The Effect of Using Diary on the Eight Grade Students‟ Achievement in Writing a Recount Text at SMPN 2 Bangil;

Abstract

In writing a text, students usually have difficulties in transferring their thought into words. Therefore, a regular practice is needed to improve the students‟ writing achievement. A way to develop fluency in writing is having a regular practice everyday. Because of that reason, the teacher needs to use appropriate media that can help the students develop their writing achievement. To solve the problem above, the researcher used personal diary as a media for the students to practice more in writing a text in English. The researcher used personal diary and asked the students to write personal recount text about their own daily activities or experiences. In writing a personal essay, students are doing much more than fulfilling an assignment, they will explore their experiences, clarify their values and compose their own story. This means by writing a personal essay in a personal diary, the students are involved in the writing exercises. And by practicing more, it helps the students developing their writing achievement. The purpose of this research was to know the effect of writing diary on the eight grade students‟ writing achievement at SMPN 2 Bangil. The research design selected was non randomized pretest posttest design, this design belongs to quasi experimental design. The researcher used intact class at SMPN 2 Bangil. The activities of the research were choosing two classes among seven classes by using lottery, flip a coin to determine the experimental class and the control class. Giving pretest to both classes, giving treatment to the experimental class, and giving posttest to both classes. The area of this research was SMPN 2 Bangil. It was chosen because the English teacher never used diary as a media in ELT. Based on the result of the lottery, class VIII A and class VIII B were chosen. Class VIII A was determined as the experimental class, while Class VIII B as the control class. The researcher conducted the test to get the primary data; pretest and posttest. The pretest was given before the teaching and learning process, while the post test was given after teaching and learning process, which was conducted three times. The main data of this research was analyzed by using ANCOVA (Analysis of Covariance). The result of this research showed that there was a significant effect of writing a diary on the eight grade students‟ writing achievement. It was proven by the value of significant column of ANCOVA by using SPSS, the result was 0.035. It was lower than 0.05. Based on the explanation above, it was concluded that there is a significant effect of using a diary on the eight grade students‟ achievement in writing a recount text at SMPN 2 Bangil. By considering the significant effect of using diary as media in teaching and learning process, especially in writing, some suggestions are given to the English teacher, students, and future researchers. For the English teacher, a diary can be used as one of the media in teaching writing, while for the students, hopefully they can continue writing in a diary to help them improve their writing ability. And for the future researcher, this research can be used as the sources to conduct further research.