IMPROVING THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PICTURE-CUED ACTIVITIES AT SMP N 1 WONOSARI IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/2013

摘要

This study was aimed at improving the students‟ writing skills of the eighth grade at SMP N 1 Wonosari through picture-cued activities. Based on the preliminary observation, there were some problems in the teaching and learning process of writing. They dealt with students‟ writing skills related to students‟ participation, motivation, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. The solution for these problems was applying picture-cued activities in the teaching and learning process. This research consisted of two cycles. Each cycle had two meetings. The subjects of the research were the students of VIIIC class, the English teacher and the researcher. The data collection techniques were observation, interview and tests. The data were in the forms of field notes, interview transcripts and scores of the pretest and the posttest. The data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The researcher analyzed the qualitative data through three steps: 1) reducing, 2) displaying, and 3) verifying the data. The quantitative data were analyzed by means of the descriptive technique to obtain the mean and the standard deviation. Meanwhile, the t-test was used to investigate the improvement. The validity of the research was accomplished by adopting five criteria of validity: 1) democratic validity, 2) outcome validity, 3) process validity, 4) catalytic validity and 5) dialogic validity. The results of the research showed that the use of picture-cued activities was able to improve students‟ writing skills. Based on the qualitative data, the students could develop their ideas to produce a descriptive text with appropriate use of vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. They also enthusiastically joined the teaching and learning activities. Based on the quantitative data, the students‟ mean score for the writing skill improved. In the pretest, the students‟ mean score was 48.61. Then, after Cycle 1 (posttest 1), the students‟ mean score was 60.60. At last, after Cycle 2 (posttest 2), the students‟ mean score was 76.22.