The Effects Of ZPD-supported Corrective Feedback On High School Students’ English Writing

Writing occupies very important position in high school English teaching, as it is the reflection of learners’ integrated use of English knowledge. With increasingly attention to the teaching of writing, forms and effectiveness of “feedback” also have been given much attention. Lots of researchers and scholars have done the theoretical and empirical researches, aims to examine which type of corrective feedback is the most effective. However, there are still less studies in the background of Chinese high school English teaching. Therefore, this research is based on the sociocultural theory, the researcher aims to examine the effects of ZPD-supported corrective feedback on the high school English writing.This is a qualitative study, the researcher wants to explore a better way of corrective feedback for high school English writing through the quasi-experimental design. In this study, it includes three questions:(1) What kinds of corrective feedback did students receive in their English writing? How about their attitude toward them? Whether there are any problems among students’ attitude to English writing?(2) What are the effects of ZPD-supported corrective feedback on high school students’ English writing ability(e.g. accuracy, fluency and complexity)?(3) How about students’ attitude toward ZPD-supported corrective feedback? What are the effects of ZPD-supported corrective feedback on students’ attitude and motivation to English writing?The present study includes 6 participates. They were chosen after the writing test and categorized respectively by higher, middle, and lower level. In order to collect data, the researcher mainly used interview method, observation method and text-analysis method. The research lasted for ten weeks, and it proved that the ZPD-supported corrective feedback can improve learners’ writing ability effectively, besides, the participants held a positive attitude toward this kind of feedback.Based on the conclusion of the research, the researcher gave some suggestions to the teaching of high school English writing. The researcher suggested that English teachers should not just focus on the existing writing, but also predict students’ potential level and ability, make the students the real masters in class while the teacher acts as the director and bring their ability into full play.