TEACHER ERROR FEEDBACK EFFECT ON THE ACCURACY OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING AT THE FIRST-GRADE OF SMAN 1 PRINGSEWU

ABSTRACT

TEACHER ERROR FEEDBACK EFFECT ON THE ACCURACY OF STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING AT THE FIRST-GRADE OF

SMAN 1 PRINGSEWU

Ferry Yun Kurniawan

This research is done in order to see whether or not there is a significant difference of the accuracy of students’ descriptive writing between those who have been given teacher error feedback and those who have not. In other words, this research is intended to find out whether or not teacher error feedback has positive effect on students’ descriptive writing accuracy which focuses on grammatical errors in writing task at the first-grade of SMAN 1 Pringsewu.

The subjects of the research are the students of class X.1 and X.2 at the first-grade of SMAN 1 Pringsewu in even semester of the academic year 2011/2012. The research deals with two classes. One class functioned as control class and the other as experimental class at which the teacher error feedback was given. The research uses writing task as the instrument to collect the data of students’ descriptive writing accuracy. In addition, the researcher utilized Error Free T-units per T-Units ( EFT/T) ratio developed by Hunt to measure the students’ accuracy.

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The result data show that there is a significant difference of the students’ descriptive writing accuracy between students who are given the teacher error feedback and those who are not. In measuring the students’ accuracy, EFT/T (Error Free T-units per total number of T-Units) ratio developed by Hunt was used. There are two drafts taken as the data for accuracy measurement and analysis of the means shows that the mean score of experimental class is greater than that of the control class. It also gives a clear view that the experimental class has a better improvement of accuracy, seeing from the improvement of mean, than that of control class has. There is an improvement of mean in the experimental class from draft 1 (pre-feedback) to draft 3, from 64.36 to 72.26 (7.9 point of enhancement). There is also an improvement of mean score in the control class from draft 1 to draft 3, from 62.53 to 65.43 (2.9 point of enhancement). It can be concluded that Teacher Error Feedback has positive effect on the students’ descriptive writing accuracy when grammatical errors are taken into account.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Praise Lord Jesus Christ the Almighty and Merciful God, for continuously blessing the researcher with health, and faith so that the researcher is finally able to finish this script as one of the requirements for graduating from Language and Arts Department of the Teacher Training and Education Faculty in The University of Lampung. The script is entitled “Teacher Error Feedback Effect on The Accuracy of Students’ Descriptive Writing at The First-Grade of SMAN 1 Pringsewu”.

The researcher would like to humbly convey his thousands gratitude to many people who have given suggestions, constructing advices and facilitate the researcher in finishing the script. First, he presents his esteem to Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd., his first advisor, and Dra. Rosita SP, M.A., his second advisor, who have furnished their best constructing reviews, suggestions, and corrections during the attainment of the script. Then, he wants to devote his gratefulness to his examiner, Drs. Sudirman, M.Pd., for his kind contribution and revision.

His thankfulness is also due to the Headmaster of SMAN 1 Pringsewu, in which the researcher conducted his research, and all beloved students of class X.1 and X.2 for their participation in the research.

The writer also would like to allot his appreciations to his beloved companions of English ’07, especially Dian Irawan, Romandani Adyan, Deri Herdawan, Lilis Fauziah, Rio Allen Wicaksi, Silvia Agustina, Cinthia Astri Liona, Karisma, Jaka Dirgantara, Nopri, my younger mate Ahmad Yudi Wahyudin, and the late Akhirman. Thank you so much for all encouragement, arguments, and supports since his very first year in this study program.

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The researcher’s grateful love and unspeakable respect go to his benevolent mother, Suminem, and father, Tumaryono, thank you for your prayers, reinforcement, and willingness to wait for the researcher’s graduation. His thankfulness is also due to his brother, Feb Setianto, for the cheering and encouragement.

Hopefully, this script would give a positive contribution to the educational development and to those who want to carry out further research.

Bandar Lampung, July 2012

I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Problem

One indicator of an educational institution success in producing high-quality output is reflected in the achievement of the students or the score obtained on every subject including English.

English is learnt since elementary school up to university. However, the problem arises: though the students have been learning English ever since they were in the elementary school, the result or the achievement of the students found in many cases are still considerably low, especially when it comes to writing skill. As we know, writing is the last language skill from the order of skills that should be mastered by pupils. Perhaps the reason why writing is difficult for most of the students is because this skill is the combination of other aspects of language and language skills themselves.

Writing, unlike speaking, is not an ability we acquire naturally, even in our first language - it has to be taught. Unless L2 learners are explicitly taught how to write in the new language, their writing skills are likely to be left behind as their speaking progresses. Learners also need to be aware of and use the conventions of the type of texts in the new language.

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Writing deals mainly with the accuracy of the used words, grammar and other linguistics aspects so that its meaning can easily be understood by readers. The problem that often occurs is that the students use the grammar of their native language and then mold it to their English writing.

Feedback plays a central role in developing writing proficiency among second language learners. Based on the researcher’s experience during his field practice (PPL) at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung in 2011, this was especially true for academic writing since the goal of writing instruction in this course is to teach both the conventions of writing in a particular academic context as well as the grammatical forms needed to perform writing tasks. In this regard, students strive hard to meet the writing demands of the course and the preferences of their writing teachers. As mandated by the curriculum after completing the courses, in this particular case, writing courses the students have to be able to write certain types of texts accurately and acceptably. Based on observations and interview with the English teacher and also the students of SMAN 1 Pringsewu, this problem also happens there.

Feedback demands the existence of gaps between what has been learned and what will hopefully get as the target competence of the learners, and the efforts undertaken to bridge these gaps. This feedback is given to ask for further information, to direct, to suggest, or requests for revision, to give students new information that will help them revise, and to give positive feedback about what the students have done well. Feedback also comes in various linguistic forms, may

be in questions, statements, imperatives, or exclamations, and comments. In introducing claims, criticism, and suggestions teachers should rely on evidence

from facts proved by seeing the students’ writing and errors that occur. In relation

to giving the feedback, hedging plays role as to soften teachers’ criticism and suggestion so that the comments (feedbacks) do not discourage the students. Hedging may come up with many labels such as compromisers, downtoners, weakeners, and softeners. For example, instead of saying that the students’ writings are wrong, it can be hedged by saying: Your writing seems to be unique. Perhaps you should read more on the adjective uses in descriptive text. Such labels include lexical verbs (e.g.: seem, tend, appear), modals (e.g.: may, might) and some adverbs (probably, perhaps), although condition clauses, passive voices, and impersonal phrases have also been included.

From the researcher’s experience during his field-practice (PPL) in 2011 at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung, the feedback that would likely to occur is in the form of suggestions and comments. The feedback is likely considered as to help students in developing their skill in writing. This probably due to the condition that the students in SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung should be more active in learning lessons as instructed in most RSBI schools. The researcher observed that when teachers acted as motivator in teaching –learning process the students would be more actively involved. During the PPL, the researcher improved the way feedback used to be given by the teacher. The teacher mostly used to employ indirect feedback yet without hedging and students considered it to be a little too

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especially in the class which the researcher taught, students had already been given the feedback particularly in writing sections. The feedback given, again, was considered a little too ‘harsh’ by the students for it was given inside the class. The form of feedback that occurred during the researcher’s PPL is probably due to the lesser role of the teacher in RSBI curriculum, hence the suggestive comments form of feedback would arise.

Why teacher error feedback is chosen? Some research findings indicate that students prefer error feedback from teachers since they believe that they will benefit greatly from it (Leki, 1991; Radecki and Swales, 1988; Straub, 1997). Furthermore, from the researcher’s experience during field-practice (PPL), it was found that the peer-to-peer error feedback did not make them comfortable since they had to judge their own friends’ writings and they were not confident with their English skill for giving such error feedback.

After taking a closer look on previous experts’ researches, then the researcher see that teachers’ error feedback on students’ L2 writing has always been considered an essential element in writing courses, especially when learners go through a multiple-draft process.

The researcher chose SMAN 1 Pringsewu because he wanted to serve and develop English teaching in SMAN 1 Pringsewu from which the researcher had graduated in 2007. In addition, the students’ ability in writing shows problems that are similar to what the researcher found in SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung during his PPL

in 2011. Furthermore, the researcher expected that findings of the research would be used in order to develop the English teaching in school from which the researcher started to love and learn English.

Pursuant to the background, this research is entitled: Teacher Error Feedback Effect on the Accuracy of Students’ Descriptive Writing at the First – Grade of SMAN 1 Pringsewu

1.2 Formulation of Problem

Based on the background above, the researcher formulates the problem as follow: Is there any effect of teacher error feedback on the accuracy of students’ descriptive writing of class X SMAN 1 Pringsewu?

1.3 Objective

The objective of this research is to find out whether Teacher Error Feedback has effect on the accuracy of students’ descriptive writing of class X SMAN 1 Pringsewu.

1.4 Uses

1. Theoretically, to enrich the relevant science related to the improvement of

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2. Practically, to give a consideration and information to teacher or related parties in education that Teacher Error Feedback can or cannot be used to

improve students’ writing accuracy.

1.5 Scope of the Research

This is an associative study that attempts to identify the relationship and effect of

Teacher Error Feedback on students’ descriptive writing accuracy. Because of the researcher limitation, then the study mainly focuses on the effect that teacher error feedback has towards students’ descriptive writing accuracy and therefore any

errors that occurs on the students’ writing are considered as error in general and not to be classified into more detailed description. Students of class X.1 and X.2 in SMAN 1 Pringsewu are taken as participants of this study. The research is conducted with two groups: experimental group and control group. The researcher uses writing task as instrument for collecting data, then students would have to

revise their writing. In experimental group, the students’ writing was given error feedback from the teacher while in control group teacher error feedback was not given. This was done as to distinguish and to see whether or not the treatment, i.e.

teacher error feedback, has significant effect on students’ descriptive writing accuracy progress.

1.6 Definition of Terms 1.6.1 Feedback

Feedback is a response either to the content of what a student has produced or to the form of the written utterances. Krashen ( 1987) states that when the focus is on forms, it is supposed to help learners to reflect on the wrong forms and finally produce right forms. Teacher error feedback and peer feedback are two forms of feedback widely used in assessing writing, especially when multiple drafts are involved.

1.6.2 Accuracy

Accuracy is the ability to be free from any errors while using language to communicate. Accuracy refers to how correct students' use of the language system is, including their use of grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. Accuracy is often compared to fluency when we talk about a student's level of speaking or writing. Accuracy in writing may mean facilitating students with activities of writing using the following features:

1. Adverbs; 2. Articles; 3. Conjunctions; 4. Formality in verbs; 5. Modal verbs;

6. Nouns and adjectives;

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8. Passives;

9. Prefixes and suffixes; 10. Prepositions;

11. Punctuation;

12. Relative pronouns; that / which 13. Singular / plural;

14. Tenses;

1.6.3 Error in Grammar

Error is a part of conversation or a composition that deviates from some norm of language performances. It can also be seen as a systematic deviation that happens when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong. In a simpler way to say, error is different from mistake in that mistake is a slip which students can self-correct whilst error is what learners can not self-correct.

1.6.4 Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is an activity of presenting to the readers of how something looks, sounds, and tastes in a written form. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description also deals with other kinds of perception, as when we are describing a condition of a broken-heart young man or when we are trying to invite the readers to feel the weather when a storm strikes.

There are two broad kinds of descriptive writing: objective and subjective. In objective description, the writer sets aside those aspects of the perception unique to himself and concentrates on describing the percept (that is, what is perceived) in itself. In subjective (also called impressionistic) the description is a writer projection of his or her feelings into the percept. Objective description says, ‘This

is how the thing is’; subjective states, ‘This is how the thing seems to one

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter would deal with review of previous research related to writing, particularly descriptive writing; theoretical assumption and hypotheses; and mainly with teacher error feedback.

2.1 Writing Skill

Writing is assumed as a rational activity (Kane, 2000). Rational means nothing more than that it is an exercise of mind requiring the mastery of techniques anyone can learn. Basically, anyone can write. By learning and mastering the techniques of writing one can write and share his/her ideas. However, there are obvious limitations. Students cannot learn to write like geniuses. Yet we do not need to be a genius to be able to write clear and effective English. We just need to know how to understand words and sentences combined in paragraphs and how to share and communicate with others through writing. If it is accomplished, then we will be able to write in such a way that people understand what we are talking about in our writing.

Besides rational, writing is also a valuable activity, and thus, worth learning (Kane, 2000). It is of immediate practical benefit in almost any job or professional career. Certainly there are many jobs in which we can get along without being able to write clearly. However, if we know how to write, we will get along faster and further. There are also a growing number of institutions that require their employee to be able to write in English. Some universities and colleges, for instance, demand their lecturers and / or staffs to be able to publish their writing in journal of science. Moreover, if we have published many of our writings in such journal, the scholarship for higher degree of education awaits us. We can also see the benefit of writing skill is to earn money. Many great writers make their fortune from writing though they never expected to be as fortunate as he/she is.

Moreover, Kane (2000) proposes a more profound value of writing. He claims that we create ourselves by words. Before we are business people or lawyers or engineers or teachers, we are human beings. Our growth as human beings depends on our capacity to understand and to use language. Writing is a way of growing.

More specific definition of writings are offered by authors such as Raimes (1987), who defines writing as a form of expression of feelings, ideas, propositions, or the conveyance of specific message for specific effect(s), using a graphic system arranged into words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and so on.

The various purposes a writer may have on his or her writings—to inform, to persuade, to entertain—result in different kinds of prose. The most common is

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prose that informs, which, depending on what it is about, is called exposition, description, or narration. This study will specifically deal with description or descriptive writing.

2.2 Descriptive Writing

Description, or descriptive writing, is about sensory experience—how something looks, sounds, tastes (Kane, 2000). Mostly it is about visual experience, but description also deals with other kinds of perception, as when we’re describing a condition of a break-hearted young man or when we are trying to invite the readers to feel the weather when a storm strikes.

Kane (2000) divides descriptive writing into two broad kinds: objective and subjective. In objective description, the writer sets aside those aspects of the perception unique to himself and concentrates on describing the percept (that is, what is perceived) in itself. In subjective (also called impressionistic) description a writer projects his or her feelings into the percept. Objective description says,

‘This is how the thing is’; subjective, ‘This is how the thing seems to one particular consciousness’.

Neither kind of description is more ‘honest.’ Both are (or can be) true, but they are

true in different ways. The truth of objective description lies in its relationship to fact; that of subjective in relationship to feeling or evaluation. Subjective

an accurate report. If we do not agree with how a writer feels about something, we cannot say that the description is false. We can say only that it is not true for us— that is, that we do not share his or her feelings.

Nor are these two approaches hard-and-fast categories into which any piece of descriptive writing must fall. Most descriptions involve both, in varying degrees. Generally, however, one mode will dominate and fix the focus. In scientific and legal writing, for instance, objectivity is desirable. In personal writing subjectivity is more likely. But in both kinds, success hinges on three things: (1) details that are sharply defined images, appealing to one or another of the senses; (2) details that are selected according to a guiding principle; and (3) details that are clearly organized.

2.3 Teaching of Writing in English as a Foreign Language

The current approach to the teaching of writing focuses on what goes on when learners write and on what the teacher can do to help the learners get into the natural writing process. This approach to the teaching of writing is called the process writing approach (White and Arndt, 1991; Johnston, 1996; in Cahyono, 1999). According to this approach, writing is considered a way of learning and developing as well as a communication skill. In this perspective, before writing, writers are assumed to know only partial ideas of what they are going to write (Caudery, 1995; in Cahyono, 1999). In fact, many new ideas appear during the act of writing. In addition, the process writing approach sees that writing is a creative

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process consisting of a sequence of stages occurring recursively throughout the process and supporting on one another.

The development of the process writing approach may be attributed to two reasons. First, the process writing approach has appeared as a correction of the previous approach to writing (Johnston, 1996). In the previous product-oriented approach, students were invited to imitate a model text in order to reinforce a certain structure. The old model did not reveal how learners could achieve the product. Second, the process writing approach reflects what skilled writers do when they write. Sommers (1980) suggests that skilled writers tend to use early drafts experimentally and are willing to make substantial changes to them, while unskilled writers are much more concerned about details from the outset. Furthermore, unskilled writers are determined not to commit errors and therefore attend to them prematurely, while the more skilled writers devise strategies that allowed them to pursue the development of their ideas without being sidetracked (Raimes, 1987).

Although it has been conclusively proven that the process of writing consists of several stages, researchers classify the stages differently. The first three stages – generating ideas, focusing, and structuring – are self-explanatory activities classified as the pre-writing stage, while the writing activity starts from drafting. Drafting is concerned with how ideas can be organized and how readers can be led to a conclusion with a sense of completion. Evaluation deals with the cultivation of a sense of responsibility for being critical to the writing. Re-viewing

aims at developing critical capacities and enriching the repertoire of linguistic resources for writing.

While we can divide the writing process in various ways, it is perhaps simplest to see writing as a three-step process: pre-writing, writing, and re-writing.

Prewriting

Prewriting includes everything that a student does before beginning to draft a paper. Prewriting can be classified further into five activities: reading as a writer, generating ideas, organizing ideas, contextualizing ideas, and coming up with a working thesis.

Reading as a Writer. With most academic papers, prewriting begins with reading a text (here "text" broadly includes everything from books, to works of art, to results of scientific experiments, to cultural, social, and economic systems). Students often read these texts passively, satisfying themselves with absorbing the information in front of them. They rarely read actively, raising questions or challenging the writer as they read. Students should be encouraged to look for patterns, or to underline allusions that they don't understand.

Generating Ideas. Seasoned writing instructors offer students several strategies for generating ideas. Some of these ideas are time-tested. Others—like asking students to do free-writing, or brainstorm, or write a discovery draft (a bit like free-writing, but with more focus)—are more informal and can be used not only to come up with a topic but also to nudge a student out of a writing funk. Perhaps the best way of helping students to generate ideas is through good old-fashioned

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dialogue. Asking questions—both in conference and in writing workshops— models for students a way of interrogating their ideas that will yield better papers. With practice, students will internalize these methods of inquiry and will apply them to all of their academic tasks.

Organizing Ideas. Students have several strategies to choose from when organizing their ideas. Some students draft formal outlines and follow them faithfully as they write. Others make informal outlines that they revise as they draft. Some students look for umbrella ideas and try to cluster related ideas beneath them. Still others write short paragraphs to try to summarize their thinking. While students should be permitted to use the organizing strategies that work for them, sometimes young writers rely overmuch on one organizational strategy.

Contextualizing Ideas. Sometimes students do not have a good sense of where their argument fits in the ongoing academic conversation, and so they cannot see the point (or the structure) of their paper.

Coming up with a Working Thesis. The last step in the prewriting process is coming up with a working thesis (or thesis question). Students should post the thesis where they can see it as they write: this sentence, if well crafted, will help them to stay focused on the argument they are trying to make. At this stage, they have only a working thesis—most writers revise their theses as they go, in order to accommodate shifts in perspectives and new ideas.

Writing / Drafting

To begin to write is a difficult task. Most young writers suffer from one of three tendencies: 1) they are perfectionists and so keep writing the same first sentence again and again, trying to get it right; 2) they are terrified of making a decision and so continue to stare at the page as the clock ticks on; or 3) they see writing simply as the process of getting what's in their head onto the page. Once they've done a "brain dump" they think that the paper is finished. None of these writing strategies will yield a good paper in a timely fashion.

Students need to understand that writing tends to happen in two stages: first they write to express themselves, then they write to make sense for their readers. More experienced writers have learned how to conflate the two stages into one, crafting their sentences and paragraphs as they write so that they express their ideas in ways that will engage their readers. Students, however, will need to understand that, for young writers, there are many drafts between the first and the last. In this way, writing is always rewriting.

Writing is also understood by experienced writers as a recursive process. As writers draft, they discover new ideas and unexpected problems. At these junctures, they may have to return to earlier processes: they may brainstorm, re-sketch their ideas, and rewrite their outlines. They will inevitably revise or refine their theses. Some young writers will find this process discouraging. By modeling it as normal—or even as necessary—teacher can support students as they struggle through the writing process.

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Feedback is given on this stage of writing process. It can take on different forms

according to teachers’ preferences, students’ proficiency level, types of writing

tasks, and the stages of writing process (Hyland, 2003). Two major forms of feedback that are known to take place in recent teaching of writing are feedback on grammatical errors and feedback on contents.

Rewriting / Revising

After the students are being given the feedback then the next stage is rewriting / revising. Rewriting a paper is, for some students, even more difficult than writing it. Substantive revision requires that students re-envision their papers, trying to understand how readers understand (or misunderstand) them.

Most first-year students could benefit from a discussion of general reader expectations. The students need to be asked to consider: Why do paragraphs require topic sentences? Because readers expect them. Where do they expect to find them? Generally at or near the beginning of a paragraph. When would you make an exception? When you're using a paragraph not to support a claim but to lead a reader to it; in this case, the topic sentence might end up at the end of the paragraph. But regardless of where you put it, a topic sentence is needed to state, implicitly or explicitly, the paragraph's main idea. Why? Again, because readers expect it. Can this expectation be violated? Sure. But you need to craft the paragraph exceptionally well if you're going to violate your reader's expectations.

Readers' expectations can also help students to revise their style. For instance, readers expect to find the main idea of a sentence in the main clause. If you've placed it elsewhere, the reader will have to work to figure out what you're trying

to say. Indeed, many of the problems in a paper can be worked out if students spend more time considering readers' expectations regarding style.

2.4 Feedback Provision

As stated before, feedback in recent teaching of writing may occur in form of grammatical error feedback and content feedback. While the types of feedback that are likely to occur in recent teaching of writing are teacher-student conferencing, peer feedback, and teacher written error feedback.

Feedback on Grammatical Errors

It cannot be denied that responding to students' errors is time consuming and tedious. In the day-to-day teaching of composition, language teachers are likely to find that errors are the most exasperating aspect of students' writing. Exercises in the classroom and low marks given to the students seem to do little to reduce the rate of errors effectively. However, it does not mean that students' composition containing grammatical errors should be left without giving any feedback or correction, as Truscott (1996) suggests. Truscott emphasizes that grammar correction should be abandoned because of its harmful effects and arguable roles in a writing course. Truscott's strong opinion has invited some arguments from other researchers. Ferris (1999) for example, argues that Truscott has defined error correction vaguely as correction of grammatical errors for the purpose of improving a student's ability to write accurately. Everyone seems to agree that poorly done correction will not help students write; it may even mislead them. On

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the contrary, error correction that is selective, prioritized and clear will be helpful for student writers.

One of the studies that Truscott refers to supports his thesis about the ineffectiveness of error correction, is the study by Kepner (1991). Kepner found that message-related comments on the students' journal writing is more effective than the feedback on surface grammatical errors. However, in Kepner's study, there was no rewriting, so Kepner could not compare the performance of the students before and after they were given feedback. Error correction and explicit rule presentations on the students' paper do play a role in promoting the accuracy of the student's writing, but the students have to rewrite their paper after receiving feedback to show their awareness and understanding of the mistakes they have made.

The identification of the location of errors by the teacher appears to be an effective means of helping students correct their grammatical errors, which in turn improve the accuracy of their writing. Hendrickson (1978) suggests that the errors that should be corrected are those, which impede the intelligibility of a message. Grammatical errors in the student's composition sometimes cause a reader to misunderstand a message and sometimes make a sentence incomprehensible. Furthermore, Hendrickson argues that the least comprehensible sentences are those containing multiple errors.

Feedback on Contents

Another type of feedback that has a great influence on the improvement of the student's writing is that of feedback on content.

Kepner (1991) has compared a group receiving surface error-correction and another group receiving message-related comments. Although this study shows that feedback on content is more superior than that on error correction, this study has indicated that in order to make students improve their writing, they need feedback.

Another study which shows that feedback on content can lead learners to improve their writing is that of Semke (1984). Semke found that L2 student writers who received content-focused feedback on their writing spent more time writing and became more fluent than those whose writing received error corrections. This finding suggests that feedback on content in the students' writing enhances the progress of the students' writing.

In Semke's study, however, it is not shown how the students performed in grammar after receiving feedback in grammar. This may be because the students in the group received feedback on all the errors they made. The teachers did not seem to be selective. The grammar correction may be more effective if it is selective.

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Then come to the types of feedback in teaching of writing. The types of feedback that will be discussed here are peer feedback, teacher-student conferencing, and teacher-written error feedback, or commonly known as teacher error feedback, as these three types are the most relevant to recent study, with teacher error feedback given special attention.

Peer Feedback

Peer response is difficult to apply at lower language levels as it demands certain linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, the students need to trust each other for the peer response to be productive and sometimes cultural differences can be an obstacle. Peer feedback has been successful where the students have given each other support and advice during the writing process instead of focusing on the final product.

Teacher – student Conferencing

This type of feedback is different among others in that it is done orally. It can take the form of one-to-one activities between a teacher and a student or be held in small groups. Hyland (2003) elaborated that the interactive nature of the conference gives teachers chances to respond to the diverse cultural, educational, and writing needs of their students, clarifying meaning and resolving ambiguities, while saving them the time spent in detailed marking of papers. Especially, students at lower levels might benefit from discussions where the teacher provides guidance on how to interpret written feedback.

Teacher Error Feedback

Hyland (2003) further stressed the importance of feedback when he pointed out: A response is potentially one of the most influential texts in a process writing

class, and the point at which the teacher’s intervention is most obvious and

perhaps most crucial. Not only does this individual attention play an important part in motivating learners, it is also the point at which explicit correction and explicit language teaching are most likely to occur.

The researcher has distinguished between direct and indirect feedback strategies. Direct or explicit feedback occurs when the teacher identifies an error and provides the correct form, while indirect refers to situations when the teacher indicates that an error has been made but does not grant a correction, thereby leaving the student to detect and correct it.

A variety of techniques have been applied when providing written feedback to students. Here, three types will be addressed; written comments, rubrics, and correction codes. In this research, only written commentary was used.

Written commentary. In second language writing written commentary is considered the most common form of written feedback (Hyland, 2003). Written response has been emphasized as being more preferable to the students. The students find written response easier to work with than peer or teacher talk as the written texts are reviewable while teacher and peer talk are not.

Rubrics. Referring to Hyland (2003), rubrics are a form of commentary usually used on the final product as an assessment. One of the advantages of using rubrics is that they indicate more explicitly what aspects of the assignment are being

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assessed. Providing the students the rubrics in advance can make the students better aware of what the criteria are on which their writing will be judged. In addition, rubrics may help teachers to be more concise when assessing papers and save time for them as it simplifies the grading process.

Correction codes are a kind of written feedback which is in-text and form-based, a type of response that has been called “minimal marking” (Hyland, 2003). Correction codes utilize symbols intended to locate and give the type of error without providing the correct answer, hence intended to stimulate the student to find and spot the mistakes. One setback is that younger learners might find the codes confusing.

2.5 Teacher Error Feedback

2.5.1Arguments Against Teacher Error Feedback

Truscott (1999, 2007) argues strongly against the efficacy of grammatical feedback in L2 writing, pointing out some practical problems associated with this

practice such as the teachers’ lack of grammar knowledge, their abilities to respond to errors, and the students’ different behaviors after receiving teacher

feedback. He strongly claims that grammatical feedback from teacher would weaken the creativity and bravery of the students to use their knowledge onto their writing.

In an earlier study, Zamel (1985) had already doubted the quality of teacher feedback, finding that teachers have been neither consistent nor systematic in responding to student errors. The inconsistency itself may have resulted in confusion to the students regarding their writing and the grammatical errors. Furthermore, Cohen and Cavalcanti (1990) also found the same inconsistencies. They even discovered teacher biases, where teachers provided grammar

corrections according to the beliefs they held about a particular student’s language

abilities.

In addition, students’ responses to teachers’ feedback may also be problematic. For example, Cohen’s study (1987) found that many students had difficulties

understanding teachers’ feedback, and did not know what to do with the feedback

even if they understood it. As the researcher’s also found during his field-practice (PPL) in 2011, the students did not understand the feedback if stated in indirect feedback, i.e. the feedback that stated only as to note that there are errors on the writing without telling what the errors are. In providing indirect feedback, some teachers tend to code mistakes to indicate the precise location and type of error, while others provide uncoded feedback that simply locates the error without

disclosing the error type. Usually with uncoded feedback, it becomes the student’s

task to diagnose and correct the mistake. Nevertheless, they seem to be unaware of the errors they made and not knowing how to deal with it.

In a more recent study, Fazio (2001) has found that because of “the limited

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actually impede students’ ability to write accurately. Hence, researcher may think that the core problem is the lack of the attention of the students to pay attention to the error corrections feedback from the teachers.

Cohen and Cavalcanti (1990) pose that teachers and students need to work more on establishing agreement between their separate agenda for feedback and on expanding the repertoire of strategies learners need to employ for maximum benefit from the feedback provided.

In Kepner’s (1991) experiment, students were provided with two types of written feedback: message-related comments and surface error-corrections. The experiment found that the consistent use of L2 teachers’ written error-corrections as a primary medium of written feedback was ineffective in L2 writing, whether for higher-proficiency or for lower-proficiency learners.

In contrast, the consistent use of message-related comments was effective for promoting both overall quality and surface-level accuracy. Nevertheless, the study needs to be examined closely. As surface error-corrections addressed errors only at the sentence level, they naturally did not lead to improvement in the content of student writing. Also, students were not required to produce a new draft incorporate the teachers’ corrections. Thus, the effect of error correction was minimized. Instead, message-related comments addressed more of the high-level concerns, thus it helped students improve the content of the writing.

From Zamel, Cohen and Cavalcanti, Fazio, and also Kepner we can examine that teacher error feedback does not have bad effect as long as some points elaborated above are closely put into consideration. Zamel suggests that the problems are the inconsistency and that the responses are not systematically prepared and done by the teachers. Cohen and Cavalcanti further add that the lack of students’ understanding of what need to do after getting the error feedback, the lack of agreement on the separate agenda of teachers and students, and the lack of understanding towards the expansion of repertoire of strategies learners need to employ as the problems that mostly occur. Furthermore, Fazio declares that the limited attention students paid to the corrections has made teacher error feedback ineffective to do. No matter how often and how good the feedbacks are, as long as

there is a barrier that caused the students’ attention paid to the corrections is

limited, then it would be ineffective.

Kepner strongly recommends that the consistent use of L2 teachers’ written error -corrections as primary medium for written feedback in L2 writing being ineffective and that it caused the problem arose.

2.5.2 Arguments for Teacher Error Feedback

Ferris (1999, 2006) strongly rejected Truscott’s views, and argued for error correction to be continued because most students value teachers’ feedback. This

belief was confirmed in Zacharias’ study (2007), where students were found to prefer teacher feedback to other forms of feedback.

28

Apparently, as the researcher also saw and experienced during the field-practice (PPL) in 2011, students believed more in the competency of the teachers rather than their classmates as they were given constructive comments regarding to the grammatical errors of their writing. This is probably because they are also lack of mastery in English grammar.

In addition, Ferris points out the adverse effects that errors can have on the quality

of students’ writing, especially for students who are writing for academic purposes. As noted by Ferris (1999), grammar errors can jeopardize the overall evaluation of the composition for most academic contexts, as teachers at the

university level are “less tolerant of typical ESL errors than of typical native

speaker errors”.

Furthermore, Ferris stresses the importance for learners to develop the habit of revising their own writing. She mentioned that if teachers do not provide an adequate amount of feedback, it will be extremely difficult for students to revise on their own, even when they perceive the importance of editing.

Fathman and Whalley (1990) further reiterate that revision in and of itself has a positive effect on the quality and accuracy of the students’ written output. Findings of these studies offer help to writing teachers in making informed choices in providing feedback to learners.

Ferris, Pezone, Tade, and Tinti (1997) have found significant variation in the

teachers’ commentary across different essay assignments given to students with

different proficiency levels. They conclude that teachers’ feedback goes beyond whether a teacher responds to “content” or “form,” instead the substance and form

of teacher responses vary significantly depending upon the genre of writing being considered and the abilities and personality of individual students.

Treglia’s study (2009) shows that students understand and are able to address corrections whether feedback is indirect/hedged or direct, assuring writing teachers that mitigating their comments will not affect the clarity of its intent. In a similar study, Treglia claims that mitigation serves as a “face-saving” technique and a tool to motivate and engage students actively in the revision process.

Bitchener, Young, and Cameron’s (2005: 313) investigation reveals that direct oral feedback in combination with direct written feedback did not only have a greater effect than direct written feedback alone on improved accuracy over time, but it also found that the combined feedback option facilitated improvement in the

more “treatable” rule-governed features (past simple tense and definite article) than in the less “treatable” feature (prepositions). Moreover, they believe that upper intermediate L2 writers can improve the accuracy of their use of rule-governed linguistic features if they are regularly exposed to oral and written corrective feedback.

30

Bitchener and Knoch’s (2008) query on the extent to which different written

corrective feedback options (direct corrective feedback, written and oral meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback and written meta-meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback only; no corrective feedback) improve

students’ accuracy in the use of two functional uses of the English article system.

The study shows that (1) students who received all three written corrective feedback options outperformed those who did not receive written feedback, (2)

students’ level of accuracy was retained over seven weeks, and (3) there was no difference in the extent to which migrant and international students improved the accuracy of their writing as a result of written corrective feedback.

A number of studies on error correction in L2 writing classes have shown that students receiving error feedback from teachers improve in accuracy over time (Hyland, 2003; Chandler, 2003). Hyland (2003) observed six ESL writers on a full-time 14-week English proficiency program course at a university. It was found that feedback focusing on form was used by most of the students in their immediate revisions to their drafts and was highly valued by them. The case

studies suggest that some language errors may be “treatable” through feedback.

With experimental and control group data, Chandler (2003) shows that teachers’ feedback on students’ grammatical and lexical errors resulted in a significant improvement in both accuracy and fluency in subsequent writing of the same type

over the same semester. This finding disproves Truscott’s (1999) claim on the

negative effect of error correction on fluency.

Lee (2009) reveals a number of mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practice in written feedback, namely, (1) teachers pay most attention to language form but

they believe there’s more to good writing than accuracy, (2) teachers mark errors comprehensively although selective marking is preferred, (3) teachers tend to correct and locate errors for students but believe that through teacher feedback students learn to correct and locate their own errors, (4) teachers use error codes although they think students have a limited ability to decipher the codes, (5) teachers award scores/grades to student writing although they are almost certain that marks/grades draw student attention away from teacher feedback, (6) teachers respond mainly to weakness in student writing although they know that feedback

should cover both strengths and weaknesses, (7) teachers’ written feedback

practice allows students little room to take control although teachers think students learn to take greater responsibility for learning, (8) teachers ask students to do one-shot writing although they think process writing is beneficial, (9) teachers continue to focus on student written errors although they know that mistakes will recur, and (10) teachers continue to mark student writing in the ways they do although they think their effort does not pay off. In an earlier investigation made by Lee (2004), results show that teachers and students preferred comprehensive error feedback, and that the students were reliant on teachers in error correction.

32

2.6 Theoretical Assumption and Hypotheses

To write an accurate text is not a skill that learners easily master. In order to be able to write a text accurately students need to avoid errors in their writing. If, somehow, the errors occur then the students prefer to have suggestions on how to revise their writing. The researcher’s experience during his PPL confirms this as well as other experts’ researches.

Teacher error feedback as a technique used to encourage and give the students a

‘hint’ of what they need to do to revise their writing has been in a disputation for years. For those who argue for it to be implemented, like Truscott (1999, 2007) see that it would weaken the creativity and bravery of the students to utilize their knowledge onto their writing. While for those who support teacher error feedback, like Ferris (1999, 2006) notice that most students value teachers’ feedback and they benefit from it.

Pursuant to the background from the previous chapter, the literature review, and also the previous statements then the researcher assumed that students would profit from teacher error feedback regarding to the accuracy of their writing. The researcher, hence, took position as to prove that teacher error feedback has effect

on the accuracy of students’ writing, in this particular case, descriptive writing.

Thus, the researcher proposed the hypothesis that teacher error feedback has positive effect on the students’ descriptive writing accuracy.

III. RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

The aim of this research is to find out the effect of teacher error feedback on the

accuracy of the students’ descriptive writing of class X SMA Negeri 1 Pringsewu. The appropriate research method corresponded to the objectives of the research is associative research with pre-post non-equivalent groups design. It is structured like a pretest-posttest randomized experiment, but it lacks the key feature of the randomized designs -- random assignment. Here, by non-equivalent, means that assignment to group was not random. In other words, the researcher did not control the assignment to groups through the mechanism of random assignment. The design can be visualized as follow:

NE G1 X T1 NE G2 0 T1 Where:

NE : Symbol stating the design is with non-equivalent groups G1 : Experimental group

G2 : Control group X : Treatment

34

3.2 Population and Sample

The population of the research was all of class X students in SMA Negeri 1 Pringsewu in 2011/2012 academic year. The researcher chose class X because it is assumed that they had just graduated from junior high school so that they had not been given many writing exposures just yet. There were four classes of class X with 28-30 students in each class. Two groups of senior high-school students in class X.1 and X.2 each of which consisting of thirty students were taken as the sample out of the student population in school.

The sampling technique used in this research was purposive sampling. The researcher considers this technique as the technique of sampling that gives similar opportunity for every members of the population to be selected to become the samples. Ideally, random sampling should be used yet since it was almost impossible to do in the research at this particular condition because it was so hard to pick certain students and mix them with other samples, so the random sampling was not used.

3.3 Research Procedure

1. Determining the Population and Selecting the Samples

The population of this research was the first year of SMAN 1 Pringsewu in the 2011/2012 academic year consisted of four classes. Two classes were taken as the sample. The sample class was selected using purposive random sampling.

2. Administering Writing Task

The next step taken was conducting the writing assessment to the students to see their accuracy score or error-free T-units ratio. The students in both classes then made revision of their first draft then revise again up to the third draft. The difference of the accuracy from first draft to the third draft was seen as the effect of the treatment, i.e., the teacher error feedback.

3. Analyzing, Interpreting, and Concluding the Data

After collecting the data of the accuracy of the students’ writing, then analyzing, interpreting, and concluding the data was performed.

First, the data obtained from the task were tabulated and calculated. Independent t-test was then used to see if the hypothesis are accepted or rejected.

3.4 Instrument

The instrument used in this research was writing task. The task consisted of a picture that students should describe into relatively short descriptive writing (200

– 400 words). Students’ writings then were checked in terms of grammatical errors for its accuracy. The errors or inaccuracy then were counted. After being checked then the students revised their writings based on teacher’s suggestion, except for control group where there was no written feedback given.

36

3.5 Measuring Writing Accuracy

Wolfe-Quintero et al. (1998) define accuracy simply as “the ability to be free from

errors while using language to communicate”. Since the primary question in this

study deals with the effect of the treatment on linguistic accuracy, the measure favored most by Wolfe-Quintero et al. was used with the hope that it would

present a complementary picture of students’ writing performance. The measure of accuracy they favor most and recommend is the error-free T-unit ratio (EFT/T), or the total number of error-free T-units per total number of T-units in a given piece of writing. For convenience and uniformity in this study, this measure is converted to a 100-point scale. Thus, this measure of overall accuracy is calculated as (EFT/T) multiplied by 100. Since this measure utilizes the T-unit, a brief discussion of the T-unit may be useful.

The T-unit ratio was originally developed by Hunt (1965) as a way of measuring writing maturity to overcome problems associated with using sentences as units of production. Hunt defines a T-unit as “one main clause plus the subordinate clauses

attached to or embedded within it”. For example, the two-word sentence Bill went contains one main or independent clause and would be considered one T-unit. On the other hand, consider an expanded version of this sentence: Before coming home, Bill went to the library. Though this sentence also contains a subordinate or dependent clause, it would still be counted as only one T-unit.

However, consider one additional expansion, although erroneously punctuated: Before coming home, Bill went to the library and he checked out several books

and he went to his apartment and he studied most of the night. Though punctuated as one sentence by the writer, it actually contains four T-units as identified in the following breakdown: (a) Before coming home, Bill went to the library, (b) he checked out several books, (c) he went to his apartment, and (d) he studied most of the night. Thus, analyzing T-units rather than sentences provides the researcher with a more stable measure of writing development.

For the purposes of this study, run-on sentences were analyzed according to the number of T-units they contained. However, each T-unit needed to have an appropriate form of punctuation preceding and following it before it could be considered error free. For example, if a run-on sentence contained three T-units but lacked appropriate punctuation that would have correctly separated the units, then the run-on would be counted as three units with no error-free T-units. Of course, it should be remembered that the presence of any type of error would make a particular T-unit ineligible to be counted as an EFT. Where multiple T-units were stung together with coordinating conjunctions (i.e. and, or, but), the conjunctions were counted in the T-unit that followed it. Using the EFT/T in this way provided one consistent, objective measure of overall accuracy of student writing.

In this research, as previously stated in limitation of the research, only grammatical error family was used to analyze students’ writing accuracy, including but not limited to, sentence structure errors; determiner errors; verb errors; and semantic errors. Sentence structure errors deals with sentence-surface

38

errors, namely, run on sentences (sentences which too long and may need to be fragmented), incomplete sentences, and sentence-level punctuation (comma, period, etc). Determiner errors are related to the misuses of articles (a, an, the), possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, their, our), numbers, indefinite pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns. Verb errors are concurrent with subject-verb agreement, and verb tense. Semantic errors are in accordance to unclear meaning, awkwardness, word order, and insertion/omission.

3.6 Statistical and Hypothesis Testing

Associative research was performed to obtain necessary data, including the coefficient correlation. The writing instruction was given as to obtain the students’ writing accuracy level and to notice the improvement of the accuracy level after being given the feedback (in experimental class).

As stated previously, the researcher used Hunt’s T-Units to measure students’ overall accuracy in their writings, as suggested by Quintero et al. The measure was used with the hope that it would give a picture of students’ overall accuracy.

The research has one hypothesis, as stated below in the null form: There is no effect of teacher error feedback on students’ writing accuracy This hypothesis was tested using Independent Groups T-Test.

The research employed two groups: control and experimental class. Thus, independent groups T-Test will be used to compare mean from these two different groups both of which taken in different situation. In control class there will be no feedback given, while in experimental class teacher error feedback will be given. In T-Test, there are some basic assumptions need to be fulfilled, they are:

1. The data must be interval or ratio data ( or changing ordinal data to interval data)

2. The data comes from random sample from a population 3. The data has normal distribution

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

This final chapter proposes the conclusion of the study and some suggestions for further research.

5.1 Conclusion

In reference to the discussion of the research in the previous chapter, the researcher comes to the following conclusion:

There is a positive effect of teacher error feedback towards the students’

descriptive writing accuracy. We can see that from the improvement difference of mean (7.9 enhancement point and 2.9 enhancement point for experimental and control class respectively) between these two classes. There is also a difference in accuracy between students who have been given teacher error feedback and those who have not. It can be noticed from a significant difference of results between

students’ descriptive writing accuracy of those who have been given teacher error feedback and those who have not. It also can be seen from the result that the mean score for Draft 3 of experimental class’ students (72.26) is higher than the mean of

control class’ students (65.43). The difference can also be observed in the improvement of the mean between both classes. There is an enhancement of mean

in the experimental class from Draft 1 (pre-feedback) to Draft 3, from 64.36 to 72.26 (7.9 point of enhancement). There is also an increase of mean in the control class from Draft 1 to Draft 3, from 62.53 to be 65.43 (2.9 point of enhancement).

The result of this research confirms previous experts’ researches that teacher error feedback is indeed has positive effect and very useful in improving students’ descriptive writing accuracy.

5.2 Suggestions

In accordance to the conclusions above, the researcher would like to give some suggestions as follow:

1. Suggestion for the Teacher

Since the study shows that teacher error feedback, and to be more specific,

written feedback has effect towards students’ writing accuracy then it may

be put into consideration to be used if the teacher wants to improve the

students’ accuracy on descriptive writing. This can be done by giving the students the indirect written feedback from the teacher as the one done in this research.

61

2. Suggestions for Further Research

a. In this research, the researcher has only utilized Descriptive writing task as the tool to measure students’ writing accuracy. Further researcher can employ wider types of text to get more reliable data

about the students’ accuracy in other types of text.

b. The statistical test reveals significant effects of the treatment on overall accuracy. Since the research has limitation, it may be beneficial to focus on more specific individual aspect of accuracy, such as on the lexical accuracy, semantic accuracy, etc.

c. The measurement tool used to measure students’ overall accuracy in the research is only error-free T-units per T-units ratio. Further research may use other measurement tools, such as: Polio’s Holistic Scale and Error Count with or without Classification.

STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING AT THE FIRST- GRADE OF SMAN 1 PRINGSEWU

(A Script)

By

Ferry Yun Kurniawan 0713042006

Advisor I : Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd. Advisor II : Dra. Rosita SP, M.A.

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

LANGUAGE AND ARTS DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

THE UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG

CURRICULUM VITAE

The researcher’s name is Ferry Yun Kurniawan. He was born in Pujodadi, June 18th _{1989. He is the second child of two children of a remarkable couple,} Tumaryono and Suminem.

He began his study at SD Negeri 4 Pujodadi in 1995. Having graduated from the Elementary School in 2001, he went to SLTP Negeri 1 Pringsewu and graduated in 2004. He finished his High School at SMU Negeri 1 Pringsewu in 2007. In the same year, he was registered as a college student of Lampung University at English Education Study Program, the Language and Arts Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty. He participated in PPL program in 2011 taken place at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung, he also was a teacher at Standard Gandhi English Course during the period of 2010-2011.

Beside studying and teaching, he also participated as Expert Staff in Education

Committee of Students’ Executive Board of FKIP during the period of 2011-2012. In addition, he is also active in various organizations in his hometown namely: Secretary of Karang Taruna Mekar Jaya, Secretary of Putra Sadewa FC, Manager of Putra Sadewa Junior FC, Treasurer of Relawan Pejuang Demokrasi Cabang Pardasuka, and Vice Chairman of Lembaga Masyarakat Peduli Pekon.

DEDICATION

This script is proudly devoted to: My beloved parents, Tumaryono and Suminem

My elder brother Feb Setianto

Yudi “Shaun the Sheep”, my beloved comrades English ’07 of Lampung University; Dian, Deri, Dani, Lilis, Cia, Sisil, all NERD ’07, and the late Akhirman.

My special one, Suryati

My fellow citizen in Pekon Pujodadi My Almamater, UNILA

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Statistic of Control Class Draft 1 ... 41

Table 4.2 Distribution Frequencies of Control Class Draft 1 ... 41

Table 4.3 Statistic of Control Class Draft 3 ... 42

Table 4.4 Distribution Frequencies of Control Class Draft 3 ... 42

Table 4.5 Statistic of Experimental Class Draft 1 ... 43

Table 4.6 Distribution Frequencies of Experimental Class Draft 1 ... 43

Table 4.7 Statistic of Experimental Class Draft 3 ... 44

Table 4.8 Distribution Frequencies of Experimental Class Draft 3 ... 44

Table 4.9 Tests of Normality in Experimental Class ... 45

Table 4.10 Tests of Normality in Control Class ... 46

Table 4.11 Homogeneity Test ... 47

Table 4.12 Hypothesis Testing using Independent T-test ... 48

Table 4.13 T-test Result of Draft 3 Control and Experimental Class ... 48

“A man will not be judged of who he is, yet of what he has done.”

REFERENCES

Bitchener. J., Young, S., and Cameron, J. 2005 . The Effect of Different Types of Corrective Feedback on ESL Student Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 14, 191-319.

Bitchener, J. 2008. Evidence in Support of Written Corrective Feedback. Journal of Second Language Writing, doi: 10.1016/j.jslw.2007.11.004.

Bitchener, J., and Knoch, U. 2008. The Value of Written Corrective feedback for Migrant and International students, Language Teaching Research, 12, 409-431.

Cahyono, B. Y. 1999. Converging Lines: Towards the Integration of

Second Language Research and Teaching. Jurnal Jurusan Sastra Inggris Fakultas Sastra Universitas Kristen Petra Vol.1 No.1 32-43.

Chandler, J. 2003. The Efficacy of Various Kinds of Error Feedback for

Improvement in the Accuracy and Fluency of Student Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(3), 267-296.

Cohen, A. 1987. Student Processing of Feedback on Their Compositions. In A. I. Wenden and J. Rubin (Eds.), Learner Strategies in Language Learning (pp. 57-69). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Cohen, A., and Cavalcanti, M. 1990. Feedback on Compositions: Teacher and Student Verbal Reports. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing Research: Insights for The Classroom (pp. 155-177). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Fathman, A., and Whalley, E. 1990. Teacher Response to Student Writing: Focus on Form versus Content. In B. Kroll (Ed.), Second Language Writing: Research Insights for The Classroom (pp. 178-190). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Fazio, L. L. 2001. The Effect of Corrections and Commentaries on The

Journal Writing Accuracy of Minority and Majority Language Students. Journal of Second Language Writing, 10, 235-249.

Ferris, D. 1999. The Case for Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes: A Response to Truscott (1996). Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(1), 1-11.

Ferris, D. 2006. Does Error Feedback Help Student Writers? New Evidence on The Short and Long-term Effects of Written Error Correction. In K. Hyland and F. Hyland (Eds.), Feedback in Second Language Writing: Contexts and Issues (pp. 81-104). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ferris, D., Pezone, S., Tade, C. R., and Tinti, S. (1997). Teacher Commentary on Student Writing: Descriptions and Implications. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6(2), 155-182.

Flower, L. and Hayes, J. R. 1980. The Cognition of Discovery: Defining

Rhetorical Problem. College Composition and Communication, 31, 76-88. Furnborough, C., and Truman, M. 2009. Adult Beginner Distance Language

Learner Perceptions and Use of Assignment Feedback, Distance Education, 30, 399- 418

Hamid, M. O. 2007. Identifying Second Language Errors: How Plausible Are Plausible Reconstructions. ELT Journal, 61(2), 107-116.

Hedgcock, J., and Leftkowiz, N. 1994. Feedback on Feedback: Assessing Learner Receptivity to Teacher Response in Second Language Composing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 3, 141-163.

Hendrickson, J. 1978. Error Correction in Foreign Language Teaching: Recent Theory, Research, and Practice. The Modern Language Journal, 62, 387-398.

Hunt, K. W. 1965. Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels. Urbana, IL: The National Council of Teachers of English.

Hyland, F. 2003. Focusing on Form: Student Engagement with Teacher Feedback. System, 31(2), 217-230.

Johnston, H. 1996. Survey review: Process Writing in Course-books. ELT Journal, 50, 347-355.

Kane, T. S. 2000. The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing. New York: Berkley Books/Oxford University Press, Inc.

Kepner, C. G. 1991. An Experiment in The Relationship of Types of Written Feedback to the Development of Second-Language Writing Skills. The Modern Language Journal, 75: 305-313.

Lee, I. 1997. ESL Learners’ Performance in Error Correction in Writing: Some Implications for Teaching. System, 25(4), 465-477.

Lee, I. 2004. Error Correction in L2 Secondary Writing Classrooms: The Case of Hongkong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 285-312.

Lee, I. 2009. Ten Mismatches between Teachers’ Beliefs and Written Feedback Practices. ELT Journal, 63(1), 13-22.

Leki, I. 1991. The Preference of ESL Students for Error Correction in College- Level Writing Classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24: 203-218.

McGarrel, H., and Verbeem, J. 2007. Motivating Revision of Drafts Through Formative Feedback. ELT Journal, 61(3), 228-236.

Polio, C. 1997. Measures of Linguistic Accuracy in Second Language Writing Research. Language Learning, 47, 101-143.

Radecki, P., and Swales, J. 1988. ESL Student Reaction to Written Comments on Their Written Work. System, 16: 355-365.

Raimes, A. 1987. Language Proficiency, Writing Ability, and Composing Strategies: A Study of ESL College Student Writers. Language Learning, 37, 439-468.

Semke, H. 1984. The Effect of the Red Pen. Foreign Language Annals, 17, 195-202

Sommers, N. 1980. Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers. College Composition and Communication, 31, 378-388.

Straub, R. 1997. Students’ Reactions to Teacher Comments: An Exploratory

Study. Research in the Teaching of English, 31: 91-119.

Treglia, M. 2009. Teacher-written Commentary in College Writing Composition: How Does It Impact Student Revisions? Composition Studies, 37, 67-86. Truscott, J. 1996. The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing

Classes. Language Learning, 46: 327-369.

Truscott, J. 1999. The Case for "The Case Against Grammar Correction in L2 Writing Classes": A Response to Ferris. Journal of Second Language Writing, 8(2), 111-122.

Universitas Lampung. 2006. Pedoman Penulisan Karya Ilmiah. Bandar Lampung: Universitas Lampung.

Zacharias, N. T. 2007. Teacher and Student Attitudes Toward Teacher Feedback. Regional Language Center Journal, 38(1), 38-52. Zamel, V. 1985. Responding to Student Writing. TESOL Quarterly, 19,

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE ... i

ABSTRACT ... ii

CURRICULUM VITAE ... iv

DEDICATION ... v

MOTTO ... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vii

TABLE OF CONTENT ... ix

LIST OF TABLES ... x

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xi

I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of The Problem ... 1

1.2 Formulation of The Problem ... 5

1.3 Objective of The Research ... 5

1.4 Uses of The Research... 5

1.5 Scope of The Research... 6

1.6 Definition of Terms... 7

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writing Skill... 10

2.2 Descriptive Writing ... 12

2.3 Teaching of Writing in English as a Foreign Language ... 13

2.4 Feedback Provision ... 19

2.5 Teacher Error Feedback ... 24

2.5.1 Arguments against Teacher Error Feedback ... 24

2.5.2 Arguments for Teacher Error Feedback ... 27

2.6 Theoretical Assumption and Hypothesis ... 32

III. RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Research Design... 33

3.2 Population and Sample ... 34

3.3 Research Procedure ... 34

3.4 Instrument ... 35

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Result of the Research ... 40

4.1.1 Control Class Draft 1 Result ... 41

4.1.2 Control Class Draft 3 Result ... 42

4.1.3 Experimental Class Draft 1 Result ... 43

4.1.4 Experimental Class Draft 3 Result ... 43

4.1.5 Result of Normality Test ... 44

4.1.5.1 Result of Normality Test in Experimental Class ... 45

4.1.5.2 Result of Normality Test in Control Class ... 46

4.1.6 Result of Homogeneity Test ... 46

4.1.7 Hypothesis Testing... 47

4.1.8 Students’ Inaccuracy in their Writings ... 48

4.2 Discussion of The Finding ... 52

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusion ... 59

5.2 Suggestions ... 60

REFERENCES ... 62

ADMITTED BY

1. Examination Committee

Chairperson : Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd. ………

Examiner : Drs. Sudirman, M.Pd. ...

Secretary : Dra. Rosita SP, M.A. ...

2. The Dean of Teacher Training and Education Faculty

Dr. H. Bujang Rahman, M.Si.

NIP 19600315 198503 1 003

Research Title : Teacher Error Feedback Effect on The Accuracy of Students’ Descriptive Writing at The First – Grade of SMAN 1

Pringsewu

Student’s Name : Ferry Yun Kurniawan

Student’s Number : 0713042006

Depatment : Language and Arts

Study Program : English Education

Faculty : Teacher Training and Education

APPROVED BY Advisory Committee

Advisor I, Advisor II,

Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd. Dra. Rosita SP, M.A.

NIP 19620804 198905 1 001 NIP 19480920 197503 2 001

The Chairperson of

Language and Arts Education Department

Drs. Imam Rejana, M.Si.

Kepner, C. G. 1991. An Experiment in The Relationship of Types of Written Feedback to the Development of Second-Language Writing Skills. The Modern Language Journal, 75: 305-313.

Lee, I. 1997. ESL Learners’ Performance in Error Correction in Writing: Some Implications for Teaching. System, 25(4), 465-477.

Lee, I. 2004. Error Correction in L2 Secondary Writing Classrooms: The Case of Hongkong. Journal of Second Language Writing, 13, 285-312.

Lee, I. 2009. Ten Mismatches between Teachers’ Beliefs and Written Feedback Practices. ELT Journal, 63(1), 13-22.

Leki, I. 1991. The Preference of ESL Students for Error Correction in College- Level Writing Classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24: 203-218.

McGarrel, H., and Verbeem, J. 2007. Motivating Revision of Drafts Through Formative Feedback. ELT Journal, 61(3), 228-236.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE ... i

ABSTRACT ... ii

CURRICULUM VITAE ... iv

DEDICATION ... v

MOTTO ... vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... vii

TABLE OF CONTENT ... ix

LIST OF TABLES ... x

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xi

I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of The Problem ... 1

1.2 Formulation of The Problem ... 5

1.3 Objective of The Research ... 5

1.4 Uses of The Research... 5

1.5 Scope of The Research... 6

1.6 Definition of Terms... 7

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writing Skill... 10

2.2 Descriptive Writing ... 12

2.3 Teaching of Writing in English as a Foreign Language ... 13

2.4 Feedback Provision ... 19

2.5 Teacher Error Feedback ... 24

2.5.1 Arguments against Teacher Error Feedback ... 24

2.5.2 Arguments for Teacher Error Feedback ... 27

2.6 Theoretical Assumption and Hypothesis ... 32

III. RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Research Design... 33

3.2 Population and Sample ... 34

3.3 Research Procedure ... 34

3.4 Instrument ... 35

x

3.6 Statistical and Hypothesis Testing ... 38

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Result of the Research ... 40

4.1.1 Control Class Draft 1 Result ... 41

4.1.2 Control Class Draft 3 Result ... 42

4.1.3 Experimental Class Draft 1 Result ... 43

4.1.4 Experimental Class Draft 3 Result ... 43

4.1.5 Result of Normality Test ... 44

4.1.5.1 Result of Normality Test in Experimental Class ... 45

4.1.5.2 Result of Normality Test in Control Class ... 46

4.1.6 Result of Homogeneity Test ... 46

4.1.7 Hypothesis Testing... 47

4.1.8 Students’ Inaccuracy in their Writings ... 48

4.2 Discussion of The Finding ... 52

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusion ... 59

5.2 Suggestions ... 60

REFERENCES ... 62

ADMITTED BY

1. Examination Committee

Chairperson : Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd. ………

Examiner : Drs. Sudirman, M.Pd. ...

Secretary : Dra. Rosita SP, M.A. ...

2. The Dean of Teacher Training and Education Faculty

Dr. H. Bujang Rahman, M.Si. NIP 19600315 198503 1 003

Research Title : Teacher Error Feedback Effect on The Accuracy of Students’ Descriptive Writing at The First – Grade of SMAN 1

Pringsewu

Student’s Name : Ferry Yun Kurniawan

Student’s Number : 0713042006

Depatment : Language and Arts

Study Program : English Education

Faculty : Teacher Training and Education

APPROVED BY Advisory Committee

Advisor I, Advisor II,

Prof. Dr. Patuan Raja, M.Pd. Dra. Rosita SP, M.A.

NIP 19620804 198905 1 001 NIP 19480920 197503 2 001

The Chairperson of

Language and Arts Education Department

Drs. Imam Rejana, M.Si.