59 The most commonly used of direct written feedback was used by the
teachers in classes E, D, and B. On the other hand, direct feedback was used less in classes A, B, C, and F. Result showed that the use of crossing out, inserting
word, and correction were the categories of direct feedback. Vyatkina 2011, p. 64 also states that direct teach
er‟s written feedback is the teacher write suggested accurate form next to highlighted errors. Therefore, the teachers wrote the direct
feedback in which they provided the correct form on student‟s writing directly.
b. Indirect Feedback
As mentioned in the chapter 2, indirect feedback was also a form that was used by the teacher on giving written feedback for their students‟ writing.
According to Hyland and Hyland 2006, p. 83, indirect feedback occurs when the teacher indicated in some method that an error has been made
– by means of underline, circle, code, or other mark. Indirect feedback was given without
providing the correct form, leaving the students to solve the problem by themselves.
In addition, Vyatkina 2011, p. 64 also states that indirect feedback is the teachers indicate the location of errors by underlining and circling with or without
attaching a metalinguistic error code on students‟ writing. The teacher tended to use mark or sign i
n giving indirect feedback in order to obtain the students‟ attention about their errors. It did not take a long time for the teacher to write their
indirect feedback to the students‟ writing but the students could explore their skill on writing. Therefore, Hyland and Hyland 2006, p. 207 also state that the way
60 teachers choose to express their feedback can affect both students‟ reactions to it
and the extent to which they use it in their revisions, and may have significant impact on writing development. Thus, the usefulness of indirect feedback depends
on how the teachers delivered the written feedback and how the student responded the written feedback.
The same as Hyland and Hyland 2006, p. 83, Srichanyachon 2012, p. 10 also states that indirect feedback is when the teacher indicates that an error has
been made by means of an underline, circle, code, and so on. The underline mark on indirect feedback means that there is something wrong on that word, phrase, or
sentence. The teacher wrote the underline in the word, phrase or sentence that became a hint for the students to find and revise their errors in writing. It leads the
students to be more autonomous writer because they could know how to solve their errors.
In this research, the findings indicated the use of underline in giving indirect feedback was the most commonly used in Critical Reading and Writing II
Class. Table 4.5 presented the underline which was given to a word, phrase, or sentence. The teacher in class A underlined the word “say” in student‟s writing. It
indicated that there was another formal word to be used on writing an essay. The underline on the word often used on the diction such as
“say→ state”, “you→ we”, “use→ using”, “take place→ found” and soon. It was allowed to change the
word into the appropriate one on writing. Then, the underline was also given to the informal style in writing such as
“doesn‟t” should be written “does not” or “don‟t” should be written “do not”. Misspelling and capitalization also became
61 the reason for giving underline words such as Ship
→ ship and seaching→ searching
.
Table 4.5 The Examples of Underlining
No. Student
Class Underline Word or Sentence
Description of Indication
1. AA
- say - ...with that statement and
say... - ...on March 29, 2014 at
20.59... - To replace the word into formal word.
- To indicate ineffective phrase. -To notify an error in citation.
2. BE
-another region -breaks
-To indicate an error in sentence. -
To indicate the meaning of „breaks‟ in the sentence.
Moreover, the use of underline in indirect feedback was used to indicate an error in grammar. The errors in grammar occurred on the phrase and sentence. The
example of “...with that statement and say...” indicated ineffective phrase on a
sentence because the meaning was similar. Most of underlining on students‟ writing was given by the teachers to indicate errors in grammar.
The errors in grammar were found in students‟ grammar such as subject- verb agreement, plural forms, inconsistency in the clause, and so on. The example
is, “In the reality, there are some arguments from parents that said play-based
learning is not really useful.” It indicated the inconsistency in the clause that could be seen from words
“said” and “is”. The researcher found many errors in grammar on students‟ writing that need to be improved later. The error was also
found in the citation writing such as “...on March 29, 2014 at 20.59...”. There
was no need to mention the time and the date of the source because it only needed
62 the year of the source. The errors also happened on the sentence such as the use of
“another region” and “breaks” were not giving a meaningful idea on the students‟ writing.
The circle also became a form to write teachers‟ written feedback on the
students‟ writing. The teacher wrote a circle on the word, phrase, and sentence to indicate the students‟ error. Therefore, the students recognized their errors and
tried to revise it later. In this method, the teachers only wrote a circle without giving the correct form. Circling was commonly used on the word than on the
sentence. Table 4.6 presented indirect feedback in giving circle to words such as “and” to indicate inappropriate conjunction in the sentence, “version” to indicate
unnecessary word, and “so” to indicate the exaggeration in writing.
Table 4.6 The Examples of Giving Circle
No. Student
Class Sentence
Description of Indication
1. DB
- more job opportunities - and
- To indicate an error in grammar.
-To indicate inappropriate the use of conjunction.
2. AD
- so -version
-Most of students said... -more formal
- To avoid exaggeration in writing.
-To show that it is unnecessary to write this word.
-To avoid over generalization. -To indicate the reason of the statement.
The use of circle was not only used on the word but also was used to indicate an error in sentence. For example, the student wrote
“more job opportunities” was not a correct phrase in the sentence. There was an error in
63 grammar
of the sentence. Then, the use of “Most of students said...” presented an over generalization because the student could not provide enough evidence to
support hisher argument. Thus, the researcher also found that indirect feedback was given to
indicate t he content of students‟ writing. For the example, one of the students in
class D wrote “more formal” about certain language. However, the teacher in class D wanted to know the reason why that language became more formal. The
use of circle on students‟ writing was also given to citation how to write the source
, diction discuss→ argue, misspelling dialy→ daily, cognitif→
cognitive , preposition in, capitalization
the betawi→ The Betawi, and punctuation
Wow , Why ?. The teachers in Critical Reading and Writing II class used circle to give attention on countable, uncountable, ambiguous meaning,
plural or singular form, consistency, exaggeration, over generalization, repetitive word, the refutation in the sentences.
The students in Critical Reading and Writing II Class became a second- language students L2 students. According to Srichanyachon 2012, p. 9, L2
students prefer errors marked with teachers‟ codes because it is easy for them to edit and improve their writing. The teachers in Critical Reading and Writing II
Class used the similar code on students‟ writing. The code was given to ask about citation, error in grammar, error in sentence, punctuation, conjunction, and
capitalization. The use of code on students‟ writing was to indicate an error in citation.
The teacher wrote certain code such as “cite author”, “author”, “year”,
64 “references”, and “source”. These code were used to make the students realized
their error in writing the citation. The teacher asked the student to write the name of the author or the year of the source and add more referencessources for the
students‟ writing. Next, the teacher used code for error in grammar such as “grammar”, “verb”, “gr”, and so on. Table 4.7 presented that the teacher wrote
“gr grammar” in order to ask the student to check the grammar.
Table 4.7 The Examples of Giving Code
No. Student
Class Code
Description
1. AB
-gr grammar -year
-Check your grammar -Write the year of the source.
2. AF
-evidence? -punctuation
-capitalization -by what?
-To ask the writer provides more evidences. -Pay attention in punctuation.
-Pay attention in capitalization. -To ask how it can be like that.
Moreover, the teacher also used code to indicate an error in sentence such as
“repetitive”, “rewrite a sentence”, “consistency”, “run-on”, “fragment”, “missing subject”, “a phrase” and so on. There were two examples on table 4.9
such as “evidence” and “by what” to ask about the sentence which needed more
evidences and the reasons. The other codes were “capitalization” and “punctuation” to indicate errors on students‟ writing. Conjunction also became the
focus of code. The teachers wrote such as “transition” and “connector” on
students‟ writing. The use of code in teachers‟ written feedback was to indicate errors in students‟ writing. Then, the students had to analyze the code to obtain the
65 correction for the errors. It was useful because the students could learn how to
solve their problem in writing using code. The teacher also had an efficient written feedback because it did not take a long time to response the writing.
The last component in indirect feedback was giving mark on written feedback. Table 4.8 presented the examples of the findings of mark on written
feedback. There were some marks on indirect feedback such as bracket, question mark, arrow, line, and check mark.
Table 4.8 The Examples of Giving Mark
No. Student
Class Mark
Function
1. CA
{ To emphasize that the sentences still need to be
more persuasive.
2. DA
- -Some scene in those
tales are indeed inappropriate for
children and containing difficult
words. This is the......
To indicate an ambiguous meaning in the sentence. To indicate that the paragraph is not complete yet.
3. DE
? →
To question the idea in the paragraph. To check and focus on certain part.
4. ED
√ To switch the arrangement of the words.
To emphasize the interesting points.
The bracket in indirect feedback was used to give a mark to certain part. For example, the teacher used bracket to ask the students‟ arguments on the
paragraph. Line and arrow also showed an error in the word or sentence or paragraph i
n students‟ writing. Then, question mark “?” became the most commonly used in indirect feedback because this mark is to ask about unclear
66 meaning of things on students‟ writing. The last was check mark to inform the
students that certain part was good and interesting or add something on the sentence.
From the data analysis, the findings presented the same result as the direct feedback that the teacher in classes A, B, D, E, F used indirect feedback on their
written feedback. Table 4.9 presented the finding of the frequency the use of indirect feedback to find out the kinds on teachers‟ written feedback in Critical
Reading and Writing II.
Table 4.9 The Frequency of the Use of Indirect Feedback
No. Teacher
of Class Underline
Circle Code
Mark Total
Students A
B C
D E A
B C
D E A B C D E A B C D E
1. A
3 10
3 2
8 3
11 5
- 5
3 2 3 1 - -
- 1 2 1
63 2.
B 17
8 26
17 5 11
10 7
2 -
2 1 6 5 3 - 1 2 2 -
125 3.
C -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
- -
4. D
7 7
2 6
9 4
13 2
5 4
2 1 1 2 5 2 3 2 2 2 81
5. E
- 2
6 7
3 6
7 11
5 15 1 1 -
1 5 2 3 1 2 - 78
6. F
7 2
2 10
8 5
5 1
3 2
4 3 2 4 2 - 1 -
- -
61
Total frequency of indirect feedback
408
The teacher in class A tended to use underline for the indirect feedback in his class 26 times on 5 students‟ writing. However he also used circle on the
word or sentence 24 times, code 9 times, and certain mark 4 times. Next, the teacher in
class B had the largest number of using indirect feedback on students‟ writing. She used underline 73 times, circle 30 times, code 17 times, and
mark 4 times. It was the largest number of using indirect feedback of teacher‟s written feedback in Critical Reading and Writing II Class.
67 On the other hand, the teacher in class C did not use the form of indirect
feedback at all because the focus of his written feedback was on the content. Furthermore, the teacher in class D used indirect feedback such as underline 31
times, circle 28 times, code 11 times, and mark 11 times for 5 students‟ writing. Then, the teacher in class E also used all of the components of indirect
feedback for her written feedback such as underline 18 times, circle 44 times, code 8 times, and mark 8 times. The last teacher that used indirect feedback on
students‟ writing was the teacher in class F. In the same way, the teacher in class A was the same teacher in class F. He used indirect feedback such as underline
29 times, circle 16 times, code 15 times, and mark 1 times. In table 4.4 and table 4.9 of frequency above, the researcher recognized the
forms of teachers‟ written feedback that was used in Critical Reading and Writing II Class. A total of 159 times of
direct feedback was given on students‟ writing. However, a total of 408 times of indirect feedback was given on students‟ writing.
It showed that all of the teachers in Critical Reading and Writing II Class tended to use the kind of indirect feedback.
On the other hand, the researcher also found that direct feedback was also used in the teacher‟s written feedback. Based on the kinds of feedback, all of the
teachers in Critical Reading and Writing II class combined two kinds of feedback on students‟ writing, direct and indirect feedback. Srichanyachon 2012, p. 11
states that a combination of direct feedback and indirect feedback can be used for students in large mixed ability classes the same as in Critical Reading and Writing
II Class.
68
2. Types of Teacher’s Written Feedback
