Tya Rizka Rachmania - 121611223023

A study of corrective feedback and L2 learners’ uptake

in English conversation class at Rumah Bahasa Surabaya

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) or what Indonesians are familiar with the MEA, is

currently an issue faced by all Southeast Asian countries. AEC will establish ASEAN as a single

market production base to make ASEAN more dynamic and competitive with mechanisms and

measures to strengthen the implementation of new existing economic initiatives. It is not only

talking about the competition of trade in goods and services, but also in labor market flow where

there is no longer any barriers that limit ASEAN countries to expand their business in various

countries in ASEAN. AEC also facilitates the movement of business, labors, and their talents as

an initial step to bring ASEAN Economic Community into reality.

Based on the challenges of AEC and see the condition of the existing community, the

mayor of Surabaya Tri Rismaharini, launched a program “Rumah Bahasa” as one of the form of

attention from Surabaya City Government in preparing Surabaya city residents to face AEC.

Rumah Bahasa is expected to be a public space aimed to improve the competence of Surabaya city

community in various languages that will be needed at AEC, considering language is a

communication tool needed in facing the competitions at AEC. The program is held free of charge

so that everyone can have access to this service. There are many languages course offered in

Rumah Bahasa, namely English, German, Arabic, French, Spanish, Korean, etc. Nonetheless, the
goal of the course is just like any other teaching and learning situation, which is to provide

successful teaching and learning.

There are many factors that can influence the language teaching and learning process, one

of which is teacher. Teachers play a big role in the successful teaching and learning process. There

are some roles of teachers in the teaching and learning process in the class as stated by Jeremy

Harmer in his book. First he mentioned that a teacher is a controller in the class which means the

one who is in charge of classroom activities as well as leading the students. The second role of

teachers in the class is as prompter where in a student-centered situation, teachers act as a prompter

to encourage students to work by themselves. The third role of teachers in the class is as a

participant in a student-centered classroom situation where teachers let the students work by

themselves and just watch them do everything. Teachers also act as a resource who provide

knowledge to the students indirectly by giving the students sources to access in order to gain their

knowledge. The last role of teachers is as a tutor. Besides giving information in the classroom to

the students, teachers also give feedback to the students work or performance (Harmer, 2001).

Giving feedback to students in teaching and learning process has many advantages for both

teachers and learners. According to Richard and Lockhart, providing feedback to learners on their

performance is one of important aspect of teaching. The advantages of providing feedback are to

let the learners know how well they have performed, to increase their motivation, and to build a

supportive classroom climate (Richards & Lockhart, 1996). In the other hand, teachers may

increase their teaching skills through providing feedback to help the learners understand the

knowledge.

Moreover, feedback given by teachers is also a part of interaction process in the classroom.

In the context of teaching in general, feedback is any kind of information given by teachers to
learners about his or her performance of a learning task, usually with the objective of improving

this performance (Ur, 1991). Giving feedback to students can result in them being aware of what

they need to develop in the classroom.

Feedback has two main distinct components, they are assessment and correction.

Assessment feedback is done when the learners are simply informed of how well they have

performed. Meanwhile some specific information is provided on aspect of learners’ performance

through explanation, provision of alternatives, or elicitation in correction feedback (Ur, 1991). An

example of an assessment is when a teacher gives an “A” to a test that has given to a student

because the student can answer the questions correctly. Whereas in correction, an example of it is

when a student uttered a sentence “I buy the shoes yesterday”, then the teacher simply stops the

student and says, “I bought the shoes yesterday” in order to correct the student’s mistake. In

addition, as stated by Morzano, Pickering, and Pollock, corrective feedback brings great effect on

students as well as provides them with an explanation of whether what they are doing is correct or

incorrect (Morzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).

In learning a language, it is no doubt that students can make some mistakes in the class.

As stated by Julian Edge in his book on mistakes and correction, mistakes can be categorized on

three categories. The first category is slips, this occurs when the students make mistake but then

can directly correct the mistake by themselves. Second category of mistakes done by students is

errors in which students can not correct themselves and need further explanation. The last category

is attempts that happen when students try to say something but do not know the correct way to say

it (Edge, 1989). As a result of the mistakes that students make during learning process, corrective

feedback is needed to attain successful teaching and learning process.

 Corrective Feedback is an indication to the learners that their use of the target language is

incorrect (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Feedback is defined as a type of interaction which can

enhance second language acquisition by making non-native speakers aware that their usage is not

acceptable in some way and it provides a model for ‘correctness’ (Saville-Troike, 2006).

Corrective feedback is considered as an effective way for both teachers and learners to attain

successful teaching and learning process in English Language Teaching.

There are six types of corrective feedback according to Lyster and Ranta. The first type of

correction is explicit correction, it is done by the teacher to the students when they make mistake

by saying the correct form directly. The second type is recast which is more explicit than explicit

feedback. The third type is clarification request which function is to clarify what the students said

in case teachers misunderstood them. In addition, metalinguistic feedback is when teachers give

comment, respond, or further explanation about the students’ utterances. Moreover, elicitation is

when teachers give correction to students’ mistakes through some ways: “fill in the blank”,

questions to elicit the correct form, or ask students to reformulate their utterance. As for repetition

correction is done when the teachers usually uses high tone or highlight the students mistakes

(Lyster & Ranta, 1997).

The aim of this study is to reveal the use of corrective feedback used in English

Conversation class of Rumah Bahasa. This study uses the theory of corrective feedback introduced

by Roy Lyster and Leila Ranta. There are six types of corrective feedback, they are clarification

request, elicitation, explicit correction, metalinguistic feedback, recast, and repetition. Moreover,

this study also reveal the learners’ uptake upon receiving corrective feedback from the tutors in

English Conversation class of Rumah Bahasa.

 Rumah Bahasa is a program by Surabaya City Government to increase the competence of

the city community in various languages that will be needed at the time of the implementation of

AEC. The learning objectives at Rumah Bahasa targeted the sellers, workers (including taxi

drivers, office staff, police officers, etc), students, and groups in Surabaya. It offers many language

courses, such as English, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Arabic, Thai, etc. The

course has two main programs, they are fix class and on-the-spot class. Both fix class and on-the-

spot class have maximum 25 participants in each class. The participants of fix class have to register

first to join the class. They also have to follow at least 75% of all the meetings in one batch of fix

class. In the other hand, on-the-spot classes are for those who are not commit to join the course.

Participants of this classes are free to join the class or not. Despite the difference, the participants

of both classes have to show membership ID of Rumah Bahasa to join the classes.

One language that has the most participants is English. Rumah Bahasa open on-the-spot

English classes every day from Monday to Sunday. They are divided into two classes, conversation

and basic. Rumah Bahasa also offers English Wonderful Weekend program every weekend. The

focus of those classes are different. English basic class focus on those who can not speak English

at all, so they start with the basic skills. Whereas English conversation class focus on how to

converse in English which is the higher level of language course. In general, English classes at

Rumah Bahasa is just like any other course which seeks to teach the learners to be able to

communicate in English. The only difference between English classes at Rumah Bahasa in

comparison to other English courses is that they are free of charge.

The writer chose English Conversation class at Rumah Bahasa as the object of the study

due to its effectiveness in reaching wide range of students with ease and proper receiving of

feedback from them. Moreover, conversation is the highest skill in language learning.
Additionally, the course has students from various age levels from high school students to workers,

so corrective feedback from the tutors in classroom is necessary. Therefore, the course is chosen

as the object of this study.

There are studies done on corrective feedback formerly. A study done by Prasetyawati in

corrective feedback in SMPN 1 Surabaya shows that the teacher uses corrective feedback in

correcting his students in various classroom activities (Prasetyawati, 2014). Moreover, Putri

conducted a study about corrective feedback used in different level of age classrooms, which is in

grammar classes in Airlangga University (Putri, 2016). Another study is conducted in speaking

activity in classroom by Devina shows that the most used type of corrective feedback is elicitation

(Devina, 2017). As for studies related to E-learning, there have been several studies done under

the topic. A study conducted by Julia Shishkovskaya, Dina Bakalo, and ArtemGrigoryev about e-

learning and English teaching was done, though their main focuses were the principles and

methods used in learning English through e-learning (Shishkovskaya, Bakalo, & Grigoryev, 2015).

In spite of the issues being discussed that are similar, this study is distinct from the previous

studies as this study focuses on the corrective feedback used by the tutors in English Conversation

class at Rumah Bahasa. Furthermore, this study also explore how the learners’ uptake upon

receiving corrective feedback from the tutors. Despite the parallel of the issue, the object being

discussed in this study is different as it focuses on corrective feedback in English conversation

class in Rumah Bahasa Surabaya.

1.2 Statement of the Problems

The writer formulated two research questions in order to be analyzed in the study. The

research questions are as follow:

 a. What types of corrective feedback are given to the L2 learners in English Conversation

classes at Rumah Bahasa Surabaya?

b. What are the L2 learners’ uptake after being given corrective feedback by the tutor in

English conversation classes at Rumah Bahasa Surabaya?

1.3 Objective of the Study

The aim of this study is to explore and identify the types of corrective feedback that are

used by the teacher in correcting their students’ mistakes in English conversation class at Rumah

Bahasa Surabaya. Furthermore, the learners’ uptake upon receiving corrective feedback from the

teacher also investigated.

1.4 Significance of the Study

Since this study focuses on teachers’ corrective feedback in English conversation class

where the learners come from various background, it is expected to enrich the readers’ literature

especially in the field of English Language Teaching. It can also be significance for students of

the course to be more aware of corrective feedback and for the teachers to know what kind of

feedback that students prefer in teaching and learning process. In addition, this study will also

contribute a new variant of English language teaching under the topic of corrective feedback used

in conversation class for adult learners. Moreover, this study will also put in new alternative of

new trend in teaching English language. Practically, this study will also help the writer and

hopefully can be implemented by the writer in teaching English as she is a tutor in one of English

courses in Surabaya.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

 This study will only focus on the learners of English Conversation class at Rumah Bahasa.

The writer will only examine types of corrective feedback given to the students by the teachers in

class activities. Moreover, this study will only concentrate on the types of learners’ uptake after

given the corrective feedback. The writer will also put her observation into interpretation analysis.