IMPROVING CLASS VIII/D STUDENTS’ RECOUNT TEXT WRITING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING COMPOSITE PICTURES AT SMPN 3 LUMAJANG IN THE 2012/2013 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve class VIII/D students’ recount text writing achievement by using composite pictures at SMPN 3 Lumajang. This research began by conducting a preliminary study by interviewing the English teacher of the eighth grade students of SMPN 3 Lumajang. It was found that the class VIII/D students of SMPN 3 Lumajang experienced difficulties in writing especially writing recount text. The English teacher said that the students who reached the minimum score requirement that is 73 were only 18 students or 55% of total students in the class. It was because they were lack of vocabulary, unable to use mechanical and grammatical structures correctly, experienced difficulties to start to write, developed and organized their ideas. Moreover the students also had less motivation whereas less than 50% students who were active participated in the teaching learning process of writing. To solve the problems above, the researcher used composite pictures as teaching media in teaching writing of recount text. The researcher used composite pictures because it was an effective and interesting media to improve the students’ recount text writing achievement as well as their active participation during the teaching learning process. It is supported by Wright (1989:4-6) that pictures can improve some aspects of language such as structure, vocabulary, function, situation and four language skills. He also stated that pictures contribute to interest and motivation, a sense of the context of the language, and a specific reference point or stimulus (Wright 1989:2). The research design was Classroom Action Research (CAR) with cycle model. This classroom action research was conducted by the researcher and the English teacher collaboratively. Each cycle consisted of four stages included the planning of the action, implementation of the action, classroom observation and evaluation, and data analysis and reflection of the action. This research was conducted at SMPN 3 Lumajang. Class VIII/D students of SMPN 3 Lumajangwere the research subjects of this research. The data in this research were obtainedby administering the writing test and by doing observation during the teachinglearning process in each meeting of each cycle. In Cycle 1, the results of the writing test showed that the students who achieved the minimum score requirement were only 21 students or 63.6 % of total students in the class. Meanwhile the research would be successful if there was atleast 75% of the total students who achieved the minimum score requirement. Itmeans that the writing test result had not achieved the target yet. Then, based onthe classroom observation it was found that the percentage of students’ active The result of the observation had not achieved the target because there must be at least 75% of the students did at least three indicators from four indicators being observed. It was because there were some procedures of teaching writing recount text by using composite pictures which were not completely done by the researcher such as asking simple questions to guide the students to list events in the pictures and asking them to make complete sentences based on the the pictures then arranged the sentences into a recount text. Therefore, the students still had problems in writing. The problems dealed with organization whereas the students were still confused about how to sequence the events in the pictures. Another problem was grammar whereas the students did many mistakes in using simple past tense. Therefore, the actions were continued to the second cycle by revising some necessary aspects by conducting complete procedures of teaching writing recount text by using composite pictures.