A STUDY ON TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA: TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
A STUDY ON TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA:
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
20120540032
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
A STUDY ON TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA:
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
20120540032
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My deepest gratitude goes to Allah the Almighty for all the blessing and
mercy. By His blessing, I finally could finish writing this Skripsi.
My great sincere appreciation goes to my skripsi supervisor Sri Rejeki
Murtiningsih, Ph.D. for being so persistent during the supervising process in
guiding me to keep in track in writing this Skripsi. Thank you for a lot of
knowledge, motivation, information and everything you provide me during this
almost one year supervising.
My grateful also belong to the first and second examiner of my skripsi,
Maryam Sorhiti, S.S., M.H.Sc., and Andi Wirantaka, S.Pd., M.A. Thank you for
your valued feedback and suggestion during the examination. I also would like to
express my thankful to the Language Education Faculty of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta family, especially for English Education Department,
for all the lectures and staffs who had been so kind and helpful providing me a
nice atmosphere to learn during this past four years.
My grateful is also for my folks, the EED of UMY’s students of batch
2012 especially class A members for the friendship during our 8 semester of
togetherness, thank you for becoming very nice pals during my study in this
department.
Next gratitude and thanks go to the craziest bestfriends, Ayum, Lisa, Mita,
Dova, Rini, Ulan Mba Ade and Fendi. Amazingly, having you next to me realize
me that life is as easy as sharing the happiness and sadness through the laughter
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and tears. Thank you for the supports, for all the positive vibes you spread to me,
and for the togetherness we share. I do hope it is going to be the long lasting
friendship though time and distance will definitely separate us.
Finally, I dedicate this Skripsi to my family, my parents, Surwadi and
Khijah Komariyah for your never-ending support, courage and inspiration to me. I
am nothing without your present. You are my every thing. The siblings, Syafik,
Ilham and Mami, Thank you for all the sincere love you full fill to me. The very
last I thank to all the people around me who I could not mention but give huge
contributions to me in finishing my study. I am blessed to be surrounded by all
caring people such you.
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
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Table of contents
Cover ...........................................................................................................
i
Approval Page .............................................................................................
ii
Statement of Work’s Originality .................................................................
iii
Acknowledgement.......................................................................................
iv
Abstract .......................................................................................................
vi
Table of Contents ........................................................................................
viii
List of Appendices ......................................................................................
xi
List of figure................................................................................................
xii
Chapter One
Introduction ...............................................................................................
1
Research Background......................................................................
1
Problem Statement ..........................................................................
5
Problem Limitation .........................................................................
6
Research Questions .........................................................................
7
Research Objectives ........................................................................
7
Research Significances....................................................................
7
Research Outlines............................................................................
8
Chapter Two
Literature Review......................................................................................
10
Teachers’ feedback ..........................................................................
10
Teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing .....................
11
Types of teachers’ written feedback in writing ........................
12
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Teachers’ difficulties in delivering feedback ...........................
15
Writing ............................................................................................
17
Definition of writing.................................................................
17
English foreign language students’ writing ..............................
18
Students’ difficulties in writing ................................................
19
Teaching writing ......................................................................
20
Conceptual Framework ...................................................................
21
Chapter Three
Methodology ..............................................................................................
24
Research Design ..............................................................................
24
Research Setting and Participants ...................................................
25
Data Collection Method ..................................................................
26
Data Analysis .................................................................................
27
Chapter Four
Findings and Discussion ...........................................................................
29
Research Question 1: Teachers’ Attitude toward Their Own
Feedback in Students’ Writing .................................................
29
The roles of teachers’ written feedback in students’ writing ...
30
The components in which the teachers paid attention to in
providing written feedback.......................................................
34
The types of teachers’ written feedback ...................................
37
Research Question 2: The Teachers’ Obstacles and Strategies to
Encounter the Obstacles. ..........................................................
ix
45
The obstacles in providing written feedback............................
45
The Strategies to Encounter the Obstacles ...............................
48
Chapter Five
Conclusion and Recommendations..........................................................
51
Conclusion ......................................................................................
51
Recommendations ...........................................................................
53
References ...................................................................................................
55
Appendices
x
List of Appendices
Appendix 1: Interview Guideline ................................................................
xi
List of Figure
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework ............................................................... 23
xii
Abstract
Teachers’ written feedback is an essential determiner on students’ writing
enhancement. This study had two aims. First is aimed at finding the teachers’
attitude on their own written feedback given to students writing. It dug up the
teachers’ feeling toward their feedback and their preferences on the types of
written feedback. Second is aimed at finding the teachers’ obstacles and strategies
to solve the obstacles in providing written feedback. To answer the two research
questions, the researcher designed this research as qualitative research by case
study as the approach of this research. Semi-structured interview were done to
gather the data. The participants were three teachers of EED of UMY. The
participants were chosen by using purposive sampling.
First, the result of the data gathered got the findings that the EED of
UMY’s teachers had positive attitude toward their own feedback in students’
writing in terms of giving input to students’ writing, motivating students in
performing better in writing and reducing students’ errors in writing. Moreover,
related to the components affected by teachers’ written feedback, all participants
reflected positive indications in which teachers’ written feedback made the
components they focused on become more systematic and understandable.
Besides, the types of written feedback that were mostly provided by EED of
UMY’s teachers were indirect feedback that consists of coded, uncoded, and
elicitation feedback and integrated feedback. There were also other written
feedbacks existed in this department which were positive and negative feedback.
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Second, the result presented that teachers’ obstacles in providing feedback
were choosing the meaningful feedback to students’ writing and the written
feedback which was time consuming. Additionally, to encounter the obstacle
about how to provide the meaningful written feedback, EED of UMY teachers
focused on the certain components to be corrected, made assessment rubric, and
focused not only in correcting students’ error but also in appreciating students’
good side.. Furthermore, teachers’ strategies to encounter the written feedback
that was time consuming were by focusing on the certain components to be
corrected and making assessment rubric.
Keywords: teachers’ feedback, teachers’ written feedback, students’
writing, teachers’ attitude
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1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter presents the reason of conducting this research and the
problems happen regarding this study. This chapter consists of the research
background, the problem identification, the problem limitation, the research
questions, the research purposes, and the research significances.
Research Background
Surveys about teachers’ feedback have been conducted by many teachers
and researchers for the reason that teachers’ written feedback is a fruitful
discussion in language learning. Many researchers have pointed out that teacher
feedback of any type is more likely to benefit in English class (Nakanishi, 2007).
That is because teachers’ written feedback is related to the students’ performance
in which one of the teachers’ roles here in learning process is as the feedback
provider. Zeiger (2000) talks about the role of teacher that one of the important
roles of teachers to their students is as the feedback provider in which they act as
facilitator of learning to provide information then give evaluation and assessment
to students’ performance.
In addition to the fact that teachers’ written feedback is believed to be
beneficial for students’ progress of performance, the use of feedback in learning
has been applied since feedback is considered as one of the important way in
determining the success of learning. According to Ip (2005), while students are
needed to know how good they perform in learning, teachers’ written feedback
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shows them their quality of performance. Indirectly or directly, it will motivate
them to perform well and achieve good achievements.
Furthermore, in language learning, there are four language skills that are
needed to be mastered by all language students namely listening and reading
which belong to receptive skills and speaking and writing which belong to
productive skills. Writing as one of the productive skills is important in language
learning. Not only by speaking, someone also can communicate with other people
through the writing product. By writing, people can also propose their knowledge
and idea or share their feeling. The most important goal of teaching foreign
language is to make the learners able to communicate, and writing enables the
students to communicate through their writing product (Mekki, 2012). Hosseini,
Taghizadeh, Abedin, and Naseri (2013) propose that a good writing can enhance
students’ chance to be successful. It is arguable because a good writing is
produced through a long process of learning and understanding. Therefore, the
students may gain a lot of knowledge during this process that can bring them to
the success. Suleiman (2000) adds that writing gives effect to other language
competences because the process of writing is able to develop other skills.
Although writing is one of the important competences in language
learning, writing skill is considered as the most difficult competence among those
four language competences. It is supported by Kellog and Raulerson (2007) that
writing in a second or foreign language seems to be the most difficult language
skill for language learners because it engages the memory, language and thinking
ability. Writing becomes so hard to be done because in generating the idea,
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students should pass through some important processes such as brainstorming,
planning, outlining, organizing, drafting, and revising, whereas not all students
have idea to do those steps (Negari, 2011). Moreover, beside the content, in
writing the students also need to concern on communicating their idea properly.
While communicating ideas through writing, students should deal with not only
the content of their writing but also other lexical items such as vocabulary and
grammar (Hong, 2004).
Teachers’ written feedback can be one of the solutions to solve the
students’ difficulties in writing. Elshirbini and Elashri (2013) categorize the
advantages of teachers’ written feedback in writing into three. First, by teachers’
written feedback, the students will know whether their writing is good or bad.
Second, after knowing their quality of writing, student will do some corrections to
their writing product based on the feedback they have already received. Last,
feedback does not only give them information about the correct knowledge but
also sense of motivation in performing well. Moreover, teachers’ written feedback
can be used by the learners as the literacy resources as it can improve the content
accuracy for students’ writing (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Khatri (2013) supports
that teachers’ written feedback provides a clear and focus correction in students’
writing so that through the drafting process, it will help the students on their
content and language accuracy.
Although teacher’s written feedback has significant importance in
students’ writing, there are some problems regarding teachers’ written feedback
delivery. Because there are so many types of teachers’ feedback, teachers need to
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choose the appropriate way in providing written feedback to students’ writing.
Those types of teachers’ written feedback can be so many. According to Tedick
and Gortari (1998), there are 8 types of teachers’ written feedback; they are
explicit, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic clues, elicitation, and
repetition. Zaman and Azad (2012) and Razali and Jupri (2014) divide teachers’
written feedback into form-focused feedback, content-based feedback and
integrated feedback. Others types of teachers’ written feedback are defined by
Zaman and Azad (2012), Ellis (2009), Lindqvist (2011), and Park (2006) as direct
feedback and indirect feedback. There are also criticism, praise, and advice as
other types of teachers’ written feedback (Silver, & Lee, 2007; Kafri, 2010).
Moreover, not all teachers who teach writing consider teachers’ written feedback
is important for students’ writing. Based on those problems, the researcher
conducts this study in order to know teachers’ attitude toward their own written
feedback and teachers’ obstacles in providing written feedback all at once with the
teachers’ strategies to solve those problems.
Based on the details above, in order to specify the discussion in this
research, the researcher focused on five types of teachers’ written feedback which
were categorized into two categories. The first category was based on the
components the teachers focused on in delivering feedback which were formfocused, content-based, and integrated feedback. The second category was based
on the techniques or methods of delivering feedback wich were direct and indirect
feedback. The researcher choosed those five types of written feedback because
5
those were the feedback that mostly existed at EED of UMY based on the
researcher experience.
Problem Statement
Although teachers’ written feedback is considered to be beneficial for
students’ writing, there are still many problems encounter in the teachers’ written
feedback delivery on students’ writing. In spite of the importance of teachers’
written feedback, not all teachers apply teachers’ written feedback in teaching
writing. It is because most of the teachers think that teachers’ feedback is time
consuming. Zaman and Azad (2012) state that providing teachers’ written
feedback is time consuming because teachers should concentrate on students’
writing one by one.
Beside that, in students’ writing, there are so many ways in delivering
feedback. The wrong delivery of teachers’ written feedback will give negative
impact to students’ performance in writing. Some numbers of researchers place
teachers’ written feedback as a harmful, time consuming, and ineffective
strategies in teaching writing if it is given inappropriately (Rahimi, 2010;
Truscott, 2007; Sheppared, 1992; Kepner, 1991). To avoid the the negative impact
of the wrong feedback delivery, teachers need to choose the best way in delivering
teachers’ written feedback adequately based on students’ conditions and students’
needs. It is a big challenge for the teacher because they should make a decision on
their preference on using which types of feedback to be given to their students.
Additionally, sometimes teachers are getting hard to provide written feedback to
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each student on a large class size. Therefore, some teachers choose to provide
general feedback to the whole class.
Problem Limitation
There are some ways that can be used to deliver teachers’ feedback such as
orally or in written. Hence, to limit the discussion, the researcher focused just on
the teachers’ feedback that are delivered through writing comment or named as
teachers’ written feedback. Moreover, to specify the discussion, because there are
so many types of teachers’ written feedback, the researcher focused on five types
of teachers’ written feedback. Those five types of teachers’ written feedback were
form-focused, content-based, integrated, direct and indirect feedback. The
researchers choosed those types of teachers’ written feedback because based on
the researchers’ experience, the teachers’ written feedback which is mostly used
by the teachers in EED of UMY in students’ writing is those five types.
In this study, the researcher focused on discussing the teachers’ feedback
at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED of UMY) in which the teachers’ written feedback in students writing also
existed in this department. Moreover, while there were some importances of
teachers’ written feedback, not all writing teachers applied teachers’ written
feedback in teaching writing. That is why, through this study, the researcher
would to know the teachers’ attitude on their own written feedback, teachers’
obstacles in providing written feedback to their student, and teachers’ strategies to
encounter their problem in delivering written feedback to students’ writing.
7
Research Questions
This study is aimed at finding out some information about teachers’
written feedback at EED UMY. This aim is figured out in two research
questions as mentioned below:
a. What are EED of UMY teachers’ attitudes toward their own feedback in
students’ writing?
b. What are EED of UMY teachers’ obstacles and strategies to encounter the
obstacles in providing feedback to students’ writing?
Research Objectives
The main purpose of this research is to discover teachers’ written
feedback given in students’ writing at EED of UMY. Moreover, this research is
also conducted to discover two purposes as set follow:
a. To reveal EED of UMY teachers’ attitudes toward their own feedback
in students’ writing.
b. To identify EED of UMY teachers’ obstacles and strategies to
encounter the obstacles in providing feedback to students’ writing.
Research Significances
The findings of this research have significances for the researcher,
teachers, students, and the future researchers. The significances are listed
below:
The researcher. This research has some importances to the researcher.
The result of this study can broaden the researcher’s knowledge about teachers’
written feedback in writing. The findings of this study also become the
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motivation to the researcher to apply appropriate teachers’ feedback. Lastly,
this study also becomes an idea for the researcher to deal with teachers’
obstacles in teachers’ feedback if someday the researcher becomes a teacher
because this research will also reveal the teachers’ strategies to solve the
obstacles.
The teachers. This research provides some information about EED
UMY teachers’ attitude toward their written feedback and teachers’ obstacles
in delivering feedback. This information can be the evaluation to the EED
UMY teachers and other teachers. By evaluating teachers’ way of delivering
feedback and their obstacles, the teachers can make some method in delivering
feedback and think the proper strategies to solve their difficulties.
The students. This research gives information about the importance of
teachers’ feedback in writing. This information is useful for the students to deal
with teachers’ feedback and make them realize that teachers’ feedback can help
them enhance their writing skill as long as they come along the teachers’
feedback and make some correction based on teachers’ feedback.
Future researchers. Hopefully this research can be a reference and
theoretical study to the next researchers who are going to conduct the same or
related discussion.
Research Outline
This research consists of five chapters, and each chapter has subchapter. The chapters are introduction, literature review, methodology, finding
and discussion, and the last is conclusion.
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Chapter One is Introduction. This chapter provides some introduction
about the research. The sub-chapters of this chapter are Background, Statement
of The Problem, Limitation of The Problem, Research Question, Purpose of
The Study, Significance of The Study and Outline of The Research.
Chapter Two discusses review of related literature. This chapter
consists of some definitions of the key words used in this research and
conceptual framework used in this paper.
Chapter Three discusses research methodology. This chapter consists of
research design, research setting and participant, data collection method and
data analysis.
Chapter Four consists of the finding and discussion. This chapter will
discuss the findings of the research question in detailed explanation together
with the discussion related to the theory.
Chapter Five presents a conclusion and recommendation. There are two
sub-chapters which are conclusion, and recommendation.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
This research is about a study on teacher’s feedback in students’ writing
at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED UMY). In order to find out some context related to this study; this
chapter is presented to discuss some major things. The first sub-discussion is
definition of the keyword on this study. Then, the next discusses some
components that are related to this study. The last, this chapter presents the
theoretical framework of all components in this study.
Teachers’ Feedback
Feedback in general is defined as the information that is given by someone
to someone else with the expectation that thus information can enhance certain
aspect (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). In addition, “Feedback is there taken to
designate the processes by which a control unit of any kind gains information
about the effects of its own actions, thus, enabling the unit to evaluate and control
its own further activity” (Allwood, 1992, p. 1). Teachers’ feedback is one of the
teaching strategies that can be provided by the teachers’ to their students. Kepner
(1991) as cited in Grami (2005) “defines feedback in general as any procedures
used to inform a learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong”( p.
141). The information given about students’ performance will encourage the
students to make some improvements. It supported by Hyland and Hyland (2001)
who state that teachers’ feedback is a process of providing students’ work with
some advices done by the teachers to facilitate some improvements in students’
11
work. Dinham (n.d) supports that “Feedback can be defined as any form of
response by a teacher to a student’s performance, attitude or behavior, at least
where attitude or behavior impinges upon performance” (Dinham, n.d, p.35).
From the explanations above, it could be summarize that feedback in general is
defined as the information provided by the teachers to the students performance to
facilitate some correction and improvement on the students’ performance.
Teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing. Teachers’ written
feedback is a crucial part of writing progress. Feedback is “information that is
given to the learner about his or her performance of a writing task, usually
with the objective of improving this performance” (Ur, 1996, p.242) as cited in
(Zaman & Azad, 2012, p.140). The information given consists of some
corrections and comments that are written in order to help the learners make some
improvements on their writing. “Teacher written feedback refers to written
responses provided by the teacher to the students’ writing. The responses are
limited to comments on grammatical errors and content of the students writing”
(Kaweera & Usaha, 2008, p.4). Moreover, because writing is an on-going process
(process writing) the feedback given also need to be continuously. “Written
feedback is an on-going process. This means it should happen continuously
throughout the process of teaching and writing in achieving the final product”
(Razali & Jupri, 2014, p.64).
The teachers’ feedback should comprise both the students and teachers’
involvement in order to be affectively applied. While the teachers are giving
comments on students’ writing, the students’ should make corrections based on
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the teachers’ comment. Razali and Jupri (2014) affirm that teachers’ highlight on
students’ written work help the students to be better motivated in doing some
adjustments and corrections on their writing if the teacher provide their feedback
suitably and pleasantly. Nevertheless, in the effective teacher feedback delivery,
the teacher also should be aware to bring their feedback communicatively by
mean that teachers not only provide feedback on students’ written work but also
ask the students to read the teachers’ information, implement the comment, and
finally make correction on their work properly (Lindqvist, 2011).
Types of teachers’ written feedback in writing. There are some types of
teachers’ written feedback and every teacher has their preferences about which
types of feedback that they will deliver to their students. Based on the components
that the teachers’ focus on in delivering written feedback, according to Park
(2006), there are three types of teachers’ written feedback:
Form-focused feedback. Form-focus feedback is the feedback that
focuses on correcting the students’ utterances and grammar on their writing.
Razali and Jupri (2014) support in providing form-focus feedback students’
grammatical errors should be corrected. Additionally, because teachers are just
focusing on the students’ grammatical accuracy, the content accuracy of the
students’ writing is laid away (Park, 2006). It means that in form-focused
feedback, teachers’ just focus on correcting students’ grammar accuracy without
worrying the content quality of students’ writing. Furthermore, “feedback on form
includes grammar and mechanics, i.e. spelling, punctuation, vocabulary” (Zaman
& Azad, 2012, p.140).
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Although, the use of form-focus feedback on providing students written
feedback already exists, there are still so many debatable things about the
effectiveness of form-focus feedback. Hendrickson (1978) and Tmscotts (1996) in
Park (2006) and Razali and Jupri (2014) argue that the use of grammar correction
in affording feedback to the students are ineffective and harmful for students. On
the other hand, Ferris (2004) and Chandler (2003) point out that form-focus
feedback is effective in helping students enhance their vocabulary and grammar
accuracy in the next draft of students’ process writing. Moreover, Ferris and
Chandler (2003) also assert that form-focus feedback improve students’ writing
grade. Moreover, Hyland (2003) supports that form-focused feedback from
teachers would be helpful in highlighting their errors so that improvements can be
made.
Content- based feedback. Different from form-focus feedback, the
correction of content- based feedback is focused on the content quality of
students’ writing.
Unlike form-focused feedback, content-based feedback focuses more
on content quality and organizational features in students' composition
and teachers provide overall comments on where it doesn't make sense in
terms of content or give some comments on logical fallacies in writing
without pointing out specific grammatical errors (Park, 2006, p.6).
Razali and Jupri (2014) support that content-based feedback is also defined as
meaning based feedback which deals with the quality of the content and
organizational structures in students’ written composition. Razali and Jupri add
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that teacher will comment some components which do not make sense in logic
without considering the grammatical aspects on those components.
Such in the form-focused feedback, there are also some pros and contras in
content- based feedback implementation. Silver and Lee (2007) argue that too
much highlight and note on students’ writing do not help students to revise their
writing, on the contrary, make the students frustrated and feel stressed. Supporting
Silver and Lee’s statement, Hyland and Hyland (2001) affirm that the wrong way
of teachers’ feedback delivery may lead to its’ ineffectiveness on students’
writing.
Integrated feedback. Integrated feedback is combination between formfocused and content-based feedback (Park, 2006). This type of teachers’ written
feedback encourages teachers’ to focus not only in the content quality but also in
the grammar accuracy in students’ writing through teachers’ feedback (Razali &
Jupri, 2014). Moreover, Zaman and Azad (2012) state that both teachers’
feedbacks are important in enhancing students’ writing. That is why it is necessary
to apply integrated feedback for the better enhancement of students’ writing.
There are also two other different types of feedback that are mostly
provided by teachers based on the technique or method of delivery; they are direct
and indirect feedback (Zaman & Azad, 2012; Ellis, 2009; Lindqvist, 2011; Park,
2006; Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005).
Direct Feedback. Direct feedback is the feedback provided directly to the
certain incorrect part with the correct one in students’ writing (Ellis, 2009). On the
other words but the same meaning, Zaman and Azad (2012) state that “In direct
15
feedback the teacher marks the errors and provides the correct form” (p.142). Park
(2006) argues that direct feedback does not give significant role in students’
writing because it does not encourage students to the deep thinking process. In
contrast, using direct feedback provides explicit guidance to the students about
their inaccuracies and it is principally helpful to those students who do not adept
in self-correcting (Ellis, 2009).
Indirect feedback. In Indirect feedback, “the teacher indicates the errors
by underlining, circling or by using codes but does not provide the correct form.
Diagnosis and correction in indirect feedback is therefore left to the students”
(Zaman & Azad, 2012, p.142). Furthermore, according to Ellis (2006), in indirect
feedback, the teacher indicates that an error exists and locates the error but does
not provide the correction or the correct answer. Additionally, Zaman and Azad
(2012) add that the error indication can be done by underlining, circling and
marking by red pen or by using codes but do not provide the correct form. Park
(2006) argues that indirect feedback is better than direct feedback because it
provides the students to think and do more analysis regarding their error to find
the correct answer. “Teachers should offer self–correction opportunity for their
students by providing indirect feedback on student’s grammatical errors”
(Srichanyachon, 2012, p.12). Srichanyachon (2012) adds that indirect feedback
can be done by indicating the errors by giving some codes in the incorrect one
(such as V for Verb, Adv for Adverb) in order to help students understand and do
self-correction.
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Teachers’ difficulties in delivering feedback. Although providing
feedback is a part of teaching learning process that is usually done by the teacher,
teachers still faces some difficulties in providing feedback to their students.
Zaman and Azad (2012) on their study revealed that the large size of the class or
the large amount of students in their courses become the major obstacles for the
teacher in providing feedback. Zaman and Azad also list down any other obstacles
such as teachers’ heavy of workload and the long way of correcting students’
writing and students’ motivation in learning which become challenging for the
teachers in providing effective feedback to student writers. Teachers’ written
feedback is time consuming because teachers need to give their comment in each
student’s writing and it engages the teachers’ personal communication with each
student directly through teachers’ comments on students’ writing. Each paper has
its own problem that pushes teachers to communicate personally to each student
based on their writing problem and it takes a long time to do it one by one
(Shammari, 2011).
Additionally, according to Srichanyachon (2012), students are lack of
understanding in interpreting the teachers’ feedback on their writing also becomes
the problem to the teacher. Consequently, teachers need to consider students’
English background knowledge and indicate their needs for error correction. Kafri
(2010) asserts that once the students’ finish their writing they just stop it, but
teachers have to pay full concentration in doing correction, while they have
finished, students just taking it easy.it is quite challenging for the teachers. That is
why, whenever teachers provide feedback, they should consider all aspects in
17
students' writing such as the structure, organization, style, content, and
presentation (Kafri, 2010).
Writing
There are four language skills in learning language, and writing skill is one
of those skills. Compare with others language skills, writing skill is believed to be
the hardest skill to be mastered. According to Mourssi (2013), “the common
concept between linguists and pedagogical specialists is that it is easier for
second/ foreign language learners to speak, listen and read second language
than writing it, since writing requires much more effort from language
learners to be acquired” (p. 731). Adas and Bakir (2013) support that in
language learning, writing as one of the compulsory competences is the most
challenging competence to be learned. In this sub-chapter there are some
literatures related to writing skill based on other researchers and sources.
Definition of writing. Writing is a communication tool. Through writing,
people can share their opinion and knowledge, state their preference, tell their
story, and even make an argumentation based on their idea to their readers.
According to Nunan (1989) writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity
in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of content, format,
sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and letter formation.
Beyond the sentence, the writer must be able to structure and integrate
information into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and texts. Moreover, Hedge
(2005) points out that writing is more than producing accurate and complete
sentences and phrases. More than this, he defines writing as producing whole
18
parts of communication, to connect and improve information, ideas, or arguments
for a certain reader or a group of readers.
Furthermore, writing also can be used to convey someone’s thought to
someone else by using the writers’ own way through their writing product.
Hadley (1993) in Negari (2011) defines writing as an activity that requires
students to tell or retell information in the form of narratives or description, or to
transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing.
Additionally, writing is a complex metacognitive activity that interprets an
individual’s knowledge, basic skill, strategies, and ability to harmonize multiple
processes (Huy, 2015). By the detailed experts’ opinion about writing, it can be
concluded that writing is a way of conveying information, communicating idea,
and sharing feelings that are delivered through written sentences and phrases to be
understood by the reader.
English foreign language students’ writing. In writing, students should
fulfill some stages that encourage them in changing the blank sheet of paper to
become their final writing product; while the progression of the blank paper
become the writing product is called as writing Process (Mekki, 2012). Writing is
a process which involves the students to organize their thinking through some
activities such brainstorming, planning, outlining, organizing, drafting, and
revising (Negari, 2011). Supporting Negari’s statement, Kafri (2003) defines
writing process as “various processes involved in the act of composing, in order to
help students produce coherent, meaningful and creative discourse” (p. 4). A bit
different with Negri (2011), Kafri (2003) adds that there are four basic writing
19
stages in process writing: planning, drafting (writing), revising (redrafting), and
editing. Not all EFL students are able to deal with those processes because writing
in their mother tongue language is different from writing in English. It is because
the students do not only have to aware with the process writing itself but also need
to focus on the grammar and wording choice which are totally different from their
mother tongue.
Students’ difficulties in writing. In the process of writing, the foreign
language students’ should pass some stages in order to produce a coherent and
accurate writing product. However, not all students are able to follow and
understand the stages as stated below adequately because it is not easy to be done.
Some studies about students’ writing skill are conducted mostly based on the
difficulties of writing for the learners (Jimenez et al., 2013; Negari, 2011; Adas &
Bakir, 2013; Kellog & Raulerson, 2007; Lee, 2003; Mekki, 2012). Kellog and
Raulerson (2007) convey that the difficulties come because the students lack of
vocabularies and creativity in writing. “Many students are able to understand the
language, but most of the students face the problem of communicating their ideas
effectively, the problem is the lack of both adequate stock of English vocabulary
and creativity in writing” (Adas & Bakir, 2013, p. 254). Besides, According to
Lee (2003) the difficulty of writing is affected by the teaching strategies applied
by their writing teachers. Huy (2015) asserts the common problems faced by the
students in learning writing are: Lack of vocabularies, difficulties in grammar,
obstacles in the topics given, limitation of teachers’ feedback on students’ written
work, lack of learning sources, and lack of students’ practicing and learning.
20
Students face some difficulties in writing, namely: (1) how to start writing,
(2) how to generate ideas, (3) how to produce unified paragraphs, (4) how
to organize ideas logically, (5) how to make grammatical sentences, and
(6) how to beef up students’ low motivation in learning English. Then, she
argued that students can learn writing easier if they can organize their
notions, mastery the vocabulary and the writing process in particularly
(Fitriani, 2010 as cited in Karlinawati, 2015, p. 11).
Teaching writing. The focus of teaching writing is to improve students’
skill in writing itself. While students face many difficulties in writing such what it
has explained in previous discussion, teachers’ should have some strategies in
teaching writing. The biggest deal in teaching writing is involving students on the
teaching writing process to make the students’ learning experience become more
valuable (Adas & Bakir, 2013). Adas and Bakir add that involving students’
participation can be done by motivating students and refining and increasing
students’ writing competences through some pragmatic approach.
Additionally, teachers’ written feedback is an activity that is mostly done by
the teachers as one of the teaching writing strategy. According to Kafri (2010)
there are two approaches of teaching writing namely process-based approach and
product-based approach. Teachers have different roles in each of those
approaches. In process-based approach, teacher will guide and give feedback to
the students’ from the very beginning, through some process of revising, and
finally done with students’ final writing. In contrast, in product-based approach,
teacher is just providing feedback on students’ final writing. Kafri (2010) adds
21
that in process based approach teacher should concern on the students’ process
writing, because process writing is a continuum activity that provide the learner to
need the teachers’ supervising and guiding. In conclusion, in the process of
teaching writing, teachers mostly provide written feedback on students’ writing
both during the process of students’ writing and after the students’ final writing
finish.
Conceptual Framework
The previous discussion has been figured out some components about
teachers’ feedback based on some studies related the teachers’ feedback in
students’ writing. There are the concept and definition of feedback and
teachers’ feedback, teachers’ feedback on students writing, types of teachers’
feedback, teachers’ difficulties in providing feedback, the concept and
definition of writing, EFL students’ writing, and the last is students’ difficulties
in writing, teaching writing. For whole, it can be summed up that teachers’
feedback play a significance role on the students’ writing.
Moreover, in the practice of the teachers’ feedback in students’ writing,
both students and teachers have important role. Teachers should provide the
teachers’ feedback appropriately in order to make the students able to accept
the feedback properly too. That is why, it is important to know the teachers’
attitude toward the teachers’ feedback in students’ writing. While teachers’
good attitude toward the teachers’ feedback can be seen on the way they
provide feedback to their students and also on their preferences in types of
teachers’ feedback.
22
At last, providing feedback was still challenging for the teachers. There
are still many obstacles faced by teachers in providing feedback in students
writing. Some of the obstacles are the amount of the students or the size of the
class, teachers’ heavy workload, the long way of correction process, students’
motivation, and students’ lack of understanding in the feedback given. For
those, this research will be done to reveal teachers’ written feedback delivery
problems happen in EED of UMY regarding the teachers’ feedback in
students’ writing and also the strategies to encounter those obstacles. The
conceptual framework of this research can be figured out below:
23
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
24
Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology that is used in this study. There
are four discussions in this chapter. They are research design, research setting
and participant, data collection method and data analysis. Research design
discusses the approach used in this study. Setting and participants explain the
participant involved in the research as the participant and time and place in
conducting the data collection. Data collection method discusses the method
that is applied in collecting the data. Last, data analysis explains the process of
analyzing and interpreting the result of the data collection.
Research Design
The approach of this research was a case study, and the research was
designed as qualitative research. Qualitative design was appropriate with this
study which discussed teachers’ written feedback in students’ writing based on
the teachers’ perception at EED of UMY. According to Creswell (2012),
qualitative method is appropriate to be used in collecting the data of
participants’ perception and outlook about certain phenomena or problem.
Furthermore, using case study as an approach in this research was appropriate
because this research was designed to seek out and analyze a case at EED of
UMY about teacher’s written feedback in students’ writing.
25
Research Setting and Participants
Setting. The researcher has conducted the study in English Education
Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (EED UMY)
environment. The study was conducted from September of 2015 until May of
2016. The reason to choose EED of UMY as the setting was because the
teachers’ written feedback existed in this department. Another reason was the
accessibility of the interview location. Because the researcher was still being a
student in EED of UMY, it was much easier to gather the data. Last reason,
because both the researcher and participants were in the same department and
had been familiar each other, it abridged the researcher in term of the
availability of the research participants.
Participants. The participants of this research were the teachers of
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED of UMY). There are 15 teachers at EED of UMY and the researcher took
three teachers to be the representative of all teachers of EED of UMY. The
researcher took three participants to be interviewed. According to Creswell
(2012) in the qualitative research, the number of the participants is
undetermined, as long as the data gathered has answered the research question,
the least number of participants is sufficient.
Henceforth, the sampling technique was purposive sampling. There
were two criteria of being the participants of this research. First is the EED of
UMY teachers who had teaching experience at least three years. It was because
based on the researcher’s experience by the way her teachers delivered their
26
written feedback, teachers with three years or more experience in teaching also
had more experiences in providing feedback. The last criterion was the
teachers who applied teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing.
There were three participants interviewed to gain the data about the
teachers’ written feedback. The three participants were female and they were
chosen based on the criteria above. The first participant had been teaching for
14 years in general and 4 years at EED of UMY. The first participant delivered
written feedback in teaching all courses that provide the students to write such
as writing Annotated Bibliography and Material Design. Besides, she also gave
feedback on her supervising students’ skripsi. The second participant had
teaching experience for 3 years in general. She gave written feedback on
students’ writing in quiz, project paper and skripsi. The last participant had
been teaching for 15 years. She gave written feedback in students’ writing in
Reading and Writing for Career Development class and students’ skripsi.
Data Collection Method
This study was conducted to know the teachers’ attitude, obstacles and
strategies to encounter the obstacles in their written feedback in students’
writing at EED UMY based on the teachers’ perception. Interview was used as
the instrument to gather the data. A semi structured interview was designed in
order to make the interview discussion become focus and well-guided. One-onone interview was applied on this data collection method. According to
Creswell (2012) applying interview to collect the qualitative data is suitable. It
is because by interview the research will obtain deeper information regarding
27
teachers’ writte
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA:
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
20120540032
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
A STUDY ON TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK IN STUDENTS’ WRITING AT
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA:
TEACHERS’ PERCEPTION
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
20120540032
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My deepest gratitude goes to Allah the Almighty for all the blessing and
mercy. By His blessing, I finally could finish writing this Skripsi.
My great sincere appreciation goes to my skripsi supervisor Sri Rejeki
Murtiningsih, Ph.D. for being so persistent during the supervising process in
guiding me to keep in track in writing this Skripsi. Thank you for a lot of
knowledge, motivation, information and everything you provide me during this
almost one year supervising.
My grateful also belong to the first and second examiner of my skripsi,
Maryam Sorhiti, S.S., M.H.Sc., and Andi Wirantaka, S.Pd., M.A. Thank you for
your valued feedback and suggestion during the examination. I also would like to
express my thankful to the Language Education Faculty of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta family, especially for English Education Department,
for all the lectures and staffs who had been so kind and helpful providing me a
nice atmosphere to learn during this past four years.
My grateful is also for my folks, the EED of UMY’s students of batch
2012 especially class A members for the friendship during our 8 semester of
togetherness, thank you for becoming very nice pals during my study in this
department.
Next gratitude and thanks go to the craziest bestfriends, Ayum, Lisa, Mita,
Dova, Rini, Ulan Mba Ade and Fendi. Amazingly, having you next to me realize
me that life is as easy as sharing the happiness and sadness through the laughter
iv
and tears. Thank you for the supports, for all the positive vibes you spread to me,
and for the togetherness we share. I do hope it is going to be the long lasting
friendship though time and distance will definitely separate us.
Finally, I dedicate this Skripsi to my family, my parents, Surwadi and
Khijah Komariyah for your never-ending support, courage and inspiration to me. I
am nothing without your present. You are my every thing. The siblings, Syafik,
Ilham and Mami, Thank you for all the sincere love you full fill to me. The very
last I thank to all the people around me who I could not mention but give huge
contributions to me in finishing my study. I am blessed to be surrounded by all
caring people such you.
Khoerunisa Ul Khakiki
v
Table of contents
Cover ...........................................................................................................
i
Approval Page .............................................................................................
ii
Statement of Work’s Originality .................................................................
iii
Acknowledgement.......................................................................................
iv
Abstract .......................................................................................................
vi
Table of Contents ........................................................................................
viii
List of Appendices ......................................................................................
xi
List of figure................................................................................................
xii
Chapter One
Introduction ...............................................................................................
1
Research Background......................................................................
1
Problem Statement ..........................................................................
5
Problem Limitation .........................................................................
6
Research Questions .........................................................................
7
Research Objectives ........................................................................
7
Research Significances....................................................................
7
Research Outlines............................................................................
8
Chapter Two
Literature Review......................................................................................
10
Teachers’ feedback ..........................................................................
10
Teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing .....................
11
Types of teachers’ written feedback in writing ........................
12
viii
Teachers’ difficulties in delivering feedback ...........................
15
Writing ............................................................................................
17
Definition of writing.................................................................
17
English foreign language students’ writing ..............................
18
Students’ difficulties in writing ................................................
19
Teaching writing ......................................................................
20
Conceptual Framework ...................................................................
21
Chapter Three
Methodology ..............................................................................................
24
Research Design ..............................................................................
24
Research Setting and Participants ...................................................
25
Data Collection Method ..................................................................
26
Data Analysis .................................................................................
27
Chapter Four
Findings and Discussion ...........................................................................
29
Research Question 1: Teachers’ Attitude toward Their Own
Feedback in Students’ Writing .................................................
29
The roles of teachers’ written feedback in students’ writing ...
30
The components in which the teachers paid attention to in
providing written feedback.......................................................
34
The types of teachers’ written feedback ...................................
37
Research Question 2: The Teachers’ Obstacles and Strategies to
Encounter the Obstacles. ..........................................................
ix
45
The obstacles in providing written feedback............................
45
The Strategies to Encounter the Obstacles ...............................
48
Chapter Five
Conclusion and Recommendations..........................................................
51
Conclusion ......................................................................................
51
Recommendations ...........................................................................
53
References ...................................................................................................
55
Appendices
x
List of Appendices
Appendix 1: Interview Guideline ................................................................
xi
List of Figure
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework ............................................................... 23
xii
Abstract
Teachers’ written feedback is an essential determiner on students’ writing
enhancement. This study had two aims. First is aimed at finding the teachers’
attitude on their own written feedback given to students writing. It dug up the
teachers’ feeling toward their feedback and their preferences on the types of
written feedback. Second is aimed at finding the teachers’ obstacles and strategies
to solve the obstacles in providing written feedback. To answer the two research
questions, the researcher designed this research as qualitative research by case
study as the approach of this research. Semi-structured interview were done to
gather the data. The participants were three teachers of EED of UMY. The
participants were chosen by using purposive sampling.
First, the result of the data gathered got the findings that the EED of
UMY’s teachers had positive attitude toward their own feedback in students’
writing in terms of giving input to students’ writing, motivating students in
performing better in writing and reducing students’ errors in writing. Moreover,
related to the components affected by teachers’ written feedback, all participants
reflected positive indications in which teachers’ written feedback made the
components they focused on become more systematic and understandable.
Besides, the types of written feedback that were mostly provided by EED of
UMY’s teachers were indirect feedback that consists of coded, uncoded, and
elicitation feedback and integrated feedback. There were also other written
feedbacks existed in this department which were positive and negative feedback.
vi
Second, the result presented that teachers’ obstacles in providing feedback
were choosing the meaningful feedback to students’ writing and the written
feedback which was time consuming. Additionally, to encounter the obstacle
about how to provide the meaningful written feedback, EED of UMY teachers
focused on the certain components to be corrected, made assessment rubric, and
focused not only in correcting students’ error but also in appreciating students’
good side.. Furthermore, teachers’ strategies to encounter the written feedback
that was time consuming were by focusing on the certain components to be
corrected and making assessment rubric.
Keywords: teachers’ feedback, teachers’ written feedback, students’
writing, teachers’ attitude
vii
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter presents the reason of conducting this research and the
problems happen regarding this study. This chapter consists of the research
background, the problem identification, the problem limitation, the research
questions, the research purposes, and the research significances.
Research Background
Surveys about teachers’ feedback have been conducted by many teachers
and researchers for the reason that teachers’ written feedback is a fruitful
discussion in language learning. Many researchers have pointed out that teacher
feedback of any type is more likely to benefit in English class (Nakanishi, 2007).
That is because teachers’ written feedback is related to the students’ performance
in which one of the teachers’ roles here in learning process is as the feedback
provider. Zeiger (2000) talks about the role of teacher that one of the important
roles of teachers to their students is as the feedback provider in which they act as
facilitator of learning to provide information then give evaluation and assessment
to students’ performance.
In addition to the fact that teachers’ written feedback is believed to be
beneficial for students’ progress of performance, the use of feedback in learning
has been applied since feedback is considered as one of the important way in
determining the success of learning. According to Ip (2005), while students are
needed to know how good they perform in learning, teachers’ written feedback
2
shows them their quality of performance. Indirectly or directly, it will motivate
them to perform well and achieve good achievements.
Furthermore, in language learning, there are four language skills that are
needed to be mastered by all language students namely listening and reading
which belong to receptive skills and speaking and writing which belong to
productive skills. Writing as one of the productive skills is important in language
learning. Not only by speaking, someone also can communicate with other people
through the writing product. By writing, people can also propose their knowledge
and idea or share their feeling. The most important goal of teaching foreign
language is to make the learners able to communicate, and writing enables the
students to communicate through their writing product (Mekki, 2012). Hosseini,
Taghizadeh, Abedin, and Naseri (2013) propose that a good writing can enhance
students’ chance to be successful. It is arguable because a good writing is
produced through a long process of learning and understanding. Therefore, the
students may gain a lot of knowledge during this process that can bring them to
the success. Suleiman (2000) adds that writing gives effect to other language
competences because the process of writing is able to develop other skills.
Although writing is one of the important competences in language
learning, writing skill is considered as the most difficult competence among those
four language competences. It is supported by Kellog and Raulerson (2007) that
writing in a second or foreign language seems to be the most difficult language
skill for language learners because it engages the memory, language and thinking
ability. Writing becomes so hard to be done because in generating the idea,
3
students should pass through some important processes such as brainstorming,
planning, outlining, organizing, drafting, and revising, whereas not all students
have idea to do those steps (Negari, 2011). Moreover, beside the content, in
writing the students also need to concern on communicating their idea properly.
While communicating ideas through writing, students should deal with not only
the content of their writing but also other lexical items such as vocabulary and
grammar (Hong, 2004).
Teachers’ written feedback can be one of the solutions to solve the
students’ difficulties in writing. Elshirbini and Elashri (2013) categorize the
advantages of teachers’ written feedback in writing into three. First, by teachers’
written feedback, the students will know whether their writing is good or bad.
Second, after knowing their quality of writing, student will do some corrections to
their writing product based on the feedback they have already received. Last,
feedback does not only give them information about the correct knowledge but
also sense of motivation in performing well. Moreover, teachers’ written feedback
can be used by the learners as the literacy resources as it can improve the content
accuracy for students’ writing (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Khatri (2013) supports
that teachers’ written feedback provides a clear and focus correction in students’
writing so that through the drafting process, it will help the students on their
content and language accuracy.
Although teacher’s written feedback has significant importance in
students’ writing, there are some problems regarding teachers’ written feedback
delivery. Because there are so many types of teachers’ feedback, teachers need to
4
choose the appropriate way in providing written feedback to students’ writing.
Those types of teachers’ written feedback can be so many. According to Tedick
and Gortari (1998), there are 8 types of teachers’ written feedback; they are
explicit, recast, clarification request, metalinguistic clues, elicitation, and
repetition. Zaman and Azad (2012) and Razali and Jupri (2014) divide teachers’
written feedback into form-focused feedback, content-based feedback and
integrated feedback. Others types of teachers’ written feedback are defined by
Zaman and Azad (2012), Ellis (2009), Lindqvist (2011), and Park (2006) as direct
feedback and indirect feedback. There are also criticism, praise, and advice as
other types of teachers’ written feedback (Silver, & Lee, 2007; Kafri, 2010).
Moreover, not all teachers who teach writing consider teachers’ written feedback
is important for students’ writing. Based on those problems, the researcher
conducts this study in order to know teachers’ attitude toward their own written
feedback and teachers’ obstacles in providing written feedback all at once with the
teachers’ strategies to solve those problems.
Based on the details above, in order to specify the discussion in this
research, the researcher focused on five types of teachers’ written feedback which
were categorized into two categories. The first category was based on the
components the teachers focused on in delivering feedback which were formfocused, content-based, and integrated feedback. The second category was based
on the techniques or methods of delivering feedback wich were direct and indirect
feedback. The researcher choosed those five types of written feedback because
5
those were the feedback that mostly existed at EED of UMY based on the
researcher experience.
Problem Statement
Although teachers’ written feedback is considered to be beneficial for
students’ writing, there are still many problems encounter in the teachers’ written
feedback delivery on students’ writing. In spite of the importance of teachers’
written feedback, not all teachers apply teachers’ written feedback in teaching
writing. It is because most of the teachers think that teachers’ feedback is time
consuming. Zaman and Azad (2012) state that providing teachers’ written
feedback is time consuming because teachers should concentrate on students’
writing one by one.
Beside that, in students’ writing, there are so many ways in delivering
feedback. The wrong delivery of teachers’ written feedback will give negative
impact to students’ performance in writing. Some numbers of researchers place
teachers’ written feedback as a harmful, time consuming, and ineffective
strategies in teaching writing if it is given inappropriately (Rahimi, 2010;
Truscott, 2007; Sheppared, 1992; Kepner, 1991). To avoid the the negative impact
of the wrong feedback delivery, teachers need to choose the best way in delivering
teachers’ written feedback adequately based on students’ conditions and students’
needs. It is a big challenge for the teacher because they should make a decision on
their preference on using which types of feedback to be given to their students.
Additionally, sometimes teachers are getting hard to provide written feedback to
6
each student on a large class size. Therefore, some teachers choose to provide
general feedback to the whole class.
Problem Limitation
There are some ways that can be used to deliver teachers’ feedback such as
orally or in written. Hence, to limit the discussion, the researcher focused just on
the teachers’ feedback that are delivered through writing comment or named as
teachers’ written feedback. Moreover, to specify the discussion, because there are
so many types of teachers’ written feedback, the researcher focused on five types
of teachers’ written feedback. Those five types of teachers’ written feedback were
form-focused, content-based, integrated, direct and indirect feedback. The
researchers choosed those types of teachers’ written feedback because based on
the researchers’ experience, the teachers’ written feedback which is mostly used
by the teachers in EED of UMY in students’ writing is those five types.
In this study, the researcher focused on discussing the teachers’ feedback
at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED of UMY) in which the teachers’ written feedback in students writing also
existed in this department. Moreover, while there were some importances of
teachers’ written feedback, not all writing teachers applied teachers’ written
feedback in teaching writing. That is why, through this study, the researcher
would to know the teachers’ attitude on their own written feedback, teachers’
obstacles in providing written feedback to their student, and teachers’ strategies to
encounter their problem in delivering written feedback to students’ writing.
7
Research Questions
This study is aimed at finding out some information about teachers’
written feedback at EED UMY. This aim is figured out in two research
questions as mentioned below:
a. What are EED of UMY teachers’ attitudes toward their own feedback in
students’ writing?
b. What are EED of UMY teachers’ obstacles and strategies to encounter the
obstacles in providing feedback to students’ writing?
Research Objectives
The main purpose of this research is to discover teachers’ written
feedback given in students’ writing at EED of UMY. Moreover, this research is
also conducted to discover two purposes as set follow:
a. To reveal EED of UMY teachers’ attitudes toward their own feedback
in students’ writing.
b. To identify EED of UMY teachers’ obstacles and strategies to
encounter the obstacles in providing feedback to students’ writing.
Research Significances
The findings of this research have significances for the researcher,
teachers, students, and the future researchers. The significances are listed
below:
The researcher. This research has some importances to the researcher.
The result of this study can broaden the researcher’s knowledge about teachers’
written feedback in writing. The findings of this study also become the
8
motivation to the researcher to apply appropriate teachers’ feedback. Lastly,
this study also becomes an idea for the researcher to deal with teachers’
obstacles in teachers’ feedback if someday the researcher becomes a teacher
because this research will also reveal the teachers’ strategies to solve the
obstacles.
The teachers. This research provides some information about EED
UMY teachers’ attitude toward their written feedback and teachers’ obstacles
in delivering feedback. This information can be the evaluation to the EED
UMY teachers and other teachers. By evaluating teachers’ way of delivering
feedback and their obstacles, the teachers can make some method in delivering
feedback and think the proper strategies to solve their difficulties.
The students. This research gives information about the importance of
teachers’ feedback in writing. This information is useful for the students to deal
with teachers’ feedback and make them realize that teachers’ feedback can help
them enhance their writing skill as long as they come along the teachers’
feedback and make some correction based on teachers’ feedback.
Future researchers. Hopefully this research can be a reference and
theoretical study to the next researchers who are going to conduct the same or
related discussion.
Research Outline
This research consists of five chapters, and each chapter has subchapter. The chapters are introduction, literature review, methodology, finding
and discussion, and the last is conclusion.
9
Chapter One is Introduction. This chapter provides some introduction
about the research. The sub-chapters of this chapter are Background, Statement
of The Problem, Limitation of The Problem, Research Question, Purpose of
The Study, Significance of The Study and Outline of The Research.
Chapter Two discusses review of related literature. This chapter
consists of some definitions of the key words used in this research and
conceptual framework used in this paper.
Chapter Three discusses research methodology. This chapter consists of
research design, research setting and participant, data collection method and
data analysis.
Chapter Four consists of the finding and discussion. This chapter will
discuss the findings of the research question in detailed explanation together
with the discussion related to the theory.
Chapter Five presents a conclusion and recommendation. There are two
sub-chapters which are conclusion, and recommendation.
10
Chapter Two
Literature Review
This research is about a study on teacher’s feedback in students’ writing
at English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED UMY). In order to find out some context related to this study; this
chapter is presented to discuss some major things. The first sub-discussion is
definition of the keyword on this study. Then, the next discusses some
components that are related to this study. The last, this chapter presents the
theoretical framework of all components in this study.
Teachers’ Feedback
Feedback in general is defined as the information that is given by someone
to someone else with the expectation that thus information can enhance certain
aspect (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). In addition, “Feedback is there taken to
designate the processes by which a control unit of any kind gains information
about the effects of its own actions, thus, enabling the unit to evaluate and control
its own further activity” (Allwood, 1992, p. 1). Teachers’ feedback is one of the
teaching strategies that can be provided by the teachers’ to their students. Kepner
(1991) as cited in Grami (2005) “defines feedback in general as any procedures
used to inform a learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong”( p.
141). The information given about students’ performance will encourage the
students to make some improvements. It supported by Hyland and Hyland (2001)
who state that teachers’ feedback is a process of providing students’ work with
some advices done by the teachers to facilitate some improvements in students’
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work. Dinham (n.d) supports that “Feedback can be defined as any form of
response by a teacher to a student’s performance, attitude or behavior, at least
where attitude or behavior impinges upon performance” (Dinham, n.d, p.35).
From the explanations above, it could be summarize that feedback in general is
defined as the information provided by the teachers to the students performance to
facilitate some correction and improvement on the students’ performance.
Teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing. Teachers’ written
feedback is a crucial part of writing progress. Feedback is “information that is
given to the learner about his or her performance of a writing task, usually
with the objective of improving this performance” (Ur, 1996, p.242) as cited in
(Zaman & Azad, 2012, p.140). The information given consists of some
corrections and comments that are written in order to help the learners make some
improvements on their writing. “Teacher written feedback refers to written
responses provided by the teacher to the students’ writing. The responses are
limited to comments on grammatical errors and content of the students writing”
(Kaweera & Usaha, 2008, p.4). Moreover, because writing is an on-going process
(process writing) the feedback given also need to be continuously. “Written
feedback is an on-going process. This means it should happen continuously
throughout the process of teaching and writing in achieving the final product”
(Razali & Jupri, 2014, p.64).
The teachers’ feedback should comprise both the students and teachers’
involvement in order to be affectively applied. While the teachers are giving
comments on students’ writing, the students’ should make corrections based on
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the teachers’ comment. Razali and Jupri (2014) affirm that teachers’ highlight on
students’ written work help the students to be better motivated in doing some
adjustments and corrections on their writing if the teacher provide their feedback
suitably and pleasantly. Nevertheless, in the effective teacher feedback delivery,
the teacher also should be aware to bring their feedback communicatively by
mean that teachers not only provide feedback on students’ written work but also
ask the students to read the teachers’ information, implement the comment, and
finally make correction on their work properly (Lindqvist, 2011).
Types of teachers’ written feedback in writing. There are some types of
teachers’ written feedback and every teacher has their preferences about which
types of feedback that they will deliver to their students. Based on the components
that the teachers’ focus on in delivering written feedback, according to Park
(2006), there are three types of teachers’ written feedback:
Form-focused feedback. Form-focus feedback is the feedback that
focuses on correcting the students’ utterances and grammar on their writing.
Razali and Jupri (2014) support in providing form-focus feedback students’
grammatical errors should be corrected. Additionally, because teachers are just
focusing on the students’ grammatical accuracy, the content accuracy of the
students’ writing is laid away (Park, 2006). It means that in form-focused
feedback, teachers’ just focus on correcting students’ grammar accuracy without
worrying the content quality of students’ writing. Furthermore, “feedback on form
includes grammar and mechanics, i.e. spelling, punctuation, vocabulary” (Zaman
& Azad, 2012, p.140).
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Although, the use of form-focus feedback on providing students written
feedback already exists, there are still so many debatable things about the
effectiveness of form-focus feedback. Hendrickson (1978) and Tmscotts (1996) in
Park (2006) and Razali and Jupri (2014) argue that the use of grammar correction
in affording feedback to the students are ineffective and harmful for students. On
the other hand, Ferris (2004) and Chandler (2003) point out that form-focus
feedback is effective in helping students enhance their vocabulary and grammar
accuracy in the next draft of students’ process writing. Moreover, Ferris and
Chandler (2003) also assert that form-focus feedback improve students’ writing
grade. Moreover, Hyland (2003) supports that form-focused feedback from
teachers would be helpful in highlighting their errors so that improvements can be
made.
Content- based feedback. Different from form-focus feedback, the
correction of content- based feedback is focused on the content quality of
students’ writing.
Unlike form-focused feedback, content-based feedback focuses more
on content quality and organizational features in students' composition
and teachers provide overall comments on where it doesn't make sense in
terms of content or give some comments on logical fallacies in writing
without pointing out specific grammatical errors (Park, 2006, p.6).
Razali and Jupri (2014) support that content-based feedback is also defined as
meaning based feedback which deals with the quality of the content and
organizational structures in students’ written composition. Razali and Jupri add
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that teacher will comment some components which do not make sense in logic
without considering the grammatical aspects on those components.
Such in the form-focused feedback, there are also some pros and contras in
content- based feedback implementation. Silver and Lee (2007) argue that too
much highlight and note on students’ writing do not help students to revise their
writing, on the contrary, make the students frustrated and feel stressed. Supporting
Silver and Lee’s statement, Hyland and Hyland (2001) affirm that the wrong way
of teachers’ feedback delivery may lead to its’ ineffectiveness on students’
writing.
Integrated feedback. Integrated feedback is combination between formfocused and content-based feedback (Park, 2006). This type of teachers’ written
feedback encourages teachers’ to focus not only in the content quality but also in
the grammar accuracy in students’ writing through teachers’ feedback (Razali &
Jupri, 2014). Moreover, Zaman and Azad (2012) state that both teachers’
feedbacks are important in enhancing students’ writing. That is why it is necessary
to apply integrated feedback for the better enhancement of students’ writing.
There are also two other different types of feedback that are mostly
provided by teachers based on the technique or method of delivery; they are direct
and indirect feedback (Zaman & Azad, 2012; Ellis, 2009; Lindqvist, 2011; Park,
2006; Bitchener, Young, & Cameron, 2005).
Direct Feedback. Direct feedback is the feedback provided directly to the
certain incorrect part with the correct one in students’ writing (Ellis, 2009). On the
other words but the same meaning, Zaman and Azad (2012) state that “In direct
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feedback the teacher marks the errors and provides the correct form” (p.142). Park
(2006) argues that direct feedback does not give significant role in students’
writing because it does not encourage students to the deep thinking process. In
contrast, using direct feedback provides explicit guidance to the students about
their inaccuracies and it is principally helpful to those students who do not adept
in self-correcting (Ellis, 2009).
Indirect feedback. In Indirect feedback, “the teacher indicates the errors
by underlining, circling or by using codes but does not provide the correct form.
Diagnosis and correction in indirect feedback is therefore left to the students”
(Zaman & Azad, 2012, p.142). Furthermore, according to Ellis (2006), in indirect
feedback, the teacher indicates that an error exists and locates the error but does
not provide the correction or the correct answer. Additionally, Zaman and Azad
(2012) add that the error indication can be done by underlining, circling and
marking by red pen or by using codes but do not provide the correct form. Park
(2006) argues that indirect feedback is better than direct feedback because it
provides the students to think and do more analysis regarding their error to find
the correct answer. “Teachers should offer self–correction opportunity for their
students by providing indirect feedback on student’s grammatical errors”
(Srichanyachon, 2012, p.12). Srichanyachon (2012) adds that indirect feedback
can be done by indicating the errors by giving some codes in the incorrect one
(such as V for Verb, Adv for Adverb) in order to help students understand and do
self-correction.
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Teachers’ difficulties in delivering feedback. Although providing
feedback is a part of teaching learning process that is usually done by the teacher,
teachers still faces some difficulties in providing feedback to their students.
Zaman and Azad (2012) on their study revealed that the large size of the class or
the large amount of students in their courses become the major obstacles for the
teacher in providing feedback. Zaman and Azad also list down any other obstacles
such as teachers’ heavy of workload and the long way of correcting students’
writing and students’ motivation in learning which become challenging for the
teachers in providing effective feedback to student writers. Teachers’ written
feedback is time consuming because teachers need to give their comment in each
student’s writing and it engages the teachers’ personal communication with each
student directly through teachers’ comments on students’ writing. Each paper has
its own problem that pushes teachers to communicate personally to each student
based on their writing problem and it takes a long time to do it one by one
(Shammari, 2011).
Additionally, according to Srichanyachon (2012), students are lack of
understanding in interpreting the teachers’ feedback on their writing also becomes
the problem to the teacher. Consequently, teachers need to consider students’
English background knowledge and indicate their needs for error correction. Kafri
(2010) asserts that once the students’ finish their writing they just stop it, but
teachers have to pay full concentration in doing correction, while they have
finished, students just taking it easy.it is quite challenging for the teachers. That is
why, whenever teachers provide feedback, they should consider all aspects in
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students' writing such as the structure, organization, style, content, and
presentation (Kafri, 2010).
Writing
There are four language skills in learning language, and writing skill is one
of those skills. Compare with others language skills, writing skill is believed to be
the hardest skill to be mastered. According to Mourssi (2013), “the common
concept between linguists and pedagogical specialists is that it is easier for
second/ foreign language learners to speak, listen and read second language
than writing it, since writing requires much more effort from language
learners to be acquired” (p. 731). Adas and Bakir (2013) support that in
language learning, writing as one of the compulsory competences is the most
challenging competence to be learned. In this sub-chapter there are some
literatures related to writing skill based on other researchers and sources.
Definition of writing. Writing is a communication tool. Through writing,
people can share their opinion and knowledge, state their preference, tell their
story, and even make an argumentation based on their idea to their readers.
According to Nunan (1989) writing is an extremely complex cognitive activity
in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of content, format,
sentence structure, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling and letter formation.
Beyond the sentence, the writer must be able to structure and integrate
information into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and texts. Moreover, Hedge
(2005) points out that writing is more than producing accurate and complete
sentences and phrases. More than this, he defines writing as producing whole
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parts of communication, to connect and improve information, ideas, or arguments
for a certain reader or a group of readers.
Furthermore, writing also can be used to convey someone’s thought to
someone else by using the writers’ own way through their writing product.
Hadley (1993) in Negari (2011) defines writing as an activity that requires
students to tell or retell information in the form of narratives or description, or to
transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing.
Additionally, writing is a complex metacognitive activity that interprets an
individual’s knowledge, basic skill, strategies, and ability to harmonize multiple
processes (Huy, 2015). By the detailed experts’ opinion about writing, it can be
concluded that writing is a way of conveying information, communicating idea,
and sharing feelings that are delivered through written sentences and phrases to be
understood by the reader.
English foreign language students’ writing. In writing, students should
fulfill some stages that encourage them in changing the blank sheet of paper to
become their final writing product; while the progression of the blank paper
become the writing product is called as writing Process (Mekki, 2012). Writing is
a process which involves the students to organize their thinking through some
activities such brainstorming, planning, outlining, organizing, drafting, and
revising (Negari, 2011). Supporting Negari’s statement, Kafri (2003) defines
writing process as “various processes involved in the act of composing, in order to
help students produce coherent, meaningful and creative discourse” (p. 4). A bit
different with Negri (2011), Kafri (2003) adds that there are four basic writing
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stages in process writing: planning, drafting (writing), revising (redrafting), and
editing. Not all EFL students are able to deal with those processes because writing
in their mother tongue language is different from writing in English. It is because
the students do not only have to aware with the process writing itself but also need
to focus on the grammar and wording choice which are totally different from their
mother tongue.
Students’ difficulties in writing. In the process of writing, the foreign
language students’ should pass some stages in order to produce a coherent and
accurate writing product. However, not all students are able to follow and
understand the stages as stated below adequately because it is not easy to be done.
Some studies about students’ writing skill are conducted mostly based on the
difficulties of writing for the learners (Jimenez et al., 2013; Negari, 2011; Adas &
Bakir, 2013; Kellog & Raulerson, 2007; Lee, 2003; Mekki, 2012). Kellog and
Raulerson (2007) convey that the difficulties come because the students lack of
vocabularies and creativity in writing. “Many students are able to understand the
language, but most of the students face the problem of communicating their ideas
effectively, the problem is the lack of both adequate stock of English vocabulary
and creativity in writing” (Adas & Bakir, 2013, p. 254). Besides, According to
Lee (2003) the difficulty of writing is affected by the teaching strategies applied
by their writing teachers. Huy (2015) asserts the common problems faced by the
students in learning writing are: Lack of vocabularies, difficulties in grammar,
obstacles in the topics given, limitation of teachers’ feedback on students’ written
work, lack of learning sources, and lack of students’ practicing and learning.
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Students face some difficulties in writing, namely: (1) how to start writing,
(2) how to generate ideas, (3) how to produce unified paragraphs, (4) how
to organize ideas logically, (5) how to make grammatical sentences, and
(6) how to beef up students’ low motivation in learning English. Then, she
argued that students can learn writing easier if they can organize their
notions, mastery the vocabulary and the writing process in particularly
(Fitriani, 2010 as cited in Karlinawati, 2015, p. 11).
Teaching writing. The focus of teaching writing is to improve students’
skill in writing itself. While students face many difficulties in writing such what it
has explained in previous discussion, teachers’ should have some strategies in
teaching writing. The biggest deal in teaching writing is involving students on the
teaching writing process to make the students’ learning experience become more
valuable (Adas & Bakir, 2013). Adas and Bakir add that involving students’
participation can be done by motivating students and refining and increasing
students’ writing competences through some pragmatic approach.
Additionally, teachers’ written feedback is an activity that is mostly done by
the teachers as one of the teaching writing strategy. According to Kafri (2010)
there are two approaches of teaching writing namely process-based approach and
product-based approach. Teachers have different roles in each of those
approaches. In process-based approach, teacher will guide and give feedback to
the students’ from the very beginning, through some process of revising, and
finally done with students’ final writing. In contrast, in product-based approach,
teacher is just providing feedback on students’ final writing. Kafri (2010) adds
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that in process based approach teacher should concern on the students’ process
writing, because process writing is a continuum activity that provide the learner to
need the teachers’ supervising and guiding. In conclusion, in the process of
teaching writing, teachers mostly provide written feedback on students’ writing
both during the process of students’ writing and after the students’ final writing
finish.
Conceptual Framework
The previous discussion has been figured out some components about
teachers’ feedback based on some studies related the teachers’ feedback in
students’ writing. There are the concept and definition of feedback and
teachers’ feedback, teachers’ feedback on students writing, types of teachers’
feedback, teachers’ difficulties in providing feedback, the concept and
definition of writing, EFL students’ writing, and the last is students’ difficulties
in writing, teaching writing. For whole, it can be summed up that teachers’
feedback play a significance role on the students’ writing.
Moreover, in the practice of the teachers’ feedback in students’ writing,
both students and teachers have important role. Teachers should provide the
teachers’ feedback appropriately in order to make the students able to accept
the feedback properly too. That is why, it is important to know the teachers’
attitude toward the teachers’ feedback in students’ writing. While teachers’
good attitude toward the teachers’ feedback can be seen on the way they
provide feedback to their students and also on their preferences in types of
teachers’ feedback.
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At last, providing feedback was still challenging for the teachers. There
are still many obstacles faced by teachers in providing feedback in students
writing. Some of the obstacles are the amount of the students or the size of the
class, teachers’ heavy workload, the long way of correction process, students’
motivation, and students’ lack of understanding in the feedback given. For
those, this research will be done to reveal teachers’ written feedback delivery
problems happen in EED of UMY regarding the teachers’ feedback in
students’ writing and also the strategies to encounter those obstacles. The
conceptual framework of this research can be figured out below:
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Figure 1. Conceptual Framework
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Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology that is used in this study. There
are four discussions in this chapter. They are research design, research setting
and participant, data collection method and data analysis. Research design
discusses the approach used in this study. Setting and participants explain the
participant involved in the research as the participant and time and place in
conducting the data collection. Data collection method discusses the method
that is applied in collecting the data. Last, data analysis explains the process of
analyzing and interpreting the result of the data collection.
Research Design
The approach of this research was a case study, and the research was
designed as qualitative research. Qualitative design was appropriate with this
study which discussed teachers’ written feedback in students’ writing based on
the teachers’ perception at EED of UMY. According to Creswell (2012),
qualitative method is appropriate to be used in collecting the data of
participants’ perception and outlook about certain phenomena or problem.
Furthermore, using case study as an approach in this research was appropriate
because this research was designed to seek out and analyze a case at EED of
UMY about teacher’s written feedback in students’ writing.
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Research Setting and Participants
Setting. The researcher has conducted the study in English Education
Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (EED UMY)
environment. The study was conducted from September of 2015 until May of
2016. The reason to choose EED of UMY as the setting was because the
teachers’ written feedback existed in this department. Another reason was the
accessibility of the interview location. Because the researcher was still being a
student in EED of UMY, it was much easier to gather the data. Last reason,
because both the researcher and participants were in the same department and
had been familiar each other, it abridged the researcher in term of the
availability of the research participants.
Participants. The participants of this research were the teachers of
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
(EED of UMY). There are 15 teachers at EED of UMY and the researcher took
three teachers to be the representative of all teachers of EED of UMY. The
researcher took three participants to be interviewed. According to Creswell
(2012) in the qualitative research, the number of the participants is
undetermined, as long as the data gathered has answered the research question,
the least number of participants is sufficient.
Henceforth, the sampling technique was purposive sampling. There
were two criteria of being the participants of this research. First is the EED of
UMY teachers who had teaching experience at least three years. It was because
based on the researcher’s experience by the way her teachers delivered their
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written feedback, teachers with three years or more experience in teaching also
had more experiences in providing feedback. The last criterion was the
teachers who applied teachers’ written feedback on students’ writing.
There were three participants interviewed to gain the data about the
teachers’ written feedback. The three participants were female and they were
chosen based on the criteria above. The first participant had been teaching for
14 years in general and 4 years at EED of UMY. The first participant delivered
written feedback in teaching all courses that provide the students to write such
as writing Annotated Bibliography and Material Design. Besides, she also gave
feedback on her supervising students’ skripsi. The second participant had
teaching experience for 3 years in general. She gave written feedback on
students’ writing in quiz, project paper and skripsi. The last participant had
been teaching for 15 years. She gave written feedback in students’ writing in
Reading and Writing for Career Development class and students’ skripsi.
Data Collection Method
This study was conducted to know the teachers’ attitude, obstacles and
strategies to encounter the obstacles in their written feedback in students’
writing at EED UMY based on the teachers’ perception. Interview was used as
the instrument to gather the data. A semi structured interview was designed in
order to make the interview discussion become focus and well-guided. One-onone interview was applied on this data collection method. According to
Creswell (2012) applying interview to collect the qualitative data is suitable. It
is because by interview the research will obtain deeper information regarding
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teachers’ writte