Effects Of Written Corrective Feedback In Mother Tongue And In Second Language On English Majors' Writing Accuracy

This empirical study is an attempt to explore the effect of written corrective feedback(CF) in mother tongue and written corrective feedback(CF) in second language on the improvement of English majors? second language writing accuracy. Specifically, this study focuses on two research questions. The first one is English majors? different attitudes towards teachers? written CF in mother tongue and second language; the second one is whether written CF in mother tongue and second language is efficient on improving English majors? second language writing accuracy.Based on two related studies, this paper investigated English majors? attitudes towards written CF in mother tongue(Chinese in present study) and second language(English in present study) and their effect on improving second language writing accuracy. Study 1 carried out six experiments, including three writing tasks with Chinese written feedback and anther three with English written feedback by turns, and a questionnaire survey on sophomores majored in English. It aimed to explore the differences of students? attitudes to teachers? written feedback in Chinese and English by qualitative and quantitative analysis. In terms of the four most frequent linguistic errors in Study 1, i.e. conjunctions, nonfinite verbs, singular & plural verbs and singular & plural nouns, Study 2 gave CF in Chinese and CF in English to two classes majored in English respectively. And one class with 23 students received CF in Chinese and the other with 24 students received CF in English. Lasting for eight weeks, all subjects in each group finished four writing tasks according to teachers? written CF. Teachers gave students CF in Chinese and English all based on the four targeted linguistic errors. Study 2 tried to further explore whether CF in mother tongue and CF in English is efficient on students? accuracy improvement in second language writing.Results of Study 1 showed that for English majors? general attitudes towards CF in mother tongue and second language, students preferred teacher?s English written feedback in order to cultivate their thought in second language, thus providing a more comprehensive second language learning environment; yet, as English learners, students preferred Chinese written feedback to that in English as their specific effects on writing focus(including content, integrity, consistency, grammar and vocabulary).Results of Study 2 illustrated no matter in Study 1 or Study 2, conjunctions, singular & plural verbs, singular & plural nouns and nonfinite verbs are the linguistic errors subjects are most likely to make. In terms of improving linguistic accuracy in second language, CF in Chinese proved to be more efficient in general. Specifically, only CF in Chinese had significant effect on accuracy improvement on conjunctions and singular & plural nouns, while CF in English had little influence on these two linguistic errors. Yet, ESL learners under the effect of both CF in Chinese and English haven?t made any progress in accuracy improvement of nonfinite verbs and singular & plural verbs, which even have increased in terms of error amount in delayed posttest.On account of the contradiction between students? attitudes towards CF in mother tongue and second language and their different effect in practical writing, this paper tries to make some suggestions in light of Noticing Hypothesis, Interactional Theory and Counterbalance Hypothesis. It is strongly advised that teachers should take advantage of written feedback in mother tongue and target language. By combining focused-on-form and focused-on-meaning teaching methods, teachers can create flexible feedback mechanisms to improve students' second language writing skills.