An Investigation Into Students' And Teachers' Perceptions Of Teacher Feedback For Students' English Writing In A Senior High School

Since the 1990 s,researchers and teachers have paid much attention to the teacher feedback on English writing and much of the research has been conducted on the effectiveness of the teacher feedback.However,most of these studies only focus on influences teacher feedback may exert on students' writing skill,but they pay little attention to how students and teachers perceive teacher feedback.Moreover,most of the studies of teacher feedback on writing are conducted in ESL context,and little research has been carried out in other contexts,such as EFL school context.In addition,most of the studies conducted in China attempt to examine what types of teacher feedback are effective for college and university students,but little research is carried out to explore the students' and teachers' perceptions of teacher feedback in senior high schools.The present study aimed at investigating the current situation of teacher feedback in senior high schools from the four perspectives: error corrections,feedback on comments,attention to the feedback and reactions after the feedback.40 English teachers and 150 grade-two students from a senior high school in Jiujiang participated in this study.A questionnaire and interview were applied to collect the data.By analyzing those qualitative and quantitative data,the study tried to find out students' and teachers' overall perceptions of teacher feedback and reveal the discrepancies in teachers' and students' perceptions of teacher feedback.Meanwhile,it also compared the students' perceptions of teacher feedback between high proficiency group and low proficiency group,and examined the differences in perceptions of teacher feedback between high proficiency students and low proficiency students.The findings of this survey were as follows:(1)Students liked the direct feedback and also they preferred teachers to use codes in feedback.Students claimed that the types of feedback should focus both on form and content.However,students showed neutral attitudes to the responsibility for the error correction and they hoped teachers to pay much attention to their writing.Students hoped teachers to provide the oral comments and offer scores with specific and encouraging written comments.(2)Teachers preferred to provide direct correction and they disliked using codes and indirect feedback.They thought that the types of feedback should focus both on formand content.Teachers persisted that it was their responsibility for the error correction,and they preferred to supply feedback selectively.Teachers usually presented oral comments and gave scores with written comments.(3)Finally,the high proficiency and low proficiency students varied in the perceptions of the error feedback strategies,comprehensiveness of written corrective feedback and responsibility for the error correction.On the basis of the above findings,some implications can be offered for English teacher.Firstly,teachers should try to understand how the students perceive the teacher's feedback,and then find out effective ways on how to carry out feedback in their writing.Secondly,teachers should pay attention to the differences between their perceptions and the actual feedback practices.They should combine the students' and their own perceptions with what they actual provide in the students' writing.Finally,teachers should cater for the individual differences in students' writing,and provide the different feedback strategies.For those low proficiency students,teachers should provide detailed feedback to help them revise the writing.However,for those high proficiency students,teachers could provide implicit feedback to cultivate their autonomous learning ability.