The Effects of Metalinguistic Feedback and Field (In)dependency on Taiwanese Vocational High School Students’ Accuracy of Past Tense and Type III Conditionals

• Main Authors: Huang, Ai-Ting, 黃愛婷
• Other Authors: Kung, Hui-i
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qzm4x7

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 106 === This study investigated the effects of metalinguistic feedback (MF) and a possible mediating factor, field (in)dependency (FI/D), in the effectiveness of MF on Taiwanese vocational high school students’ accuracy of past tense and Type III conditionals in revised and new writing. Freshman Applied English majors from two classes (n=86) in a vocational senior high school in central Taiwan were assigned to the experimental group (n=47) and the comparison group (n=39). The instruments included an Embedded Figures Test (EFT), used to measure learners’ cognitive style, and two picture-cued writing tests. The EFT was administered in 20 minutes. The writing tasks required the participants to write a passage with at least 200 words based on a four-picture story strip within 50 minutes. The participants were given 20 minutes to complete the revision task. The experimental group received an indication of an error with a number on it and simple rules and examples on grammatical features, whereas the comparison group received general feedback on the content only. The participants were given the EFT in week one. They completed the first writing task as the pretest in week two, a revision of the first writing followed by the second writing task as the posttest in week four. Both groups received feedback only on the first writing task. The ratio of the accurate uses of each of the target structures to all obligatory (correct or incorrect) and overuses produced by each participant in each piece of writing was converted into a percentage further statistical analyses of the relationships among the variables. The findings show that MF was effective in enhancing the participants’ accurate uses of past tense and Type III conditionals both in revision and new writing. However, FI/D was not a mediating factor in the effects of MF on students’ accurate uses of past tense and Type III conditionals. At the end of this thesis, pedagogical implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for further research were provided.