiment which lasted 15 weeks. 35 subjects with similar English proficient level were respectively selected from three classes which were later randomly and respectively treated by teacher feedback, peer feedback and self feedback. Then followed by four rounds of writing instructed by the process-based writing approach, the 4th round of writings were collected as data. After finishing writing, the author conducted questionnaires and interviews, which were also collected as data. Chapter Five concentrated on data analysis and discussion. Chapter Six was about conclusion.The results were reported as follows: 1. There was the most usable feedback in teacher feedback class, and the most unusable feedback in self feedback class. Besides, teacher feedback focused more on content grammar and organization but less on vocabulary; peer feedback focused more on grammar and vocabulary but less on organization; self feedback more on mechanics also less on vocabulary. It was mainly because teachers were more experienced and skillful in assessing writing, but students with intermediate English proficient level were not quite sure about their English. 2. All of the three kinds of feedback had an effect on length and scores in the final drafts. Obviously, the process-based writing approach worked. Moreover, through negotiation of meaning, students could understand the vague feedback, and adopt it. The most progress was made in teacher feedback class, the least progress in self feedback class. From questionnaires and interviews, subjects considered teacher professional and relied him very much. Peers were more informative and could provide more feedback in others'ZPD, but subject-self could not give himself enough needed information. 3. Students liked teacher feedback best (Mean=21.7143), but they also noticed the importance of peer feedback (Mean=28.1714) and self feedback (Mean=31.4000). It was clear that students considered teachers as the authoritative figure in class and relied on them very much. But most of the students recognized the shortcomings of teacher feedback, and the merits of other kinds of feedback.