A Study On The Effects Of Three-Dimensional Writing Evaluation Feedback On English Major Students’ English Writing Ability Based On The Ecological Affordances Theory

In the past two decades,the field of foreign language teaching has become increasingly rich in exploring teaching phenomena and problems from an ecological perspective,and Ecological Affordances Theory has been introduced into the field of foreign language teaching.According to the Ecological Affordances Theory,the learning environment is the ecological environment,and affordance refers to teacher-directed language learning opportunity.The actualization of ecological affordances refers to the dynamic and complex interaction process between learners and the learning environment by focusing on learners’ perceptions and interpretations of learning resources and interactive opportunities and whether they act on them.Argumentative writing is an important skill for English majors,and one of the most important ways of improving argumentative writing ability is receiving feedback.Writing feedback is rich in affordances,and exploring students’ actualization of ecological affordances in the process of receiving writing feedback has a positive effect on foreign language teaching.With the development of technology,automated writing evaluation based on computer technology for scoring writings has become very popular among both English teachers and students learning English.Peer feedback and teacher feedback have been shown to be helpful in improving students’ English writing skills.However,all these three types of feedback have shortcomings:the mechanism of automated writing evaluation feedback,the uncertain quality of peer feedback and the untimeliness of teacher feedback.Therefore,combining the usage of automated writing evaluation feedback,peer feedback and teacher feedback helps students revise their writings more effectively with more detailed explanations and higher accuracy.54 sophomores of English major in two classes are selected as the participants of this study,with 26 of them in the experimental class and 28 of them in the controlled class.Besides,6 focus students from the experimental class are chosen to participate in the case study,with 3 of them from higher level of English proficiency and 3 of them from lower level of English proficiency.This study explores the effect of three-dimensional writing evaluation feedback based on Ecological Affordances Theory by analyzing the results of writing tests,the correlation between the actualization of ecological affordances and students’ writing scores under the two modes of three-dimensional writing evaluation feedback and traditional writing feedback,as well as the detailed analysis of 6 focus students’ actualization of ecological affordances.To be specific,the research questions in this study are as follows:1.Is the actualization of ecological affordances in the learning environment related to the improvement of students’ writing quality?2.Compared with traditional feedback mode,does the mode of three-dimensional writing evaluation feedback contribute to any significant difference in students’ English writing scores?3.What kinds of ecological affordances were perceived by focus students in the process of three-dimensional writing evaluation feedback,and how did their actualization of ecological affordances take place?What were the influencing factors of their actualization of ecological affordances?Through the analysis of collected data,the findings of this study are mainly on three aspects:First,there is a positive correlation between the positive actualization of ecological affordances in the learning environment and the improvement of students’writing quality and a negative correlation between the negative actualization of ecological affordances in the learning environment and the improvement of students’ writing quality.Second,there is a significant difference in students’ English writing scores between the experimental class and the controlled class at the end of the semester.Third,the six focus students in the experimental class perceived five kinds of affordances in the process of receiving writing feedback:praise and encouragement;accumulation of excellent expressions;warning on error-prone points;suggestions for passage improving;error correcting.The influencing factors on the actualization of ecological affordances included students’ expectation of themselves,their English proficiency at the beginning of the term,their personalities,students’ attitude towards writing feedback,their degree of diligence,the timeliness of feedback,the specificity of feedback,the reliability of feedback,peers’attitude,peers’ English proficiency,study pressure from other homework and so on,with the first three factors having the biggest influence.