An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Focused And Unfocusedwritten Corrective Feedback On The Accuracy Of Articles Used Inhigh School Students’ Compositions

Written corrective feedback has always been a controversial topic in the teaching of second language writing,some scholars believe that it is effective,while others believe that it is not only ineffective but harmful.In their search for conclusions,the researchers found that different types of corrective feedback had different effects.Based on this,This study takes the first-year students of a middle school in Jiujiang City,Jiangxi Province as the experimental object,aiming to discover the effects of corrective feedback and the differences between focused and unfocused written corrective feedback on the accuracy of articles used in high school students’ writings.What’s more,the students’ attitudes and preferences towards focused WCF and unfocused WCF are also involved.In order to solve the problems above,this study adopted qualitative and quantitative research methods.And tests,questionnaires,and interviews will be adopted as research tools.The study lasted for ten weeks and underwent a pre-test,three interventions,and two post-tests.In order to solve the above problems,this study took 50 students from a middle school in Jiujiang as the research object.According to the scores of the pre-test,the students were divided into five groups,including four experimental groups and one control group.The experimental group received direct focused written corrective feedback,indirect focused written corrective feedback,direct unfocused written corrective feedback,and indirect unfocused written corrective feedback.In addition,this study uses SPSS26.00 to conduct data statistics and analysis of the scores of students’ three writing tests.Afterward,questionnaires and interviews were conducted with the students.This study found that both focused and unfocused written corrective feedback can improve the accuracy of the articles used in English writing of first-year high school students.In addition,focused written corrective feedback for specific grammar items was found to be more effective than unfocused written corrective feedback.Among them,direct focused written corrective feedback performed better in the immediate post-test,while indirect focused written corrective feedback in the delayed post-test performed better.And the vast majority of students recognized the role of the two types of written corrective feedback and would take the feedback given by the teacher seriously.In addition,intermediate and advanced level English learners indicated that they preferred indirect focused written corrective feedback,while low-level learners preferred direct written corrective feedback.Based on these findings,this study provides empirical reference materials for the effectiveness of written corrective feedback and is expected to provide a reference for front-line teachers in English writing teaching.