Initial Post:

Annie_J: Hey guys!!! I am an English Literature PhD student at a public university

in California. Currently I am teaching an English course designed for ESL undergraduate

students to help them understand college level writing. This is a very hard task to take on, but so

far has been really interesting. After a few courses, I have totally reshaped my view of

interacting with my students and giving feedback on their writing. I’ve realized that feedback

could be given directly or indirectly, and in order to give effective written feedback, teachers

should consider their students’ needs for error correction and classroom realities (Srichanyachon

2012). This really opened my eyes to think that as a teacher I have so much more to improve,

and as a student we need to emphasize the importance of feedback to other people’s writings

especially for L2 students. Sooooo, please let me know if you agree???? I would also like to

know how to write when English is not someone’s first language? Or you can also give any

suggestions you may have!!!

Comments:

SAA.Isaa: OMG! You are the first teacher I saw on Facebook talking about this! I am a

L2 student in college, and I could tell you that we absolutely love to hear feedback from

teachers, especially on ESL writing. A lot of friends and I all think we actually did not receive

enough comments from the teachers during ESL courses. Fitting into a foreign culture is really

hard, and conquering the language barrier would be our first step. Anyways, I am happy for your

students to have such a teacher like you! Please keep update on your teaching experience and

daily life (Ismail, 2011)

 LEe.1: @SAA.Isaa I disagree with what you said about the part you said you want the

teacher to give as many comments as possible. My colleagues and I conducted an experiment

several years ago aimed to find out the attitude of L2 students towards error correction in writing

classrooms. However, we found that students believe error correction is primarily the teachers’

responsibility. They rely a lot on the teachers’ comments in order to produce writing projects,

and I personally believe that is not a very good sign.

Rollinson.PP: @LEe.1 I agree, that is why I like to use peer review to give students

feedback. Peer feedback could potentially involve a lot of conversations and discussions, where

both the reader and the writer could be “encouraged to engage in a collaborative dialogue”

(Rollinson 2005). Which allows students to express and develop their ideas through talking.

MBaderM: @Rollinson.PP I like you pointed out that peer feedback is one of the most

effective ways to give feedback. I just want to build on that because as a student, I believe group

discussions would be a more effective way of implementing peer assessment than formalised

written peer commentary (Bader 2019).

Lippi_Greennnn: @SAA.Isaa I can definitely vibe the part you said about fitting into

the dominant culture in the United States starting from mastering the language ability. In fact, the

American’s ideal is that everyone should be as much alike as possible (Lippi-Green 1997). The

proper language choice, accents, and cultural background could all link together as hints for

others to define one’s social status. Children learn and expose from the TV or other

entertainments about standard language ideology could also be understand as those companies

are using stereotypes to enhance the divergence between different cultures, or may could also

encourage discrimination.
 Coffin_Caro: @Lippi_Greennnn WOoW, this conversation is getting DEEP. I believe

the main point of teaching academic writing is to let students pursue higher education. Because

the federal government and higher education institutions value tests like SAT/ACT so much, and

they all involve timed essays, teaching academic writing skills such as five paragraph essays are

important because they are tools to let the students be able to do well and pass those tests and get

the college entry ticket. So, I see teaching academic writing as a “toolkit” designed for the

teachers to better help their students take exams and go beyond (Coffin 2002).

Leki_ILO: @Coffin_Caro I disagree with what you said. I did a survey a few years ago

with ESL students attending EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses about their

experiences and beyond with my colleagues. Since writing classes require students to

demonstrate their knowledge of sources less than any other academic writing areas, I personally

believe that EAP courses could limit students to write with only things they come up with

themselves, instead of things that came from reliable sources, which may miss the chance to

promote or engage the intellectual and linguistic growth for L2 students.

Annie_J: @Leki_ILO, I totally agree with you, I believe writing should not be limited in

one genre or one type. Students should use their creativity and their experiences to generate their

own writing.

Maarof_NOOR: I totally agree with the part you say that teachers’ comments could

greatly influence L2 students’ behaviors and attitudes towards academic writing in English, or

learning English in general, but I think not only the teacher’s comment is important but also the

comments from students’ classmates and friends are very important as well. As a professor at

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia my colleagues and I conducted a research at secondary schools

of Malaysia by randomly selecting 150 students from five secondary schools who responded to a
questionnaire comprising 32 items on a 4-point Likert scale, two multiple-choice items and three

open-ended items. As a result, we found that most of the students would combine the use of the

comments commented by the teachers and their peers, which both could result in an

improvement of their English writing skills and acquisitions for ESL students (Maarof 2011).

Hope my own experience could give you any inspiration!

Li_Yonggy: My colleagues and I examined L2 students' writing process by utilizing

activity theory. We found out that activity theory has informed research into student interactions,

the dynamic roles of learners' goals, and students' writing strategies (Li 2013). If you have time,

you can do some research about this theory and see if that gives you some hint on understanding

L2 students’ writing behavior.

ISSS_roff: @Li_Yonggy I just did some research on activity theory. It is a theory about

understanding the mental capacity of an individual. So basically this theory is about learning that

needs to involve a subject (student), an object (a goal), and a community (a teacher/leader). This

theory implies that the learning environment and the leader would affect and shape the individual

in terms of learning and developing. The object (goal) reached when the subject (student)

developed, however, those actions all depended on the community (teacher/leader) (Isssroff

2002). For example, the goal of students in writing class is to develop their writing skills, so the

teacher could construct a good learning environment, and use themselves as models to show

passion in writing. Students, according to Activity Theory, would learn and influenced by the

environment and the teachers (community).

Annie_J: @ALL Thank you guys soooo much for all of these words! They are all soooo

useful! I will keep on updating my teaching life, follow me if you can.

 Reference

Rollinson P, Using peer feedback in the ESL writing class, ELT Journal, Volume 59, Issue 1,

January 2005, Pages 23–30, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cci003

Bader M, Student Perspectives on Formative Feedback as Part of Writing Portfolios, 16 Jan

2019, Pages 1017-1028,

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/02602938.2018.1564811?scroll=top&

eedAccess=true

Maarof, N. (2011). Role of Teacher, Peer and Teacher-Peer Feedback in Enhancing ESL

Students’ Writing. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.390.1221&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Li, Y. (2013, January 9). Three ESL students writing a policy paper assignment: An

activity-analytic perspective. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Retrieved

November 3, 2021, from

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1475158512000793.

Ismail, S. A. A. (2011, May 31). Exploring students' perceptions of ESL writing. English

Language Teaching. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1080715.

Leki, I., & Carson, J. (2012, January 4). "completely different worlds": EAP and the writing

experiences of ESL students in university courses. Wiley Online Library. Retrieved

 November 3, 2021, from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.2307/3587974.

Srichanyachon, N, (2012). Teacher Written Feedback for L2 Learners’ Writing Development.

Volume 12. https://so02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/hasss/article/view/7149

Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the

United States (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203348802

Coffin, C., Curry, M.J., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T., & Swann, J. (2002). Teaching

Academic Writing: A Toolkit for Higher Education (1st ed.). Routledge.

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203994894

Isssroff, K, (2002). Wiley Online Library, Using technology in Higher Education: an Activity

Theory perspective, Volume 18, Issue 1, Pages 77-83.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.0266-4909.2001.00213.x