| Teacher-student conference is one type of feedback which students solve problems with the help of teachers through face to face discussion.Teacher-student conference applied in high school meets the requirements of the National English Curriculum Standard for General High School(2017)for English writing teaching.Besides,it is believed to be effective in eliminating students’ misunderstanding and confusion,offering individualized instruction,encouraging greater student participation and improving students’ enthusiasm in English writing.Compared with foreign countries,the researchers on teacher-student conference are still in the exploratory stage.Domestic empirical researches on teacher-student conference mostly conducted in universities,while the researches in high schools are relatively few.Based on the theories of Zone of Proximal Development,Cooperative Learning and Process Approach,this study attempts to apply teacher-student conference to improve senior high school students’ English writing performance.The research is adopted to answer the following questions.1)What are the roles of the teacher and students in teacher-student conference?2)Is there any difference in the influence of teacher-student conference on the writing ability of students with different English proficiency? If so,what are the aspects?3)Are there any differences in the attitudes of students with different English proficiency towards teacher-student conference? If so,in what ways?This study selected two high,medium and low English proficiency students from a high school in Nanning as the research participants.Data was collected mainly through teacher-student conferences,students’ written drafts,diaries and interviews.The quantitative data and qualitative analysis revealed the results as follows.First,the teacher dominated the writing conference,and students were relatively passive,occasionally raised some questions and accept the teacher’s revision suggestions without rejection.Second,teacher-student conference improved students’ writing ability by focusing on the content,structure and language of students’ writing,especially for medium and low proficiency students,who made the greater progress.Third,students held a positive attitude towards teacher-student conference.Low proficiency students changed from coping with conferences passively to seeking teacher-student conference actively,with their writing enthusiasm stimulated.Medium proficiency students had some expectation for the writing conference and fulfilled their expectation,as the writing level gradually progressed.High proficiency students changed their indifferent attitude from the beginning to being involved in the writing conference and looked forward to more teacher-student communication.This study proposes that teacher-student conference should be carried out widely and it is recommended to carry out the conference in combination with the writing problems of students of different English levels to enhance the feedback effect. |
