Linguistics Faculty & Alum Co-Author Article on Local Response-to-Writing Practices

Dr. Joseph Lee, Dr. Dawn Bikowski, and Farzaneh Vahabi

Two Linguistics faculty and an alum co-authored an article on “Second Language Teachers’ Written Response Practices: An In-House Inquiry and Response” in the latest issue of the Journal of Response to Writing.

The authors are Dr. Joseph Lee, Associate Lecturer of Linguistics and Assistant Director of the English Language Improvement Program at Ohio University, Dr. Dawn Bikowski, ELIP Director, and Ohio University alum Farzaneh Vahabi ’16M. Vahabi is a former ELIP Teaching Assistant and earned an M.A. in Linguistics from the Colleges of Arts & Science.

Abstract: This in-house inquiry explores the response practices of a group of L2 writing teachers in our specific program to gain a better understanding of these teachers’ feedback practices and to bring about purposeful change within our local context. Data consist of 4,313 electronic feedback (e-feedback) items given by six writing teachers to 36 L2 students on six writing tasks in a first-year writing course for international students. Using Ene and Upton’s (2014) e-feedback framework, each feedback instance was coded for feedback target, directness, explicitness, charge, and location. Although some variations exist, results show that these teachers overwhelmingly focused on form across writing tasks. Findings also show that the e-feedback was primarily corrective, direct, explicit, and within-text. Following a discussion of our programmatic response to this internal investigation, we conclude by arguing that programs can establish philosophies of response grounded in their specific context based on examination of local practices.