IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL THROUGH PICTURE

MEDIA AT THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMKN 2 PALU

DIAN ISLAMI

(A 121 17 145)

ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

1.2 Problem statement

1.3 Objective of the Research

1.4 Significances of the Research

1.5 Scope of the Research

1.6 Oprational Definitions of Key Terms

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW, CONCEPTUAL FRAMWORK, AND

HYPOTHESIS

2.1 Literature Review

2.1.1 Definition of Writing

2.1.2 Components of Good Writing

2.1.3 The Types of Writing

2.1.4 Techniques to Make the Tasks More Concrete and Interesting

2.1.5 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Picture Media

2.1.6 The Procedure of Picture Media

2.2 Conceptual Framwork

2.3 Hypothesis
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

3.2 Population and Sample

3.2.1 Population

3.2.2 Sample

3.3 Instruments of the Research

3.3.1 Observation

3.3.2 Test

3.3.3 Interview

3.4 Technicque of Data Analysis

3.4.1 Observation Data Analysis

3.4.2 Data Analysis of Pre-test and Post-test

3.4.3 Interview Data Analysis

REFERENCES
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

English is one of the compulsory subjects in Indonesian schools. One of the aims in

English teaching and learning process is the mastery of the four language skills. Those skills

are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Writing is one of the most important skills in language learning. One of the reasons is

that it is related to the students’ future need for occupational purposes for academic study, or

for personal communication. Based on the standard of graduate competency stated by

Permendiknas no.23/ 2006 Republic of Indonesia, in the writing skill, the graduate of

vocational high school must be able to express meaning in written product in interpersonal

and transactional discourses, formally and informally, in the form of expressing written

requests and commands related to daily life. Therefore, the students must have a good

mastery in writing to be able to write.

However, there are some considerations why writing is regarded as a difficult skill.

Richards and Renandya (2002) mention that difficulties in writing arise not only in

generating and reorganizing ideas but also in translating the ideas so that the readers can be

easily able to understand about what is the writing about.

In writing classroom activities, the students are asked to write about what is being

discussed. The teacher gives instructions in writing and then asks them to write. Harmer
(2004) proposes that writing in the classroom, taught by combining the process of teaching

writing, involving encouraging the students to think about what they are going to write, by

encouraging them to draft, reflect, and revise, and by responding their writing product. In

addition, to make the students interested in the writing teaching and learning process, the

teacher may use learning media. Learning media contributes to students’ motivation in

learning process of writing skill.

However, some students regard that writing is difficult to master. Difficulty in gaining

idea, lack of vocabulary, and low grammar mastery are the main problems in writing to the

students of SMK Negeri 2 Palu, especially the Administration class. In addition, writing

involves some language components such as spelling, grammar, vocabulary, concordance,

punctuation, coherence, and cohesion which the students do not master well. Writing also

demands the coherence to link ideas between the sentences and requires the students to learn

the rules of English grammar and mechanics such as the correct use of verbs, pronouns, noun

concords, capitalization, and cohesive devices as well as commas and other marks of

punctuation. In addition, there is no learning media which can support students’ writing

process. The teacher just asks the students to write about specific theme and then gives them

feedback. Such practices do not make the students interested in writing.

Considering the issues above, it is necessary to conduct a research study to improve

students’ writing skill to the students of Administration SMK Negeri 2 Palu by using learning

media. Picture media can give the contribution to improve students’ writing skill by

stimulating the students in gaining ideas, building vocabularies, and improving students’

grammar awareness.

In the teaching and learning process, the teacher seldom uses learning media. The

teacher just asks the students to write and then after they have finished, the teacher makes a
correction. Learning media can contribute to motivation in students’ English learning. By

using media, students can develop their idea and vocabulary. In addition, the using of media

in teaching writing can make the students interested in the lesson.

1.2 Problem Statement

Based on the explanation in the background of the study, the writer formulates

the problem as follows : What are efforts to improve the students’ writing skill of the students

Administration class of SMK Negeri 2 Palu through picture media? Do picture media

improve students’ writing skill?

1.3 Objective of the Research

Based on the formulation above, the objectives of this research are to describe the efforts

of using picture media to improve writing skill of the students Administration class of SMK

Negeri 2 Palu and to investigate whether the students’ writing skill improves significantly

through picture media.

1.4 Significances of the Research

The significances of the research toward the parties mentioned above are explained as

follows:

a. The research can be used by the teachers of English of SMK Negeri 2 Palu, to be

one of the sources to improve students’ writing skill.

b. For the students Administration of SMK Negeri 2 Palu, it will provide some input

to improve their motivations in writing.

c. The research can be one of the references in choosing the media in teaching
 writing.

d. For the researcher, it will be an experience on how to conduct a research study.

e. It is expected that the result of the research can give contributions to the teaching

and learning of English in vocational high schools.

1.5 Scope of the Research

The Scope of the Research is using picture in teaching and learning activities is regarded

as an effective effort to improve students’ of SMK negeri 2 Palu writing skill as they are easy

to prepare and organize, interesting, and meaningful.

1.6 Oprational Definitions of Key Terms

To avoid misunderstanding, it is important for the writer to provide some definitions of

key terms used in this research. the definitions of key terms are as follows:

1. Improve

Improve is become or make better (Oxford Dictionary, 2003:216). Some theories give

the definition about improve as the activities to raise more desirable or more excellent quality

or condition or to increase the productivity or value of land and property.

2. Writing Skill

The term of skill is defined as ability. Concisely, writing ability is the skill to express

idea, though, and feeling to other in writing symbol to make other people or readers

understand the idea conveyed.

marks, but it is evident from what has been sain that what the primitives understood as

writing is not the same thing as what we do.

3. Picture Media

Picture is a visual media that produced from photograph. It is everything that formed

visually into two dimensions as the outflow of various think (Asnawir, 2002: 47). Picture is

one of the media used to create the game. Students can gather pictures about a variety of

subjects and give reports to the class. Help the pupils know how and what to look for in a

picture. A file of meaningful pictures should be kept.

LITERATURE REVIEW, THEORETICAL FRAMWORK, AND HYPOTHESIS

2.1 Literature Review

2.1.1 Definition of writing

Writing is the activity to make letters or number on a surface, especially using pen or

pencil. Generally, writing can be interpreted as the act of forming or tracing a character on

paper or other suitable materials with a pen or pencil.

According to Gelb (1962: 12) Writing is a clearly system of human intercommunication

by means of conventional visible marks, but it is evident from what has been saint that what

the primitives understood as writing is not the same thing as what we do.

From definitions above, it can be said that writing can be distinguished from other skills

as the most difficult one. There are many factors influencing writing to be a good one such as

grammatical, vocabularies, punctuation, and spelling knowledge which must be integrated to

be a paragraph.

From the ideas previously, the writer conclude that writing is more than a medium

communication. It is a way of remembering and a way of thinking. Because of that, writing is

not easy. It needs a hard work. In writing we have to produce words, phrase, sentences, and

paragraph at the same time. It is a way of learning. None of us can write much of interest

without first thinking, probing, observing, asking question, experimenting, and reading.
2.1.2 Components of Good Writing

Some elements in good writing are content, form, grammar, style and mechanic

(Haris, 2001: 306). A good writing must express good characteristics as follow:

a. Content: writing must convey the main idea or an attentive reader should be able to

grasp the writer purpose. The substances of the writing; the idea expressed (Haris,

1969: 68).

b. Form: writing should contain logical or associative connection and transition which

clearly express the relationship of the idea described. The organization of the content

(Haris, 1969: 38).

c. Grammar: writing should adhere to the rules of grammar related to the tenses with the

sequence of time, the employment of grammatical forms and syntactic pattern (Haris,

1969: 69).

d. Style: writing should engage its reader through original insight and precise. Haris

(1969: 69) say that style: the choice of structures and lexical items to give a particular

tone or flavor to the writing.

e. Mechanic: writing must use good spelling, punctuation, and tidy and clean writing

(Haris, 1969: 69).

2.1.3 The Types of Writing

There are a lot of various genres in written texts, in contrast, the types of classroom

writing performance is limited. It is considered from five major categories of classroom

writing performance. Brown (2001) argues that the five major categories of classroom

writing performance are imitative or writing down, intensive or controlled, self-writing,

display writing, and real writing. The writing of description text is included into intensive or

controlled writing. In this type of classroom writing performance, the task requires the
learners to use the grammatical concept. Another form of intensive or controlled writing is

guided writing. In guided writing, the task offers a series of stimulation. It loosens the

teacher’s control. An example of guided writing is the using of picture to drive the students in

descriptive writing.

2.1.4 Techniques to Make the Tasks More Concrete and Interesting

In the real life, the audience or reason of our writing are stated clearly such as writing

personal letters, notes, and messages. In classroom writing, on the other hand, the students

write for their teacher. However, if the teachers provide the students with a context for

creating the text, they can make the task more concrete and interesting. Hadfield and Hadfield

(2001) cite some techniques which the teachers can use to make the tasks more concrete and

interesting.

1) Writing from picture

The students use picture to gain the idea. It is used as a starting point to create a text.

2) Responding to a text

The teacher provides a text. The students are required to read and respond the text. The

text is used as a source for the students to create their new text.

3) Survey and report

This technique requires the students to gather information and then they will use the

information to write the report.

4) Visualization

The students close their eyes and visualize a scene which the teacher describes to them.

Then they write about what they what imagined.

5) Write and do

The students write series of instruction. Other students read the texts and respond in an

appropriate way. They can create a tableau of a scene.

The students firstly are asked to draw a picture then write a description of it. Then they

pass their description to another friend who has to draw a picture from the description. After

that, they match the pictures.

7) Write and guess

The students write a text describing about something. Other students will read and guess

what is being described.

2.1.5 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Picture Media

According to Sharon K. Zanger (1977: 79), there are several the advantages and

disadvantages of picture media:

The Advantages:

1) Can stimulate and motivate students to become more observant and express

themselves.

2) Is inexpensive, may even be free, and fairly easy to locate.

3) Can be used by an individual or in groups.

4) Can be displayed for as long as necessary so pupils can work at their own rate.

5) Is up-to-date and can bring reality into the classroom.

6) Can be used to introduce, supplement, or summarize a unit.

7) Enriches reading and can help clarify misunderstanding.

Disadvantages:

1) Cannot depict motion as fill does.

2) If not unique, can seem uninteresting to pupils.

3) Depicting a specific purpose might be difficult to locate.

4) Uneven use of the photo for children and less effective in sight.
2.1.6 The Procedure of Picture Media

The success and failure of the English teaching is affected by such factors as teachers,

time allocations, and the use of visual aids, methodology, teaching materials, and other

facilities. It is obvious that teachers are required to make easier of visual aids and improve

their teaching method when they want to help students to get a satisfactory result. For

example, teachers bring one visual aids such as picture media. Then, teachers use it is a

method to teach in classroom. By using these kind of visual aids, it will help students achive

the goals of learning.

2.2 Conceptual Framework

writing is one of the important skills which has to be taught in EFL students.
However, the skills involve in writing are highly complex. The problem is that the ability of
them to write well is still average and their low proficiency of content, vocabulary, spelling,
and punctuation. The difficulties in writing arise not only in generating and reorganizing
ideas but also in translating the ideas so that the readers can be easily able to understand
about what is the writing about. They also proposed that second language writer should pay
attention to the higher skills of writing, that are generating and reorganizing ideas.

The use of appropriate teaching media can be helpful since it is one of the learning
elements in teaching and learning English. Pictures can stimulate students’ ideas and widen
them into larger paragraph since they contribute to interest and motivation, a sense of the
context of the language, and a specific reference point or stimulus. Pictures can be source or
media as they are easy to prepare and organize, interesting, meaningful and and authentic.

2.4 Hypothesis

The writer hypothesis will the use of Picture Media Technique can develop Writting
skill of the tenth grade students of SMK Negeri 2 Palu.
 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

Sugiyono (2014) mentions that to make the result of the study more accurate or
effective, the writer has to make 3 steps of test, those are pre-test, treatment, and post-test in
order to make comparison between the 3 different period of time. The writer use One Group
Pre-test Post-test Design.

3.2 Population and Sample

3.2.1 Population

A population is a set or collection off all elements possessing one more attributes of
interest. The population that the writer use in this research is purposive sample. Population of
this research is the tenth grade students of SMK Negeri 2 Palu. This is consisting of thirteen
classes and the total number of the tenth grades students are 441 students which is consisted
of 200 boys and 241 girls.

3.2.2 Sample

Sample is the process of selecting the number of individual that represent the large
group from which they collected. The individual select are called a sample. Sample is
supposed to be the representative of the population.

The sample of the research is class 10-3 of tenth grade of students of SMK Negeri 2
Palu which consist of 40 students. The sample is choosen randomly.

3.3 Instruments of the Research

In this research the writer three instruments to collect the data. Those are:

3.3.1 Observation

The first activity will make plan to teach writing using picture media. After that the
writer ask the teacher to do observation in the class. Teacher ask to analyze by checking the
lesson plan that the writer made, whether the lesson plan and the implementation were match.
Start when the writer enter the class until the class finish.

3.3.2 Test

The writer do the pre-test and post-test to know the result of students’ ability on
writing before and after treatment. The writer as the teacher give pre-test to the students to
know students’ abilityusing picture media in learning writing. The writer asks the student to
arrange the pictures, then write the text in the form of procedural text by stages. The writer
decide to use One Group Pre-test Post-test Design.

3.3.3 Interview

The writer do the interview to get more data, information and opinion from the students
about teaching writing using picture media, such as the writer prepare list questions to make
easier and make short time when give the question to the students. The writer chooses some
student by random to know impression the student after learning English by using picture
media. The writer gives some questions that researcher wants to get accurate data, so that the
student will not have difficulties in answer the question. The writer use recorder to record the
conversation with the students. All instruments that the writer use to do the interview enclose.

3.4 Technicque of Data Analysis

3.4.1 Observation Data Analysis

The implementation of using picture media for improving students' writing skill is
obtaine from the numerical observation that taken from the assessment of researcher's ability.
The table of assessment are put all together on the researcher observation form. Every aspect
is rate by the teacher accordingly from the ability of the writer. The scores are calculate by
the achievement of the writer in using picture media of writing teaching.

The description of scoring is:

Scoring : 5 = Excellent

4 = Very Good
3 = Good
2 = Enough
1 = Poor
3.4.2 Data Analysis of Pre-test and Post-test

The procedures to find out the test result are as follows:

The writer use One Group Pre-test Post-test Design. Pre-Test is given by the teacher
before the student treated by using Picture Media. The teacher gives each student a worksheet
that contains some question relating to the subject matter that will be given later. Post-Test is
given after treatment, the form and material of test is usually same with pre-test. After that,
the writer calculated score of each student and then find out the mean of each Pre-Test and
Post-Test.

Sarwono (2006: p.140) propose, the formula for calculating the mean of result are as
follow:

ΣX
M=
ΣN

Description:

M = Average value

∑X = Number of values

∑N = Number of respondent

To analyze the result of experiments using the pre-test and post-test one group design then
the formula is below. Before calculate significant test, find the sum of squared deviation
(∑x2d) with the following formula:d

( Σ d ¿¿¿ 2
Σ x 2 d=Σ d 2−
N

Arikunto (2010)
Significant Test:

Md
t=
√ Σ x2 d
N ( N −1)

Arikunto (2010)

Description:

Md = Mean of differences pre-test and post-test (pre-test – post-test)

xd = Deviation of each subject (d - Md)

∑x2d = The sum of squared deviations

N = Subject in the sample

d.b = Determined with N-1

3.4.3 Interview Data Analysis

The interview data is analyzed to find out the students’ responses toward

the series picture as the media in teaching writing.

Vano Poetra, P., & Eslin, C. D. (2013). The Implementation of Using Picture Media to Improve
Student's Writing Performance in Deskriptive Text. School Psychology Review, 41(3), 315-325

Safitri.D (2016). Improving Students’ Writing Skills by Using the Picture Media Technique at SMA N
1 Bambalamotu in the Academic Year of 2014/2015 bambalamotu. Universitas tadulako
Palu.

Annisa.N.A (2012). The Use of Series Picture in Improving Students' Writing Skill at SMPN 8
pasangkayu. Palu: Universitas Tadulako.

Putry.A (2013). Improving Students’ Writing Skill Through Picture Media. Yogyakarta: Universitas
Negeri yogyakarta.

Putra.A.P (2014). The Effectiveness of Picture Media in Improving Students’ Writing Skill Jakarta:
Universitas Negeri Islam Syarif Hidayatullah.

Hidayat. R, samsul & Wali, (2014). Improving the Students' Writing skill Bye using Picture Media. e-
Journal of English Language Teaching Society (ELTS). Vol. 2. Hal 4, 5, & 6.