IMPROVING STUDENTS' DESCRIPTIVE WRITING ABILITY THROUGH TEACHER'S INDIRECT FEEDBACK AT THE FIRST YEAR OF MA AL-HIKMAH BANDAR LAMPUNG

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ABSTRACT

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING ABILITY THROUGH TEACHER’S INDIRECT FEEDBACK AT THE FIRST YEAR

OF MA AL-HIKMAH BANDAR LAMPUNG By

Gilang Jaka Pramana

Writing is a productive skill which is very important for student to learn. In fact, writing is still considered a complicated skill for students to master. There are several problems why this skill is difficult. One of the problem is because the teacher teaches them without using a good approach and treatment, especially in corecting students’writing. As one of the steps that can be used to correct

students’ writing, Teacher’s indirect feedback is believed to contribute in

improving students’ writing skill.

This research was a quantitative research. The aim of this research was to find out

the improvement of students’descriptive writing ability after the implementation of teacher’s indirect feedback in teaching descriptive writing. The researcher used pretest and posttest design in this research. The research was conducted at the first year of MA Al-Hikmah Bandar Lampung. The research took place in class XB which consisted of 27 students. The instrument used to collect the data were writing test (pretest and posttest). The test was given to see how far the students improve their descriptive writing ability after the treatment.

The result of the research showed that the t-value (21.506) was higher than t-table (2.052) and the value of two tail significance was 0.000 < 0.05. It means that there is a significant increase of students ability in descriptive writing after the

implementation of teacher’s indirect feedback. Therefore the hypothesis of the research was accepted. The mean score of pretest was 57.96 and the mean of posttest was 72.41. It means that the students’ mean score was improved about 14.45.

Based on the finding, it can be concluded that teacher’s indirect feedback gives a

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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING ABILITY

THROUGH TEACHER’S INDIRECT FEEDBACK AT THE FIRST YEAR

OF MA AL-HIKMAH BANDAR LAMPUNG

By

GILANG JAKA PRAMANA

A Script

Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for S-1 Degree

In

The Language and Arts Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty

UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG BANDAR LAMPUNG

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CURRICULUM VITAE

The writer’s name is Gilang Jaka Pramana. He was born in Padangratu, Central Lampung, on May 7th 1991. He is the second child in his family of harmonious couple, Mr. Mansur Safari and Mrs. Siti Fatimah. He has one elder sister named Kinanti Andra Pratama and one younger brother named Rangga Dewa Triana.

His educational background started at SDN 1 Linggapura in 1996. After graduating from elementary school in 2002, he continued his study at SLTP PGRI 3 Padangratu and graduated in 2005. Then, he moved to Bandar Lampung to continue his sudy at MA Al-Hikmah, Bandar Lampung. After graduating from senior high school, he was accepted at English Department in Teacher Training anda Education Faculty of Lampung University.

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DEDICATION

By offering my praise and gratitude to Allah SWT for His abundant blessing to me, I would proudly dedicate this piece of work to:

My beloved parents, Mansur Safari and Hj. Siti Fatimah

My lovely siblings; Kinanti Andra Pratama and Rangga Dewa Triana

My big family

My fabulous friends

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MOTTO

They always say time changes things,

But you actually have to change them yourself.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillahirabbil ‘alamin, the writer expresses his highest gratitude to Allah SWT for blessing, love, opportunity, health, and mercy to complete this paper.Shalawat is also sent to Prophet Muhammad SAW who had delivered the truth to human beings in general and Moslem in particular.

In arranging this paper, a lot of people have provided motivation, advice, support, and even remark who had helped the writer. In this valuable chance, the writer aims to express his gratitude and appreciation to all of them.

First, the writer’s deepest appreciation goes to his beloved parents, his mother Hj.

Siti Fatimah for the endless love, pray, and support, and his father Mansur Safari (the late) who has become the writer’s inspiration to keep learning especially in academic level as he desired before. His thankfulness is also due his beloved siblings; Kinanti Andra Pratama and Rangga Dewa Triana who have supported the writer.

The writer presents his sincere appreciation goes to Dra. Ari Nurweni M.A. as the head of English Department study program of Lampung University, also to his first advisor Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd., who has given advice and motivation and taught the writer about discipline. Then to his second advisor Dr. Muhammad Sukirlan, M.A., who has helped the writer patiently in finishing this paper by giving suggestion, guidance, and correction since the preliminary of manuscript until the completion of this paper.

The writer greatest thanks go to all of his lecturers in English Department for advice, motivation, and useful knowledge. His deepest thanks also go to his examiners Dra. Rosita Simbolon, M.A. and Prof. Ag. Bambang Setiyadi for their valuable corrections and suggestions, also for all staffs either in department or in faculty who have helped the writer in managing all formal needs during this paper arrangement.

His sincere thanks go to Abdul Aziz, S.H., as the headmaster and Siti Munasih, S.Pd., as the English Teacher of MA Al-Hikmah Bandar Lampung who helped the writer in giving motivation, guidance, and suggestion during the research process. Then to all students of X (B) MA Al-Hikmah Bandar Lampung that have given their participation to his research.

The greatest honor and indebtedness would be dedicated to his beloved foster parents, Hj. Rahmawati, S.Pd.I and Eddy Purwanto; and their children: Mbak Erma, Kak Arief, Ali, Agung, and Pipit for their immeasurable kindness and

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His thankfulness also goes to all his friends in English Department who cannot be

mentioned here one by one, particularly to his companions in “Rumah Blogger

Pelangi” they are Ahmad Wibawa, Amir Sarifuddin, Arya Yoga, Asep Saepul Waton, Mardi Aven, Ida Bagus, M. Bima, Destoprani, M. Fikri, Ikhwan Mukhlisi, Ilham Sanjaya, Ketut Budi, Panjitam Pratama, M. Rozi, M. Reza, and I Wayan Suwatana for cheerful days and togetherness, also to his comrades Ayu Pratami, Realita Siwi, Hana Laila Alviumita, Ferdiansyah, Abdul Haris, Fangky, Dani Erfan, Luki Nugroho, and also Anggun Kemala Sari for their pray, motivation, and for being places to share.

Last but not least, his appreciation to his KKN (Community Service Program) friends; Andri, Debora, Devi, Grace, Ine, Persie, Rani, Roni, Septi,Titi, Tya, and Uswatun, his beloved juniors Rangga, Adit, Dio, Denny, Aldo, Aca, Rissa, Sahaja, Iren, Rani, Adys, Anin, Rinoy, Kiki, Icha, Hatika, and all of the seniors and juniors in UKM Fotografi ZOOM and English Department of Lampung University.

Hopefully, this paper would be a positive contribution for the readers and those who want to conduct further research. The writer believes that this paper is still far from perfect, there may be shortcomings in this research. Therefore, comments, critics, and suggestions are always opened for a better research.

Bandar Lampung, April 2015

The writer,

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MOTTO

They always say time changes things,

But you actually have to change them yourself.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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The writer,

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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The writer,

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TABLES

2.1 Correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback ... 21

2.2 Modified correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback ... 22

3.1 The scoring criteria ... 34

4.1 Distribution of students’ score of content aspect in pre-test ... 45

4.2 Distribution of students’ score of organization aspect in pre-test ... 46

4.3 Distribution of students’ score of vocabulary aspect in pre-test ... 47

4.4 Distribution of students’ score of grammar aspect in pre-test ... 48

4.5 Distribution of students’ score of mechanics aspect in pre-test ... 49

4.6 Distribution of students’ pre-test score ... 50

4.7 Distribution of students’ score of content aspect in post-test ... 51

4.8 Distribution of students’ score of organization aspect in post-test ... 52

4.9 Distribution of students’ score of vocabulary aspect in post-test ... 53

4.10 Distribution of students’ score of grammar aspect in post-test ... 54

4.11 Distribution of students’ score of mechanics aspect in post-test ... 55

4.12 Distribution of students’ post-test score ... 56

4.13 T-test result of pre-test and post-test ... 57

4.14 The Increase of students’ ability in writing descriptive text ... 58

4.15 T-test result of content ... 60

4.16 T-test result of organization ... 60

4.17 T-test result of vocabulary ... 61

4.18 T-test result of grammar ... 62

4.19 T-test result of mechanics ... 62

4.20 Result of normality test in pre-test ... 68

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FIGURES

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CONTENTS

TITLE ... i

ABSTRACT ... ii

APPROVAL ... iii

ADMISSION ... iv

CURRICULUM VITAE ... v

DEDICATION ... vi

MOTTO ... vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... viii

CONTENTS ... ix

TABLES ... x

FIGURES ... xi

I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background ... 1

1.2 Problem ... 5

1.3 Objective ... 6

1.4 Uses... 6

1.5 Scope... 6

1.6 Definition of Terms ... 7

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of Previous Research ... 9

2.2 Writing ... 11

2.3 Teaching Writing ... 13

2.4 Text ... 16

2.5 Descriptive Text... 17

2.6 Feedback ... 19

2.7 Indirect Feedback... 20

2.8 Teaching Descriptive Text Writing Through Teacher’s Indirect Feedback ... 23

2.9 Procedures of Teaching Descriptive Text Writing Through Teacher’s Indirect Feedback... 24

2.10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Indirect Feedback ... 26

2.11 Theoretical Assumption ... 27

2.12 Hypothesis ... 28

III. RESEARCH METHODS 3.1 Design ... 29

3.2 Population and Sample ... 30

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3.4 Procedures of Data Collecting Technique ... 32

3.5 Scoring Criteria ... 33

3.6 Instruments ... 35

3.7 Validity ... 36

3.8 Reliability ... 37

3.9 Data Analysis ... 39

3.10 Data Treatment ... 40

3.11 Hypothesis Testing ... 41

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Result of The Research ... 43

4.2 Discussion ... 70

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 78

5.2 Suggestion ... 79

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I. INTRODUCTION

This chapter reveals several points explaining the reasons for conducting this

study. It consists of the background of the problem, formulation of the problem,

the objective, uses, and scope of the research. In order to avoid misunderstanding,

definitions of terms are provided in the last part of this chapter.

1.1 Background of the Problem

Since English is selected as the international language, its role as a tool of

communication becomes more important in modern society. Consequently, people

need to learn English at school, from elementary school to senior high school and

even in university. Teaching English means teaching students not only about how

to speak, how to read, and how to listen, but also how to write. It follows that the

students are not only expected to speak English fluently but they also expected to

be able to master the four language skills; listening, speaking, reading, and

writing. These four skills are interconnected and associated each other. If the

students need to master English, they must develop the four skills.

Learning English implies learning how to communicate. Communication can be

done not only in spoken but also in written form. Writing is a productive skill

which is very important for student to learn. Writing will help students master the

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want to say but they can tell it into a draft or writing before speaking. Thus, if

students are having problem in expressing the idea, they can write it down.

In fact, writing is still considered a complicated skill for students to master

because it involves a complex activity requiring a variety of skills. Students must

have the ability to generate ideas, determine the purposes, develop arguments,

organize and manage the text effectively, and revise. Byrne (1988:4) says that

writing is difficult for most people both in mother tongue and in foreign language.

It was noticed that students did know what they were going to write but they did

not know how to put them into words. When their teacher asked the students to

make a composition, they were confused about expressing their ideas in written

form (Wahyudin, 2012:2).

Furthermore, Idrus (2003:3) states that although English has been learnt for many

years, we still find that senior high school graduates cannot understand and use

English well both in spoken and written form. Many students complain that they

have the ideas what they are going to write but they do not know how to put them

into a paragraph coherently. They cannot link several sentences into one coherent

idea.

Rianto (2010: 51) has found that most students didn’t compose in a

well-organized composition and also they made it in a poor language use. Actually the

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develop the idea in the composition. Below is the example of paragraph produced

by a student:

“hai my name is Adnin Aderiska And uSP_{can call me Adnin. I live in Haeba Street} Pengadilan tinggi agama No.1(PUNC.)_{I have one sister. She is}_collegeWC_{in universitas} Hasanuddin Makassar my sister old 20 years old VT_{I love my sister.And next time I want} to college WC_{in Makassar too.}

I am a man, my school is SMA 9 Kendari)(PUNC)_{my class in X1}VT_{. I like my class.}(PUNC) because they want to real friendship(unclear meaning)_{to me and nice wit}SP_{all. Every in class} we play and study together GR”

Rianto (2010: 51)

Based on the paragraph cited above, there are two major mistakes the students

made, i.e., Language use and organization. In language use, the mistakes were

underlined. It can be seen that the student did many mistakes from the beginning

until the end of the sentences. For the organization aspect, this student did not

write the composition based on the generic structure of descriptive text, i.e.

introduction, description or even conclusion.

In addition, based on researcher’s pre observation in MA Al-Hikmah Bandar

Lampung, the researcher found that the students had problem in writing a text

they have difficulty to express their idea smoothly. It is because the teacher teach

them without using a good approach and treatment. The students were only asked

to write a text based on the topic or picture in the text book without checking their

ability in mastery aspects of writing first. Teacher did not give a guidance to the

students when they are asked to make a composition. Because of that, the students

couldn’t understand about certain instruction of text for example the generic

structure of the text, purposes and the language feature of the text. The researcher

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because they did not know how to make a good composition step by step. It is

strenghtened by their daily score of writing. The score of their writing is mostly

below 70 as the minimum Standard of Mastery Learning (KKM).

Therefore, the researcher is encouraged to take a close look these facts by doing a

research on this matter. The researcher assumes that if teachers want to help the

students to be a good writer in English, they must be able to teach writing

effectively to the students in the classroom. Teaching writing is always related to

how to give feedback directly or indirectly on writing in a good way, especially by

the teacher.

Alghazo (2009:146) states that teaching writing is an important skill and a helpful

activity to students if it is done in a way to give the students error feedback to

improve their writings. Feedback sessions can be a beneficial experience for the

student if the teacher shows strong points as well. This statement is also

strengthened by Ferris (2002) who has found that students who were given error

feedback from the teacher had greater self-correction abilities than those who

were not given error feedback. Through feedback, teacher can help students to

compare their own performance with the ideal and to diagnose their own strength

and weaknesses.

There are two types of feedback that can be given to the students to improve their

writing ability namely direct and indirect feedback. In this case, the researcher

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teacher to their students in order to improve students’ writing and minimize their

errors. According to Rianto (2010:2) there are several reasons why indirect

feedback is so helpful for the students’ writing. Actually, direct feedback can be

durable, but it will keep only in mind of receiver and will be lost in certain time.

In contrast, indirect feedback, the thought and comment will be saved for a very

long time in the memories; and it is more helpful on student’s long term writing

development than direct feedback (Ferris, 2002).

Based on the background of the problem above, the researcher is interested in

improving students’ descriptive writing ability through teacher’s indirect

feedback.

1.2Problem

In reference to the background of the problem stated above, the researcher

formulates the research problem as follows:

“Is there any improvement of students’ ability in descriptive writing after the

implementation of teacher’s indirect feedback at the first year of MA Al-Hikmah

Bandar lampung?”

1.3Objective

In relation to the formulation of the problem, the objective of the research is to

find out whether there is improvement of the student’s descriptive writing ability

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1.4Uses

1. Theoretically, it can support theory that teacher’s indirect feedback can be

applied to improve students’ descriptive writing ability.

2. Practically, it can inform English teachers about teaching writing using

teacher’s indirect feedback as one of alternative steps in teaching writing.

1.5Scope

The subject of the study is limited to the first year of MA Al-Hikmah Bandar

Lampung. A class will be chosen randomly to be the sample . Specifically, this

study investigates whether students’ descriptive writing ability improve or not

under teacher‘s feedback. The type of feedback provided is indirect feedback that

will be given on students’ writing. In this research, the learning materials will be

focused in writing descriptive text. The treatment will be conducted in three times.

All students’ compositions will be assessed in terms of content, organization,

language use, vocabulary, and mechanics. The scoring criteria will be adopted

from Jacobs et al (1981:9). The materials are adopted from the School Based

Curriculum/Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) for Senior High

School 2006. The topics wil be discussed by the students in writing desriptive text

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1.6Definition of Terms

In relation to the use of this study, there are some definitions clarified in order to

have similar understanding. The terms can be described as follows:

Writing

It reffers to a process of communication that uses conventional graphic system to

convey a message to the readers. This also means that writing is used for

communicating one’s idea in written form to readers, so that the readers can

understand the information.

Students’ descriptive writing ability

It refers to the students’ competence in applying the components of writing were

content, organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar) and mechanics.

Descriptive text

In this research, it refers to an essay which purpose is to describe a particular

person, place or thing in detail. It consits of three parts : Identification,

description, and reorientation.

Feedback

In general, it refers to information that is given to the learner about his or her

performance of the learning task, usually with the objective of improving their

performance.

Teacher’s feedback

It refers to a feedback that is provided by teacher on student writing to support

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feedback often takes the form of written comments on their final graded

compositions.

Indirect feedback

It refers to a feedback that is given to the students writing to indicates the location

of the error by underlining, highlighting, circling, or giving a code without

providing the correct form in order to give an opportunity to the students to realize

their mistakes and fix it themselves. The code will be given based on five aspects

of writing (content, organization, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics).

Teacher’s indirect feedback

It refers to a feedback that is given by the teacher to the students writing to alert

students to error by using general comments, and give students the opportunity to

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II. LITERATURE REVIEW

In relation to this study, there are several points of theories and previous studies

which should be reviewed. Some concepts are described in order to give similar

understanding. Thus, this chapter discusses the review of previous research, the

concept of writing, teaching writing, concept of text, descriptive text, feedback,

indirect feedback, teaching writing descriptive text using teacher’s indirect

feedback,the procedures, and also advantages and disadvantages of teacher’s indirect

feedback. By referring to those concepts theoretical assumption and hypothesis can

be concluded.

2.1Review of Previous Research

Writing is considered as a complex skill to learn. Concerning this case, an English

teacher should be able to implement and improve a good technique for teaching the

students well, in order to make the students are able to write a text. One of additional

way that can be used by the teacher to improve students’ ability in writing is indirect

feedback. In the recent time, many researchers conduct the research to find out the

benefits of teacher’s indirect feedback in the process of teaching writing. One of them

is Lalande (1982) in Turkish University of pre-intermediate learners with regards to

what strategy to use in responding to students’ writing in the English Preparatory

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feedback using correction codes. It is found that the group which received indirect

coded error feedback had more accuracy than direct feedback in writing.

The other similar research has conducted by Dewi Santi (2007) that has conducted the

research in Haluoleo University to investigate the effect of teacher’s feedback on

students’ writing and found that teacher’s feedback was effective. Moreover, Dewi

Santi (2007) exposed teacher’s feedback under correction and assessment (comment

and grade), also suggestion and praise. He focused on giving feedback to students’

writing that would be assessed based on five aspect of composition; content,

organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics (Jacobs, 1981). In the end the

result showed an improvement of students’ writing.

Finally the recent study of indirect feedback is conducted by Alghazo (2009). His

research is aimed at investigating the effect of teacher error feedback on Al-Hussein

Bin Talal University students' self-correction ability. The total of participants in the

three sessions was (102) divided as the control group session with (25) the

experimental groups were one which is the non-coded (44) and the other which is the

coded was (33). The results of the study showed that students who were given coded

feedback did better on all then both the control group and the non-coded feedback

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Based on the result of those researches, it can be seen that direct and indirect

feedback has its own benefit to improve students' writing ability. But, some research

proves that indirect feedback is better than direct feedback. Meanwhile, most of the

studies were focused on the benefits of direct or indirect feedback in advanced level

students. Therefore, the writer of the current study is interested to findout whether

indirect feedback can be implemented and improve students’ writing ability in

intermediate level or not. Further, this study serves a different design from previous

study because those studies mostly focused on giving direct feedback to students’

writing or comparing direct and indirect feedback. While this study only uses indirect

feedback that is used to solve the problem in five aspects of writing, those are

organization, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics.

2.2 Writing

Writing is one of the human’s ways to communicate. Communication is not only

achieved through speaking, but it can also be obtained through writing. Someone can

express their idea that they want to share in the written form. According toTarigan

(1987:7), writing is the language skill that is used in the indirect communication. It

implies that the students can communicate their ideas to the others through written

form such as letter, message, or invitation for communication.

In addition, Fatoni (2012:8) states that writing is an active process of expressing

ideas, thought, and feeling of the writer. It means that if someone is able to share

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them. In writing we are expected to be able to write about the information that we

want to share to the reader effectively, so that the communication will be meaningful

and understandable. In order to make a good writing, There are five aspects that

should be considered in the process of making a composition. Below are the five

aspects of writing according to Jacobs et al (1981:90).

1. Content

It refers to the substance of writing, the experience of the main idea (unity). It

is identified by seeing the topic sentence. The topic sentence should express

the main idea and reflect the entire paragraph.

2. Organization

It refers to the logical organization of content (coherence). It is related to the

ideas that stick together so that ideas run smoothly within paragraph.

3. Grammar/Language use

It refers to the use of he correct grammatical forms and syntactical pattern. It

is identified from the construction of well-formed sentence.

4. Vocabulary

It refers to the selection of words those are suitable the content. It can be

identified by seeing the words choice or diction in order to convey ideas to the

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5. Mechanics

It refers to the use of graphic conventional of the language. It is identified by

seeing the usage of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization within the

paragraph.

So, we have to know and understand about how to implement each aspects of writing

well in order to make a good composition.

2.3Teaching Writing

Teaching writing is to teach the students how to express the idea or imagination in

written form. In order to be successful in writing, the material presented should be

relevant to their needs, interest, capacities, and ages until they are able to make

composition with view or even no errors (Finnochiaro, 1964: 129). In other words, it

is clear that the teacher should guide the students to write or how to express the ideas

in written form.

In relation to teaching writing, Harmer (1984: 40) points out that there is certain

particular consideration that needs to be taken into account, such as sentence

organization, paragraph arrangement, and coherence. Teaching writing requires the

elements of writing including grammar, sentence organization, vocabulary, and

mechanics (Madsen, 1989: 120) quoted by Idrus (2003). It can be said that teaching

writing should guide the students not only to write sentence but also to organize their

ideas into written form. Then, the teacher must give the appropriate guidance in

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practicing their writing, the students have to follow the steps to make their writing

more effective.

Appelebe in Mappe (2000) suggests that “there 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.

2. Drafting

In this stage, students would select among ideas during pre-writing and structure. The

result of brainstorming session provides a plan of description of topic. The content

might be written without considering the grammatical aspect first.

3. Revising

In this stage, the students review a draft to check content and organization based on

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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

and consciousness.

4. Editing

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.

Referring to the process of writing above, teacher’s feedback plays the important

roles in the four stages of writing in this study. As stated by Lee (2005), in improving

the effectiveness of 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 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. Therefore, this study used the four steps above with

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2.4 Text

Derewianka (1990: 17) defines a text as meaningful stretch of language – oral or

written. Even it only consists of one word but it is meaningful. For example,

“STOP!”.It consists of single word but the meaning is complete. Therefore, even the

utterance is only single word; it can be called a text due to the complete meaning.

On the other hand, Hyland (2004:6) states that text is autonomous object which can

be analyzed and described independently of particular context, writer or reader. Text

has structure. It is an orderly arrangement of words, clauses, and sentences by

following the principles which guide the correct arrangement of element.

There are two main categories of text namely literary and factual. Literary texts are

texts constructed to appeal emotions and imagination. For example: stories, movies,

scripts, fairy tales, plays, novels, song lyrics, mimes, and soap operas. There are three

main text types in this category: narrative, poetic, and dramatic. Factual texts present

information or ideas and aim to show, tell or persuade the audience. The main text

types in this category are recount, report, procedure, exposition, explanation, and

discussion.

Not all the texts are the same. Each text has its function and generic structure. Each

kind of text is structured in different ways to achieve its purposes. It is important to

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2.5 Descriptive Text

Knapp and Watkins cited in Lopa (2012:10) define descriptive text as a kind of text

whose purpose is to describe a particular person, place, or thing in detail. Descriptive

text commonly used in personal descriptions, commonsense description, technical

descriptions, information reports, and scientific reports. Descriptive can occur as a

text and it also can be a part of a text in different genre.

According to Medina (2003) quoted by Rianto (2010:20), the generic structure of

descriptive text are identification; identifying the phenomenon to be described in

general and Description; describing the phenomenon in parts, qualities, or/and

characteristics. They may choose vivid, fresh language, they may use examples, they

might take something ordinary and by comparing it with something extraordinary,

make it interesting, or they may use their senses.

The language uses of this text should rely on precisely chosen vocabulary with

carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs; it is focused and concentrated only on the

aspects that add something to the main purpose of the description. Sensory

description - what is heard, seen, smelt, felt, tasted. Precise use of adjectives, similes,

metaphors to create images/pictures in the mind, strong development of the

experience that "puts the reader there" focuses on key details, powerful verbs and

precise nouns, Using attributive and identifying process, Using adjective and

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Here is one example of personal descriptive text:

MY BEST PAL

Close friendships are hard to come by these days. In an ever-changing world with people striving to achieve their interpretation of preordained success, it is hard to know who your true friends are. Fortunately, I found my best pal early at the tender age of seven. We were both enrolled at the same school and were at wits’ ends as we searched tirelessly for our designated classes.

Samantha and I got acquainted as both of us were in the same class and sat next to each other. Samantha was a happy-go-lucky girl who always managed to breathe fresh air into the sometimes arid classroom. She always knew what to say and would voice them at the best possible moments. Both pupils and teachers alike enjoyed her company and liveliness. There was hardly ever a dull moment when she was around with her funny quips and expressions.

Samantha was born with a silver spoon. Her father was a businessman and her mother owned and ran a boutique. Both her parents were very caring towards her as she, just like I, was the only child of the family. Samantha came to school each day with a perpetual smile. She was a very nice person to be around with. She and I used to go everywhere together and both of us were rarely seen apart. We used to talk about so many things as we walked, thoroughly enjoying our time together.

One day, I went to school and forgot to ask my parents for lunch money. At first, I was not hungry and thought I could bear going without a meal but soon, my stomach began to growl. Without asking, Samantha generously paid for my meal and drinks during recess. The incident revealed to me how lucky I was to have such a caring and compassionate friend.

As time went on, people started teasing us as we were spending more and more time together. We seemed to know what each other thought and we cared for each other deeply. Was I in love with her? I did not know then and we both knew we were too young for all that emotional roller coaster.

Currently, Samantha and I are studying at different schools. It was hard to be apart at first, but technology in the form of instant messaging and e-mails have helped to bridge the gap in our friendship. I sincerely wish our friendship will never end as it would be equivalent to waking up from a beautiful dream.

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Another example of descriptive text:

MY FAMILY

My family has four members: those are I, my sister, and parents of course. My mother is 47 years old. Her name's Anisa. She's thin-faced and she's got long, blond hair and beautiful green eyes. She is still slim because she always tries to stay in shape. She is very good-looking, always well-dressed and elegant.

My father, Lukman, is 5 years older than my mother. He is 52. In spite of his age he's still black-haired, with several grey hairs. He has bright blue eyes. He is quite tall, but a bit shorter than me. He's very hard-working. Besides that he is working in a travel company. He can even make a dinner when my mother is outside. His cooking and his meals are always very tasty as well as my mothers'.

Finally, my sister Nadina. She is 22. She is also red-haired and green-eyed. She has long wavy hair and freckles. She is definitely shorter than me. She is rather introverted. But she is very sensible, smart and co-operative. Right now she is studying English and also knows Arabic and Mandarin. I want to be so smart as she is.

They all, except me, speak Sundanese very well, because we were living in Bandung for 5 years. My sister has been going to primary school there. Unfortunately I was only 3 when we were leaving to Jakarta, so I can't speak Sundanese. Now we are happily living in Jakarta.

(http://www.englishindo.com/2012/03/simple-descriptive-text-examples.html)

2.6 Feedback

One of the ways to make students able to create good writing is that the teacher must

be able to provide good feedback with the aim of providing guidance for students’

mistakes in compiling a writing. Feedback is a kind of assessment that concerns to

the giving of information about students’ writing performance. Ur (1996: 242) says

that in 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 of

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In addition, Roger (2001) says that feedback is not just about weaknesses. Students

will respond if teachers are encouraging as well as allowing mistakes, emerging

capabilities, and give ideas for directing further learning. From these definitions, it

can be concluded that feedback plays an important role in the learning process,

besides students will learn how to evaluate themselves, feedback also helps students

to have a greater confidence, so that their performance can be improved in terms of

writing.

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, 1996: 275). So, in process of writing teacher must motivate

students to do more towards their writing.

2.7 Indirect Feedback

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 a technique of correcting students’ error by

using general comments, and giving students the opportunity to fix errors themselves

(Ferris, 2002: 19). Lee (2005) states that 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

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To make indirect feedback more effective, Lee (2005) states 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.

According to Finocchiaro (1987) the symbols or codes that can be used to indicate

[image:40.612.116.537.414.692.2]

error in indirect feedback can be seen as follows:

Table 2.1 Correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback

No Code Meaning Kinds of errors

1 WC Word choice

The words are inapplicable with the sentences/ meaning

2 PREP Preposition Wrong preposition

3 VT Verb tense or GR = more

general grammar problems Wrong tense/ use another tense

4 S/V A Subject verb agreement subject and verb don’t agree

5 SP Spelling error Wrong spelling/punctuation your

spelling

6 ART Article Use article a, an, or the for singular

noun

7 N.P New paragraph Unorganized paragraph

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9 ? (question mark) unclear

meaning

I can’t understand this. The meaning is

not clear. Write in another way to make the meaning clearer.

10 good Good idea, good detail You have something good here: a good word, idea, detail, etc

11 WO Word order the words in this sentence are in the wrong order

(Finocchiaro, 1987)

In this research, the symbols or codes that will be used to indicate error in indirect

feedback has been modified as can be seen below:

Table 2.2Modified Correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback

No Code Meaning Kinds of errors

1 WC Word Choice

The words are inapplicable with the sentences/ meaning

2 WF Word Form Wrong word form

3 ^ Missing Word There is a missing word in the

sentence/ you should add a word here.

4 ? Unclear Meaning

I can’t understand this. The meaning is

not clear. Write in another way to make the meaning clearer.

5 S/V A Subject verb agreement Subject and verb don’t agree

6 ᴓ Not Neccesary The word is not necessary in this

sentence.

7 Prep. Preposition Wrong preposition

[image:41.612.117.538.84.215.2]

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noun

9 WO Word Order Wrong word order

10 SP Spelling Error You have to check and correct the

spelling of the word.

11 Capt. Capitalization The word should be started by capital letter/not capital.

12 Punct. Punctuation

There is something wrong with he punctuation/ you have to add

punctuation here (coma, fullstops, etc.)

13 VT Verb tense or GR = more

general grammar problems Wrong tense/ use another tense

14 DNS Does Not Support The developing sentence does not

support the main idea.

15 More Need More Need more developing sentence.

2.8 Teaching Descriptive Text Writing Using Teacher’s Indirect Feedback

Writing is not only a single step but a process. To pass the process from the first draft

to the final draft, students need guidance, supporter and counselor/advisor to make

their writing better. Therefore, they need someone to check the mistake that they

made. It can 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 function as describer when he/she gives feedback. But

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The patterns of feedback and responses given by the 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 errors. 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. 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.

2.9 Procedures of Teaching Descriptive Text Writing Using Teacher’s Indirect Feedback

Based on the notion proposed by Appelebe in Mappe (2000), it is concluded that this

study uses four steps in teaching descriptive text by using teacher’s indirect feedback.

Those steps can be described as follows:

1. Pre- writing

a. Teacher explains the activities and the material to the students after

distributing the copy of material, symbol of indirect feedback and marking

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b. Teacher explains about the organization of the text, language use, and

descriptive text to the students.

c. Students pay attention when teacher explains the material.

d. Teacher explains what kind of symbols they will get in their writing.

2. Drafting

a. Teacher asks the students to write 1st draft about descriptive text. b. Students write composition based on teacher’s instruction.

3. Revising

a. Teacher asks the students to submit their writing.

b. Students submit their writing.

c. Teacher explains that he/she will put indirect feedback in every error of

students writing.

d. Teacher gives indirect feedback to every students’ writing error.

4. Editing

a. Teacher tells to the student about their major mistakes and give brief

explanation about how to fix it.

b. Teacher distributes students’ first draft.

c. Teacher asks the students to revise their draft based on the indirect feedback

that has been given on it.

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That was the procedure of teaching descriptive text writing using teacher’s indirect

feedback but in this research the researcher could not give the feedback in the

teaching learning process because it will takes much times considering the large

number of the students and the time is limited to only 90 minutes in each meeting. So

the researcher decided to modify the lesson plan as can be seen on appendix 1 to

make the process of giving indirect feedback more efficient.

2.10 Advantages and Disadvantages of Indirect Feedback

As a matter of fact, every strategy, technique, or step bears some advantages and

disadvantages. Therefore, it is important to determine each of advantages and

disadvantages in order to make the implementation of the strategy in teaching process

more effective. Below are the advantages and disadvantages of teacher’s indirect

feedback.

a. The Advantages of Indirect Feedback

Teacher’s indirect feedback is considered as an alternative strategy to teach

writing because it has many advantages. The advantages of using it can be

described as follows:

1. Frodesen (2001) notes that indirect feedback is more useful than direct

feedback. Students are able to express their ideas more clearly in writing

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2. Indirect feedback is more helpful on students’ long-term writing

development than direct feedback (Ferris, 2002).

3. 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).

b. The disadvantages of Indirect Feedback

Beside of the advantages, indirect feedback has disadvantages that should be

considered as follows:

1. The process of giving feedback to each student’s writing can consume

much time if the number of the student in the class is large.

2. Students may feel confused because of the symbol given is not familiar to

them.

Therefore, the teacher should consider the time allocation for giving the

feedback 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.

2.11 Theoretical Assumption

In teaching writing, there are many steps that can be used by teachers to reach the

goal of teaching learning process. Based on the literature review above, teacher’s

indirect feedback is one of the ways that can be used to improve students’ writing

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skill. Students need to consider five aspects of writing; they are content, organization,

grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics. Obviously, some cases show that it is difficult

to students to express their ideas coherently into writing form. Some mistakes have

been made in every aspects of writing. Therefore, indirect feedback can be used to

alert the student’s about their error and give them opportunity to fix the errors

themselves. It also can be used in order to minimize grammar errors and inaccuracy

of selection of word. Finally, it is assumed that teacher’s indirect feedback can

improve student’s descriptive writing ability in terms of content, organization,

grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics.

2.12 Hypothesis

Based on the theoretical assumption, the researcher formulates hypothesis as follows:

“There is an improvement of students’ ability in writing descriptive text after the

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III. RESEARCH METHODS

The design of this research was organized in a manner that allows composition

between pretest and posttest result. To do this, analytical data measuring the caliber

of students’ writing was collected using pretest and posttest. Using a controlled

analysis of the result as channeled through the research design, the transformation of

the subjects’ writing skills could be adequately revealed and composed across the

two- test period.

3.1Design

This research was a quantitative study which was intended to see the students’

descriptive writing improvement after the implementation of the teacher’s indirect

feedback. The research design was one group pretest-posttest design. The design was

used to compare the sudents’ ability in pre test and postest after the treatment was

given. This design used pretest to find out the students’ initial ability before the

treatment (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 21-22). It could be illustrated as follows:

T1 X T2

T1 : Pretest

T2 : Posttest

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3.2Population and Sample

The population of this research was the first year of MA Al-Hikmah Bandar

Lampung in the academic year of 2013/2014. There were three classes of the first

year students. A class was taken as the sample of this research to be the experimental

class. The chosen class was XB which consisted 27 students. In determining the

experimental class, this study used simple probability sampling by using lottery; so

that those all the first year classes in the school got the same chance to be the sample.

3.3Data Collecting Technique

The aim of this research was to gain the data on the students' descriptive writing

ability score before the treatment (pre test) and after the treatment (post test).The text

used was descriptive text concerning five aspects of writing: content, organization,

language use, vocabulary, and mechanics. Pre test and post test were conducted to see

whether there was a significant improvement on sudents' score after the

implementation of teacher's indirect feedback. The data was gained from:

1. Pre test

The pretest was conducted before the treatment was administered. It was

administered to the experimental class. It was to see the basic quality of

students’ descriptive writing performances before receiving the treatment. The

pretest was a writing test. The pretest was conducted in 90 minutes.

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a. Make a descriptive text about one of your family member (father, mother,

sister, or brother)

b. Make it in three or more paragraphs. Each paragraph consists of four or

more sentences.

c. Becareful in choosing the words, especially adjective.

d. Pay attention to your grammatical structure. Check them carefully before you

submit it.

2. Post test

The post test was conducted after the treatment was administered. It was used

to know the improvement of student’s ability in writing simple descriptive

text. It was conducted in 90 minutes. The post test was administered

once.Instructions used by the researcher for the posttest were:

a. Make a descriptive text about an important person in your life (friend,

teacher, etc.)

b. Make it in three or more paragraphs. Each paragraph consists of four or

more sentences.

c. Becareful in choosing the words, especially adjective.

d. Pay attention to your grammatical structure. Check them carefully before

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3.4Procedures of Data Collecting Technique

In collecting the data, this study usedthe following steps:

1. Selecting materials for treatment

In selecting materials for treatment, the researcher selected some samples of

descriptive text from English books and the internet.

2. Determining the population and selecting sample

The population of this research was the first year of MA Al-Hikmah Bandar

Lampung. There were three classes, the researcher chose one class as the

experimental class randomly by using lottery, since every class has the same

opportunity to be chosen.

3. Administering the pretest

The pretestwas conducted to measure students’ preliminary ability before

treatment. Here, students in experimental class were assigned to write a

descriptive text. The topic was about family member and the time allocation

was 90 minutes.

4. Conducting the treatment

After giving the pretest to the students, the experimental class was given

treatment by using teacher’s indirect feedback.The treatment was conducted

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SMA. The treatment was conducted in three meetings. In those three meetings

the students was guided to write a descriptive text. Indirect feedback was

given to the errors on every students’ composition until the student make a

good composition from the first to the final draft.After the treatment was

given, the posttest was given to the students to evaluate their ability in writing

descriptive text after the implementation of teacher’s indirect feedback.

5. Administering the posttest

In order to see the improvement of student’s writing ability, the posttest was

conducted in the experimental class after they were being given the treatment.

The test was in form of writing. The students were asked to develop their

descriptive text writing based on the topic of important person in my life. The

posttest was conducted in 90 minutes.

6. Analyzing the test result (pretest and posttest)

After scoring pretest and posttest, the data was analyzed by using SPSS

version 17.0 software program. It was used to find out the means of pretest

and posttest and how significant the improvement was.

3.5Scoring Criteria

The students could succeed in writing if their writing includes five aspects of writing.

Therefore, the aspects of writing were evaluated in the students’ paragraph writing in

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mechanics, and vocabulary. The scoring criteria was modified from ESL composition

profile designed by Jacobs et al (1981) as can be seen below:

Table 3.1. The Scoring Criteria ASPECTS OF

WRITING

SCORE CRITERIA

Content

20

15

10

5

EXCELLENT TO VERY GOOD: knowledgeable. substantive. thorough development of thesis. relevant to assigned topic.

GOOD TO AVERAGE: some knowledge of subject. adequate range. limited development of thesis. mostly relevant to topic, but lacks in detail.

FAIR TO POOR: limited knowledge of subject. little substance. inadequate development of topic.

VERY POOR: limited knowledge of subject. non-substantive. not pertinent. or not enough to evaluate.

Organization

20

15

10

5

EXCELLENT TO VERY GOOD: fluent expression. ideas clearly stated/supported. succint. well-organized. logical sequencing. cohesive.

GOOD TO AVERAGE: somewhat choppy. loosely organized but main ideas stand out. limited support. logical but incomplete sequencing.

FAIR TO POOR: non-fluent. ideas confused or disconnected. lacks logical sequencing and development.

VERY POOR: does not communicate. no organization. Or not enough to evaluate.

Vocabulary

20

15

10

5

EXCELLENT TO VERY GOOD: sophisticated range. effective word/idiom choice and usage. word form mastery. appropriate register

GOOD TO AVERAGE: adequate range. occasional errors of word/idiom form,