ELT Journal Advance Access published online on August 28, 2009
ELT Journal, doi:10.1093/elt/ccp063
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
‘Would you perhaps consider ...’: hedged comments in ESL writing
Ulugbek Nurmukhamedov is an ESL instructor at the Intensive English Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include L2 writing, spoken grammar, and vocabulary acquisition. He is also interested in exploring effective ways to apply technology to improve writing instruction, especially teacher-written feedback. Ulugbek is passionate about using research from corpus linguistics to promote creativity in language use and to enhance vocabulary and grammar accuracy among L2 writers
Soo Hyon Kim is a doctoral student in the Second Language Studies programme at Michigan State University. She has previously worked as an ESL writing instructor and writing centre consultant at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Soo is particularly interested in sociocognitive approaches to writing, textual features of L2 academic writing, L2 writers’ revision strategies, and L2 writing pedagogy, especially teacher feedback. Other research interests include L2 lexical processing, attention and awareness in Second Language Acquisition, and Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Email: unurmuk2{at}illinois.edu
Email: kimsoo16{at}msu.edu
 |
Abstract |
|---|
Both research and practice have shown that while some comments on L2 writing lead to substantive revision, others go unattended, failing to achieve their anticipated instructional effect. It is therefore crucial to determine how learners perceive different commentary types, so that teachers can enhance the efficacy of their feedback. The present study shares practical suggestions on making written comments more effective, based on the results of an examination of the effects of four different commentary types on ESL students’ essays: statements (stating students’ problems), imperatives (directly asking students to change, delete, and add), questions (showing elements of doubt and uncertainty), and hedging (avoiding directness by implying or suggesting). While hedging comments were associated with substantive and effective revisions, stimulated recall interviews revealed that challenges may exist for ESL writers in interpreting hedging comments appropriately because of the difficulty in understanding their pragmatic function.