THE USE OF PICTURE SERIES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN
WRITING RECOUNT TEXTS
(A Classroom Action Research on the Eight Grade of SMP N 3 Kartasura in
2009/2010 Academic Year)
Writing is as a means of communication. Writing involves transferring a
message from our thoughts using language in the written form and it is a
communicative competence. According to Brown (1994: 227), communicative
competence is relative, not absolute, and depends on the cooperation of all the
participants. Communicative competence enables one to convey and interpret
messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally within specific context. In
addition, Canale and Swain (in Brown, 1994: 227) state that communicative
competence consists of grammatical competence, discourse competence,
sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. The grammatical
competence and discourse competence reflect the use of linguistic system itself. The
sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence reflect the functional aspects
of communication. By acquiring communicative competence, the students are
expected to have knowledge of grammar and vocabulary of the language; to have
knowledge of rules of writing and to be able to apply it in real communication
appropriately.
Writing is a productive skill. It is very useful for students because it can convey
their message through their minds in the written form. It is placed on the last stage
among the four skills. Writing is the production of the written word in the form of
text and it must be read and comprehended in order to communicate to take place.
In other words, in writing, a writer communicates his/her ideas by considering a
known or unknown reader who will get their ideas and their meanings in the form
of correct written text. To write well, people must have good writing capabilities
too. Moreover, someone who wants to write essay or story must know in writing
process and the aspects of writing skills. The people must be able to organize the
idea, to construct sentences, to use the spelling and punctuation well. Besides, they
must be able to arrange their writings into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and
texts.
According to Scott and Ytreberg (1998: 69), writing is a good thing. Even if
there are difficulties in writing in the foreign language, it is still useful, essential,
integral and enjoyable part of the foreign language lesson. Writing can add another
physical dimension to the learning process; it lets pupils express their personalities;
it helps to consolidate learning in the other skill areas; it allows for conscious
development of language; and it is valuable in itself.
Writing is not a natural skill because one can’t acquire this ability automatically
and easily. Writing skill differs from others skill like speaking and listening. The
two other skills can be gained through natural processes. Since one was born, he has
got considerable experiences of listening and speaking. In writing, he must
recognize and understand new symbols. It is in schools that he gets knowledge of
new symbols in the written form when beginning to understand the significance of
letter on paper. Writing is therefore a sophisticated skill combining a numbers of
different elements that must be grammatically connected. Writing is considered the most difficult to be learned and mastered because it
involves some language components (spelling, language use, vocabulary, and
punctuation). Writing requires the rules of English grammar and mechanics such as
the correct use of verbs and pronouns, as well as commas and other marks of
punctuation and it also involves many aspects such as paragraph development,
organization of content and it demands standard form of grammar, syntax, and
vocabulary. In writing, the relationships between sentences operate at several levels.
There needs to be thematic unity; there need also to be a logical progression, often
made clear by the use of conjunctions which express on the surface an underlying
logic in the propositions of the text; there needs also to be grammatical linkage
between sentences (Harris, 1993: 6).
According to Hadfield (2004: v), there are some difficulties related to the
writing. Firstly, there is psychological difficulty in which the writer has to decide
what the information the reader needs and how best to express this. Secondly, there
is linguistic difficulty in that the language used in written language is different from
that used in speech. Thirdly, there is cognitive difficulty in which that the students
have to organize their thought on paper. That is why writing is regarded as the most
difficult language skill to learn for a language learner.
The students of class VIII-E SMP N 3 Kartasura also faced some problems
above. Based on the observation conducted, it was found that the students’ ability in
writing recount texts was still far from what was expected. From the result of the
students’ writing, the average score of the students was 52.65. This score was
computed from the average score of the element of writing. The first element depends on the content that was 16.66. The average score of organization was 10.76
and followed by the average of vocabulary, 10.51. The last two elements of writing
were grammar and mechanic which had the average score 11.13 and 3.57. From the
writing score, there were only 3 students who got writing score above 67.5. It
means they could fulfil the passing grade of writing skill in English lesson. While
the others 32 students got score under 67.5. It means that they still failed to write
English well. The scores of the students showed that the worst element of writing is
on content. Then, it was followed by grammar, vocabulary, organization, and
mechanic. Most of their writing consists of ungrammatical sentences; their ideas
moved away from focus and sometimes did not have any supporting details. They
also had incorrect spelling and punctuation errors. It could be concluded that they
still could not write English well.
These evidences were also supported by the result of interview. The interview
was conducted to know the students’ perception toward writing skill. When the
students were asked about writing, most of them reacted that writing is difficult. It
could be seen from quotations of the following result of interview:
- “Nulisnya sulit, mas. Tulisannya jelek og.” (A.3)
- “Nulisnya itu dalam terjemahannya bahasa Indonesia ke bahasa Inggris
gitu. Kosakatanya juga lumayan susah.” (A.7)
- “Ya, pokoknya menulis itu sulit. Menulis itu agak-agak gimana gitu.”
(A.18)
- “Kosakatanya belum terlalu bisa. Pengembangan paragrafnya sulit” (A.29)
- “Gak bisa nulis og. Kosakatanya kurang.” (A.30)
It means that students still regarded writing as a difficult skill. Most of them found
difficulties in developing paragraph and finding appropriate vocabulary. Some of them did not know the correct spelling of some certain words. It means that they did
not revise what they had written.
The interview was also conducted to the teacher in order to know the condition
of the students of class VIII-E. The questions of interview were related to the
students’ writing ability, the difficulties that the students’ faced in writing, and the
teaching writing in class. The teacher said that the students of VIII-E SMP N 3
Kartasura have low ability in writing. As stated by the English teacher of class VIIIE:
“Writing skill mereka belum terlalu bagus karena terkendala dengan
vocabulary yang mereka punya. Mereka juga kurang begitu aktif dalam menulis
karena lack of vocabularies tadi.”
She also stated that the students got difficulties in developing paragraph, using
correct tense, and finding appropriate vocabulary which could be seen from the
result of interview as follows:
“Siswa pasif karena terkendala dalam mengembangkan kalimat. Mereka juga
masih lack of vocabularies atau kurang dalam kosakata. Mereka juga masih
lemah dalam comprehension begitu pula dengan past verb mereka juga masih
sangat lemah.”
The teacher seldom taught writing to the students through writing process. She
just explained the patterns and gave the example of the text, and then she asked
the students to write a certain topic without any guidance, as what she said in the
interview:
“Setelah saya ajarkan mereka tentang ciri-ciri dan contoh dari teks tersebut
kemudian saya suruh mereka untuk menulis paragraph berdasarkan teks yang
dimaksud dan saya juga jarang menyuruh mereka untuk menulis teks jadi
mereka juga agak kurang dalam menulis.” From the result of interview, it could be concluded that the students still have
low ability in writing. They faced problems in writing, especially in making
correct grammatical sentences, developing paragraph and finding appropriate
vocabulary. In addition, the teacher seldom taught writing to the students through
writing process which only gave the students to write in a certain topic without
any guidance. She only demanded the product of students’ writing.
The result of questionnaire also showed that 73.5 % of students felt that
writing is difficult. They did not like when the teacher asked them to write. Most
of them, 61.8 %, felt that the time given for writing is not enough. 55.9 % students
got difficulties in starting to write and 52.9 % seldom paid attention to choose
appropriate vocabulary even 20.6 % did not do that. 52.9 % students did not
arrange the outline or draft before writing.
From the preliminary observation then, the researcher concluded that there
were two main causes: from teacher and student. Firstly, the teacher did not apply
writing process in teaching writing. She just explained the characteristics and the
examples of the texts. Then, she only demanded the students’ writing product and
she only gave fewer portions for writing whereas writing is a complex activity.
The teacher just demanded the product of the students’ writing that must fulfil the
written language rules. Moreover, she did not give enough attention to teach
students how to write in English correctly. Writing class generally ignored the
writing process. The teacher asked the students to write in a certain topic. The
time given by the teacher was limited. The teacher did not consider that writing is
a complex activity in which it needs more time for revising the content, grammar and conducting consultation. Secondly, the students still did not master on writing
skill. Their ideas were not coherent. They sometimes lost their ideas and stuck.
So, they could not continue their writing. They did not also use tense in the right
context, because they were still confused to use tense correctly. They were lack of
vocabulary and their understanding of mechanic was low. They seldom read their
writing after they finished writing. That was why, their writing were not coherent.
They also thought that time for writing was limited. Because of these they got
difficulties in writing and the result of their writing were still far from what were
expected.
Based on the evidences above, the writer conducted a classroom action
research in order to improve the students' writing ability. The classroom action
research focused on the improving students’ writing ability especially in the form
of recount text. This was done for the reason that this kind of writing form was
suggested in the syllabus used in SMP that is KTSP. Usually in the writing class,
the teacher did not use a media to improve students’ writing ability yet. The
teacher only used handbook and students worksheet. In this research, the
researcher used picture series to improve students writing ability, especially in
writing recount text.
Picture in writing is one way to solve the problems in writing. Picture is
categorized as one of aids in language teaching. Visual aids are a situation where
the learner can see what is named by the word to be learned (Allen, 1983: 33).
Pictures are not just as aspect of method but through their representation of places,
objects, and people they are essential part of the overall experiences we must help our students to cope with (Wright, 1997: 2). In addition, he mentions that pictures
can be used by teacher and students whatever emphasis of the syllabus they are
following. Furthermore, he states pictures make particularly powerful contribution
to both the content and the process of language learning.
Using picture series in writing recount texts has many advantages. Raimes
(1983: 36) says that a picture sequence, such as comic strip, provides the subject
matter for writing narrative and for speculating about the story beyond the
pictures in the strip. A set of parallel picture – pictures that show a similar scene
or tell a similar story – provides material that offers guidance on vocabulary,
sentence structure, and organization yet lets the students write about new subject
matter. On the other hand, picture sequences in which there is ambiguity and the
opportunity for widely divergent interpretations are an excellent basis for
stimulating individual response and a variety of written outcomes. Besides, the
students usually have other perceptions and interpretations to the provided picture.
The students just want to see and focus to the one object from the provided
picture.
In this study, the writer tries to apply picture series during the writing process
because hopefully it can give students an interest and motivation in learning. By
providing it, the students will not be bored again to the writing and they can
develop and share their ideas in written form. It also makes a sense of the context
of a language for the students since writing needs more vocabularies that must be
mastered by the students. It also has a specific point or stimulus to the students in
process writing where it can also express their ideas and it can develop the content of writing. It can lead students to have new experience of real writing activity and
will give them understanding that writing is a means of communication. It also
gives students enough time to write since writing is a process of expressing ideas
in written form. It will provide information whether the students are already
successful in the running cycle or not