IMPROVING THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING A DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH BY USING INDIVIDUAL PICTURES AT SMPN 2 DRINGU

Abstract

The preliminary study conducted in the forms of observation and interview with the English teacher of the seventh grade students of SMPN 2 Dringu revealed that most of the seventh grade students of SMPN 2 Dringu, especially class VII A, faced some difficulties in writing a paragraph in terms of finding and generating the ideas, putting them into right words, phrase, and constructing sentences in the grammatically correct. This was proven by their previous writing scores which showed that 18 students (58.06%) of 31 students in Class VII A got  70. There were only 50% of the students who were active in teaching and learning process of writing. It means that the students were still passive in the classroom. In this research, the researcher used individual pictures in teaching a descriptive paragraph writing to the students because the researcher believed that individual pictures could improve the seventh grade students’ achievement in writing a descriptive paragraph and their participation in the teaching learning process of writing. This research was conducted in 2 cycles from February 4th until February 21st, 2015. Each cycle consist of two meetings and a writing achievement test. The reseacher and the English teacher of SMPN 2 Dringu taught writing a descriptive paragraph to the students and did the observation collaboratively. The results of the classroom observation in the first cycle showed that 20 students (64.52%) in meeting 1 and 23 students (74.19%) in meeting 2 actively participated during the teaching learning process of writing descriptive paragraph by using individual pictures. The average result of the students’ active participation in the first cycle was 69.36%. It showed that there was improvement of the students’ active participation but it still had not achieved the successful criterion of the research that was 75% of the students actively participated during the teaching learning process of writing by using individual pictures. Beside that, the result of writing test showed that the students who got score ≥ 70 in the writing test of the first cycle were only 21 students or 67.74% of 31 students. However, it had not achieved the standard score yet as the successful criterion of the research for writing at least 75% of the students got 70 or higher in the writing test. Based on the results of the first cycle above, the second cycle was necessary to be conducted. Some revisions dealing with the activities in the classroom had been made to solve the problems found in the first cycle. The classroom observation and writing test in the second cycle showed the improvement. In the classroom observation, the students’ participation showed that 77.42% in meeting 1 and 80.65% in meeting 2 of the students actively participated in the teaching learning process of writing descriptive paragraph by using individual pictures. The average result of the students’ active participation in the second cycle was 79.03%. So, the result of the observation had achieved the objective of the research. In the second cycle, the result of the writing test showed that 80.64% of the students (25 of 31 students) got score ≥ 70 in the writing test of the second cycle. That number of percentage indicated that there was improvement in students’ achievement in writing descriptive paragraph. From the observation done during the teaching learning process of writing descriptive paragraph by using individual pictures, the average percentage result of the students’ active participation showed the improvement from Cycle 1 that was 69.36% to 79.03% in Cycle 2. Further, the result of writing test in Cycle 1 indicated that only 21 students (67.74%) of 31 students achieved the standard minimum score that was ≥ 70 and it increased in Cycle 2 that 25 students (80.65%) of 31 students could achieve the standard minimum score that was ≥ 70. Finally, it could be summarized that the use of individual pictures could improve the seventh grade students’ achievement in writing descriptive paragraph and their active participation in the teaching learning process of writing descriptive paragraph at SMPN 2 Dringu.