An Investigation Into Junior High School English Writing Feedback And Students' Preferences

English writing is one of the most essential language skills that English learners have to master,which can largely reflect learners' comprehensive English proficiency.Recent years,“high input and low returns” in the teaching of writing has been troubling teachers and students and more and more researchers concentrate on research in this line.In the present study,200 students and 20 English teachers participated in the research,and all of them are from Grade 7,Grade 8 or Grade 9.A questionnaire survey and interview were conducted to explore how the feedback to English writing is given by teachers of English in junior high school in China,and teachers' and students' attitudes towards and needs or preferences for the writing feedback are also investigated.The data collected indicate that:(1)Teacher feedback turns out to be instructive,direct,form-focused,but negative mostly in the eyes of students;(2)Though form-based the teacher feedback is,students prefer more detailed correction on language forms;(3)Students feel somewhat satisfied with the feedback provided,but hope the feedback can become encouraging,more focused on the errors committed,and can cater for the needs of students of all levels;(4)There is a gap between teacher feedback and students' needs,and the realization of making full use of teacher feedback needs both teachers' and students' efforts.