Ming-Tzu Liao

National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan

 

Abstract

This study examined EFL students' perceptions and preferences for teacher commentary and the relationship between their perceptions and their improvement in writing proficiency. The participants included 119 Taiwanese English majors enrolled in English composition courses in universities across Taiwan. A written survey and interviews were administered and students' essays were collected, and were analyzed by SPSS, the coding scheme, and text analysis, respectively. The findings showed that the students strongly believed that teachers should comment on most aspects of their writing on both early and later drafts, and that comments on most aspects were helpful. By means of revisions, the students improved their overall writing performance and performance in each macro- and micro-level aspects of writing. More importantly, a high positive relationship was found between the students' perceptions of global-level comments and their writing proficiency/improvement whereas little relationship was found between the students' perceptions of local-level comments and their writing proficiency/improvement. The students' perceptions of macro-level comments were therefore more important and should inform teachers' response practices more than their preferences for micro-level comments. This study suggests that teachers should foster and encourage students' positive perceptions of and interest in the macro-level comments to help them learn to write effectively.

 

Key Words: teacher comments, student reactions, foreign language writing, writing performance

 

大專生對教師回饋之反應與其寫作能力之相關性:以英語為外語情境為例

 

廖明姿

國立高雄師範大學英語學系

 

摘要

此研究檢視了學生們對教師建議的認知與喜好、以及該認知和寫作能力進步之間的關係。參與者包括119名在台灣參加作文課程的英語系學生。此研究實施了一份紙本的調查以及訪談,也收集學生們的寫作,並且分別以SPSS統計軟體、編碼機制、以及文本分析來分析資料。結果顯示學生們深信,老師應該在大部分的寫作初稿以及稍後的版本中提供建議,而且不同部分的建議都會實用的。透過修訂過程,學生們改善了他們整體的寫作表現、以及在鉅觀和微觀的寫作表現。更重要的是,研究發現在學生對於整體建議的認知與他們的寫作能力/進步有高正面的關係;但是在字句建議上的認知與他們的寫作能力/進步並無太大的關聯。因此學生們對鉅觀層次建議上的認知比較重要,也應該提醒教師們練習回應的方向,以取代對微觀層面上建議的喜好。本研究建議教師們應該促進與激發學生對於鉅觀層面建議的喜好,以幫助他們進行有效的寫作。

 

關鍵字: 教師回饋、學生反應、外語寫作、寫作表現