A Study On Teachers' Practices And Students' Preferences For Written Corrective Feedback

Errors are very common in the process of writing a composition.The research for written corrective feedback has long been an important issue in the study field of second language acquisition.Writing is the skill that students must master and it is also an important part for teachers in the process of English teaching.The written corrective feedback plays a very important role in English Teaching,which is also the mainly method of students' input and also an essential guarantee for language output.The effect of written corrective feedback will directly affect the improvement of students' writing level,and also reflects the teaching effect of teachers.Although an extensive research on students preferences and teachers' practices for written corrective feedback has been conducted abroad,there are few related researches in China.For this reason,it is necessary to make more studies on students' preferences and teachers' practices for corrective feedback in Chinese writing context,so that Chinese English teachers and learners can gain some implications in English teaching and learning.This study selected 200 non-English major sophomore students(about 140 girls and 60 boys)and 30 English writing teachers from Jiangxi Normal University.Adopting a view of sociocultural theory,this project aims to investigate the college students' needs of feedback in the process of English writing.Therefore,this research intends to use questionnaire,writing test and interview to answer the following two questions:1)Are there any differences between teachers' practices and students' preferences in written corrective feedback?2)Do gender differences and language proficiency affect the students' preferences in written corrective feedback?In this study,all data collected through questionnaires,writing tests and interviews were analyzed by SPSS 22.0.The major findings of this study were summarized as follows: 1)There are differences between Non-English major students' preferences and teachers' practice in written corrective feedback: teachers prefer to use indirect feedback when correcting compositions while students prefer to receive direct feedback from teachers.2)Individual differences among students are also animportant factor influencing students' preferences.Students with high language proficiency prefer indirect feedback and unfocused feedback,while students with low language proficiency prefer direct feedback and focused feedback.Male prefer direct and focused feedback,while female prefer indirect and unfocused feedback.The above findings have some implications for college English writing teaching.First of all,teachers should be aware that students may have unexpected perceptions and preferences for written corrective feedback,so teachers need to strengthen communication with students and fully understand their needs.Secondly,teachers should give full consideration to the individual differences of students and deal with them flexibly when giving feedback on writing,so as to improve learners' writing skills.