The Effects of Corrective Feedback Strategies on English Majors’ Writing | #journalsummary

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The first post in April is a journal discussed feedbacking strategies in writing. English is a second language in many countries, hence the English learners might find difficulties in English writing. To get better writing skills, teachers could use a corrective feedback strategy to help the students find the mistakes or errors.

The effect of a corrective feedback strategy is presented in an article entitled “The Effects of Corrective Feedback Strategies on English Majors’ Writing” and summed up as follows:

 

The Effects of Corrective Feedback Strategies on English Majors’ Writing

Wenling Chen

Source : English Language Teaching, Vol. 11, No.11, 10 October 2018

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education.

            A.    Summary of the content

This research is to know how different feedback strategies can be used in teaching L2 English at the university level. The participants are the fifty first-year English majors in two classes taught by the author in the second semester of the academic year 2016-2017. The instruments used are sample analysis and questionnaires. Fifty questionnaires and the fifty portfolios are collected in the 16th week. Then, the researcher analyzes the answer to the questionnaires.

Writing is one of the skills that people learn when learning English. Students find many obstacles in writing in English. There are misunderstandings and miscommunications between the writer and the reader. So, teachers try to make different strategies to give feedback to the students to help students write correctly. According to Chaudron, Corrective feedback is defined as “any reaction of the teacher which clearly transforms, disapprovingly refers to, or demands improvement of the learner utterance”.

The students do most of the substance errors in the students’ essays are identified with spelling, word formation, capitalization, and punctuation. The errors are classified into vocabulary, grammar, and discourse errors. The research shows that the first-year English majors can understand most of the teacher’s feedback and correct most of the errors. The teachers employ the process-teaching method and require the student to submit a revised draft after giving the feedback. The students react actively to the teacher’s feedback and appreciate the feedback highly. We can conclude that the strategies are practical because it is more time-efficient and less laborious.

The author conveys some limitations of the research. These are stated in the journal,

1.  the student participants come from the same university, which may affect the generalizability of the results,

2.  the author sometimes discusses with her colleagues from the English-speaking countries, the identification and classification of errors largely depends on her own understanding, which may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases,

3. the long-term effect of corrective feedback on the students’ new writing has not been studied.

B.     Discussion

The journal is discussing the different feedback strategies that can be used in teaching L2 English at the university level. It tells us the struggle of the students in writing skills. Based on the result of the research, the strategy is effective in helping the students write correctly. The journal is good for English Education students, it inspires them to use this strategy when giving feedback to future students. On the other hand, I can use this strategy to develop my writing skill. However, before asking for feedback from the teacher I will ask my friend to give feedback. In my point of view, the journal is easy to understand. Although the journal has some limitations, the author tells what to do to complete the research.