Spaced Multi-draft Composing and Feedback in Mainland Chinese English as a Foreign Language Secondary School Writing Literacy

This chapter investigated how uninformed, spaced multi-draft composing and teacher feedback influenced the writing quality and fluency among secondary school EFL learners of different proficiency levels. Thirty-nine Junior Two students in two proficiency groups composed three drafts of the same paper spaced out over eight weeks. Only half of each group obtained teacher feedback during the training. Results showed that multi-draft composing improved writing fluency for all participants’ second and third drafts. The high-proficiency students showed better writing quality in both subsequent drafts; their low-proficiency counterparts only improved on the second draft. Teacher comments did not affect the writing performance. The results stressed the importance of timely teacher feedback in process writing. Also, low-proficiency learners should receive extra support for later drafts.