ELTIN Journal.

Volume 1/I, October 2013

THE EFFECT OF FEEDBACK ON STUDENT’S WRITING ACCURACY

Asep Suarman
SMPN 1 Cinangka, Kab. Serang

ABSTRACT
This paper is concerned with the effect of direct, uncoded oral and written
feedback to the writing accuracy. Nine secondary school students, who were
chosen purposively from high, mid and low achiever, involved in this study.
Observation and document analysis were used to collect data in which errors of
grammatical - covering subject-verb agreement and clause construction -,
lexical and punctuation were analyzed. The result shows that the direct, uncoded
oral and written feedback gives significant effect only to the high achievers.
But, such feedback does not give much effect to the texts made by mid
achievers and low achievers. Overall, the feedback does not give significant
effect on the students’ writing accuracy. Considering limitations of the study,
some suggestions are also put forward.
KEYWORDS: feedback, writing accuracy

A. Introduction
Among the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), writing is the
latest and the most difficult skill to acquire. It is naturally acquired after listening,
speaking and reading. It is considered difficult as it requires complex competence in the
rules of language.
Related to writing, many researches shows that Indonesians, not only ordinary people
who do not deal with books or science every day, but also intellectuals lack writing
(Alwasilah, 2001). It is probably because writing is often neglected in school lessons. In
EFL context, many teachers might emphasize the other skills.
In school based curriculum, writing receives more emphasis than the other skills
(Emilia, 2010) since it applies genre based approach (GBA). In GBA, teaching process
is applied in two cycles of teaching, oral and written ones, wherein four stages are
employed. The stages are building knowledge of field (BKoF), modelling of text
(MoT), joint construction of text (JCoT) and independent construction of text (ICoT)
(Depdiknas, 2004). In the last two stages, teachers’ job is to give feedback to better
students’ performance.
This study is expected to have at least three benefits: theoretically, it may add empirical
support to existing theories and findings ; practically, its results may help to clarify the
benefits and detriments of giving feedback to students’ writing; and professionally, the

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teachers in the research site may learn how to give appropriate feedback to students ‘
draft texts.
B. Literature Review
Feedback is generally defined as the return of information about the result of a process
or activity; an evaluative response: asked the students for feedback on the new
curriculum (http://www.thefreedictionary.com). It is included into correction or praise
(Ellis, 1994; Harmer, 2007a). Giving feedback should suit with the skill taught.
Feedback on speaking and writing is different in nature. So, a teacher should carefully
design and conduct it.
Writing skill is often neglected in school (Alwasilah, 2001). Many teachers probably
only ask their students to write a text then give mark on it without giving more attention
how to better students’ writing. It is perhaps simply because it needs more skill, time
and energy for teachers to give feedback to their students writing.
In giving feedback to students’ written work, Williams (2003) identified two common
categories: feedback on form and feedback on content. The common feedback in the
former, William argues, refers to the outright teacher correction of surface errors; which
requires students to copy the correction and the teacher indicate the place and type of
error by giving only markings but without correction, underlining to indicate only the
presence of errors; which requires students to correct the errors on their own. The
feedback in the latter, as stated by William, consists mainly of comments written by
teachers on drafts that usually point out problems and offer suggestions for
improvements on future rewrites, in which students are usually expected to incorporate
information from the comments into other versions of their papers.
Nevertheless, William (2003) argues, giving feedback sometimes works and sometimes
does not. Citing Fathman and Walley (1990) William argues, when the grammar
feedback is given, that indicated the place but not the type of errors, students can
improve their compositions in their subsequent rewrites them. Indirect written feedback
is also more useful than direct correction (Frodesen, 2001, in William 2003) and will be
more effective if being coupled with student-teacher conference (citing Brender, 1998;
Fregeau, 1999), wherein teacher can ask more questions and students can express their
ideas. In giving indirect feedback, some teachers usually tend to code mistakes to
indicate the precise location and type of error, while others provide uncoded feedback
that simply locates the error without disclosing the error type. Usually with uncoded
feedback, it becomes the student’s task to diagnose and correct the mistake (Hartshorn,
2008).
However, the feedback on surface errors does not work when it is inconsistent, unclear
and overemphasizes the negative feedback (Fregeau, 1999; Cohen, & Cavalcanti, 1990
in William 2003). The students mostly only copy the corrections on their subsequent
drafts or final copies without recording or studying the mistakes noted in the feedback
as they do not understand why the words or phrase are indicated as errors.
William (2003; see also Stitt-Bergh, 2007) suggests teachers choose an effective
method of feedback considering the goal of the course, the shortcomings of common
methods of feedback, the positive aspects of them and what students want about the
feedback; and to lessen student confusion, teachers should consistently use a standard
set of symbols or markings to indicate place and type of error and train the students in

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what kinds of corrections to make based on each symbol that is available on most
writing textbooks, or teacher-made on their own which should be familiarized by their
students.
Some functions of the teachers’ feedback in correcting students’ written work,
according to Iseni (2011) are to help the teachers improve their work in this direction; to
focus attention on accuracy and content; to help both teacher and students together
correct written work and oral work and to help teachers not only correct spelling,
grammar, lexical and other mistakes but also these corrections might be accompanied
by certain comments on the content of the written work, showing the student where the
work was effective and where it was not.
Further, there are different procedures to help teachers to correct written work namely,
according to Iseni (2011; see also Brown, 2001: 355-6) for feedback guidelines;
Harmer, 2007: 149 for the feedback symbols), a teacher can underline the mistakes and
write the right symbol in the margin on the same line; or do not write the symbol to help
the students find the type of the mistake themselves; write the symbol on the margin but
do not show exactly where the mistake is, and show only the line. This helps the student
find the mistake, helped by the symbol put on the margin; or put a cross (X) on the
margin, put as many crosses as mistakes and let students find the mistake and the type
in one line or put a cross next to the line in the margin, but do not show how many
mistakes are and let the students think about mistakes, knowing that there is something
wrong in a particular line. Harmer (2007) adds that a teacher can correct students’ work
by putting ticks on good points or other symbols or might write summarizing comment
at the end of students’ work.
On the top of that, some studies have investigated feedback with their own various
focus, participants and results with also various recommendations. The contradictive
findings denying the effect of feedback on students’ writing are put forward by Truscot
(1996, 2007 in Harshorn, 2008; in Pan, 2010) that the feedback does not have any
impact on their accuracy.
Other studies concluded that the feedback did have effect on the students’ writing
ability. Usaha (1998) revealed that a highly significant improvement in the students’
holistic writing and reduction of errors, but there was no significant difference in the
length of writing in comparing first and last writing and the highest error rate was found
in wrong word followed by sentence structure, verb, article, and noun ending
respectively.

C. Research Methodology
This study involved only nine subjects of grade nine of junior high school students.
They have learned English for about 2,5 years and were chosen purposively based on
their daily performance; the achievement in previous reading tests was used as the basis.
Three students were categorized as the high achievers, three from the medium achievers
and the rest from the low achievers. They studied English twice a week, 80 minutes
each, every Tuesday and Saturday.
To collect data, document analysis, writing tests and text analysis were used. At the
time of the study, none of the participants joined any English course.

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As the curriculum applied Genre Based Approach (GBA) wherein BKoF, MoT, JCot
and ICoT stages were done, the feedback were given by the teacher on JCot and ICot
stages. In JCoT, feedback was given to groups of students, in ICoT, to individuals. The
latter was the one studied. Different from JCoT stage wherein the groups of students
were asked to write report text about domestic animals, in ICoT, the students were
asked to write a report text individually about wild animals.
In this study, the students were required to gather information about the animals in their
house, and then they drafted their composition in their classroom with guidance of the
teacher. Since the study aimed to investigate the effect of teacher feedback to student
writing accuracy, the teacher’s feedback on the draft text was analyzed. After accepting
the feedback, the student revised their composition. The revision was also analyzed.
These processes were done in October 2011. Then, about two months (in the first week
of December 2011) after the feedback was given, a writing test was held. The text from
the test was also error-analyzed.
Error analysis, as Corder (1967 in Ellis, 1994: 48) argued, could be signified in three
ways: firstly the errors provide the teacher with information about how much the learner
had learnt; secondly, they provide researchers with evidence how language was learnt;
and thirdly, they served as devices by which the learners discover the rules of target
language. The reason why the error analysis is used in this study is to find the evidence
about how the language has been learnt by students.
In analyzing errors in students’ text, a clause was the basis (Halliday, 1985; Eggins,
2004). The student text was synthesized in clauses, and then was analyzed for the errors.
No marks were given to the text, but error frequency was tallied. Finally, the errors on
first draft text, revision text and test version were compared.

D. Finding and Discussion

Since the errors were various, the direct, uncoded oral and written feedback was given
only to certain errors as the target i.e. grammatical errors including subject-verb
agreement, clause/phrasal construction, lexical errors and punctuation error. The
grammatical errors on subject-verb agreement refers to the forms of verb (inflexion,
tense) which, according to Huddleston and Pullum (2005: 88 see also Derewianka,
1998: 61), involve persons as well as number to all verbs in present tense – since a
report text mostly uses this tense. Clause construction errors refer to the error in clause
structure which is made up of a number of phrases or groups; typically consist of a
nominal group (Subject) followed by verbal group (V) and another nominal group (O);
the nominal group can consist of a number of words of which the main word is the last
word of the group and is a noun; verbal group may consist of a single word where this
word is a verb (Eggins, 2004 p. 128). Lexical or phrasal construction errors refer to the
errors in the construction of nominal, verbal, adjectival, adverbial or prepositional
phrases (Eggins, 2004, p 124). And, finally, punctuation refers to writing mechanics like
capital letters, commas, full stops, sentence and paragraph boundaries etc. (Harmer,
2004, p 49 see also Haliday, 1985).
The result of error analysis of all student texts is displayed on tables and described more
in following paragraphs including three student texts: draft, revision and test versions.
The analysis consecutively discusses texts made by high achievers (student 1-3),
medium ones (student 4-6) and low ones (student 7-9).
The following table shows the result of error analysis of texts written by high achievers.

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Table 1
Error Analysis of High Achiever
Number Number Subject-
clause Lexical
Version of of verb Punctuation
construction errors
clauses words agreement
Draft 10.00 71 4 2 8 2
Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Average

Revised 10.00 58 1 0 2 0
Test 10.00 57 1 1 2 0
Draft 11.00 68 2 1 4 5
Revised 12.00 71 2 0 1 1
Test 12.00 71 2 0 0 1
Draft 12.00 72 1 4 6 5
Revised 12.00 63 0 0 2 0
Test 10.00 55 1 1 2 0
Draft 11.00 70.33 2.33 2.33 6.00 4.00
Revised 11.33 64.00 1.00 - 1.67 0.33
Test 10.67 61.00 1.33 0.67 1.33 0.33

The table shows that, in draft text, student 1 (high achiever) made 10 clauses with 71
words with a number of errors related to grammar, lexical and punctuation errors.
Student 1 wrote more words in draft text (will be abbreviated ‘DT’ on the rest of the
paper) but some of them were unnecessary and ungrammatical,
To the errors, the teacher gave direct feedback on the student composition by
explaining, underlining and pointing errors, with arrows or circles, the words, phrases or
clauses to correct.
In the RT, student wrote 10 clauses 58 words similar to the draft one with some
corrections. She could correct most of the errors except one SVAE e.g. ‘Monkey are’
and one LE e.g. ‘Their face like human’. Some errors to which the teacher gave only
oral feedback still existed. All errors to which the feedback was given in written form
could be corrected.
In the test version, student 1 managed to write 10 clauses with 57 words with only one
error. The text is similar to the revised with one CCE still existed. For student 2 of high
achievers, the table shows that she made 11 clauses with 68 words and some errors in
DT. On the errors, the teacher similarly gave direct feedback on the student composition
by explaining, underlining and pointing errors, with arrows or circles, the words,
phrases or clauses to correct.
In the RT, student 2 composed 12 clauses with 58 words in RT and only two errors
made. She could correct almost the errors except two SVAES and one PE. The former
happened because student 2 wrote incorrectly the feedback from the teachers who put
inflection ‘-s’ after the word ‘belong’ and ‘diet’ rather than she wrote the words with
apostrophe e.g. ‘belong’s to mammals’. The PE was still related to capital letter. This
might because of the student’s carelessness since in the DT she managed to write the
capital letter to the word.

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In TT, student 2 could compose similar text to the revised one with consisting of 12
clauses with 57 words but still conducted some errors: two SVAES or inflection errors
and one PE remained, which yet was related to capitalization but in different word,
For student 3, it can be seen on the table that in DT, she made 12 clauses with 72 words
with some errors. She wrote more words than in RT and TT, because, like student 1, she
wrote some words which were unnecessary as the word could be understood implicitly
or exaggerate the use of determiner. Such use of determiner indicates that student 3 did
not master the use of determiner or mistranslate it from her first language. In term of
errors, student 3 made one SVAE error. There were also six LEs; and five PEs
consisting of wrong capitalization or exaggerating full stop. On the errors, the teacher
similarly gave direct feedback to the one five given to previous students by explaining,
underlining or pointing errors - with an arrow, a cross or a circle - the words, phrases or
clauses to correct.
In the RT, student composed 12 clauses with 63 words and only few errors. She could
correct all the errors except two LEs. This happened possibly because the teacher
probably did not give feedback on those words or student 3 forgot the oral feedback
from the teacher. Meanwhile, in the TT, student 3 composed 10 clauses with 55 words
and only two errors existed. Her TT is similar to the RT with one clause missed and one
subject agreement error as in RT and one clause construction error e.g. ‘They a long
toot.’ where she missed writing the word ‘have’ which probably because she was
careless or in a hurry. Two LEs also remained as in the RT. In short, the students of
high achievers could maintain the length of the text (number of clauses and words are
relatively similar) and lessen errors in the TT. They made good progress in their writing
accuracy which possibly because of the teacher feedback. It is seen from the errors in
DT which decrease in revised and TTs, especially related to clause construction, lexical
and PEs. This indicates that the feedback seems to have good effect on their writing
accuracy. The following table shows the summary of the result of error made by mid
achievers.
Table 2
Error Analysis of Mid Achiever
Number Number Subject-
clause Lexical Punc-
Version of of verb
construction errors tuation
clauses Words agreement
Draft 10.00 64 3 8 4 3
Student 4 Student 5 Student 6 Average

Revised 7.00 43 1 2 2 4
Test 7.00 37 0 3 3 2
Draft 8.00 44 3 4 0 6
Revised 8.00 44 0 1 2 0
Test 8.00 41 1 2 0 0
Draft 10.00 67 0 1 5 3
Revised 11.00 66 0 0 7 0
Test 7.00 43 3 5 10 0
Draft 9.33 58.33 2.00 4.33 3.00 4.00
Revised 8.67 51.00 0.33 1.00 3.67 1.33
Test 7.33 40.33 1.33 3.33 4.33 0.67

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In the DT, Student 4 of mid achievers made 10 clauses with 64 words and a lot of
errors. He wrote more words in DT but some of them were ungrammatical and
unnecessary. In term of errors, student 4 committed three SVAEs; four LEs like in the
words ‘…toheir’ , ‘bedides’, ’body he beautiful and pretty’, and three PEs related to
capitalization e.g. ‘this one colour Red, Blue and Black.’
On the errors, the teacher gave similar direct uncoded oral and written feedback to
correct them. In the RT, student 4 made 7 clauses with 43 words and some errors. She
could correct most of the errors. Some errors to which the teacher gave only oral
feedback keep existed. Most errors to which the feedback was given in written form
could be corrected, but other new mistakes appear.
In the TT, student 4 managed to write 7 clauses with 37 words and some errors. The text
is like in revised one with one clause missed. He also made three CCEs. In the
meantime, student 5 succeeded in making 8 clauses in her text with 44 words in draft
but many errors are present. She made three SVAES. To those errors, the teacher gave
similar feedback to the one given to previous students.
In revised version, student 5 made 8 clauses with 44 words and one error which all are
almost the same as in draft version. She could correct almost all errors. In the TT, stu-
dent 5 wrote 8 clauses with 41 words whose clauses and words are similar to those in
the DT. She made one subject agreement error. Student 6 could make 10 clauses with
67 words with some errors in draft version. She made one CCE. On the errors, the
teacher gave similar feedback to those done to previous students.
In RT, student 6 made 11 clauses with 66 words. He could correct some errors to which
the teacher gave feedback. But, some new LEs still come up. For example, the words,
‘mofies’ and ‘invorment ’ were written correctly in the DT, but they were incorrect in
the RT. This might because of the student’s carelessness. In punctuation, she still made
errors as in ’… animal. that mofies …’and ‘… dragonflies, and cicados.’
Meanwhile in the TT, she wrote 7 clauses with 43 words in her text. But, the number of
errors increased compared to the RT. She made five CCEs as in ‘Chamelon to stay is
tree’ and ‘ Chamelon a mimicry…'; ten LE as ‘Chamelon’, Thet, tangue etc..
In short, from the error analysis to the texts made by mid achiever students, it can be
seen that the students could correct most errors in RT but most of the errors turned up in
TT. In the TT, they mostly missed one clause with nine words on the average.
Unfortunately, most errors came up again in the TT, and even those related to LEs are
worse. Only those PEs decrease mostly. They only made half errors on the average.
This indicates that although in very little amount, there is an effect of teacher feedback
to writing accuracy for those who are categorized as mid achiever students. And, to see
the effect to the low achiever, look at Table 3.
Further, in the DT, student 7 who was low achiever made six clauses with 41 words and
some errors. He committed one SVAE He also made two PEs . To the errors, the
teacher gave similar direct feedback orally and written to correct the errors.
On revised version, student 7 rewrote 6 clauses with 44 words but the errors still
existed. He only managed to correct some errors but he made other new errors. He made
one subject- verb agreement as in ‘Spider are insects’ and two CCEs. He also
committed five lexical construction because many unnecessary words or strange words

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coming up in the text like ‘They eat they insect is and fics, blak, heght etc.’ and two PEs
e.g. ‘… house. have colors’ and ‘… leight. and ussuly they …’

Table 3
Error Analysis of Low Achievers

Version Num- Num- Subject- clause Lexical Punctua-

ber of ber of verb construct errors tion
clauses clauses agreement -ion
Draft 6 41 1 3 4 3
Student 7 Student 8 Student 9 Average

Revised 6 44 1 1 5 2
Test 6 44 1 2 7 2
Draft 8 43 1 2 3 6
Revised 8 43 1 4 2 2
Test 7 36 1 3 3 9
Draft 10 47 0 8 3 8
Revised 8 39 0 3 0 3
Test 7 38 2 5 3 6
Draft 8.00 43.67 0.67 4.33 3.33 5.67
Revised 7.33 42.00 0.67 2.67 2.33 2.33
Test 6.67 39.33 1.33 3.33 4.33 5.67

On the TT, student 7 made a text with six clauses consisting 44 words but he also made
errors like in the draft version. He kept the subject agreement error e.g. ‘Spider are
insects’ ; two CCEs like ‘… live they in forest’ and ‘ … house. have colors:…’ and
seven LEs as ‘inselis, fils, they, blak etc.’ In punctuation, he made three errors as in
‘and fils they. live they in forest and in house. have ‘.
Meanwhile, student 8 composed eight clauses with 43 words in DT and some errors. He
made one SVAE e.g. ‘Whale belong to big mamal.’ and two CCEs as in ‘they body big
and long.’ and ‘ they skin/ color blank and white’. He also committed four LEs in the
word: ‘mamal.’ ,’flankton’ and ‘in habit’; and five PEs which mostly capitalization as
in ‘… big mamal. they diet small fish and flankton. they in habit in the sea. they…’
On the errors, the teacher gave similar direct uncoded oral and written feedback by
explaining, underlining and pointing out them.
And, in the RT, student 8 succeeded in making a report text with 7 clauses consisting of
43 words and some errors. He made one SVAE in ‘Whale belong to…’ and one CCEs
‘they bodu big and long’. He also kept the LEs as the words: ‘mamal.,’ ’flankton’ , ‘in
habit’and ’they (their)habit …’’ and two PEs in the ’They in habit in the sea. they habit
is result water beach. they bodu big …’
However, in the TT, student 8 made the text with fewer clauses and more errors than in
the RT. He composed 7 clauses with 36 words and many errors. He kept one subject

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agreement error as draft and RT in ‘Whale belong…’ and three CCEs as in ‘they food
small fish and plankton. they color/skin black and white. they habitat to the sea’. He
also made five LEs in the words: ‘mamal, they (their), bike ‘ and nine PEs mostly
capitalization like in DT e.g. ‘mamal. they food small fish and plankton. they color/skin
black and white. they habitat to the sea. they Havebody long and Big. They Have a
measurement long and bike. they ….’
Finally, student 10 (low achiever) composed ten short clauses with 47 words and some
errors. She made no subject verb agreement but almost all (eight of ten) clauses are
ungrammatical as they have no verbs like in ‘Tiger usually . animal. Food meat. Habitat
tiger forest. Or I . bushes.etc.’. She also made three LEs e.g. ‘tiger, carnovora, balck’
but made eight PEs related to overusing full stops as in ‘Tiger usually . animal.’,
‘Habitat tiger forest. Or I . bushes.etc.’
As done to previous student, the teacher gave direct uncoded oral and written feedback.
In the revised, she wrote eight clauses with 39 words with few errors existed. She made
no mistakes in subject verb agreement but still made three CCEs in ‘Tigers usually
mammals.’ (no verb), ‘Habit they Roam.’ and ‘Their color black and yellow.’ (no verb)
She composed only one LEs, writing the word ‘and’ in the end of the text but still wrote
three PEs e.g. ‘Habit they Roam.’, ‘own region Their color black and yellow.‘ and
‘They have 70 cm height and …’.
However, in a TT, student 9 made seven clauses with 38 words and more errors than in
the revised version. She made two SVAE e.g. ‘Tiger see body big and long’ and , ‘tiger
eat small animals.’ She also committed five CCEs like in ’ Tigers usually
mammals’.(no verb), ‘They in forest or in bushes,…’ (no verb) and three LEs in the
words: ‘blak’ and ‘see’ (‘they see color’ and ‘they see body’). She also made six PEs as
in ‘… or in bushes, tiger eat small animal’ and ‘they is roam, they see’.
In short, from low achiever students, it can be seen that in the RTs, most students could
correct some errors of DT but the errors came up again in the TT. And even, the lexical
and PEs increased. It indicates that they could partly respond to the teacher’s feedback
but could not maintain the correction when they were tested. Their TTs seem not more
accurate than their draft ones - even worse. It suggests that the low achiever students do
not acquire the feedback from the teacher. The teacher feedback does not affect their
writing accuracy. This is in line with what Truscott (1996, 2007) put forward and what
Pan (2010) found that the students made progress in the revised version but the success
was not repeated in later TT. Its also suggests the teacher error feedback alone may not
facilitate the learning of linguistic information (Pan, 2010).
Overall, the analysis indicates that the teacher’s direct, uncoded oral and written
feedback had significant effect only on text composed by high achiever students. But, it
had little effect on the text written by mid achievers and almost no effect on the text
made by low achievers. This result supports Tsao (2010)‘s finding that error correction
cannot improve the accuracy of student writing except for high proficiency students;
and high proficiency students responded more favorably to the feedback than low to
intermediate ones.
Additionally, to summarize, the table below displays average of error decrease in all
students’ texts.

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Table 4
The Average of Error Analysis of High, Medium and Low Achievers

Version Number Number Subject- clause Lexical Punctu-

of of Words verb construc- errors ation
clauses agreement tion
Achievers
and Low
High, Mid

Draft 9.44 57.44 1.67 3.67 4.11 4.56

Revised 9.11 52.33 0.67 1.22 2.56 1.33
Test 8.22 46.89 1.33 2.44 3.33 2.22
RT to
% 96 91 40 33 62 29
DT

TT to
% 87 82 80 67 81 49
DT

Note: RT= revision text, DT=draft text, TT=Test text

The table shows that on the average 80% of SVAE, 67% of CCEs, 81% LEs and 49% of
PEs in DTs remain in TT. The highest errors remained were related to LEs (81%),
which is in line with what Usaha (1998) found, that the highest error rate was found in
wrong word followed other errors.
Based on the data above, we can see that the feedback from the teacher has little impact
on the writing accuracy. This is probably because the feedback the teacher gave was not
so clear for students. This supports what Fregeau (1999 in William 2003; Cohen, &
Cavalcanti (1990 in William 2003) put forward that the feedback on surface errors does
not work when it is inconsistent, unclear and overemphasizes the negative feedback. Or,
the direct, uncoded, oral and written feedback does not have significant effect on the
students’ writing accuracy as argued by Truscott (1996, 2007 in Harshorn 2008)
reporting that error correction is not helpful for improving the grammatical accuracy of
L2 writing.

E. Conclusion and Suggestions

Based on the document analysis of texts made by nine students of high, medium and
low achievers, (three of each), it is revealed that all students performed better writing
accuracy in revision text - fewer errors are made – but the errors in DT remain existent
in their test versions. It also indicates that such feedback from the teacher has little
impact on the writing accuracy. The finding also suggests that the feedback gives
significant effect only to the high achievers. Only few errors are made again in their test
version. But, such feedback does not give much effect to the texts made by mid
achievers and low achievers. Most errors on their DT remain existent in their TTs. This
is in line with the findings of previous experts that error correction is not helpful for
improving the grammatical accuracy of L2 writing (Fregeau, 1999; Cohen, &
Cavalcanti, 1990 in William 2003; Truscott, 1996, 2007 in Harshorn 2008, Pan, 2010;
Tsao, 2010).
However, due to some limitations of the study, some suggestions are necessary to put
forward. Firstly, the type of the teacher feedback investigated is direct, uncoded oral and
written feedback focusing on form, other types of feedback like coded, indirect or with

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conference need conducting in future studies which might be related to writing

accuracy, fluency or even content. Secondly, in the next study, it would be better to
investigate a whole class or even two groups of students to get convincing conclusion.
Thirdly, in the following research, students should be prompted to write the same genre
of text, but the different topic is really recommended. Finally, in the next study, more
raters/ analyst are involved to get more objective and fair assessment of students’
composition.

References

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Indonesia. Bandung: Andira.
Bitchener, J., Young, S., Cameron, D. (2005), The Effect of Different Types of
Corrective Feedback on ESL Student Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing
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