Effects Of Teachers’ Commentary Types On Revision In Junior Middle School Students’ English Writing

As an important guideline for students’ revision,teachers’ commentary plays a crucial role in helping students improving writing ability.Therefore,it is now a hot topic in studies on English teaching.The present studies have explored students’ attitude towards teachers’ commentary in the writing and proved that teachers’ commentary can make substantial contribution to students’ revision.However,it is not the case that all types of teachers’ commentary will have the same effects on students’ revision,which has yet received little discussion.Based on these studies,we aim to explore the influences of teachers’ commentary types on the revision degree and revision effect in students’ English writing and ultimately review the close relationship between teachers’ commentary types and student’s revision.We will focus on these research questions:(1)What effect does teachers’ commentary types have on the degree of revision?(2)What effect does teachers’ commentary types have on the effect of revision?In response to the research questions,a 15-week experiment was conducted.Participants of the research were 34 students from a class in the seventh grade of a junior middle school.Participants are required to write 5 English compositions of various topics,each of which will receive teachers’ commentary.The revision is required to be finished within a week.Excel 2007 and SPSS 23.0 are employed to calculate teachers’ commentary and students’ revision.The revision is measured in terms of revision degree and revision effect;the three categories of revision degree are substantial change,minimal change and no change.The two categories of revision effect are correct change and incorrect change.We made theoretical analysis of these effects from the perspectives of Interaction Hypothesis,Output Hypothesis and Constructivism Theory.In this research we find that teachers’ commentary types have significant impact on the student’s revision degree and revision effect.Different types of teachers’ commentary lead to different revision degree or different revision effect.To be specific,praises and explanations have a positive impact on both revision degree and revision effect,while instructions and suggestions have a negative impact and criticism and questions have a mixed impact.The studies indicates that appropriate use of teachers’ commentary can help students to have better understanding of teachers’ information,which will enable students to make revisions more effectively.