The Effect Of Different Types Of Written Corrective Feedback On College Students’ Writing

Written corrective feedback has been a controversial issue among researchers and theorists. In the pastdecade, they have explored the effect of corrective feedback in the field of second language acquisition formdifferent perspectives. However, few studies on the effect of corrective feedback were done in a Chinese Englishlearning context. Thus it is difficult to apply the present result to Chinese college-level writing teaching directly,especially the college students in the northwest area. Therefore, this study is conducted for non-English majorstudents in northwest area to investigate the effect of different types of written corrective feedback on accuracy,fluency, complexity of writing as well as whole writing quality. The study mainly involves two researchquestions:1. Does teacher’s written corrective feedback improve students’ writing accuracy, fluency, complexityas well as the whole writing quality for SL students?2. If so, which types of feedback have greater effect onimproving students’ written performance, direct or indirect feedback?In order to investigate the two research questions, this study mainly adopted quantitative research andexperimental study. Quasi-experimental design was used and the researcher chose38Chinese non-English majorstudents according to their College Entrance Examination. They were divided into three groups randomly andreceived a pre-test to guarantee the equivalence level of their English proficiency:12subjects in one treatmentgroup for direct feedback,12subjects in another treatment group for indirect feedback and14subjects in acontrol group. From the beginning to the end the experiment lasted nearly4months,18weeks in all. During thewhole experiment, the subjects received three pieces of writing test (pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayedpost-test) and produced8pieces of writing task to practice. Three groups received different ways of feedback.Then the date was collected and the researcher used T-tests and one-way ANOVAs to analyze.The results showed that students in two treatment groups (direct and indirect group) outperformed studentsin control group in the aspects of writing accuracy, complexity, fluency and whole writing quality, but had noeffect on fluency. There was no significant difference between two treatment groups and one control group. Andshort-term effects were found for indirect written corrective feedback on accuracy, only direct feedback provedto have a significant long-term effect. On the contrary, indirect written feedback had greater effect than directgroup on whole writing quality. As for complexity, there was no significant difference between direct andindirect group.This study really has some reference value to teaching of English writing and can also provide pedagogicalimplications for the English language teaching and writing in the China---specific context. In English writing teaching, it is necessary for English teachers to give students feedback. Appropriate feedback can not onlyimprove students’ writing accuracy, complexity and writing quality, but also facilitate the cultivation of learninginterests and habits. Besides, students’ learning confidence is also enhanced and their writing skill is improved.