A Study On The Effect Of Feedback In College English Writing Based On Automated Writing Evaluation System

With the rapid development of science and technology,the computer network provides a new feedback technology for foreign language writing learners,that is,automated writing evaluation system(AWES).Although some scholars have done some researches on the AWES feedback,the research on the combination of AWES feedback with teacher feedback is quite rare.In view of this,it is necessary to explore the effect of the combination of AWES feedback with teacher feedback.This study compares the effects of only using the AWES feedback and the AWES feedback plus teacher feedback on the college English writing respectively,which aims to find a more effective type of feedback in English writing.The research questions are:(1)What are the differences in students’ English writing proficiency between the control class and experimental class after receiving the AWES feedback and the AWES plus teacher feedback respectively?(2)What is the students’ attitude toward the AWES feedback and the AWES feedback plus teacher feedback?(3)What is the teacher’s attitude toward the AWES feedback and the AWES feedback plus teacher feedback?This study takes the Pigai as the AWES.A total of 96 non-English major freshmen from two parallel classes,that is class 9 and class 10,and the English teacher participated in the present research.Class 9 as the control class receives the AWES feedback;Class 10 as the experimental class receives the AWES plus teacher feedback.The experiment time is one semester.In this study,the total scores and the scores of various indicators of pre-test and post-test in control class and experimental class are collected and analyzed by SPSS 19.0.Then at the end of semester,the researcher conducts two questionnaire surveys and interviews with the students of the two classes.Besides,in order to fully understand the effect of the two different types of feedback,the researcher also interviews the English teacher of the two classes.The research found that(1)the effect of the AWES plus teacher feedback is indeed better than that of only using the AWES feedback,it can make up for the lack of feedback on the organization and content from the AWES,so as to improve the students’ writing proficiency comprehensively.(2)Although the students’ attitudes toward the two differenttypes of feedback are different,the students are more satisfied with the AWES plus teacher feedback.(3)The teacher also holds a positive attitude to the combining type of feedback and puts forward that the feedback on the errors of mechanics,vocabulary and grammar can be given to the AWES,and the teacher can put more focus on the organization and content in the writing.This effective combination can not only reduce the workload of the teacher,but also can improve the feedback efficiency.In a word,although there are some limitations in this study,it is of great significance to the practice and research of college English writing feedback.