Using indirect coded feedback to enhance efl writing skills for the 11th graders at can giuoc high school in long an province

i

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS
------------- ------------

I hereby state that, I, La Thi Hong Phan, being the candidate for the degree
of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the
retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited
in the Library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for care, loan, or
reproduction of thesis.
Ho Chi Minh City, December, 2019

La Thi Hong Phan


ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could never have been finished without the helpful support of
those to whom I would like to express my grateful thanks.
First of all, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Dr. Dang tan
Tin, my thesis supervisor, who oriented my thesis in a right way, corrected my
mistakes constructively and encouraged me with comprehensive guidance as well as
solemn criticism throughout the time I did my thesis.
My special thanks are reserved for my MTESOL classmates, who shared the
happiness and difficulties with me in different courses. I will hardly forget the
memories and funny pictures that we all took together.
I am also grateful to the high school managing board, the English teaching
staff and all the 11th graders in the academic year of 2018 – 2019 at Can Giuoc high

school in Long An province, whose willingness, enthusiasm, and encouragement
supported me so much.
I would like to express my gratitude to my dearest friend Nguyen Thi Kim
Thuy. Thanks for her presence, enthusiastic encouragement and honest advice
which helps me overcome difficulties on the way of doing thesis.
Last but not least, I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents, my relatives and
especially my little daughter who always stayed by my side and gave me both
material and spiritual support in order that I could stand firm in the face of
difficulties and overcome them to see a positively brighter future.


iii

ABSTRACT
Teaching writing with indirect coded feedback for high school students in
order to help them develop their long-term writing skills is the main concern of this
thesis. Exploring the experiment with the application of direct written feedback and
indirect coded feedback in two classes, collecting students’ attitudes for data
analysis, and finding out the ways to improve the teaching of writing skills for
language teachers are what the thesis aims at.
The study is an explanatory and exploratory one with the assistance of
quantitative figures. The study was conducted on 70 high school students of grade
11 at Can Giuoc high school in Can Giuoc district, Long An province. The
participants were divided into two groups named the experimental and control
group. The experimental group was taught with indirect coded feedback whereas
the control group was taught with direct written feedback during eighteen weeks.
During the training course, both groups took the same pre-test, post-test and
practice tests of writing and then the experimental group answered the
questionnaire regarding their attitudes towards the application of direct coded
feedback in their writing class. The result reveals that the teachers and students

successfully applied indirect coded feedback in their writing class regardless of
some difficulties that they encountered during the training process such as the lack
of time for students’ practice and the small scale of participants. Additionally,
students in experimental group showed positive attitudes towards the effectiveness
of indirect coded feedback on their writing skills.
Based on the findings coming from the real factors of both teachers and
students, suggestions are made to provide some kind of references to contribute to
the improvement of teaching writing skills in Can Giuoc high school in particular
and in other high schools in general.
Keywords: indirect coded feedback, EFL writing skills, grade 11 students.


iv

TÓM TẮT
Dạy kĩ năng viết sử dụng phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp bằng kí hiệu cho học
sinh phổ thơng để giúp học sinh có thể phát triển kĩ năng viết lâu dài là vấn đề chính
được quan tâm trong bài nghiên cứu này. Nghiên cứu những bài kiểm tra cái mà
được áp dụng phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp trong hai lớp thực nghiệm, sưu tầm
quan điểm của học sinh về quá trình học và tỉm ra những cách để nâng cao việc dạy
kĩ năng viết cho giáo viên tiếng Anh là những mục tiêu chính của bài nghiên cứu
này.
Bài nghiên cứu là một q trình giải thích và tìm hiểu cùng với sự trợ giúp
của những số liệu thực tế. Bài nghiên cứu vận dụng những bài kiểm tra và bảng câu
hỏi với sự tham gia của 70 học sinh trong hai lớp ở trường THPT Cần Giuộc. Học
sinh được chia thành hai nhóm, nhóm được dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi trực tiếp
và nhóm đực dạy với phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp bằng kí hiệu. Trong suốt 18
tuần của q trình thực nghiệm, hai nhóm cùng làm bài kiểm tra đầu khóa, kiểm tra
cuối khóa và các bài luyện tập để đánh giá sự tiến bộ của hai nhóm. Trước khi học
sinh làm bài kiểm tra cuối khóa, học sinh trong nhóm thực nghiệm sẽ trả lời bảng

câu hỏi để thể hiện thái độ của học sinh với quá trình được dạy với phương pháp
sửa lỗi gián tiếp. Kết quả thể hiện rằng giáo viên và học sinh đã áp dụng thành công
phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp trong bài viết bất kể một số khó khăn họ gặp phải
trong quá trình nghiên cứu như sự hạn chế về thời gian cho học sinh luyện tập và số
lượng ít học sinh tham gia trong bài nghiên cứu. Tuy nhiên, khi được dạy với
phương pháp sửa lỗi gián tiếp, học sinh thể hiện được sự tiến bộ trong khả năng viết
của họ hơn là những học sinh được dạy với phương pháp truyền thống.
Dựa trên sự tìm thấy được rút ra từ những yếu tố thực tế của giáo viên và học
sinh, những gợi ý được thực hiện nhằm cung cấp tài liệu tham khảo đóng góp vào
sự nâng cao việc dạy học kĩ năng viết cho giáo viên ở trường THPT Cần Giuộc nói
riêng và ở các trường phổ thơng nói chung.


v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.......................................................... i
ACKOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iii
TÓM TẮT ............................................................................................................. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. xi
ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................................... xi
Chapter One: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 1
1.1. Rationales of the study .................................................................................. 2
1.2. The purposes of the study .............................................................................. 4
1.3. The research questions .................................................................................. 5
1.4. Significance of the study ............................................................................... 5

1.5. Organization of the thesis .............................................................................. 6
1.6. Summary of the chapter ................................................................................. 7
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 8
2.1. Writing skills ................................................................................................. 8
2.1.1. Definition of writing skills .......................................................................... 8
2.1.2. The importance of writing skills ................................................................. 9
2.1.3. Criteria for enhancing students’ writing skills............................................. 9
2.2. Corrective feedback ..................................................................................... 11
2.2.1. Definition of corrective feedback.............................................................. 11
2.2.2. The importance of corrective feedback ..................................................... 11
2.2.3. Types of corrective feedback .................................................................... 13
2.2.4. Sources of corrective feedback ................................................................. 15


vi

2.3. Indirect coded feedback ............................................................................... 17
2.3.1. Definition of indirect coded feedback ....................................................... 18
2.3.2. The importance of indirect coded feedback in writing .............................. 18
2.3.3. The effects of indirect coded feedback on writing improvement ............... 19
2.3.4. Learners’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded feedback on
their writing assignments.................................................................................... 20
2.4. Previous studies ........................................................................................... 23
2.4.1. Overview .................................................................................................. 23
2.4.2. Research gap ............................................................................................ 26
2.5. Summary of the chapter ............................................................................... 27
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 28
3.1. Research questions ...................................................................................... 28
3.2. Research site ............................................................................................... 28
3.3. Background of the study .............................................................................. 29

3.3.1. The school ................................................................................................ 29
3.3.2. The teaching staff ..................................................................................... 29
3.3.3. The curriculum and syllabus ..................................................................... 30
3.3.4. The tests and the students ......................................................................... 30
3.4. Participants .................................................................................................. 31
3.5. Materials ..................................................................................................... 32
3.6. Training procedure for both control and experimental groups ...................... 34
3.6.1. Teaching plan for control group................................................................ 34
3.6.2. Teaching plan for experimental group ...................................................... 36
3.7. Data collection instruments ......................................................................... 37
3.7.1. The tests ................................................................................................... 37
3.7.2. The questionnaire ..................................................................................... 39
3.8. Data collection ............................................................................................ 42
3.9. Data analysis procedure ............................................................................... 45
3.9.1. Pre-test and post-test................................................................................. 46
3.9.2. Questionnaire ........................................................................................... 47
3.10. Validity and reliability ............................................................................... 47


vii

3.10.1. Establishing the validity ......................................................................... 48
3.10.2. Ascertaining the reliability ...................................................................... 48
3.11. Summary of the chapter ............................................................................. 49
Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ......................................................... 50
4.1. The results of the tests and the questionnaire ............................................... 50
4.1.1. The tests’ results ....................................................................................... 50
4.1.2. Questionnaire’s results ............................................................................. 57
4.2. Discussions ................................................................................................. 68
4.2.1. Findings on the improvement of students’ writing skills ........................... 69

4.2.2. Findings on students’ positive reflections on the application of indirect
coded feedback................................................................................................... 71
4.2.3. My writing lesson plan integrated with indirect coded feedback ............... 73
4.3. Summary of the chapter ............................................................................... 78
Chapter 5: CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 79
5.1. Important conclusions ................................................................................. 79
5.2. Limitations of the study ............................................................................... 80
5.3. Suggestions ................................................................................................. 80
5.3.1. Suggestions for administrators at Can Giuoc high school ......................... 80
5.3.2. Suggestions for language teachers ............................................................ 81
5.3.3. Suggestions for students ........................................................................... 83
5.3.4. Suggestions for further research ............................................................... 83
5.4. Summary of the chapter ............................................................................... 84
REFERENCE ........................................................................................................ 85
APPENDIX ........................................................................................................... 92
APPENDIX A: Error correction categories ........................................................ 92
APPENDIX B: Writing topics for both CG and EG ........................................... 95
APPENDIX C: Lesson plan for teaching CG ..................................................... 97
APPENDIX D: Lesson plan for teaching EG ................................................... 102
APPENDIX E: Students’ score report for CG .................................................. 107
Appendix F: Students' score report for EG ....................................................... 108
APPENDIX G: The score report of students in EG on pre-test ......................... 109


viii

APPENDIX H: The score report of students in EG on post-test........................ 111
APPENDIX I: The score report of students in EG on practise tests .................. 113
APPENDIX J: The score report of students in CG on pre-test .......................... 115
APPENDIX K: The score report of students in CG on post-test ....................... 117

APPENDIX L: The score report of students in CG on practise tests ................ 119
APPENDIX M: Students’ questionnaire ........................................................... 121
APPENDIX N: Students’ questionnaire – Vietnamese version ......................... 124
APPENDIX O: Writing rubrics for marking students’ paper ............................ 128
APPENDIX P: Table of contents for teaching writing ...................................... 133
APPENDIX Q: Pre-test .................................................................................... 134
APPENDIX R: Practise test 1 .......................................................................... 135
APPENDIX S: Practise test 2 ........................................................................... 136
APPENDIX T: Practise test 3........................................................................... 137
APPENDIX U: Practise test 4 .......................................................................... 138
APPENDIX V: Post-test .................................................................................. 139
APPENDIX W: Frequency of students’ attitudes towards learning with indirect
coded feedback................................................................................................. 140

APPENDIX X: The mean score of EG in each criterion in pre-test and post-test .... 151


ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Types of corrective feedback ................................................................. 13
Table 3.1 Writing tasks for students in both groups ............................................... 33
Table 3.2 Taxonomy of the questionnaire .............................................................. 41
Table 3.3 Data collection procedure ..................................................................... 43
Table 4.1 Mean scores of writing pre-test for CG and EG...................................... 51
Table 4.2 T-test value of writing pre-test for CG and EG....................................... 51
Table 4.3 Mean scores of writing pre-post-test for CG .......................................... 52
Table 4.4 Correlation and t-test value of writing pre-post-test for CG .................... 53
Table 4.5 Mean scores of writing pre-post-test for EG ........................................... 54

Table 4.6 Correlation and t-test value of writing pre-post-test for EG .................... 54
Table 4.7 Mean scores of writing post-test for CG and EG .................................... 55
Table 4.8 T-test value of writing post-test for CG and EG ..................................... 56
Table 4.9 Cronback’s coefficient alpha for the questionnaire ................................. 58
Table 4.10 Description of participants ................................................................... 59
Table 4.11 Descriptive statistics of the students’ affective attitudes ....................... 64
Table 4.12 Descriptive statistics of the students’ behavioral attitudes .................... 64
Table 4.13 Descriptive statistics of the students’ cognitive attitudes ...................... 67


x

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 An example of using indirect coded feedback in student’s writing……18
Figure 2.2 A model of attitude formation……………………………………….....21
Figure 3.1 Pre-test and post-test design……………………………………………40
Figure 4.1 Students’ self-evaluation in writing skills…………………...…………63
Figure 4.2 Students’ feelings in writing class……………………………….…..…64
Figure 4.3 Students’ response after being corrected writing mistakes…………..…65
Figure 4.4 Ways to improve students’ writing skills………………………………66


xi

ABBREVIATIONS

CG

The control group

DWCF

Dynamic written corrective feedback

EFL

English foreign language

EG

The experimental group

L2

Second language

MOET

The Ministry Education and Training

SPSS

The Statisticbal Package for the Social Science


1

Chapter One: INTRODUCTION
English language plays an important role in every situations all over the
world. It is a universal language which is necessary in all aspects of life. It is the

language of science, information, technology, politics, economics and education
(Hamdona, 2007). Therefore, ministries of education worldwide and educational
institution try their best to design communicative curricular that enables their
students to utilize this language skillfully, especially improve their productive skills
like writing and speaking to communicate with the world thanks to their own source
of language.
In order to express themselves in English, language learners have to
communicate in English frequently and reach their accuracy in writing skills.
Writing accuracy is a target that language learners need to prepare for their
examination as well as for their daily communication. However, errors in written
work can create negative effects on readers. In order to get their writing
improvement, language learners have to practice writing gradually and correct their
mistakes by draft-writing and proof-reading. In this step, students are able to correct
writing mistakes by themselves or with the help from their teachers. With small
mistakes in vocabulary items or grammatical structures, students can self-correct
and for more difficult ones, teachers can help them to solve their problems thanks to
direct written feedback or indirect coded-feedback.
Because of the fact that corrective feedback for mistakes in essay writing is
very necessary for students, language teachers need to apply corrective feedback to
help students enhance their writing skills. There are many ways to provide
corrective feedback for students to get the accuracy in their writings and each of
them has their own real value; however, the effective pedagogical technique is
indirect coded feedback (Sampson, 2012). In the scope of this study, direct written
feedback and indirect coded feedback are employed in order to encourage students
to self-correct their writing mistakes. In addition to this, both types of corrective


2

feedback will be compared based on students’ writing development in order to

evaluate their effectiveness that they bring to students.
1.1. Rationales of the study
Most of the students at Can Giuoc high school have to learn English as a
major subjects but through personal communication with them, many claim that
they are bored with their learning because of the following reasons. Firstly, they
think that English is an obligatory subject that they have to learn for the tests instead
of learning to improve their language skills that is really necessary at tertiary
education. The most important thing for them to do is passing the exams. After a
school year, they hardly remember what they have learnt during the semesters.
Secondly, textbooks for high school students including four language skills
(listening, speaking, reading and writing) but the contents of the exams mainly
focus on the language practice and reading skills so that students learn inflexibly
and unequally between language skills and practicing exercise through grammar
rules; therefore, they do not find it interesting to learn although English is core
subject in national examination. Whether students like it or not, they are pushing on
the way through the learning English, especially English grammar at high schools.
Thus, teachers’ job is to help students not only to master new English grammatical
items but also not to forget what they have learnt in order to perform well in the
exams regardless of their other language skills like listening, speaking or writing
skills are improved or not.
Additionally, even though students realize the importance of language skills
especially writing skills in learning English, they tend to be too lazy to practice and
improve this language skill. Through my observation after 7 years teaching at Can
Giuoc high school, I realize that during the classroom lesson, they just take notes or
write down the things that teachers write on the board then they put them away or
even give them away instead of keep them in their mind and reproduce the
knowledge in writing paragraphs or essays. As a result, students ignore and step
backwards in learning writing skills because they are mainly focus on learning for

3

the tests including reading and grammar. Students are often too lazy to write when
they are given a topic for writing skills if teacher do not force them to do.
Therefore, it puts the pressure on language teachers because they need to find way
to activate and motivate their students in learning writing skills. Students need to be
active learners who think and construct the acquired knowledge but they seem to be
more passive information receptors in their own learning process.
After trying many ways to encourage students to develop writing skills such
as encouraging students to assess their own work, asking them to set themselves in
targets, getting them to work in groups or pairs, I applied a teaching strategy that I
learned at university when I was a freshman. At that time, my English teacher
utilized indirect coded feedback in order to get our involvement in learning writing
skills. With this method, all students in my class performed well and got
improvement in writing. Thus, I applied this corrective feedback for my students at
high school with the hope that they will better in their writing as I myself and my
classmates used to do at university. Moreover, thanks to some previous studies
conducted by other researchers, such as Ferris (2012), Hyland (2000), Sampson
(2012), Hendrickson (1978), they all found that indirect coded feedback really
brought positive effects to students in improving their writing skills. All of them
suggested that, teachers should apply indirect coded feedback in their writing class
in order to develop self-correction skills for students. Consequently, they were able
to perform well in their written work and improved their writing skills gradually.
Therefore, the idea of using corrective feedback especially indirect coded feedback
come to my mind and I decided to try this type of corrective feedback to help my
students find interest in learning writing skills
To evaluate the effectiveness of indirect coded feedback, I carry out this
study with a strong desire to estimate whether indirect coded feedback has positive
effects on grade 11 students in learning writing skills.

4

1.2. The purposes of the study
The purpose of the study consists of two main parts. Firstly, this study
intends to investigate the effectiveness of indirect coded feedback to improve grade
11 students writing skills. Secondly, students’ attitudes towards the application of
indirect coded feedback is also explored thanks to the questionnaire.
The experiment is conducted in order to help high school students improve
their writing skills which is considered one of the most integral skills for language
learners. Writing accuracy not only requires spending time on practicing but it also
is influenced by pedagogical strategy in learning process. Therefore, with indirect
coded feedback, students are provided a very effective strategy so that they can
reach the development in their writing skills. With this type of corrective feedback,
students have a chance to study with an innovative teaching technique that is
usually applied for advanced class at university. Besides that, teachers are able to
examine the effects of indirect coded feedback on high school students’ perception.
In the scope of an experimental study, it investigates the difference in students’
improvement in writing skills between the control group taught with direct written
feedback and the experimental group taught with indirect coded feedback. Students
were trained how to recognize and self-correct their writing mistakes before asking
for help from their classmates or language teachers.
Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect coded
feedback are also investigated by the questionnaire after students were trained in a
writing course with indirect coded feedback. It is necessary to understand students’
perceptions towards the new corrective feedback – indirect coded feedback,
compared to the traditional way – direct written feedback. From that, teachers know
how much students have learnt from indirect coded feedback as well as their
attitudes towards this teaching technique are positive or negative. Consequently,
teachers can find out better solutions to help students to improve their writing skills.

Generally, the main purpose of the thesis is to assess the effectiveness of a
type of corrective feedback – indirect coded feedback – actually conducted at a high


5

school, particularly in the first semester at Can Giuoc high school. This study
investigates the application of indirect coded feedback which results the positive
effects on high school students in a course of study. Moreover, students’ attitudes
towards this corrective feedback are highly appreciated in order to evaluate the
appropriateness of indirect coded feedback on high school students in learning
process.
1.3. The research questions
This study is an attempt to identify the effects of indirect coded feedback for
high school students. It is intended to answer the following research questions:
1. To what extent does indirect coded feedback affect grade 11 students in
writing skills?
2. What are grade 11 students’ attitudes towards the application of indirect
coded feedback in their writing class?
1.4. Significance of the study
Practically, this study is expected to provide teachers with helpful
information about the use of indirect coded feedback in terms of developing
students’ writing skills. By reflecting on how writing skills are improved with the
assistance of indirect coded feedback, teachers are able to understand the learning
process that engages the students and enables the students to be successful in
writing classes. Moreover, the study might provide other language teachers at Can
Giuoc high school with an effective technique in teaching English writing skills. It
might also help to erase the doubt about the impacts of indirect coded feedback on
students in learning writing skills at high school and appeal other studies on
different ways to assist students’ learning.

Additionally, high school students will be taught with a new and interesting
corrective feedback that enhances their writing skills. In fact, students are not used
to applying indirect coded feedback in their writing class because this corrective
feedback hasn’t been applied in the language teaching at Can Giuoc high school. If


6

the application of this indirect coded feedback gets expected results, students are
able to develop their writing skills. Therefore, the application of this indirect coded
feedback will benefit them in terms of developing their writing skills.
In spite of the fact that the application of indirect coded feedback is not
innovative in the teaching context, the implementation this corrective feedback is
not widely used at high schools, especially at Can Giuoc high school. Therefore,
this study will be considered to contribute a reference for language teachers at high
school in general and language teachers at Can Giuoc high school in specific. From
this current study, language teachers know students’ difficulties in their writing
skills and their attitudes towards applying indirect coded feedback in their writing
class so that they can develop their teaching method. As a result, teachers consider
how to use appropriate types of materials and design suitable teaching activities in
order to enhance students’ writing skills.
All in all, this study is very significant for language teachers and students as
well as it provides a reference for further studies that involve the application of
indirect coded feedback in writing class.
1.5. Organization of the thesis
The thesis is designed and presented in five chapters. Chapter One,
introduction, includes the rationales, the background, the significance, the purposes
and the research questions, respectively. In Chapter Two, the researcher reviews the
relevant literature on giving feedback, kinds of feedback especially indirect coded
feedback. The literature on feedback will also be examined, including the

importance of giving feedback on students’ learning improvement in writing skills
and the impacts of indirect coded feedback on learning and developing writing
skills. In Chapter Three, the methodology used to conduct the study is described in
details. It presents the experiment, population and data collection. After that,
Chapter Four analyzes the data collected, in an attempt to provide a discussion in
order to give the answers for the research questions. Finally, Chapter 5 is considered
as a conclusion to sum up all the information presented in previous chapters and


7

provide suggestions for teaching writing skills with indirect coded feedback in the
site of Can Giuoc high school
1.6. Summary of the chapter
This chapter presents the information of the rationales, the background
information, the aims of the study as well as its significance. All the information
bases on the fact that there is a big problem for language teachers in teaching
writing skills for students at high school. Besides that, some features of Can Giuoc
high school, language teachers, the curriculum and students are analyzed in order to
set the ground for the study.


8

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
With the purpose of making the research comprehensive and convincing, we
now spend some time considering a few relevant concepts and ideas of some
previous research, beginning with the literature on the term “writing skills”.
2.1. Writing skills
This section includes the definition of writing skills, the importance of

writing skills and criteria for evaluating writing skills. All these parts are
particularly clarified in order to set the theoretical background information for the
study.
2.1.1. Definition of writing skills
According to Ferris & Dana (2003), writing is the most important invention
in human history because it provides a record of information, beliefs, feelings,
arguments, opinions, theories, ideas, etc. Writing allows us to clarify the ideas and
write them down; it enables us not only to communicate in written language, but
also to leave a mark to communicate with future generations. In order to develop
writing skills, it is necessary to learn and practice day after day. Additionally,
writing is very significant in today’s educational system (Ferris & Dana, 2003).
Therefore, developing writing skills for students especially high school students is
necessary.
According to Janet Emig (1977), writing represents a unique mode of
learning because “it originates a verbal construct that is graphically recorded”. This
means that writing helps students to deepen their knowledge because they have to
think about it prior to starting to use the words to generate ideas in their writing
process. Additionally, writing skills are important tools for students because they
are very important with their work, their learning as well as develop their mental
intellect. In fact, writing helps students express their opinions, their knowledge and
expresses who they are. If students can express themselves in writing, they will be
able to communicate well with readers thanks to their written work.


9

2.1.2. The importance of writing skills
Writing is considered one of the most important skills for second language
learners ( Lynch and Hudson, 1991, as cited in Grabe, 1991) and is one of the
primary goals of early education (Hume & Snowling, 2011). Writing has attracted

much attention from many researchers and experts due to several reasons (Richards
& Renandya, 2002). Firstly, writing provides different purposes such as knowledge,
career or educational purposes. In fact, the ability in writing a foreign language is
quite necessary in most EFL situations. It is an essential skill for a competent
learner in today’s society (Human Resources and Social Development Canada,
2003). For pedagogical purposes, writing enhances language production. It helps
writers express their ideas, thoughts and feelings through their written work.
Secondly, by writing, learners can have a connection with other language skills like
speaking, listening and reading. To put it simply, writing is an interactive process of
communication. Finally, writing can promote learning and be an instrument by
which learners can use to study other subjects (Far, Nurianfar & Gowhary, 2014). It
all contributes to a conclusion that writing is a vital skill not only for mental
development but also the learners’ academic achievement.
2.1.3. Criteria for enhancing students’ writing skills
There are many ways to improve students’ writing skills which have been
listed in other studies; however, according to Ferris (2006), four criteria which are
considered the most important ones for students in enhancing their writing skills are
task response, coherence and cohesion, lexical vocabulary and grammatical
accuracy.
First of all, task response in students’ written work is one of the most
important criteria that students need to focus on when they start their writing. In
task response, students need to make an outline for their writing neatly so that all
the writing task is completed in an order. As Ferris (2006) claims that wellorganized piece of writing should have a clearly-defined structure with an
introduction, a body and a conclusion. Moreover, in each part of their writing,


10

students need to develop a topic sentence which presents the main idea of the
paragraph and some supporting ideas to explain for the topic sentence. With the

same process, in other pieces of writing, students also have to plan an outline for
their writing carefully in order to form an outline with all parts connected logically.
Secondly, coherence and cohesion also play an important role in enhancing
students’ writing skills. Coherence and cohesion involve the connection between
each part or each sentence in a paragraph (Ferris, 2006). In order for a piece of
writing to be coherent, there must be a logical flow of ideas from one clause,
sentence, paragraph, or section to the next ones. In order to make their writing
coherent, students can use the transitions. Transitions are used to clarify variety of
links between ideas, such as causative relationships, temporal relationships, or
similarities and differences (Ferris, 2006). Transitions can also be used to link a
topic to supporting examples or evidences. There are some typical transitions that
students frequently use in their writing such as therefore, on the other hand,
however, furthermore, likewise, etc. Additionally, students should eliminate some
irrelevant sentences in their writing in order to make their writing connected
coherently because of the fact that irrelevant sentences make their writing redundant
and lack of unity.
Thirdly, lexical resource should be utilized appropriately in order to make
students’ writing convey its meaning effectively. In order to make their writing
more colorful and attractive to readers, lexical resource is an important factor.
Lexical resource not only express students’ knowledge but it also expresses their
ability to use vocabulary items skillfully. Therefore, lexical resource should be
expanded during students’ learning process. They can improve their writing skills
thanks to their source of vocabulary that they use in their writing. Actually, students
are unable to express themselves if they don’t have vocabulary resource.
Finally, students need to use the grammatical structures accurately. In fact,
using correct grammatical structures is one of the most essential elements of
writing. According to Ferris (2006), applying correct grammatical structures


11

expresses students’ level in their writing. Therefore, they need to learn grammatical
structures and often use them correctly in their writing in order to reach the
accuracy in grammar. Using grammatical structures correctly is considered as an
important factor to evaluate students’ improvement in writing skills. In order to
improve grammatical structures in writing, students need to apply the grammatical
structures in writing appropriately for example use correct verbal forms, understand
grammatical cases and use appropriate forms and show agreement between
grammatical form.
Developing writing skills for students is uneasy and needs a lot of time to
improve gradually. Therefore, with four criteria mentioned above, students have to
practise all of them in order to enhance their writing skills.
2.2. Corrective feedback
This part presents the definition of corrective feedback, the importance of
corrective feedback, types of corrective feedback and sources of corrective
feedback. All of them provides all specific information in order to clarify the
importance of corrective feedback in developing students’ writing skills.
2.2.1. Definition of corrective feedback
According to Ferris (2006), corrective feedback is considered to be any
written comment or feedback geared toward improving linguistic accuracy. It is
believed among teachers that if a teacher indicates a written grammatical error on a
students’ paper and provided the correct form in one or another way, the students
will realize the error and will not repeat it in his/ her future writings. Thus, the
ability of writing accuracy will be improved.
2.2.2. The importance of corrective feedback
There are many researchers exploring the importance of corrective feedback
on students’ writing development. These studies reported that corrective feedback
provides a potential value in motivating students to revise their draft (Leki, 1991;
Saito, 1994; Zhang, 1995) and in improving their writing (Fathman & Whalley,

12

1990). As a result, corrective feedback is the most popular method that teachers use
to interact and communicate with students in their written work (Fathman &
Whalley, 1990).
Corrective feedback motivates students to correct and revise their writing.
With corrective feedback from teacher, students are able to think critically and selfregulate their own learning (Strake & Kumar, 2010). When their writing is
identified with corrective feedback, students will tend to be motivated to correct
their writing mistakes. It is believed that corrective feedback acts as a compass
which provides a sense of direction for students to correct their written work and to
tell that their writing goals are achievable.
Additionally, corrective feedback can be considered as an important process
for the improvement of writing skills for students (Hyland, 1990). This is because
corrective feedback contains heavy information load which offers suggestions to
facilitate improvement and provides opportunities for interaction between teacher
and students (Hyland, 2006). Feedback can be defined as writing extensive
comments on students’ texts to provide reader response to students’ efforts and at
the same time helping them improve and learn as writers (Hyland, 2003). Teacher
provides corrective feedback to help students to read and understand the problem.
Afterwards, students can use corrective feedback to improve their future writing.
Thus, written feedback is widely used to teach language writing skills that help
students improve their writing gradually. Besides that, corrective feedback is used
to assist and support students in producing written work which contains minimum
errors and maximum clarity.
Because of the importance of corrective feedback in students’ learning
process, teachers need to motivate and engage students in their writing with
corrective feedback so that they feel that they want to write and improve their
writing skills.

13

2.2.3. Types of corrective feedback
According to Ellis (2008), there are many types of corrective feedback and
each type has its own value in providing a correction for student’s errors in their
writing. It means that each type of corrective feedback has an impact on students if
they pay all their attention to it. In his study, Ellis (2008) presented a typology of
corrective feedback for correcting linguistic errors in students’ written work.
Table 2.1 Types of corrective feedback
Types of corrective

Description

Studies

feedback
Direct

corrective The teacher provides the e.g. Lalande (1982) and
students with the correct Robb et al. (1986)

feedback

form
Indirect

corrective The teacher indicates that Various

feedback

an error exists but does employed

studies

have

in

direct

not provide the correction. correction of this kind
- Indicating + locating the This takes the form of (e.g. Ferris and Roberts
error

underlining and use of (2001), Chandler (2003)).
cursors to show omission Fewer
in the student’s text.

- Indication only

employed

studies
this

have
method

This takes the form of an (e.g. Robb et al. (1986)).

indication in the margin Various

studies

have

that an error or errors have examined the effects of
taken place in a line of using error codes (e.g.
- Use of error code

text.

Lalande (1982), Ferris and

Teacher writes codes in Roberts (2001), Chandler
the margin (e.g. ww = (2003)).
wrong word; art = article).


14

Metalinguistic corrective Teacher provides some e.g.

Sheen

(2007)

kind of metalinguistic clue compared the effects of

feedback

as to the nature of the direct corrective feedback
-

Brief

grammatical error.

description

and

direct

corrective

Teacher numbers errors in feedback + metalinguistic
text

and

writes

grammatical

a corrective feedback.

description

for each numbered error at

the bottom of the text.
The

focus

of

the This concerns whether the Most

studies

teacher attempts to correct investigated

feedback

have

unfocused

all ( or most) of the corrective feedback (e.g.
students’ errors or selects Chandler (2003), Ferris
one or two specific types (2006),

Sheen

(2007),

of errors to correct. This drawing on traditions in
distinction can be applied second
to each of the above acquisition

options.

corrective

Unfocused
-

Unfocused

-

Focused

studies

Focused

corrective

feedback
The teacher indicates and e.g. Milton (2006)
error

and

provides

hyperlink

to

concordance

file

provides

examples

correct usage.

focused

corrective feedback).

corrective feedback is intensive.

Electronic feedback

a
a
that
of

of

feedback,

corrective investigated

corrective feedback is extensive.

feedback

language