Junior High School English Teachers’ And Students’ Perceptions Of Wechat-Based Multimodal Feedback In EFL Writing

The advancement of technology draws forth the emergence of multimodal feedback which makes it possible for teachers to provide computer-assisted or mobileassisted feedback in audio mode(audio feedback),text mode(text feedback),or video mode(video feedback)to correct students’ English writing.However,it is less certain to what extent the modes and the media influence English teachers’ and students’ perceptions.This thesis explored 34 junior high school English teachers’ and 34 junior high school students’ perceptions of Wechat-based multimodal written feedback concerning four aspects(effectiveness,sense of belonging,technical problem,and preference)in an experimental school which uses tablets to assist teaching.A crossover design was conducted to ensure students could experience both online audio feedback and text feedback in the experiment.After four writing and feedback sessions,two instruments including questionnaires and phone interviews were employed to explore students’ and English teachers’ perceptions.The results showed that students perceived that Wechatbased online feedback and audio feedback had high effectiveness,good sense of belonging,and less technical problem,and they preferred to use Wechat to receive multimodal feedback.However,students’ preference for audio feedback was not high for audio feedback made it difficult and challenging for students to target and track errors.Similarly,teachers also tended to perceive Wechat-based online feedback and audio feedback effective,with good sense of belonging and less technical problem.And their preference for audio feedback was higher than text feedback.In addition,teachers’ preference for Wechat in online feedback provision was uncertain for they favored faceto-face feedback more and only treated multimodal feedback as a supplement.The data drawn from interviews implied that it was agreed by teachers and students that Wechat was a good tool to provide online feedback for its effectiveness.Audio feedback and text feedback had their advantages and disadvantages.Although good sense of belonging was one unique feature of audio feedback for its actual interaction and vivid tone of voice,it was difficult to pause which made students unable to reposition specific feedback.While repeatedly visual reviewing and revision were characteristics of text feedback which made it convenient for teachers to edit or modify the content before sending text feedback.Hopefully,the Wechat-based multimodal feedback could meet students’ individual needs.And the discussion of the merits and demerits of audio and text feedback may expand the ways of written feedback provision as well as improve the efficiency of multimodal feedback.More practical implications for further research are also discussed.