Microsoft Word - b578-14d6-7f03-d59b A Journal of Culture, English Language, Teaching & Literature ISSN 1414-3320 (Print), ISSN 2502-4914 (Online) Vol. 20 No.2; December 2020 Copyright © Soegijapranata Catholic University, Indonesia Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 1Fergina Lengkoan and 2Sanerita Tresnawaty Olii 1,2English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Manado, Tondano, Indonesia 1ferginalengkoan@unima.ac.id; 2tresnawatyessy@gmail.com Received: 03-12-2020 Accepted: 26-12-2020 Published: 30-12-2020 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 1Fergina Lengkoan and 2Sanerita Tresnawaty Olii 1 ferginalengkoan@unima.ac.id; 2 tresnawatyessy@gmail.com 1,2 English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Manado, Tondano, Indonesia Abstract: A paragraph is a subject consisting of a writer's developed related statements. In writing a paragraph, the students make sure their paragraph is in the correct format. This qualitative study describes students' writing development in a paragraph and the impact of self-correction. The study participants were 15 students in the second semester of a basic writing class at the English Education Department. The tests implemented were pre-test and post-test after five meetings of treatment. In the treatment, the students gave feedback about the paragraph, punctuation, capitalization, simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence. The results showed that self-correction benefited students' writing skills, and there was a development in their writing skills. This study suggested that self-correction was an effective method and was shown to be an appropriate method to improve the students’ writing skills. Keywords: self-correction; writing skill; paragraph Abstrak: Sebuah paragraf adalah subjek yang terdiri dari pernyataan terkait yang dikembangkan oleh seorang penulis. Dalam menulis paragraf, siswa memastikan paragraf mereka dalam format yang benar. Penelitian i mendeskripsikan perkembangan a menulis siswa dalam sebuah paragraf dan dampak koreksi diri. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini berjumlah 15 siswa pada kelas Basic writing semester kedua di Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kuantitatif dan menggunakan tes tertulis. Tes yang dilaksanakan adalah pre-test dan post-test setelah 5 pertemuan. Dalam setiap proses menulis siswa memberikan tanggapan tentang paragraf, Lengkoan, F. &Olli, S.T., Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 379 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ tanda baca, kapitalisasi, kalimat sederhana, kalimat majemuk, kalimat kompleks, dan kalimat kompleks majemuk. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa koreksi diri bermanfaat bagi keterampilan menulis siswa dan ada peningkatan keterampilan menulis mereka. Penelitian ini menyarankan bahwa koreksi diri adalah metode yang efektif dan terbukti menjadi metode yang tepat untuk meningkatkan kemampuan menulis siswa. Kata kunci: koreksi diri; keterampilan menulis; paragraf INTRODUCTION Writing in English is one of the skills that students must learn and master. (Richards &Richards, 2002) argue that writing is the most challenging skill for the second language and foreign language learners. Writing in English is divided into academic writing and creative writing. According to Oshima & Hogue (2017), “Academic writing is the kind of writing used in high school and college classes. Whereas creative writing is the kind of writing, you do when you write stories. It is also different from personal writing, the kind of writing you do when you write letters or e-mails to your friends and family (Ubro et al., 2020). Informal writing is creative and personal, so it is possible to use slang, abbreviations, and incomplete sentences. However, in formal academic writing, students should avoid slang or contractions. Complete sentences should be written and organized in a certain way. When students learn to write, they have to learn to write a sentence before writing a paragraph (Bambulu & Pelenkahu, 2021). Harmer (2004) stated that the students should pay attention to what to write and how to write. This research answered the problem of how self-correction impacts students’ writing paragraphs. The previous research by Fahimi & Rahimi (2015) found that self- assessment instruction prepares students to plan and revise their texts and evaluate their writing progress. In a self-correction exercise, students function as writers and correctors. Cahyono & Amrina (2016) studied peer correction and self-correction in teaching writing to Indonesian EFL students. They found that self-correction is an effective technique to apply in writing. They suggest that peer feedback and self-correction should be done by using guideline sheets. In their study, they compared three groups. They concluded that regardless of the types, feedback conducted in EFL essay writing courses is 380 Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature, Volume 20, Number 2, December 2020, pp. 378 – 386 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ likely to improve the students‟ ability in writing essays. Both peer feedback and self-correction are beneficial to improve the students’ writing skills. In addition, Rohim (2018) stated that many mistakes are also frequently found when the students start to write. The mistakes come from the lack of skills in writing. The researcher reports how self-correction has impacted the students’ writing paragraphs as their competence in writing a paragraph has increased. LITERATURE REVIEW Fata et al. (2018) stated, writing is an activity that arranges the words into a sentence, sentences into a paragraph, and paragraph into a good text. Without the formula and rules, the words and the sentences could not be arranged to be a good paragraph. Another definition of writing comes from Raimes (1983). It is the skill in which we express the ideas, feelings, and thoughts arranged in words, sentences, and paragraphs using eyes, brain, and hand. There are also components and parts to master in writing, like correct use of punctuation, capitalization, sentences, and paragraph. Oshima, A. & Hogue (2017) adds the definition that a paragraph is a group of related statements that a writer develops about a subject. In the first sentence, the specific point, or idea, of the topic and the rest of the sentences in the paragraph support that point. A good paragraph is, thus, essential in academic writing. Like stated by Wirantaka (2016) a good paragraph is critical as it helps the readers to understand the content of the writing. In teaching writing, especially a paragraph, the researcher used self- correction. As informed by Andrade & du (2007), self-correction is a process in which the students reflect on and evaluate the quality of their work and their learning, judge the degree to which they reflect explicitly stated goals or criteria, identify strengths and weaknesses in their work, and revise. This is in accordance to Ganji (2009) who believes that the students’ self-correction can have a long-lasting effect on their memory, because they are involved in the process directly and actively, and this can activate the operations necessary for long-term retention. In self-correction, the students started knowing and correctly writing a paragraph, including the punctuation, capitalization rules, and sentences. Another statement from Bitchener et al. (2005) also informs that self-correction is an indirect feedback where the teacher provides students with choices that would allow them to discern the correct form by themselves. Lengkoan, F. &Olli, S.T., Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 381 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ As a standard and a tool for students in doing self-correction, before applying self-correction, the students are given in advance some informative explanation about the essential parts of a paragraph, the rule of capitalization and the kinds of sentences. METHOD This article reports the paragraph writing of fifteen students of the English Education Department who were studying at Universitas Negeri Manado. In collecting data, a written test was used. The treatment of self- correction was given to the students after the pre-test. After the treatment, in five meetings, the students were given a post-test. The students were asked to make a paragraph that consisted of a topic sentence, supporting sentences, both major support sentences and minor support sentences, and a concluding sentence, and they wrote the topic on Covid-19. There were some steps that the writers took in collecting and analyzing the data. First, the researcher prepared the class condition where the students were ready to follow the test done online by using Edmodo where the students wrote a paragraph as the pretest. Then, five meetings were used to teach them on the way to do the self-correction on their writing. They learnt on the punctuation, capitalization, topic sentence, supporting sentences and concluding sentence. In order to do that, they also learnt on the kinds of sentences , such as simple, compound, and complex sentences. Then, the students wrote a paragraph with an allocation time of 60 minutes, and they had to submit it in the Edmodo application. Then, the researcher gave feedback and instructions to the students to correct their paragraphs by themselves. Finally, the researcher gave a post-test and analyzed the data. The test was given to the students to see the impact of self-correction in writing paragraphs and also give them scores. The rubric and study zone used for the scoring is described below: Table 1: Basic Writing Rubric Punctuation/Capitalization Topic to Score Good Fair Poor (3 pts) (2 pts) (1 pts) 382 Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature, Volume 20, Number 2, December 2020, pp. 378 – 386 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ Punctuation Beginning of all sentences is capitalized. All “I” are capitalized. All sentences end with a punctuation mark. All proper nouns are capitalized. (0-2 mistakes) Beginning of most sentences are capitalized. Most “I” are capitalized. Most sentences end with a punctuation mark. Most proper nouns are capitalized. (3-4 mistakes) Beginning of some sentences are capitalized. Some “I” are capitalized. Some sentences end with a punctuation mark. Some proper nouns are capitalized. (5 or more mistakes) Capitalization Beginning of all sentences are capitalized. All “I” are capitalized. All sentences end with a punctuation mark. All proper nouns are capitalized. (0-2 mistakes) Beginning of most sentences are capitalized. Most “I” are capitalized. Most sentences end with a punctuation mark. Most proper nouns are capitalized. (3-4 mistakes) Beginning of some sentences are capitalized. Some “I” are capitalized. Some sentences end with a punctuation mark. Some proper nouns are capitalized. (5 or more mistakes) As understood from Table 1, scores were given on the punctuation (P), and capitalization (C). This is continued to scoring the main idea (M) and supporting sentences (SS). Because students often make 0-5 mistakes the scores ranged from 100 to 50, or 10 to 5. Table 2: Paragraph Writing Rubric 3 2 1 Main Topic Strong main idea restated in the closing sentence Adequate main idea restated in the closing sentence Weakly stated main idea weakly restated in closing sentence Supporting Sentences Three or more supporting sentences per paragraph Two supporting sentences per paragraph One supporting sentences per paragraph Lengkoan, F. &Olli, S.T., Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 383 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ This research is quantitative in nature. According to Bryman (2001) quantitative research approach is the research that places emphasis on numbers and figures in the collection and analysis of data. As a statistical data, Eyisi (2016) stated that a researcher could apply the following formula to count the students score: Score = x 10 The data of this research was presented in the computation of a mean score ( , where the mean of T1 was compared to that of T2 to ensure the effect of the teaching technique applied. Using that formula, it was found the mean of the pre-test and the post-test by using this formula: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS To get to the answer of the research problem of how self-correction impacts students’ writing paragraphs, the writer compared the score from the pre-test and the post test. The following is the data on the students’ scores. This score was given based on the writing rubrics that the research used. The score was given on the five aspects in their paragraphs. They are the punctuation, capitalization, main idea or topic sentence, and supporting sentences. The sentences they made are in various forms like simple, compound and complex. The score was based on the correct forms of sentences and also the relevance of the sentence on the topic. Although the sentence is grammatically correct, it was considered as mistakes if they were not relevant. Table 3: Computation of mean (X) of the Pre-Test and Post-Test Students Number Pre-Test Scores (X) Post-Test Scores (X) 1 4.1 6.6 2 5 7.5 3 5 8.3 4 5 6.6 5 4.1 7.5 384 Celt: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching & Literature, Volume 20, Number 2, December 2020, pp. 378 – 386 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ 6 5.8 9.1 7 5.8 8.3 8 3.3 6.6 9 6.6 9.1 10 3.3 6.6 11 5.8 7.5 12 5 7.5 13 7.5 9.1 14 4.1 7.5 15 3.3 7.5 ∑ 73.7 115.3 4.91 7.68 The result of Pre-test showed that the highest score was 7.5 and the lowest one was 3.3. The highest score was seven point five (7.5) achieved by one student, one student got six point six (6.6), three students got six point five (6.5) or 7.69%, one student got six-point twenty-five (6.25) or 3.85%. two students five point eight (5.8), four students got five (5), three students got four point one (4.1), three students got three point three (3.3). After being given treatment by self-correction, the researcher did post-test and the result of Post-test showed that the highest score was 9.1 and the lowest one was 6.6. Fifteen students took the post-test, three students got nine point one (9.1), two students got eight point three (8.3), six students got seven point five (7.5), and four students got six point six. Figure 1: Mean score of Pre-Test and Post-Test Lengkoan, F. &Olli, S.T., Self-Correction in Writing a Paragraph 385 https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v20i2; ISSN: 1412-3320 (print); ISSN: 2502-4914 (online); Accredited; DOAJ By calculating the average of the students’ score, data can be presented like shown in Figure 1. It shows that the mean score in the pre-test and post- test is different. In the pre-test, the average was 4.91 and in the post-test the mean was 7.68. The gain from 4.91 to 7.68 was 2.77. This means that the students show an improvement in their writing skills. CONCLUSION It can be concluded that self-correction is effective in developing students’ skill in writing paragraph, self-correction has an impact in students’ writing, and there is development from students’ writing skill from bad to good. It can be seen from the result of the pre-test and post-test, where the post-test scores were higher than the pre-test ones. REFERENCES Andrade, H., & du, Y. (2007). 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