An Investigation Into Senior High School Students’ Engagement With Teachers’ Written Corrective Feedback On English Writing

Feedback is an important part of English writing teaching.In the English writing class in China,teachers’ feedback is still a dominating way to give students’ feedback.Over the past decade or so,the number of studies on the learner engagement with written corrective feedback(WCF)is increasing.The existing research implied that teachers’ WCF can not only improve students’ writing abilities effectively but also stimulate students’ enthusiasm and initiative in writing.However,its potential cannot be fulfilled in a real teaching environment.Student engagement with teachers’ WCF is a key factor influencing its effectiveness.At present,the research on the student engagement mainly focuses on case study,which lacks overall understanding of student engagement with teachers’ WCF.Based on Han & Hyland’s(2015)dimensions of engagement with WCF and Lü’s(2019)questionnaire for college students’ engagement with written feedback,an inventory is designed to study senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF from three aspects: behavior,cognition and affection.In total,336 copies of questionnaires were handed out in a senior high school in Nanchong.In addition,semi-structured interviews were conducted with six students and three teachers from three different grades.The composition texts from six students who are interviewed were gathered.This study adopted both the quantitative and qualitative method to study the following two research questions:(1)What’s the status quo of senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF?(2)Are there any differences among different kinds of senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF?If yes,what are they?The results show that:(1)In general,senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF is at a medium level,which mainly reflected in the students’ cognitive engagement,but students’ affective engagement is at a relatively high level.(2)Significant differences exist among different kinds of senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF.Firstly,female students engage significantly more than male students.Secondly,the engagement of senior three students is significantly higher than that of senior one students.Senior two students engage more than senior one students but there is no big difference between them.Lastly,the English level is a key factor influencing students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF.The higher one’s English level is,the more engagement one has.According to the results above,the following suggestions are put forward to help improve senior high school students’ engagement with teachers’ WCF.Firstly,improve students’ abilities in explaining feedback.Secondly,provide feedback based on gender differences.Thirdly,provide feedback based on students’ English level.Lastly,give more instructions on feedback.