IMPROVING CLASS XA STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT BY USING OUTLINING TECHNIQUE AT SMAN 1 KRAKSAAN IN THE 2010/2011 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve class XA students’ ability in writing recount text by using outlining technique. Class XA was chosen as the research subject because the percentage of the students who got score >75 was only 61.11%. 75 was the standard requirement score of the school that should be reached by at least 75% of the students. Moreover, the average score of this class was 70.94 while the minimum standard of the passing grade of writing was 75. Most of the students had difficulties on how to start writing, how to develop and arrange their ideas into a good paragraph, how to expand their vocabularies and tense mastery. The students’ common problem was that they often did not know how to start writing when they were asked to write. Consequently, they tended to concern much on how to finish their writing soon rather than on how to make a good composition. Further, the students who were lack of vocabulary tend to use only certain words they had known. As a result, they just applied some words from dictionary without considering the context of their writing. This classroom action research was done collaboratively with the English teacher. The collaboration covers the planning of the action, the implementation of the action, observation and evaluation, and data analysis and reflection. This research was carried out in two cycles and each cycle was conducted in two meetings and writing test was conducted in the third meeting. The data collection method used in each cycle was writing test, observation, interview, and documentation. From the results of writing test in the first cycle, it was known that the students’ mean score of writing test was 74.86. The number of the students who got score ≥75 was 21 students (58.33%). These results have not achieved the standard requirement yet because the mean score was only 74.86 (the target of mean score was ≥75) and there were only 58.33% of students who got score ≥75 (it was targeted 75% of the students got score ≥75). Therefore, it was necessary to continue the actions to the second cycle by revising some necessary aspects in the first cycle. In the second cycle, the results of writing test were better than that of the first cycle. The mean score in the second cycle was 85.26 and the number of students who got score ≥75 was 29 students (80.55%). It could be assumed that the target of this research was achieved in the second cycle. In addition, from the observation done by the teacher, it indicated that all of the students were enthusiastic in teaching learning process. According to the teacher, it was the first time for the students to use outlining technique. As the result, all of the students were actively participated in teaching and learning process. In conclusion, teaching writing by using outlining technique could improve the students’ ability in writing recount text in which also improved the students’ writing achievement.