University students' reactions to teacher commentary and the relationship between the reactions and writing proficiency in an EFL setting.

摘要

EFL students' perceptions of and preferences for teacher commentary, improvement in the students' writing proficiency, and the relationship between their perceptions and the improvement in writing proficiency, were examined by a written questionnaire, interviews, and students' essays in various universities across Taiwan. The participants included 119 Taiwanese university students enrolled in English composition courses. The quantitative data were analyzed by statistical procedures. The findings indicated 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 useful and helpful. By means of revisions, the students improved their writing performance and advanced writing proficiency in both macro- and micro-level aspects. The students' highly positive perceptions of the global-level comments were mostly associated with high writing proficiency/improvement and vice versa, whereas their highly positive perceptions of the local-level comments were scarcely related to high writing proficiency/improvement and vice versa. The students strongly believed that teachers should comment on organization, content, style, and vocabulary on early drafts and should comment on vocabulary, organization, grammar, and mechanics on later drafts. The students strongly desired constructive criticisms on organization, content, style, and vocabulary, and felt that they learned the most from comments on those aspects. Conversely, correction symbols, praise without criticisms, correction/identification of grammatical and mechanical errors without suggestions on macro-level aspects, and implicit comments, were viewed as the least helpful comments. This study suggests that first, it is important for teachers to provide constructive criticisms on macro-level aspects of student writing to effectively help the students learn to write, especially on organization. Second, teachers should encourage students' positive perceptions of the macro-level comments because of their close relationship to the development of students' writing skills. Third, teachers should avoid correction/identification of grammatical and mechanical errors without suggestions on macro-level aspects of writing. Fourth, comments in question forms will be more helpful for students of more advanced writing skills than for those of more basic writing skills. It is important that teachers reach a balance between what research informs them and what students expect in their comments.