4.3.2 The effective ways of giving writing feedback 15

4.3.3 Effects of teachers’ feedback on students’ writing 16

4.3.4 Teachers’ opinions of how to improve writing skills 16

5. Conclusion 18

5.1 Major findings of the study 18

5.2 Limitations 18

5.3 Suggestions for further study 19

References 20

Appendix 22

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Writing is one of the basic skills in language learning, which is not only a necessary output format but also an important means of expression and communication. English writing is an integral part in high school English teaching. According to High School English Curriculum Standard formulated by State Education Commission (2003) , high school students must attain at least Band 7 before graduation. But the general score of high school students’ English writing is always low and writing has become the weak link in high school English teaching. High school students who take English as a foreign language often feel that writing is a very difficult task and how to improve students’ writing ability is an important issue that today’s high school English teachers need to face. 

Since the 60s and 70s of last century when the Process Writing Method was introduced, feedback has become an important part of teaching writing. Teachers give feedback on students’ writing to guide students to notice their defects, correct errors, extend their expectation thereby improving their writing skills. Teachers’ writing feedback has always been seen as an effective means of training students to use writing skills, and providing feedback is also considered an important way teachers respond to students’ writing performance.

Effective teachers’ feedback can not only develop students’ potential of writing, but also mobilize students’ writing interest and enthusiasm and have a positive impact on students’ knowledge of the writing, cognition and emotion to create a good teacher-student interaction context. Therefore, teachers’ feedback of English Writing was considered an important step in the writing class, and the impact of teachers’ feedback on students’ English writing also occupies a pivotal position.

In high school English classes, teachers devote a lot of thought to the guidance before writing, but often overlook the way of feedback and its effect after writing; some students are racking their brains while writing, only to get a look at the final writing scores, and then shelve and ignore their own reflection after teachers’ feedback. In fact, even after the teachers’ evaluation, some of the same mistakes will appear in a later essay again and again in the English writing of high school students’. 

However, teachers’ feedback cannot play its biggest role in today’s high school English teaching, because the current teachers’ feedback in high school English writing in most cases is simple, boring and dull. Marking symbols and correcting ways are single and lack persity, inpiduality and humanity reviews, which turns out to be essentially a simple mechanical duplication of effort. Thus feedback should reflect the multi-faceted and multi-level nature and teachers should adapt to the situation of different personalities and abilities when giving writing feedback. Therefore, how to give effective feedback is the most important issue for high school English teachers to concern. 

 Feedback is a two-way information exchange between teachers and students, but not one-way communication in writing process. During the internship in Chaiqiao Senior High School for two months, the author had some discussions with many teachers on the issue of teachers’ feedback. Some teachers admitted that he or she rarely gave feedback on students’ writing; some teachers said they would correct students’ grammar mistakes, some other teachers would give the guidance before students start writing. Many classroom teachers were also not sure what kind of feedback would help students’ writing skills.