Behavioral component T1 112008153 Full text

11 Direct written teacher‟s feedback indicates the location of an error and provides clues on how to correct it. Indirect written te acher‟s feedback indicates only the location of an error by underlining, circling, making marks where something is missing, or putting a question mark where something is unclear without indicating its nature. It is very common for some writing teachers to combine both direct and indirect written teacher‟s feedback once in a student‟s draft. p.214 According to Reesor 2000 , “Symbol feedback is a kind of feedback that focus on form concerns more on the grammatical and language accuracy and its mechanical features ”, such as: spelling and punctuation ”p.243. There are many symbols that the teachers usually use, for example, “p” means wrong punctuation, “sp” means wrong spelling, “Ro” means run on sentence, “underline” means wrong expression, and “circle” means wrong or not appropriate words and etc. By using these symbols, the students can identify the mistakes specifically, so it is easier for them to correct their writing. Since the teachers focus on the students‟ grammatical errors and language accuracy, the students are expected to be more careful in writing. They need to pay attention on grammar and language that they use. Hence, according to Ferris 1999 as cited in Mimi 2009, “During commenting on students‟ writings, teachers may underline the grammar, spelling or mechanical mistakes which encourage students‟ self- correction ”p.61. In this case, the students need to correct and learn from their mistakes, so they can avoid the same mistakes in the future. The purpose of self-correction is to encourage the students to be independent learners. Therefore, the students can take advantages from the use of symbol feedback. According to Sinclair 2001, “Independent learner is a student who takes responsibility for thinking and learning themselves.” In this case, the teachers only give some clues to help the students find the errors, and then the students should think critically and do self-correction to make their writing better. 12 The study Context of the study The setting of the study is an English Department in Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia. This English Department has four level writing courses, they are Guided Writing, Narrative and Descriptive Writing, Expository and Argumentative writing, and Academic Writing. In this case, every class has different teacher and every teacher usually has their own way in giving feedback, though most of them usually use symbol feedback. A further reason why I choose this university is that most of the students use English as their foreign language. It means that most of the students are still learning this language and it is possible for the learners to have some difficulties or make many mistakes in writing. Therefore, feedback is very important for the students in this university. Since it is believed that every student has his or her own way in learning English, this English Department can be a suitable place to find the students‟ attitudes toward the use of symbol feedback. Participants The participants of the study were 18 students who had taken Guided Writing class and had experiences in dealing with symbol feedback. The participants were chosen because the students could be considered as new students where they needed more feedback than the students who had more experiences in writing. Besides that, the students also took the writing class for the first time, so they only experienced the type of feedback that the teacher used. Therefore, the students could iden tify how symbol feedback could influence the students‟ writing in writing class. The study started in the end of the semester in order to identify the students‟ opinions and reactions toward their experiences in dealing with the use of symbol feedback. The students could explain their experiences, opinions and the influences of symbol feedback to their writing. 13 Since the participants were taken from the same class, the study could find the students‟ responses toward the issue with similar experiences. The similar experiences here meant that the students had similar symbol feedback from the same teacher and duration they dealt with symbol feedback, although their attitudes which included cognitive, affective, and behavior might be different. Therefore, this method could be effective since it was more efficient and could find various opinions or reactions from the participants. In order to find these criteria of students, I had to find a Guided Writing class where the teacher used symbol as the main feedback in checking the students‟ writing. After that, I had to meet the students in order to inform that I needed them to be my participants. Instrument of data collection In attempting to answer these research questions, the data was collected through semi- structured interview. The interview focused on the students‟ attitudes toward the use of symbol feedback. In this interview, the questions were divided into two categories : 1. General questions to find the criteria of the participants and the students‟ understanding about the use of symbol feedback. 2. Specific questions to identify the students‟ attitudes toward the use of symbol feedback in writing class. The interview consisted of 8 questions, 4 questions to identify the students‟ understanding about symbol feedback and 4 questions to identify the students‟ attitudes including their cognitive, affective, and behavior toward the use of symbol feedback. However, I did not only focus on those 8 questions, if the participant said something interesting about symbol feedback, I asked the participants to explain more, so I could find other things related to symbol feedback. The length of the interview was about 15 minutes, 14 but some of the participants needed more times as they wanted to express everything about symbol feedback. In order to conduct the interview, I had to make an appointment with the participants. Since the participants were still studying in English Department, I had to find the right time to arrange the meeting and interview them. The interview was done privately, so the participants could deliver their ideas without any influence from other participants. Therefore, the interview could find various opinions and ideas about symbol feedback. Data Collection Procedures In order to collect the data, I conducted interview and recorded it so I could transcribe and analyze the data. In the interview, I had to make sure that the participants recognized the meaning of symbol feedback. Therefore, before I did the interview, I asked them whether they had ever found marks like circle or underline in their writing. If the students had ever found these marks, I could give them information that these marks were belong to symbol feedback, so I could start the interview. In the interview, I asked the participants based on the questions that I have made, but I also asked some more questions in order to get more information. Data Analysis Procedures After I interviewed all of the participants, I listened to the recording and then transcribed the data. In analyzing the data, I made a list represented the students attitudes toward the use of symbol feedback. The attitudes were categorized into three aspect, which were cognitive aspect, affective aspect, and behavior aspect. After categorizing the data, I had to convert the students‟ attitudes into percentages, so the data could be easier to understand. It was important for me to select some of the data because some students had the same opinion or reaction toward the use of symbol feedback. Moreover, I elaborated the data based on my 15 interpretation and related it to the literature review about to the use of symbol feedback. The last one was drawing the conclusion of the study based on the data I have found. Discussion In the discussion, I differentiated the students‟ attitudes into three aspects. They were students‟ opinions toward the use of symbol feedback in writing class, students‟ feelings toward the use of symbol feedback in writing class, and students‟ reactions after receiving symbol feedback in writing class. The names of the participants were changed to keep their privacy and the quotations were translated and edited from Indonesian into English.

1. Students’ opinions toward the use of symbol feedback in writing class

Diagram 1 : The comparison of number of students and their opinions toward the use of symbol feedback.

a. Symbol feedback helped the students decrease the errors

The students were able to decrease the errors in writing as the teacher used symbols in giving feedback. According to Ferris 2003 as cited in Erel 2007, “Coded error feedback is 16 more helpful on student‟s writing development because it encourages the student to do self- editing that contributes to their accuracy in writing”p.400. Based on the interview, I found all of the participants 100 said they could decrease the errors as they found the markings on their papers keep decreasing, especially the errors that they had ever made. The students found that the errors in the third writing were fewer than the second and the first writing. Students admitted that they could identify and decrease the errors when the teacher used symbol feedback in writing : Extract 1 Sandra “Symbol feedback motivates me to write more carefully, especially with some errors that I’ve ever made before, so I can decrease the errors .” Extract 2 Tata “When the teacher uses symbol feedback, it makes me write more carefully, especially punctuation, because I often forget to use it. Now, when I write something, I usually check the punctuation, so I can decrease the errors.” The data showed that the students could decrease the errors by using symbol feedback. According to Erel 2007 who did study about symbol feedback found that the group who received indirect coded error feedback had more accuracy in their writing. When the students found symbol feedback in their writing, they tended to be more aware with their writing. Symbol feedback could encourage them to avoid the error because they wanted to avoid any error symbol in their next writing. For them, receiving their writing without any error marking on it was a good achievement. This statement was supported by Ferris 2000 as cited in Erel 2007 who also found that students who received primarily indirect error feedback make fewer errors in subsequent 17 writings than the students who received mostly direct feedback p.400. It showed that the students who received symbol feedback could decrease the errors because the students were accustomed with doing self-correction. The teacher only gave the clues and helped the students identify where the mistakes and then the one who were required to solve the problems were the students themselves. In contrast, students who received direct feedback could make more errors because the students had limited experiences in correcting their own mistakes. Therefore, the students‟ experiences in dealing with their own mistakes influenced the students to be more accurate in writing and helped them decrease the errors. The result of the study is similar with the previous studies by Erel 2007 and Ferris 2000, so there was an evidence that symbol feedback was helpful for the students in decreasing the errors as the students could improve their accuracy in writing.

b. Symbol feedback improved the students’ skills in writing

According to Schlossberg 2002 as cited in Efimova 2004, “The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think”. In order to deliver the ideas, the writers needed to make sure that their writing is comprehensible. Therefore, the writers had to pay attention on grammar, punctuation, word choice, text organization, cohesive and coherence, so the readers could understand what the writers wanted to deliver in their writing. This statement was supported by Mahfoodh 2011 who stated, “EFL students indicated that they paid great attention to their teachers‟ feedback because they needed help to develop their writing skills and to improve their current and future written texts ”p.21. From the result of the interview, I found all of the participants 100 said that the use of symbol feedback could help them improve their skills in writing. Students found that symbol feedback was helpful in improving their skills in writing :