Journal of English Education Vol. 4 No. 2 December 2018 |121 P-ISSN: 2459-9719, E-ISSN 2597-7091 THE INFLUENCE OF DIRECT WRITTEN CORRECTIVE FEEDBACK TOWARD EFL STUDENTS’ ESSAY WRITING Zia Hisni Mubarak Universitas Putera Batam, Indonesia mubarakzia@gmail.com Alpino Susanto Universitas Putera Batam, Indonesia susanto.alpino40@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research referred to the experiences of the researchers in providing students writing courses in the context of EFL (English as Foreign Language) in Batam. It was found that students’ essay writing contained several grammatical errors to plagiarism. This study aimed to determine the level of effectiveness of written corrective feedback (WCF) on the quality of students’ essay writing. The research method was quasi - experimental where the control class was given treatment by using no WCF and the experimental class was given WCF. Both scores from control and experiment classes were different. The mean of experiment class was higher than the mean from control class. After analyzing them statistically, it was found that the hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. It meant that WCF had a significant effect on the quality of essay writing. It was concluded that WCF is a better way in improving the quality of students' essay writing. Keywords: Direct WCF, EFL Students, Essay Writing INTRODUCTION Writing for EFL students in the university level is challenging. Writing is not an easy task to do as it needs process and takes much time to accomplish it. To deliver an idea into the writing, practice is needed. A practice to write an idea into a draft can be done repeatedly. They may write many drafts before writing. In writing a draft, they are able to develop their idea more deeply in a paragraph. It is not exagerated if we say that they are facing a great challenge of writing (Mubarak & Jusmaya, 2018). In language skills, writing is one of language skill that seems to be difficult one than listening, speaking and reading. Based on the teaching writing experiences, students were sometimes mirroring their mind as they speak. This is not appropriate since writing and speaking are totally different. In speaking, someone can express their disagreement directly but