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Gibbs 2004 as cited in Murphy 2010 stated, “Feedback produces the most powerful
single effect on achievement”p.42. It meant that feedback influenced students‟ achievements in learning, but if I related it to the use of symbol feedback, I found that symbol feedback had
very big impact on the students‟ improvement as this feedback provided more aspects to be corrected. According to
Cavana 2009, “Feedback is a process that guides students to close the gap between their current and desired per
formance”p.2. When the students realized their current positions, in this case were their abilities in writing, then the students made a target
how much they needed to improve the quality of their writing. By using symbol feedback, all of the students had the same expectation that was to decrease the errors, so they could receive
the papers without any mark on it. Indirectly, this expectation could encourage the students to make their writing better as they wanted good grades.
Every student wanted to be able to write properly or to be better writer. They also wanted a good result so they could pass the subject and took the higher level of writing class.
In order to get good result, the students had to be able to write as good as they could and showed their improvement of their writing through the semester. This finding was similar with
the previous research by Erel 2007 who found that students who received indirect feedback perform better that the group with no feedback in self-editing the writing p.400. Other
previous research by Ferris 2000 as cited in Erel 2007 also found that students who received primarily indirect error feedback make fewer errors in subsequent writings than the students
who received mostly direct feedback p.400. Since symbol feedback could encourage the students to write better, it was believed that symbol feedback could help them achieve their
expectations. Therefore, they could identify the improvement of their writing and the results or grades after they received it.
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2. Students’ feelings toward the use of symbol feedback in writing class
Diagram 2 : The comparison of number of students and their feelings toward the use of symbol feedback
a. Students were motivated to be better writers
The students could enhance their performances in writing through symbol feedback. This kind of feedback represented the students‟ abilities in writing. It meant that the more
mistakes the students made, the lower the students‟ skills in writing. That is why the students wanted to increase their abilities so they could avoid the errors and be better writers. Cavana
2009 identified, “The aim of feedback is to facilitate learning in a manner that students are
able to understand their current ability of doing a particular assessment and to further improve and bridge the gap between their actual knowledge and required performance
”p.3. In this case, the students had targets for the next drafts to receive their papers without any errors
marked on it. Therefore, it could motivate them to be better writers by making targets on what they needed to achieve. Based on the interview, all of the participants 100 were motivated
to be better writers after receiving symbol feedback.
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Students found that they did many mistakes at the first time, but after they dealt with symbol feedback, they admitted that it could motivate them to write better :
Extract 10 Ema
“Symbol feedback can help me, I mean motivates me to write better. It means that I can decrease the
errors step by step.”
Extract 11 Mela
“At the first time my writing is poor, then after getting symbol feedback, my writing is better.”
Extract 12 Gary
“Symbol feedback is good, at the first time I did many mistakes, then, next time I can correct it. So, from my poor writing, I can make good writing
.”
From these statements, I could conclude that symbol feedback could give motivation to the students. Since symbol feedback helped them decrease the errors and improve their skills in
writing, it was identified that there was something that encouraged and motivated them to achieve that. Every error that the students made could make them believed that they could
make their writing better. It was proved by 100 of the participants who had the same opinion that symbol feedback could help and motivate them be better writers. It was supported by
Cavana 2009 who stated, “The high quality of feedback provides opportunities for improving the quality of their work and the improvement of their result” p.3. This statement showed that
feedback should be able to motivate the students to improve the results. From the data, the study found that symbol feedback could do that. There was previous study by Hany 2009
who found that indirect feedback motivated students to pursue more. Realizing improvement is motivation and seeing the same error repeatedly helped students target the mistakes, review
and revise their writing p.75. This finding showed and proved that indirect feedback, especially symbol feedback could motivate the students to write better.
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b. Students felt comfortable with the use of symbol feedback
Symbol feedback was simple as it could help the students found the clues directly. Symbol feedback was easy to understand because the students only read their papers and
corrected the errors based on the symbols given. When they forgot about the meaning of the symbols, they could see the meaning on their notes. When they found the meaning of these
symbols, they could find the clues how to correct the errors. Students did not have any difficulty in finding the meaning of symbol feedback because the teacher explained the
meaning of those symbols at the beginning of the class. Therefore, the students could learn the meaning of those symbols from their knowledge, experiences, or by analyzing the sentences.
According to Chandler 2003 as cited in Erel 2007, “Students want error feedback
and think that it helps them improve their writing skills in the target language ”p.398. This
statement showed that the students really needed error feedback because they believed that they could improve their skills by dealing with it. When the students said they wanted a certain kind
of feedback, it meant that they found this kind of feedback was useful and they must feel comfortable with it. From the interview, 66 students showed their pleasure in dealing with
symbol feedback.
Students found symbol feedback as a simple feedback which was easy to be corrected and regarded it as teacher‟s care as they believed that the teacher read their writing carefully :
Extract 13 Ema
“Symbol feedback is good, I think symbol feedback is easier to be corrected. Yes, I think it is just not complicated because the teacher gives the clues, so
I can correct it directly.”
