Experimental Study Of The Effect Of Coded Feedback On12th Graders’ English Writing Ability At Art School

The New English Curriculum Standards sets a higher objective for English writing, which requires Senior high school students be able to write paragraphs with advanced vocabulary and good structures in coherent discourses. Writing takes up40points in NMT (national matriculation test). However, writing is one of the most difficult tasks for most twelfth graders, especially those who are at a low language proficiency. In some high schools, students rarely write a composition unless they are taking part in a test. What is worse, they rarely bother to reconsider errors on their compositions so that the same kind of errors occur again and again in their compositions.In order to encourage students to write more and think twice about their errors on their compositions, what is more important is to help students make less errors and get a better score on NMT, this study explores relationship between error feedback and students’ writing ability. According to Noticing hypothesis and Output hypothesis, coded feedback acts as a noticing trigger and help students notice their errors and rewriting is a way of output. By means of experimental approach, the present author uses two types of error feedback-direct feedback and coded feedback to help students revise their compositions. Ninety-three students in an art school are divided into the experimental class and the control class. Direct feedback class is given to the control class. Students rewrite their compositions in terms of the author’s direct correction. Coded feedback class is given to the experimental class, students get information about errors on their compositions in the form of codes and underlines. They are asked to rewrite their compositions with the help of coded feedback The experiment lasts for about four months. At the end of the experiment, a questionnaire is used to investigate students’ awareness of writing errors.Data from composition scores and code numbers are collected and counted and then submitted to SPSS for statistical analysis. By comparing composition scores of pre-test and post-test, this study investigates whether coded feedback improve students’ writing ability better than direct feedback. From code number decreasing, students’ error awareness’ improvement is explored.After a four-month experiment, data from compositions and questionnaire are used in independent t-test and paired t-test of SPSS. The result reveals that:firstly, coded feedback is beneficial for students to improve writing as the participants’ writing score have been significantly increased. Secondly, no obvious difference was found in two feedback types-coded feedback and direct feedback. Thirdly, the experimental class’s awareness of writing errors has been increased greatly.Based on the result from this study, it can be concluded that coded feedback is beneficial and helpful for students. As has been proved in this study, coded feedback successfully increase students’ common composition error awareness. Yet the improvement of writing ability takes a longer time. It is assumed that the awareness of writing errors need time to change into writing ability. On the other hand, it is not an easy job to decide which type of feedback is better. Error feedback should be based on understanding of students’ writing ability.