A Case Study Of Chinese English-Major Undergraduates’Reaction Towards Teacher’s Feedback In EFL Writing

Writing is one of the important skills that the language learners must master.And how to improve the effectiveness of writing teaching has become the researchemphasis of scholars at home and abroad. Feedback, as an important part of writingteaching, is the study focus of domestic and foreign scholars in the recent twenty andthirty years. There is a large amount of investigations and research into all aspects ofthe feedback mechanism, such as feedback source, mode, core, and validity. Someresearchers have confirmed the effectiveness of teacher feedback, and that teacherfeedback plays an important role in guiding the students’ writing and ensuring theeffectiveness of writing teaching. In China the research on teacher feedback ismainly concentrated on the evaluation method and mechanism, the types of writtenfeedback, teacher feedback and peer feedback effect, theory etc. Throughout thedomestic and foreign related research on teacher feedback in L2writing, there isrelatively more research on teacher feedback forms, methods, and effectiveness etc.,but there are relatively few studies of students’ attitudes and reactions towardsteacher feedback. Only be responded effectively by students, can teacher feedbackachieve the ultimate goal in teaching.Based on the theory of feedback in L2writing, the study conducts a case studyto investigate the English-major undergraduates’ reactions towards teacher feedbackin China, trying to answer the following research questions:1) What are the formsand focuses of teachers’ feedback in Chinese English-major undergraduates’ writingcourse?2) What are students’ reactions towards teacher feedback in EFL writing,and whether there is difference between students at different proficiency levels?3)What are students’ preferences and expectations of teacher feedback in their writingexercises?This study employs questionnaires and interviews to collect data, and usesqualitative and quantitative research methods to analyze the English Majors’ reactions towards teacher feedback. The subjects of the present study are300collegestudents of English major in a university of northeast China, including168studentsfrom primary writing class and132students from advanced writing class.The questionnaire used in this research is divided into four parts, a total of33multiple choice: The first part investigates the subjects’personal information, and thewriting class size; the second part is a survey of teacher feedback forms and teacherfocuses in writing teaching; the third part investigates students’ reactions towardsteacher feedback; the fourth part aims to investigate students’ preferences andexpectations for teacher feedback. SPSS17.0is used to analyze the data collected byquestionnaire, and then interview questions are designed according to the reflectedproblems of the questionnaire. Each four interviewees are randomly chosen fromprimary writing class and advanced writing class. The interview data was used as asupplementary for questionnaire data, in order to further explain the researchproblems.The results have the following findings:1) Teachers’ actual feedback mainly focuses on the traditional approach ofproviding feedback, for example the collective feedback and traditional marking. Onthe contrary, few teachers put high value on the internet based language learningmethod, for existence, using private e-mails or opening a public course blog. Further,teachers seldom employ teacher-student conferencing frequently in their writingcourse. What’s more, most teachers pay more attention to giving form-focusedfeedback than giving content-focused feedback on students’ writing.2) As forstudents’ reactions towards teacher feedback, significant differences do existbetween HP students and LP students. Specifically, compared to LP students, HPstudents paid more attention to teacher feedback, thought teacher feedback morecarefully, and took more energy and time to revise the returned writing with teacherfeedback. What’s more, the results indicate that the HP students were more positivethan the LP students in terms of their understanding of the teacher feedback, theirability to correct their errors, and their view of the usefulness of teacher feedback.3)Students expect teachers to provide feedback in various forms, and students look forward to opening teacher-student conferencing, public blog and private email. Asfor teacher feedback focuses, students expect teachers provide feedback on grammar,simultaneously give feedback on the content and structure of writing.Based on a summary of the research results, this paper puts forward somesuggestions for the future English writing teaching about how to carry out effectivefeedback. First of all, when providing feedback, teachers should take into accountthe individual differences between students at different writing levels. And forstudents at different writing levels, teachers should use the feedback of differentform or manner. In addition, the study found that many students pay more attentionto teacher feedback on the organization, structure and content of their writing.Therefore, when teachers give feedback to the students, they should not only payattention to the forms of writing should also pay attention to the content of writing.Finally, for the purpose to improve the students’ interest in writing training, teachersshould adopt various feedback forms to meet the students’ preferences and needs, inorder to improve the students’ writing ability.On the basis of L2acquisition theory, the study investigates undergraduateEnglish majors’ reactions towards teacher feedback in EFL writing, and makes adetailed description and summary of the most effective and students easily acceptedteacher feedback methods and types. The study results have a positive effect onenriching teacher feedback theory and further advancing research on L2writingfeedback. In addition, it can help teachers reflect on the omissions and deficienciesin writing teaching, through understanding learners’ attitudes and reactions toteacher feedback. The study results can remind teachers to fully consider students’individual differences in the future teaching, and provide different feedback types tomeet students’ needs. Finally, it can enhance students’ enthusiasm for Englishwriting, and encourage them to make full use of teacher feedback, and revise theirwriting timely, so as to improve their writing levels effectively.