The Effects Of Corpus-based Self-Correction On EFL College Writing

Among the thorny issues in EFL writing, error correction (EC) has always been especiallysalient since research on whether and how to correct is inadequate and inconsistent. Variousmeans of correction based on the present findings confused teachers and students with theconflict between time and effect. In recent years, the increasing accessibility of corporaprovides new perspective and great opportunities to teachers and students in writing with thehelp of more advanced and friendly computer technology which can process language morequickly and accurately. Nevertheless, working with corpora in language classes is still faraway from reaching maturity. Despite appealing potential demonstrated by corpus technology,EFL writing instruction has been largely unaffected in China.This experimental classroom study is an attempt to investigate the inclusion of corpustechnology in writing instruction. More concretely, this paper introduces the technique ofcorpus-based self-correction (CBC), a new approach to the treatment of written errors whichit is hoped will give new impetus to date-driven learning (DDL), and establish it as animportant (if not the most important) area of corpus research.A 16-week semester’s experimental study with two intact classes of non-English freshmenfrom Shanxi Normal University was conducted to demonstrate and evaluate the technique.After the initial error analysis (EA) of students’pre-test essays, students in experimentalgroup (Class 1) and control group (Class 2) were instructed differently in writing classes. Theexperimental group (EG) was trained to use CBC to deal with written errors underlined by the teacher, while for the control group (CG), there was no special training for error correction.The results reveal the high efficiency of CBC in handling lexical errors which are found tobe predominant in students’essays. After the treatment of CBC, students in the EGoutperformed the CG significantly in reduction of lexical errors, overall accuracy and lexicalquality while no significant difference was found before the treatment. With significantlyimproved accuracy and more advanced words, the results also make clear that CBC canimprove students’overall writing performance.Based on the findings of the study, some suggestions are put forward to make CBC morepractical and influential. Limitations of the study and prospective research are presented in theend.