38
The given examples show that the students really had problem in their spelling accuracy. This problem was still the same problem which the students faced
when the researcher did the Internship Program Program Pengalaman Lapangan. When the researcher observed the English teacher of SMPN 15 Yogyakarta, the
researcher found out that sometimes the teacher gave indirect written corrective feedback to the students by circling on the errors that the students made without
giving the correct form of the errors. Thus, many students still got problem in their spelling accuracy as they did not know the correct form of the errors.
B. Data Presentation and Discussion on the First Cycle
The researcher conducted the first cycle on January 22, 2016. At first, there were 27 students who participated in this cycle since 5 students attended a meeting
related to the school‟s scout activity and 2 of them were still sick. However, the researcher then gave the 5 students who attended the meeting an assignment which
was similar to the other students who came to the class after the meeting had finished. The researcher also waited for them while they were doing the assignment. In the first
cycle, the researcher employed the teacher‟s direct written corrective feedback to improve the students‟ spelling accuracy in their writing. There were four steps in this
cycle. They were planning, action, observation, and reflection. Those steps would be discussed as follows.
39
a. Planning
In this step, the researcher started to make a plan after knowing the results of the students‟ writing products. From their writing it could be seen that the students‟
problem in writing was about spelling accuracy. In addition, some of them also made grammatical errors. After the researcher knew the problem that was faced by the
students, the researcher planned to focus on improving the students‟ spelling accuracy first in their writing products.
In helping the students to improve their spelling accuracy, the researcher chose direct written corrective feedback as the strategy. It was chosen because direct
written corrective feedback is probably better than indirect written corrective feedback with writers of low levels of language proficiency as suggested by Ferris
and Robert s 2001. Moreover, based on the researcher‟s observation on the English
teacher of SMPN 15 Yogyakarta when she did Internship Program Program Pengalaman Lapangan, the researcher found out that sometimes the teacher gave
indirect written corrective feedback to the students by only circling on the errors that the students made without giving the correct form of the errors. This kind of strategy
did not really succeed in helping the students to write better. As the results, the students still got problem, especially in their spelling accuracy since they did not
know the correct form of the errors. Therefore, the researcher intended to improve the students‟ spelling accuracy by giving direct written corrective feedback to the
students‟ writing products as it supplied the correct form of the erroneous part PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
40
somewhere close to the error so that the students could know not only their errors in writing but also the correct form of their errors.
After several months of the Internship Program, the researcher started to do the research by doing the preliminary study first in order to make sure the problem
that was faced by the students. Then, the researcher conducted the first cycle. In this cycle,
the researcher returned the students‟ writing products which had been given direct written corrective feedback by the researcher. Then, the researcher asked the
students to revise the errors by looking at the researcher‟s correction. This was done in order to make the students notice their errors and remember the correct form of the
errors as they change their errors into the correct form of the errors. Moreover, the researcher expected that the students could be more aware of their mistakes and did
not do it again. For the main activity, the researcher asked the students to make a new
descriptive text about one of their classmates without mentioning the person‟s name based on the given instruction and they had to do it in 50 minutes then submitted it to
the researcher. After submitting their writing products, the researcher asked five students voluntarily as the representatives to read the descriptions in front of the
classroom. Then, the other students guessed who the person‟s name is. In this cycle, the researcher also provided teaching procedure and field notes in order to help her to
write anything that happened during the implementation of the research. The researcher also prepared digital camera for documentation while doing the research.
41
b. Action
The first cycle was conducted on January 22, 2016. There were 27 students as the participants. There were 5 students who did not join the class since they had to
attend a meeting related to the school‟s scout activity and 2 of them were still sick. The time allocation was 80 minutes. In the beginning of the class, the researcher
prepared teaching procedures, questionnaires, students‟ worksheets, students‟ writing products that had been given direct written corrective feedback by the researcher, and
also the media which was PowerPoint to remind the students about the generic structure of descriptive text. After that, the researcher greeted the students then
checked the attendance list and at the same time the researcher distributed the student
s‟ writing products that had been given direct written corrective feedback by the researcher.
After that, the researcher wrote some incorrect words on the whiteboard that were actually taken from the students‟ example of errors in their writing products of
the preliminary study such as „weavi, bunny, frenly, and helpfull‟ for the warming up. The researcher did this kind of warming up for the purpose of helping the students to
be aware of inaccurate spelling. After warming up, the researcher asked the students to look at the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback in their writing products
again. Since the concern of this research was about spelling accuracy, the researcher more focused on checking the students‟ spelling in writing English. Then, the
researcher asked the students to revise their errors in spelling. Even though the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
42
researcher had given the correction, this was done in order to make the students notice their errors and remember the correct form of the errors as they change their
errors into the correct form of the errors. After reading
the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback and revising their errors, the students were asked by the researcher about the generic structure of
descriptive text in order to remind the students about descriptive text. Next, they were asked to write a new descriptive text about one of their classmates by the researcher
with an expectation that the students would make better writing products. Thus the researcher distributed the students‟ worksheet that had been prepared by the
researcher and asked the students to think about one of their classmates that they wanted to describe.
After the students got the worksheet, the researcher asked them to read aloud the instruction together in which they should not mention their classmate‟s name in
their writing so that they could guess who the person was in the end of the class. The researcher gave 50 minutes for the students to write the descriptive text. After the
students had finished writing, the researcher asked them to submit their writing products. Then, the researcher asked five students voluntarily as the representatives to
read the descriptions in front of the classroom and the other students guessed who the person‟s name is. In the end, the students were asked to complete a questionnaire by
the researcher. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
43
c. Observation
The observation was conducted on January 22, 2016. It was the same time as the first cycle when the researcher implemented the direct written corrective feedback
in the students‟ writing products. The researcher used field note in the observation. In the field note, she wrote everything that happened during the implementation of direct
written corrective feedback. Based on the researcher‟s observation when she distributed the students‟
writing products that had been given direct written corrective feedback, the students were excited to get the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback. This could be
seen from the researcher‟s field note of the first cycle below. “When the students got their writing products that had been given direct
written corrective feedback by the researcher, many of them seemed happy while reading the researcher‟s correction and some of them said “nah gini lho.. dikasih tau
yang benar gimana ” “It should be like this.. I was informed the right ones”.” The
field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5 Then, in the first activity which was warming up, the researcher wrote some
incorrect words on the whiteboard that were actually taken from the students‟ examples
of errors in their writing products of the preliminary study such as „weavi’ wavy,
‘bunny’ bonny, ‘frenly’ friendly, and „helpfull’ helpful. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
44 “When the researcher wrote the errors on the whiteboard, some students said
“Miss, itu kan tulisannya salah.” “Miss, the spelling is wrong, isn‟t it?””. The field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5
From the field note, it could be seen that the students started to be aware of the spelling errors. Then, the researcher asked the students to correct the error words
written on the whiteboard for warming up. Based on the observation, the students were very active and enthusiastic while doing the warming up as there were many
students who raised their hands so that the researcher chose them to come in front in order to correct the errors. However, when the chosen students tried to correct the
spelling, one of them made a mistake. “All of the students were very active as there were many students who raised
their hands so that the researcher chose them to come in front in order to correct the errors one by one. While the chosen students were trying to correct the errors on the
whiteboard, the other students paid attention to them. All of the chosen students wrote the answer correctly, except one student who wrote „friendly‟ into „frendly‟.
Knowing that there was one student who was wrong, the other students shouted “salah.. salah Itu kurang huruf ‘i’ seharusnya f-r-i-e-n-d-l-y.” “It is wrong It lacks
the letter „i‟ and should be f-r-i-e-n-d-l-y”. Then, that student giggled as he realized that he had made a mistake and he changed his answer directly into what his friends
already said.” The field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
45 It could be seen from the students‟ statements that they were aware of their
friend‟s mistake and wanted their friend to revise his friend‟s answer into a correct one. They did that
since they had read the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback in their writing products. The student who did the mistake also realized that
he had made an error by directly changing his answer. After that, the researcher asked the students to lo
ok at the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback in their writing products again and they were also asked
to revise their errors in spelling. Though the researcher had given the direct written corrective feedback by crossing the misspelled words and writing the correction near
the errors, the researcher still asked them to do it in order to make them notice their errors and remember the correct form of the errors as they change their errors into the
correct form of the errors. When they were revising their errors, they looked so serious and curious about their friends‟ error and its correction.
“The students looked so serious when they were revising their errors and said “ooh ternyata ini salah, seharusnya tulisannya kaya gini to..” “ooh this is wrong, the
spelling should be like this..”. Some of them also looked at others‟ error and its correction. They seemed curious about their friends‟ errors and wanted to know the
correct form of the errors that were written by the researcher.” The field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5
The student‟s statements above showed that they realized that they were wrong. They also understood about the correct form of their errors written by the
46
researcher. It also showed that they wanted to know more about th e researcher‟s
direct written corrective feedback in their friends‟ writing products. In the next activity, the researcher reminded the students about what they had
learned in the previous meeting and gave explanation about how to write a good descriptive text by showing the examples. After that, the researcher asked the
students to write a new descriptive text about one of their classmates with an expectation that they could produce better writing products and be more aware when
writing by not making the same mistakes. When they were writing, the researcher found an unusual behavior done by the students.
“Some students opened dictionary to check the spelling of some words that they wanted to write. There were also some students who still wrote incorrect
sp elling, but then they revised it as they remembered the researcher‟s direct written
corrective feedback. The researcher heard that one of them said, “Oh iya, tadi kan tulisannya l nya satu aja di koreksi Miss Nisya
” “there was only single l in Miss Nisya‟s correction”. When the researcher looked at her writing, the student was
writing the word „cheerful‟.” The field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5 It could be seen from the field note above that the students opened dictionary
to check the spelling of some words. It was an unusual behavior. They rarely checked the dictionary when they were writing in the previous meetings. They opened
dictionary as they wanted to avoid errors in spelling. Moreover, the student‟s statements above showed that they remembered their own mistakes and the
researcher‟s correction in their previous writing products. In other words, it also PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
47
shows that they had understood about the importance of spelling accuracy in their writing.
After that, the students were asked to submit their writing products and the researcher also asked 5 students to read the descriptions in front of the classroom
voluntarily so that the other students could guess who was being described. In the beginning, the students were quiet when the researcher asked them voluntarily.
However, they started to be active again after there were students raising their hands. “At first, there were only three students who raised their hands, but after the
others saw their friends raising their hands, they then followed their friends raising their hands. After the students finished reading the descriptions one by one, the rest of
them enthusiastically raised their hands in order to guess the name of the person being described. They looked very excited playing the guessing game until it
finished.” The field note of the first cycle, see appendix 5 In the end of the class, the researcher distributed a questionnaire to the
students. In order to avoid misunderstanding in every statement written in the questionnaire, the studen
ts completed the questionnaire together with the researcher‟s explanation on each number. The researcher gave the questionnaire in this first cycle
in order to know the students‟ opinion about the implementation of direct written corrective feedback so that the researcher could also make a better action for the next
cycle. After that, the researcher analyzed the students‟ writing products at home. These are the examples of sentences made by the students in the first cycle.
1. She have medium straight black hair. Student 3
48
2. He have a best friend. Student 28
Indeed, the first and second sentences had no incorrect spelling. However, the sentences contained grammatical mistakes. The errors were in the word „have‟ as the
verb of the subject „she‟ and „he‟. Singular subjects like „she‟ and „he‟ should use the singular verb. In this case, the singular verb of the word „have‟ should be „has‟. The
researcher did not pay attention to this kind of grammatical mistake since this study just focused on the spelling accuracy. Therefore, the researcher just circled the errors
and explained to the students orally. 3.
She is thick lips and brown eyes. Student 19 4.
He is painted nose. Student 17 5.
He has handsome. Student 18 In the sentence number four, there was still incorrect spelling. The word
„painted‟ should be written „pointed‟ since the intention was the type of nose. This kind of error could make a different meaning. Meanwhile, the third, fourth, and fifth
sentences contained grammatical mistakes. The errors were in the verb. The verb „is‟
should be „has‟ since it was followed by a noun. On the contrary, the word „has‟ should be „is‟ since it was followed by an adjective. The researcher also gave a circle
to these errors and explained to the students about it. It cou
ld also be seen from the students‟ writing products in the appendix 10 and 11 that the student 13 did not repeat his mistake since he could learn from the
researcher‟s correction. In the writing product of the preliminary study, he misspelled PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
49
the words „very‟ into „veri‟ and „kind‟ into „kaind‟. However, after the researcher
gave the direct written correc tive feedback, he wrote the word „very‟ and „kind‟
correctly in the writing product of the first cycle. In addition, it also happened to the student 15 in
which she misspelled the words „has‟, „wavy‟, „black‟, „hair‟, „flat‟ and „nose‟ in her writing product of the preliminary study. However, after the
implementation of direct written corrective feedback, she wrote those words correctly in the writing product of the first cycle.
Therefore, based on the observation, the researcher could say that the students made a good improvement, especially on their behavior after receiving direct written
corrective feedback from the researcher. They became realized about the importance of spelling accuracy. In addition, their errors in the spelling accuracy also decreased.
d. Reflection
The next step was reflection. In this step, the researcher reflected on what worked well and did not work well during the implementation. By reflecting, the
researcher could find out the next action for the second cycle. For warming up, the researcher wrote error words on the whiteboard and
asked the students to correct the errors. It worked well because the students were active and enthusiastic to correct the errors. They also participated well, especially
when they made correction to the wrong answer that one of their friends had made. After the students did the warming up, they were asked to revise their errors in their
previous writing products that had been returned to them by looking at the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
50 researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback. Although they just rewrote the
researcher‟s correction, yet this kind of action somehow went well since the students could realize and understand their mistakes. Moreover, it could help them to know
and remember the correct form of their errors so that they would be more aware of their mistakes and did not make the same mistakes.
In the next activity, the researcher asked the students whether they still remembered the generic structure of the descriptive text or not. Some of the students
forgot about the terms, but there were few students who remembered about it. After that, the researcher explained about the generic structure of descriptive text again and
gave examples of a good descriptive text and also the way how to write it. This action worked well since the students could get a better understanding about descriptive text
and its generic structure. The researcher thought that for the next cycle, she would provide printed handouts that sum up about descriptive text, especially on describing
someone and its reading exercises for the students so that they could be more understood.
In the main activity, the students were asked to write a new descriptive text after they understood about the researcher‟s explanation. The researcher distributed
the worksheet to the students and asked them to read aloud the instruction together. In the worksheet, they had to write a description about one of their classmates, so the
researcher asked them to think about one of their classmates that they wanted to describe. They could not mention their friend‟s name in their writing because later the
others would guess who was being described. Based on the researcher‟s field note, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
51
the students made unusual behavior in which some of them opened dictionary in order to check their spelling in writing English. It was good that the students had
started to understand the importance of spelling accuracy in their writing. After that, the researcher asked the students to submit their writing products
and she also asked 5 students to read the descriptions in front of the classroom voluntarily so that the other students could guess who was being described. At first,
the students were quiet, but they started to become active again after there were students raising their hands. This action went well since the students looked excited
playing this kind of guessing game. At home, t
he researcher then analyzed the students‟ writing products of the first cycle and also the questionnaire that had been completed by the students. In the
questionnaire, there were 19 students from 32 students 59,38 who strongly agreed that the researcher‟s correction made them know their mistakes. Meanwhile, 11
students from 32 students 34,38 agreed and only 2 of 32 students 6,25 disagreed. It could also be seen from the questionnaire that 24 students from 32
students 75 strongly agreed that the researcher‟s correction helped them to make
their writing better and the rest, 8 students from 32 students 25 agreed with it. In addition, in the questionnaire some students also stated the same thing.
“Ya, karena jika dikoreksi kita mengetahui kesalahan yang kita lakukan dan saya berusaha lebih teliti.
” Yes, because I know the mistake that I made if it is corrected by the teacher and I tried to be more meticulous.
52 “Ya, membuat saya lebih mengerti terhadap penulisan bahasa Inggris yang
benar. ” Yes, it makes me more understand about the correct spelling in English.
“Sangat membantu, karena dapat membuat saya lebih ingat terhadap penulisan yang benar.
” It really helps, because it can make me remember about the correct spelling better.
The Raw Data of Questionnaire, see appendix 8 Swain 1985, 1995 notes that learners need to attend to form-meaning
relationships and receive feedback on their output because it enables learners to “notice the gap” between what they want to say and what they can actually say. If
learners‟ attention is not drawn to their errors, they may not be aware that they made an error; they will probably never ask about it, and therefore they miss opportunities
to practice and correct themselves. It meant that the feedback itself could make the students aware of their errors and they might not be aware that they had made an
error if they were not informed of their error and its correction. In improving the students‟ spelling accuracy, the researcher tried to make the
strategy better by adding comments or explanations and also suggestions besides giving the correction to the students‟ writing products so that the students could be
more motivated. The researcher did it because in the questionnaire, there were some students who stated about things that needed to be improved by the researcher in
giving the direct written corrective feedback. “Pemberian koreksinya akan lebih baik jika diberi penjelasan lebih.” The
correction will be much better if more explanations were provided. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
53 “Adanya koreksi udah bagus, tapi harus warna-warni biar seru yang
bacanya. ” The existence of the correction is already good, but it must be colorful in
order to make it fun in reading the correction. “Pendapat saya koreksinya sangat baik. Seharusnya lebih sering lagi
memberi koreksi. ” In my opinion, the correction is very good. It should have been
done more often in giving the correction. The Raw Data of Questionnaire, see appendix 8
After processing the data from the questionnaire and analyzing the students‟ writing products, the researcher found out that the results were satisfying. The results
of the students‟ writing products in the first cycle were presented in the appendix 14. From the results of the writing products
, it could be seen that the students‟ errors in spelling accuracy decreased. It meant that the students had made good improvements.
The percentage of errors in the preliminary study was 38,5 and in the first cycle the percentage became 1
0,2 . In other words, it showed that the researcher‟s direct written corrective feedback could improve
the students‟ spelling accuracy.
C. Data Presentation and Discussion on the Second Cycle