Conceptualizing multimodal feedback literacy for L2 writing teachers in the digital age

Given that feedback is increasingly digital and multimodal, there is a pressing need to prepare L2 writing teachers to give multimodal feedback. Yet the notion of multimodal feedback appears underrepresented in extant research on teacher feedback literacy and it is often equated as multimedia feedback. To make feedback relevant to multiplicity in feedback-giving modes and technologies, as well as diversity in student backgrounds and composing practices, this paper proposes the construct of multimodal feedback literacy as an important part of teacher feedback literacy. Grounded in social semiotic of multimodality, this paper elucidates the notions of feedback design, feedback affordance, feedback orchestration, and feedback ensemble as essential dimensions of multimodal feedback literacy. We argue that the development of multimodal feedback literacy entails competences in recognizing the affordances of multiple feedback-giving modes, designing coherent feedback ensembles through orchestrating multiple feedback-giving modes with apt intermodal relations, and managing feedback ensemble as motivated and accumulative. A framework for L2 writing teachers to develop multimodal feedback literacy in relation to a complex and recursive process of being, doing, and becoming is also developed. Implications and challenges are then discussed.