A PERSPECTIVE ON WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK

Abstract

This article presents views on written corrective feedback. It elaborates the type of written corrective feedback which was dominantly given by the teachers to the students. Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) is used in correcting grammar error or error occurred in students’ writing. WCF is considered effective in increasing writing accuracy, in particular it functions to improve learners’ writing skill. There are two types of WCF that are commonly used by teachers to respond or correct the grammatical mistakes made by the students. They are direct and indirect WCF. Direct WCF is used by teachers to provide correct form, crossing out unnecessary word, inserting a missing word and writing the correct form and Indirect WCF is performed when the students are informed that they made errors but are not provided the correct forms so the students can do the correction themselves. There are 6 types of WCF: 1) Direct WCF; 2) Indirect WCF (indicating + locating the error and indicating error only); 3) Metalinguistics WCF (error code and brief grammatical description); 4) The focus of the feedback (focused and unfocused); 5) Electronic Feedback; and 6) Reformulation. However, the written corrective feedback does not cover all the aspects for developing respondents’ writing skill.