第一章 简介
第一节 研究内容
在学生眼中，外教的认知功能和动机功能比元认知功能实现得好。学生对外教反馈的元认知功能期望比认知功能和动机功能高。More and more studies have been focusing on classroom interaction since 1970s,such as, teachers' questioning, teachers' feedback, teacher-student negotiation ofmeaning, turn distribution and turn taking and so on.The present study focuses on teachers' feedback. In fact, different scholars haveoffered different definitions of teachers' feedback. In this paper, the working definitionof teachers' feedback is: the information that is offered to students by teachers, both inverbal and non-verbal forms (mainly verbal forms), with the purpose of guiding andmotivating the students during the learning process in classrooms. Teachers' feedbackis an important element in classroom interaction and plays an important role instudents' learning process. Many scholars emphasize the importance of teachers'feedback, for example, Keller states that the practice with feedback is "one of the mostpowerful components in the learning process" (1987, qtd. in Yu, 2009: 1). "The waysthat most people in a formal learning environment identify their competence arethrough feedback", declared by Ginsberg & Wlodkowski (2000, qtd. in Yu, 2009: 1),after many related studies on feedback.
Nowadays, with more and more native English teachers' come to China serving asEnglish teachers, some changes have been brought about in traditional Englishclassroom dominated by Chinese teachers. It is not difficult to find that native andnon-native English teachers differ in many aspects in teaching. However, the majorityof the studies on teachers' feedback at home focus on non-native English speakers asEnglish teachers, while native English teachers' feedback has not been taken into fullconsideration to some degree. With the same language background, students may havedifferent perspective on feedback with their teachers, not to mention teachers fromanother country who have different language background. Therefore, it is necessary toinvestigate Chinese students' perspective on native English teachers' feedback.Thus, the purpose of the research is to investigate students' perspective on nativeEnglish teachers' actual feedback practice, including their perceptions and expectationsof native English teachers' feedback.
Chapter TwoLiterature Review文献回顾
This chapter first gives the definitions of feedback, and then makes a generalreview of key studies related to teachers' feedback, including studies on types offeedback, and studies on effects of feedback on language learning. Besides, previousstudies on students' perspective on teachers' feedback are reviewed as well.
2.1 Definitions of Feedback反馈的定义
Different scholars at home and abroad have offered different definitions ofteachers' feedback.From a communication standpoint in foreign language leaning contexts, Ellisdefines feedback as "...response to efforts by the learner to communicate. Feedbackcan involve such functions as corrections, acknowledgements, requests for clarification,and back channel cues such as "Mmm"' (1985: 296). In the context of teaching ingeneral, Penny Ur states that, "feedback is information that is given to the learnerabout his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective ofimproving this performance" (2000: 242), and she believes that "feedback has twomain distinguishable components: assessment and correction" (2000: 242).Wiseman and Hunt define the teachers' feedback as "information provided tostudents by teachers, generally in oral or written form that lets them know the status oftheir learning process; the more specific, regular, and in depth the feedback the better"(2001, qtd. in Yu, 2009: 5). This definition is made in a narrow sense, and anotheraspect of feedback一the non-verbal feedback, is missed. According to Berlo,"whenever we write, paint, gesture, we are sending out our messages" (1960, qtd. in Yu,2009: 6). In fact, teachers' classroom feedback is varied in shapes, which could beverbal or non- verbal.Wu puts forward three aspects that the definition of feedback could include:"(l) Itis specifically used by non-primary speakers; (2) It generally has shortened and fixed
Teachers' feedback could be classified according to different criteria.In general, teachers' feedback includes affective and cognitive feedback. Affectivefeedback is a kind of non-verbal feedback, which "concerns the motivational supportthat interlocutors provide each other with during an interaction" (Ellis, 1994， qtd. in Li,2009: 13). By affective feedback, teachers could convey positive or negative feedbackinformation through eye contact, facial expression, gesture, and proximity, and so on.Cognitive feedback relates to actual understanding, which is a kind of follow-upresponse that teachers offer to students after students answer the questions.By classroom observation, Lyster & Ranta (1997, qtd. in Lightbown & Spada,2002: 104) identify six different feedback types: explicit correction, recasts,clarification requests, meta-linguistic feedback, elicitation, and repetition. White (2000)distinguishes two feedback types: formative and summative feedback. The former one"modifies the thinking or behavior of students to facilitate learning" (White, 2000, qtd.in Yu， 2009: 10). The latter one "evaluates a student's assignment or test with thepurpose of giving it a grade" (White, 2000, qtd. in Yu, 2009: 10).With the case of Chinese college English classrooms, Zhao (2002) does a researchto describe teachers' feedback and examine its effects on students' immediate output.In terms of positive feedback, she identifies three types: simple feedback, feedbackwith more input (comment) and feedback with elicitation. In terms of negativefeedback, she finds that teachers prefer implicit corrections to explicit ones, and themost preferable one is recast.
Chapter Three Theoretical Framework ......................................20-30
3.1 Functions of Feedback ...................................... 21-24
3.2 Contents of Feedback ...................................... 24-26
3.3 Presentation of Feedback ...................................... 26-30
Chapter Four Methodology ......................................30-35
4.1 Research Questions ......................................30-31
4.2 Research Design ...................................... 31-35
Chapter Five Results and Discussions ......................................35-56
5.1 About Functions of Feedback ...................................... 35-37
5.2 About Contents of Feedback ......................................37-52
5.2.1 Perceptions of Feedback Contents ......................................38-45
5.2.2 Expectations of Feedback Contents ...................................... 45-51
5.2.3 Summary ......................................51-52
5.3 About Presentation of Feedback ...................................... 52-56
Conclusion 结论
For different reasons, limitations could not be avoided completely.Since the English majors involved in the study are all from one university inZhejiang Province, the results from the study have their limitations and may not claimmuch generalizability. A better sampling of students from different universities or fromdifferent regions will facilitate further investigation.Besides, although the students investigated in this study include males andfemales, their difference in perceptions and expectations is not discussed, because thisstudy aims to make an investigation into the gap between English majors' expectationsof and perceptions of native English teachers' feedback, and another reason is thatmale students are far less than female students among English majors. It is suggestedthat further research can also focus on the difference between male and female Englishmajors' perceptions and expectations of teachers' feedback.
For different reasons, limitations could not be avoided completely.Since the English majors involved in the study are all from one university inZhejiang Province, the results from the study have their limitations and may not claimmuch generalizability. A better sampling of students from different universities or fromdifferent regions will facilitate further investigation.Besides, although the students investigated in this study include males andfemales, their difference in perceptions and expectations is not discussed, because thisstudy aims to make an investigation into the gap between English majors' expectationsof and perceptions of native English teachers' feedback, and another reason is thatmale students are far less than female students among English majors. It is suggestedthat further research can also focus on the difference between male and female Englishmajors' perceptions and expectations of teachers' feedback.