USING INDIRECT FEEDBACK IN CORRECTING STUDENT WRITING
PAPER Submitted as a partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Strata One (S1) Degree at the English
By: Seng Rianto 06040142
ENGLISH DEPARTEMENT COLLEGE OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION 2010
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A .Background of the Problem
Nowadays, in modern society, English becomes more important as a tool of communication. English as a global language sets the important role in teaching English at school from elementary school until senior high school and even in university. From these facts, students are not only expected to speak English fluently but they also have to be able to fulfill four language skills; speaking, writing, reading, and listening. These four skills are integrated and related to each other. Based on KTSP, all skills in teaching and learning English that are integrated each other must be learnt learnt and taught by students and teacher, including including writing skill. skill. Writing will help help students mastering the other skills and of course in mastery English completely. The students are sometimes afraid and shy to speak what they want to say but they can tell what they think and what they want to say into draft or writing before speaking. Thus, if students are having problem in expressing an idea, he/she can write it down. Then, student itself or possibly the reader will understand it. There are still some teachers who haven¶t given their attention on this case completely. If teacher want to help the students to be a good writer in English, he / she must be able to teach writing effectively in the classroom. Teaching writing is always related to how to give feedback directly or indirectly on writing in a goo d way, especially by the teacher. Roger (2001) tells that some feedback from teacher serves unhelpful feedback to student they are too generalized or unclear, subjective and focused on some aspect of performance that make the students cannot change. That is why giving feedback to students¶ writing is important
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skill that is seldom taught. Through feedback, we can help students compare their own performance with the ideal and to diagnose their own strength and weaknesses. B.Limitation of the Problem
There are so many Assessment that can be used by the teacher in teaching writing , for example: Self correction, pair correction, Interactive, direct feedback., Indirect Feedback and others assessment. Based on the background above, the limitation of the problem in this paper is limited in using Indirect feedback feedback
to develop senior senior high school students writing ability in
reproducing a descriptive text. C .Formulation of Problem
The problem can be formulated in the following question ³How to use teacher¶s indirect feedback to improve student ability at senior high school. D.The Significance of papers
For teacher, this paper could be a valuable contribution in how to correct students¶ writing using teacher¶s indirect indirect feedback. Meanwhile For students, students, is hoped hoped to be able to correct their own writing independently.
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CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE A. Nature Writing 1. Definition of writing
Writing is one of important skills that language learners need to learn as an essential component not only for their academic practice but also later in their professional life. Teaching or learning how to write successfully gets even more complicated and challenged for both language teachers and students. However, many teachers agree that in the classroom, writing should get much attention as reading, speaking and listening. Yet many teacher and students alike consider writing to be most difficult subject of language skill to learn. ( Hasyim, Hasyim, 2002). The teaching of writing is a matter of prescribing a set of predetermined tasks or exercises to the students. When teachers teach writing course not only teach about how to develop ideas in writing, but also need a serious attention of how to write English sentences grammatically and systematically. So, teaching writing will be good if depends on the teachers' ability how to teach writing effectively which can make the students¶ ability being improved. According to Lee (2005), in improving the effectiveness of writing, there are some important notes must be noticed in teaching writing and assessment. In teaching writing, the teaching should engage students in peer /self-evaluation. When they apply the criteria, they become better informed about the requirements of good writing (for specific genres) and Provide students with a language for discussing their writing. In assessing writing, teacher should respond to writing based on criteria that have been
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communicated and taught to students and responses to errors. To respond the error teacher can use a feedback that contains specific criteria for the writing task and criteria that have been taught and communicated to the learners. 2. Writing process Gardner
and Johnson (1997) describe the stages of the writing process:
"Writing is a fluid process created by writers as they work. Accomplished writers move back and forth between the stages of the process, both consciously and unconsciously. Young writers, however, benefit from the structure and security of following the writing process in their writing ´. ´. Additionally, as Campbell points out, "there is no single writing process" (1998), there are three basic stages writers go through: prewriting, drafting, and revising. Besides, three basic stages in writing also delivered by Ron White (1987) states that the stages of writing writing process consists consists of planning, drafting, drafting, and revising. Planning is a series of strategies designed to find and produce information in writing planning is any orderly procedure used to bring about a desire result. In this stage, the author/writer just builds basic of a topic that should depends on the writer/author¶s knowledge, ideas and experiences. Drafting is a series strategy designed to organize and develop a sustained piece of writing. In here, the writer can explore and improve his/her idea. This stage also concentrates to the content tan punctuation, grammar, or spelling. Revising is a series of strategies designed to re-examine and re-evaluate the choices that have created a piece of writing. The revising always comes up after giving feedback to the writing. The feedback is important to tell which the words/sentence should be changed or need correction.
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Revising writing can be started by making decisions about how you want to improve your writing, looking at your writing from a different point of view, and picking places where your writing could be clearer, more interesting, more informative and more convincing to the reader. Appelebe in Mappe (2000) states more complete stages, that ³there are different views on the stages that the writers go through in producing a piece of writing, but a typically through model identifies four stages: pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing´. The description of each stage is shown as follows: 1
Pre-writing In this stage, students involve the activities, such as reading, brainstorming, mind mapping, discussing, fast writing, questioning, interviewing, encourage them before they write their sentences in the first draft. A typical pre-writing activity in the process approach would be for learners to brainstorm on the topic being provided. By this way, students would get motivation to write because they feel that they have something matter to say. (Richard & White in Mappe, 2000).
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Drafting In this stage, students would select among ideas during pre-writing and structure. The result of brainstorming session to provide a plan of description of topic. The content might be written without considering the grammatical aspect first.
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Revising In this stage, the students review a draft to check content and organization based on the feedback from him or herself and teacher or peers. Biaael in Mappe (2000)
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emphasizes that revision is a process in which writers not only polish their style, but also develop their ideas. In this stage, the teacher help the students through the revision to shape and reshape the text into final form, and it¶s focused more on audience, mood, voice, length, clarity, completeness co mpleteness and consciousness. 4
Editing This is where the role of teacher in giving indirect feedback will be applied. In this stage, the students check their final text for some mistakes they have made based on the feedback given, such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and all presentation. Shih in Mappe (2000) classifies three stages of editing for grammar: editing at discourse level, sentences level and word level´. Editing at discourse level is meant the writer needs to make changes in one sentence, such as making the subject plural instead of singular. Editing at sentence level is to find out the errors in sentences, such as: phrase, clause and sentence pattern. Editing at word level, editing morphological errors require checking to see that affixes and grammatical function words, such as: auxiliary verb, articles and preposition correct. The writer needs to focus his/her special attention on the ends of words in order to catch the missing of an incorrect ending: s/es, d/ed, -ing as well an awareness of different points of view.
B. Feedback 1.
Definition of feedback One
of the ways to make students be able to create good writing is the teacher
should provide constructive feedback to their writing. In this section, the writer wants to
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explain what kind of feedback that important to students¶ writing, the advantages and disadvantages of the feedback itself. Feedback is kind of assessment that concern to the giving information about students¶ writing performance. Ur (1996) says that ³in the context of teaching general, feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her performance of the learning task, usually with the objective o bjective of improving their performance´. In addition, Roger (2001) says ³Feedback is not just about weaknesses. Student will respond if teachers are encouraging as well as allowing mistakes, emerging capabilities, and give ideas for directing further learning´. From these definitions, it is clear that feedback is very useful in teaching and learning process, besides students will learn how to evaluate their self (self-evaluate), it also help students to take greater confidence of their learning and increasing the students¶ performance. In providing feedback, teacher should encourage students to continue writing, in order students feel good with their writing and carry the activity through completion (Grabe and Kaplan). So, in process writing teacher must motivate students to do more toward their writing. 2.
Type¶s of teacher¶s feedback
Feedback consists of some types.
One
of them is teacher¶s feedback/correction.
Feedback from teacher on the students¶ writing could play a vital role especially in teaching process. In this case, teacher recognizes that teachers¶ feedback is essential element in helping students improve, and an essential part of the teaching process (Anderson, 1982). It indicates that under teacher¶s feedback, students will know the
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appropriate of the language feature for their composition, how their composition should be arranged and their composition will be better. There are two kinds of teacher¶s feedback; they are direct and indirect feedback. Direct feedback is a technique of correcting students¶ error by giving explicit written feedback. While, indirect feedback is when the teacher/tutor alerts students to error using general comments, but gives students the opportunity to fix errors themselves Ferris, (2002 ). Lee (2005) defines Direct feedback is provided when the correct form is written on student¶s paper whereas indirect feedback is provided if the teacher indicates the location of the error indirectly on the paper by underlining, highlighting or circling, or indirectly by indicating in the margins that there is an error on that line but without providing the correct form. 3.
Direct feedback Vs indirect feedback
Although there are some types of feedback, there must be the difference when using direct or indirect feedback on students¶ writing. Frodesen (2001) says that indirect feedback is more useful than direct feedback. Students are able to express their ideas more clearly in writing and to get clarification on any comments that teachers have made. Similarly, Fulgor (2006) states that in indirect feedback, students appreciated its beneficial effect on their learning and direct feedback to be more helpful when revising syntax and vocabulary, whereas they felt that indirect feedback was useful in encouraging them to reflect on aspects of o f their writing and to develop improvements. Moreover, some research evidences suggest that indirect feedback is more helpful on students¶ long-term writing development than direct feedback (Ferris, 2002). The results showed that indirect feedback with student self-editing contributes to accuracy
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more than direct feedback.
Others
have reported that indirect feedback may be more
beneficial to students than direct feedback in editing, because indirect feedback can guide learning and help the students solve problem by themselves (Lalande, 1982). From those statements, the writer believes that indirect feedback will be more increasing the students¶ ability in writing and students who get indirect feedback will be preserved in his/her brain in a long time. While, direct feedback will be kept in their mind in a short time. If the students are only provided by direct feedback, the student will not have opportunity to reflect and correct the errors for themselves; they only note the note of the errors from the teacher. To make indirect feedback is more effective, Lee (2004) state that indirect feedback can be done by a symbol representing a specific kind of error (T=verb tense, Sp=spelling) and to reduce student confusion, teachers can consistently use a standard set of symbols or markings to indicate place and type of error and train the students in what kinds of corrections to make based on each symbol. Furthermore, teachers should familiarize students with the system so they will not be surprised when new symbols are occurred. Hasyim (2002) gives the symbols or code that can be used to indicate error in indirect feedback can be seen as follows:
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Table 1 Correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback No
Code
Meaning
Kinds of errors
The words are inapplicable with the 1
WC
Word choice
sentences/ meaning 2
PREP
Preposition
Wrong preposition
verb tense or GR = more 3
Wrong tense/ use another tense
VT general grammar problems
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S/V A
subject verb agreement
subject and verb don¶t agree Wrong spelling/punctuation your
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SP
spelling error
spelling Use article a, an or the t he for singular 6
ART
Article
noun 7
N.P
new paragraph
Unorganized paragraph
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^
missing word
There is a missing word need to insert I can¶t understand this. The meaning is
question mark) unclear 9
not clear. Write in another way to
? meaning
make the meaning clearer. You have something good here: a good 10
Good
Good idea, good detail
word, idea, detail, etc the words in this sentence are in the 11
WO
word order
wrong order 12
NN
Not Necessary Word
The word is not necessary
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C.The role of teacher in providing indirect feedback to Students¶ writing
The students cannot write alone and writing also not only a single step but a process. To pass the process , they need guidance, supporter supporter to make their their writing better. Therefore, Therefore, they need someone to check about the mistake that they made. It could be from teacher or peer because writing usually involves one person for another to help them in expressing their ideas in writing form. Even though peers feedback is more advantageous, the teacher¶s feedback is eventually needed to provide a whole class impression before they are engaged in an individual writing as practice. Here, teacher can be as describer when he/she gives feedback. But before that, teacher should be a reader and as advisor for them. The patterns of feedback and responses given by the writing teacher depend very much on the teacher¶s conception of the composing process and his/her understanding of learner¶s errors. Teachers may, on the one hand, present themselves as helpful facilitators offering support and guidance; on the other hand, they may act as an authority imposing critical judgment on writing products, Ferris ( 2002). Teachers can offer self±correction opportunity for their students by providing indirect feedback on student¶s grammatical errors ,Chandler ( 2003 ). The assistance and feedback given by the teacher should not be confined to the last stage of the writing process. The marking of products should always open more opportunities in which students can redraft their work. By depriving them of their opportunity for redrafting and reassessing, the students cannot have the chance of correcting the wrong behavior and re-practicing the correct behavior.
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In addition, students are able to express their ideas more clearly in writing and to get clarification on any comments indirectly that teachers have made to their writing, because here the teacher as advisor that can help them to improve their writing D .Procedure of giving indirect feedback on students¶ writing
The procedure in application of indirect feedback as follows: 1. Teacher explained about the descriptive text in general and explains the codec error that was given in their composition. 2. Students draft draft and µmonitor¶ µmonitor¶ their texts 3. Students write their composition 4. Teacher responded by giving feedback of all aspects but more concentrate on the body of text in area of language use and organization . 5. Teacher used indirect feedback to t o correct students¶ composition, 6. After the teacher give feedback to students, the students rewrote their compositions and corrected their own mistakes. 7. The teacher provided provided grade and praise to students¶ final final draft.
D. The Assessment Technique of Students¶ Writing
In assessing the students¶ writing Quality, Jacob (1981) suggests five components or criteria to evaluate the students¶ writing quality: content, organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar) and mechanics. Content of Writing must be knowledgeable, substantive, , relevant to assigned topic. Organization
of Writing Writing must be fluent fluent expression, expression, idea clearly clearly stated/supported,
well-
organized, logical sequencing, . Vocabulary of Writing must be sophisticated range, effective
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word/idiom choice, and usage, word form mastery, and appropriate register. Language use (grammar) in writing activity, the students will create the sentences based on their ideas and the words in the sentences must be arranged grammatically which deals with tenses and agreement. The last is Mechanics of Writing which consists of Spelling and Punctuation (Capital letter, Period {.}, Question mark {?}, Exclamation mark {!}, Comma {,}, semi colon {;}, Apostrophe {µ}). E. EVALUATION
In evaluating the students¶ writing the researcher used the ESL composition profile proposed by Holly Jacobs, et al (1981), in which the evaluation of writing consist of four component but the writer only focused on two component of writing, they are language use and organization. organization. Here are the criteria of ESL composition: co mposition: Aspect of Writing
Criteria
1 Excellent to Very good
; fluent
expression, ideas ideas clearly stated/ supported, , well
organized, logical sequencing and
few error in grammar ,punctuation,article Organization and Language use(grammar)
,pronoun and prepositi prepo sition. on. 2. Good to average; several errors in grammar, punctuation , article .loosely organized but main ideas still stand out. 3. Fair to poor; no fluent, ideas confused or disconnected lacks logical sequencing and
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development , frequent errors of negation, agreement,
tense,
number,
word
order/function, article, pronoun,Preposi pronoun,Prepo sition. tion.
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CHAPTER III DISCUSSION
In this chapter the writer discusses how to improve students¶ writing ability by using assessment of Teacher¶s indirect feedback. The teacher starts the learning process by giving students copies of model text. Then the teacher instructs students to learn the model of text. After that, teacher asks students to discuss about the generic structure and language feature of the model text. In discussing about introduction, the teacher asks the students¶ opinion about the pattern of descriptive text. Here students give the respond to teacher¶s command by delivering what they read in the text. They mention that the generic structure which provided in the text consists of orientation, description, and re-orientation/conclusion. After that, the teacher explained what should be written in each part of descriptive text. Teacher explains to the students that in descriptive text, the subject of writing could be ordinary or extraordinary. It means that they have to make it as interesting as possible by emphasizing what makes it interesting or new and unusual. The teacher continues the explanation about the organization. The teacher tells them, when they want to create a clear pattern of descriptive text, the introduction should be started from general to specific description It has several paragraphs that is developed and described described the topic and then in conclusion, conclusion,
The
teacher also notices them that they t hey can use their sense to describe the subject. After discussing about the characteristic of descriptive text, the teacher then explains the language feature in descriptive text. in discussing language feature, teacher asks some students to identify and show what these that the text model use, for example the teacher says ³can you tell me what tense does the text use?´ some students respond by saying ³simple continuous tense´, 16
³passive voice present´ and other o ther students say ³simple present tense´. t ense´. After that, teacher clarifies the wrong answer by showing the sentences taken from text and teacher himself. Teacher say ³if you want to describe about something or the person activity or condition in the present, you have to use simple use simple present tense and the characteristic where Do, Does, V1, Vs/es, to be´. The teacher also gives some related example (he (he eats banana every day, I go to the market every Sunday, he goes shopping twice a week ) and the adverb frequency (sometimes, usually, always, never, etc). After discussing about the organization and language feature of descriptive text and also give them the model model text, the teacher asks students students to write a descriptive descriptive text. Some topics are prepared by the teacher, such as ³my ³my favorite thing ´, ´, ³the ³the most important person in my life´, life´, and ³my favorite place´. place´. Their composition consists of 3 or more paragraphs and each paragraph can consists of 3-4 sentences. Then the teacher explains kinds of feedback will be used. In here, the teacher explains what indirect feedback is, is, the function of indirect indirect feedback , and how later later the teacher will give indirect indirect feedback to their writing then The The teacher explains about each symbols symbols are used in part of language use and tell them in part organization the teacher will comment the introduction, description and conclusion. So the students can correct their writing and add their knowledge. The teacher takes note about students¶ questions, their strength and their weaknesses during the process. After explanation of the material to the students, the teacher asks them to write their composition about the topic they have chosen before, The teacher monitors monitors the process during during students composing composing and the teacher sometimes sometimes helps them when they have problem with the vocabularies or words words in English. The teacher collects the student composition and chooses one of them and the teacher asks one of the
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students to write down his /her writing in front of class and discusses it to gether by using indirect feedback like below. My brother I have brother.(PUNC) But one that I m very(NN)like. He have name is Ramadhan(S/VA) . ¶ ¶
(S/VA)
He is policeman.. He live
in jl. Ir. Soekarno number 42T. he is the most important
person in my life because he that (NN) always to(NN) pay me to school. He already have(S/VA) family now. (S/VA)
He have S/VA) ( S/VA)
like
(S/VA)
SP) SP)
to play by her boy. Bedidest (
he also
sports. Sports that he likes is badminton, football and table tennis (GR). Although he
often sports (WC)
one boy. He very(WO) like
(WC)
¶
(PUNC)
that always to(NN) play dice (PUNC)
know. So
(?????)
about it
/
VA) but her person very biggest and fat (GR). He don tt (S VA) like if see peoples
¶
S/VA) ( S/VA)
he don t t
he always
S/V)A (NN) teach( S/V)A
me about lessons, that I don¶t
like if I don¶t go to school one day. His always angry to me
.
From the example above ,the writer can correct some mistakes mistakes by giving a code that is made made by student and ask the student to recheck their composition . Finally the teacher give score to the student writing writing
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BAB IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A .Conclusion
Based on the discussion, it can be said that the implementation of teacher¶s indirect feedback in assesing writing can improve students¶ writing quality. It can be seen on students¶ progress during the process. In the first draft, the students started to make a co mpositi mposition on by using u sing descriptive text pattern and they produced disorder organization and lack in language use although they had been taught about the generic structure and the language feature of the text. And they started to write a composition by using descriptive text. In here they were already able to produce good organization after the teacher gave them indirect feedback that showed their problem in writing, even tough, they were still lack in language use aspect. Then, they were taught about the language use more intensively and the result is in the third draft, students had produced good organization and correct language use. This result shows that the students did improve in their practices. pract ices. B .Suggestio . Suggestion n
After conducting this paper, the writer offers several suggestions for further writer as follow: 1. For the next researcher who wants to conduct the same design, may conduct the study in the same level by using different kind of feedback. The researcher also may take the other aspect of writing of descriptive text because this study is focused on organization and language use aspect of o f writing. 2. The next researcher who wants to take the same approach for the same level, she/ he may take other kinds of genre because in this study, the focus is descriptive text. 19
3. For teacher, especially teachers of senior high school, it is better for them to apply indirect feedback in assessing teaching writing.
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REFERENCES
Anderson, H. et al. (eds), 1982 Proceedings of the 2nd Independent Learning Association Oceania Conference. Conference. Auckland: Manukau Institute of Technology, 1-7. Chandler, J. (2003). The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and fluency of L2student writing . Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(3), 267-296. Dunsford, Deborah W. W. 2006. Feedback Follow up: The Influence of Teacher Comment on Student Writing Assignments. Assignments. NACTA Journal June 2006. 2006. Retrieved on April 28th, 2010, www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa/ Ferris, D. R. (2002). Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing . Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press. Fregeau, L. A. (1999). Preparing ESL students for college writing: Two case studies. The th Internet TESL Journal [On-line], 5 (10). Retrived on June 5 , 2010 Available: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Fregeau-CollegeWriting.html Frodesen, J. (2001). Grammar in writing. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.233-248). Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle. Gordon Grabe,
William, J. 2003. Providing 2003. Providing Feedback on ESL Students¶ Assigment.Okayama, Japan.
William & Robbert B. Kaplan. Kaplan. 1996. Theory and practice of Writing. Writing. United States of America. Addison Wesley Longman.
Hasyim. 2001. The Effect Of Teacher¶s Correction Toward Students¶ Writing Ability. Unpublished Thesis UNP Hopkin, D. 1993. A 1993. A Teacher Guide Classroom Research. Research. Philadelphia: O pen University Press. Jacob and Heaton. 1981. Testing ESL composition Profile: A Practical Approach. Approach. Rowley MA. New Bury House. Kepner, C. G. (1991). An experiment in the relationship of types of written f eedback to the development of second-language writing skills. skills. Modern Language Journal, 75(3), 305313. Lalande, J. F. (1982). Reducing (1982). Reducing composition errors: An experiment . Modern Language Journal, 66 (1), (1), 140-149.
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Lee, Icy. 2005. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teacher Feedback in the Secondary Writing th Classroom. Chinese University of HongKong. Retrieved on July 8 , 2010. http://sba.edu.hku.hk/new_sba/doc/conference_ppt/Dr%20Icy%20Lee.ppt.. http://sba.edu.hku.hk/new_sba/doc/conference_ppt/Dr%20Icy%20Lee.ppt Mappe, Syahrir. 2000. A 2000. A Comparative Study of the Teaching of Writing to Indonesian University Students under Two Instructional Modes. Singapore: Dissertation. SEAMEO Regional Language centre. Nunan, D. 1988. The Learner-centred Curriculum. Curriculum. Cambri Ca mbridge: dge: Cambridge University U niversity Press. Roger, Jenny. 2001. In Adults Learning; Buckingham: O pen University Press (online). Retrieved on June, 23 2010. www.findarticl www.findarticles.com/ es.com/ articles/feedback/ articles/feedback/.. Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory. Cambridge Teacher Training and Development. United Kingdom: Cambridge University University Press.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alhamdulillah, praise to ALLAH SWT because of the mercy the writer can finish this paper with the title ³ Using Indirect Feedback In Correcting Student¶sWriting ´. It¶s written to fulfill one requirement to get ³Sarjana´ Degree in English teaching at the English E nglish Department . The writer would like the deepest gratitude to the advisor Shanti
Octavia
S.PD for her
enormously valuable inputs, comments, and guidance for the writer to finish this paper. Also, thanks to as my academic advisor for her suggestion suggestion and advice during the study. Then, thanks to as the chairman of English Department. Finally, Finally, thanks to all of the lecturers lecturers who taught and and gives me advice and suggestion during the study at The writer further would like to express her grateful thanks to all of friends who have supported him in completing this paper. His sincere gratitude addressed to my parents, my beloved brother and sisters who have sacrificed sacr ificed for my success in finishing this paper. Finally, the writer is sure that the paper is not perfect yet. It still has much weakness in substantial material technical writing and other aspects of writing. Therefore he invites some critics and suggestion from the reader.
, 10 August 2010 Writer
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