The Effects Of Written Corrective Feedback On Learners Of Different Thinking Styles In English Writing: From The Perspective Of Language Accuracy

In English writing,feedback bridges the gap between English composition learners and teachers.Through the communication of feedback,learners can seek out anything inappropriate concerning their writings and do some modifications.Ultimately,learners are expected to improve their writing ability and it,in turn,facilitates the improvement of teachers' teaching skills.The effective corrective feedback,therefore,is of vital importance.Its effectiveness however,has not been worked out,and has always been a heated discussed topic within these two decades.To test its effectiveness,the more comprehensive way is to take the variables(the pattern of corrective feedback,the type of the learners and so on)influencing its effect into account.In the present research,the author chose two types of corrective feedback(direct written corrective feedback and indirect written corrective feedback)and two kinds of learners(linear thinking style learners and non-linear thinking style learners)to see if those four factors will influence the effect under the circumstance of English composition teaching in China.If the answer is positive,these factors should be controlled in the future studies when digging out the effect of corrective feedback.If the answer is negative,the factors could be neglected.Thus,this study could provide more scientific and convincing evidence for addressing the unsolved issue.The current study aims at addressing the following three questions: First,will written corrective feedback exert different effects on English learners of different thinking styles in improving language accuracy in English writing?Second,which type of written corrective feedback is more effective to English learners of different thinking styles in improving language accuracy in English writing? Third,Will written corrective feedback improve English learners language accuracy in English writing?To answer these questions,the author designed a quasi-experiment where the experimental class was divided into four groups—linear thinking style with directfeedback,linear thinking style with indirect feedback,non-linear thinking style with direct feedback and non-linear thinking style with indirect feedback.Each of the group members participated in two tests(pretest and post-test)and received five writing exercises.During the 5 writing exercises,the researcher gave them corrective feedback according to the classification of their groups and provided no feedback concerning language accuracy to the control class,and then the subjects did revision according to the feedback they received.And the two tests were used to test the subjects' performance and marked with scores but no feedback.The comparison of the pretest and post-test contributed to the findings that written corrective feedback had evident effects merely on the learners of linear thinking styles.And to the learners of both linear thinking style and non-linear thinking style,feedback pattern(direct feedback or indirect feedback)exerted no significant difference in improving learners' language accuracy in English writing.From a holistic perspective,written corrective feedback was effective in improving linear thinking style learners' language accuracy in English writing.The major findings proved that thinking style is an influential factor while two types of corrective feedback are not,and thus,contributed to the further research theoretically.Practically,it will also aid English writing teachers to efficiently determine the most effective feedback to different learners in the classroom with the ultimate goal of optimizing the learning and teaching of English writing.