The Use of Mind Mapping Technique to Improve Students' Ability in Writing Descriptive Text

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve the eighth grade students‟ writing achievement by using Mind Mapping technique at SMPN 2 Ambulu. Based on the preliminary study, it was found that VIII B grade students had problem in writing skill. It happened because the teacher taught writing by lecturing the students and directly asked the students to start their writing. It could be shown by looking at students who take a long time to write a paragraph because students had trouble in organizing ideas into a good paragraph. However, this technique did not seem to be effective to be implemented during writing activity. It made it difficult for the students to start their writing because they did not know how to organize their ideas and develop their writing into coherent text. It was proved by looking at their mean score of writing (65) which was the lowest among the other tenth grade classes. It also did not achieve the minimum of standard score (75) for the English subject. Hence, the researcher conducted this research in order to overcome the problems through Mind Mapping Technique as a prewriting technique for teaching writing. The objectives of this research were: (1) to enhance the students‟ descriptive writing achievement and (2) to know the students participation in the teaching and learning process of writing through Mind Mapping Technique. In conducting this research, the researcher involved the English teacher as the collaborator. The researcher did the teaching process, while the English teacher as the observer. The data collection methods in this research were the students‟ writing test result and observation. The study was done in two cycles to check the consistency of the research result. Each cycle covered two meetings of the action implementation and one meeting for administering the test. Besides, the observational checklist consisted of 5 indicators. The students were categorized as active students if at least 3 indicators were fulfilled. The observation result in Cycle 1 showed that there was 78% students were actively involved during the teaching and learning process. Besides, the percentage of the students who achieved the minimum of standard score (75) significantly increased into 28% from the pre-Cycle 53% to Cycle 1 81%.In other words, Cycle 1 fulfilled the criteria of success because 75% of students achieved the research criteria. Then, the action was still continued to Cycle 2 to check the consistency of the students‟ writing achievement and their participation. The result of Cycle 2 showed much better result. It was reported that 84% of the students participated actively during the learning process. Furthermore, the increasing also happened to the students‟ writing achievement test that showed 86% of the students passed the standard minimum score. Based on the result above, it can be concluded that the action in Cycle 2 had achieved the criteria of success of the research. After applying Mind Mapping technique in the prewriting activities, the students‟ could generate and organize their ideas, make a well-organized writing. The result of Cycle 1 to Cycle 2 showed an improvement as well as achieved the criteria of success. Finally, it can be summarized that the implementation of Mind Mapping technique could improve the VIII B grade students‟ writing achievement.