ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ PREFERENCE ON THE
TYPES OF WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Yoan Ida Ringu Paubun 112011090
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
TABLE OF CONTENT
Approval Page ... i
Copyright Statement ... ii
Publication Agreement Declaration ... iii
Table of Content ... 1
List of Table………..2
ABSTRACT ... 3
Key Words ... 3
INTRODUCTION ... 3
LITERATURE REVIEW ... 6
THE STUDY ... 9
A. Context of the Study ... 9
B. Participants of the study ... 9
C. Instruments of Data Collection ... 10
D. Data Collection Procedure ... 11
E. Data Analysis Procedure……… ... ..12
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... ..12
The type of WCF preferred by ED students………...13
Reasons behind the students’ preference of Metaliguistic WCF…………...16
CONCLUSION ... ..22
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ..25
REFERENCES ... ..26
LIST OF TABLE
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS
’
PREFERENCE
reasons behind those preferences. Six types of written feedback proposed by Rod Ellis (2008) such as (1) Direct, (2) Indirect, (3) Metalinguistic, (4) Focus of the feedback, (5) Electronic, and (6) Reformulation were investigated in this study. The data were collected through a Focus Group Discussion with four groups of 18 students of English Department. The findings show that all the participants preferred to have Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback in their writing. The reasons were because firstly, besides it was easy and understandable, this feedback at the same time forced them to put some efforts in making the revision instead having the revised draft given by the teacher. Secondly, perceiving themselves as adult learners, the students preferred to have a more challenging feedback and this type is found to be their ideal type compare to other types of feedback. Thirdly, the students’ great of exposure and experiences in using this feedback made them preferred to have this type of feedback.Keywords: students’ preference, Written Corrective Feedback, Metalinguistic Written Corrective Feedback.
INTRODUCTION
Many studies have examined the usefulness of Corrective Feedback, written and oral. Specifically, for both ESL and EFL classrooms, students and teachers find the usefulness of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) to improve the students’ writing because it
Roberts, 2001; Montgomery & Baker, 2007). Some investigations that have been done before exploring a variety of factors influenced the effectiveness of corrective feedback (CF) for foreign language (FL), especially on grammar learning.
Two of the factors that may contribute best are the mode of feedback; oral or written (Doughty & Varella: 1998) and the other one, that is specified in this study is the types of Written Corrective Feedback (Ellis 2008). In short, some researchers may find CF was useful for students and some may not. After all, Truscott (1996) argued against corrective feedback’s ‘usefulness’ through his article “The case against grammar correction” that was published in 1996. Since this article was
published, there have been some controversial issues continued arguing whether WCF in classes were useful or not (Ferris, 1999; Truscott, 1999). But then, there was also a growing of empirical evidence showing that WCF can successfully target some types of linguistic errors (e.g., Bitchener & Knoch, 2008a; Chandler, 2003), that showed the usefulness of WCF itself. This research has important implications for language learning and teaching because students’ preference on certain types of
The purpose of this study is to investigate the type of WCF preferred by ED students and their reason(s) why they prefer certain type of WCF compare to the others. Therefore, it is conducted to answer these two research questions:
1. What are the types of written corrective feedback that English Department students prefer to have in their Guided Writing class?
2. Why do ED students prefer particular types of Written Corrective Feedback?
This study is important to be conducted because students’
believes that one type of WCF is more useful, then he or she would be more likely to pay more attention to the correction and use it for learning than if he or she does not believe in its effects on their writing (Schulz, 2001, Ashwell, 2000; Chandler, 2003). Therefore, knowing the students’ preference and their reason(s) behind it is very important to the teachers to help their students to make a piece of writing with lack of grammatical errors.
LITERATURE REVIEW
As the researchers’ belief through many studies that have been done before, WCF has a positive effect on students’ writing. In their study about ‘The Role of Feedback in Second Language Writing’, Khaled Karim
and Dr. Hossein Nassaji (2012) summarized that in early research, some studies even claimed to have found the positive evidence to support the usefulness of WCF and almost all the recent studies found the positive and significance effects of WCF for students’ writing. However, due to the
significance of WCF, studies (Amrhein & Nassaji, 2010; Diab, 2006; Halimi, 2008) have showed that teachers are not very aware of students’ opinions and needs about the corrective feedback, what the students really prefer or want to have. Whereas, Schulz (2001) said that if students’
learning could be disturbed. Therefore, Freedman (1987) believes that if students fail in writing well, further feedback is necessary to help them to take correct actions about their writing in order to improve it and reach an acceptable level of performance.
Indication only that takes the form of an indication in the margin that an error or errors have taken place in a line of text.
The third type is Metalinguistic CF. In this type, the teacher provides some kind of Metalinguistic clues as to the nature of the error, like (1) The use of error code, where the teacher writes codes in the margin (e.g. WW ¼ wrong word; art ¼ article). This type is related to various studies that have examined the effects of using error codes (e.g. Ferris and Roberts 2001; Chandler 2003). (2) Brief grammatical descriptions, where the teacher numbers errors in text and writes a grammatical description for each numbered error at the bottom of the text.
The fourth is the focus of the feedback. This type concerns whether the teacher attempts to correct all (or most) of the students’ errors or
selects one or two specific types of errors to correct. For example, the teacher could have chosen to correct just article errors; related study Sheen (2007). The fifth one is Electronic Feedback. In this type of feedback, the teacher indicates that an error occurs and provides examples of correct usage (Milton: 2006). The last one is Reformulation Feedback where this consists of a native speaker’s reworking of the students’ entire text to
THE STUDY Context of the study
This study was conducted in ED of Satya Wacana Christian University (SWCU) Salatiga, specifically in Expository and Argumentative Writing class. As a writing course for intermediate writer- students, this course focuses more on the products or writing that the students make and then the teacher will give them feedback to correct mistakes that they made in their writing, like the grammatical error, punctuation, conjunction, relevance of the content, and the interconnectedness of the paragraphs. During the semester, the teacher gives students some topics to write and they have to make up story and write it as their own story. Then in each meeting teacher gives the students feedback for their writings and after that the students have to revise the drafts based on the feedback from the teacher. Lastly, the very last draft should be submitted based on the feedback that they get.
Participants of the study
With these three classes that they have joined, therefore the students should have had more exposure about Corrective Feedback as they have experienced it in those classes. Therefore, the participants of this study were chosen with purposive sampling (Patton, 1990) as the specific criteria have been set above. This happened because especially by the time, the participants experienced the writing class together.
Instrument of Data Collection
Data Collection Procedures
After doing the pilot interview to check whether the information sheets and the questions were problematic or not, then in the main study, firstly the researcher met the lecturer of Expository and Argumentative course to ask permission to do the research on the class that she was teaching. Secondly, the researcher put the participants in four different groups and arranged the time to do the interview in form of Focus Group Discussion. Thirdly, the researcher gave the information sheets to the participants a week before the focus group discussion was held, so they would have time to read it.
Data Analysis Procedure
After doing all the discussions with the groups, then the researcher transcribed the collected data using clean transcription that focuses on the content of the interview, where it does not provide any extra information as to the manner in which the content is communicated (Zacharias, 2013). Since the language used for the discussion was Indonesian, therefore in showing the results, the researcher translated the transcription into English. The researcher combined each type of the WCF with another types and found both the same and different reasons behind the students’ preference on the type of WCF. Next, the researcher did the coding process for the transcription that has been translated. This coding included highlighting the opinions about their preference and their reasons behind it. Then the researcher described the students’ preference and their reasons in the findings.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
As the research questions proposed for this study, this section discusses about the students of Expository and Argumentative class’
reasons in showing their preference(s). Furthermore the students themselves have the WCF that they prefer the most, WCF that they do not prefer at all, and WCFs that they do not prefer yet to have.
The type of WCF preferred by English Department students
Overall, the table below shows the total responses that the students gave for each type of WCF when they were asked about their preference on each type of these Written Corrective Feedback types.
Table 1:Total students’ responses on each type of WCF
No. Type of WCF Students’ Responses
Prefer Not Prefer Not Prefer Yet
1. Direct WCF 14 4 -
2. Indirect WCF - 18 -
3. Metalinguistic WCF 18 - -
4. Focus of the feedback 6 7 5
5. Electronic WCF 10 6 2
6. Reformulation WCF 8 5 5
“type ini lebih menantang karena kita dikasih clue yang jelas misalnya art* apa atau prep* apa, jadi bisa mikir apa yang harus diganti di writing kita.”(Student C)
(This type is more ‘challenging’ because we were given clear clues like for example *art or *prep, so we can think about what we should revise in our writing.)
“type ini bagus karena kita diajari untuk belajar dan berpikir juga. Selain itu Metalinguistic ini cukup detail.” (Student I)
(This type is good because it teaches us to think and study. Besides that, it is detail enough.)
“Kalau menurut saya, yang metalinguistic ini lebih membantu. Type ini cukup ringkas. Penjelasannya cukup jelas kayak Direct feedback tapi cukup singkat juga kayak Indirect feedback.” (Student Q)
(I think this type is more helpful. This type is brief enough. The explanation is clear enough like the Direct WCF type but it is also short enough like Indirect WCF.)
“Hampir sama menantang kayak feedback lainnya. Bagus kalau dalam writing kita ada clue-cluenya itu. Jadinya kita bisa belajar juga dengan feedback ini.” (Student O)
(It is challenging enough like those feedbacks. It is good if there are such clues for us. We can study too with this feedback.)
feedback provided a chance of self- learning, where the students could study from the mistakes that they have made. Furthermore, they valued this type of feedback was brief and clear enough. Besides that it also provided details correction for the students to make revisions.
As mentioned in the Table, 14 out of 18 of the students preferred Indirect WCF type as the second most preferred feedback to have. But, in giving their ideas about this type, some students who prefer it were still doubtful about their preference. Even though they viewed this type was easier and helpful, this type seemed to have significant weakness for the sake of the students’ improvement in their (future) writing. Therefore, in showing their preference(s), student H elaborated his idea like;
“Iya, prefer ini, soalnya yang salah langsung dikasih tanda dan langsung diberikan koreksinya jadi tinggal nulis ulang tapi kita jadinya gak ada effort dan gak belajar karena tinggal nulis ulang.”
(Yes, I prefer this type (Direct WCF) because the wrong parts are already crossed and the revisions are given directly. But the problem is we would have no effort to correct our mistakes and no further study from the mistakes because we would just need to write the revised revision.)
And furthermore student R compared the Metalinguistic and Direct WCF like;
“Ini hampir sama kayak yang pertama tadi, Direct Written. Tapi ini lebih membantu, misalnya Art, WW, Prepositions salah, kita jadi bisa belajar lagi, spesifik ke article atau preposition.”
At this point, the students valued Direct WCF made them became ‘too easy’ and they got nothing since the correct revisions were already there and they only have to revise it. Furthermore, this feedback does not provide reflection towards their writing products. Therefore, Metalinguistic WCF was valued as the right feedback that can make them learn from the mistakes that they have made, but they also would not feel that easy or difficult in revising the drafts as well.
Reasons behind the Students’ Preference of Metalinguistic WCF
Following to the students’ preference part above, in this part the
researcher discusses the findings around the students’ reasons behind their preference of Metalinguistic WCF. In this part, the researcher categorizes and elaborates three main reasons behind the students’ preferences.
Firstly, compare to other types of feedback, the students found Metalinguistic WCF as a very helpful feedback to them. It was not only because it helped them in case that it was easy and understandable but this feedback at the same time gave them courage to put some efforts in making the revision.
These ideas of this 1st reason were presented by Student I and student F, like;
cukup detail. Kita juga diajari buat mikir, kalau yang pertama kan, dosennya kadang pake direct tapi jarang. “(Student I)
(I prefer this type (Metalinguistic) because with this feedback we are taught to think and study. Besides that this type is detail enough .we are taught to think with this type. Well sometimes the lecturer uses Direct WCF but it is very rare. )
“Ya, mending punya feedback kayak gini. Jelas karena kita tau kita buat kesalahan dan tau yang salah verbnya, article atau apa. Gak kayak Direct Feedback, kita tetap ada effort dan tetap tau salahnya apa. Karena misalnya dibilang ganti articlenya jadi langsung tau kalo ‘art’nya salah. Jadi lebih fokus.” (student F)
(Well, it is better to have such a feedback like this (Metalinguistic WCF). It is clear because we notice that we made mistakes and we know that the verb or maybe the article is wrong. Unlike Direct Feedback, we still show our effort and know the mistakes. For example like if we are asked to change the article, we would directly know that the article is wrong, so we can be more focus)
draft like some other types because it required more effort to make revision with this type.
Secondly, from the students’ perspective, they valued themselves
as adult learners who would be better to have a more challenging feedback. As mentioned before, Metalinguistic WCF was valued as a challenging feedback, where the students would need efforts to make revision with this type. In short, from any aspects, this type was valued as the best type of feedback to the students. Therefore to represent this idea, student E significantly stated,
“saya tidak sepaham sama teman-teman karena kalau buat mahasiswa, kalau langsung dikasih revisian kayak gini langsung, kita jadinya gak mikir dulu. Sudah langsung dapat koreksiannya. Padahal ada kemungkinan kita bisa membuat kesalahan yg sama lagi nantinya. Jadi ini tidak cukup membantu untuk lain kali lebih teliti, oh ini pake ‘a’ atau ‘the’ gak ya, gitu. Kurang menantang.”
(I am not at the same idea with others (prefer to have Direct WCF) because for University students, if such a revision like this is given directly, we would not think about the correct form that we should use because we have got the revision, whereas there is a possibility that we will make the same mistakes in our future writing. This is not help us enough to be more aware next time whether we should use article ‘a’ or
‘the’. It’s not challenging enough.)
simple and they cannot learn much if they use this type of feedback. At this point, a ‘too easy’ feedback like what the students have mentioned may not raise their awareness of the mistakes in their writing and furthermore it did not facilitate their self -correction for their coming writing. So, in this case, self –correction which was meant to make the students learn not to repeat their errors in the future had a very significant role, but it might not happened especially when the feedback like Direct WCF promoted the correct revision directly.
Thirdly, the researcher found that students’ exposure about the WCF became one of the significant factors that influenced the students in showing their preference. In short, their experiences using this type of feedback for the class and in some previous classes became the reason why they prefer to have Metalinguistic WCF, the same as what student N and F said in the interview like;
“Kurang lebih sama sih. Karena lebih familiar sama ini juga jadi prefer. Selama ini juga pakenya ini. Untuk betulin-betulin revisinya jadi lebih enak kalau pake kayak gini. Yang pertama tadi enak sih, tapi lebih prefer pakai yang ini” (Student N)
(More or less it is almost the same. I prefer this type because it is more familiar to me. During this time we have used this and it is nice to make revision with this type. The 1st one (Direct) is good but I prefer this (Metalingustic.))
(Ya, it is the same with my friends. Besides that we choose this type because are already accustomed to use this type since we join Writing class until now.)
When the students were asked whether they were familiar with this type or not, all of them answered yes they were. Therefore in gaining the information, mostly all the students are actively participated in giving their view and opinion about this type compare to another types. In this case, the researcher found that the lack of exposure for certain types of feedback influenced the students’ preference(s). A great deal of students’ exposure toward this feedback became the reason behind their preference. Besides that, even though feedback types like Focus of the feedback, Electronic WCF, and Reformulation caught the students’ attention but lacking of
exposure of these types of feedback made the students not prefers to have those types yet. Therefore as the result, not many ideas were shared or elaborated in the discussion about these types.
Furthermore, when the students were asked about their views about Indirect WCF, in contrast to Metalinguistic WCF where all of the students preferred to have it, none of the students preferred to have this type of feedback because they found it difficult and confusing to understand the correction with this type, especially since the ‘clues’ were confusing and not clear to them. Therefore, student O commented,
Revisiannya susah untuk dipahami, untuk cari yang benar, misalnya X = MW, Missing Wordnya gak jelas yang mana yg hilang.”
(For the students themselves, this type would be more difficult compare to the previous one (Direct WCF) because it only gives symbols like this. The correction is difficult to understand, to find the correct form, for example X = MW, it is not clear what exactly the word missed there.)
and student B further assumed,
“Maybe this type is useful for advance learners because they have sufficient knowledge about this compare to those beginner or intermediate learners”
CONCLUSION
The aim of this study is to investigate the students’ preference on
The implication of the results in this study for teaching are first, Writing teachers are supposed to provide Metalinguisitc WCF to students’
writing since this is the most preferable type of feedback by the students, especially because all of them showed positive views about this type of feedback. Besides giving explicit correction on the writing, this feedback is able to enhance the students’ writing ability without using any confusing symbols. Second, teachers have to think carefully when they want to provide Indirect WCF because none of the students prefer to have this type of feedback, despite their opinion that everything depended on the teacher, whether she or he would use certain type of feedback. Moreover, all the students showed negative views about this type since the symbols used there are confusing and it is not understandable. Third, the Writing teachers can also use Focus of the feedback, Electronic, and Reformulation corrective feedback because as the finding on this study, the researcher found that students’ lack of exposure toward these three
types of feedback made them not to prefer it yet. Besides that, despite lacking of exposure toward these types, students viewed these feedbacks positively like it is helpful as well. Therefore, it would be nice if the students can experience different types of feedback.
only on the students’ preference and reasons behind it without considering the teachers’ preferences and reasons as well. Therefore, further research is needed to find writing teachers’ preferences and reasons behind it since
it can make it easier to find the more effective and suitable type of feedback for the students in improving their writing ability. Besides that, further study to investigate how students work on their WCF is necessary, whether the students do really make the revision based on the correction given by the teacher or not and the study can also investigate the reasons why the students do not make the revision based on the correction given by the teacher as well.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
REFERENCES
Amrhein, H. R., & Nassaji, H. (2010). Written corrective feedback: What do students and teachers prefer and why? Canadian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 13, 95-127
Ashwell, T. (2000). Patterns of teacher response to student writing in a multi-draft composition classroom: Is content feedback followed by form feedback the best method? Journal of Second Language Writing, 9, 227–57
Bitchener, J., & Knoch, U. (2008) The value of a focused approach to written corrective feedback, Language Teaching Research, 12, 409-431.
Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), Focus on form in classroom second language acquisition (pp. 114-138). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. (2008). A typology of written corrective feedback types. ELT Journal, 63(2), 97-107.
Language Writing, 8, 1– 10.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1060-3743(99)80110-6
Roberts, B. (2001). Error feedback in L2 writing classes: How explicit does it need to be? Journal of Second language Writing, 10, 161-184.
Ferris, D. R. (2002) Treatment of Error in Second Language Writing. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan.
Freedman, S. (1987). Response to student writing. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English.
Halimi, S. S. (2008). Indonesian teachers’ and students’ preferences for error correction. Wacana, 10(1), 50-71
Miller, S. P. (2002). Using helpful teaching behaviors: Validated practices for teaching students with diverse needs and abilities 189- 233. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Milton, J. (2006). ‘Resource-rich Web-based feedback: Helping learners become independent writers’ in K. Hyland and F. Hyland (eds.). Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Montgomery, J., & Baker, W. (2007). Teacher-written feedback: Student perceptions, teacher self-assessment, and actual teacher performance. Journal of Second Language Writing, 16, 82-99 Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (pp.
169-186). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Robb, T., S. Ross, & I. Shortreed. 1986. ‘Salience of feedback on error and its effect on EFL writing quality’. TESOL Quarterly 20: 83– 93.
Sachs, R. & C. Polio. 2007. ‘Learners’ use of two types of written feedback on an L2 writing task’.
Schulz, R. A. (2001). Cultural differences in student and teacher perceptions concerning the role of grammar instruction and corrective feedback: USA-Columbia. Modern Language Journal, 85,244-258.
Sheen, Y. 2007. ‘The effect of focused written corrective feedback and language aptitude on ESL learners’ acquisition of articles’. TESOL Quarterly 41: 255–83.
Truscott, J. (1999). The case for “The case for grammar correction in L2 writing classes”: A response to Ferris. Journal of Second Language Writing,8,111-122.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S10603743(99)80124-6
APPENDIX A Information sheet form
The types of Corrective Feedback and examples by Rod Ellis (2008)
1. Direct written corrective feedback
It provides learners with explicit guidance about how to correct their errors. Teachers provide correct form, i.e. crossing out an unnecessary word, phrase or morpheme, inserting a missing word, phrase or morpheme, inserting a missing word or morpheme, and writing the correct form above or near to the erroneous form.
Example:
Student’s writing:
A boy stole wallet from girl. He escaped with having wallet. When the girl was going through bridge over the river she found boy in the river.
Teacher’s correction:
a a the
A boy stole X wallet from X girl. He escaped with having X wallet. When the girl was going
over a a saw a
through bridge over the river she found boy in the river.
2. Indirect written corrective feedback
Example:
Student’s writing:
A boy stole wallet from girl. He escaped with having wallet. When the girl was going through bridge over the river she found boy in the river.
Teacher’s correction:
A boy stole X wallet from X girl. He escaped with XhavingX Xwallet. When the girl was going XthroughX Xbridge over XtheX river she found X boy in the river.
Notes:
X : missing word
X___X : wrong word
3. Metalinguistic written corrective feedback
Provides learners with some form of explicit comment about the nature of the errors they have made.
Use of error codes, i.e. abbreviated labels for different kinds of errors placed over the location of the error in the text or in the margin. e.g. art = article, prep = preposition, sp = spelling, ww = wrong word, t = tense, etc.
Examples:
art. art. WW art.
A boy stole wallet from girl. He escaped with having wallet. When
Prep. art. art. Art
the girl was going through bridge over the river she found boy in the river.
Art. x 3; WW
A boy stole wallet from girl. He escaped with having wallet
Prep.; art.
When the girl was going through bridge over the river she
Art.
found boy in the river.
4. Focus of the feedback
This concerns whether the teacher attempts to correct all (or most) of the students’ errors or selects one or two specific types of errors to correct. This distinction can be applied to each of the above options.
(1) (2) (3)
A boy stole wallet from girl. He escaped with having bone. When the girl was
(4) (5) (6) (7)
going through bridge over the river she found boy in the river.
Correction:
(1), (2), (5), and (6) (7)— you need ‘a’ before the noun when a person or thing is mentioned for the first time.
(3)—you need ‘the’ before the noun when the person or thing has been mentioned previously.
(4)—you need ‘over’ when you go across the surface of something; you use ‘through’ when you go inside something (e.g. ‘go through the forest’).
So, for the focus of the feedback, in the above examples the teacher could have chosen to correct just article errors.
5. Electronic written corrective feedback
Extensive corpora of written English can be exploited to provide learners with assistance in their writing. Electronic resources provide learners with the means where they can appropriate the usage of more experienced writers.
An example of electronic written corrective feedback
6. Reformulation written corrective feedback
This involves native-speakers rewriting learners’ texts in such a way as ‘to preserve as many of the writers’ ideas as possible, while expressing them in their own words so as to make the pieces sound native-like’.
Example:
Original version : As he was running, his knees were shaked. Reformulation : As he was running, his knees were shaking.
APPENDIX B Interview Questions
Interview questions for each type of WCF in the information sheet.
1. Can you recognize this type of Feedback in your Writing?
2. If you are given this kind of feedback, will you prefer this type as your Corrective Feedback or not? Why?
3. What do you think about this type? Does it helpful for you to recognize the errors that you make in your writing?
