IMPROVING THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ RECOUNT TEXT WRITING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING PICTURE IN SERIES AT SMPN 14 JEMBER

Abstract

Based on the preliminary study by interviewing the English teacher at SMPN 14 Jember, it was found that grade eighth faced some difficulties in writing recount text. Class VIII-C was the class which got the lowest score in writing text from the other three classes that was only 18 or 48.64% of total students who could achieve standard minimum score. The problems were they could not share their ideas well in their writing because they lack of vocabulary and grammar, and less motivation to write. Therefore, this classroom action research was intended to improve the Class VIII-C students’ achievement and their active participation in writing recount text through picture in series. Data collection methods in this research were observation and writing test. Then, the data were analyzed statistically to know the percentage of the students who could achieve the target. This research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle covered four stages. They were: planning of the action, implementation of the action, observation and evaluation, and reflection of the action. The result of the observation in Cycle 1 was revealed that there were 48.64% (Meeting 1) and 59.45% (Meeting 2) of 37 students categorized as the active students because they fulfilled at least 3 of 5 indicators as the criteria that the research was successful. The rest of the students were not actively involved in teaching and learning process. Most of them did not pay their attention to the lesson and it seemed that they were less motivation to write recount text in the form of short simple essay. Thus, the result of writing test showed that 23 of 37 students (62.16%) could achieve the score more than 70 as the standard minimum score. It means that, the targeted percentage of the subjects who got the score of at xiii least 70 had been achieved. Yet, the actions in the cycle 2 were still needed to know the consistency of the results of students’ achievement of writing recount text by using picture in series. In Cycle 2, the students were still given feedback with the correction of their errors that they made in their writing. It was done in the first and the second meeting in Cycle 2. They also got more explanation about simple past tense (regular and irregular verbs) and connectors in order to make them not confused about how to write a good recount text in the form of short simple essay. Related to the students’ mother tongue, the researcher gave more explanation to the students about what activities shown in the picture in series first. In this way, the students did not need more time in translating their ideas from Bahasa Indonesia to English. Considering to the result in Cycle 1, the researcher and the English teacher discussed together to find the possible problems and made some revisions for the next lesson plan that would be applied in Cycle 2. The result of the observation done in Cycle 2 was 67.56% (Meeting 1) and 72.97% (Meeting 2) of 37 students were actively participated in the teaching and learning process. Though, the result of writing test in Cycle 2 was 67.56% of 37 students successfully achieved the standard minimum score that is 70. It means that the result of the observation and writing test in Cycle 2 successfully achieved the target of this classroom action research. Thus, the cycle of the research stopped. Based on the result of the research, it could be concluded that the use of Picture in series as teaching aid in teaching writing of recount text could improve Class VIII-C students’ achievement and their active participation. Therefore, it is suggested for the English teacher to apply picture in series to teach writing or even the other skills and language components. Picture in series was proved had many advantages as the teaching aid in the teaching and learning process such as gain the students’ interest and motivation, provide information to be referred in discussion of lesson, and contribute to the context in which the language is being used.