A Study On The Correlation Between Teachers’ Corrective Feedback And The Achievements Of EFL Student

Since the1960s many researchers who specialize in the field of second languageacquisition have studied “error analysis” and “error treatment”. As we all know,“erroranalysis” is an important branch of Applied Linguistics and has long been a part of languagepedagogy with its aim to find out the principles of correcting errors. Since the1980s, a lot ofresearches have been carried out to examine the function of teachers’ corrective feedback. Theresearches have been mainly focused on whether corrective feedback is effective oncorrecting errors and can promote language acquisition. Furthermore, various questionsconcerning error and corrective feedback have been raised: is it necessary to correct studenterrors? Who should correct the errors, teachers or fellow students? When should correct theerrors? How to correct the errors? Do different types of corrective feedback produce differenteffect? What are the most effective types of corrective feedback? Are students willing to becorrected? Do students prefer certain kinds of corrective feedback? Do students attitudegreatly influence the effectiveness of corrective feedback? Researchers from abroad havedone many studies related to theses questions. However, those studies often expounded one ortwo specific questions of them. For instance, they either listed error types or explained indetail how teachers provided corrective feedback. But learners who play a vital role inclassroom interaction have been ignored. And actually some of the findings are contradictedto each other. In China, by and large, studies have explored corrective feedback fromtheoretical perspective, the perspective of error analysis, the perspective of interlanguage orthe perspective of corrective strategies. However, researches on the correlation between theteachers’ corrective feedback and the achievements of EFL students are very scarce. Hence, itis considered worthwhile and imperative to look into corrective feedback more extensively,that is, to focus on corrective feedback and the relationship between corrective feedback anduptake and the students’ achievements in a typical Chinese EFL context, both theoreticallyand empirically. Only in this way can we provide more reference and evidence for thestudents’ EFL acquisition and the teachers’ effective feedback so as to enhance teachingefficiency.This study is conducted to analyze what errors are corrected by what correctivetechnique in order to find out what type of corrective feedback is more likely to be acceptedby students. Furthermore, it is to identify the correlation between corrective feedback and theachievements of EFL students. Data for the study are collected from136English majors in aNormal University. A questionnaire is designed and delivered to the participant students in theresearch to collect their attitudes towards corrective feedback. A pre-test and a post test are given to figure out the correlation between corrective feedback and the achievements of thestudents. Through classroom observation, recording and analysis, it has been illustrated thatstudents are prone to make phonological errors more often, and grammatical errors are thesecond. Lexical errors are revealed to have lower rate of occurrence. Teachers like to userecasts more frequently in spite of its low rate of uptake. According to the two tests, it hasbeen revealed that there is clear correlation between corrective feedback and the achievementof the students and more corrective feedback indicates the tendency of high level ofachievements.The present study consists of five chapters. Chapter one is introduction, which brieflyintroduces the current situation of EFL teaching in China, explores the significance of thestudy and purpose of the study. Chapter two is literature review, which contains some majorterms related to the present study, namely “error” together with its classification and differentattitudes towards it;“corrective feedback” together with its various kinds and different pointsof view to it;“uptake” and “repair”. In addition, this chapter reviews relevant studies andtheories concerning corrective feedback: Interlanguage theory and fossilization, theComprehensible Input Hypothesis, Interaction Hypothesis and the Comprehensible OutputHypothesis. Chapter three is research design including research questions and hypothesis,subject, instruments, procedure and data collection. Chapter four is data analysis anddiscussion. Based on the questions raised and hypothesis, this chapter analyzes the datacollected and comes to a conclusion of the type of error that students are prone to make,teachers’ strategies of correcting different errors, students’ uptake and repair towards differenttypes of corrective feedback. Moreover, it is made clear the relationship between teachers’corrective feedback and the achievements of EFL students. Chapter five is conclusion. Thischapter consists of major findings and implications for EFL teaching, In addition, limitationsof the present study are listed and indications of future investigation are provided.