Alternative sources of feedback and second language writing development in university content courses

TL;DR: Friends, roommates, and writing centre tutors amongst others, were seen as valuable sources of advice on writing that could compensate for perceived problems with content instructors’ feedback, while offering feedback opportunities which were more closely associated to students’ ideal representation of this pedagogic tool.

Abstract: Despite a strong intuitive sense held by instructors that feedback practices can help scaffold L2 writers’ composition processes, a number of questions remain concerning the manner best suited to deliver this feedback and its ultimate impact on literacy development. This paper presents findings from an eight-month longitudinal ethnographic case study of five international Japanese undergraduate students and their efforts to navigate the writing requirements of their content courses at a large Canadian university. While confirming the importance of instructor-based feedback practices and their potential as valuable language learning experiences, findings from this study also highlight language learners’ perceived importance of “alternative sources of feedback” for their L2 writing development. Friends, roommates, and writing centre tutors amongst others, were seen as valuable sources of advice on writing that could compensate for perceived problems with content instructors’ feedback, while offering feedback opportunities which were more closely associated to students’ ideal representation of this pedagogic tool. Implications focus on the advantages of widening our focus when understanding feedback practices to also include paying closer attention to the impact of the “invisible partners,” which also help shape students' literacy development and the bridges that might be built between these and more formal modes of instruction.