Writing Skills and Paragraph Writing: Concept, Process, and Improvement, Lecture notes of English

Download Writing Skills and Paragraph Writing: Concept, Process, and Improvement and more Lecture notes English in PDF only on Docsity! 6 CHAPTER II THEORY REVIEW 2.1 Concept of Writing Writing is skill to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings to other people in written form in order that make understand the meaning. According to Nunan (2013:88), writing is the process of thinking to invent ideas, thinking how about to express idea, and organizing idea into statement and paragraph that will be clear to reader. Then, Harmer (2004:31) states that writing is an activity to produce language by using the idea, feeling, and opinion into written form. From the explanation above, it can be concluded writing is activity to express or transfer ideas, feeling or thinking in written form, make them visible and concrete on the piece of paper that can be the tool communicate with the other people. Futhermore, to make the reader understand the context of writing and as a tool to communicate with other people. Writing is one kind of skill in English. Writing is a way to transfer ideas to the other people. According to Pardiyono (2006:i) writing is one form of the use of language activities expressed thought the form of writing. Veit, Gould, and Clifford (1990:4) state that writing is process of generating writing by involving some of the skills previously obtained.Besides, Alfaki (2015:40) states that writing is process of thinking ideas, thinking how to express the ideas into good writing and arranging the ideas into statement. From the statement above, it meanswriting is an activity to express thoughts into written form and to make the people understand easily the content. 7 2.2 Process of Writing Writing is one of the activities to express idea and the idea itself should be arguable and the writer has to pay attantion for the formal aspects such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling.In writing, the students must set the goal to produce the good writing in English. In writing, there are several process that have to do by the students. According to Oshima and Hague (1999:15),there are six processes of writing, such as: 1. Prewriting Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process. In this step, the writer choose the topic before writing, viewpoints, or ideas related to the topic being discuss and writer must be specific focus with the subject. Prewriting is the first writing process to make the writing succesful. Prewriting process will choose narrowing the topic and brainstorming. 2. Planning Planning is the second stage of the writing process. Planning is process to involves what is it going to write.In this step, the writer must organize the idea by making outlining such as making sub-list, writing topic sentence and outlining. 3. Writing In this step, the writer start makes the first draft based on outlining to pour the idea and make paragraph writing. In this process the author develops or outlines the ideas that have been made in the previous planning. Ideas that are poured not only words, but also the logical and structural meaning. So that, the people will understand the content easily. 10 and save it the time. If the lecturer give feedback with individually or in small group it can give opportunity to explore issues as well as give feedback. 4. Focus of the feedback Focus of the feedback mean the lecturer focus on the aspects of the written result and focus on the process of writing. This feedback can help the lecturer to improve the students ' writings. By giving focus of the feedback to the students, the students can easily evaluate the error in their writing. 5. Form of the feedback Form of the feedback is feedback that use comments, scales, and checklist when correcting the students’ writing. Giving comment and checklist to the students’ writing is be able to improve the students’ writing. The teacher have to notice when the teacher gives feedback, there must be a scale to misunderstanding the occurrence of what the teacher tell students. Based on explanation above, there are several factors that affect feedback that giving by the teacher such as source of feedback, mode of feedback, size of audience, focus of the feedback and form of the feedback. When giving feedback for the students’ writing, the teacher have to consider those factor in order that the feedback will useful for the students to improve the writing. 2.4 Concept of Paragraph A paragraph is group of sentences that are organizedand related with one topic. Paragraph is written to help the readers obtain the information of writing. According to Oshima and Hague (1999:16) paragraph is a basic unit of organization in writing. A paragraph is an important part in writing.Paragraph is group of sentences that are developed tocreat information or complete message. Owl in 11 Wirantaka (2016:36) state that a paragraph is group of related sentences that only consist of a main idea or opinion. From the statement above, it means that a paragraph is a group of sentence. A paragraph is made from few sentences that discuss about one single topic. Talking a topic sentence is a sentence that tells the reader what the contents paragraph is about. Paragraph also helps the readers to comprehend the information within the main idea and relate it to the other paragraph. Writing paragraph, is one of the course that the students should be taken. In Muhammadiyah University ofKotabumi, especially of Teacher Training and Education, English Education Study Program, at the second semester the students will take the basicwritingsubject which is Paragraph writing. In this subject, the lecturer will ask for the students to made paragraph writing which includingon writing process. In this subject, the students will learn about parts of the paragraph, types of paragraph, and learn to improve writing skill. In paragraph writing, the students will learn what the things should be put in paragraph, such as topic sentence, supporting sentence, and conclusion sentence. Those steps the students will learn to writing such as write descriptive, opinion, comparison, and problem or solution paragraph. The lecturer will also comprehend the basic of writing, which focus on prewriting, planning, revising and rewriting. 2.5 Types of Paragraphs In paragraph writing there are some topics that the students will learn along the learning process. According to Wilcox in Javed, Juan, and Nazli (2013:132)there are four types of paragraph writing that students need to know they are narrative, expository, persuasive and the last descriptive. 12 1. Narrative Narrative writing is type of writing in the purpose is to tell a story. The author will create different characters and tell what happens to them. It often the situations like action, motivational events, and disputes or conflicts with their eventual solution. There are some kinds of narrative writing: a. Fiction A fiction is an imaginary narrative, which is based on the writer’s thoughts and feelings presented as a collection of many events. For example, novel, short story, fantasy and etc. b. Non-fiction Non-fiction are narrative based on real information or facts of event. A non- fiction writing can be form of history, philosophy, theory and research and etc. d. Poetry Poetry can be both fiction or non-fiction. It is comparing one twin with another. A poetry is a narrative where the expression of felling and ideas is given intensity by the use of rhythm. For example, sonnet, epic and etc. e. Expository Expository writing is a type of writing to explain something instruction that often equipped with facts and figures. It is a subject-oriented writing style, in which authors focus on telling about topic or subject without voicing their personal opinions. There are some kinds of expository writing: a) Problem and solution 15 Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that there are several kinds of writing such as narrative, expository, persuasive and descriptive. Every kinds of writing have different content and purpose. In narative there are fiction, non-fiction and poetry. In expository there are problem and solution, cause and effect, definition and classification and how to or process. In persuasive there are reson and emotion. The last in descriptive there are person, object and place. From several kinds of paragraph writing above, the researcher used students’ document writing which they are descriptive and narrative paragraph to see the students’ development in paragraph writing ability. 2.6 Problems in Writing Paragraph Writing is activiy that means the students explain the idea into written form. In writing, the students sometimes have problems. According to Alfaki (2015:44— 45), there are some problem that commonly occurred in writing such as, grammatical problems, choice word problem, and cognitive problems. 1. Grammatical problems Specifically, the problems related to grammar such as sentence structure, tenses, punctuation and etc. In English foreign language students still do mistakes frequently because of lack of grammar. Most of them did not have good grammar knowladge. Grammatical problem is the students have problem in writing with subject verb agreements, pronoun references, and connectors. 2. Choosing word problems Students are difficult to express some ideas because the students do not have many vocabularies in English.Another problem that faced by the for students in writing is difficulties in choosing word. In writing the students must use the 16 appropriate word in appropriate place. In fact the students often transfer Bahasainto English. When the students translate the word into English, the word does not match in English. It cause make the students mistakes in writing. 3. Cognitive problem There are five kinds of cognitive problem such as: a. Punctuation problems Punctuation is a system of symbol that help the readers understand the structural relation within a sentence. Punctuation is not standard to the extent like spelling. Understanding punctuation is essential for the students because it enables them to communicate clearly. In fact, the students sometimes still do mistakes in use punctuation. b. Capitalization problems Capital letters are useful for sentence initial, the beginning of important words, in topics, and heading. In writing, the students often do mistakes in using capitalization for sentence initials, the beginning of important words, in topics, and heading. c. Spelling problems The influence of other language, variation pronunciation and other historical reasons, and English spelling system it is one of problem of writing for the students. Many students’ experience problems with English language spelling because English is drawn from a number of other language and lack of understanding of language rule that make the students do mistake in writing. d. Content problem 17 Learning English as second language sometimes make the students are difficult doexplore the ideas and thought incommunicate with other people, this is another problem for students in writing. e. Organization Problem The studentshaveproblemin structuring the paragraph, topic, developingthe paragraph. Thus, in this case the teacher should be able to use an effective method to give the students more understanding about the students’ writing such as writie spelling, punctuation, mastering grammar and etc. From the statements above, it can be concluded that as the students’ problems in writing are the students’ have less of vocabulary and the have less ability in arranging the English grammar. For the students,make sentences by arranging right grammar is dificult. Lack vocabularies and have less ability in choosing the right word make the student no be able to communicate clearly especially in written form. 2.7 Concept of Corrective Feedback Feedback generally is the specific information from the teacher that giving provide to the students related with the task or learning process. Feedback as a source of information about student’s strength, weaknesses and key on their writing to do improvement. Brown (2001:335) states that giving feedback in the process of writing can help the students to improve their writing be good writing quality. Then, Ur (1996:242) states that giving feedback in process of writing is one of method of teacher to give information what the strengths and weaknesses on the students’ writing. According to Zheng in Masrukan, et al. (2019:11), Corrective Feedback is an teacher’s effort to minimize the students’ error in learning by inform the fact of the error. Similarly, Schacther in Zhao (2009:48) states that Corrective Feedback is 20 2. Indirect Corrective Feedback Indirect Corrective Feedback is the teacher indicates the error that has occurred but does not provide the correction. In this type, the teacher only notice the mistake by givingmark without giving the appropriate word. In this case, the students have to find the right answer by themselves. 3. Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback is the teacher provides some kind of metalinguistic clue related with the nature of error. The teacher write codes in the margin for example: ww = wrong word, art = article and v = verb etc. 4. Focused and unfocused Corrective Feedback Focused and unfocused Corrective Feedback are the teacher correct all or the most of the students’ error or the teacher correct the specific types of students’ error. Focus Corrective Feedback is intensive, for example correction on specific type of error, and unfocused Corrective Feedback is extensive, for example correction on all or most errors. 5. Electronic feedback Electronic feedback is the teacher correct the students’ error with provides a hyperlink to concordance file. Electronic feedback is strategy of providing feedback via computer based means to draw attention to written errors. This type of feedback will surely follow suit in that the use of technology in the language class continues to grow. However, to keep up with this growth, there is a need for 21 students to have consistent access to computer for their writing and subsequent analysis. 6. Reformulation Corrective Feedback Reformulation Corrective Feedback is the teacher corrects the students’ writing with reworking of the entire text of the students’ to make the language seem as native speaker as possible while keeping the content of the original text. There are several corrective feedback Direct Corrective Feedback, Indirect Corrective Feedback, Metalinguistic Corrective Feedback, Focused and Unfocused Corrective Feedback, Electronic Feedback and Reformulation Corrective Feedback. Teacher should consider kinds of corrective feedback that approppriate for the students. In order that make the feedback effective for students’ writing improvement. 2.9 Direct and Indirect Corrective Feedback Responses to students’ writing was teacher’s most crucial duty and regarded its role as one way, among others, to encourage and students in writing skill lesson (Ferris et.al in Baleghizadeh and Dadashi, 2011:131). It shows that teacher plays important role to correct and motivate students in writing by giving correction on their writing. In relation with the objective of this research, researcher focused on two kinds of corrective feedback they are direct corrective feedback and indirect corrective feedback. 2.9.1 Concept of Direct Corrective Feedback Another feedback strategy commonly used by lecturer is Direct Corrective Feedback. According to Bitchener and Knoch (2008:411) explains that Direct Corrective Feedback is a strategy used by lecturer to give correction to their 22 students’ error by providing correct linguistic form. Other statement by Van Beuningaen in Rahmawati (2017:66) Direct Corrective Feedback is a strategy require the lecturer to correct students’ writing error with identifies their error writing and the target form. Based on the various definitions about Direct Corrective Feedback, it can be concluded that Direct Corrective Feedback is a strategy used by lecturer to correct students’ writing error with indicating error directly. In Direct Corrective Feedback, the lecturer gives some comments on the students’ writing by oral and written. If lecturer gives comments with oral comments, the lecturer speaks in the front of classroom.Meanwhile, written feedback means the lecturer gives comments in written form and the lecturer gives notice instudents’ writing. 2.9.2 Concept of Indirect Corrective Feedback Indirect Corrective Feedback is a strategy used by lecturer to find the students’ error in writing indirectly. According to Chandler (2003:267), Indirect Corrective Feedback is the students have made an error and the teacher corrects by indicating errors without correcting those directly.For example,the teacher is underlining the errors and coding of errors. Ferris (2011:24) explains that Indirect written Corrective Feedback is the lecture provides feedback by forcing students to think more critically about the mistakes, which will be useful later to their learning. Additionally, Lalande in Shirotha (2016:109) states that Indirect Corrective Feedback is feedback leads to guide learning and problem solving to reflect on their linguistic form. From the theories above it can be concluded that, Indirect Corrective Feedback is a strategy used by lecturer to students’ writing indicating errors by symbol or correcting those indirectly.