A Case Study On Effect Of English Teachers' Corrective Feedback Upon Students' Learning Motivation In Junior High School Classroom

In recent decades,the influences of teachers' corrective feedback on students' English learning motivation have attracted researchers' great attention.Corrective feedback plays a vital part in second language acquisition,whose significance has been widely accepted by the second language researchers at home and abroad.Meanwhile,students' learning motivation is one of the most dynamic factors in the process of language learning and also one of the main variables affecting students' second language learning outcomes,to which many scholars attach importance.Having Long's Interaction Hypothesis,Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis and Lambert's Motivation Theory as its theoretical frameworks,this case study attempts to explore common features of teacher's corrective feedback in EFL classroom as well as their impacts upon students' learning motivation in junior high school.It aims to answer the following two questions:(1)What types of teachers' corrective feedback do junior high school teachers prefer in an English classroom?(2)Do different types of teachers' corrective feedback have any impact on students' learning motivation? If yes,in what aspects? If not,what might be the main reasons?191 students and four English teachers who have different gender,degree and teaching experience were chosen as the research participants from four different classes,Grade Eight in a Junior High school of BaiYun District,Guangzhou.Employing such instruments as questionnaire,interview and classroom observation,the study investigates the features of different types of corrective feedback and its effects upon students' learning motivation.The study lasted for three months,from September 12,2016 to December 12,2016.The study results show that teachers in junior high school prefer to use explicit correction,recast and elicitation when providing feedback.Teacher's corrective feedback is effective to stimulate students' English learning motivation,especially to build up students' self-confidence.Among 6 types of teacher's corrective feedback,four types of them are found to stimulate students' English learning motivation effectively,recast;elicitation;repetition and clarification requests,while metalanguage feedback and explicit correction are not helpful.Besides,teachers are expected to combine corrective feedback with positive feedback,and to offer students praise and affirmation as much as possible.Finally,some suggestions are put forward to English teachers based on the results and discussion of this research,with an aim to improve the effectiveness of teacher's corrective feedback as well as students' English learning motivation.