Effects Of Written Corrective Feedback On The Acquisition Of Simple Past Tense By Senior High School Students With Different Levels Of Language Analytic Ability

Written Corrective Feedback(WCF),i.e.,feedback information provided for learners‘ language errors in writing,is an important method teachers frequently use to help learners improve their linguistic accuracy when teaching writing.Studies on the effectiveness of WCF have sprung up since Truscott(1996)challenged the effectiveness of grammatical corrections.In recent years,the research focus of WCF has gradually shifted from ?whether WCF is effective? to ?which type of WCF is effective? and then to ?which type of WCF is effective to which kind of learners?.Correspondingly,the interaction between learners‘ language analytic ability(LAA)and feedback type is worthy of study at present.However,most of the studies take English articles as the target grammatical item,and only a few investigate learners‘ acquisition of simple past tense in depth.Therefore,the present study tries to investigate the effects of WCF on the acquisition of simple past tense by senior high school students with mixed levels of language analytic ability,by focusing on the following three questions:(1)What effects does WCF have on senior high school students‘ acquisition of simple past tense?(2)How does WCF affect the acquisition of simple past tense by senior high school students with different levels of language analytic ability?(3)Why does WCF have different effects on the acquisition of simple past tense by senior high school students with different levels of language analytic ability?Adopting a quantitative and qualitative mixed methods approach,the present study selected 78 senior high school Grade 10 students at a school in NB Cit y in Zhejiang Province as participants.They were matched in sets to high LAA,medium LAA and low LAA,based on their scores from a test of language analytic ability,and then they were randomly allocated to one of the three groups: i.e.,direct feedback(DF),metalinguistic explanation(ME)or control groups.Their accurate use of target structure under different treatment conditions from pre-test,treatment 1,treatment 2,immediate post-test and delayed post-test was collected and analyzed.At the end of the intervention,randomly selected individuals were invited for an interview,and the interaction between feedback type and language analytic ability was analyzed and discussed comprehensively.Major findings are as follows: First,both DF and ME have short-term effects on the acquisition of simple past tense.However,ME has an advantage over DF in terms of longitudinal effects.Second,DF is more suitable for learners with low language analytic ability,while ME is more beneficial for medium and high LAA learners.Third,there are differences in the way of processing the feedback among participants with mixed levels of LAA.By comparing the correct answers from direct feedback with their own erroneous attempts to use the target structure,low LAA learners test the hypothesis in their mind,which helps remove the ambiguity of feedback information.Therefore,DF effectively helps learners facilitate internalizing the correct forms of the target item.For medium and high LAA learners,DF is more likely to be ignored,while by describing the nature of the target structure,ME is more likely to raise learners‘ awareness of the target grammatical item to the level of understanding and therefore promotes their internalization of the target structure more effectively.