Effects Of Different Written Corrective Feedback On Senior High School Students’ English Writing Proficiency

The importance of writing cannot be emphasized too much in English teaching and learning.However,the current situation of English writing teaching in senior high school is far from satisfactory,especially from the perspective of teachers’ feedback.Teachers tend to employ one fixed type of Written Corrective Feedback(WCF)to correct just grammar errors in students’ English compositions.This research puts different types of WCF into practice to correct students’ English compositions from different aspects.Researchers at home and abroad have conducted many experiments to detect the effects of WCF on second language writing.However,their research findings are not always consistent with each other.To further explore the effects of WCF on senior high school students’ English writing proficiency,this research tries to address the three following questions:1)What are the effects of Indirect WCF and MF on senior high school students’overall English writing proficiency?2)What are the effects of Indirect WCF and MF on senior high school students’English writing proficiency in terms of grammar,content and structure?3)What are the effects of Indirect WCF and MF on senior high school students’English writing anxiety?Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed in this study.As to quantitative research,an experiment,lasting for 8 weeks,was conducted in a senior high school.Two parallel classes of Senior 2 were chosen as participants.Before the experiment,an English writing pre-test and an English writing anxiety questionnaire were conducted in the two classes to find out whether there existed any significant differences of English writing proficiency and English writing anxiety between the two classes.In the experiment,EC was provided with MF while CC was offered Indirect WCF.After the experiment,an English writing post-test and the same English writing anxiety questionnaire were carried out again.The instrument employed in the qualitative research was a semi-structured interview in which 6 subjects voiced out their opinions on the effects of Indirect WCF or MF.The research findings were as follows.1)Indirect WCF could not significantly affect senior high school students’ overall English writing proficiency while MF greatly enhanced their overall English writing proficiency.2)Indirect WCF did not exert any significant changes on senior high school students’ English writing proficiency in terms of grammar,content and structure.However,MF improved grammar and structure in a significant way.3)Indirect WCF brought about no significant changes on senior high school students’ English writing anxiety while MF was confirmed effective in reducing their English writing anxiety to a large degree.Based on the research findings,several pedagogical implications are put forward:1)MF is suggested to be used by English teachers when they provide feedback to students’ compositions,which not only enhances senior high school students’ overall English writing proficiency,but also exerts significantly positive effects on grammar and structure.2)English teachers should develop the awareness of MF by means of some training activities concerning how to provide MF.3)English teachers can resort to MF to reduce students’ English writing anxiety instead of Indirect WCF.There were several limitations in the study from which suggestions for future studies could be proposed.1)The number of students involved in the research was small,so future studies should choose more students of different grades from different schools as participants.2)The duration of the research was short,which just lasted 8 weeks.Future studies should be designed for a longer period to make research findings more reliable.3)The number of writing topics used in the research was limited.Future studies should cover diversified topics as more as possible to attest students’ English writing proficiency.