Behavioral component T1 112008153 Full text
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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
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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.