The Influences Of Teachers’ Corrective Feedback On English Majors’ Writing Motivation

In recent decades, the influences of teachers’ corrective feedback(TCF) on students’ English writing motivation have aroused researchers’ great attention.Corrective feedback(CF) is a vital part of second language acquisition, the importance of which has been widely accepted by the second language researchers at home and abroad. Meanwhile, students’ writing motivation is one of the main variables restricting students’ second language learning results and also one of the most dynamic factors in the process of language learning, which enjoys great popularity among second language researchers.This thesis attempts to combine TCF with students’ English writing motivation in the English as a foreign language(EFL) learning environment in China to study the influences of its types and characteristics of TCF over English majors’ writing motivation. It attempts to probe into three research questions:(1) What are the types and characteristics of TCF in the teaching of English writing?(2) What are students’ perceptions of TCF?(3) What are the influences of TCF on students’ writing motivation?The participants of this study are 151 undergraduate English majors from five classes and 12 English writing teachers from a foreign language university. Research instruments include teachers’ and students’ questionnaires respectively, students’ interviews and students’ text analysis to study the features of TCF practice and its effects over English majors’ writing motivation.The study results show that TCF can stimulate students’ English writing motivation with respect to each of the seven dimensions of students’ English writing motivation, especially on students’ self-confidence. As for the 29 types of TCF, some types of them are found to stimulate students’ English writing motivation most, while some have no positive influences on students’ writing motivation and they can demotivate students. In addition, when providing feedback, teachers prefer to give direct feedback, comprehensive feedback and negative feedback. They pay close attention to form-focused feedback rather than content-focused feedback. Therefore,students hope that teachers can concentrate on their writing techniques, content and structure etc. Besides, they advise that teachers can place written feedback first and oral feedback second.Finally, some suggestions are put forward to English teachers based on the results and discussion of this study, hoping to improve the efficiency of TCF and at the same time to improve students’ English writing motivation.