L2 writing teachers’ feedback practices for doctoral publishing: a teacher feedback literacy perspective

Abstract

While feedback literate teachers play critical roles in enhancing feedback efficacy and students’ learning, there is a paucity of studies on writing teacher feedback literacy. To address this issue, this study draws from the notion of teacher feedback literacy to explore two second language (L2) writing teachers’ feedback practices in the context of L2 writing for doctoral publishing at a Chinese research-intensive university. The analysis of the interviews, classroom observations and such textual data as the participants’ profile sheets and course materials informs the development of a contextualised, two-dimension framework of teacher feedback literacy, encompassing feedback design and process management. The first dimension features an integrated, purposeful and enabling design of feedback practices that aligns with the design of curriculum and teaching, and addresses specific pedagogical goals and practical constraints arising from the teaching context. The second dimension involves meticulous management of feedback process to ensure effective feedback enactment in teaching, contributing to developing student feedback literacy. This dimension underscores students’ skills development, as well as internal and external feedback interactions characterised by varying patterns of student feedback engagement. The paper concludes with implications for L2 writing feedback research and practices.