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2. Spelling Accuracy
According to Coulmas 1996, 477, spelling is the conventions which determine how the graphemes of a writing system are used to write a language. In
addition, Graham and Miller 1979 define spelling as “the ability to recognize, recall, reproduce or obtain orally or in written form the correct sequence of letters in words”
p. 2. It refers to the act of forming a word or words from individual letters present in an accepted standard order. While Skehan 1996 b: 23 as cited in Ellis and
Barkhuizen 2005: 139 defines accuracy as referring “to how well the target language is produced i
n relation to the rule system of the target language.” It refers to how correct learners use of the language system is. According to Simon 2004,
accurate spelling is part of the overall process of learning language. It enables writers to fluently express messages that are easily read and understood by others.
However, it is known that English spellings are difficult to learn for the second language learners. Bannatyne 1971 believes that the difficulty is due to the
fact that the language of English consists of irregular relationships between phonemes and graphemes. It is also believed by Peters 1970; as cited in Graham Miller,
1979 that what makes the English spelling system so complex is the fact that there are only 26 alphabets that represent 44 different sounds. For example, the phoneme i
can be spelled with graphemes ee, ea, ei, e, and i. Similarly, graphemes are also pronounced in different ways depending on their position within a word e.g. gh is
pronounced as f in „rough‟, g in „ghetto‟, and is silent in „though‟. Thus from the experts‟ statements above, it could be concluded that English spelling is not easily
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mastered. The reason most often given for spelling failure is the supposed irregularity of English orthography. In the next part, the researcher will discuss direct written
corrective feedback.
3. Direct Written Corrective Feedback
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