Courses that explore business writing in the second language in Korea have become the new necessity for college students before entering the workplace. The purpose of this study, therefore, attempts to investigate the effects of teacher feedback on the student annotations in L2 business writing to improve and revise the business letters more effectively. Over the 5week intensive period, the student annotation group with comment on comment (SACC) and the student annotation group (SA) completed three persuasive business letters: the pretest, the inclass writing task, and the posttest. In the SACC group, once the students received the draft with the teacher feedback, the students responded to the teacher feedback by giving two additional types of student annotations: a success indicator of reflection and a student comment on the teacher comment in the inclass writing task. The results of the study indicate significant difference in the degree of involvement in terms of the total number and the types of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback. The findings reveal positive effects of business writing instruction on student annotations: (1) to elicit better teacher feedback to match the needs of the L2 studentwriter and (2) to increase studentteacher, studenttext, and within the student participation and interaction.
doi:10.15738/kjell.14.4.201412.655 Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing* Ji Yon Lee (Ewha Womans University) Lee, Ji Yon 2014 Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics, 14-4, 655-684 Courses that explore business writing in the second language in Korea have become the new necessity for college students before entering the workplace The purpose of this study, therefore, attempts to investigate the effects of teacher feedback on the student annotations in L2 business writing to improve and revise the business letters more effectively Over the 5-week intensive period, the student annotation group with comment on comment (SACC) and the student annotation group (SA) completed three persuasive business letters: the pretest, the in-class writing task, and the post-test In the SACC group, once the students received the draft with the teacher feedback, the students responded to the teacher feedback by giving two additional types of student annotations: a success indicator of reflection and a student comment on the teacher comment in the in-class writing task The results of the study indicate significant difference in the degree of involvement in terms of the total number and the types of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback The findings reveal positive effects of business writing instruction on student annotations: (1) to elicit better teacher feedback to match the needs of the L2 student-writer and (2) to increase student-teacher, student-text, and within the student participation and interaction Key Words: teacher feedback, student annotations, teacher's note on student comment, comment on comment, L2 business writing * The study is based on the author’s unpublished doctoral dissertation (Lee, 2012) and extends findings by Lee (2011) 656 Ji Yon Lee Introduction L2 business writing is taught in universities, and much of the learning on how to write a business letter is taught in General Business Purposes (EGBP) courses before entering the workplace (Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998) With the recent trends in technology, the traditional working environment has changed (Brieger, 2011; Louhiala-Salminen, 1996), and the ability to write in the specific genres in English at the workplace has become a prerequisite skill for job seekers In this respect, providing L2 business writing instruction that meets the specific genres has become a necessary skill for college undergraduates In addition, it is important to recognize that not only is improving L2 academic writing an ongoing concern for college students in Korea, but effective L2 business writing also has become a rising concern for Korean college undergraduates before entering the workplace Currently, because the EGBP courses are the student’s primary source of experience to learn how to write the business letters before any working experience, the writing courses for business purposes have become pivotal in learning how to write the many different types of business letters to the needs of other native and non-native speakers of English (Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998; Hyland, 2007; Schneider and Andre, 2005; Swales, 1990; Tebeaux, 1985) A connection needs to be made by the student to the formal features essential in business writing and to how texts interact with the appropriate genre (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Frendo, 2005; Hyland, 2007; Zhu, 2004a, 2004b) More specifically, this means that not only is text production a part of L2 business writing, but also the genre approach in L2 business writing instruction is necessary to develop skilled writers for professional purposes (Hyland, 2002; Swales, 1990) However, in order to further develop appropriate L2 business writing instruction, it is crucial to learn how closely student- Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 657 writers are involved: the L2 writer’s internal process (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Lee, 2012) in the writing and the revision Previous studies indicate that little is known about how much students are involved during the writing and the revision process (Lee, 2011; 2012) The process approach has shown that the L2 writing process is recursive and non-linear (Raimes, 1991; Tribble, 1996; Zamel, 1985) During the “cycles of activities,” the L2 writers return to many of the different stages of the writing process to achieve the text production (Tribble, 1996, p 5) However, the process approach has its limitations in L2 business writing Focusing on the end-product of writing and the writing process does not necessarily improve L2 writing Instead, insight on how the student writers are involved in the writing and the revision is essential to provide effective L2 writing instruction Therefore, the purpose of this study attempts to investigate the effect of teacher feedback on student feedback in L2 business writing to revise their business letters more effectively For the purposes of the current study, the student annotation is defined as a method to provide a glimpse inside the minds of the L2 student in business writing, not only for the teacher to provide more relevant and helpful feedback, but also to stimulate student awareness during the writing This study includes the following research questions: How the student annotations (SA) and the student annotations with comment on comment (SACC) differ in the frequency in L2 business writing (in total student annotations, first student annotations, second student annotations, and third annotations)? How the student annotations (SA) and the student annotations with comment on comment (SACC) triggered by teacher feedback differ in the frequency and the types in L2 business writing (in total student annotations, first student annotations, second student annotations, and third annotations)? 658 Ji Yon Lee Literature Review 2.1 Genre Awareness in L2 Business Writing College undergraduates learn how to write L2 business writing mainly in General Business Purposes (EGBP) courses before entering the workplace (Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998; Lee 2011) Clearly, the courses for business purposes have a pivotal role in learning how to write business letters The EGBP courses will be the student's main experience to learn how to write business letters before they enter the workplace Also, the courses for business purposes aim to develop writers that act as a communication channel to other native and non-native speakers of English (Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998; Ellis & Johnson, 1994; Harding, 2007; Kirkpatrick, 2007) In this respect, these types of business courses attempt to strengthen communication skills by focusing on the preferred way of communication in the specific discourse community (Swales, 1990) According to Alder & Elmhorst (2006), writing is considered the most frequently used skill for office workers This means that business writing courses need to be specially designed so that the students may develop the skills and understanding on how to write the different types of letters that are expected in the specific genre (Swales, 1990; Tribble, 1996) Notably, Schneider and Andre (2005) commented on “the transfer of writing skills from university to the workplace” (p 196) The implication is that genre-based writing instruction is common at the university level, but matching the authentic needs—that is, tasks matching the real-world (Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998; Jordan, 1997)—is critical in the genre of writing Furthermore, developing awareness of the audience in the genre is necessary because the reader may have different backgrounds and experiences (Tebeaux, 1985), and the learner variables (e.g different undergraduate majors) can generate different perceptions in what to prepare for writing at the Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 659 workplace (Schneider and Andre, 2005) Therefore, raising awareness in specific genres of business letters can be a beneficial opportunity in a L2 business writing class In summary, previous studies have pointed out the need for genre awareness in business writing Written business communication in English has become unavoidable with the recent trends in technology (Brieger, 2011; Dudely-Evans & St John, 1998) Therefore, genre is significant in business writing, and flexibility to write in the different genres of business writing is critical for student-writers (Charney & Carlson, 1995) 2.2 Useful Teacher Feedback and Student Feedback In terms of the L2 writing process, it is inevitable that the teacher and the student are forced to be engaged and interactive throughout all the stages of writing Weissberg (2006) mentions “tutors create conversational links through questioning, repeating, rephrasing, completing, extending, and summarizing their student's contributions” (p 259) In the L2 writing process, the teacher's main role is to provide feedback during the revision process However, giving feedback is a challenge for writing teachers because they have to know how to give effective feedback, decide which feedback should be given first or which feedback should be refrained, and listen to the student's needs (Goldstein, 2004) Clearly, considerable research in the role of the L2 writing teacher has shown the importance of the teacher's role and appropriate teacher feedback, which suggests primary scaffolding strategy (Choi, 2010; Frankenberg-Garcia, 1999; Hyland, 2003; Kabilan, 2007; Lee, 2011; Shin, 2003; Vygotsky, 1986) Harmer (2004) suggests that the role of the teacher is central by demonstrating, motivating, supporting, responding, and evaluating from the beginning until the end of the writing process (pp 41-42) Likewise, teacher feedback in L2 business writing gives guidance to students in the revision process, content and language input, and 660 Ji Yon Lee evaluation on the writing quality (Quible, 1997) Ultimately, teacher feedback has been viewed positive from the student's perspective in the previous L2 writing research (Ferris, 1995; Hyland, 1998; Lee, 2011; Montgomery & Baker, 2007)—including L2 business writing (Quible, 1997) On the contrary, in an effort to investigate the effectiveness of teacher feedback in L2 writing instruction, it has been revealed that teacher feedback does not necessarily meet the student's needs Hyland and Hyland (2006) also stress the importance of “negotiating” with the students (p 206) Like L2 writing instructors, the student-writers must be involving themselves on deciding which step to take next in the writing task Just as “teachers face choices when responding to student written work” (Hyland and Hyland, 2006, p 207), the two sides of the coin tell us that students most likely are making choices and building a relationship with the teacher To take a case in point, one way business writing teachers actually can encourage and trigger more student involvement is by responding to the comments of students—instead of the teacher offering all the answers upfront (Grosse, 1988) Another example of student- teacher interaction is seen in the study of Todd, Mill, Palard, and Khamcharoen (2001), in which the degree of involvement was measured to observe the trigger cause and intentions of the student annotations and teacher feedback Further, studies have indicated the benefits of the use of student annotations (Ball, 2009; Lee, 2011; Marshall, 1998; Storch and Tapper, 1996; Suh, 2005; Wolfe, 2002), and the quality of revisions using the annotations all indicate the degree of student involvement The student annotations in L2 writing are comments intended for the student-teacher interaction, student-text interaction, and the self-interaction to improve the writing quality (Lee, 2011, 2012) Historically and currently, the annotations are writing actions, which can be written in a form that may be visual and graphic, and they are located outside the text (Ball, 2009, 2010, Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 661 2013; Diyanni, 2002; Lee, 2012; Liu, 2006; Marshall, 1998, Wolfe, 2002; Wolfe & Neuwirth, 2001) No matter how much revision is made, the annotations are a key source of information to what the teachers really want to know about what the student is really thinking during the writing and the revision Naturally, feedback after feedback will be given by the teacher not only on the text, but also to the comments of the students It is a laborious process for the instructor (Park, 2009; Quible, 1997); the student annotations may seem impractical in L2 writing instruction due to the extensive teacher labor involved in giving content and error feedback (Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Lee, 2009a, 2009b) In addition to needing to focus on revealing the student’s mind, the use of student annotations have shown the practical purposes in previous studies of L2 writing (Storch & Tapper, 1996, 1997; Suh, 2005) According to Quible (1997), in order for the student-writer to connect with the teacher feedback, the student annotations reveal comments to achieve correct revision in L2 business writing For example, the student annotations give hints to the intended meaning of the actual text and the comment written by the student (Lee, 2011, 2012; Ramage and Bean, 1995; Wolfe, 2002) Secondly, the student annotations demonstrate evidence in the L2 writer's needs and preferences in the category of feedback (Lee, 2011, 2012; Paulus, 1999; Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005) Third, reflection, which is a type of self-monitoring, is stimulated in the student annotations (Harmer, 2004; Hyland, 2003; Lee, 2011, 2012; Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005; Tribble, 1996) Self-monitoring is significant because the L2 writer is able to shift from the routine work of the writing process to a more involved-approach in the revision process Lastly, the student annotations encourage differing quality of revisions (Hedgcock and Lefkowitz, 1994; Lee, 2011, 2012; Quible, 1997; Raimes, 1983) Hence, the degree of involvement in the L2 writing process describes the student's writing experiences 662 Ji Yon Lee during or between the student-teacher interaction, student-text interaction, and the self-interaction (Byrne, 1988; Hedge, 1988; Lee, 2011, 2012; Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005; Tribble, 1996) Research Method 3.1 Subjects Twenty college undergraduates participated in the study All participants were Korean females with at least eight years of English language practice and currently have academic writing experiences However, the participants had no workplace training and were registered in a business writing at the College of Business As seen in Table 1, the 20 participants were placed into the following two groups: the SACC group (the student annotations with student comment on comment teacher feedback group) and the SA group (the student annotations group) Table Pretest Scores of Participants by Group and Level Group SACC SA Level High Low Total N 5 10 M 4.38 1.10 2.74 SD 0.26 14 1.74 High 4.74 11 Low Total 10 1.08 2.91 17 1.93 The SACC group (n = 10) and the SA group (n = 10)) were randomly and equally divided into two groups and equally into similar two writing proficiency levels (high, n = 5; low, n = 5) based on the pretest scores, which was holistically scored using the adapted Test of Written Examination (TWE) on a scale from Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 663 (lowest) to (highest) (Al-Musawi & Al-Ansari, 1999; Jordan, 1997) In the SACC group, two seniors, two juniors, and one freshman were in the high-level proficiency group (M = 4.38), and five freshmen were placed in the low-level proficiency group (M = 1.1) Also, in the SA group, three seniors, one junior, and one freshman were placed in the high-level proficiency group (M = 4.74), and three sophomores and two freshmen were in the low-level proficiency group (M = 1.08) 3.2 Materials The materials for the study include a pretest and a post-test, in-class task worksheet, and a student-made annotation packet For the pretest and post-test and the in-class writing task, three different writing prompts for a persuasive business letter were selected from a business English course book from Clark, Zimmer, & Tinervia (1994) The purpose of the pretest, the post-test, and the in-class writing task were similar in content The three different prompts required the student-writer to write three persuasive business letters To give students ample space to write their writing task and annotations, the blank form sheets were double the size of the regular paper (420 x 594 mm) for the SACC and the SA groups, and they also were provided with an unlimited number of task blank sheets to complete their writing Lined paper was distributed for the pretest and the post-test, and no student annotations and teacher feedback were included in the pretest and the post-test 3.3 Procedure The pretest and post-test, the student annotation training, and the overall in-class writing tasks (writing the first, second, and third drafts) were completed over an intensive 5-week period (see Figure 1) First, both the SACC (the experimental group) and SA (the control group) groups took the pretest with a limit 664 Ji Yon Lee of 30 minutes during class time, which did not include writing the student annotations The in-class writing task included three drafts The SACC group (the student annotations with student comment on comment teacher feedback group) and the SA group (the student annotations group) were required to complete the in-class writing task that includes the student annotations during the revision process For the in-class writing task, the students from the SACC and SA groups were both trained on how to produce their annotations on their writing needs before receiving the teacher feedback Additionally, the students were required to produce a list of useful student annotations from the adapted subcategories before the in-class writing task (Storch & Tapper, 1997) The students’ compiled list of annotations was collected and was made into a packet The compiled list of annotations was distributed to each student for the first, second, and third drafts of the in-class writing task The students reflected their own and original understanding of their own texts, their own annotations, the teacher feedback, and the teacher's response on the student comment in their annotations However, an additional set of student annotations was required for the all the participants in the SACC group: the reflection and the comment on comment (student comment on teacher feedback) First, to raise awareness in the writing process (McNamara, 2001), the student annotations addressed any thoughts, actions, concerns, questions, and decisions during the writing and the revision; and secondly, the reflection and the comment on comment reflected any thoughts, actions, concerns, questions, and decisions from the teacher feedback received in the previous draft (Charles, 1990; Frendo, 2005; Storch & Tapper, 1997) Reflection may encourage the opportunity to self-monitor the student’s thoughts and actions during the revision process (Charles, 1990; Storch & Tapper, 1997) by giving a “success indication of either a positive, neutral, 670 Ji Yon Lee the frequency of the second student annotations (SA2) in the SACC group decreases in the second draft (SACC, n = 27), the frequency of the third student annotations (SA3) sharply increases after the second student annotations' process (SACC, n = 48) compared with that of the SA group (SA1, n = 49; SA2, n = 37; SA3, n = 6) The results contribute to positive effects in the extended involvement of the first comment on comment (CC1) and the second comment on comment (CC2) that was triggered by teacher feedback (as in Table 4) before the student revisions in the second and third drafts (see Figure 3) Especially, the frequency of the first student comment on the first teacher feedback from the first draft (CC1) in the SACC group was much higher than the student annotations in the first and second drafts (SA1, n = 33; CC1, n = 52; SA2, n = 27) Table Frequency Distribution of Student Annotations and Comment on Comment by Group Group SA1 TF1 CC1 TNC SA2 TF2 CC2 SA3 Total SA Total TF SACC 33 181 52 41 27 209 38 48 108 349 SA 49 117 0 37 202 92 319 Total 82 298 52 41 64 411 38 54 200 668 Note: The Total SA does not include all the comment on comment The Total TF does include the teacher’s note comment The higher frequency in the student comment on the first teacher feedback (CC1) of the second draft may indicate beneficial effects in writing student annotations More annotations were given in the second comment on the second teacher feedback (CC2), compared with the second student annotations (SA2) in the SACC Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 671 group Also, the first reflection (R1) and the second reflection (R2) were observed as an added involvement, but it was not quantified due to the small sample size Figure Frequency of Student Annotations and Comment on Comment in Three In-Class Writing Tasks of the SACC Group Additionally, to compare the degree of student involvement in L2 writing and revision between the two groups, the independent t-test was performed with the frequency of all the student annotations (SA) and the student annotations and comments on comment (SACC) As shown in Table 3, the SACC group (M = 10.80) has a higher frequency of student annotations than the SA group (M = 9.20), excluding the frequency of comment on comment Table t-test Results of Total Frequency of Student Annotations by Group Group N M SD SACC 10 10.80 9.74 SA 10 9.20 5.55 t p 0.45 66 Note: SA includes only the student annotations excluding on comment on comment 672 Ji Yon Lee However, the independent t-test does not reveal a significant difference between the groups, as seen in Table (p = 66) This finding suggests how the use of student annotations can differ in terms of the short-term changes (measured by subtracting the scores of the first draft of the in-class task from those of the third draft) and long-term changes (measured by subtracting the pretest scores from the posttest scores) in the writing quality between the two proficiency groups (SACC-Low, M = 2.31; SA, Low, M = 1.95) (Lee, 2011, 2012) Table Chi-Square Results of Frequency of Students Annotations Comparison Target SACC Group/SA Group p 36.30 00 Note: CC1 and CC2 were not calculated since comment on comment was only included in the SACC group The results of chi-square test reveal a statistically significant difference in the total number of student annotations (excluding comment on comment) between the SACC group and the SA group, as seen in Table (p = 00) That is, the SACC group made a significantly higher number of student annotations than the SA group, which implies the former group had a higher degree of involvement in their revision process 4.2 Types of Student Feedback Triggered by Teacher Feedback To identify the main findings of the second research question, this section discusses the differences in the frequency and the types of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback (total in the first teacher feedback and second teacher feedback) between the student annotations group (SA) and the student annotations with comment on comment group (SACC), including the teacher's note on student comment (TNC) only for the SACC Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 673 group (as described in Table 2) The frequency distribution of the teacher feedback (TF) by group shows the changes from the first teacher feedback (TF1) to the second teacher feedback (TF2), as seen in Table (TNC was not included in the total TF since it was only applied for the SACC group.) The number of teacher feedback in the SA group (n = 117) is smaller than that of the SACC group (n = 181) in the first teacher feedback (see Table 4) However, the frequency of the second teacher feedback in the SACC group and the SA group indicates a similar number (SACC, n = 209; SA, n = 202) The frequency of the student annotations triggered by the teacher feedback was also counted, as seen in Table In essence, these student annotations reflect the frequency and the types of annotations the students are involved in during the writing and the revision process triggered by teacher feedback (see Table 7) The SACC group was involved in two additional annotations (the first comment on comment and the second comment on comment); thus, the total frequency in the SACC group, which excludes the comments Table Frequency of Student Annotation Types Triggered by Teacher Feedback by Group Group Types SACC Exposition Questions Problem Solution Non-Specific Total Exposition Questions Problem Solution Non-Specific Total SA D2 CC1 39 52 D3 SA2 16 0 27 18 12 37 CC2 19 12 38 SA3 31 48 Total SA 13 47 75 20 12 2 43 674 Ji Yon Lee on comment, was much higher than in the SA group (SACC, n = 75; SA, n = 43) The SACC group (SA2, n = 16; SA3, n = 31) and the SA group (SA2, n = 18; SA3, n = 2) both indicated the most student annotations triggered by teacher feedback in the question type However, the SACC group gave the most comment on comment triggered by teacher feedback on the exposition type, which were self-reflective and closed-ended comments (CC1, n = 39; CC2, n = 19) Both the SACC and SA group made the question type of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback more than the other types in the second draft (SACC, n = 16; SA, n = 18); however, only the SACC group made a large number of this type of annotations in the third draft (SACC, n = 31; SA, n = 2) The least type of annotations triggered by teacher feedback was the solution type for both groups (SACC, n = 4; SA, n = 2).As seen in Figure 4, however, the SACC group make the third student annotations eight times more than the SA group (SACC, n= 48; SA, n = 6), whereas the latter had the second ones about two times more than the former (SACC, n= 27; SA, n = 37) Figure Frequency of Student Annotation Types Triggered by Teacher Feedback by Group and Draft Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 675 As for the comment on comment triggered by teacher feedback in the SACC group, the exposition type (n = 39) indicated the highest frequency (see Table 7) For example, a higher-level participant of the SACC group (SACC-H5) made the following exposition in her first comment on comment: “I didn't know how to end the business letter but your feedback helped me a lot!! Overall your feedback about the whole content of my business letter was very useful I was able to rearrange my letter according to you criticism” (Lee, 2012) The exposition types from the first comment on comment were triggered from the overall first teacher feedback (n = 181) For example, an exposition made by a lower-level student of the SACC group (SACC-L4) in her second comment (Lee, 2012) was triggered by the following teacher feedback: “Change to progressive tense: ‘We contact you' to 'are contacting.’” This finding implies how student annotations can provide insight on the student’s needs and can provide clarity in the teacher feedback (Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005) The self-reflective annotations during the first comment on comment (n = 52) are substantially higher than the actual second annotations (n = 27) In Figure 5, the pattern is repeated from the first comment on comment to the third draft (CC1, n = 52; SA2, Figure Frequency of Student Annotations and Comment on Comment of the SACC Group Triggered by Teacher Feedback 676 Ji Yon Lee n = 27; CC2, n = 38; SA3, n = 48) As already seen in Table 7, the significant difference is the transition from making self-reflective annotations in the first comment on comment to the question type of second comment on comment In the second comment on comment, there was a transition from the exposition types to the question types of student annotation, as shown in the following example from a lower-level student of the SACC group: “When I use the progressive form? What is the ceterion between informal and formal?” (SACC-L4) Conclusion The student annotations in this current study suggest a practical method for teachers and students to increase student participation —that is, usable student feedback triggered by teacher feedback— and to receive useful teacher feedback that matches the student’s needs to enhance their L2 business writing skills The results of the study indicate positive effects in the degree of student involvement in L2 business writing student annotations on the writing quality and the revision More specifically, the frequency analysis of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback have revealed that the number of student annotations increase in the SACC group—especially in the third student annotations— while that of the SA group gradually decreases The SACC group further made a large number of additional student annotations (comments on comment) Moreover, a comparison of the frequency of the additional student annotations (comment on comment) triggered by teacher feedback also has illustrated a higher number of student annotations in the SACC group than in the SA group These suggest a higher degree of involvement in the SACC group than in the SA group The additional process of annotations indicate higher collaboration between the student and teacher, Student Annotations Triggered by Teacher Feedback in L2 Business Writing 677 between the text and the student, and within the student Secondly, the findings from the frequency and the types analyses of the student annotations triggered by teacher feedback indicate significant effects To illustrate, the question type was found as the most dominant in both the SACC and SA groups The question types were annotations where students asked direct or indirect questions to the teacher (Lee, 2012; Todd et al., 2001); it was a clear indication that the writing process was collaborative between the student and the teacher Notably, since the exposition type of comment gives explanations of the student’s thought (Lee, 2012; Todd et al., 2001), the SACC group made the exposition type of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback most frequently in their comments on comment triggered by teacher feedback This finding provides evidence to support the focus of this study; that is, useful teacher feedback may entail useable student feedback In other words, by providing appropriate and meaningful teacher feedback in L2 business writing instruction, the more the student involvement with the additional involvement process in writing student annotations, significant difference in the improvement in the writing quality is found (Lee, 2011, 2012) Besides, the student annotations are important in the L2 writing process because it, firstly, can be used as a method to motivate writing improvement (Lee, 2011, 2012; Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005) As noted by Kabilan (2007), higher motivation to bring better writing quality can be synonymous to independent student-writers that critically manage the writing process Especially, motivation is critical in business written communication, and not only should grades be a factor to improve student writing, but also providing a guidelines to improve writing is also helpful in writing instruction (Lee, 2011, 2012; Sorenson, Savage, & Hartman, 1993) During the student-teacher interaction when writing annotations, the students can take active part to discuss the guidelines given by the teacher Also, as indicated in the findings 678 Ji Yon Lee of this current study, the students were motivated to write more annotations and produce differing intention types of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback at differing times in the writing process Hence, the student annotations can provide insight on the student's needs and can provide clarity in the teacher feedback (Lee, 2011, 2012; Storch & Tapper, 1997; Suh, 2005) Another pedagogical implication for future research is that the use of student annotations can be seen as a consciousness-raising device for writing instruction, which allows discovery on both the teacher and student in comparing the texts during the writing and the revision Raimes (1991) raises a concern that tackles teacher's response to writing What would be interesting to learn are the effects and affects it has on the student's long-term memory The role of the teacher is critical for content and language input, and the student annotations may facilitate better teacher feedback that matches the student's needs in the process of revision Hence, student annotations may be implemented to make meaning with the text Therefore, the pedagogical implication of the student annotations may be a positive teaching tool in L2 business writing instruction There are several limitations to this study that needs to be addressed for future L2 writing research in the effectiveness of student annotations triggered by teacher feedback First, student annotations in L2 academic 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