A typology of the characteristics of teachers’ written feedback comments on second language writing

Written feedback commentary (WFC) on L2 student writing is a widespread and time-intensive teacher practice, serving range of roles purposes. One the challenges in providing effective WFC attending to many content delivery options that are possible, some which have been shown exert tangible effects students their texts. This article presents typology characteristics teachers’ written comments, synthesised from 30 years empirical research. Ten strategies for (focus or target, mode tone, syntactic structure, text specificity, location, explicitness, length, presence mitigation strategies, pen-and-paper versus computer-mediated delivery, temporality) outlined. Thereafter, paper available relating response commentary. Each characteristic illustrated research into its effectiveness reviewed.