The Use of Written Corrective Feedback in Writing Teaching to Chinese University Students

Abstract

In the past forty years, scholars from all over the world have done much research in the field of second language teaching. The focus of research on L2 writing is gradually shifting from mistakes in students' compositions to teachers' Written Corrective Feedback (WCF). Writing is a difficult point in second language teaching because it not only requires teachers to have high language ability but also is a time-consuming educational task for both teachers and students. If students do not understand what the teacher is trying to express or correct, there will be mutual understanding problems among them. That said, instructors should consider and reflect on the use of strategies and the effectiveness of WCF. They engage students with teacher feedback or stimulate students to think to improve their L2 writing skills. However, in regular teaching, teachers may not pay much attention to written correction feedback. It not only has a wide variety and has different effects on different errors but can also be used in combination to achieve a better correction effectfor example, the combination of direct feedback, indirect feedback, and metalinguistic feedback. Teachers also can design some activities with peer feedback. In addition, partial error correction is more recommended than overall error correction.