173
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Nowadays, in modern society, English becomes more important as a tool of communication. English as a global language sets the important role in teaching English at school from elementary school until senior high school and even in university. From these facts, students are not only expected to speak English fluently but they also have to be able to fulfill four language skills; speaking, writing, reading, and listening. These four skills are integrated and related to each other. Based on curriculum KTSP, all skills in teaching and learning English that are integrated each other must be learnt and taught by both students and teacher, including writing skill. Writing will help students mastering the other skills and of course in mastery English completely. 1

improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Nowadays, in modern society, English becomes more important as a tool of

communication. English as a global language sets the important role in teaching

English at school from elementary school until senior high school and even in

university. From these facts, students are not only expected to speak English fluently

but they also have to be able to fulfill four language skills; speaking, writing, reading,

and listening. These four skills are integrated and related to each other.

Based on curriculum KTSP, all skills in teaching and learning English that are

integrated each other must be learnt and taught by both students and teacher,

including writing skill. Writing will help students mastering the other skills and of

course in mastery English completely. The students are sometimes afraid and shy to

speak what they want to say but they can tell what they think and what they want to

say into draft or writing before speaking. Thus, if students are having problem in

expressing an idea, he/she can write it down. Then, student itself or possibly the

reader will understand it. While, there are still some teachers who haven’t given their

attention on this case completely. If teacher want to help the students to be a good

writer in English, he / she must be able to teach writing effectively in the classroom.

1

Page 2: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Teaching writing is always related to how to give feedback directly or indirectly on

writing in a good way, especially by the teacher.

Roger (2001) tells that some feedback from teacher serves unhelpful feedback

to student; they are too generalized or unclear, subjective and focused on some aspect

of performance that make the students cannot change. That is why giving feedback to

students’ writing is important skill that is seldom taught. Through feedback, we can

help students compare their own performance with the ideal and to diagnose their

own strength and weaknesses.

Feedback that is given directly or indirectly can improve student’s writing.

But there will always be of what feedback will give the best impact of the

improvement toward the students’ writing itself not only in the short time but also in

a long time of their life. The researcher thinks indirect feedback is one of positive

support that can be given by an English teacher to their students in order to improve

students’ writing and minimize their errors. Beside that there are some reasons why

indirect feedback is so helpful for the students’ writing, it is because oral/direct

feedback can be durable, but it will keep only in mind of receiver and the feedback

can just lost in certain time. In contrast, the indirect feedback, the thought and

comment will be saved for a very long time in the memories. Indirect feedback will

be read and resistant.

The researcher did preliminary class observation to find the problem in class X1

SMA Negeri 9 Kendari. The researcher had got a fact about the performance of

2

Page 3: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

teaching writing in SMA Negeri 9 Kendari. In this school, the students had problem

in writing a text because they learnt writing without using a good approach and

treatment. They were just asked to write a composition based on the picture or topic

that had been prepared in the text book without checking their ability in mastery

aspects of writing. The students didn’t understand about certain instruction of text for

example the generic structure of the text, purposes and the language feature of the

text. The students also didn’t really know how to correct their own writing because

they had gotten the correct answer from their mistakes, but most of the corrections

only for the correction in punctuation and spelling without giving correction in

organization, language use, content of writing, and vocabulary.

In addition, they couldn’t evaluate their own writing because they haven’t

trained to do so because the teacher hadn’t had a good approach or strategy to make

their writing better. Using teacher’s indirect feedback might be a starting point to start

the improvement for students’ ability in writing. Because the researcher thinks that

the evaluation in writing process in classroom should be started by the teacher first

before it can affect the students’ ability to evaluate their writing by themselves.

Total students in X1 are 38 students and after doing the pre-observation, the

researcher got 30 students who had problem to compose writing in a good

organization and language use. The researcher assumes that the problem can be

solved by this technique and the students also can improve their writing ability

3

Page 4: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

through the teacher’s feedback before being able to correct the mistakes by

themselves.

Based on that, the researcher interested to investigate whether indirect

feedback from their teacher would affect and increase their writing or not. To support

this study, the researcher observed in SMAN 9 Kendari. The reason why the

researcher wanted to do her study in this school, because it is a new school that has

just registered as a senior high school in kendari in 2003 and opened the opportunity

to do more study or research in this school. Moreover, the researcher had got some

problem related to her study in this School and wants to solve it. The researcher in

doing her action put the target on the first grade students in SMA Negeri 9 Kendari

with the purpose of students were able to write a composition better than before and

to apply their knowledge into writing text.

1.2 Problem Statement

Based on the background above, the problem that came up in this study was

formulated as follow:

“Is teacher’s indirect feedback able to improve students’ writing ability in

part of organization and language use aspect on the first grader in SMAN 9 Kendari?”

1.3 Objectives of The Study

The objectives of the study referred two main issues:

- It can add the students’ and teacher’s knowledge about how to give

comments/constructive feedback indirectly to writing

4

Page 5: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

- To investigate the increasing of students’ writing trough the teacher’s indirect

feedback.

1.4 Significant of The Study

- For teacher, this study could be a thinking contribution in improving teacher’s

quality in giving indirect feedback.

- For students: the student were hoped to be able to correct their own writing

independently.

- As information to another researcher who investigate the same problem

deeply.

1.5 Assumption

The researcher had an assumption that Teacher’s feedback indirectly on

students’ writing is effective for developing and promoting students' English

writing skill.

1.6 Action Hypothesis

Based on the context of the study, the hypothesis that proposed in this study

was if the teacher applies indirect feedback strategy in connecting of student’s

paper, the students’ writing ability will improve.

1.7 Scope of The Study

Specifically, this study investigated whether students’ writing ability improve

or not under teacher‘s feedback. While, the type of feedback provided was

indirect feedback that was given on students’ writing. All students’ compositions

5

Page 6: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

were assessed based on two aspect of evaluation in writing. Those were language

use and organization. The text type was descriptive text. The reason why the

researcher focused only two aspects because based on pre-observation, the

researcher found that most of students had problem on those aspects of writing

and the students can improve their ability in writing if the teacher help them to

give the constructive feedback. This study focused on the students on the first

grade of SMU Negeri 9 Kendari academic year 2007/2008. In the pre-observation

the first grade class which had problem was X1.

1.8 . Definition of Term

- Action research is applied research done to answer a specific practical

problem, which results in action. In comparison to traditional research which

aims to generalize its findings, action research is primarily concerned with

relevance to the specific site in which it occurs (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995).

Action researchers typically triangulate data, using both quantitative and

qualitative data sources. Results are shared with those directly affected, so

that they may take action based on the findings.

- Kepner (1991: 141) defines feedback in general as “any procedures uses to

inform a learner whether an instructional response is right or wrong. For the

purpose of the assignment however “feedback” will strictly refer to indirect

feedback given by teacher as response to their writing.”

6

Page 7: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

- Indirect feedback is provided if the teacher indicates the location of the error

indirectly on the paper by underlining, highlighting or circling, or indirectly

by indicating in the margins that there is an error on that line but without

providing the correct form. (Lee, 2004)

- Writing is a discovery process, it involves ideas, discovering how to organize

them and discovering what you want to put on your reader. Writing is a

thinking process (White, 1987:1).

- Descriptive text is a text which says what a person or a thing is like or to

provide enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what

is being written about (Martin in Grabe and Kaplan, 1996).

- Students’ writing ability refers to the students’ competence in applying the

components of writing were content, organization, vocabulary, language use

(grammar) and mechanic (Jacob, 1981: 60)

7

Page 8: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents some actual theories as references to support this study.

It contains at the following sections; Teaching Writing, Feedback, the Role of

Teacher in Giving Indirect Feedback to Students’ writing, The Assessment Technique

of Students’ Writing, Stages in Writing, Overview of Process in Descriptive Writing,

and Review of Related Studies.

2.1 Teaching Writing

Writing is one of important skills that language learners need to learn as an

essential component not only for their academic practice but also later in their

professional life. Teaching or learning how to write successfully gets even more

complicated and challenged for both language teachers and students. However, many

teachers agree that in the classroom, writing should get much attention as reading,

speaking and listening. Yet many teacher and students alike consider writing to be

most difficult subject of language skill to learn. (Senduk in hasyim, 2002: 13)

The teaching of writing is a matter of prescribing a set of predetermined tasks

or exercises to the students. When teachers teach writing course not only teach about

how to develop ideas in writing, but also need a serious attention of how to write

English sentences grammatically and systematically. So, teaching writing will be

8

Page 9: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

good if depends on the teachers' ability how to teach writing effectively which can

make the students’ ability being improved.

According to Lee (2005), in improving the effectiveness of writing, there are

some important notes must be noticed in teaching writing and assessment. In teaching

writing, the teaching should engage students in peer /self-evaluation. When they

apply the criteria, they become better informed about the requirements of good

writing (for specific genres) and Provide students with a language for discussing their

writing. In assessing writing, teacher should respond to writing based on criteria that

have been communicated and taught to students and responses to errors. To respond

the error teacher can use a feedback that contains specific criteria for the writing task

and criteria that have been taught and communicated to the learners.

2.2 Feedback

One of the ways to make students be able to create good writing is the teacher

should provide constructive feedback to their writing. In this section, the writer wants

to explain what kind of feedback that important to students’ writing, the advantages

and disadvantages of the feedback itself.

Feedback is kind of assessment that concern to the giving information about

students’ writing performance. Ur (1996: 242) says that “in the context of teaching

general, feedback is information that is given to the learner about his or her

performance of the learning task, usually with the objective of improving their

performance”.

9

Page 10: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

In addition, Roger (2001) says “Feedback is not just about weaknesses.

Student will respond if teachers are encouraging as well as allowing mistakes,

emerging capabilities, and give ideas for directing further learning”. From these

definitions, it is clear that feedback is very useful in teaching and learning process,

besides students will learn how to evaluate their self (self-evaluate), it also help

students to take greater confidence of their learning and increasing the students’

performance.

In providing feedback, teacher should encourage students to continue writing,

in order students feel good with their writing and carry the activity through

completion (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996 : 275). So, in process writing teacher must

motivate students to do more toward their writing.

2.2.1 Types of Teacher’s Feedback

Feedback consists of some types. One of them is teacher’s

feedback/correction. Feedback from teacher on the students’ writing could play a

vital role especially in teaching process. In this case, teacher recognizes that teachers’

feedback is essential element in helping students improve, and an essential part of the

teaching process (Anderson, 1982). It indicates that under teacher’s feedback,

students will know the appropriate of the language feature for their composition, how

their composition should be arranged and their composition will be better.

There are two kinds of teacher’s feedback; they are direct and indirect

feedback. Direct feedback is a technique of correcting students’ error by giving

10

Page 11: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

explicit written feedback. While, indirect feedback is when the teacher/tutor alerts

students to error using general comments, but gives students the opportunity to fix

errors themselves (Ferris, 2002 : 19). Lee (2005) defines Direct feedback is provided

when the correct form is written on student’s paper whereas indirect feedback is

provided if the teacher indicates the location of the error indirectly on the paper by

underlining, highlighting or circling, or indirectly by indicating in the margins that

there is an error on that line but without providing the correct form.

2.2.2 Direct Feedback Vs. Indirect feedback

Although there are some types of feedback, there must be the difference when

using direct or indirect feedback on students’ writing. Frodesen (2001) notes that

indirect feedback is more useful than direct feedback. Students are able to express

their ideas more clearly in writing and to get clarification on any comments that

teachers have made. Similarly, Fulgor (2006: 34) states that in indirect feedback,

students appreciated its beneficial effect on their learning and direct feedback to be

more helpful when revising syntax and vocabulary, whereas they felt that indirect

feedback was useful in encouraging them to reflect on aspects of their writing and to

develop improvements.

Moreover, some research evidences suggest that indirect feedback is more

helpful on students’ long-term writing development than direct feedback (Ferris,

2003; Fratzen, 1995). The results showed that indirect feedback with student self-

editing contributes to accuracy more than direct feedback. Others have reported that

11

Page 12: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

indirect feedback may be more beneficial to students than direct feedback in editing,

because indirect feedback can guide learning and help the students solve problem by

themselves (Lalande, 1982).

From those statements, the researcher believes that indirect feedback will be

more increasing the students’ ability in writing and students who get indirect

feedback will be preserved in his/her brain in a long time. While, direct feedback will

be kept in their mind in a short time. If the students are only provided by direct

feedback, the student will not have opportunity to reflect and correct the errors for

themselves; they only note the note of the errors from the teacher.

To make indirect feedback is more effective, Lee (2004) state that indirect

feedback can be done by a symbol representing a specific kind of error (T=verb tense,

Sp=spelling) and to reduce student confusion, teachers can consistently use a standard

set of symbols or markings to indicate place and type of error and train the students in

what kinds of corrections to make based on each symbol. Furthermore, teachers

should familiarize students with the system so they will not be surprised when new

symbols are occured.

Finocchiaro in hasyim (2002:23) gives the symbols or codec that can be used

to indicate error in indirect feedback can be seen as follows:

12

Page 13: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Table 1 Correction codes used to indicate error types in indirect feedback

No Code Meaning Kinds of errors

1 WC Word choiceThe words are inapplicable with the

sentences/ meaning

2 PREP Preposition Wrong preposition

3 VT verb tense or GR =  more

general grammar problemsWrong tense/ use another tense

4 S/V A subject verb agreement subject and verb don’t agree

5 SP spelling errorWrong spelling/punctuation your

spelling

6 ART ArticleUse article a, an or the for singular

noun

7 N.P new paragraph Unorganized paragraph

8 ^ missing word There is a missing word need to insert

9 ? question mark) unclear

meaning

I can’t understand this. The meaning is

not clear. Write in another way to

make the meaning clearer.

10 good Good idea, good detailYou have something good here: a good

word, idea, detail, etc

11 WO word orderthe words in this sentence are in the

wrong order

13

Page 14: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

2.3 The role of teacher in providing indirect feedback to Students’ writing

The students cannot write alone and writing also not only a single step but a

process. To pass the process from the first draft until the final draft, they need

guidance, supporter and counselor/advisor to make their writing better. Therefore,

they need someone to check about the mistake that they made. It could be from

teacher or peer because writing usually involves one person for another to help them

in expressing their ideas in writing form. Even though peers feedback is more

advantageous, the teacher’s feedback is eventually needed to provide a whole class

impression before they are engaged in an individual writing as practice. Here, teacher

can be as describer when he/she gives feedback. But before that, teacher should be a

reader and as advisor for them.

The patterns of feedback and responses given by the writing teacher depend

very much on the teacher’s conception of the composing process and his/her

understanding of learner’s errors. Teachers may, on the one hand, present themselves

as helpful facilitators offering support and guidance; on the other hand, they may act

as an authority imposing critical judgment on writing products (Ferris et al , 2001).

Teachers can offer self–correction opportunity for their students by providing

indirect feedback on student’s grammatical errors (Chandler , 2003 ). The assistance

and feedback given by the teacher should not be confined to the last stage of the

writing process. The marking of products should always open more opportunities in

14

Page 15: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

which students can redraft their work. By depriving them of their opportunity for

redrafting and reassessing, the students cannot have the chance of correcting the

wrong behavior and re-practicing the correct behavior.

In addition, students are able to express their ideas more clearly in writing and

to get clarification on any comments indirectly that teachers have made to their

writing.

2.4 The Assessment Technique of Students’ Writing

In assessing the students’ writing Quality, Jacob (1981: 60) suggests five

components or criteria to evaluate the students’ writing quality: content, organization,

vocabulary, language use (grammar) and mechanics.

Content of Writing must be knowledgeable, substantive, thorough

development of thesis, relevant to assigned topic. Organization of Writing must be

fluent expression, idea clearly stated/supported, succinct, well-organized, logical

sequencing, cohesive. Vocabulary of Writing must be sophisticated range, effective

word/idiom choice, and usage, word form mastery, and appropriate register.

Language use (grammar) in writing activity, the students will create the sentences

based on their ideas and the words in the sentences must be arranged grammatically

which deals with tenses and agreement. (Mc. Crimmon ,1984:596). The last is

Mechanics of Writing which consists of Spelling and Punctuation (Capital letter,

Period {.}, Question mark {?}, Exclamation mark {!}, Comma {,}, semi colon {;},

Apostrophe {‘}).

15

Page 16: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

2.5 Stages in writing

Gardner and Johnson (1997) describe the stages of the writing process:

"Writing is a fluid process created by writers as they work. Accomplished writers

move back and forth between the stages of the process, both consciously and

unconsciously. Young writers, however, benefit from the structure and security of

following the writing process in their writing”. Additionally, as Campbell points out,

"there is no single writing process" (1998: 10), there are three basic stages writers go

through: prewriting, drafting, and revising.

Besides, three basic stages in writing also delivered by Ron White (1987:325)

states that the stages of writing process consists of planning, drafting, and revising.

Planning is a series of strategies designed to find and produce information in writing

planning is any orderly procedure used to bring about a desire result. In this stage, the

author/writer just builds basic of a topic that should depends on the writer/author’s

knowledge, ideas and experiences.

Drafting is a series strategy designed to organize and develop a sustained

piece of writing. In here, the writer can explore and improve his/her idea. This stage

also concentrates to the content tan punctuation, grammar, or spelling. Revising is a

series of strategies designed to re-examine and re-evaluate the choices that have

created a piece of writing. The revising always comes up after giving feedback to the

writing. The feedback is important to tell which the words/sentence should be

changed or need correction. Revising writing can be started by making decisions

16

Page 17: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

about how you want to improve your writing, looking at your writing from a different

point of view, and picking places where your writing could be clearer, more

interesting, more informative and more convincing to the reader.

Appelebe in Mappe (2000) states more complete stages, that “there are

different views on the stages that the writers go through in producing a piece of

writing, but a typically through model identifies four stages: pre-writing, drafting,

revising and editing”.

The description of each stage is shown as follows:

1 Pre-writing

In this stage, students involve the activities, such as reading, brainstorming,

mind mapping, discussing, fast writing, questioning, interviewing, encourage them

before they write their sentences in the first draft. A typical pre-writing activity in the

process approach would be for learners to brainstorm on the topic being provided. By

this way, students would get motivation to write because they feel that they have

something matter to say. (Richard & White in Mappe, 2000).

2 Drafting

In this stage, students would select among ideas during pre-writing and

structure. The result of brainstorming session to provide a plan of description of

topic. The content might be written without considering the grammatical aspect first.

17

Page 18: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3 Revising

In this stage, the students review a draft to check content and organization based

on the feedback from him or herself and teacher or peers. Biaael in Mappe (2000)

emphasizes that revision is a process in which writers not only polish their style, but

also develop their ideas. In this stage, the teacher help the students through the

revision to shape and reshape the text into final form, and it’s focused more on

audience, mood, voice, length, clarity, completeness and consciousness.

4 Editing

This is where the role of teacher in giving indirect feedback will be applied. In

this stage, the students check their final text for some mistakes they have made based

on the feedback given, such as spelling, punctuation, grammar, and all presentation.

Shih in Mappe (2000) classifies three stages of editing for grammar: editing at

discourse level, sentences level and word level”.

Editing at discourse level is meant the writer needs to make changes in one

sentence, such as making the subject plural instead of singular. Editing at sentence

level is to find out the errors in sentences, such as: phrase, clause and sentence

pattern. Editing at word level, editing morphological errors require checking to see

that affixes and grammatical function words, such as: auxiliary verb, articles and

preposition correct. The writer needs to focus his/her special attention on the ends of

words in order to catch the missing of an incorrect ending: s/es, d/ed, ing as well an

awareness of different points of view.

18

Page 19: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

2.6 Overview of Process in Descriptive Writing

There are some approaches in writing; one of them is genre based approach.

The use of genre approach in solving the problem in students’ writing, particularly in

language use and organization is very effective way. According to Derewianka

(1992:17) a genre is kind of text types that have structured in different way and

characterized by own language feature. Genre based approach can be said to make the

text structurally and characterized which consists of purpose, generic structure, and

language feature.

According to Martin in Grabe and Kaplan (1996), the factual writing consists

of six types, they are; recount, procedure, description, report, explanation, and

exposition. However in this study, the text will be focused on the descriptive text.

Descriptive text is a text which says what a person or a thing is like or to

provide enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what is being

written about. Descriptive text can be divided from its purpose, generic structure and

language feature. The purpose in descriptive writing is to engage a reader's attention,

to create characters, to set a mood or create an atmosphere, to bring writing to life,

and also to help a writer develop an aspect of their work, for example to create a

particular mood, atmosphere or describe a place so that the reader can create vivid

pictures of characters, places, objects etc (Martin in Grabe and Kaplan, 1996).

The generic structure of descriptive text are Identification; identifying the

phenomenon to be described in general and Description; describing the phenomenon

19

Page 20: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

in parts, qualities, or/and characteristics. They may choose vivid, fresh language, they

may use examples, they might take something ordinary and by comparing it with

something extraordinary, make it interesting, or they may use their senses.

(Medina ,2003 : 152).

The language uses of this text should rely on precisely chosen vocabulary

with carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs, It is focused and concentrated only on

the aspects that add something to the main purpose of the description. Sensory

description - what is heard, seen, smelt, felt, tasted. Precise use of adjectives, similes,

metaphors to create images/pictures in the mind, Strong development of the

experience that "puts the reader there" focuses on key details, powerful verbs and

precise nouns, Using attributive and identifying process, Using adjective and

classifiers in nominal group, and Using simple present tense (Medina ,2003 : 152).

2.7 Review of Related Studies

Some studies have been done to investigate the use of feedback on students’

writing in teaching and learning process. Hasyim (2002), Paryatun (1997), Dewi

Santi (2007) had conducted their studies in Haluoleo University, to investigate the

effect of teacher’s feedback on students’ writing. Sri Luciani (2002) did her study in

junior high school. Although she investigated the effect of teacher feedback only

focused on giving feedback in students’ homework in general, and not focusing on

students’ writing task.

20

Page 21: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Hasyim conducted the study by focusing on the effect of correction provided

by lecturer. In the procedure of giving correction in Hasyim’s study, the lecturer

asked the students to write about a given topic, and then asked one to ten students to

write their essay on the whiteboard, after that, the lecturer correcting students’ essay,

and then, the lecturer asked the students to rewrite their essay and finally collected

the students’ essay. The result showed that before lecturer gave the correction the

total score was 48,22 and after lecturer gave the correction, the total score was 77,36.

Furthermore, Paryatun (1997) conducted the study by showing us that either

direct or indirect correction does not improve students’ writing significantly. The

writer exposed direct correction technique in her experimental class and exposed

indirect correction in the control class. However, the writer did not also explain

clearly why there was no significant different between direct and indirect correction

on students’ writing performance.

Dewi Santi investigated the effect of teacher’s feedback on students’ writing

and found that teacher’s feedback was effective. Moreover, Dewi Santi exposed

teacher’s feedback under correction and assessment (comment and grade), also

suggestion and praise. He focused giving feedback on students’ writing that would be

assessed based on five aspect of composition; content, organization, vocabulary,

language use, and mechanics (Jacobs, 1981). In the end the result showed an

improvement of students’ writing. That was on pretest 74,2 and in post test was

78,15.

21

Page 22: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

In a similar study, Lalande (1982) in Turkish University of pre-intermediate

learners with regards to what strategy to use in responding to students’ writing in the

English Preparatory Program compared two groups: one with direct feedback and the

other with indirect feedback using correction codes. It was found that the group

which received indirect coded error feedback had more accuracy than direct feedback

in writing.

Those results of previous studies indicate that feedback both directly and

indirectly are effective approach to be used in improving students’ writing. But,

another research proves that indirect feedback is better than direct feedback. Hence,

the present study will conduct the study that is different with previous studies by

using indirect feedback. In this case, the writer not only wants to prove that the

students writing performance will be better than direct feedback but also indirect

feedback as the way to solve the problem of student’s writing performance.

Further, this study serves a different design from previous study because those

studies mostly focused on giving direct feedback to students’ writing or compared

between direct and indirect feedback. While this study only uses indirect feedback

that is used to solve the problem in two aspects of writing, those are organization and

language use.

22

Page 23: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

This chapter explained the methodology of the research that was conducted.

The procedure of the research in this study consisted of design of the study, setting of

the study, subject of the study, factors that were observed, instrument of the study,

data and technique of collecting data, procedure of giving feedback on students’

writing, the evaluation, technique of data analysis and indicator of performance.

3.1 Design of the study

The design of this study was classroom action research because the teacher is

directly involved in improving students’ ability by doing self-reflection. This action

research aims to follow the process of the improving students ability and is conducted

by the teacher itself by reflecting his /her work and trying to improve his/her way in

teaching writing especially to give indirect feedback. Therefore, both teacher and

student can be improved.

The cycle consists of planning, implementation, and observation, and

reflection (Kemmis and Mc Taggart in Stringer, 1999: 18). The model that is

proposed for teacher in doing action research follows the cyclical structure outlined

by Kemmis and McTaggart (1988).

23

Page 24: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

The four “moments” of action research defined by Kemmis and McTaggart

guide the research model:

a. Developing an action plan.

This stage involves the teacher and the researcher prepared the lesson scenario for the

action, the teacher and the researcher prepared the technique will be applied in

solving the problem they face, preparing the teaching material, prepare the instrument

24

Page 25: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

that will be used to collect data. Planning is the activity of preparing the problem

solving to be used in reflecting the problem that is gotten before action. In relation

with the problem that students have, the teacher and researcher have preparation as

follows:

1. Teacher planned to teach students how to organize their writing in a good order.

Related to the generic structure of description, teacher must teach the students in

order to organize their composition by using pattern orientation, description and

re-orientation/ conclusion. In regarding with this pattern of text organization,

teacher prepared a model of text, in which the text was formed into orientation,

then following by description (characteristic), support of ideas (details/examples),

and finished by re-orientation/ conclusion (appendix 4). Teacher would teach the

student based on the lesson plan as a guide of teaching that has been made by the

researcher cooperates with the English teacher. The lesson plan can be seen in

appendix 1.

2. The teacher planned to teach students about what appropriate content to be

written in descriptive text. To make students understand easily about the content,

teacher prepares model of text. It can be seen in appendix 4.

3. Teacher planned to teach students the language feature of descriptive text. To

make students understand easily about the use of language feature itself, teacher

prepares the model of text, in which the language feature will be shown in

underlined words. The model text is prepared in appendix 4

25

Page 26: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

4. To make the process of teaching and learning would run effectively, the teacher

made the plans in lesson plan. Concerning to the limited time in each meeting, the

teaching and learning process are divided into two meetings. Lesson plan is

prepared in appendix 1. The teacher also gave some copies of material to the

students including the codes used to evaluate their writing and prepared the

observation sheet (appendix 7) and field note (appendix 10) to do the observation

during the teaching and learning process.

b. Implementing the plan requires:

In this stage, the teacher and the researcher would do the planning that had been

arranged. The teacher taught based on the lesson plan that have been made in

planning stage. The teaching and learning process was begun by preparation. In

this step, students would be asked to deliver their knowledge about descriptive

text and what they have written before. The teacher would start the action by

giving the students model text and asked the students to compare the text with

their first composition. Then teacher asked the students to identify the model text

and learn it. The model text is prepared in appendix 4. After that, the teacher

would ask the students to discuss about the organization and language use both in

the text model and their writing. In discussing about organization and language

use in descriptive writing, the students responded and gave their understanding

about the discussion. After that, the teacher will explain more what should be

written in each part of descriptive text.

26

Page 27: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

The teacher would explain that a well-focused subject can be ordinary or

extraordinary, but should do the best to make it as interesting as possible by

emphasizing what makes it interesting or new and unusual, asked them to pick

something specific, an event, a person, or an animal and ask them to give the

detail description. When the students want to create a clear pattern of organization

the introduction should work from general to specific, ending in a thesis sentence,

have several paragraphs that develop and describe the topic, and the conclusion

should restate your thesis.

The teacher would notice the students that they can use their senses to

describe the scene. All of the senses can be used in a descriptive text. For

example touch, smell, hearing, taste, and vision, although the students may just

pick one or two.

After discussing about those characteristic of descriptive text, the

teacher would conduct the joins construction section. In which teacher and

students cooperate to make a draft. The teacher would prepare some topic option

that can be chosen by student to make their writing, for example, describe a thing,

animal, or the most important person in their life etc. the role of teacher here as a

guide, observer and counselor during the process. If a student has questions, the

teacher will write the question on whiteboard in order to other students can learn

and help in their writing.

27

Page 28: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

c. Observing the effect of the implementation relies on collecting data.

Observation is activity to collect data that is related to the application of writing,

the strategies and the way of teacher in solving the problem and students’ work.

Observation would be done during the teaching and learning process was

conducted. The observation sheet can be seen in appendix 7.

d. Reflecting on the effects as a basis for further action enhances informed

decision-making. The researcher and the teacher work together to find out the

mistake or obstacle they have during the action is conducted. In here, they decide

what ways will be applied in the next cycle as the problem solving in the previous

cycle and arrange the second lesson plan. In reflection, also the teacher and the

researcher analyzed the data that have been taken during the action.

In this study, before the action was conducted, first the researcher did

observation by interviewing the teacher to know the students’ problem in writing

and giving test to the students to know their writing performance. After the

actions were conducted, the researcher then did the test again. It was aimed to

know whether there was an improvement of students’ writing performance after

the action.

3.2 Setting of the Study

This study was conducted in SMU Negeri 9 Kendari. This school had

registered in 2003. The study was conducted in the first grade students. The first

grade students of SMU Negeri 9 Kendari who enrolled in academic year 2007/2008

28

Page 29: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

are 226 students, consisting of five parallel classes; they were class X1, X2, X3, X4,

X5, X6. From these six classes, the teacher only took one class purposively which the

problem found. More clearly about the classes can be seen in table 2 below:

Table 2. Figure of the subject

No Class Sum

1 X1 38

2 X2 40

3 X3 38

4 X4 36

5 X5 38

6 X6 36

Total 226

3.3 Subject of the study

The researcher took the subject by using purposive sampling, because the

researcher took the subject based on the problem found before conducting the action.

The researcher found the problem in the first grader at X1, which consisted of 38

students. To find the subject that was observed, the researcher took the students’

composition, which told the description about the most important person in their life

or their family. The pre-observation was conducted on April 10th , 2008.

29

Page 30: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

After doing the pre-observation before the study was conducted, the

researcher had gotten about 30 students who had problem in writing a related text.

The researcher found that most of the students had problem in organization area and

language use. To make it easier to be controlled and see the writing improvement in

part of organization and language use, the researcher only focused on 10 students

which had been taken randomly.

3.4 Factors that were observed

In this study, the researcher observed some factors, as follow:

1. Students’ writing performance during the process.

2. The strategies of teacher in solving the problem during process.

3. The way of teacher gave indirect feedback to students’ writing

4. Students’ improvement before and after the action.

3.5 Instrument of the Study

The instruments that the researcher used in this study were as follows:

1. Students’ writing

2. Field note, which was aimed to note the supporter data that related to the

object in this study. This note also was used to record the teaching learning

process related to weaknesses and obstacles found in the research. In addition,

researcher and teacher saw and took a note about students’ progress in the

classroom

30

Page 31: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3. Observation sheet, it was used to check the application of teacher’s indirect

teacher feedback in teaching and learning process. Observation sheet referred

by put a mark/tick to statements of process writing was done. Also the

researcher observed the teacher’ strategies in solve problems during the action

to help presentation of the data and taking conclusion. (See observation sheet

in appendix 7).

3.6 Data and technique of collecting data

The data of this study was qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data

is the description of the process during the action, students’ writing and teacher

feedback itself and the strategies of teacher to solve the problem. While, the

quantitative data is the result of students’ achievement before and after the action is

applied.

In collecting data, the researcher used two ways as follows:

a. Observation.

1. The researcher checked whether each indicator of descriptive text has

applied.

2. the researcher observed the teacher’s strategies in solving the problem

3. The researcher observed the students’ composition in process.

b. Students’ writing; the teacher evaluated the students writing from the first

draft until the final draft.

31

Page 32: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3.7 Procedure of giving indirect feedback on students’ writing

The procedure that was conducted in this study consisted as follows:

1. Teacher explained about the descriptive text in general and explains the

codec error that was given in their composition.

2. Students draft and ‘monitor’ their texts

3. Students write the first draft

4. Teacher responded to the first draft by giving feedback of all aspects but more

concentrate on the body of text in area of language use and organization and

returns the paper.

5. Students responded to codec given and comment, then rewrite their drafts

6. Students produced a second draft

7. First and second drafts were then handed in.

8. Teacher/editor responded to students’ writing in second drafts

9. The teacher again noted down on the first draft any further explanations that

were necessary.

10. Teacher responded to the second draft checking whether the student is able to

deal with the problems.

11. After the teacher gave feedback to students’ 2nd draft, the students rewrote

their compositions and corrected their own mistakes.

12. The teacher provided grade and praise to students’ final draft.

32

Page 33: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3.8 The Evaluation

In evaluating the students’ writing the researcher used the ESL composition

profile proposed by Holly Jacobs, et al (1981:67), in which the evaluation of writing

consist of four component bur the researcher only focused on two component of

writing, they are language use and organization. Here are the criteria of ESL

composition:

Table 3. The Marking Scheme of ESL Composition in Two Components

Aspect of

Writing

Level Criteria

Organization

20-18

17 - 14

13 - 10

9 - 7

Excellent to very good; fluent expression, ideas clearly

stated/ supported, succinct, well organized, logical

sequencing cohesive

Good to average; somewhat choppy, loosely organized,

but main ideas stand out, limited support.

Fair to poor; no fluent, ideas confused or disconnected

lacks logical sequencing and development

Very poor; does not communicate, no organization or

not enough to evaluate.

Language

Use

25-22 Excellent to very good; effective complex construction,

few errors of agreement, tense number, word

order/function, article, pronoun, preposition

33

Page 34: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

(grammar)

21-18

17-11

10-5

Good to average; effective but simple construction,

minor problem in complex construction, several errors of

agreement, tense number, word order/function, article,

pronoun, preposition, but meaning seldom obscured

Fair to poor; major problem in simple complex

construction, frequent errors of negation, agreement,

tense, number, word order/function, article, pronoun,

preposition, and/ or fragment run-ons, deletions meaning

confused or obscured

Very poor; virtually no mastery of sentence construction

rules, dominated by error, does not communicate, not

enough to evaluate

There were two independent raters in assessing students’ writing. The first rater

was the researcher herself and the second rater is an English teacher of SMU Negeri 9

Kendari. The researcher chose the English teacher of the first grader students because

she taught writing subject in the fist grade. For that reason, she is qualified for

assessing students’ writing.

The students’ writings were taken randomly. The two raters, the English

teacher and the researcher rated student’s writing independently and record each

34

Page 35: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

other and calculated the inter rater agreement is calculated. During the assessment

session, the names of students are covered by piece of paper to avoid the scoring

animus.

To be reliable in evaluation, the rater conducts following procedures:

1. Ten compositions were taken to evaluate in order to represent different

level of quality.

2. The score of composition in inter-rater training was calculated in

product moment until the correlation was achieved.

3. The score scale description was discussed again after the scoring

session has begun to make sure that the raters are not deviating from

scoring guides.

Then to measure the applying inter-rater, whether both raters have significant

correlation or not, the researcher applies the product moment formula, as follow:

rxy

Where:

rxy = the coefficient correlation of inter rater

x = the students’ scores from the first rater

y = the students’ scores from the second raters

N = number of subjects

35

Page 36: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

The result of inter-rater agreement is 0,947, it showed that there was high correlation

between raters (appendix 9, pg.100).

3.9 Technique of data analysis

The data analysis of this study is qualitative where the data is presented in words.

Those data are analyzed after the observation is conducted. In analyzing data, the

researcher uses three steps; reduction, the presentation, and taking conclusion.

1. Reduction.

In this step, the researcher selected the data in which the data was

focused object that the writer observes.

2. The Presentation of Data.

In this step, the researcher described all the data that have been found

into words.

3. Taking conclusion.

After describing the data, the researcher took conclusion about the

teacher’s feedback whether it had improved students or not.

3.10 Indicator of performance

The students as the target of this study are expected to achieve score 14 upper

(good) for organization and 18 upper (good) for language use by using ESL

composition proposed by Jacob et al (1981). This study would be stopped if the

students were able to write a good composition relating to the organization and

language use in their descriptive text under teacher’s indirect feedback on their

36

Page 37: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

writing text by achieving marking scheme (good) in ESL composition (see table 3,

pg. 32-33).

CHAPTER IV

FINDING AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents the finding and discussion of the findings. The findings

consist of the description of students writing problem that was got from pre-

observation, activities of the first cycle until the second cycle which each of them

consist of planning, implementation, observation, and reflection. To view the

improving of students’ writing through indirect teacher’s feedback, this section

includes the discussion of result of this study and the supported theories.

4.1 Finding of the Study

4.1.1 Students’ writing problem

Based on the observation of the result of students’ composition before conducting the

action, it found that there were several problems related to the organization and

Language use aspect of Writing.

For organization, most students produced disorder organization of text. It can be

seen on one of student’s composition in appendix 13. This composition was taken

from one of their writing assignment in English text book. A student composition was

entitled “My TV”. In this student’s composition, we can see that the student didn’t

know about how to organize descriptive text with a good organization. The student

37

Page 38: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

also couldn’t divide orientation/general description, description and

re-orientation/conclusion. This student’s composition was like a report text about TV

without giving some description about what this student’s TV looks like, the special

item in this student’s TV, or other detail things about this student’s TV. This student

just shared about TV in General. A part from this student’s lack to understand how to

write a descriptive text, it also can be found that actually based on the topic given, the

students couldn’t develop his words, sentences and ideas to write as much as possible

about the topic. In the end of the composition, he/she didn’t give conclusion/

reorientation as in generic structure of descriptive text. Related to the generic

structure of descriptive text, in which it consisted of orientation, description and re-

orientation/conclusion. It seemed that students needed to be taught about how to

organize the text based on its generic structure in order to produce a text in good

organization, in case of descriptive text.

Beside organization, this student also had problem of using Language use to

produce good text. The component of language use, in which consists of Agreement,

Tense, Number, Word order/function, articles, Pronouns, Preposition. Here, there

were many unstructured sentences from beginning until the end of the composition.

For example, it was written for example, “television in very too big”, “the television

is information with very you know by many peoples”, “much different distinction

television to use by much peoples”.

38

Page 39: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

This student was not the only one who made mistakes. Most students made

the same mistake or even worse. This result indicated that students did mistake in part

of language use and organization. Mostly, in language use area, students made

mistakes in part of, agreement, tense, word order, pronoun, and article. In

organization, the students didn’t know about good order in organizing a text,

especially in descriptive text.

Responding to those problems, the researcher and the teacher planned to apply

teacher’s indirect feedback in their writings. This method was used to solve two basic

problem of writing. In applying this method, teacher used one of a text which was

descriptive text, and students were hoped to be able to produce the text based on the

pattern by using appropriate language feature and structurally.

4.2 Activities of the first cycle

In relation with those problems, the researcher and the English teacher discussed

about the problem and planned some follow up activities as follows:

A. Planning

1. The researcher and the teacher planned to teach how to organize their writing in

a good order related to the generic structure of descriptive text. The teacher ought to

teach the students in order to organize their organization by using pattern of Genre

approach; orientation, description and re-orientation (Appendix 1).

In regarding with this pattern of text organization, teacher prepared a model of

text in which the text was formed into orientation, and then followed by description

39

Page 40: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

(characteristic), supporting ideas (details/examples) and finished by

reorientation/conclusion. For more clear, it can be seen in appendix 4. Teacher would

teach the students based on the lesson plan as a guide of teaching that had been made

by researcher cooperate with the English teacher. The lesson plan can be seen in

appendix 2.

2. The teacher planned to teach students the language feature of descriptive text.

To make students easily in using of language feature itself, teacher prepared the

model of text, in which the language feature was shown in underlined words/

sentences. The model of text can be seen in appendix 4.

3. To make the process of teaching and learning run effectively, the teacher made

those plans in lesson plan. The lesson plan was made in form of genre approach

instruction. Concerning to the limited time in each meeting, the teaching learning

process were divided into three meetings. The 1st meeting were three phases of genre

approach; preparation, modeling and joint construction. In this meeting, the students

were hoped to understand the generic structure and the use of language feature in

descriptive text and also they started to write their first draft. Then in the 2nd meeting,

they would get the feedback from the first draft and revise it in this meeting. The

teaching learning process would emphasize on the independent construction of 2nd

draft, which was hoped to write a descriptive text composition independently better

than before and also to see their improvement under teacher indirect feedback

40

Page 41: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

4. The researcher prepared the observation sheet and field note to observe the

process of teaching and learning activity. In doing the observation and taking note

during the action the researcher cooperated with the English teacher. The observation

sheet can be seen in appendix 7 and field note can be seen in appendix 10.

B. Action

Action is kind of activity that was done by applying the planning that had been

arranged before. The teaching learning process was done based on the lesson plan

that had been made in planning session.

The actions of fist cycle consisted of two meetings. The first meeting was the

activity where the teacher shared and taught the student about the purpose, generic

structure and language feature of descriptive text. In explaining and teaching writing,

the teacher used genre approach which consists of preparation, modeling, and joint

construction, beside that the teacher also discussed about the feedback, the codec

errors/ the symbols that the teacher were going to use in their writing then asked the

students to write their 1st draft.

The second meeting, the teaching and learning process focused on students’

1st draft, discussed it and found what the problem on their writing and wrote the

revision of the 1st draft after the teacher gave indirect feedback on their writing. The

students already got the result and indirect feedback from the teacher. Then the

students created 2nd draft as revision of 1st draft and they made their writing based on

the pattern of descriptive text that had been taught by the teacher in the first meeting.

41

Page 42: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

For more clear about the meetings the researcher explained more detail, as follow:

1. 1st meeting

The first meeting was held on Saturday, august 23rd 2008 at 07.30–10.20 am.

The teacher started the learning process by giving students copies of model

text and asked students to compare with their composition on 1st draft. Then the

teacher instructed students to learn the model of text. After that, teacher asked

students to discuss about the generic structure and language feature of the model text.

The model text can be seen in appendix 4.

In discussing about introduction, the teacher asked the students opinion about

the pattern of descriptive text. Here students responded teacher’s command by

delivering what they read in the text. They mentioned that the generic structure which

provided in the text consisted of orientation, description, and

re-orientation/conclusion. After that, the teacher explained what should be written in

each part of descriptive text (see appendix 4).

Teacher explained to the students that in descriptive text, the subject of

writing could be ordinary or extraordinary. It means that they had to make it as

interesting as possible by emphasizing what makes it interesting or new and unusual.

Then, teacher asked them to pick something specific, as person, an animal, or a thing.

After that, the teacher asked them to give the description orally. In this process,

students pick one of their friends in that class, namely Syakir. Here, they gave

description about Syakir, they said “Syakir is my classmate”, “Syakir is age 15 years

42

Page 43: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

old”, “Syakir is handsome boy and tall”. Another student said “Syakir cleaver, he

always get good score in math and physic subject”, etc.

The teacher continued the explanation about the organization. The teacher

told them, when they wanted to create a clear pattern of descriptive text, the

introduction should be started from general to specific description and ended in a

thesis sentences. It had several paragraphs that was developed and described the topic

and then in conclusion, it should restate the thesis. The teacher also noticed them that

they could use their sense to describe the subject. All of the senses could be used in a

descriptive text; touch, smell, hearing, taste, and vision, although the student just

picked one or two senses.

After discussing about the characteristic of descriptive text, the teacher then

explained the language feature in descriptive text. in discussing language feature,

teacher asked some students to identify and show what tense that the text model used,

for example the teacher said “can you tell me what tense does the text use?” some

students responded by saying “simple continuous tense”, “passive voice present” and

other students said “simple present tense”. After that, teacher clarified the wrong

answer by showing the sentences were taken from text and teacher herself. Teacher

said “if you want to describe about something or the person activity or condition in

the present, you have to use simple present tense and the characteristic were Do,

Does, V1, Vs/Es, ToBe”. The teacher also gave some related example (he eats

43

Page 44: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

banana every day, I go to the market every Sunday, he goes shopping twice a week )

and the adverb frequency (sometimes, usually, always, never, etc).

The teacher then asked the student to recall the sentences they had made about

their friend “Syakir”. Sometimes students made mistake to make sentence but the

teacher asked students correct it by themselves, for example, the teacher wrote in the

whiteboard “he always get good….” The students then corrected the sentence “he

always gets…..” and told them when they want to make simple present sentence, they

had to notice with subject pronoun and verb, in which the verb should in form

V+s/es, if the subjects were He, She, and It. Then another sentence was made “,

“Syakir is age 15 years old” and corrected by the teacherby explaining when they

wanted to say/write somebody’s age, they just need to write “Syakir is 15 years old”

because years old representative of age itself. After explaining the tense pattern to

them, the teacher asked the students to find out the simple present sentences in the

model text. The students gave response by showing the sentences “Borobudur is

located in Magelang, Central Java……”, “Borobudur is well-known all over the

world”, etc.

The teacher then gave students another text. The text was an example of

indirect feedback they would receive and be completed with the symbols of codec

errors. For example for language use consisted of SP (spelling), S/VA (subject/verb

agreement), VT (verb tense), WC (word choice), and GR (sentence structure) and for

44

Page 45: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

organization the teacher underlined, put an arrow and gave notes/comments about the

sentences, words or paragraphs needed to be corrected.

After discussing about the organization and language feature of descriptive

text and also gave them the model text, teacher conducted join construction. In this

session, both teacher and students cooperated to make a draft. The teacher suggested

describing about “Syakir”, their friend once again. Here the teacher wrote all the

sentences that students made about “Syakir”.

After joint construction, the teacher asked the students to compose a draft

independently. The teacher asked the students to search the topic to be written as their

first draft. Some topics were prepared by the teacher, such as “my favorite thing”,

“the most important person in my life”, and “my favorite place”. Most students chose

topic “the most important person in my life”. Then teacher explained that they could

write about one of their family members, a best friend, a girl friend or a boyfriend.

The teacher then asked the students to write a composition consists of 3 or more

paragraphs and each paragraph can consists of 3-4 sentences.

The implementation in this session was running well because students were

given opportunity to deliver their idea and to ask some question about the material.

Even though there were some students who didn’t pay attention to the teacher’s

explanation, overall the process teaching and learning was running well. 10 minutes

left before the teacher ended the class, the teacher asked the students to submit their

45

Page 46: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

draft. She told them that in the next meeting, they would receive their draft and look

for their writing problem.

2. 2nd meeting

The second meeting was held on Tuesday, August 26th 2008 at 07.15 – 09.15 am. The

teacher started the class by greeting the students and checked the attendance list for

about 5 minutes. In this meeting, the teacher distributed their 1st draft.

Before starting the main activity, the teacher did brainstorm about the

previous material and asked their difficulties in composing a draft. Most students

reported what problem they had in composing a text. They said they still had

difficulties on grammar/ tenses, vocabulary, and how to organize paragraphs. This

activity ran for about 30 minutes. After that, the teacher started the main activity.

During the process, sometimes students walked around the class to find a

dictionary to their friends or came close to the teacher and researcher to ask some

words in English. Some students also discussed about the topic chosen with their

partner. In here, while the researcher was taking note and observing the class activity,

teacher monitored students activity and help them when the students got difficulties.

This process of writing was run for about 70 minutes. The last 10 minutes teacher

collected the students’ compositions and informed that they could take the result in

the next meeting.

C. Observation

46

Page 47: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

During the implementation of writing process in classroom, the teacher and

researcher kept writing notes to see the process of technique application. Starting

from beginning until the end of the lesson, the teacher and the researcher used

observation sheet that had been prepared before. The observation sheet can be seen in

appendix 7. The teacher and the researcher not only used observation sheet, but also

used field note. The field note can be seen in appendix 10.

During class activity, the researcher had several points about both teacher and

students’ activities while observing the class. Here are some teacher activities in

classroom during the 1st meeting and 2nd meeting were underway:

1. At the beginning of the lesson, teacher explained the material to the student, in

case of descriptive text. So, they got some general illustration about the

descriptive text.

2. Teacher told the student that every finishing their writing/draft, the teacher

would give feedback to their writing.

3. Teacher explained the general and language feature of the descriptive text.

4. The teacher then explained kind of feedback would be used. In here, the teacher

explained what indirect feedback is, the function of indirect feedback , and how

later the teacher would give indirect feedback to their writing

5. The teacher explained about each symbols were used in part of language use

and told them in part organization the teacher would comment the introduction,

47

Page 48: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

description and conclusion. So the students could correct their writing and add

their knowledge.

6. The teacher and the researcher took note about students’ questions, their

strength and their weaknesses during the process.

7. After explanation of the material to the students, the teacher asked them to write

their 1st draft about the topic they had chosen before, that was “the most

important person in your life”

8. In the second meeting, the teacher distributed the students’ 1st draft and the

drafts were already checked and given indirect feedback by the teacher.

9. Teacher asked them to write a composition that would be their second draft

based on the revision of their first draft.

10. The teacher monitored the process during students composing their draft and the

teacher sometimes helped them when they had problem with the vocabularies or

words in English.

11. The teacher informed to the students that they would receive the result in the

next meeting.

While, students’ activities were as follows:

1. At the beginning of the lesson, students participated by asking question to the

teacher about the purpose of descriptive text

2. The students concentrated to the teacher’s explanation about the material and

asked about how the teacher gave indirect feedback to their draft.

48

Page 49: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3. Students discussed about generic structure and language feature in descriptive

text by using model text and material from the teacher.

4. Students mentioned what things could be put in generic structure and language

use in descriptive text.

5. Some students were shy to deliver or express their idea especially in using

English words. To overcome this problem, the teacher asked them to deliver in

Indonesia

6. The students took notes about the important points from the teacher’s

explanation, especially about how teacher gave indirect feedback and symbol in

part of organization and language feature.

7. In the second meeting, the students took their first draft and saw the indirect

feedback on their draft.

8. The students wrote the composition based on teacher instruction and revised

their first draft based on the feedback given by the teacher.

9. The students paid attention to their writing and asked some question about the

feedback. For example, what ‘s the meaning of SP, VT and arrow sign, circle,

etc. even the teacher already explained and gave them some copies of feedback

symbols in the previous meeting.

10. During the process of writing students often asked the teacher and their friend

about the word they wanted to use.

49

Page 50: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Based on the activities, observation, and the students’ 1st and 2nd draft result in

the first cycle, the researcher found there were several problems on the students’

vocabularies, organization and language use, and the way teacher gave the feedback

to the students’ composition. So, the researcher and the teacher planned the second

cycle to deal with the problems, especially in language use.

D. Reflection

Based on observation that had been done in the first cycle, the first meeting didn’t get

any difficulties to transfer the material and students also often asked about some

question such as what the descriptive text is, how they can start to write and what for

the copy of marking scheme had been given to them, etc.

The problem appeared when the teacher asked them to write their 1 st draft in the

second meeting. The students wrote a composition based on teacher’s instruction. In

this time, they had to write a descriptive text about the most important person in their

life. During the process, the students got difficulties to express their ideas into

writing. They still hadn’t understand yet about descriptive text even the teacher had

explained them in previous meeting and some of them made it in disorder

organization and language use. It can be seen on student’s composition in appendix

14, draft 1. In the first draft, students didn’t make a good improvement because they

still lack in part organization and language use. When teacher checked their work

before giving indirect feedback on their 1st draft, the fact that they confused how to

50

Page 51: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

move from the first paragraph to the next paragraph and also how to differentiate the

general description-detail descriptions-conclusion.

As an example, it can be seen one of student’s composition. In the first draft,

this student composed unorganized composition and poor language use. Actually the

student already had good content but the student got problem how to organize and

develop the idea in the composition. Here is an untitled composition (appendix 14,

draft 1):

“hai SP my name is Adnin Aderiska And uSP can call me Adnin. I live in Haeba

Street Pengadilan tinggi agama No.1(PUNC.) I have one sister. She is college WC in

universitas Hasanuddin Makassar my sister old 20 years old VT I love my

sister.And next time I want to college WC in Makassar too.

I am a man, my school is SMA 9 Kendari) (PUNC)my class in X1VT. I like my

class.(PUNC) because they want to real friendship(unclear meaning) to me and nice wit

SP all. Every in class we play and study together GR”

Some mistakes had been made in language use aspect and organization. In language

use, the mistakes were underlined. It can be seen that the student did many mistakes

from beginning until the end of sentences. For the organization aspect, this student

didn’t write the composition based on the generic structure of descriptive text. Those

sentences could be an introduction, description or even conclusion. It means that, this

student hadn’t made a good improvement that is related to the generic structure

(organization) and language feature (language use) of descriptive text. In developing

51

Page 52: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

the idea, the student was still lack of vocabulary and the student didn’t put the title of

composition. Moreover, the sentences were still choppy even the reader might be able

to understand it. In language use, it can be seen that some mistakes were occurred in

composition, for example SP/spelling (hai, u, wit), WC/word choice (college),

PUNC/punctuation (period, comma), and VT/ verb tense (my sister old 20 years old,

my class in X1).

Another students sample was taken in the same problem. In here the student

wrote about parents. Here is a composition entitled “my brother”:

I have brother.(PUNC) But one that I’m very(NN)like. He have name is

Ramadhan(S/VA). He is policeman. He is chil(SP) second from fife(SP) collegues(WC).

He live (S/VA) in jl. Ir. Soekarno number 42T . he is the most important person in my

life because he that(NN) always to(NN) pay me to school. He already have (S/VA)

family now.

NPHe have (S/VA) one boy . He very (WO) like (S/VA) to play by her boy . Bedidest(SP) its(WC)

he also like ( S/VA) sports . Sports that he likes is badminton, football and table

tennis ( GR). Although he often sports (WC) but her person very biggest and fat (GR) .

He don’t(S/VA) like if see peoples (WC) that always to(NN) play dice(PUNC) he always (NN)

teach(S/V)A me about lessons, that I don’t know. So(PUNC) he don’t(S/VA) like if I don’t

go to school one day. He to strike me if I don’t bring about it(?????).

52

Page 53: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

This composition is different from above sample. This student wrote two

paragraphs that talked about “Brother”. From the title, it can be seen that the student

had a good idea to write. This student wrote some ideas about “brother” that

obviously, it was still general and needed to be improved. Even the ideas were

choppy in the first draft but in the next draft, this student was able to make an average

composition. From language use aspect, some mistakes were occurred in

composition, it can be seen in underlined word. Mostly, the mistakes are about the

subject and verb agreement (S/VA), punctuation (PUNC), word choice (WC), word

order (WO), Spelling (SP), not necessary word (NN). (Appendix 15, draft 1).

The second meeting activity focused on students’ composition, those are

distributing students’ 1st draft, discussing about the problem on their writing and

revising it based on the feedback given. Some problems appeared during the process

of writing 2nd draft as a revision of 1st draft. They often asked about the English of

some words or what vocabulary that they can use in a sentence and many other

problems found when the process was over. An example of students’ writing can be

seen as follow:

“SP Hai , my name is adnin Aderiska.PUNC and you can call me Adnin or

chupid. I live PREPin Haeba street Komp. Pengadilan tinggi Agama No.1PUNC

I have one sister. She now live S /VA in Makassar. She college WC in Universitas SP

Hasanuddin Makassar. She is 20 years old. I was born in Takke 27 September

1991.PUNC and I’m 17 years old now.

53

Page 54: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

SPBay the way, now I’m school NN in SMA 9 KDI. I’m in X1. I really like

my class SP yo know why? Because my friend in class reall SP friendship and

nice with all ????? .

I’m mosleam SP and I really like reading. My favorid SP book is VA novel

and all book GR from Indonesia.

I like shopping, watching TV and listening music (MOVE THIS )

I like film horror, action, and romantic comedy. I really like watching film

because that can make me fresh and eliminate WC to against the stomach and

stress?????.

And now I’m 17 years old in this years my parent really nice to me. WC Him love me so much. (MOVE THIS SENTENCE)” (Appendix 14, draft II).

The sample writing above showed that some mistakes were still occurred,

mostly the mistakes were in language use aspect, while in organization aspect, this

composition is better than in the first draft. To compare the first draft and the second

draft, it can be seen in appendix 14.

From the result, in the first draft the students who achieved the target Average

to Very Good only 6 students for organization and 5 students for language use. The

2nd draft it increased but it was still far from the target want to be achieved.

Based on the overall process in cycle I, The researcher found that some

problems appeared during the process of writing from 1st and 2nd meeting in the first

cycle. First, the problem came from their vocabulary problem. During the process of

writing, the students often asked about some words in English or what vocabulary

they can use in their sentences. For example, the question “mam, what english for

54

Page 55: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

“ibuku baik sekali”?.” Another question is “what good language for “ teman kelas”,

friend class atau friend?”, etc. In here the students get difficulties because they didn’t

bring dictionary. That’s why during the process, students always walked around the

class to borrow the dictionary or asked the teacher and researcher to help them with

it.

The role of teacher in here was clearly seen that the teacher at that time helped

the students who got problem in their vocabulary and informed to them to bring

dictionary in next meeting.

Even there were some problems, based on the result of 2nd draft the students

also made an improvement after the second meeting was conducted. The students

showed an improvement in part of language use but only few students who achieved

the target. The students were able to produce composition based on generic structure

of descriptive text. This problem was influenced by the way teacher in giving

feedback to them. They didn’t understand because the teacher wrote the feedback in

unorganized style.

Too many mistakes made them difficult to see the feedback within their

sentences and sometimes didn’t know if there was feedback on theirs. Another

problem was also shared by students about the teacher’s comments. The teacher

wrote the comments in English, so the students sometimes had difficulties to translate

it into Indonesia.

55

Page 56: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Beside about students’ problem in their composition, there were also several

problems that affected the teaching and learning process, for example less of

attention, less motivation to write, stuck with the ideas and sentences going to be

developed, etc. In solving the problem, the next cycle will be conducted to solve

those problems.

4.3 Activities of the Second Cycle

A. Planning

The result in the reflection of previous cycle showed several problems. Dealing with

those problems, the researcher and the teacher did preparation as follows:

1. The students’ score on organization and language use aspect were far from the

target and it caused by less of attention and motivation. Less of attention may also be

the important factor why the first cycle still got problems. Some students did other

activities, such as chatting with friend, drawing, etc. the teacher and the researcher

planned to solve those problems by controlling the class more than before, giving

warning to the students, and sit or stood around the noisy area.

2. Teacher and the researcher planned to give more explanation about the use of

language feature. Based on the problem they had on the second draft, the problem in

using language feature was about Verb1, Verb + S/ES, subject and object pronoun,

possessive adjective and noun, article (a, an, and the), preposition, etc.

56

Page 57: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

3. Teacher would distribute students’ 2nd composition result. The previous

problems of the students were they composed better organization order but still poor

language use. Besides, the way applying feedback made students confused because

teacher wrote the feedback in unclear way and messy. So the teacher and the

researcher planned a new strategy in giving feedback by using feedback sheet model

(see appendix 12). This model was used when the teacher gave feedback on their 2nd

draft.

4. Teacher and researcher planned to prepare model text to be analyzed together

in classroom. This model text was the students’ composition which represented the

students’ mistakes.

5. The first meeting in this cycle would be used to focus their attention on

teacher explanation about language use. While in the second cycle, they would write

their 3rd draft as a revision of 2nd draft.

6. To make the teaching and learning process would run effectively and

efficiency, the teacher and the researcher prepared the lesson plan. The lesson plan of

cycle 2 can be seen in appendix 3.

7. Teacher and the researcher prepared observation sheet and field note to

observe the process and the condition of teaching and learning activity.

B. Action

In this cycle there were two meetings (3rd meeting and 4th meeting). The teacher and

the researcher did this cycle because the first cycle couldn’t solve the problem, so this

57

Page 58: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

cycle was hoped can solve the problem they got from the first cycle from 1 st meeting

– 2nd meeting. The material was still about descriptive text with the students’

compositions but this cycle more focused on their comprehension of language use,

because the first cycle had already solved the problem in area organization.

In the third meeting, the teaching learning process focused on language use of

descriptive text, students’ mistakes in the second draft and then to check their writing,

teacher applied new strategy in giving feedback. The forth meeting was an activity to

find out whether there was improvement after applying the new strategy of written

feedback to their 2nd draft or not. In the forth meeting, the students composed the 3 rd

draft based on the correction given on their 2nd draft and see their improvement.

For more clear about the meetings the researcher explained more detail, as follow:

a. 3rd meeting

The third meeting was held on Tuesday, September 2nd 2008 at 07.15 – 09.15. The

class begun with usual activity such as greeted students and checked the attendance

list for about 5 minutes. After that, teacher started the material. The teacher focused

this meeting to explain about their problems until the students comprehend and be

independence in writing. The teacher informed the students she would distribute their

writing for a while to see their improvement and the student had to collect them back

in the end of the meeting.

The teacher informed to the students that she had checked their composition and

already written the feedback with new strategy by using feedback sheet on their

58

Page 59: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

compositions, so the students didn’t confused with the feedback given. For

organization, the teacher still used comment, underline the sentence /paragraphs but it

was little bit different, because the teacher used both Indonesian and English for the

comment they might not understand. The teacher also let the students to ask about the

comment they didn’t understand.

The teacher explained by focusing on most mistakes that student had. For

example grammar, punctuation, proper words, word order, etc. The teacher took one

example of student’s composition. After that teacher presented one of student

composition in whiteboard and asked the students to find the mistakes. To get

students’ attention on the text, the teacher prepared the copies of the text. Some

students responded the teacher command by mentioning the mistakes. Those mistakes

were about the using of Verb I, Ves/s, To Be, Pronoun, and articles (a, an, and the),

etc, punctuation.

The teacher asked the students to remember what they had written as 2nd draft

and also let them to ask some questions about language use. During this process, the

students looked so enthusiast to ask questions to the teacher. It really helped because

they teacher didn’t have to spend her power to explain all about language use itself.

Some of students’ question were shared by combining English and Indonesian,

“mam……, when we bisa gunakan V+ S/es”, “kalau kita mau pake she berarti we

must use is, kan mam?”, or “apa bedanya he-him, she-her,they-their,we-our….”, etc.

59

Page 60: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

While the students were asking some questions, the teacher didn’t forget to

write the point of their questions on whiteboard, in order the other students could

remember by taking note. The teacher then explained the question one by one to the

students. In here the teacher always repeated what she had explained in the first

meeting. She also asked the students to pay attention to her explanation and keep

asking questions if they didn’t understand.

The student most asked about the changes of verbs for “he, she, it, I, You, We,

and they”. The teacher explained that when the students wanted to use subjects “he,

she, it” they must change the verb by adding S/ES, for example “he manages the

housework everyday”. Whereas, the students must use V1 without adding by S/ES

when use the subject; I, you, we, they, for example “they manage the housework

together everyday.” The students also asked when they can use S/ES.

To train the students, the teacher asked them to give and write some sentences

on their textbook. Beside about the change of the verb, the students also asked about

word order when they wanted to combine a noun with an adjective. The teacher then

explained that they had to put adjective before noun, for example black (adjective)

and hair (noun) to be black hair or beautiful (adjective) and girl/woman to be

beautiful girl or beautiful woman. The teacher always reminded them about

agreement between subject and verb, the order of noun and adjective, the use of sense

(hear, taste, see, touch, etc) when they wanted to describe someone. The teacher

didn’t forget to encourage them in the end of meeting to write a better composition

60

Page 61: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

and always consulted their problem to the teacher. The students gave very good

responds for that.

This activity was done for about 70 minutes. Before ending the meeting, the

teacher informed the students that they would revise their 2nd drafts and applied what

they had learned in the next meeting.

b. 4th meeting

The 4th meeting was done on Tuesday, September 9th 2008 at 08.15 - 10.15 a.m.

The teacher started the lesson by distributing their 2nd draft. The teacher re-informed

to the students about the students’ lack in their composition in this case the students

had problem in using language feature. The teacher motivated the students again as

she did in the previous meetings because it would help the students to do better.

The teacher was helped by the researcher to distribute the result of their draft.

In their writing, they received not only their drafts but also their feedback sheets.

Then, the teacher gave 10 minutes for students to see the feedback sheets and the

comments on their compositions. In this process, the students paid attention on

teacher’s feedback about their mistakes.

Based on the problem on their first and second drafts, it can be seen that they

still had problem in part of language use. So in this meeting the teacher explained

more about language use. In the class, the teacher didn’t teach the students by using

hand out anymore, but she used students’ error in the second draft (see appendix 15)

61

Page 62: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

After distributing all the composition, the teacher reminded again to look at

their mistakes. Here, the teacher explained the language feature mostly by using

students’ mistakes they always made. This was one of her strategy to make students

learned about their mistakes and didn’t repeat that again. Having discussed about

some mistakes in the composition, the teacher then asked the students to rewrite their

composition based on the feedback given. The students who always walked around

the class were less than in the previous meeting because the teacher reminded them to

bring a dictionary as one of regulation to get in the class and the English score.

During the process of independent construction, the class activity was better

than before. The teacher strategy to stand around noisy area was successful and the

students also quieter than before, but the discussion between partners were still done

by them. While, the teacher was monitoring and helping students with the process,

the researcher helped the teacher and did the observation.

Then, the teacher asked students to correct and rewrite their composition

based on the feedback sheet given. During the process of writing, the teacher always

reminded them about general structure and also language feature of descriptive text.

In this activity, the teacher didn’t work alone she was helped by the researcher to

control the class. The last 10 minutes, the students finished their draft and then

collected to the teacher.

C. Observation

62

Page 63: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

While doing the implementation in the second cycle, in second cycle, researcher

observes some important things during the lesson, as follows:

1. At the beginning, the teacher started class activities by asking about the

previous material and what the students got from the material before.

2. The teacher informed to the students about the students’ lack in their

composition in part of language use.

3. When the teacher distributed students’ 2nd draft, she also gave the feedback

sheet to the students and asks the students to put attention on their mistakes that

had been written in their own feedback sheet.

4. The teacher permitted the students to ask some question about their composition

and the feedback given if they got problems.

5. Both teacher and researcher kept focusing to see the students’ progress in

writing.

Based on the classroom observation conducted at the second meeting,

researcher found that when students were writing, they had problem how to decide

the proper word to use in sentence, for example they asked wash the dishes not wash

the plate, do the laundry not wash the clothes. The role of the teacher was really

important in here where she can help students by explaining every misunderstanding

word.

D. Reflection

63

Page 64: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

In this cycle, there was actually no significant problem found since the solution from

the teacher and researcher was successfully useful to students. The problems

generally treated well since the solutions from teacher and researcher were

successfully useful to students.

Based on observation in the second cycle, the result of 3nd draft showed that

they had good improvement during the process. They could compose 3 rd draft better

than in the 1st draft and 2nd draft (see appendix 16). The teacher’s strategy to use

feedback sheet in their 2nd draft was successful based on the result of their 3rd drafts.

There was only about their language choice produced by students where very

Indonesian style like “…..he every lesson math always present….” It Should be

“….he always presents in math class ……” This mistake corrected by teacher to

explain the appropriate and encourages students understanding when interaction did.

Even sometimes they still made it mistake both in organization or language use, but

from their mistakes were decreased from draft 1 until draft 3.

4.4 The Result

4.4.1 The Result of The Student’s Writing

This section is about the result of the student’s writing in the first draft, the

second draft and the third draft in the class that showed in the following chart:

64

Page 65: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Figure 1. Students’ writing achievement in organization aspect

This chart shows the students’ improvement in part of organization. It clearly

gives sample evidence that most students’ writing ability is improved under teacher’s

indirect feedback. The number of students is increased in Average to Very good score

in draft 3 and no one is in Very Poor score in draft 3. The same condition also shows

improvement in Fair to Poor and Average to Good score, where in Fair to Poor,

there are 18 students in draft 1, 15 students in draft 2 and 4 students in draft 3.

In Average to Good, there are 7 students in daraft 1, 14 students in draft 2 and 21

students in draft 3. While, In Excellent to Very Good score, there aren’t any students

who achieved good to average score in draft 1, but it increased become 1 student in

draft 2 and 5 students in draft 3. It can be concluded that the target has been achieved,

in this case the students who achieved Average to Good score increased in draft 3

become 21 students and no students in draft 3 achieved very poor.

65

Page 66: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Figure 2. Students’ writing achievement in language use aspect

The figure 2 shows the students’ improvement in language use aspect and

once again, it gives the strong impression that teacher’s indirect feedback can

improve their writing. In very poor score, there are 9 students in draft 1, 5 students in

draft 2 and 1 student in draft 3. In pair to poor score, there are 18 students in draft 1,

21 students in draft 2 and 11 students in draft 3. In good to average score, there are 3

students in draft 1, 4 students in draft 2, and 16 students in draft 3. In excellent to very

good score, there aren’t any students both in draft 1 and draft 2, but there are 2

students in draft 3. From the chart, it can be concluded that numbers of students

achieved the target “good to average “were increased to be 16 students in draft 3 and

2 students achieved excellent to very good score. Students did improvement in draft 3

better than in draft 1.

From the result in figure 1 and figure 2, it indicates that the application of

teacher’s indirect feedback in teaching writing can improve students’ writing

performance particularly in organization and language use aspects of writing.

66

Page 67: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

4.5 Discussion

The aim of this research was to prove that the students’ ability can be improved

through teacher’s indirect feedback. Beside that it helped students to be a good writer

and become more confidence with their writing, especially in English. That is to

encourage students to learn English through writing. Seeing the students’ draft in

process from the first draft and the third draft, they indicate that there is improvement

of students’ writing during the process. It can be seen on students’ composition on

first draft. In the first draft, mostly students wrote disorder organization of text and

irrelevant with what they wanted to write. The major problem is the use of language

use, particularly the use of present tense in their composition, word order, word

choice, etc.

Before starting the research, the researcher did pre-observation and the result

was 30 students had two main problems among those five aspects in writing, namely

organization and language use. The researcher conducted the researcher in two

cycles. The first cycle consists of two meeting and students made two drafts. While,

in the second cycle consists of two meetings and students made their final draft in the

forth meeting (see appendix 13, pg 105).

The teacher taught writing by using genre based approach, which consists of

preparation, modeling, joint construction and independent construction. After

finishing their writing in each meeting, the teacher took those compositions and

67

Page 68: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

provided the feedback. In this study the researcher collaborated with the English

teacher to give indirect feedback on their writing.

To evaluate the students the teacher and researcher used the evaluation

proposed by Holly Jacob, et al (1981:67) of two components; Organization and

Language Use. The text used is descriptive text, so the evaluation was based on the

pattern of organization (generic structure) and Language use (language feature) in

descriptive text (see appendix 1).

In the first cycle, the researcher found that even though, students had been

taught about the material intensively, the result was After the first cycle was applied,

the students showed improvement in part of organization but it was still far from the

target achieved. The implementation of the first cycle which consists of two meeting

(1st meeting and 2nd meeting) still had problem. In the first draft, Most students still

wrote in disorder organization of text, irrelevant and incorrect language use in the

first meeting (see appendix 14, pg 106). The 2nd meeting, the students made 2nd draft

as revision of 1st draft and some students know how to apply the generic structure on

their writing and could differentiate what sentences should be put in introduction,

detail description, conclusion. That’s why the researcher conducted the second cycle

to solve this problem. The common mistake that students made were particularly the

use of tenses (simple present tense), pronoun, word order, agreements, possessive,

and etc (see draft II in appendix 14, pg 107).

68

Page 69: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

In the second cycle, there were two meetings (3rd meeting and 4th meeting). In

the third meeting, the students’ were taught more intensively about the language use

in descriptive text and what they should reach in language use. While, in the fourth

meeting, the students rewrote and corrected their previous draft and the result was the

students produced a better result than the first cycle and the result already reached the

target (see draft III in appendix 14, pg 109). So it can be said that this second cycle

can solve students’ writing problem in language use aspect. The result from the first

draft, second draft and the last draft can be seen in appendix 8.

After implementing the action on students’ writing, the researcher found there

was an improvement on students’ writing under applying the teacher’s indirect

feedback. From this result the researcher decided to stop the action because the

students’ performances already reached the target of performance. The researcher

analyzed that the students could perform a better writing after taking their draft back

and revising it. The mistakes they had in their writing were more decreased because

their full attention and encouragement to write better and also they were supported by

many factors, especially the teacher’s feedback, motivation, and time.

The students’ score which achieved by students before and after conducting

action support improvement of this classroom action research. In which the number

of students who achieved Good to Average level of Jacob at al category of writing did

increase. It is before the action is conducted, the students’ numbers who achieved the

target were categorized Good to Average level or score upper 14 only 6 students or

69

Page 70: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

20 % for organization in the first draft, then it increased about 14 students in draft 2

or 46,6 % and 21 students or 70 % in the final draft.

For language use, the improvement also achieved for the students who achieved

target score Good to Average or upper 18 increased from 3 students or 7 % in the first

draft, then increased to 4 students or 13,3 % in draft 2 and 16 students or 53,3 %

increased in draft 3. It also can be seen in figure 1 that for organization, the students

who were achieved very poor level consisted of 5 students or 16,6 % in the first draft

and it decreased in the third draft become no student achieved very poor level. While,

for fair to poor level, the students who achieved that category consist of 18 students

or 60 % in the first draft, 15 students or 50 % in draft 2 and in the third draft it

decreased become 4 students or 13,3 % (see page 61).

For language use, it can be seen in figure 2 that the students who achieved very

poor level consist of 9 students or 30 % in the first draft, 5 students or 16,6% in the

second draft and it decreased in the third draft become 1 students or 3,33 %. While

for fair to poor level, the students who achieved that category consist of 18 students

or 60 %, 21 students or 70 % in the second draft and it decreased become 11 students

or 36,63 % in the third draft (see page 62).

The students’ improvement can be said as the result of applying teacher’s

indirect feedback which it applied in two cycles. The researcher agrees by Frodosen

(2001) that indirect feedback indirect feedback is very useful because students are

able to express their ideas more clearly in writing and to get clarification on any

70

Page 71: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

comments that teacher have made. Similarly, Furlgor (2006:34) stated that in indirect

feedback is very useful in encouraging the students to reflect on aspect of their

writing and to improve their performance by solving the problem themselves.

By using indirect feedback, it helped students to minimize their mistakes during

writing. Indirect feedback will increase the students’ ability in writing and the

corrections will be saved in his/her brain in a long time. Moreover, during writing

process, the students were not only taught about how to write but also what the

process when they write, because to compose a good writing, the writers not only

write once but many times. The students as the writers could decrease some mistakes

they always made. it‘s supported by a theory that in this process the student learns to

rearrange words and sentences, eliminate redundancies, subordinate sentences and

clauses, obtain a variety of sentences, and use transitional devices (Fox, 1992).

Another influence of the students’ improvement is the role of the teacher. In

this study the teacher had been placed herself completely to help students. The

teacher was not only had a role as a writing teacher but also she gave direction and

suggestion to students when looking students writing. It is supported by Seamus

(2008) that there are three distinct roles of teacher, they are as a reader, a writing

teacher, and a language expert.

First, reader involves interacting with the written work and reacting to the

content and ideas as a simple reader. It might include comments or suggestion. Next,

Writing teacher obviously involves helping students grapple with the writing skill as

71

Page 72: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

a whole and with its different sub-skills such as focusing on genre, working on text

organization and coherence, grammatical skills etc. and the last is Language expert,

here the teacher is in the more traditional role, helping the students with lexis,

grammar, spelling, etc and correcting any problems or other language errors that they

find, in this study the teacher helped the students by giving the feedback to the

students. The students followed the process of writing; it started from pre writing-

drafting-revising-editing-post writing. The teacher took the role in revising and

editing process. The teacher gave feedback after writing had composed and they

revised it back. Biaael in Mappe (2000) emphasizes that revision is a process in

which writers not only polish their style, but also develop their ideas. In this stage, the

teacher helps the students through the revision to shape and reshape the text into final

form.

When they revised, they learn many things from their mistake and how to

correct their mistake. In here, we can see that teacher feedback can positively help the

students to improve their writing. As Ferris suggested that teachers should offer

indirect rather than direct feedback (marking the error but not correcting it), because

it increases students’ own investment in the process and if students are revising or

rewriting their papers after receiving teacher feedback, they are expected merely to

transcribe the teachers’ suggested corrections into their texts (2002: 19). Even they

sometimes had problem during the process, the researcher and the teacher always

helped them, so that was not only gave them feedback but also guide them to find the

72

Page 73: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

truth and they had more confidence to write and were able to decrease their mistakes

in writing.

The researcher found that by putting directly the feedback symbols is not a

good idea. It happened when the teacher put the symbols on the students’ writing, the

students didn’t understand and the symbols seemed become one with their writing, so

sometimes the students didn’t see whether there is a feedback/symbol or not. It

caused this method wasn’t done very well. This become the teacher and researcher’s

problem and in the next cycle the researcher and the teacher tried to solve the

problem by giving feedback sheet to students writing, then the teacher prepared the

feedback sheet to put students’ mistake.

According to Clerk et al. (2000) said that by using the feedback sheets, it is

clear that students perceive those divided into criterion-based sections with room for

comments as the most useful. An additional global comment is also seen as highly

valuable or even essential. Feedback forms also accommodate tutors' concerns over

the time it takes to mark and give effective feedback.

Moreover, the teacher and researcher prepared the feedback sheet because the

students in the class had common mistake and strength in their writing and an

efficient way of giving feedback is to prepare a written report that is handed out to the

class. This report can detail what the best pieces of writing were like, what the

common errors and weaknesses were, and what to do about them. This sheet also

73

Page 74: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

provides a useful record that can be seen anytime by the teacher and students for later

pieces of writing if the strength and weaknesses are the same or have changed.

The feedback sheet can be seen in appendix 12. The feedback sheet was given

after seeing the students’ result in the second draft. After applying this method the

students were improved, they understood where they did mistakes and discussed it

with their friend and the teacher.

Besides, another factor that influences the student’s improvement is the

teacher helped the students by student-teacher conferencing. Indirect feedback has

also been found to be effective when it is coupled with student-teacher conferencing

(Brender, 1998; Fregeau, 1999). Conferencing allows both students and teachers are

chance to trace the causes of the problems arising from student writing and feedback,

and to develop strategies for improvement.

In this students- teacher conferences, teachers can offer self –correction

opportunity for their students by providing indirect feedback on student’s

grammatical errors (Chandler, 2003). The assistance and feedback given by the

teacher should not be confined to the last stage of the writing process. The marking of

products should always open more opportunities in which students can redraft their

work. By depriving them of their opportunity for redrafting and reassessing, the

students cannot have the chance of correcting the wrong behavior and re-practicing

the correct behavior.

74

Page 75: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

In short, writing helps the students to refine the ideas when they receive

feedback, students are able to express their ideas more clearly in writing and to get

clarification on any comments indirectly to their writing that teachers have made.

Finally, teachers can use conferencing to assist students for specific problems related

to their writing. Conferencing teacher-student, students-student, or teacher- students

had been done in this study and it could affect the students and motivated them to

write better than before. The students’ motivation increased when the different way

of teaching writing was applied by the teacher in the classroom. The student were

motivated because they knew that writing can be fun and not difficult anymore as

long as they know how to write a composition in a good organization, proper

language use, content, vocabulary and also mechanic of writing itself.

Based on those explanations, it can be concluded that the improvement of

students’ ability in writing of the first grade in SMA Negeri 9 Kendari was because

the application of teacher’s indirect feedback. The students’ attitude under teacher’s

feedback was good, in which after they were given information about their lack in the

composition, students then found out the right one for their writing by themselves. To

lessen student confusion, teachers can consistently use a standard set of symbols or

markings to indicate place and type of error and trained the students in what kinds of

corrections will be made based on each symbol as long as the teacher can explain

about the symbols they will used in writing, so the students familiarize themselves

with the signs/symbols.

75

Page 76: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

There are also some factors that influence the use of teacher indirect feedback

during this study. First, the researcher found that teacher’s indirect feedback can’t

stand alone and it will be more helpful by feedback sheet. Secondly, teacher’s

feedback has also been found to be effective when it is coupled with student-teacher

conferencing (Brender, 1998; Fregeau, 1999). Students are able to express their ideas

more clearly in writing and to get clarification on any comments that teachers had

made. Thirdly, concerning to teacher’s role as a motivator, in this study also found

that teacher’s feedback also depends on students’ motivation to write. Generally, it is

unpleasant experience to be corrected and some of learners may get frustrated and

unmotivated because they might not know what to do. That is why teachers have to

inspire and convince learners that teachers welcome their questions and worries.

Positive comments on their work are also accommodating to motivate learners to

pursue more (Wright, 1987; Richards & Lockhart, 1996). So, seeing improvement is

motivation, and seeing the same error repeatedly helped students target the mistakes,

review and revise their writing.

76

Page 77: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Conclusion

Based on the finding, it can be said that the implementation of teacher’s

indirect feedback in teaching writing can improve students’ writing quality. It can be

seen on students’ progress during the process. In the first draft, the students started to

make a composition by using descriptive text pattern and they produced disorder

organization and lack in language use although they had been taught about the

generic structure and the language feature of the text. In the second draft, they started

to write a composition by using descriptive text. In here they were already able to

produce good organization after the teacher gave them indirect feedback that showed

their problem in writing, even tough, they were still lack in language use aspect.

Then, they were taught about the language use more intensively and the result is in

the third draft, students had produced good organization and correct language use.

This result shows that the students did improve in their practices.

This improvement was supported by the comparison of number students who

got score good to average level before and after the action was conducted. Before the

action was conducted, the students who categorized good to average level were 7

students for organization and 3 students for language use. In the other hand, after

students were treated by teacher’s indirect feedback into two cycles, total of the

77

Page 78: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

students who categorized in good to average level increased become 21 students for

organization and 16 students for language use. From those comparisons, it indicated

that the improvement of students’ writing performance was achieved by applying

teacher’s indirect feedback.

5.2 Recommendation

After conducting this study, the researcher offers several recommendations for

further researcher as follow:

1. For the next researcher who wants to conduct the same design, may conduct

the study in the same level by using different kind of feedback. The researcher

also may take the other aspect of writing of descriptive text because this study

is focused on organization and language use aspect of writing.

2. The next researcher who wants to take the same approach for the same level,

she/ he may take other kinds of genre because in this study, the focus is

descriptive text.

3. For teacher, especially teachers of SMU Negeri 9 Kendari, it is better for them

to apply indirect feedback in teaching writing.

78

Page 79: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

REFERENCES

Amalia, Rika. 2006. Students’ Writing Performance Under Genre Based Approach. Kendari, FKIP Unhalu: Unpublished Thesis.

Anderson, H. et al. (eds), 1982 Proceedings of the 2nd Independent Learning Association Oceania Conference. Auckland: Manukau Institute of Technology, 1-7.

Chandler, J. (2003). The efficacy of various kinds of error feedback for improvement in the accuracy and fluency of L2student writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 12(3), 267-296.

Nunan, D. 1988. The Learner-centred Curriculum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Derewianka, Baverly.1992. Exploring how text works. Newton, NSW: Primarily English Teaching Association.

Dunsford, Deborah W. 2006. Feedback Follow up: The Influence of Teacher Comment on Student Writing Assignments. NACTA Journal June 2006. Retrieved on January 28th, 2008, www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa/

Ferris, D. R. (2002). Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press.

Fregeau, L. A. (1999). Preparing ESL students for college writing: Two case studies. The Internet TESL Journal [On-line], 5 (10). Retrived on January 5th, 2009 Available: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Fregeau-CollegeWriting.html

Frodesen, J. (2001). Grammar in writing. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.233-248). Boston, MA: Heinle and Heinle.

Gordon William, J. 2003. Providing Feedback on ESL Students’ Assigment.Okayama, Japan.

Grabe, William & Robbert B. Kaplan. 1996. Theory and practice of Writing. United States of America. Addison Wesley Longman.

79

Page 80: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Hasyim. 2002. The Effect Of Teacher’s Correction Toward Students’ Writing Ability. Unhalu. Unpublished Thesis

Hopkin, D. 1993. A Teacher Guide Classroom Research. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Iskandar, Darman. 2006. Students’ Writing Quality Under Peers’ and Self- Correction. Kendari, FKIP Unhalu: Unpublished Thesis.

Jacob and Heaton. 1981. Testing ESL composition Profile: A Practical Approach. Rowley MA. New Bury House.

Kepner, C. G. (1991). An experiment in the relationship of types of written feedback to the development of second-language writing skills. Modern Language Journal, 75(3), 305-313.

Lalande, J. F. (1982). Reducing composition errors: An experiment. Modern Language Journal, 66(1), 140-149.

Lee, Icy. 2005. Enhancing the Effectiveness of Teacher Feedback in the Secondary Writing Classroom. Chinese University of HongKong. Retrieved on March 8th, 2008. http://sba.edu.hku.hk/new_sba/doc/conference_ppt/Dr%20Icy%20Lee.ppt.

Leki, I. (1991). The preferences of ESL students for error correction incollege-level writing classes. Foreign Language Annals, 24(3), 203-218.

Mappe, Syahrir. 2000. A Comparative Study of the Teaching of Writing to Indonesian University Students under Two Instructional Modes. Singapore: Dissertation. SEAMEO Regional Language centre.

Medina, Beatriz López. 2003. The Role of Text Linguístics in the Foreign Language Class. Universidad Antonio de Nebrija. Madrid. Retrieved on May 29th, 2008. http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/10017/990/1/The+Role+of+Text+Linguistics+in+the+Foreign+Language+Class.pdf.

Paryatun.1997. Direct and Indirect Correction Techniques of Writing at The Four Semester Students Of Haluoleo University. Unhalu. Unpublished Thesis.

Roger, Jenny. 2001. In Adults Learning; Buckingham: Open University Press (online). Retrieved on January, 23 2008. www.findarticles.com/ articles/feedback/.

80

Page 81: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Santi, dewi. 2007. The Effect Of Teacher’s Feedback on 2005 English Major Student Writing at Haluoleo University. Unpublished Thesis. Kendari.

Sarafiah, Siti. 2007. Improving Students Writing Through Genre Approach. Unhalu: Unpublished Thesis.

Stringer, Ernest T. 1999. Action Research Second Edition. London: Sage Publisher.

Ur, Penny. 1996. A Course in Language Teaching Practice and Theory. Cambridge Teacher Training and Development. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Wardani, et. Al. 2004. Penelitian Tindakan Kelas. Pusat Penerbitan Universitas

Terbuka.

Wright, T. (1987) Roles of Teachers & Learners. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Zamel, V. (1985). ‘Responding to Student Writing’ in TESOL Quarterly 19/1: 79-101

81

Page 82: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 1

Teaching Material

Descriptive text a text which says what a person or a thing is like or to provide

enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what is being written

about. Descriptive text can be divided from

Purpose; The purpose in descriptive writing is to engage a reader's attention,

to create characters, to set a mood or create an atmosphere, to bring writing to

life, and also to help a writer develop an aspect of their work, for example to

create a particular mood, atmosphere or describe a place so that the reader can

create vivid pictures of characters, places, objects etc.

Generic Structure

The generic structure of descriptive text is:

Identification; identifying the phenomenon to be described in general.

Description; describing the phenomenon in parts, qualities, or/and

characteristics. They may choose vivid, fresh language, they may use

examples, they might take something ordinary and by comparing it

with something extraordinary, make it interesting, or they may use

their senses

Reorientation; should restate your thesis or conclude your event.

82

Page 83: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Language Feature.

The language uses of this text should rely on precisely chosen vocabulary

with carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs, It is focused and concentrated only on

the aspects that add something to the main purpose of the description. Sensory

description - what is heard, seen, smelt, felt, tasted. Precise use of adjectives, similes,

metaphors to create images/pictures in the mind, Strong development of the

experience that "puts the reader there" focuses on key details, powerful verbs and

precise nouns, Using attributive and identifying process, Using adjective and

classifiers in nominal group, and Using simple present tense.

(Adopted from LKS GITA II for Senior High School, publisher: PT. Pabelan)

83

Page 84: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 2

LESSON SCENARIO CYCLE I (FIRST MEETING)

School : SMA Negeri 9 KendariCourse : englishGrade/ Semester : X/ IITime : 2 x 40 menitStandard Competence: Writing

To express the meaning in short functional text and simple essay in form narrative, descriptive, and news item in daily context.

Basic Competence : to express the meaning and the rhetoric stages in a simple essay accurately and acceptable in daily context in form narrative, descriptive, and news item.

Main subject : descriptive textIndicator : understanding and composing a descriptive text

Teaching and learningActivity

TimeTeacher Students

Pre-activity

Introduces the topic to the class

Pay attention to the teacher 5

Main activity

- teacher identify the major understanding about description text

- teacher decide what description to be developed (Person).

- introduces a model of descriptive text to the class

- explain the features of descriptive text to the class.

- Explain how the text is structured and the language feature are used.

- Explain the function of each stages

- pay attention to the teacher

- pay attention to the teacher

- pay attention to the teacher

- pay attention to the teacher

- pay attention to the teacher

- pay attention to the teacher

70

84

Page 85: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

- Asks students suggestion about the topic to be composed (describing important person in their life)

- Asks the students to deliver their idea to the class by writing at the whiteboard

- Revises the structure by comparing with the model and asking students’ suggestion about the composition

- Guided students to compose a descriptive text (first draft)

- respond the teacher request

- students deliver their ideas (white in whiteboard)

- students deliver their idea about better structure composition

- deliver their idea in composing writing

Post activity

- teacher concludes the manterial

- teacher inform the next subject

- student pay attention 5

Media : description text (description person)Evaluation : on going assessmentSource : Text Book Linked to the World 1 English for Senior High School,

Publisher: Yudistira

85

Page 86: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

LESSON SCENARIO OF CYCLE I (SECOND MEETING)

School : SMA Negeri 9 KendariCourse : EnglishGrade/ Semester : X/ IIMeeting : second (independent construction and mistake correction)Time : 3 x 40 menitStandard Competence: Writing

To express the meaning in short functional text and simple essay in form narrative, descriptive, and news item in daily context.

Basic Competence : to express the meaning and the rhetoric stages in a simple essay accurately and acceptable in daily context in form narrative, descriptive, and news item.

Main subject : descriptive textIndicator : composing a descriptive text

Teaching and learning processActivity

TimeTeacher Students

Pre-activity

Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

Pay attention to the teacher 5

Main activity

- Teacher distributes students’ first draft that had been writen before action

- Teacher asks the students to pay attention and focus to the indirect feedback given to their draft

- Teacher gives students a chance to ask questions

- Teacher expalains their lack in their composition

- Teacher asks the students to write second draft based on their previous draft referring to the indirect teacher’s feedback.

- During the process the teacher keep watching

- Students receive their draft

- Pay attention to the receipt draft and focus on the feedback

- Students respond teacher’s request

- Pay attention to the teacher

- Students write the draft

110

86

Page 87: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

their activityPost activity

- Teacher collects the students composition

- Teacher concludes the material

- Teacher informs the next subject

- Respond and collect their composition

- Student pay attention5

Media : description text (description person)Evaluation : on going assessmentSource : Text Book Linked to the World 1 English for Senior High School,

Publisher: Yudistira

87

Page 88: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 3

LESSON SCENARIO OF CYCLE 2 (THIRD MEETING)

School : SMA Negeri 9 KendariCourse : EnglishGrade/ Semester : X/ IIMeeting : Third (giving feedback and mistake discussion)Time : 2 x 40 menitStandard Competence: Writing

To express the meaning in short functional text and simple essay in form narrative, descriptive, and news item in daily context.

Basic Competence : To express the meaning and the rhetoric stages in a simple essay accurately and acceptable in daily context in form narrative, descriptive, and news item.

Main subject : Descriptive textIndicator : Mistake discussion in their 2nd draft.

Teaching and learningActivity

TimeTeacher Students

Pre-activity

Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

Pay attention to the teacher 5

Main activity

- Teacher presents one of students’ composition in white board that used as the sample of giving feedback

- Teacher asks some students to find out the mistake in composition

- Students inform their lack in 2nd draft about language use.

- Teacher explain the students’ lack in their composition.

- Teacher focus on the explanation of language use of descriptive text.

- students pay attention

- students deliver their opinion about the composition

- students pay attention to their handed draft

- students pay attention

- students ask if they have question about the material.

70

88

Page 89: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

- The teacher inform and explain the symbols will be used for the next draft

- Teacher distribute the new feedback sheet containing with the symbols and ask the students to learn it

- Pay attention to the teacher.

- Students pay attention to the feedback sheet and prepare their question

Post activity

- teacher concludes the manterial

- teacher inform the next subject

- student pay attention

5

Media : description text (description person)Evaluation : on going assessmentSource : Text Book Linked to the World 1 English for Senior High School,

Publisher: Yudistira

89

Page 90: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

LESSON SCENARIO OF CYCLE 2 (FORTH MEETING)

School : SMA Negeri 9 KendariCourse : EnglishGrade/ Semester : X/ IIMeeting : forth (revising draft)Time : 2 x 45 menit Standard Competence: Writing

To express the meaning in short functional text and simple essay in form narrative, descriptive, and news item in daily context.

Basic Competence : To express the meaning and the rhetoric stages in a simple essay accurately and acceptable in daily context in form narrative, descriptive, and news item.

Main subject : Descriptive textIndicator : students can revise their 2nd draft and compose 3rd draft.

Teaching and learningActivity

TimeTeacher Students

Pre-activity

Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

Pay attention to the teacher 5

Main activity

- Teacher distributes students’ second draft

- Teacher asks the students to pay attention and focus to the indirect feedback given to their draft

- Teacher gives students a chance to ask questions

- Teacher expalains their lack in their composition

- Teacher asks the students to write the third draft based on their previous draft referring to the indirect teacher’s feedback on the feedback sheet.

- During the process the teacher keep watching

- Students receive their draft

- Pay attention to the receipt draft and focus on the feedback

- Students respond teacher’s request

- Pay attention to the teacher

- Students write the draft and pay attention to the feedback sheet.

65

90

Page 91: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

their activityPost activity

- Teacher collects the students composition

- Teacher asks students the

conclusion about what

they are performed

- Respond and collect their composition

- Students give their conclusion. 10

Media : description text (description person)Evaluation : on going assessmentSource : Text Book Linked to the World 1 English for Senior High School,

Publisher: Yudistira

91

Page 92: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 4 : Model Text

Here's one descriptive paragraph:

Borobudur Temple

Borobudur is Hindu - Budhist temple. It was built

in the ninth century under Sailendra dynasty of ancient

Mataram kingdom. Borobudur is located in Magelang,

Central Java, Indonesia.

Borobudur is well-known all over the world. Its

construction is influenced by the Gupta architecture of

India. The temple is constructed on a hill 46 m high

and consists of eight steps like stone terrace. The first

five terraces are square and surrounded by walls

adorned with Buddhist sculpture in bas-relief. The

upper three are circular. Each of them is with a circle of

bell shape-stupa. The entire edifices are crowned by a

large stupa at the centre at the centre of the top circle.

The way to the summit extends through some 4.8 km of

passage and stairways. The design of Borobudur which

symbolizes the structure of universe influences temples

at Angkor, Cambodia.

Borobudur temple which is rededicated as an

Indonesian monument in 1983 is a valuable treasure for

Indonesian people.

92

Identification; identifying the phenomenon to be described in general; Borobudur temple

Description; describing the Borobudur temple in parts; eight terraces of Borobudur temple and its characteristics

Language Feature;Using adjective and classifiers; valuable, Using simple present tense; Borobudur is well-known, The temple is constructed, etc

Conclusion

Page 93: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 5 Students Assignment Sheet

Student’s name___________________________ Date _____________

Class ___________

Make a descriptive text about your family or the most important person in your life in three or more paragraphs. Each paragraph consists of four or more sentences.

93

Page 94: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 6. Component of ESL Composition Profile (organization and language use)

Component Description IndicatorsOrganization Fluent expression

Ideas clearly stated/ supported

Succinct

Well-organized

Logical sequencing

cohesive

Do the ideas flow, building on one another? Are there introductory and concluding paragraphs?Are there effective transition elements-words, phrases or sentences-which link and move ideas both within and between paragraphs?

Is there a clearly stated controlling idea or central focus (a thesis) to the paper?Do topic sentences in each paragraph support, limit and direct the thesis

Are all ideas directed concisely to the central focus of the paper, without digression?

Is the overall relationship of ideas within and between paragraphs clearly indicated?Is there a beginning, a middle, and an end to the paper?

Are the points logically developed, using a particular sequence such as time order, space order, or importance?Is this development indicated by appropriate transitional markers?

Does each paragraph reflect a single purpose?Do the paragraphs from a unified paper?

Language use Effective complex construction

Are sentences well-formed and complete, with appropriate complements?Are single-word modifiers appropriate to function? Properly formed, placed and sequenced?Are the introductory it and there used correctly to begin sentences and clausesAre main and subordinate elements linked to other elements with appropriate conjunctions,

94

Page 95: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Agreement

Tense

Number

Word order/function

Articles

Pronouns

preposition

adverbial, relative pronouns or punctuation?Are sentence types and length varied?Are elements parallel?Are techniques of substitutes, repetition, and deletio0n used effectively?

Is there basic agreement between sentence elements: auxiliary verb? Subject verb? Pronoun antecedent? Adjective noun? Noun-qualifier?

Are the verb tenses correct? Properly sequenced, do modals convey intended meaning? Time?

Do nouns, pronouns, and verbs convey in tended quantity?

Is normal word order followed except for special emphasis?Is each word, phrase, and clause suited to its intended function?

Are a, an, and the used correctly

Do pronouns reflect appropriate person? Gender? Number? Function? Referent?

Are preposition chosen carefully to introduce modifying elements?Is the intended meaning conveyed

(Jacob et al, 1981 : 92-96)

95

Page 96: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 7 OBSERVATION SHEET

1. First cycle (CYCLE I)a. 1st Meeting

Teacher’s Activity Yes No

1 Teacher introduces the topic to the class . 2 Teacher identify the major understanding about

description text.

3 teacher decide what description to be developed (Person).

.

4 Teacher introduces a model of descriptive text to the class

.

5 Teacher explain the features of descriptive text to the class.

.

6 Teacher explain how the text is structured and the language feature are used.

.

7 Teacher explain the function of each stages .8 Teacher asks the students to deliver their idea

to the class by writing at the whiteboard.

9 Teacher asks students suggestion about the topic to be composed (describing important person in their life)

.

10 Teacher Guided students to compose a descriptive text (first draft)

.

11 Teacher collects and concludes the manterial .12 teacher inform the next subject .

no Students’ Activity Yes No

1 Pay attention to the teacher .2 Students receive their draft .3 Pay attention to the receipt draft and focus on the feedback .4 Students focus on teacher’s explanation .5 Students asked some questions . 6 Students write the draft .7 Respond and collect their composition .8 Student pay attention .9 Students collect their draft to the teacher .

96

Page 97: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

b. 2nd Meeting

Teacher’s Activity Yes No

1 Teacher Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

.

2 Teacher distributes students’ first draft that had been writen before action

.

3 Teacher asks the students to pay attention and focus to the indirect feedback given to their draft

.

4 Teacher gives students a chance to ask questions

.

5 Teacher expalains their lack in their composition

.

6 Teacher asks the students to write second draft based on their previous draft referring to the indirect teacher’s feedback.

.

7 During the process the teacher keep watching their activity

.

8 Teacher collects the students composition .9 Teacher concludes the material .10 Teacher informs the next subject .

no Students’ Activity Yes No

1 Students pay attention to the teacher .2 The students take their draft .3 Students pay attention to the receipt draft and focus on the

feedback.

4 Students respond teacher’s request .5 Students pay attention to the teacher .6 Students write the draft .7 Students respond and collect their composition .8 Student pay attention teacher conclusion .

97

Page 98: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

2. Second cycle (CYCLE 2)c. 3rd Meeting

Teacher’s Activity Yes No

1 Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

.

2 Teacher presents one of students’ composition in white board that used as the sample of giving feedback

.

3 Students inform their lack in 2nd draft about language use.

.

4 Teacher explain the students’ lack in their composition.

.

5 Teacher focus on the explanation of language use and organization of descriptive text.

.

6 The teacher inform and explain the symbols will be used for the next draft

.

7 Teacher distribute the new feedback sheet containing with the symbols

.

8 The teacher explained about the feedback sheet

.

9 teacher concludes the material .10 teacher inform the next subject .

no Students’ Activity Yes No

1 Pay attention to the teacher .2 students pay attention .3 students deliver their opinion about the

composition.

4 students pay attention to their handed draft .5 Students ask if they have question about the

material..

6 Students pay attention to the feedback sheet .7 Students ask the teacher about the feedback sheet .8. Students concentrates to the teacher’s

explanation.

98

Page 99: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

d. 4th Meeting

Teacher’s Activity Yes No

1 Teacher Introduces the topic to the class and planning class today

.

2 Teacher distributes students’ second drafts

.

3 Teacher asks the students to pay attention and focus to the indirect feedback given to their draft

.

4 Teacher re-explains about the material

.

5 Teacher gives students a chance to ask questions

.

6 Teacher expalains their lack in their composition

.

7 Teacher asks the students to write the third draft based on their previous draft referring to the indirect teacher’s feedback on the feedback sheet.

.

8 During the process the teacher keep watching their activity

.

9 Teacher collects the students composition

.

10 Teacher asks students the conclusion about what they are performed

.

no Students’ Activity Yes No

1 Students pay attention to the teacher .2 The students take their draft .3 Students pay attention to the receipt draft and focus

on the feedback..

4 Students respond teacher’s request .5 Pay attention to the teacher .6 Students write the draft and pay attention to the

feedback sheet..

7 Respond and collect their composition .8 Students give their conclusion. .

99

Page 100: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 9

The score of Inter-rater AgreementRater A : the Researcher

Resp. Org LU X1 11 13 242 13 16 293 14 14 284 13 14 275 12 13 256 12 14 267 8 7 158 10 11 219 14 16 3010 14 15 29Σ 254

Rater B : the English TeacherResp. Org LU Y1 10 12 222 12 16 283 14 15 294 13 13 265 13 12 256 12 13 257 9 7 168 11 10 219 14 14 2810 15 17 32Σ 252

100

Page 101: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Two rater Computation Result

Resp. X Y X2 Y2 XY1 24 22 576 484 5282 29 28 841 784 8123 28 29 784 841 8124 27 26 729 676 7025 25 25 625 625 6256 26 25 676 625 6507 15 16 225 256 2408 21 21 441 441 4419 30 28 900 784 84010 29 32 841 1024 928Σ 254 252 6638 6540 6578

(Σ X)2 & (ΣY)2 64516 63504

rxy

=

=

=

=

=0.9476 (high correlation)

101

Page 102: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 10 Field Note

Cycle 1 1st Meeting on Saturday, 23rd 2008.

1. Teacher explained the activities and the material to the students after distributing the copy of material, symbols of indirect feedback and marking scheme of writing.

2. Teacher explained about the organization of the text, language use and descriptive text to the students.

3. Students paid attention when teacher explained the material.4. Students didn’t understand about the symbols used will be used.5. Teacher explained what kind of symbols they will get in their writing.6. Teacher asked students to write 1st draft about descriptive text.7. Students wrote composition based on teacher’s instruction.8. During the process of writing, some students asked the teacher about

vocabulary and sometimes checked their sentences.9. During the process, some students also seemed not seriously following

the instruction to write a composition.10. Only few students brought dictionary and it caused student walked

around the class to find the dictionary.11. Students unfocussed did their writing because they spent their time to

chat instead of writing.12. Teacher asked them to submit their writing.13. Teacher put the indirect feedback in every error in students’ writing.14. Students submitted the writings and paid attention to the next explanation

from the teacher.

2nd Meeting on Tuesday, August, 26th.

1. Teacher did brainstorming about previous material and asked their difficulties in composing a draft

2. Teacher explained that they still had weaknesses on both organization and language use.

3. Teacher distributed their draft and asked to see the feedback.4. The students shared their difficulties when they were composing draft 1.5. Students confused with the feedback on their writings and only

understand some of it.6. During the process, students sometimes difficult to use the similar sound

of words, (e.g. advise and advice) and most about the use of pronoun (e.g. I, she, he, they, their, him, her, she it’s/its)

102

Page 103: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

7. Teacher asked the students to revise the 1st.8. Students wrote 2nd draft as a revision from draft 1 based on the teacher’s

indirect feedback.9. During the process, some students still walked around the class to find a

dictionary to their friends or came close to the teacher and researcher to ask some words in English.

10. Teacher monitored students activity and help them when the students got difficulties

11. Students collected their 2nd compositions.12. The teacher reminded them to bring dictionary next meeting and their

dictionary will be checked.

Cycle 23rd Meeting on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008

1. Teacher explained that Students got improvement in their organization but still had problem on language use after writing the 2nd draft.

2. The teacher distributed the copy of their 2nd draft that hadn’t give feedback and they had to give it back to the teacher in the end of meeting.

3. The students paid attention to their draft and the teacher’s explanation. 4. Teacher re-explained about the material and their lack in

part of language use and introduced the feedback sheet.5. Students shared to the teacher about kind of difficulties during writing

their draft.6. Teacher kept encouraging students to write in a good organization and

improved their confidence in writing.7. Students didn’t walk around the class because they already brought their

own dictionary but there were still one or three students who did it.8. Students tried to check their mistakes through the copies.9. Teacher reminds the students that they should pay attention to language

use aspects they used (e.g. tenses, words, punctuation, conjunction, etc).10. The student seemed enthusiasm to follow the process because they

could investigate their own mistakes.11. The students gave the draft back to the teacher.

4th Meeting on Tuesday,September 9th, 2008

1. Teacher informed to the students that she would distribute their draft 2. Two students helped distributing the drafts.3. The students saw their draft and their feedback sheets.4. Teacher re-explained the important point related to the material before

asking students to perform.

103

Page 104: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

5. Students seemed interested to look their mistake and match with the feedback.

6. Students asked the students about how to use the feedback sheet in the next draft.

7. After answering the questions, the teacher asked the students to compose 3rd draft based on the feedback given

8. During the process, all Students didn’t walk around again the class because they brought dictionaries.

9. The teacher kept watching and walk around the class to control the class.10. The students sometimes still asked about difficulties vocabularies.11. Students were enjoying their action because they got

improvement after their writings were checked.12. Students got more confidence to write than in previous cycle and they

seemed serious writing the composition.

104

Page 105: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 11 Correction codes on student’s writing

no code meaning Kinds of errors

1 WC Word choiceThe words are inapplicable

with the sentences/ meaning

2 PREP Preposition Wrong preposition

3 VT

verb tense or GR =  more

general grammar

problems

Wrong tense/ use another

tense

4 S/V subject verb agreement subject and verb don’t agree

5 SP spelling errorUse dictionary to correct

your spelling

6 ART ArticleUse article a, an or the for

singular noun

7 N.P new paragraphThis means you must

begin a new paragraph

8 ^ missing wordyou need to insert a word

when you see this symbol

9 ?question mark) unclear

meaning

I can’t understand this. The

meaning is not clear. Write

in another way to make the

meaning clearer.

10 good Good idea, good detail

You have something good

here: a good word, idea,

detail, etc

11 WO word orderthe words in this sentence

are in the wrong order

105

Page 106: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 12 Feedback Sheet

Codes/symbols Mistakes comment

Note: if you don’t understand, you can meet me in the office or contact me!!!! (silahkan hubungi saya jika ada pertanyaan!!!)

106

Page 107: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 13 Student’s writing assignment

107

Page 108: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 14 Students’ Composition

108

Page 109: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

Appendix 15 students’ composition

109

Page 110: improving students' writing ability through teacher's indirect feedback

110