THE USE OF COMPOSITE PICTURES TO IMPROVE THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AND THEIR SENTENCE WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT MTs NEGERI GENTENG

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve the eighth grade students’ active participation and their sentence writing achievement at MTs Negeri Genteng. Based on the preliminary study at MTs Negeri Genteng, it was known that the students in class VIII H had the lowest mean score compared with the other eighth grade classes. There were only 23 (64%) students of 36 students who got score 75 and higher. There were some problems that made the students get difficulties. They were lack of vocabulary, they had difficulty in mastering grammar, the teacher never used media and they were less active in the teaching learning process. To solve those problems, the researcher used composite pictures to improve the students’ active participation and their sentence writing achievement. The researcher believed that composite pictures could motivate the students and made them pay attention in teaching learning process. Composite pictures were used as media in teaching sentence writing of simple past tense. The research was conducted on March 5th- April 2nd, 2015. There were two cycles in conducting this research. Each cycle consist of two meetings and a sentence writing achievement test. This classroom action research was done collaboratively with the English teacher. The criteria of success of this research was 75% or more of the students could fulfill at least 3 indicators of 4 indicators of observation checklist and 75 % or more of the students can reach the standard score requirement of 75 or more in the sentence writing test. There were two kinds of data in the research. They were primary data which collected through observation and sentence writing achievement test, and supporting data which collected through interview and documentation. Based on the observations, it was known that the average of students’ active participation in Cycle 1 was 58.5%. It showed that the actions did not achieve the criteria of success of the research. In Cycle 2, the average of students’ active participation was 77%. The improvement of students’ active participation from Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 was 18.5%. It means that the successful criteria of the research was achieved. Meanwhile, the results of the students’ sentence writing achievement test achieved the target criteria both in the first and in the second cycle. In other words, the results showed consistency. In Cycle 1, the percentage of the students’ sentence writing test was 75%. In Cycle 2, the percentage of the students’ sentence writing test was 80%. The improvement of students’ sentence writing achievement by using composite picture from Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 was 5%. Based on the result above, it could be concluded that the use of composite pictures could improve the students’ active participation and their sentence writing achievement at MTs Negeri Genteng.