SELF-DIRECTED FEEDBACK: AN ATTEMPT Tsara Desiana Akmilia, Pupung Purnawarman & Rojab Siti Rodliyah Self-Directed Feedback: An Attempt Towards Learner Autonomy in Writing SELF-DIRECTED FEEDBACK: AN ATTEMPT TOWARDS LEARNER AUTONOMY IN WRITING Tsara Desiana Akmilia English Education Department, Indonesia University of Education, IndonesiaE-mail: tsaradesiana@gmail.com Pupung Purnawarman English Education Department, Indonesia University of Education, IndonesiaE-mail: ppurnawarman@gmail.com Rojab Siti Rodliyah English Education Department, Indonesia University of Education, IndonesiaE-mail: rojab.siti@gmail.comAPA Citation: Akmilia, T. D., Purnawarman, P. & Rodliyah, R. S. (2015). Self-directed feedback: An attempttowards learner autonomy in writing. Indonesian EFL Journal, 1(1), 48-57Received: 03-09-2014 Accepted: 23-10-2014 Published: 01-01-2015 Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the application of self-directed feedback in a writingclassroom in terms of how it may affect their skills in writing and the students’ response to it. Thestudy was conducted in one of public high schools in Bandung, taking nine students of a science classas the participants. It employs a case study which is using interview and document analysis as thedata collection techniques. The findings show that after the inclusion of self-directed feedback in fourdrafts, the students managed to have a progress in terms of organization, vocabulary, mechanics, andgrammar in the process of writing a report text. The awareness of their own progress also indicates atrait of an autonomous learner. Most of the students saw self-directed feedback as a worthytechnique to be used again in the subsequent lessons. As a conclusion, self-directed feedback isproven applicable in the writing classrooms as it functions as a step in making students acquirestrategies of learning autonomy. For further research, it is suggested that self-directed feedback isincluded in a set of a self-monitoring strategy rather than one exclusive technique. Keywords: self-directed feedback, writing, learner autonomy INTRODUCTIONWithin the context of EFL classrooms, it isquite common to find classes with a highnumber of students. For teachers who needto face about 40 students in one class—thecondition that is happening widely inIndonesia—the job could be overwhelming.Furthermore, in the writing classes when theprocess of editing and re-drafting is highlyendorsed, this condition is not beneficial. It ispossible that teachers skip the process forpracticality reasons. When we talk aboutwriting classes in particular, to be able tofacilitate students to write better, one of theways is to include feedback for revisionbefore writing assignment is collected.According to Susanti (2013), in Indonesia it is common to have feedback given byteachers seeing that “teachers are the peoplewho are educated to teach and correct theirstudents’ assignments while students arepeople who have to receive the correctionsand obey every instruction from theirteachers” (Susanti, 2013, p 1-2). However, torely on teacher feedback in theaforementioned condition may result in nofeedback at all at worst. Self-directedfeedback, which was chosen as anindependent variable in the study, could beone of the solutions. The technique iscarrying the value of learner autonomy, asstated by Cresswell (2000, p. 235) that “Thestudent self-monitoring technique increasesautonomy in the learning of writing by giving 48 Indonesian EFL Journal, Vol. 1(1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427learners control over the initiation offeedback.” This way, the teacher does notneed to shoulder the burden of providingfeedback alone.At last, considering the importance ofhaving better practice in teaching writing inlarge classrooms through autonomouslearning, together with the fact that self-directed feedback may create theopportunities to raise students’ awarenesson writing, the study sought to design a studyconnecting both of the components to be putinto practice in an EFL classroom.According to Lin (2009, p. 61), the aim ofself-directed feedback is “to raise awarenessof the important elements and conventions inthe process of composing essays, and helpsstudents to acquire them in order to becomeindependent and competent writers.” It isalso recognized as self-feedback (see Saito,1994; Zhang, 1995; Hattie and Timperley,2007) or self-provided feedback (Lamberg,1980), in which each term refers to the samedefinition—a feedback which is formulatedby the students themselves.In the process of self-feedback in writing,the writer is placed in the reader’s role.According to Rijlaarsdam and van den Bergh(2004), this is beneficial since the studentswill be exposed to text problems, or at leastto practice their reading skills. It was furtherstated that the experience replicates thedifficulties in the writing process, such asincorporating reader perspective in thecomposing, dealing with reader’s expectation,how to guide the readers to its writing, aswell as checking the final text based onreaders’ understanding (Rijlaarsdam and vanden Bergh, 2004).Another support coming from Ferris(2003), who stated that in writing, it isimportant to arm students with strategytraining to avoid errors and self-edit theirwork. That being said, it can be inferred thatstudents’ role in regulating themselves in theprocess of writing is vital and inevitable. Thiscan be realized through self-directedfeedback.In terms of its significance to revision,Paulus (as cited in Ferris, 2003) in his studyfound that in terms of influence in the wholerevising process through three draftingstages, the “self/other” category outnumbered peer and teacher feedback.Ferris (2003) then concluded that from thefindings, it can be argued that even rereadingand rewriting that does not involve peer orteacher may open an opportunity of studentshaving both substantive changes and a betterquality in writing.Saito’s (1994) work focused on self-feedback in the form of self-correction inwhich she categorized self-feedback as one ofthe non-teacher feedback. Her study,however, does not investigate as to whatextent the students went with their own self-correction. In her paper, Saito (1994)mentioned that “students may be able to usesuch techniques to develop theircommunicative competence, skills to criticizetheir own writing by themselves, and to copewith errors without depending on a teacher”(Saito, 1994, p. 65).A widely used definition of learnerautonomy came from Holec (as cited inKumaravadivelu, 2003), who defined it as“the ability to take charge of one’s ownlearning.” Another view came from Benson(2006), who mentioned autonomy inlearning as a condition when people takemore control over their learning inside andoutside the classroom.Although the ultimate goal in realizinglearner autonomy is to have learners whodoes not require teacher in their learning(Lamb, 2008), this does not necessarily meanthat the role of teacher in the classroom isvanished at all. According to Lamb (2008),the kind of learning expected is one that doesnot take place independently of the teacher,but one in which the teacher shifts his/herfocus in teaching to support the learners’development in autonomy. This can berealized by teachers introducing the learnersinto the strategies to become autonomouslearners.An autonomous learner, then, is not alearner who does not take any kind ofsupport into account. Moore (1972)characterizes autonomous learners as theones who still turn to teacher to assist themin formulating problems, collectinginformation, and evaluating their progress.That is why the self-directed feedback issuggested not to be applied in an exclusionfrom the other types of feedback, but rather 49 Tsara Desiana Akmilia, Pupung Purnawarman & Rojab Siti Rodliyah Self-Directed Feedback: An Attempt Towards Learner Autonomy in Writingas a complement to teacher and peerfeedback as students are releasingthemselves from too much dependency toothers.According to Cresswell (2000),autonomy in the learning of writing can beincreased through self-monitoring technique.This is in line with the process approach towriting that is also characterized with thepresence of help for the students to be awareof their own writing process (Shih, as statedin Brown, 2001). This implies that it is notthe teachers who should be the main actor inthe process of writing, but the students.Therefore, to include learner autonomy inthe course of writing is a necessity since thestudents also need to be aware that they arethe one who give the direction to theprogress of their own writing. Furthermore,self-feedback in this matter promotes theexact same thing, when the learners areacquired to be the first person to check ontheir own writing and if possible makecorrections for the mistakes. The importancefor having the self-monitoring technique isalso acknowledged by Dickinson (as stated inCresswell, 2000), who argued that it offers asense of self-direction, which refers to aprocess enabling learners to choose theirlearning focus as well as a recognition totheir own responsibility. The value ofresponsibility is also what is supported in thelearner autonomy. METHODThe method used in this study isqualitative. It also employed the case studyas it was considered the best method toanswer the research questions.The data were taken in a qualitativeform through interviews and documentanalysis. This study was conducted in one ofpublic Senior High Schools in Bandung. Theparticipants were 9 eleventh graders of ascience class. Throughout the study, thestudents were asked to write a report textunder six topics: chocolate, animation,greenhouse effect, bee, cactus, andmicroscope. The first meeting was used tohave a recap about report text only to remindthem about the generic structure, as well asthe nature of report text. The researcher,who acted as a teacher in this meeting, did this on purpose since the topic of report texthad been discussed in the class with theirteacher. After that, still in that meeting, theychose one topic out of six, and they wereexpected to make their first draft before thenext meeting. At the second meeting, as thestudents brought their first drafts to the class,the researcher asked them to formulate aself-directed feedback for their own texts.The researcher informed them about severalaspects that they could work on: genericstructure, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary,and grammar. In the next two meetings, theycontinued to work on their feedback andrevise the text. They had the chance to revisetheir writing until the fourth draft. Thestudents were asked to work on their textsfrom September 9, 2013 to September 23,2013 or two weeks in total to finish until thefinal draft. After that, they were asked tocollect all of their drafts—from the first tothe fourth—to be analyzed. Their texts wereanalyzed only in terms of the organization,mechanics, grammar, and vocabulary(adapted from the types of errors describedby Thornbury, as cited in Hernàndez, 2011).The researcher looked at their errors onthose parts and their attempt to fix them. If,for example, the students had mistakes ingrammar in their first draft, then theresearcher would look at the subsequentdrafts (second, third, and fourth) to seewhether changes were made in the placewhere the mistakes were seen before. If theymade correct changes, then it would beregarded as a progress in grammar. Anotherscenario would be the students madechanges but they happened to be incorrect.In that case, the progress was not present.This also means that even if the studentshappened to be marking their mistakes bycircling or underlining it, as long as thecorrect changes were not seen in the nextdrafts, then they would not be counted as aprogress. The analogy applied to the otherthree aspects mentioned before.In-depth interviews were conductedafter the texts were submitted. Five guidelinequestions were used to help giving an insighton what the students’ response towards theactivity is. Question number five works as aconfirmation on the findings derived fromthe document analysis. The interviews were 50 Indonesian EFL Journal, Vol. 1(1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427conducted individually in which the studentsare called one by one to have an informal talkwith the researcher. An informal setting isconsidered necessary in order to provide anease for the interviewee, so that real andauthentic answers can be derived. It was alsocarried out in bahasa Indonesia to providecomfort for the interviewee during theconversation. The interviews weretranscribed and later analyzed using therelated literature. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONThe findings show that students hadprogress in their writing skills. Most of themalso responded positively to the applicationof self-feedback, even though the presence ofnegative response is also unavoidable. Theelaboration is as follows. Students’ progress in their writing skillsIn regards to the students’ writing skill,the findings show that they were able todetect errors in their writing and they werealso progressing in some aspects of thewriting skills. From the first until the finaldraft, all students made progress inorganization, mechanics, grammar, andvocabulary. It should be bear in mind, though,that not every student made progress in allfour aspects—some only improved in threeor two aspects only. The details will beexplained in the following points. OrganizationIn this study, a student is consideredhaving a mistake in organization if they didnot use the structure in composing their text,and is said as progressing if they changed theincorrect structure to the one described byMacken-Horarik (2002). Out of nine students,only two students did not follow thestructure in organizing their ideas. The restof the subjects had used the structure fromthe very first draft, therefore their texts willnot be analyzed in this part. From the twostudents who made mistakes in organization,only one had a progress.The first student is Student 8, whoprogresses during the time of his writing. Hedid not follow the generic structure in hisfirst draft, but finally managed to organizehis ideas so that it fits to the generic structure in the information report text onlyin the last draft.Awareness in organization, as was statedby Starkey (2004), lets writers see howdeveloping ideas suita framework. Sundemand Pikiewicz (2006) mentionedthat logicalframework in writing shows careful planningand foresight. Therefore,when students areaware of their issuein organizationandreviseit, it means thatthey made an attempt to guidethemselves to make a better writing in termsof developing the ideas. Other than that,having a better organizationin ideasrepresents theirawareness of having a carefulplanning in writing.On the other hand, another student,Student 6, did not make any revisionregarding her mistakes in organization. Theideas did not follow the structure of aninformation report text because the text doesnot include qualities and functions of thetopic she got. According to the interview, shestated that she did not find much problem inher text.Looking at the characteristic, this can becategorized as a mistake that occurscontinuously without any effort to correct it,which is defined as “the use of a linguisticitem in a way which a fluent or nativespeaker regards as showing faulty orincomplete learning” (Richards and Schmidt,2002, p. 184). From Student 6’s case, itshows that she either has not acquiredknowledge on organization or is still havingan incomplete comprehension on it.From the two cases (Student 8’s andStudent 6’s), it can be inferred that the self-regulatory proficiency is needed in order tomake self-feedback work. This is shown fromStudent 8’s awareness to make a carefulplanning of his writing after the self-feedback.Other than that, it is also important forstudents to acquire the knowledge about thetext. This is shown from Student 6’s case. MechanicsMechanics had been one of the thingsthat the students had focused on in theprocess of self-feedback. Gentry, McNeal andWallace-Nesler (2012) mentioned thatstudents need to have control over the use ofcapitalization, punctuation and spelling oftheir own writings. 51 Tsara Desiana Akmilia, Pupung Purnawarman & Rojab Siti Rodliyah Self-Directed Feedback: An Attempt Towards Learner Autonomy in WritingFirst, four students encounteredproblems in terms of spelling. All of themwere conscious of the misspelling of thewords they used and changed them to thecorrect form. The mistakes and correctionsfor the four students hold the similarpattern—they missed one letter or addedanother letter. From the first glance, thereaders will recognize the word theyintended to say, so the effect to meaning isnot major.Starkey (2004) mentioned thatknowledge of the basic rules will help writersin giving a positive impression for readers.Fry (2003) stated that glaring mistakes inspelling will make an impression of acareless and ignorant writer. By discoveringmistakes in spelling during the self-directedfeedback, it means that they get theimpression of their own writing.Furthermore, by correcting it, they havemade an attempt to provide a betterimpression to their intended readers.Second, out of nine students, only twostudents have issues in terms of punctuation.The indicator of mistake in punctuation iswhen they do not use punctuation marksaccording to its functions. The two studentswho made mistakes in punctuation are ableto detect their own errors, and havesuccessfully corrected them in their reviseddrafts. The issues are related to the use ofperiod and comma.According to Starkey (2004), a writercan convey the voice of his/her writing moredirectly through proper punctuation. Theeffective communication can be ensured bycorrect punctuation since it functions tosignal the relationship between words orideas as well as marking out the boundariesof meaning (Perk and Coyle, 2005). Thecorrection in students’ punctuation, then,shows how they tried to voice their writingbetter, in terms of making long sentences tobe the more direct ones. Furthermore, acorrection in punctuation also helps inmaking a positive impression to the writing.This means that they, as a writer, havebecome conscious about the impression thatreader may perceive from their writing.Third, out of nine students, only twostudents made mistakes in terms ofcapitalization. One student made mistake in mentioning some proper nouns, and theother did not put capital letter for the firstwords of every sentence. Langosch (1999)stated that the most important considerationin capitalization is to be consistent leaving aword with capital in a sentence andcapitalizing it in another would createproblem for the readers. Kemper, Meyer, VanRyk and Sebranek (2011) mentioned thatbecoming a reader and writer would be ofhelp in learning the unexpected changes incapitalization. As was seen in the students’writings, it is true that the inconsistencyhappens. However, they also solved it by re-reading the text in the process of having aself-directed feedback.Furthermore, for students to be aware ofthe capitalization enables them to applysome writing strategies for proofreading andself-correction (Gentry et al., 2012). As thestudents in this research became more awareof the capitalization, this also means thatthrough the process of self-directed feedback,the students have applied the strategies forproofreading as well as self-correction whichwill be beneficial for their writing in thefuture. GrammarEven though the students have differentlevel of proficiency, seven out of ninestudents are able to correct their own errors.This is limited only to the use of subject verbagreement, plural/singular nouns, and modalverbs. All of them circled or underlined theirmistakes and revised them in the subsequentdrafts.In general, the importance of havingperfection in grammatical form was admittedby Brown (2001) as writing resulted inpermanence. Therefore, he stated that afocus in grammar will be more effectivewhen it is taught for the writing skills ratherthan speaking, listening, or reading (Brown,2001). From what can be seen in thestudents’ progress in grammar which doesnot cover all aspects, it shows that it stilldoes not ensure a full accuracy in students’writing. Therefore, this progress is notenough for the text to be considered as anacceptable report text since it is included toformal text that demands accuracy ingrammar. However, for teaching purposes, 52 Indonesian EFL Journal, Vol. 1(1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427the student’s inability to look at the otheraspects of grammar shows their level ofproficiency, and it can play a significant rolein informing teachers of what to focus on inthe following grammar teaching.Since teacher should not force too muchgrammar on beginning level learners (Brown,2001), this finding can benefit teachers toonly focus on grammar forms that thestudents had failed to correct but are alreadyaware of, providing an information that thestudent needs assistance in those parts.According to Corder (as cited in Erdogan,2005), knowing students’ error can notifyteachers about the learning gap left betweenthe learning goal and students’ progress,showing teachers the point that demandsfurther attention. On the other hand, the factthat some of the students are able to correcttheir own grammar mistakes supports thepolicy of not focusing too much on grammaras it may disturb fluency (Brown, 2001). Thewriting lesson still needs to maximizestudent’s self-correction instead of teachersspending more time in giving grammarcorrection to their students (Brown, 2001).This was based on the justification that as thelearners starting to perform by his or herown, a support can be gradually removed inorder to support a step to autonomouslearning (Zimmerman, 1990). VocabularyIn terms of vocabulary, the problemfound from the students is that they includetechnical terms in their text, however theystill use the Indonesian terms. From theirdrafts, five students still mistook the terms inthe first drafts but then corrected them in thefollowing drafts.It is a common sense that in writing, ademand in vocabulary is considerably higherthan speaking. Especially when writing areport text, whose purpose is “to describe acharacteristic of something” (Palmer, 2010),the writer is asked to find a richervocabulary in order to describe the topic well.This can be difficult for any writer. However,Brown (2001) stated that the richness ofEnglish vocabulary will in turn be anadvantage for good writers as they learnfrom it. One of the students initially gave upwith her limitation in vocabulary, but after given more time to re-check her writing andrevise it, she eventually found theappropriate technical terms suit to themeaning she intended. She, therefore, haspossessed the characteristic of a good writer.Other than the results presented above,another finding shows the way the studentsuse the self-directed feedback to improvetheir writing. From the interview, most of thestudents said that they were focusing on oneor two particular matter whenever they areworking on a draft. As an example, student 6when was asked about what she wasworking on the first and following draftsanswered: …dibenerinnya… ya itu, grammarnya sih… terus kalo misalnya vocabnya kerasa aneh, baru diganti. Yang secondnya, masih grammar… sampe third, third.. nah, waktu third teh ini… ngebaca lagi. Nyambung nggak ini ceritanya… (I corrected mywriting in.. well, the grammar.. and then if thevocabularies felt weird, I changed it. [In] thesecond [draft], [I still] fixed the grammar.. untilthe third, well.. I read it again [if] the topic isconnected to each other…)Some other students also give differentfocus in working on their feedback, such aspunctuation or spelling. This finding showsthat, in the study, self-feedback shares thetraits of teacher corrective feedback thatinclude focused and unfocused ones. Thiswas based on the definition given by Ferris(2011) who stated that focused feedbackessentially means targeting correction tospecific error types or patterns whileunfocused feedback refers to correcting anyand all problems observed in text without apreconceived feedback approach in mind. Byfocusing the direction of the feedback, thismeans that the students have conceived whatthey want to work on first in mind. As thestudents monitor themselves, Dickinson (asstated in Cresswell, 2000) stated that theycan also self-direct themselves when theychoose their learning focus as well asrecognizing their own responsibility. Takingcontrol of feedback allows learners to attendto important items in the context so that theycan have either an informed correction orpositive feedback in order to supportacquisition and set up the items in theirproductive inventory (Cresswell, 2000).Therefore, by having self-feedback, the 53 Tsara Desiana Akmilia, Pupung Purnawarman & Rojab Siti Rodliyah Self-Directed Feedback: An Attempt Towards Learner Autonomy in Writingprocess supports their language acquisitionfrom what they attend to while looking attheir own texts. The responsibility that theyshoulder also enables them to choose theirlearning focus. Students’ ResponseIn general, students’ response to theapplication of self feedback in their processof writing is mostly positive. Still, thenegative drawbacks that the students feelduring the course are still present. Positive responseFrom the interview, the students thinkthat first, self-feedback enables them to lookat their own progress in writing. Somestudents mentioned that it is beneficial asthey can be aware of what to improve.Secondly, the students also think that self-feedback is important in the writing process.They think that it is important to get rid oftheir mistakes that are resulted fromcarelessness, and they also think that it isimportant so that the teacher would look attheir progress thoroughly. Thirdly, thestudents perceived self-feedback as analternative activity in writing, since they onlyexperienced limited techniques that teachersapply in the writing class. Lastly, the studentsalso think that self-feedback changes theirperspective to writing and it makes theprocess of writing easier. The discussion is asfollows.Out of nine students, four in the studymentioned that self-directed feedback can beutilized to track their own progress inwriting. For instance, Student 2 in theinterview mentioned how she thinks thatself-feedback enables her to look at her ownwriting, enlightens her about the things sheneeds to improve. When the interviewerasked her about what she thinks about theself-feedback, her answer was as follows: … nggak malesin. Malah bikin seneng, jadi kan kita tuh ngeliat dari tulisan kita sendiri.. Kesalahan kita tuh apa.. Ternyata waktu itu, Fika tuh banyak banget salahnya.. ([It was] not boring.It makes me feel happy instead. As we look at ourown writing.. What our mistakes are.. Apparentlyat that time, I had so many mistakes [in mywriting]..) As was stated by Narayanan et al.,(2008), one of the factors that may bedependent to the successful second languageacquisition is on the learners’ views of thelearning situation. This positive attitude toself-directed feedback proves that this is alsowhat makes it works for them. Moreover, byhaving students to monitor themselves givestwo benefits to learners--they are ablechoose their learning focus and a recognitionto their own responsibility (Dickinson, asstated in Cresswell, 2000).From the interview, all of the studentsalso think that self-directed feedback shouldbe included in the subsequent writinglessons. Student 2 answered that she neededit because she was a rather careless person,while student 6 highlighted that she wantedthe teacher to look at her progress ratherthan just the final product. This proved thatself-feedback can be used to clear upmistakes, as mistakes was stated as a resultof carelessness (Richard and Schmidt, 2002).On the other hand, another statement fromstudent 6 represented students’ demand touse process approach in writing, since in theprocess approach, the process is also at leastas important as the product (Harmer, 2007).Other than being helpful, three studentsout of nine felt that the activity wasrefreshing and more beneficial for theirfurther progress.From the interview, one student—eventhough this is the first time for her toexperience self-feedback in class—hadalready welcomed the activity and prefer itto the other activities she usually did in herprevious classes. Ideally, a writing lessonaccording to process approach would includeall stages of writing starting from pre-writingto producing the final version of students’work, even though it practically takes alonger time (Harmer, 2007). Theapplication of self-directed feedback in thewriting classroom, then, can encourage morestages in writing to be experienced by thestudents.Another response coming from thestudents is even though the application ofself-feedback in this study lasted for only twoweeks, but two students confessed that itwas enough to make them feel morecomfortable with writing. 54 Indonesian EFL Journal, Vol. 1(1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427One of the students, Student 6, admittedthat she had been taking a private course athome. During the self-directed feedbackprocess, she could not meet her privateteacher, and so that is why she did it all byherself. She admitted that it wasunexpectedly easier than what she thought itwould, and she got more enthusiastic tofinish her writing. It shows that the studenthas gained the ability not to be dependent toexternal constraints, which shows a trait ofself-regulation. Self-regulation, which is oneof the terms related to learning autonomy,initially derived from the interest in self-control that refers to an ability to have acontrol in one own’s actions withoutimmediate external constraints (Thoresenand Mahoney, as cited in Zimmerman, 1990).From the interview, besides the affectivebenefits, it turned out that six students out ofnine also perceived self-feedback as anactivity that eases them in making the reporttext. Student 2 reported that the writingprocess became easier with self-feedbackbecause she was given more time until thefinal draft to revise her own writing, andtherefore made her be more independent.She mentioned that writing became easierbecause they were given more time and shewas given the freedom to choose thedirection of her own writing. According toRubin and Thompson (as cited in Brown,2001), one of the characteristics of goodlanguage learners is a learner who is able totake charge of their own learning, by findinghis/her own way in completing a task. Brown(2001) mentioned that “the more yourclassroom activity can model the behaviorexhibited by successful language learners,the better and more efficient your studentswill be, especially in developing their ownautonomy as learners” (p. 210). Therefore,self-directed feedback can encourage onetrait approaching learner anatomy as itenables the student to monitor his/her ownprogress. Negative responseAlbeit most of the students werehappy with having the self-directed feedback,some negative responses were also foundfrom the interview. Some think that self-directed feedback resulted in a boredom, a trauma to write more, and to some extent itmakes writing gets harder.For example, student 7 thought thatworking on the same text over and overagain resulted in a boredom. From herstatement in the interview, she actuallypointed out on how keep checking for theexact same text is boring for her. However, inthe questions after that, she mentioned thatthe technique is still necessary for writing.She only suggested the decrease in theamount of drafts: … Perlu… Cuma kalo kata aku mah nggak usah sampe empat kali gitu, miss… jadi, gimana dua kali gitu… nggak usah banyak-banyak, nanti bosen… ([It is] necessary… I just think that itdoes not have to be four [drafts], miss… Like,only twice… It doesn’t have to be that much, it’sgoing to be boring…)The mere reason the student gave forthe boredom was because she thought sheonly got little to correct. This was pointed outby Starkey (2004) who mentioned that manywriters skip the re-checking process ofwriting because they feel intimated by thethought of reworking it, clinging to a hopethat their writing is “good enough”. Hefurther mentioned that “there is no excusefor submitting an essay that is not the verybest writing you are capable of” (Starkey,2004, p. 55). The student, then, were still inneed to acknowledge the principle in orderto see that in attempt to make the best of herwriting require more time in revising. Thisfactor, unfortunately, was not the one thatseems to be able to be promoted by self-directed feedback in this research.On the other hand, Student 4 felt thatfrom having self-directed feedback, he didnot want to write more in the future. Fromhis statement in the interview, self-directedfeedback for him lessens his confidence. Hefelt that no matter how much he fixed it, hestill could not make things right. Harmer(2007) described this phenomenon as aresult of a less enthusiastic learner whosuffered from a low self-esteem. He statedthat it is unlikely for these students tocontinue studying on their own after thecourse had finished (Harmer, 2007). It is theevidence that students’ low self-esteemmatters in performing self-directed feedback. 55 Tsara Desiana Akmilia, Pupung Purnawarman & Rojab Siti Rodliyah Self-Directed Feedback: An Attempt Towards Learner Autonomy in WritingMore than level of proficiency, students’readiness to accept their own mistakes ismore important in ensuring students’learning autonomy in the long run.Lastly, despite the fact that six studentsactually felt that writing becomes easier withself-directed feedback, two studentshighlighted how it made writing get evenharder. From the interview, the studentsseemed to still worry a lot about makingmistakes in his writing. However, he did notmention that it was directly caused by theself-directed feedback. He pointed out thepossibility of keep having mistakes until thelast draft. This is caused by the lack ofconfidence and low self-esteem that makesthe student not dare to take risk in learning.Brown (2001) mentioned that when learnersare already able to cope with their own egofragility and build a firm belief that they cando it, then they are ready to take thenecessary risks. This finding then, showshow risk-taking is important as a pre-requisite of the application of self-directedfeedback. CONCLUSIONThroughout the research, threeconclusions can be derived. Firstly, regardingthe presence of self-directed feedback, eventhough it is not quite common in the teachingpractice—according to students’ experiences,that is—the demand of it to be applied wasthere. In the findings, it was proven that itgives benefits for students’ writing skills andthe students felt it as well.Secondly, in relation to the ability ofself-directed feedback in promoting the valueof learner autonomy, from the findings it canbe seen that the students are able to witnesstheir own progress. To be able to see itbrings the sense of responsibility, as well asan encouragement to direct their goals inlearning.Lastly, it can be concluded that self-directed feedback can spare teacher’sresponsibility in their students’ progress. Inthe Indonesian context when classesgenerally consist of 30 to 45 students, andteachers’ workload to teach more than threeclasses in a week, feedback in writing soundsimpractical. By having self-directed feedback,the teachers can focus on the things that the students do not acquire yet, and the studentswill still have a progress in learning evenwithout much help from the teacher. ReferencesBenson, P. (2007). Autonomy in language teaching andlearning. Language Teaching, 40(1), 21-40.Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy, second edition. New York: Addison WesleyLongman, Inc.Cresswell, A. (2000). Self-monitoring in student writing:Developing learner responsibility. ELT Journal, 54(3), 235-244.Erdoğan, V. 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