INTRODUCTION:
Giving feedback on students’ essays has been a usual practice among
every Filipino language teachers. It almost became part of the system, a daily
routine which everyone usually takes for granted. What do we check when we give corrective
feedback on our students’ composition? Why do we give feedback? How can we do
this task properly? Is there a standardized procedure in giving feedback? These
are some of the questions that must be clarified and answered by a language
teachers as responsible members of the academe.
One proponent that seems to be against giving feedback is John
Truscott. In his paper entitled “Teacher Written Feedback...(2007)” he presented
the following conclusions:
- The best estimate is that correction has small harmful effect on students,
- We can be 95% confident that if it actually has any benefits, they are very small.
Such statements would make one think and doubt the
practice of giving feedback, as Truscott presented several other papers which
manifested aligning findings. Ferris (2003) made a comparison between groups of
writing students who received corrections and that of students who did not; and
found out that it does not offer information on absolute gains made by
correction group. Kepner (1991) “found little or no value for correction.”
Sheppard (1992) concluded that correction was not only ineffective, but also
probably harmful to students…” Fazio (2001) found out that students who are
given feedback declined in accuracy while those which did not receive feedback
had clearly the smallest decline.
Bitchener, Young and Cameron (2005) found out that the non correction group
was slightly better than the correction only group. These findings are quite
intriguing. But before fully believing these claims, the other side of the coin
must also be considered.
Guenette, quoting FathMan and Whalley (1990) said, “The control
group receiving feedback on formal and feedback on content gains in formal
accuracy”. Ashwell (2000), Fathman & Whalley (1990), and Ferris and Roberts
(2001) said “There are significant effects for the correction group.” Chandler
- the classroom context
- the type of error students make
- their level of proficiency
- the type of writing they are asked to do
- the collection of other variables that are as of yet unknown
With this in mind, how should a language teacher properly give
feedback on our students’ papers? Ashwell (2000) suggested that improvement in content
quality and formal accuracy, one has to direct his attention to helping
students understand how the feedback is intended to affect their writing and
why it is given in the way it is. But sometimes, the problem in this matter
does not lie on the students, but with us the teachers, who sometimes lose
tract.
According to Montgomery and Baker (2007) “Teachers generally give
little feedback on global issues, such as organization, and a large amount of
feedback on local issues such as grammar and mechanics, throughout the writing
process.” These findings in his research, if compared in the Philippine’s
teaching-writing practices are also evident and true. Many language teachers
will not deny their tendency to look at the students’ grammar errors, spelling errors,
format, etc. when checking their students’ papers; usually, less attention is
given on the students’ ideas and content and on how they organize them, should
it then be concluded that writing teachers are doing the right thing? Several
studies have revealed that providing feedback on local issues “does not help
learners make fewer local errors than thus providing no feedback” (Montgomery
and Baker, 2007). Truscott (1996), Kepner (1991) and Sheppard (1992) as cited
by Montgomery and Baker even suggested in their studies that correcting local
errors may actually lead to more errors committed by students. On the other
hand, it should not be implied that giving local feedback is wrong or should
not be practiced, as Fathman and Whalley (1990), and Ashwell (2000) said, as
reflected in the paper of Guenette (2007), that students receiving both
feedback in form and content showed gains in formal accuracy.
The discussions presented earlier shows that there is still an unsettled
argument between the experts and scholars over the issue of giving feedback. But
considering both party’s opinions, based on the evidences presented in their arguments,
it can be concluded that there must be balance on the part of the teacher in
terms of giving local and global feedback on students’ composition. In light of
this, considering balance between the local and the global issues when giving
feedback, the proponent of this paper conducted an investigation in a more
specific aspect. Since it is a fact that plenty of Filipino writing teachers
are focusing more on the local issues, a question on the kind of local feedback
given by the teacher was raised in this paper.
There are two kinds of
local feedback: direct and indirect. According to Ferris (2002) as mentioned by
Rianto (2010), “direct feedback is a technique of correcting students’ error by
giving 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.” Lee (2005), also mentioned
by Rianto (2010), explains that 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.
This paper attempts to provide an in depth concept of the use of
direct and indirect feedback in correcting local issues, with an assumption
that teachers are already/will be applying balance between the content (local
issues) and the form (global issues) to improve students’ writing skills and
the quality of their writing inputs. This paper attempted to answer the
following questions:
1.
Which between direct and
indirect feedback produce more benefits on students’ composition and writing
skills?
2.
What is the implication of the
kind of feedback given by the teacher on the student’s writing experience?
3.
Which between direct and
indirect is a better method when providing feedback on local issues?
METHODS:
The study employed the
“Process-Writing” proposed by Malicsi (2003), who divided the writing process
into three major activities: Prewriting, Fastwriting and Postwriting. The first
major writing activity which is Prewriting starts by generating ideas through introspection, observation, experiment,
review, interview or brainstorming; followed by structuring ideas done by writing an outline which covers:
classification of ideas, ranking and sequencing. The second major writing
activity is Fastwriting which is composed of drafting, done through “fastwrite” or writing as fast as possible
in order to set down ideas in full, connected sentences; and redrafting which is done by replacing
“scafs” (non-English words and phrases used while drafting) with the English
expressions required by the topic. The final writing activity is Postwriting
which is divided into two phases: the first is evaluating (global issue) or finding out if the draft communicates
ideas and intentions effectively, and the finally editing (local issue), which
is done by spotting the errors and correcting them.
This paper is focused and limited in studying the final phase of
Postwriting which is editing. The respondents of the study is composed of two
students who were randomly selected from an ENGL02 Class (Communication Skills
2) in which students are required to submit a composition as part of the course
requirements. These respondents were given freewill to choose a topic based on
their interest in order to motivate them to be more productive in the writing
activity. They went through the
“Process Writing” which was facilitated by researcher; beginning from
Prewriting, and following all the activities until they produced their first
draft (D1), which marks the beginning of the Postwriting Stage. At this point,
the researcher evaluated the D1 of each respondent and provided them with
feedbacks focused on formal organizations (Mongomery and Baker, 2007) in order
to improve the global aspects of their compositions—resulting to the second
draft (D2). After revising their paper
and considering the form-focused feedback, each of the respondents turned in
their D2 for editing. At this point the researcher utilized two forms of local
feedback (Ferris, 2002; Lee, 2005;
Rianto, 2010), wherein Respondent A was given direct feedback while Respondent
B was given indirect feedback and then both of them were asked to do their
final revisions (D3).
The D3 submitted by the respondents after receiving the content-based
feedback were then compared to D2 on the basis of accuracy (if they were able
to correct the errors spot by the teacher) in order to determine the effects of
direct and indirect feedback on student’s final written output and writing
skills. Their behaviors in applying the feedbacks (whether they conform or
deviate with the corrections) were also taken into consideration as part of the
interpretation of data. Interviews among each respondent were also conducted in
order to find out the benefits and the implication of the kind of feedback
provided by the researcher on student’s writing skills.
DISCUSSION:
Generally, both D3 submitted
by the respondents did not achieve perfection since several errors which were
given feedback by the researcher were overlooked, as reflected in the details
of the table bellow. It should be noted that such phenomenon happened because both
respondents admitted that they overlooked several items when asked why those
feedback items were disregarded/not corrected). But if none of those feedbacks
were overlooked, the composition made by Respondent A, under direct feedback
would have been more promising since the errors are not only spotted but are
already given the correct form. The following table presents the summary of the
researcher’s interpretation upon comparing D2 and D3 of both the respondents:
|
RESPONDENT
|
SPOTTED ERRORS
|
CORRECTION ATTEMPTS
|
ACCURATE ATTEMPTS
|
INACCURATE ATTEMPTS
|
OVERLOOKED ITEMS
|
|
A
|
29
|
22
|
22
|
0
|
7
|
|
B
|
19
|
15
|
10
|
5
|
4
|
Respondent A
represents the student who received the direct feedback while respondent B is
the student who received the indirect feedback. The table shows that Respondent
A committed 29 errors in his D2 but attempted to correct only 22 or 76% of the
total errors as reflected in D3 and left out or disregarded the remaining 7 or
24% of the total errors identified by the researcher. Out of this 22 attempts
to correct the errors based on the direct feedback provided by the researcher,
Respondent A successfully corrected 22 which means that 100% of all his
attempts to correct errors based on direct feedback is accurate.
On the other hand,
Respondent B committed 19 errors in his D2 but attempted to correct only 15 or
79% of the total errors as reflected in D3 and left out or disregarded the
remaining 4 or 21% of the total errors identified by the researcher. Out of
this 15 attempts to correct the errors based on the indirect feedback provided
by the researcher, Respondent B successfully corrected only 10 items which
means that only 67% of his attempts to correct errors based on the indirect
feedback are accurate while the remaining 5 attempts of 33% is inaccurate.
Comparing the
results for the two respondents in terms of the percentage of successful
attempts in correcting errors based of the kind of feedback that they have received,
it is quite obvious that Respondent A got a relatively higher percentage by
perfecting (100%) all the errors that he attempted to correct through the
direct feedback given by the researcher against the 67% success rate of
Respondent B who attempted to correct errors through indirect feedback. It
should also be noted that Respondent B incurred 33% failure in correcting
errors through indirect feedback. The result was justified during the
interview, when they were asked why such result was achieved. Respondent A
answered: “Kasi po andun na yung tamang dapat gawin. So, madali na po kasi ia-aply
ko na lang yung correction nyo.” Such is true, since direct feedback was given
by providing the correct form on
student’s paper (Lee, 2005). The answer of Respondent B to the same question:
“Eh mahirap po kasi ang grammar tapos nalilito pa ako dun sa iba kasi hindi ko
sure kung tama ang naiisip kong revision tapos yung iba po hindi ko talaga alam
kung anung gagawin ko.” also validates the result since indirect feedback is
done by only alerting the student to errors using general comments, but gives
students the opportunity to fix errors themselves (Ferris, 2002). Since the
respondent is admitting the limitation of his knowledge in content, basically
in grammar, it is really realistic that he fails to correct some of the errors
spotted by the researcher’s indirect feedback.
Respondent
B was also asked if he was confident of the corrections he made while
considering the signals provided by the indirect feedback during his final
revision. He answered: Yung iba po sure ako, kasi madali lang. Like yung
capitalization saka yung spelling. Kaso yung iba po wala talaga akong idea.
Nakakalito sir! Saka hindi ko po talaga alam, yung iba po hinulaan ko lang kung
tatama. On the other hand, Respondent A’s answer to the same question was full
of confidence: “OO nman sir! Andun na po kasi yung sagot eh, isusulat ko na
lang.” These answers still align with the nature of each kind of feedbacks;
hence it will really be easier to apply the corrections given through direct
feedback, since the answer is already provided, while it will be difficult to
apply the corrections through indirect feedback since only hint to the answer
is provided.
When
asked of what they have gained from their experience of receiving the kind of
content feedback assigned to them during the final revision, several notable
findings were revealed. Based on the answers of Respondent A during the
exchange of questions and answers, and follow-up questions, the following
benefits were gained from direct feedback:
·
The conduct
of revising is faster and easier
·
There is confidence
and certainty in the corrections being made
·
First hand
comparison between the correct and incorrect usage and the rules governing
content are realized while applying the revisions
·
Certain
degree of awareness on the errors and the proper corrections are achieved
On the other hand, Respondent B also revealed
several benefits form indirect feedback:
·
Development
of critical thinking/analysis
·
Development
of independent mind and resourcefulness
·
The feeling
of self satisfaction and pride when successful correction of errors are made
CONCLUSIONS:
The following questions posted at the beginning
of this paper are now given specific answers:
1. Which between direct
and indirect feedback produce more benefits on students’ composition and
writing skills?
- This study found out that a composition which is revised through direct feedback has more potential to be successful since direct feedback corrects error by giving explicit written feedback (Ferris, 2002).
- In terms of the benefits which a student gain from receiving either direct or indirect feedback, it has been clear based on the answers of both respondents during the interview, that both kind of feedback provides their own set of benefits which could be helpful in developing student’s writing skills.
2. What is the implication of the kind of feedback given by the
teacher on the student’s writing experience?
- By giving direct feedback, the teacher assures that as long as the student attend to all the corrections that are given, there is larger tendency to succeed in coming up with a better final written output. As reflected in the discussion portion of this paper, Respondent A was able to perform 100% accuracy in his entire attempt to correct errors which were given direct feedback.
- By giving indirect feedback, the teacher creates an opportunity to safeguard the development of his student’s writing skills and language proficiency, and a venue to assess which aspect of the language has to be improved in order to help the student in developing his writing skills. Such as reflected in the discussion portion of this paper; whereas out of 15 attempts to correct errors which were identified through indirect feedback, only 10 or 67% was successful and the remaining 5 or 33% is a failure. Considering this result, the teacher may now reflect of the items which were unsuccessfully corrected and develop a plan on how to help the student in developing the necessary knowledge to correct them.
3. Which between direct and indirect is a better method when
providing feedback on local issues?
- Both direct and indirect feedbacks are effective depending on the teacher’s intention of using them; and considering the benefits they provide for the students, it is also the teacher’s prerogative of which between the two should be prioritized. But in choosing which one to utilize, teachers should may keep what Guennete (2007) said: “There is no corrective feedback recipe. The success or failure of corrective feedback will depend on the classroom context, the type of error students make, their level of proficiency, the type of writing they are asked to do and the collection of other variables that are as of yet unknown.”
REFERENCES:
Ashwell, T.
(2000). Patterns of teacher response in a multiple draft composition: is
content
feedback follwed by form feedback the best method? Tokyo
College.
Guenette, T.
(2007). Is feedback pedagogically correct? Research design issues in studies
of
feedback in writing. DLSU: Journal of
Second Language Writing.
Maliksi, J.
(2003). The ELP writing manual Second Edition. QC: The Classic
Foundation.
Mongomery, J. L.
and Baker, W. (2007). Teacher-written feedback: student perceptions, teacher
self-assessment and actual teacher performance. USA : Brigham Young University
Rianto, S.
(2010). Using indirect feedback in correcting student writing. Retrieved from
http://www.scribd.com/doc/37323534/Indirect-Feedback-in-Writing
on August 2010.
Truscott, J.
(2007). The effect of error correction on learner’s ability to write
accurately. DLSU:
Journal of Second Language Writing.
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