DEVELOPING RURAL EFL STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL BY USING COOPERATIVE LEARNING TO PROMOTE CHARACTER BUILDINGud

摘要

Abstract: English in Junior High Schools is taught as a subject from year seven up till year nine. One of the skills in English that the students find it difficult among the others is writing. Indeed, writing is the burden for the students especially those who live in rural areas. One of causes of this condition is the use of the teaching technique used by the teacher in carrying out his writing class. Based on 2013 curriculum the teaching and learning in high schools are promoted to build the students’ characters. That is why this research is carried out to figure out whether the use of Cooperative Learning can develop the rural students’ writing skill. It is also to reveal whether the use of this learning can promote the character building. The research is a class room action reasearch (CAR) which involves a pre-cycle and two cycles. The subject is the seventh graders of SMP N 1 Pakis. This research is carried out in SMP Negeri 1 Pakis kabupaten Magelang which lies in a rural area at the slope of Mount Merbabu. This research involves qualitative and quantitative data.The data were taken by using documentations, observations, questionnaires, and test. The data obtained show that using cooperative learning can develop the rural students’ writing skill. It can be seen from the improvement of the students’ scores. It also can promote the character building by seeing the implementation of the values in character building in the classroom activities during the teaching learning process.udKeywords: rural students’ writing skill, cooperative learning, character buildingud