THE USE OF ERROR CORRECTION FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE THE SEVENTH-A GRADE STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXT WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AND THEIR PARTICIPATION AT MTs ZAHROTUL ISLAM DRINGU PROBOLINGGO IN THE 2012/2013 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

SUMMARY

The Use of Error Correction Feedback to Improve the Seventh-A Grade Students’ Descriptive Text Writing Achievement and Their Participation at MTs Zahrotul Islam Dringu Probolinggo in the 2012/2013 Academic Year; Muhammad Mujiburrohman, 050210491169; 2012; English Education Program, Language and Arts Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Jember University.

English is an international language that is used by many people around the world. English as a foreign language is important to be taught as a compulsory subject at all schools up to universities in Indonesia. Recently, English is also taught at elementary school as a local content subject. There are four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and language components (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation) that should be mastered by the students who are learning English as a foreign language. One of the ways to master the international language well is by writing. Writing is a form of written communication to express the thinking or feeling after speaking. This research is a classroom action research. It was conducted collaboratively by the researcher with the English teacher. It used error correction feedback to improve the seventh-A grade students’ descriptive text writing achievement at MTs Zahrotul Islam Dringu Probolinggo in the 2012/2013 academic year. The subjects of this research were seventh-A grade students which were determined purposively. The research subjects were chosen because there were 67% of all students in seventh-A class who got 70 points or higher. While the minimum standard score (SKM/ Standard Kelulusan Minimal) for writing was 70% of all students who got score 70 points or higher. The English teacher explained that the students had difficulties in xiv

generating ideas, using grammatical structures, and expanding their vocabularies when they were asked to compose a good writing. The most common difficulty they faced was especially in grammar. The students were encouraged to express their ideas on paper without worrying much about the grammatical structures. As a result, they wrote almost no error-free sentences and only concerned on how to finish their writing instead of making a good writing. Because of the reasons this research was conducted. To overcome such problems above, the researcher and the teacher agreed to use error correction feedback as the best way which was believed to be able to improve the seventh-A grade students’ descriptive text writing achievement at MTs Zahrotul Islam Dringu Probolinggo in the 2012/2013 academic year. This classroom action research was done in one cycle. The cycle covered four stages of activities namely; planning of the action, implementing of the action classroom observation and evaluation, and reflection of the action. The cycle was conducted in three meetings. The data about the students’ descriptive text writing achievement were collected through the writing test. Meanwhile, observation was used to monitor the teaching and learning process of writing by using observation checklist. The results of the students’ writing achievement test showed that the test improved from the previous score of the students’ writing test to cycle 1. It could be shown from their previous mean score of writing test that improved from 67.6 in the previous writing to 73.44 in cycle 1. In the writing achievement test cycle 1, the students who got score 70 or higher were 20 students or 80% and the students who got score under 70 were 5 students or 20%. It showed that the writing achievement test of the cycle 1 had fulfilled the minimum score requirement that was 70%. It meant that the students had achieved and reached the target of mean score. Therefore, the second cycle was not conducted.