IMPROVING THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH WRITING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING INDIVIDUAL PICTURES AT SMPN 4 JEMBER IN THE 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to improve the seventh grade students’ descriptive writing achievement at SMPN 4 Jember in the 2013/2014 through individual pictures. This research design was a classroom action research that was conducted collaboratively by the researcher with the English teacher. In this research, the use of individual picture was regarded as learning media to improve the seventh grade students’ descriptive text writing achievement of SMPN 4 Jember. It was chosen by the researcher as the reason that the researcher found the students’ difficulties in writing a text. Primarily, they had difficulties to generate and developing the ideas. Besides, it was proven by the result of diagnostic test which showed that they had difficulties in generating and developing ideas. Therefore, the researcher conducted this research, involving writing test, observation, and documentation to get the data of this research. The primary data were obtained by writing test, which was done in each Cycle consisting preparation of the action, the implementation of the action, classroom observation and evaluation, reflection of the action. Based on the purpose of this research, it was important to determine the respondents of this research, that was 33 students of class VII- F. The respondents of this research were obtained by using purposive method. Dealing with the result of the data analysis and discussion, it was revealed that teaching writing through individual pictures could improve the seventh grade students’ descriptive writing achievement at SMPN 4 Jember in the 2013/2014 Academic Year. The improvement of students’ could be seen after they did writing test in each cycle. The percentage of the students who got score ≥ 75 or more increased from 70% in the first cycle to 88% in the second cycle. It was also shown that the use of individual pictures could facilitate the students in writing a descriptive text. It proved that the students’ facilitate during the teaching learning process in observation by using students’ active participation increase from 55% to 70% in the first cycle and 73% to 85% in the second cycle. Regarding the result of writing test by using individual pictures, it could be concluded that individual pictures were effective to overcome the students’ problems in writing. Therefore, it is suggested to the English teachers to use individual pictures in teaching descriptive writing.