A Study On The Effects Of Teacher Written Corrective Feedback On English Writing Proficiency Of Senior High School Students

For most Chinese students,writing is considered to be one of the most difficult aspects in English learning.As one of the four basic skills of language learners,writing is an indispensable link in English teaching.With the emergency of Process Approach and many problems appeared in students' English writings,Teacher written corrective feedback gradually becomes one of the most important part of English writing.However,it has been a controversial topic whether teachers' feedback is effective in improving students' English writing.Compared with some foreign studies,there are relatively few domestic studies on this aspect,especially the few studies on which kind of feedback can improve the writing level of two language learners,considering that the study of students' different writing levels is a few.Therefore,it is worthwhile to choose this topic.There are a large number of empirical studies attempted to explore the effects of written corrective feedback on second language writing.A review of these studies shows that studies in written corrective feedback mainly focus on the following aspects: Firstly,studies on the effects of written corrective feedback;Secondly,studies on the effects of different types of written corrective feedback on students' revised writing;Thirdly,studies on the effects of improving students' writing proficiency.Among these aspects,the effectiveness of written corrective feedback in improving students' writing proficiency is always a subject of lively debate.A lot of empirical studies indicate that teacher written corrective feedback is effective in improving students' writing proficiency.However,what are the effects of different types of written corrective feedback on students' writing accuracy,fluency and complexity? And which kind of feedback should teachers provide to students to improve their writing accuracy,fluency and complexity? Both domestic and foreign studies answering these two questions discussed above are relatively limited.Based on noticing hypothesis theory and output hypothesis theory,the present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of teacher direct written corrective feedback and indirect written corrective feedback in improving students' writing proficiency from accuracy,fluency and complexity these three dimensions.The study lasted for eight weeks,a total of sixty students in Shili middle school were selected as participants from three parallel classes and they were divided into three groups.Each group includes 20 students.In direct written corrective feedback group,teachers pointed out students' errors with right forms.In indirect written corrective feedback group,teachers pointed out students' errors without any correction.In control group,teachers give students a general comment.A pre-test,four writing tasks and one questionnaire were conducted to answer four research questions.Based on this experiment,this study proposed three questions: 1)Is direct written corrective feedback effective in improving students' writing accuracy,fluency and complexity? 2)Is indirect written corrective feedback effective in improving students' writing accuracy,fluency and complexity? 3)What are the students' attitudes towards teacher written corrective feedback? In order to answer these three questions,four writing tasks and one questionnaire were conducted.The aim of four writing tasks is to explore the effectiveness of direct written corrective feedback and indirect written corrective feedback in improving students' writing accuracy,fluency and complexity.The purpose of the questionnaire is to investigate students' expectations,preference and attitudes towards written corrective feedback by using questionnaire.The major findings of the present study are presented as follows: Firstly,direct written corrective feedback is effective in improving students' writing accuracy.Secondly,indirect written corrective feedback can not only be effective in improving students' writing accuracy,but also is effective in improving students' writing complexity.Thirdly,students hold the view that teacher written corrective feedback is very important,however,they spent a little time on revisions and couldn't be patient on feedback.The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications which can help students to improve their writing accuracy and complexity in English writing teaching.Firstly,both direct written corrective feedback and indirect written corrective feedback are effective in improving students' writing accuracy,therefore,English teachers should give learners clear,professional written feedback.In addition,the students also need to take the feedback of teachers seriously,and apply it to the revised draft and new writings.Secondly,in practical teaching,teachers should combine different functions of direct written corrective feedback and indirect written corrective feedback in English writing.In the process of practical English teaching,teachers should choose different ways of feedback according to the actual situation,and give full play to the greatest effect of teachers' written corrective feedback.Thirdly,students' preference on the type of errors had a great influence on their writing accuracy.Therefore,teachers should be aware of what students are most concerned about in the English writing process.