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The Effects of Criteria-Based Checklist Revision on College English Writing

Author: XiongJie
Tutor: LuMing
School: Suzhou University
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: criteria checklist revision English writing
CLC: H319
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2011
Downloads: 15
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Abstract

English writing is one of the five basic language skills for students, and it is difficult for students to improve since it is a productive skill which involves complex cognitive activity. Researchers at home and abroad have conducted many studies in finding a way to improve students’writing, and feedback on writing has always been the research focus. However, the majority of the study is concerned with the effect of external feedback on students’writing, such as teacher feedback and peer feedback. Actually, the role that students themselves play in providing feedback cannot be overlooked. In addition, previous studies and an informal survey conducted by the author have found that the effect of linguistic error correction is far from being satisfactory.Based on the above concerns, the present study adopts a different approach—criteria-based checklist revision to check on students’self-revision. It attempts to examine the effects of criteria-based checklist revision on students’writing in terms of structure and students’perceptions about this approach. All the participants are bilingual junior students and all their compositions before, during and after the treatment are collected and observed by the author; besides, an interview is carried out after the experiment so as to gather detailed information about students’perception of the approach. The major findings of the study are summarized as follows:Firstly, criteria-based checklist revision is effective in improving students’writing in terms of structure; particularly, compared with students’compositions before the treatment, their compositions meet more criteria during and after the treatment; through textual analysis, it is found that students have made significant improvement in different aspects of introduction part, body parts and conclusion part during and after the treatment;Secondly, students hold positive attitudes toward criteria-based checklist revision. Linguistically, they feel they have made much progress in their writing structure with the help of the checklist; affectively, they like this approach since it reduces their anxiety in writing and promotes their awareness of learner autonomy in learning; cognitively, checklist helps promote their use of meta-cognitive strategies like planning, self-monitoring and self-evaluating which are helpful in facilitating their writing process.This study sheds light on the exploration of teaching English writing and aims at providing a more effective and efficient way to improve teaching efficiency. Although this study is not totally free from limitations, it still offers pedagogic implications for the use of checklist in teaching English writing and it is hoped that the results of the present study can provide reference for further study on this method in teaching English writing.

The Effects of Criteria-Based Checklist Revision on College English Writing

Abstract

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