A Study On Teacher Feedback Mode In Senior High School English Writing Teaching

English writing is an important criterion for evaluating language output,which has always been important but difficult for most senior high school students.At present,the writing level of senior high school students is not so satisfactory.Feedback is an indispensable part of writing teaching,and plays a central role in improving students’ writing.For students,teacher feedback is the most common and accessible type of feedback,which has received more and more attention in recent years.This study intended to investigate the actual operations of teacher feedback and explore the effects of teacher feedback on students’ English writing in senior high school.There are the following three research questions:(1)What are the features of the feedback teachers provide for students’ writing?(2)What effects does the teacher feedback have on students’ writing?(3)What are the students’ responses and attitudes to the teacher feedback in English writing learning?This research was in both quantitative and qualitative design and conducted under the theoretical and operational guidance of the process writing approach in Guiyang No.9 High School during the author’s internship.Four English teachers and their 146 students in Senior Two were selected as research participants.This research involved different data sources in two parts: one from 80 students’ composition samples,and the other from teachers’ classroom performance,teachers’ and students’ opinions.All the data were collected through different instruments: observation,interview and questionnaire.Data process and analysis was made with theassistance of Excel.Supported by the data analysis,the research questions can be answered by the findings as follows:(1)The teachers’ feedback have reflected such features as they(a)mainly chose written feedback to evaluate students’ composition;(b)mainly offered the direct and explicit feedback on the language forms of students’ compositions;(c)meanwhile,wrote comments on students’ compositions to provide revision suggestions,but some of the comments were not specific enough.(2)The effects of teacher feedback on improving students’ writing could be different: effectiveness could be judged from the individual teacher.The techniques used by two teachers,Ms.Jin and Ms.Hou,showed more effectiveness which is likely to be more instructive,positive,encouraging to their students.However,feedback given by the teachers was not every effective,to some extent,with little appropriate techniques appropriately focused.The follow-up activities after teacher feedback(such as revising or rewriting the composition)were not paid attention from teachers and students.There are some discrepancies between teachers’ feedback operations and students’ preferences for teacher feedback.(3)Most of the students held the view that teacher feedback was important to their writing,they thought that teacher feedback was beneficial and effective to help them improve their writing,but not all the students took teacher feedback seriously.They preferred to be given more direct error corrective feedback on grammar and vocabulary.Moreover,the students wanted their teachers to provide more specific and targeted comments on the content of their writings.These findings have some implications for providing more effective feedback on students’ writing.Thus a few points should be noted:(1)It’s better for teachers to decide the focus of their feedback based on the specificwriting assignment,the content and structure of students’ writing should be given equal attention as the language form.Indirect feedback is beneficial to cultivate students’ self-learning ability,which is vital for the development of students’ language competence.(2)Teacher feedback should be used as an intermediate link in writing teaching,and teachers should monitor and encourage students to modify their compositions or rewrite after receiving feedback.(3)Teachers should renew their beliefs of English writing teaching,when providing feedback,teachers should not only pay attention to the students’ language errors,but also attach importance on the structure and content of the students’ compositions,and consciously develop students’ writing skills.(4)Teachers can apply other types of feedback,such as peer feedback plus teacher feedback,teacher-student-interacted feedback and internet-assisted feedback,to save their time and improve the effectiveness of feedback.