TEACHER FEEDBACK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING:
WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK?
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Indah Permata Sari 112011008
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
i
TEACHER FEEDBACK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING:
WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK?
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Indah Permata Sari 112011008
ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
ii
TEACHER FEEDBACK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING:
WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK?
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Indah Permata Sari 112011008
Approved by:
Elisabet Titik Murtisari, M.TransStud., PhD Anita Kurniawati H.,M.A.
iii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person expect where due references is made in the text.
Copyright@2015. Indah Permata Sari and Elisabet Titik Murtisari
All right reserved. No part of this thesis may be produced by any means without permission of at least one of the copyright owner or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
iv
Study Program : Language and Literature
Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with non-exclusive royalty free right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
Teacher Feedback in Foreign Language Writing: What Do Students
This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.
v
TABLE OF CONTENT
TEACHER FEEDBACK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING: ... i
TEACHER FEEDBACK IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING: ... ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT ...iii
The definitions and roles of teacher feedback ... 3
Students’ perceptions toward teacher feedback ... 5
Feedback as a useful instrument ... 5
Feedback and students’ feeling ... 6
Unhelpful feedback ... 7
Teacher and students different points of view about feedback ... 8
THE STUDY ... 9
Teacher feedback and students’ writing improvement ... 13
The Impact of Teacher Feedback for Students’ Writing in Time to Time ... 13
Feedback and Students’ Part of Improvements ... 15
Students’ feeling after receiving teacher feedback ... 17
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Long-term Impact of Teacher Feedback ... 19
CONCLUSION ... 20
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ... 24
REFERENCE ... 25
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LIST OF TABLES
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Feedback and students’ part of improvements……….…….. 15
1 toward the advantages and disadvantages of teacher feedback in their writing activities. The investigation focuses on the factors that commonly influence the students‟ perceptions toward feedback given such as the content and the amount of the feedback. The analysis of senior high school students‟ perceptions toward their teacher feedback is important since feedback has been only given as an instructional
purpose – where there will be no revision needed and no further checking, from the
teacher, applied. The data from close ended questionnaires were analyzed to identify students‟ perceptions of their teacher‟s feedback. This study intends to give a broader insight for senior high school teachers in giving feedback to single-draft writing assignment. Besides, this research might also become a basis for teacher to adjust
their feedback, increase their awareness of students‟ feeling after receiving the
feedback, and also build more understandable comments in the inputs given. Moreover, through the exploration of students‟ perspectives about their teachers‟ feedback, teacher will be able to know more about whether the feedback given improve the students‟ writing performance or not.
Keywords: students’ perception, feedback, writing, high school, EFL students
INTRODUCTION
Feedback is generally seen as information that is given to learners on their
performance in order to improve their ability (Ur, 1996). It is seen as a guide for them
to achieve a better aptitude of writing. Ur‟s argument is also supported by the
previous studies which are conducted by Cardelle & Conro (1981) and Lalande
(1982), which demonstrate that errors identifications given by the teacher can increase
2
be concluded that teacher feedback play an important role in improving learners
writing ability.
However, most studies on student perceptions toward teacher feedback have
been conducted in college/university contexts. In such contexts, almost all writing
assignments come along with several stages of revision before the final grade is given.
This is inversely proportional to most Indonesian senior high school students‟ writing
assignments which normally do not had first draft and cannot be revised.
Nevertheless, it is still important to know about senior high school students‟
perceptions on their teacher feedback in order to help the teacher adjust their
feedback, increase their awareness of students‟ needs and preferences, and also build
more understandable comments in the feedback given.
Through the exploration of students‟ perspectives about their teachers‟
feedback, the teacher will be able to know more about whether the given feedback
improve the students‟ writing performance or not (Chen & Shang, 2009). That is why
the study of senior high school students‟ perceptions is needed to examine the issue of
„up-to-the-minute‟ teacher feedback (feedback that is given only on the final draft,
concurrently with its final grade – no revision). Therefore, this paper is written in
order to answer the research question of Lab senior high school students‟ perceptions
toward the advantages and disadvantages of teacher feedback in their writing class
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REVIEW OF LITERATURE
The definitions of perception
According to the Oxford online dictionary, perception is “the way, in which
something is regarded, understood or interpreted”. In other words, perception is one‟s
thought about what they believe and value. Moreover, Oxford online dictionary also
defines it as one‟s “awareness of something”. Perception is the result of one‟s
cognition of what happen surrounds them. In this case, perception means students‟
awareness and ways of regarding, understanding, and interpreting written feedback
that they received from their teacher. However, perception is different from attitude
since attitude includes one‟s behavior toward something, yet perception is one‟s
thought toward it (Murtisari, 2014)1.
The definitions and roles of teacher feedback
Feedback is information of one‟s capability or performance that is provided by
an agent (teacher, peer, self) (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) to improve one‟s writing
competence. Taking account into feedback as an instructional purpose, feedback also
need to provide more information about the learning process, especially related to the
gap between what is have already understood and what is aimed to be understood by
the students (Hettie & Timperley, 2007; Sadler, 1989). By clarifying this gap, it will
1
Elisabet Titik Murtisari, M.TransStud., PhD, lecturer of Satya Wacana Christian University, 27
4
ease both the teacher and the students to set the goal of learning and to take control of
the learning process. However, Kulhavy (1977) also stated that feedback provided by
the teacher can be accepted, modified, or even rejected by the students. In other
words, the students do not merely follow the feedback, but they can make their own
judgment, whether to follow the feedback given or not.
The scope of feedback significantly influences the result of on the learning
process. Teacher feedback plays an important role of determining students‟
improvement and their engagement (Parr & Timperley, 2010). Here, the teacher
should facilitate the students to improve their writing proficiency and also empower
the students to engage on their own learning process. Moreover, feedback can also be
seen as a medium of interaction between the teacher and the students (Ferris, 1997;
Hyland, 1998). Through feedback, both of the teacher and the students can build a
better relationship in order to understand both of the agent‟s needs, then develop it
together as a unity. It is important for the teacher to pay attention on the students‟
argument or reason behind their piece of writing. Since it will help the teacher to
judge the writing and give a further feedback to the related work. However, the
feedback given by the teacher should be constant and also honest (Johnson, 1995).
Teacher should not necessarily praise the students and leave some positive command
if they do not do something good and inversely. Moreover, the kind of assessment
used by the teacher is also need to be clear and fair, to enable the students feel the
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Students’ perceptions toward teacher feedback
Even though teacher feedback is aimed to help the students recognize their
mistake in writing and improve their writing ability, not all of the students give
positive reactions toward it. Every student has his/her own perspectives regarding the
existence of the teacher feedback and its effect on his/her writing proficiency. It is
seen that social and also educational background of the students will more or less
influence the students‟ perceptions toward the feedback that they receive (Lee, 2008).
Feedback as a useful instrument
According to previous studies, most surveys of student preferences toward
teacher feedback prove that students tend to have positive reactions toward language
issue, even though they also expect their teacher to pay more attention on content and
ideas of their writing to give some helpful comments in it (Hedgcock & Lefkowitz,
1994; Leki, 1991; Lee, 2008; Oladejo, 1993; Saito, 1994). Most students perceive
teacher‟s feedback as a useful instrument to improve their writing proficiency when
the feedback facilitates them to correct their errors. In one of his studies, Gram (2005)
investigated 33 Saudi university students‟ perceptions toward their teacher‟s written
feedback. From this study, it was concluded that most of the students had positive
reaction in receiving the feedback since they regarded it as something helpful and
crucial. Similar findings about teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes to feedback by
Zacharias‟ (2007) had in her study on 100 students and 30 teachers. She found that
most of the students regarded teacher feedback as necessary, which, as students stated
during the interview, teachers would control their grades. Moreover, the existence of
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help them to understand what kind of expectations that the teacher has (Zacharias,
2007).
Seker & Dincer (2014) in their research about students‟ perceptions on teacher
feedback in second language writing classroom found that teacher‟s feedbacks were
beneficial for the students‟ foreign language improvement. By knowing the correct
form of language that should be used, students will gradually learn the correct form of
a sentence. Thus, more or less it will influence the students‟ foreign language
proficiency. The areas of improvement that are influenced by the feedback given will
generally in the part of content matters, grammar and vocabulary (Seker & Dincer,
2014).
Feedback and students’ feeling
Considering students‟ feeling when receiving feedback, positive attitudes are
shown by Iranian students who became the participants of Seker & Dincer‟s (2014)
study. Most of the students felt cared for, empowered, and satisfied with their
teacher‟s feedback. They shared positive reactions toward the comments that were
provided by the teacher. Here, when the positive reactions occur, the students will
tend to give an immediate response toward the given feedback (Bangert-Drowns, C.
Kulik, J. Kulik, & Morgan, 1991; Shute, 2008; Gielen et al., 2010). Thus, the students
will likely to learn something new from the feedback, and improve their writing
competence.
Regrettably, not all students share a positive emotion while receiving feedback
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Tade & Tinti, 1997; Lee, 2008; Mantello, 1997) since they feel that their teacher
pointed out all of their written mistakes. Moreover, some will also feel disappointed
and even become less motivated while dealing with writing (Lee, 2008).
Unhelpful feedback
In addition, some students have negative perceptions toward their teacher‟s
feedback since they found that the existence of the feedback is unclear, too general,
and do not help the students to correct their errors and improve their writing ability
(Sommers, 1982). Some comments such as „need more improvement‟ and „look at
your grammar‟ are categorized as unhelpful because the feedback do not directly lead
the students on how to correct their error. As a result, the students become confuse on
how to deal with the feedback given (Lee, 2008). Moreover, the dictions that are
chosen by the teacher will also influence the students‟ perspectives toward the
feedback given. When complex wording is used, not all students will understand what
their teacher means and at last found that the feedback is useless since it is not
understandable (Zamel, 1985; Zacharias, 2007; Lee, 2008). In addition, Zacharias
(2007) also believes that students might face difficulties when dealing with vague
expressions in the feedback. Vague expression will be troublesome for the students in
understanding the feedback since it force them to identify the teacher‟s intention by
themselves. Therefore, Zacharias (2007) suggests that teacher‟s feedback should be
8
Teacher and students different points of view about feedback
In addition, other research demonstrates that there may be a mismatch between
the feedback that students want or expect and the feedback that is actually given
(Ping, Pin, Wee, & Hwee Nah, 2003). Lee (2008) explored students‟ reactions to
teacher feedback in two secondary schools in Hong Kong. The analysis of the data
collected through questionnaires showed that most of the students were not satisfied
enough with the feedback that they obtained and some low proficiency students even
resisted the error-focused approach feedback that was used by the teacher.
Error-focused approach is unfavorable for some students since it is usually „discouraging‟
and „demotivating‟ the students, especially for the weaker one, to deal with a piece of
writing (Lee, 2008, p.156). Consequently, as it was explained in the study, students
will desire more comment on the content and ideas rather than grammar.
When talking about content, some studies claims that students frequently find
their teacher misunderstand their writing content and leave some unrelated feedback
in it. In one of his studies, Zamel (1985) points out that students often ignore their
teacher‟s comments and corrections and did not consider it during the revision process
since the teacher get the wrong idea about their content and give divergent feedback
with some biased instructions. This fact is supported by Zacharias (2007) study which
reveals that in some occasion teacher‟s feedback is somehow different with the
students‟ original writing ideas. These unrelated commentaries more or less will
confuse the students and hinder them in dealing with the revision process.
In one research study, Wojtas (1998, as cited in Ferguson, 2011:51) stated that
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seemed concerned only with the final result and did not collect their marked work”.
This statement is proven by my own experience when I was a student in Lab senior
high school. Some writing activities were commonly given by the teacher both as an
exercise and a test, to measure students‟ understanding toward the materials given.
Writing activity seen as a good assessment of students‟ language production since it
enable the teacher to grade objectively. However, when our writing piece were given
back along with its feedback, what I did is only pay attention to my grade and did not
really read what the comment given for my mistakes, and so did my other friends. At
that time, I thought that even though I read the commentaries, I would not be able to
revise it and get a better mark. Thus, I just put my writing inside my bag after I saw
the grade. From this case, it can be concluded that when the feedback given in
single-draft writing assignment is too general, unclear, or do not support students‟ overall
performance – such as the organization of the text, grammar and vocabulary, students
tend to neglect it and even do not read what is written by the teacher in their piece of
writing. Moreover, students will only focus on the grade and do not regard their
teacher feedback as important.
THE STUDY
Context of the study
To complete this study, a research was conducted in Lab senior high school,
Salatiga. Lab senior high school was chosen based on the consideration that this
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where the university students could observe and experience the teaching learning
process of the school. Thus, it would ease the data collection process of this research.
Participants
The participants of this study were not randomly chosen, yet decided based on
the purposive sampling technique which was constructed to serve specific need or
purpose. One hundred and twelve (112) eleventh grader students from Lab senior high
school Salatiga were selected to complete the questionnaire given. Even though 12th
grader might face more English exposure, here the 11th graders were preferred based
on the consideration that they were having more writing activities along with its
teacher feedback (Nuwidajati, 2015)2 as also required by the 2013 curriculum. What
was meant by writing activity here was the writing parts that had to be done by the
students at the end of every chapter. The writing activity would occur in different
form in each chapter, such as in a form of card, dialogue, paragraph, etc.
Instrumentation
A four-point Likert scale, with the choices of strongly agree, agree, disagree,
and also strongly disagree, was used to analyze the students‟ perceptions toward their
teacher‟s feedback. Neutral choice such as „undecided‟ was avoided. In this case
neutral choice was difficult to identify since the participant would tend to be neutral
2
Pityarini Nuwidajati, S,Pd., teacher of Lab senior high school, 30 January 2015 (personal
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and did not merely think whether they agree with the statement or not (Johns, 2005;
Kalton, Roberts, & Holt, 1980), thus this option would not give rich data to analyze.
Likert (1932) defines his scale as a standard of measuring someone cognitive and
affective components of attitude by asking the participants‟ to respond toward certain
statement or topic, and then decide their standard of agree and disagreement toward it.
The degree of agreement in the Likert scale is using a fixed scale measurement
(Bowling, 1997; Burns, & Grove, 1997). In other words, a Likert-type scale believes
that it is possible to measure someone beliefs since its focus is linear from strongly
agree to strongly disagree. By using a Likert scale, the data gathered will not simply
yes or no question, yet it is a scale of the participants‟ degrees of opinion.
To complete this study, the students were asked to choose one level of
agreement that suit their perceptions the most. In this study, the researcher developed
13 close-ended questions (Likert scale) which consist of 7 questions of teacher
feedback advantages and disadvantages, which were completed with 6 questions of
teacher feedback impact of students feeling after receiving the feedback. Bahasa
Indonesia was preferred in making the questionnaire; to ease the student answered the
questions. The questionnaire given answer the questions of the role of the feedback
for the students‟ writing improvement and also students feeling and thought after
receiving the teacher feedback.
Data Collections
The data for this study was collected in the second semester of 2014/2015
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done in the first three weeks of the semester. In the following week, which was the
last week of January 2015, piloting of the questionnaire was conducted to twenty
three 11thgraders from „lintas minat‟ class (the class which consists of students from
several different streams) as the trial to make sure that the questionnaire was
understandable and not bias. Piloting students would be allowed to give some
commentaries and feedback related with the questionnaire given. It was aimed to be
used as a reference for the questionnaire revision. The data collection was
administered to one hundred and twelve (112) 11th graders as the participants. From
all questionnaire spread, all of the questionnaire sheet were returned and all of the
questionnaire items were answered.
Data Analysis
After getting the data from the questionnaire, the researcher processed the
participants‟ answer by categorized it as the advantages and also disadvantages of the
teacher feedback for the students‟ writing ability, added with the effect of the
feedback to the students who receive it. Numerical data processing using Microsoft
Excel was used to complete this study. Besides, qualitative data analyzes would be
utilize to give some explanations and also make meaning of the number showed. At
the end, all of the data gathered from the questionnaire would be analyzed to find the
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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
For the data analysis, the discussion of the findings will be categorized into
two big themes. The first discussion will cover the advantages and disadvantages of
teacher feedback for the students‟ writing ability. In addition, the second one will
discuss the impact of the feedback given, especially in relation to the students‟
feeling.
Teacher feedback and students’ writing improvement
This part of the discussion will talk about students‟ perceptions related
with the role of teacher feedback for their writing ability.
The Impact of Teacher Feedback for Students’ Writing in Time to Time
Lab senior high school students‟ always have grammar writing
activity in each chapter of their learning materials and never do a direct
revision. Hence, the existence of feedback in one chapter should also be
useful for the next chapter and most importantly it also should be
memorable for the students. Table 1 below show students‟ perceptions
toward the role of their teacher feedback regard to their writing
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helps me not to do the same mistakes
in my next assignment.
24% 69% 7% 0%
Table 1. The Impact of Teacher Feedback for Students’ Writing in Time to Time
Table 1 above showed us that the majorities of the students, which
were 98% of them, strongly agree or agree that the feedback given by the
teacher helped them to recognize their mistakes. This result is in line with
Hattie and Timperley‟s (2007) findings which showed that feedback is a
medium for the students to understand their mistake so that they will be
able to make some improvement and achieve their goal.
Interestingly, the same percentage also shown in the question of the
impact of teacher feedback regarding with students‟ ability to self
corrected their mistakes while working on their task. Most of the students
(98%) stated that the recognition from the previous mistakes helped them
to improve their writing ability, thus they would be able to adjust their own
mistakes before collecting the assignment. Furthermore, the students also
reveal that feedback given by their teacher not only assist them to correct
their own mistakes, but also help them not to make the same mistakes in
their next assignment. In other words, 93% (with the choice of strongly
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them to understand the basic concept of their mistakes, thus even though
they would make different kind of writing text, they would not make the
same mistakes as they did before.
Feedback and Students’ Part of Improvements
Figure 1 below will shows the percentage of students‟ thought,
related to the role of teacher feedback for their writing ability.
Figure 1. Feedback and the Students’ Part of Improvements
From the result of the questionnaire, we could see that the
majorities of the students thought that the feedback that they receive from
their teacher helped them at least in three major areas. The first one was to
choose and also use the correct grammar - 94% of the students reported
that the correction given by the teacher could guide them to use the correct
grammar form when they were dealing with their next assignments.
Moreover, the feedback, which sometimes contained vocabulary
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correction, also helped the students to enrich their knowledge of
vocabulary, along with how to use it appropriately in a sentence.
These findings are also supported by Hamouda (2011) who points
out that feedback which are related with grammar and also content are
those which get more attention from the students, since they regard it as
useful. English grammar is something considered as difficult, especially
for Indonesian students since Bahasa Indonesia does not have such a rule
as time indication of a sentence. That is why, when the feedback on
grammar is given, the students will more or less feel guided and assisted.
However, while Lab‟s students thought that feedback on vocabulary would
raise their vocabulary awareness, the participants of Hamouda‟s study
(2011) did not regard teacher feedback on vocabulary is useful.
Besides grammar and vocabulary, most of the students (88%) also
agree or strongly agree that the feedback given helped them to improve the
content of their writing. Here, feedback on content is useful not only for
Indonesian students, but also for also Arabic students in Hamouda‟s study
(2011). Teacher‟s concern on students‟ ideas helps the students to improve
their writing, making it become more coherent and meaningful.
Nevertheless, even though most of Lab‟s senior high school
students believed that the feedback on grammar, vocabulary, and also
content helped them to improve their writing ability, the opposite opinion
also did exist. Reversibly, as also found in Zacharias (2007) study, some of
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said that the feedback they receive from the teacher was too general, and
thus it become less helpful. Too general feedback does not guide students
to what should they correct in their assignment. Hence, some students,
which might have low proficiency in English will not understand the
purpose of the commentaries and corrections given, thus they will just
leave it away or even do not read the feedback at all.
Students’ feeling after receiving teacher feedback
The Impact of Teacher Feedback to Students’ Feeling
Figure 2 is the result of students‟ perceptions toward how they feel
after receiving the feedback from their teacher.
Figure 2. The Impact of Teacher Feedback to Students’ Feeling
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Figure 2 showed that the 11th graders of Lab senior high school
students had positive emotion toward the feedback that they receive from
their teacher. The biggest percentage of the teacher feedback
disadvantages for the students‟ feeling is about shyness. 28% of the
students revealed that they feel shy when the teacher gives them back
their full-of-correction work sheet. Psychologically, teenager – especially
high school students will have low self-esteem when their friends know
that they make many mistakes. These students will think that they are not
as smart as the other students who receive less correction. This condition
will more or less drive the students to feel that feedback is something that
causes anxiety (Stern and Solomon, 2006).
Another disadvantage of teacher feedback stated by 24% of the
participants was confusion. As I noticed when I was dealing with my
teaching practicum in Lab senior high school last semester, sometimes the
students did not really understand on what the teacher wrote in their work
sheet and also what those written comments meant. Hence, most of the
students would just leave it away and did not make further action toward
the feedback given. Similar finding was also revealed by Mantello (1997),
who points out that teacher feedback might cause some negative effect to
the students, such as frustration and also confusion.
However, if a lot of studies reported that teacher feedback makes
the students feel frustrated and depressed (Ferris, Pezone, Tade, Tinti
1997; Lee, 2008; Mantello, 1997), in this study, the majorities of the
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while another 14% thought that teacher feedback made them feel
depressed. In other words, we could say that more than 80% of the
participants believed that the feedback given by their teacher did not
bring such a negative effect for them.
Long-term Impact of Teacher Feedback
Even though both advantages and also disadvantages of feedback
do exist, the participants of this study show very positive perspectives
toward teacher feedback. Most of the students (98% with the percentage of
strongly agree and agree) stated that the feedback given by their teacher
made them felt supported in dealing with their writing. The written
feedback given by the teacher is aimed to give commentaries and also
comments to the related piece of work. Every students or group of students
who write a writing assignment might have different difficulties, making
them have different mistakes. In this point, the existence of teacher
feedback will more or less help the students to improve the part that they
have not mastered yet. Moreover, the teacher may also recognize the
material that still becomes an obstacle for the students. Hence, it can be
said that through teacher feedback the students feel more supported and
assisted.
For this supported and assisted reason, the students that become the
participants of this study also felt more motivated to write in English; even
English is one of their foreign languages. It is true that somehow teacher
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teacher points out the students mistakes one by one and seems like „blame‟
the students for their mistakes. However, the kinds of corrections and
commentaries that are given by the teacher might also come in various
forms and are delivered in many different ways. The heterogeneous ways
of perceiving feedback will also bring different perceptions of the students.
That is why different results might also occur.
CONCLUSION
This study attempted to find out the 11th grades of Lab‟s senior high school
students‟ perceptions about the advantages and also disadvantages of teacher
feedback, along with the impacts of teacher feedback for students‟ feeling. From the
questionnaire that was administered to the participants of this study, some outcome
related with the aim of this study was revealed. From the participants‟ point of view,
the feedback given by their teacher was helpful for them although it was only given as
instructional purpose, or in other words not to be followed up by revision. Most of the
students thought that once the feedback was given by their teacher, it would help them
to understand their mistakes, self-correct their mistakes in the other or next
assignment; also build their self-awareness of the related mistakes – so that they
would not make the same mistakes in the next assignment. Besides, the students also
believed that teacher feedback assists them to use the correct grammar, to enrich their
vocabulary and also to restructure their content.
However, regrettably, almost half of the participants also stated that the
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useful for the students. In this case, the heavy teaching loads of Lab senior high
school‟s teacher might influence the quality and the quantity of the feedback given.
As required by Indonesian ministry of education and culture, a teacher should teach at
least 24 hours a week. This systemic limitation of Indonesian education will more or
less influence the teacher‟s performance in the classroom. Moreover, the teaching
hours of Lab senior high school‟s teachers are more than the one required by
Indonesian regulation – they have 29 teaching hours each week (Ngara, 2014)3.
Therefore, the teacher will have very limited time in correcting students‟ assignments,
since the teacher will also responsible to the daily lesson plan along with its
equipments. As the result, some of the feedback given will be too general or unclear.
Regarding students‟ feeling after receiving the feedback, most of the 11th
graders of Lab senior high school gave positive emotions toward it. In this case, only
28% of the participants pointed out that they felt ashamed when their friends knew
they got a lot of corrections and comments from the teacher. To reduce the risk of
making students lose face, the teacher might change the way he/she gives correction
to the students. The simplest thing like changing the pen‟s ink color - that is used to
correct students work. Changing the ink color from red to the other color like green or
blue will reduce the pressure that students‟ feel, since red often seen as the indication
of something wrong, yet the other color like green and blue do not have such a
tendency. Hence, it is hoped that the students will be more open and motivated to
read the commentaries given.
3
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Besides, 24% of the students also felt confused with what the teacher meant
with the feedback left in their worksheet. Confusion results from mismatch
understanding between what the teacher meant and what the students perceived. Thus,
clarification through personal communication, simple discussion forum, or even
student-teacher conference can be done to solve such a problem. Therefore, both of
the agents are capable to play their role well. The students will be able to understand
the feedback given, and the teacher will be able to adjust their feedback.
However, even some students felt ashamed and confused with the feedback
that they received from their teacher, worse effect of teacher feedback did not seem to
influence them that much. Only few students stated that teacher feedback caused
frustration, stress, and also motivational degradation for them.
By seeing the results of this study, we can conclude that the students of Lab
senior high school viewed their teacher feedback as a supportive tool. The feedback
given assisted them to correct their mistakes without giving such a bad impact for
their emotional background. In other words, we could say that the students could
receive the feedback positively and use it well for the improvement of their writing
ability. Moreover, even though in senior high school context feedback only given as
an instructional purpose, the participants of this study still regard it as useful and also
meaningful for their writing improvement. Thus, teacher feedback in single draft
writing assignment should be continually given to the students.
Nevertheless, even the discussions of the findings have already answered the
research question of this study; there were also some limitations in this present study.
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exploration of different grade of the students in Lab senior high school might have
brought out different results. Besides, there is a possibility that the same grade from
different secondary school will think differently. The second limitation is concerned
with the kind of the feedback and the way the teacher deliver it to the students.
Different teachers will have different way of delivering their written commentaries
and adjusting the type of feedback given. Consequently, studies dealing with different
teachers or schools may result in different findings. Therefore, the result of this study
should not be generalized.
From this study, it is expected that the teacher will get enough insight of what
they should do with the feedback in the writing activity, to bring positive impacts and
improve students writing ability. Moreover, further study about teacher feedback can
be conducted by implementing action research that compares two classes that have
similar social and educational backgrounds. The treatment given can be in the form of
different kinds of feedback (one class with direct feedback and the other will indirect
feedback) or the existence of feedback (one class with feedback and the other with no
24
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank these people, who helped and supported me so I could
finish my thesis:
a. My super power God who gives His grace and love, to me, so that He lets me
finish this thesis and enjoy the process.
b. My family – for Papa and Mama, who always remind me to work on this
thesis and take care of me all the time. Many thanks for my one and only
brother, Ko Didi who always inspire me to be a better person.
c. My supervisor, Elisabet Titik Murtisari, M.TransStud., PhD who always
spared her time to help, guide, and assist me during the process of this thesis.
d. My examiner, Anita Kurniawati H., M.A. who also guided me in writing this
thesis and become my “wali studi”, thanks for examining this thesis.
e. Vino Rinaldy – the one who always gives his time to lighten up my day.
f. Yunie, Melisa, Wulan, Christine, Eveline, Chintya, Wenda, Fani; my new
friends from collage, hope can be friends forever. Thanks for always being the
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28 APPENDIX Questionnaire
Teman-teman yang terkasih,
Saya adalah seorang siswa dari program studi pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. Saya membagikan kuisioner ini untuk mengetahui lebih lanjut
mengenai tanggapan siswa Lab mengenai feedback (pembetulan grammar, alur cerita,
kosakata, pemberian pujian, serta komentar lainnya yang diberikan secara tertulis di
lembar kerja siswa) yang diberikan oleh guru-guru bahasa Inggris selama bersekolah di SMA Lab. Saya harap teman-teman sekalian dapat meluangkan sedikit waktu untuk
mengisi kuisioner ini dengan memberikan tanda centang () pada kolom yang paling
sesuai dengan pemikiran atau pendapat teman-teman secara pribadi. Hasil dari kuisioner ini akan dijaga kerahasiaannya serta tidak akan mempengaruhi nilai teman-teman sekalin. dalam mengoreksi kesalahan di dalam karangan yang saya buat.
29
6. Feedback yang diberikan oleh guru membantu saya dalam meningkatkan kosakata saya.
7. Saya merasa bahwa feedback yang diberikan oleh guru
membantu saya untuk mengembangkan isi karangan yang saya buat.
13. Pembetulan yang diberikan oleh guru bisa menurunkan motivasi saya dalam menulis menggunakan bahasa Inggris.
Nama :
Kelas :
Usia :
Jenis Kelamin :
Lama belajar bahasa Inggris : __________ tahun.
