Response to student writing and its effects on writers is a vitally important topic for second language (L2) writing teachers and researchers. For many teachers, the act of responding (whether orally or in writing) represents the largest investment of time they make as writing instructors. For students, the feedback they receive from both instructors and peers may be the most significant component in their successful development as writers. The potential value of teacher feedback has been highlighted by the widespread adoption over the past fifteen years of a process approach in North American English as a second language (ESL) writing classrooms (see Matsuda, Chapter 1 this volume), meaning that students have the opportunity to receive and review teacher feedback and then to submit revised versions of their papers. Further, the increased emphasis on other forms of response in both native language (L1) and second language (L2) composition teaching, such as teacher-student conferences and peer feedback, may also be attributed to the popularity of the process approach with its cycles of multiple drafts.

This study investigates the comparative value of feedback provided by expert teachers, peer teachers, and language learners within TESOL practicum settings. Drawing on data from 738 feedback comments on two video-recorded lessons, the research explores variations in the quantity, type, tone, and evaluative content of feedback among the three groups. Results indicate that expert teachers gave the most extensive and pedagogically grounded feedback, though with a more critical tone. Peer teachers closely mirrored expert feedback in focus but provided more affirming and supportive responses. Language learners, in contrast, contributed the fewest comments, yet their feedback was notably more emotionally attuned, highlighting affective factors such as teacher demeanor and engagement. Despite these differences, all three groups emphasized instructional quality as a central concern. Quantitative ratings of teacher performance were similar across groups, yet qualitative justifications revealed diverging criteria. Findings highlight the unique and complementary perspectives each feedback source offers, suggesting that diversified feedback enhances reflective practice in TESOL teacher education. The study underscores the value of including learner voices in practicum assessments and encourages teacher education programs to adopt more inclusive, multi-source feedback approaches to support well-rounded teacher development.

Using eye-tracking and interview methods, this study investigates how business communication students and editing students attend to and evaluate writing. Participants reviewed blog posts embedded with errors and judged publication readiness. While both groups visually fixated longer on errors than non-errors, business communication students were more likely to approve error-containing texts for publication. Qualitative data revealed that business communication students prioritized content while editing students prioritized surface-level issues. These findings suggest that disciplinary background informs evaluative standards, even when error-detection behavior is similar. The results carry implications for instruction in business writing and editing, especially concerning collaborative, cross-disciplinary workplace writing.

Providing effective written feedback to ESL students poses a challenging yet crucial task for language teachers. While numerous studies have delved into critical feedback, few have explored students' perceptions of praise in written feedback. To gauge students' view of praise, we analyzed responses to two types: person praise (e.g., "You are a good writer") and performance praise (e.g., "You used the past tense correctly"). Language proficiency levels (high and low) and cultural backgrounds (Asian and Romance) were also considered. ESL students (n = 100) were given feedback on an essay they wrote and surveyed about praise comments. In addition, three focus groups were conducted. Quantitative data indicated a preference for both praise types, while focus groups revealed a preference for performance over person praise. Lower proficiency students valued and considered praise to be more change-invoking than high-proficiency peers. Additionally, students from Romance cultures favored praise more than Asian cultures. Interaction effects highlighted nuances, such as high-proficiency Asian students perceiving praise as less kind, valuable, positive, and clear than their Romance counterparts. These findings offer insights for teachers and administrators to develop an informed praise philosophy and recognize which praise type best meets their students' needs.

Students are often encouraged to proofread their writing by reading it aloud. Presumably, this will allow writers to correct local errors. Yet even though this strategy may be effective for native speakers, there is little empirical evidence of its benefit among second language writers. Therefore, we wondered how many errors second language students could correct through reading aloud and how that compared when receiving teacher feedback. In this study, 60 ESL students composed four in-class, 10-minute essays over two weeks. Half of the students revised their essays after receiving teacher feedback; the other half revised after reading aloud. All errors on initial and revised essays were tallied and normalized. Results showed that reading aloud affected some surface errors but that teacher feedback significantly outperformed reading aloud. We recommend teachers use reading aloud as a supplementary or preliminary strategy for correcting surface errors but not as a replacement for expert feedback provision.

While ESL writing teachers often deal with a heavy feedback workload on student writing, training students to self-assess their own work can ease the burden and empower students, especially if self-assessment increases self-efficacy and self-regulation. A self-assessment method is rubric training where teachers guide students in reading and grading sample essays. This research explores whether rubric training leads to positive emotional and regulatory gains. Twenty-one multilingual writers enrolled in a first-year writing class received incremental, short-term exposure to rubric training during which established self-efficacy and self-regulated learning scales were administered three times. Scores were compared to 15 writers in a control group, where students completed the same questionnaires on the same class days but received no rubric training. Results showed rubric training had a significant impact on students’ self-efficacy but not self-regulation. In post-assessment interviews, most students expressed feeling positive about rubric training because of the model essays. Some did not like the rubric because they thought it was difficult to read. A lexical analysis of the rubric showed it was likely beyond students’ reading level. Still, self-efficacy bridges students’ self-assessment and language gains; therefore, rubric training may be a useful tool when teachers use it to increase students’ self-efficacy.

Academic writers can convey their attitudes and opinions, or stance, through carefully chosen reporting verbs, which introduce and cite sources while expressing author perspectives. Since reporting verbs reflect different authorial intentions, they can be categorized into different stance acts. However, there is limited research on how reporting verb stance varies across disciplines. In this study, we analysed the stance of reporting verbs in the background sections of 270 academic articles from six disciplines in the Academic Journal Registers Corpus (AJRC) (Gray, 2011). Two cluster analyses yielded three clusters of reporting verb patterns based on act type, and five clusters based on stance type. The distribution of these clusters varied across disciplines, with applied linguistics and history as well as physics and political science showing similar patterns. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0 .

Fluent and skillful reading in English requires efficient and automatic letter and word recognition. Dysfluent reading can affect motivation for reading in English language learners, thereby limiting access to a wealth of language input from written texts. Extensive research of repeated reading in first language (L1) settings has been shown to increase reading rate, while comparatively little research has been done on repeated reading in second language (L2) settings. The objective of this eye-tracking study was to accurately document early and late reading processes in an immediate repeated reading exercise to observe how repeated reading affects reading rate in adult English language learners. In our study, 30 students in an intensive English program in the United States read three short expository texts three times each. Eye-tracking showed significant increases in reading rate measures in both early and late reading processes. For example, average first fixation duration decreased from the first to the third reading and average late dwell time decreased from the first to third reading. Repeated reading is an exercise that should be considered by educators to help English language learners increase their immediate reading rate.

Most tutoring policies in US writing centres prohibit proofreading, editing, or grammar correction of student writing in most forms. Famously articulated in an article by Steven North in 1984, this position reverberates on writing centre websites and among tutors to this day. But this was not always the case: early writing centres did not appear to hold such prohibitions, and increasingly, writing centres are questioning the reasonability of withholding language support from multilingual (L2) writers. In this chapter, we trace the history of editing in US writing centres that has prohibited proofreading. We then turn to examine the writer and tutor perceptions of editing and grammar feedback in one writing centre that has an explicit emphasis on tutoring L2 writers. The results show that even when requesting "grammar" help, L2 writers appear more interested in vocabulary, language feedback, and confirmation of their grammar knowledge. For their part, tutors feel empowered to offer editing help to L2 writers because they simultaneously provide language instruction, making editing a pedagogical activity. Part of the tutors' confidence comes from the extensive training they receive for working with L2 writers. This training is an opportunity for the tutors to learn and practice how to integrate proofreading and editing into their other tutoring strategies. Other writing centre administrators interested in embracing editing and proofreading with L2 writers may benefit from collaborating with language teachers, editors, and linguists to develop L2 training for all tutors.

Because specialized vocabulary knowledge is an essential component of disciplinary expertise, scholars in many domains, such as agriculture, economics, and medicine, have developed robust, register-specific word lists to supplement general service and academic word lists. However, similar lists for applied linguistics are less robust and may provide superficial vocabulary options. We developed an applied linguistics academic word list (ALAWL) of 664 words by sampling more than 48 million tokens taken from academic articles in 12 leading applied linguistics journals from the years 2012 to 2021. Our list covers 5.34% of words in a reference corpus of nearly 3 million words and, when combined with the new general service list and new academic word list, provides greater coverage than earlier attempts at such a list, accounting for 93.49% of words in the corpus. We describe our methods and present the ALAWL as an option for learners and educators in the field of applied linguistics and TESOL.

ESL writing teachers face the challenge of providing written feedback that is both effective and motivating to students. Thus, many end up making use of praise (or positive feedback) before offering criticism. Only limited research has examined how students perceive praise, and few studies among the most recent have focused on praise above other types of feedback. Moreover, researchers have not accounted for the effect of person-focused vs. performance-focused praise. We developed an original survey to understand how L2 learners perceive and value person and performance praise in written feedback. A total of 106 adult participants from two language groups (Asian and Romance) and at two English ability levels (intermediate and advanced) rated six different samples of praise based on how clear, helpful, valuable, encouraging to revision, kind, and motivating they found praise comments to be. Ultimately, praise type appeared to be the most significant variable as participants showed preference to performance over person praise. These results can be useful for teachers as they consider how to word statements of praise, particularly in response to student writing.

Authorial voice plays a key role in helping writers establish themselves as experts in their field as well as demonstrate their individual style (e.g., Tardy, 2012). Citation usage has an important impact on authorial voice in academic writing and can be implemented in various ways; namely, through citation types (e.g., integral, non-integral) and citation presentation (e.g., direct quotes, summaries, generalizations). While many researchers have examined citation type among novice and experienced writers, researchers have largely overlooked citation presentation across disciplines – that is, how experienced authors balance the use of quotations, summaries, and generalization to index authorial voice. Beginning academic writers may be encouraged to use quotations to prevent plagiarism, but it is unclear if this advice reflects patterns in published writing across disciplines. In this study, we examine the background sections (i.e., introductions and/or literature reviews) of 270 academic research papers to evaluate the extent to which various citation types and presentations are used in background sections across six disciplines. Findings which can inform disciplinary writing guides and educational materials indicate disciplinary variation in citation type, with applied linguistics using the most citations overall and physics and biology using the fewest integral citations. Disciplines also differed in their citation presentation, with some favoring summaries and others favoring generalizations while quotation was rare overall. These results have important implications for teachers and material developers who can use these patterns of source usage to compare and contrast disciplinary norms and provide direct instruction on features of academic voice. Cross-disciplinary awareness of voice features can also highlight disciplinary patterns for students, allowing them to write more like experts in their fields.

Citation and personal pronoun usage have an important impact on authorial voice in academic writing. While many researchers have examined citation type (integral vs. non-integral) among novice and experienced writers, researchers have largely overlooked integration type (quotation, summary, and generalization) and personal pronouns. Beginning academic writers may be encouraged to use quotations to prevent plagiarism and avoid personal pronouns, but it is unclear if this advice reflects patterns in published writing across disciplines. In this study, we examine the background sections of 270 academic research papers in six disciplines to evaluate the distribution of citation type, integration type, and personal pronouns. Findings indicate disciplinary variation in citation type, with applied linguistics using the most citations overall and physics and biology using the least integral citations. Disciplines also differed in their integration types, with some favoring summaries and others favoring generalizations while quotation was rare overall. Personal pronouns were more frequently used in philosophy, followed by physics. These results are important for teachers, students, and material writers since direct instruction can lead to quicker proficiency gains on features of academic voice. Cross-disciplinary awareness of voice features can highlight intra-disciplinary patterns that allow students to write more like experts in their fields.

First-year composition courses must balance a range of writing instruction priorities including genre and audience awareness with language instruction, particularly for second-language writers. Despite the attested efficacy of dynamic written corrective feedback for language gains in intensive English programs, little research has investigated dynamic written corrective feedback in supporting language and discourse development among L2 first-year composition students. In the present study, pre- and post-test writing from 63 second-language first-year composition writers was analyzed for grammatical accuracy as well as lexical and syntactic complexity. Writers with dynamic written corrective feedback intervention ( n = 30) failed to outperform a control group on nearly all measures, and in fact made significantly more verb errors and demonstrated significantly less syntactic complexity over time compared to the control group. Results suggest that while dynamic written corrective feedback is efficacious in some settings, it may be at cross purposes with other first-year composition discourse-based goals such as genre and audience awareness.

Dynamic written corrective feedback (DWCF) is an instructional strategy that uses error codes to address patterned errors in student writing. While studies have shown that DWCF significantly increases the accuracy of student writing, less is known about the effect frequency of teacher feedback has on accuracy, fluency, and complexity. This study observed two treatment groups who wrote short compositions and received comprehensive feedback daily (n=34) or every-other-day (n=34) with the amount of writing held constant at twenty minutes per week. When compared with a control group (n=33), findings showed greater accuracy for both the every-other-day group (p<.001, d=1.07) and the daily group (p<.001, d=1.26) while the daily group had significantly larger gains in fluency compared to the control group (p<.001, d=1.15) and the every-other-day group (p<.001, d=1.14). Two forms of complexity were also examined. No statistically significant differences were observed for clauses per T-unit. For mean length of T-unit, there was no significant difference between the control group and the daily group, but there was a significant decline for the every-other-day group compared to the control group (p=.025, d=0.75). Results contribute to SLA theory and can be useful for practitioners seeking to improve student writing in regular, short writing tasks.

Writing centers across the U.S. have experienced an influx of writers who speak English as a second language (ESL) over the last three decades, which has led to the hiring of ESL specialists as writing center tutors. Some ESL specialist have derived their specialist status from career-long experience tutoring ESL writers, not necessary from any direct training in second language acquisition or ESL teaching. This study examines the attitudes, sympathies, and practices of an ESL specialist with 30 years of tutoring experience to determine how her self-reported approach differed when working with native and non-native English writers. Her insights were subjected to discourse analysis, and results demonstrated that while her attitudes and sympathies showed deference to ESL writers, her self-reported practices were nearly identical for both groups and favored traditional writing center practices rather than recommended ESL practices. Insights from this specific case suggest that ESL tutoring experience is unlikely to be a sufficient proxy for specialized ESL training and expertise.

The increasing presence of multilingual writers in higher education, particularly in North American educational contexts, makes it difficult for educators to assume that all students write proficiently in standard edited English. Yet, educators still tend to expect students to produce English texts that are highly polished and error free without necessarily providing much instruction or support. This mismatch between reality and expectation is difficult for educators to resolve without sufficient training or expertise. The present chapter offers some guidance by describing various multilingual writers and their language variation and development. The authors then present common ideologies held by educators or proposed by theorists that can prevent multilingual writers from getting necessary language support. The chapter then proffers several suggestions for embracing grammatical diversity and supporting legitimate language development in order to better align teachers' expectations with the reality of grammatical diversity in high education.