An analysis of pragmatic intent of written teacher feedback commentary on students’ project essays in Colleges of Education in Ghana

Abstract

The study is aimed at finding out how teachers of St. John Bosco’s College of Education, Ghana focus the pragmatic intent of teacher written feedback comments on students’ project draft essays. Drawing on Ferris, Pezone, Tade, and Tinti (1997), Discourse Analytical Model for teacher written commentary and key concepts like “written feedback commentary” and “feedback,” the study, which was essentially a case study, and a descriptive survey, randomly and purposively focused on a sample of 336 comments from 21students’ project drafts of the 2012 academic year in St. John Bosco’s College of Education. The study revealed that teachers of St. John Bosco’s College of Education employed the pragmatic intent (directive type) of ‘make suggestion/request’, as a way of getting students to rework their project drafts. The study raises some implications for writing instruction, theory and analyses of teacher written feedback commentary.