The Effects Of Self-correction On EFL Writing Teaching In Vocational Colleges: An Empirical Research

Writing is one of the important skills needed in students'future jobs. There is a worrying phenomenon that most students do not have the ability to write a complete and appropriate English passage after having learned English for quite a long time. Accordingly, cultivating and developing vocational college students'English writing ability becomes a rather demanding task for Chinese English teachers. However, writing in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class in China is supposed to be the most difficult course for English learners in vocational colleges. At present, most vocational colleges adopt the traditional English writing teaching approaches. Such approaches neglect the students as the center and the teacher replaces them in the teaching activities. Therefore, the research on English writing and writing instruction should be strengthened to better guide the English writing learning and teaching. Furthermore, it is of vital necessity for us to probe a practical and effective writing approach.The purpose of the study is to prove that self-correction is an effective writing approach in vocational college students'English writing. It will address two questions: (1) Is self-correction effective in improving vocational college students'writing ability? (2) Which is more effective in improving vocational college students'English writings, self-correction or teacher correction?The study is based on the theory of information processing, the theory of error analysis, the theory of student-centered learning and the theory of learner autonomy. According to the research review and related theories, it is believed that it is probable and feasible to incorporate self-correction approach in English writing courses, and so an empirical research was conducted on 120 freshmen in Rizhao Polytechnic College.This research was undertaken in Art Institute of Rizhao Polytechnic College within 16 weeks from March to June, 2009. The subjects were the freshmen of the year 2008 from two classes of the same level, majoring in Dress Design in Art Institute. One class was chosen randomly to serve as the Experimental Class, and the other was the Control Class. The total number of the two classes is 123. The author selected only 60 of each class as subjects, excluding those students who show a complete lack of elementary writing ability. At the beginning of the research, the students in both classes were required to write a short English essay. Then the Experimental Class was trained to adopt self-correction while the Control Class continued to apply teacher correction. The students both in EC and in CC took three tests (pretest, mid-test, posttest) on English writing during the whole research process and at the end of the experiment all the subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire on How do you like to revise your English writings? The results of the experiment reveal that: (1) Self-correction is effective in improving vocational college students'writing ability. Self-correction can help vocational college students not only make a significant achievement in their English writing but also enhance their English writing performance. (2) Self-correction is effective in changing vocational college students'awareness of writing and English learning. By using self-correction, students come to have a more clear aim in their English learning and writing and they are more active in their learning process and more responsible for their English writing. In a word, self-correction was more effective than teacher correction in correcting some grammatical and lexical errors in vocational colleges students'English writings.According to the findings of this study, pedagogical implications have been discussed. The positive role of self-correction should be paid attention to in the teaching of English writing in vocational colleges in order that students'English writing ability can be improved. Of course, due to various limitations, the findings of the present study should be considered tentative and interpreted with caution. Further studies are needed to get a clearer picture about this topic.