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Fourth, feedback can be a form of motivation. It can encourage students to learn and use language as best as they can by considering whatever the teachers
know about their attitude. As the teachers find out more about their students, the encouragement may take the student’s personal circumstances into considerations.
The last purpose is to lead students toward autonomy. Feedback can help students to learn to find their own mistakes. By learning to find their own mistakes,
students are encouraged to be independent students.
2.1.2.3 Roles of Feedback
Feedback is central in learning to write in a second language Hyland, 2003: 201 and its role cannot be underestimated. It offers an additional framework to
improve writing skills, promote accuracy and clear ideas and develop an understanding of written genres. Through feedback, students are able to identify the
strengths and weaknesses of their compositions, understand the reason of those weaknesses and discuss possible improvement relating to the weaknesses. It also
provides students with a sense of being readers which give them an outside view of the text so that they are cognizant of the readers’ needs.
However, feedback can only be effective if the students are encouraged and able to utilize it to improve their writing. In order to written feedback results in a
positive effect, Cohen 1990: 111 presents four conditions which are needed. Written feedback works when:
1. Students have sufficient knowledge about the area of commentscorrections.
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The feedback would be useful if the students have knowledge needed to understand a correction or receive an explanation that provides the missing
knowledge. 2. The feedback is in an area that the students consider important for their
immediate or long-term knowledge. The students would take more benefit of feedback that concerned about the
elements, in examples specific vocabulary, style or complex syntactic structures which they tend to be used frequently.
3. The feedback is clear. The feedback would be more understandable if the students can decipher
the handwriting of the teacher or understand the comments andor symbols that the teacher likely to use.
4. The students have strategies in dealing with the feedback The feedback would be work well if students provide themselves with
systematic strategies for handling feedback. For example, if feedback is not clear, good learners may determine what is not clear and check with the
teacher or a classmate to get clarification.
2.1.2.4 Sources of Feedback
Providing feedback to students writing, if administered properly, may make writing attracting and challenging for students. These are 3 sources of feedback that
can be utilized in the classroom: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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1. Self Feedback
In self feedback, the students can correct and evaluate their own work. It is a step toward learner autonomy because by giving students
chance to analyze their own work and practice self feedback may encourage them to be self-sufficient and independent students Penaflorida, 2002:
351. 2.
Peer Feedback
Liu and Hansen 2005: 31 define peer feedback as the use of learners or peers as sources of information and interactants for each others
in such a way that learners themselves take roles or responsibilities which are normally taken and done by teachers or trained tutors in commenting or
criticizing their own writings or drafts in the process of writing. It shows that readership of students writing does not belong to the teachers
exclusively since students are allowed to share their written works with each other Penaflorida, 2002: 351.
3. Teacher Feedback
Teacher has been the main source of feedback both on oral and written language in many classes Lewis, 2002: 15. This situation also
occurs in writing class in which teachers reading and marking students’ papers, offering revision, suggestions and feedback on language errors
Gebhard, 1996: 238. According to Berzsenyi 2001, teachers can give feedback in form
of questions to ask for clarification or suggest expansion. Besides, teachers may give remarks which reveal their understanding toward students’
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composition, identify mechanical problem in a specific sentence andor give praise when the students working well in their writing. These can be
done to ensure the students that their written works are in line with the message they want to convey.
2.1.2.5 Forms of Feedback
In the book Language Learning: Insight for Learners, Teachers and Researchers
, Cohen 1990: 109 divided feedback from the teacher into two types, namely:
1. Oral Feedback
Oral feedback, also known as oral conferences, refers to personal consultation between teacher and student during the evaluation of a
composition. This interactive session is expected to help in solving problems that cannot be handled by written feedback alone. The major
problem that occurs in conducting this type of feedback is that teachers need to have sufficient time.
2. Written Feedback
In written feedback, comments, corrections andor marks are given on students’ written work draft. The marks may be on words or quick
symbols such as underlining or other signs.
2.1.2.6 Focus of Feedback
The focus of feedback falls into two categories: form and content, and teacher written feedback can include both of them. Feedback on form, according to
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Fathman and Whalley 1990 in Chiang, 2004: 99, concerns with grammar and mechanics errors. There are several common strategies used by teacher in
providing this kind of feedback. They are teacher’s correction of surface errors in which students required to copy all the corrections, teacher’s marking that indicate
the place and type of error but without correction, teacher’s underlining to indicate only the presence of errors. The two latter methods require students to correct the
errors on their own Williams, 2003. In contrast, feedback which involves comments on organization, ideas and
amount of detail is called content feedback. In feedback on content, teacher usually points out problems and offers suggestions for improvements on future revision.
Using this feedback, the students are expected to incorporate information from the comments into other versions of the ir writings Williams, 2003.
2.1.2.7 Response to Feedback
