THESIS IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL BY …...THESIS IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ WRITING...
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THESIS
IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL BY USING
CUE CARDS
(A Classroom Action Research in the Eighth Grade of SMP Negeri 2 Barat
Magetan in the 2011/2012 Academic Year)
By :
FARIDATUL HIKMAH
NIM. S891008030
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
GRADUATE SCHOOL
SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY
SURAKARTA
2012
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PRONOUNCEMENT
This is to certify that I myself write this thesis entitled
“IMPROVING THE STUDENTS WRITING SKILL BY USING CUE
CARDS (A classroom Action Research in the Eighth Grade of SMP Negeri 2
Barat Magetan in the 2011/2012 Academic Year)”. It is not plagiarism or made by
others. Anything to others’ work is written in quotation, the source of which is
listed on the reference.
If the pronouncement proves wrong, I am ready to accept any
academic consequences, including the withdrawal or cancelation of my academic
degree.
Surakarta, May 2012
Faridatul Hikmah
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ABSTRACT FARIDATUL HIKMAH. Improving Students’ Writing Skill by Using Cue Cards (A Classroom Action Research in the Eighth Grade of SMPN 2 Barat, Magetan in the 2011/2012 Academic Year). Thesis. Surakarta. English Education, Graduate School, Sebelas Maret University, 2012.
This thesis is aimed at knowing whether cue card media can improve students’ writing skill or not, and the strengths and weaknesses of using cue card when it is implemented to teach writing. The preliminary research showed that the students had problems in writing elements: idea/content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics. They also did not know the process of writing.
The research was done in SMP Negeri 2 Barat, Magetan from November 2011-Februari 2012. The subject of the study was the students of the VIII A of SMP Negeri 2 Barat, Magetan, consisting of 30 students. It was a Classroom Action Research. The researcher did some steps for each cycle. They were planning, action, observation, and reflection. In collecting the data, the researcher applied several techniques including observation, interview, questionnaire, and test. The quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistic. It compared between the scores of pre-test (before implementing cue card) and post-test (after implementing cue card), while the qualitative data were analyzed by using Constant Comparative Method which consists of four steps, namely: (1) comparing incidents to each category; (2) integrating categories and their properties; (3) delimiting theory; and (4) writing the theory.
The research findings are described in line with the problem statements as follows: first, by using cue card media, the students’ writing skill improves. This is proved by the significant increase of the mean score of pre-test, post-test cycle 1, and post-test cycle 2. The second, there are strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are: (1) there were improvements of students’ mean score in each component of writing who got score above KKM; and (2) there were improvements of class situation, namely: improvement of students’ motivation, interest, and creativity. Besides, the weaknesses are: (1) the students have to spend long time to make this media; and (2) the students were crowded while implementing the cue card in writing process, because they like to speak about their idol in cue card.
Based on the result of the research, it can be concluded that the use of cue card improves students’ writing skill and class condition. Therefore, it is recommended that the teachers use cue card media in teaching writing.
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MOTTO
Let your past
make you better not bitter
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DEDICATION
This Thesis is dedicated to:
My beloved husband in my loving memory My beloved parents My brothers and sisters
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, the writer would like to express her praise and gratitude to
Allah SWT, who has given her strength, patience, and perseverance to finish this
thesis, as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Graduate Degree of
Education in English.
In doing this work, the writer realizes that she is unable to finish it without
contributions, helps, suggestions, and comments from many people. She is greatly
indebted to them. Therefore, in this opportunity she would like to express her
gratitude to:
1. The Director of Graduate School of Sebelas Maret University for permission to
write this thesis.
2. The Head of the English Education Department, Graduate School of Sebelas
Maret University who has suggested and guided the writer to do this thesis
well.
3. The writer’s sincere gratitude is addressed to her honorable consultants, Dr.
Ngadiso, M.Pd and Drs. Martono, M.A, for their patience, time, suggestion,
attention, and correction so that the writer could finish her thesis.
4. The headmaster of SMPN 2 Barat, Magetan, Dra. Sri Mulyati M.Pd, who has
given permission to conduct the research at that school.
5. All teachers of SMPN 2 Barat, Magetan.
6. Last but by no means least, she wished to thank all families and friends. Their
invisible but invaluable trivial support, sweet moments, companion and
cooperation really help the writer to finish this thesis.
Finally, the researcher realizes that this thesis is still far from being
perfect, so many constructing criticism and suggestion are welcome. She hopes
that the research give positive contribution to the development of education. May
God always bless us and lead us in her right path. Amien.
The researcher
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE .......................................................................................................... i
APPROVAL................................................................................................. ii
LEGALIZATION ........................................................................................ iii
PRONOUNCEMENT . ................................................................................ iv
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................ v
MOTTO ...................................................................................................... vi
DEDICATION ............................................................................................ vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................. ix
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................... xi
LIST OF PICTURES ................................................................................... xii
LIST OF CHARTS ...................................................................................... xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES .............................................................................. xiv
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study ................................................. 1
B. Problem Formulation ................................................. 7
C. Objective of the Study ............................................... 7
D. Benefit of the Study ................................................... 8
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Theoretical Description .............................................. 9
1. Writing .................................................................. 9
a. Definition of Writing ........................................ 9
b. Micro and Macro skill ...................................... 11
c. The Purpose of Writing .................................... 12
d. Descriptive Writing .......................................... 14
e. Writing Process ................................................ 16
2. Teaching Writing ................................................... 20
a. The Meaning of Teaching Writing ................... 20
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b. Teaching Writing Using Media ........................ 21
3. Cue Cards .............................................................. 23
a. The Definition of Cue-Card .............................. 23
b. Cue Cards in Teaching Writing ........................ 24
c. . The Steps of Using Cue Card............................. 26
d. Advantages of Using Cue Cards ....................... 29
e. Disadvantages ................................................... 31
B. Review of Related study . ........................................... 31
C. Rationale .................................................................... 34
D. Hypothesis .................................................................. 37
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Place and Time of Research ........................................ 38
B. Research Method ....................................................... 39
C. Procedure of the Research ......................................... 39
D. Data Collecting Technique ........................................ 43
E. Data Analysis Technique ........................................... 48
CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDING AND DISCUSSION
A. Research Finding ....................................................... 50
1. Introduction ........................................................... 50
2. Implemention of the Research ............................... 52
a. Cycle 1 .............................................................. 52
b. Cycle 2 .............................................................. 74
B. Discussion .................................................................. 104
CHAPTER V CONCLUSSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclussion ................................................................ 111
B. Implication ................................................................. 112
C. Suggestion .................................................................. 113
REFERENCES ......................................................................................... 115
APPENDICES .......................................................................................... 117
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1
Table 3.1
Table 3.2
Table 3.3
Table 3.4
Table 3.5
Table 4.1
Table 4.2
Table 4.3
Table 4.4
Table 4.5
Table 4.6
Table 4.7
The Writing Process
Try Out of Readability
The Result of Readability Try Out
The Score of the Second Try Out of Readability
Writing Rubric
The Description of Writing Traits
Average of Writing Component in Pre-test
Computation Passing Grade in Pre-test
Result of Statistical Account of Point Score in Cycle 1
The Result of Statistical Account of Point Score Cycle 1
The Result of Statistical Account of Students Score
Passing Grade Cycle 1
Average of Writing Components in Pre-test, Cycle I and
Cycle 2
Computation of Passing Grade
16
46
46
47
47
47
51
51
69
69
69
93
102
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LIST OF PICTURES
Picture 4.1 Students’ Cue Card About Famous Singer ................................... 55
Picture 4.2 Cue card of Students’ Outline ..................................................... 57
Picture 4.3 Cue card of students’ worksheet . ................................................. 58
Picture 4.4 Students Cue Card About Famous Footballer .............................. 61
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LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 4.1 The improvement of idea/ content score ....................................... 94
Chart 4.2 The Improvement of Organization Score ...................................... 95
Chart 4.3 The Improvement of Vocabulary Score ....................................... 96
Chart 4.4 The Improvement of Grammar Score ........................................... 96
Chart 4.5 The Improvement of Mechanics Score ......................................... 97
Chart 4.6 The Result of Statistical Account Point Score .............................. 98
Chart 4.7 The Score Under 75 From Pre-test Until Cycle 2 ......................... 99
Chart 4.8 The Average of Writing Mean Score in Pre-test, Cycle I,
and Cycle 2................................................................................... 101
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Appendix 6
Appendix 7
Appendix 8
Appendix 9
Appendix 10
Appendix 11
Appendix 12
Appendix 13
Appendix 14
Appendix 15
Appendix 16
Appendix 17
Appendix 18
Appendix 19
Appendix 20
Appendix 21
Appendix 22
Appendix 23
Appendix 24
Appendix 25
Appendix 26
Appendix 27
Pre-test score from researcher .......................................
Pre-test score from collaborator ....................................
The Interater of Average score pre-test .........................
Hasil Wawancara dengan Guru ..................................
Hasil Wawancara dengan siswa ....................................
The score of Preliminary Questionnaire .......................
Questionnaire of Students score on writing ...................
Hasil Questionnaire dari Preliminary Observation ........
Blue Print of Pre-test .....................................................
Test Item of Preliminary ................................................
Readability Test 1...........................................................
Hasil Try Out Readability 1...........................................
Readability Test 2 ..........................................................
Hasil Try Out Readability 2 ..........................................
RPP Siklus 1 .................................................................
Students’ work sheet .....................................................
Field note 1 ....................................................................
Blue Print of Cycle 1 .....................................................
Post-Test Item of Cycle 1 ..............................................
Writing Score of Cycle 1 from Researcher ...................
Writing Score of Cycle 1 from collaborator ..................
The Inte Rater of Score Writing Cycle 1 .......................
Haasil wawancara setelah treatment ..............................
Questionnaire siswa dalam pembelajaran
menggunakan Cue Cards ..............................................
Hasil questionaire siklus 1 .............................................
The score of questionnaire cycle 1 ................................
Students’ works 1 ..........................................................
117
118
119
120
122
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
142
146
156
157
158
159
160
161
164
165
166
167
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Appendix 28
Appendix 29
Appendix 30
Appendix 31
Appendix 32
Appendix 33
Appendix 34
Appendix 35
Appendix 36
RPP Siklus 2 ..................................................................
Blue Print of Cycle 2 .....................................................
Post-test Item of Cycle 2 ...............................................
Writing score of cycle 2 from researcher ......................
Writing score of cycle 2 from collaborator ...................
The inter rater of average score cycle 2 .........................
Field note 2.....................................................................
Students’ works 2 ..........................................................
Documentation ..............................................................
171
178
179
180
181
182
183
193
196
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
The expansion of communication, information, and technologies lead
people to join the global era where there are many necessities of high
qualification and skill related to the ability in using some foreign languages.
As one of international languages, English has important role in
communicating from one country to others in the world. The importance can
be seen in all aspects of life such as bussiness, tourism, education, industry,
and politics. English can be said as key in entering the modern era, because
there are millions written works both in form of books and electronics media
published in English.
In Indonesia, English as the first foreign language is taught at school
from primary school level to university level. It shows that English has an
important role for learner to communicate in their daily life in globalization
era and develop their communication. English Curriculum 2004 for SMP/MTS
states that learning English is aimed at developing students’ competence to
communicate in English both spoken and written form. It means that to
develop students’ communicative competence there are four basic skills. They
are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It can be defined into two groups.
The first is receptive skill and the second is productive skill. Receptive skills
are listening and reading. Productive skills are speaking and writing.
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Writing is a means of communication when the other person is not
right here in front of us. Cohen and Reil (1989: 2) state that writing is a
communicative act, a way of sharing observation, information, thoughts, or
ideas with ourselves and others. Writing is usually directed to others for
specific purpose. For students, it can provide the opportunity to express
themselves through written form. Writing can also develop the writer’s
understanding of an issue by organizing their ideas.
Writing skill is very important. It is productive activity by which one
can deliver his/her ideas to other in a written form. We can imagine if there is
no one who writes, how the language learning will run. There will be no
reading text or books, and other written products to be read and learned. The
basic competence of writing which should be mastered by the students in
Junior High School is expressing the meaning by using the step of rhetorical
development accurately in written text in form of narrrative, recount, and
descriptive text. The result of mastering skills is the students are able to write
about their activity in school and their environment, the simple functional
setences, messages, short and simple announcements, greeting cards, and
produce texts of narrative, recounts and descriptive (Depdiknas 2006: 215).
Writing descriptive text is an activity to describe a particular person,
place or thing, Hogue (1996: 20) explains “Descriptive writing is writing
about how something/someone looks and uses space order”. If the students’
ability in descriptive writing is better, it is easier for them to express their
ideas about objects around them. Based on basic competence in Junior High
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School Curriculum, to master descriptive text, it is hoped the students can
express the idea and rhetorical steps in the form of simple descriptive text
using various written language accurately and fluently to interact with
surroundings. It means that the students not only express ideas in the written
form but also organize them into coherent and cohessive form. The sufficient
vocabularies and provided materials of students are very needed. Besides that,
the mastery of good grammar make their writing easy to understand. So, the
students’ writing idealy must cover all elements of writing like: content,
organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
Based on the pretest, observation, interview, and questionaire, most of
eighth A grade students of SMPN 2 Barat, find some difficulties (problems) to
write descriptive text. They have difficulty on all aspects of writing, namely:
(1) The students are not able to organize their writing in good organization; (2)
The students can not express their idea at all; (3) The students get difficulty on
selecting appropriate vocabulary; (4) The students are not able to make
sentences grammatically; (5) The students get difficulty on mechanics
(punctuation and spelling).
In addition, during the lesson, students are very passive and have no
courage in giving ideas or asking questions. From the test given before the
research is done, it turns out that they still have serious problem with writing
descriptive text. It arise when the students use a native language into foreign
language. They just translate word by word from Indonesia into English.
Based on the observation and pretest conducted, it is found that the students’
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writing ability is still low. The students write essay with ungrammatical
sentences, and their ideas move away from the topic. They often make
mistakes in using modifiers, word choices, and punctuation. They still fail in
writing and have difficulty in grammar. And based on interview, most of the
students answer that writing is difficult. They get difficulties in making
grammatical sentences, word orders, and choosing appropriate words.
There are factors why students get difficulties in writing descriptive
text. These factors are from the students, the teacher, and the class. The
students factors are: (1) they do not understand about descriptive text; (2) they
lack of imagination to expres some ideas in writing; (3) most of students have
low motivation in writing; and (4) most of them come from the family who are
not well-educated. Most of their parents are manual labourers, farmhands,
house maids, etc.
Then, the teachers’ factors are: (1) methods and strategies are not
appropriate; (2) the media are not various. The teacher usually implements the
subject by using a translation technique. It cannot improve the students’
motivation . This condition leads to the students’ boredom in joining a writing
activity; and (3) The teacher do not consider that writing is a complex skill in
which it needs time for revising the content, grammar, and mechanics.
The last factor is the class. This is the impact of the first and the
second factor. The common complaint are: (1) The class activity is boring.
Most of students are not interested in learning writing because it is time
consuming to do it. Those facts indicate that writing is indeed, not favorite
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subject; (2) The class is narrow and near the railway station. The trains often
come and go everytime. The crowded situation can disturb the students’
learning activity, and influence their motivation. It can be concluded that if
the students writing skill is not good and the teachers method is not
appropriate, the teaching learning process will not be successful. So the class
will be boring and not interesting.
In accordance with the importance and complexity in the teaching of
writing, the teachers have to able to encourage and facilitate students to write
as well as to decrease their barriers in writing. To overcome this problem,
teachers can vary their teaching by using various techniques that are able to
attract, motivate, and help the students in the writing activity. The techniques
used must be applicable and interesting. The teacher can teach by using media.
The use of the media should be suited with the writing material given. The
good designed media can stimulate mind, feeling, attention, and willingness of
the students.
There are many kinds of media. One of them is cue cards. It provides
shared experience for students in the class and leads to a variety of language
activities. Wright (1989: 120) says that a picture plays an enormous part in
affecting people and giving information. Cue Card has many advantages when
it is implemented in writing text: a descriptive text. The advantages are as
follows: (1) It enables the students to generate the words needed in writing
descriptive text; (2) It is a media for the students to express their ideas; (3) It
can stimulate mind, feeling, attention, and willingness of the students.
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The researcher uses cue cards because it can help students generate
ideas and organize them as well. Cue card provides an opportunity for non
verbal response, it means that the students can predict what is the kind of the
text type and recognize the meaning more quickly, so the cue card will be
clearly, authentically and be easy to illustrate the general idea and forms of an
object. The result of these, hopefully the students can write coherent,
contextual, and acceptable sentences into paragraph based on their
experiences, and ideas.
Cue card is a useful media for the students to give not only a
brainstorming but also one of the media to arise the students’ imagination on
selecting appropriate vocabulary. It expresses by selecting a certain word
(vocab), a sentence then construct it into a paragraph. Cue card is also used in
recombination practice by giving questions and answer works, substitution,
and transformations that the students must adapt the basic sentence pattern.
Essentially, the activities challenge the students to remember and to
manipulate the language forms correctly. It is hope to help the students can
write grammatically sentences, spelling, and punctuation.
In addition, cue card is used to describe of an objects, person, places,
or things by completing name, characteristic, capability, activity, of them.
Essentially, this activity to lead the students to write sentences into paragraph
based on the process of writing; planning, drafting, and preparing go to public.
Furthermore, cue cards seems to be the media which can help to solve the
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problem of generating ideas (the content), vocabulary, grammar, organization,
and mechanics (spelling and punctuation).
In this study, it is specified only to improve the eighth A grade
students’ skill in writing descriptive text by using cue cards at SMPN 2 Barat
in the Academic Year of 2011/2012. Hopefully, this teaching media can be
useful for teaching writing descriptive text of English for Junior High School.
B. Problem Formulation
From the background above, the statement of problems are:
1. Can cue cards improve the students’ skill in writing descriptive text
2. What are the strengths and the weaknesses of cue cards used as a media to
improve the student’s skill in writing descriptive text of the eight-year
students SMP Negeri 2 Barat?
C. Objective of the study
Based on the problem statement above, the objective of the study are:
1. To know whether cue cards can improve the students’ skill in writing
descriptive text.
2. To know the strengths and weaknesses of cue cards used as a media to
improve the students’ skill in writing descriptive text of the eight year
student SMP Negeri 2 Barat
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D. Benefit of Study
The benefits of the study are:
1. For the researcher
The researcher can enhance the teaching learning process and use
the result of the study in teaching learning process
2. For the teacher
The result of the research will help the English Teacher of Junior
High school to select the most appropriate media to arouse the students’
motivation and interest in teaching writing.
3. For the students
It can motivate the students to study English writing more joyfully
by using cue cards.
4. For the other researcher
The other researcher can get information and develop the research
based on the result and use it as one of references for next study.
5. For the school
It is expected this research will give information and reference to
the school about one of English teaching media.
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, the writer discusses: (1) theoretical description underlying
the research; (2) rationale of cue cards media in teaching learning; and (3)
hypothesis of the research.
A. Thoretical Description
1. Writing
a. Definition of Writing
Writing is a means of communicating ideas and information. It uses mark
that people see and understand. It is important to learn how to think critically and
creatively. It improves a person’s ability to think concisely and clearly. Daniels in
Ager (2008: 1) states that writing is used to represent or express the ideas or
feelings in such a way that it can be recovered more completely of a system of
more or less permanent symbols. Furthermore, Cohen and Reil (1989: 3) defines
writing as a communicative act, a way of sharing observation, information,
thoughts, or ideas with ourselves and others. Writing is usually directed to others
for a specific purpose. For students, it can provide the opportunity to express
themselves through a written form. Writing can also develop the writer’s
understanding of an issue by organizing ideas on a piece of paper.
In supporting definitions of writing, Sutanto, et al. (2007: 1) state that
writing is a process of express ideas or thoughts in words. He says that we cannot
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do something or expressing the ideas or feeling in words or in sentences while we
are getting some interventions.
A writer should a master the aspects of writing. Dealing with the aspects
of writing, Hughes (1996: 91) mention five aspects of writing; they are (1)
grammar, (2) vocabulary, (3) mechanics, (4) fluency, and (5) form. BNSP states
that writing should involve the following four aspects, they are: (1) generic
structure (organization), (2) developing ideas, (3) accuracy (grammar and
vocabulary), and (4) mechanics (spelling and punctuation). Brown (2003: 244)
also has scale for rating composition (writing), they are: (1) organization
(introduction, body, and conclussion), (2) logical development of ideas (content),
(3) punctuation, spelling and mechanics, (4) style and quality expression
(vocabulary, variety of structure, word choice).
According to Nunan (1991: 7), successful writing involves mastering the
mechanics of letter formation and obeying conventions of spelling and
punctuation; using the grammatical system to convey one’s intended meaning;
organizing content at the level of the paragraph and the complete text to reflect
given/new information and topic/comment structures; polishing and revising one’s
initial efforts; selecting an appropriate style for one’s audience.
Based on the definition above, it can be concluded that writing is process
of communication to express ideas or feelings in words or sentences of language
system, which involves five dimensions, namely: content, organization,
vocabulary, grammar and mechanics.
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b. Micro and Macro skill of Writing
Micro-skills are parts of academic writing that focus on working at the
sentence and paragraph level. It applies more appropriately to immitative and
intensive types of writing task. The macro-skills are essential for the successful
mastery of responsive and extensive writing. It focuses on working at the
section and whole text level.
There are six micro and micro skills presented by Brown (2004: 221)
namely:
1) Micro-skills
a) Produce grapheme and orthographic patterns of English
b) Produce writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose
c) Produce an acceptable core of words and use appropriate word order
patterns.
d) Use acceptable grammatical systems (eg, tense, agreement,
pluralization), patterns and rules
e) Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms
f) Use cohessive devices in written discourses
2) Macro-skills
a) Use the rhetorical forms and conventions of written discourse
b) Appropriately accomplish the communicative functions of written text
according to form and purpose
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c) Convey links and connections between events, and communicative such
relation as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given
information, generalization, and exemplification
d) Distinguish between literal and implied meaning when writing
e) Correctly convey culturally specific references in the context of the
written text
f) Develop and use a battery of writting strategies, such as accurately
assessing the audience’s interpretation, using prewriting devices, writing
with fluency in the first drafts, using paraphrases and synonyms,
soliciting peer and instructor feedback, and using feedback for revising
and editing.
c. The Purpose of Writing
Thinking about purposes of writing, a writer should think as follows:
1) To express ideas
A writer expresses her feeling, expressions, personality, likes, and dislikes in
his writing in order to make readers understand something within the
materials.
2) To provide information
It means to give information and explain it. This purpose is to focus on the
materials being discussed.
3) To persuade readers
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It means to convince readers about a matter of an opinion. This also focuses
on the readers’ point of view.
4) To create literary work
It means that a work which is based on one’s point of view (opinion, attitude,
and observation) of other matters occurring in one’s environment.
Interaction through the written massage is the goal of writing. Motivating
the students to write is challenging task for the teacher. Student’s attitude vary
widely in writing. As quoted by Hernowo (2004: 49), temperely mentions that
some need considerable help in developing a smooth and effective operation;
others seem intuitively to take off and create interesting patterns of their own. If
students are to write spontaneously, opportunities to acquire confidence in writing
must be provided to them.
When the receiver of the communication is not physically present, writing
is used. Except professional people like writers, lawyers, teachers, etc., others
have very view occassion to resort to this mode of communication. Writing also
fulfills a pedagogic purpose in second language teaching. It is used to fix the
sructure and vocabulary already learnt. A student who learns to write English is
not only to cope the mechanical problems connected with the script of the
language but also with the problem of ease and fluency of expression, of
grammatical and lexical accuracy and of the appropriateness of the style of
writing as demanded by the occasion or situation.
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d. Descriptive Writing
Description is designed to describe a particular person, place, or thing.
Descriptive Writing is writing which represents or describes of people, places,
things, moments and brief theories, powerfull and detail images in the mind to
help the reader create the mental picture of what is being written about
(Everett, 1997: 1). Based on the statement above, descriptive writing wants to say
and write about someone or something clearly and accurately, so others will be
easy to understand what we have written. The writer could complete the writing
by giving illustrations and some techniques which make the description more
clearly and accurately to comprehend and understand deeply.
Futhermore, Team (2006: 53) says that describing is like painting a
picture with words so that our listener or reader has a picture in their mind about
the particular thing described. Ahmad (2009: 1) says that descriptive text is a text
which lists the characteristics of something.
According to all aspects of writing, such as: ideas organization,
vocabulary, organizing information, grammatical sentences, punctuation, spelling,
and mechanics, the teacher should consider about something before teaching of
writing description, namely: (1) thinking the ideas or focusing of a particular
situation, event, and fact in general to describe; (2) why this particular instance is
important; (3) describing its characteristics, part, or qualities; (4) where the object
is located; (5) the condition of place; (6) using senses to describe the particular
thing, tastes, looks like, sounds, feels, smells, etc; (7) the writer’s aim to readers,
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(8) using descriptive words: adjective and adverbs. (Team, 2006: 53 and Everett,
1997: 1)
There are some ideas, which can help the teachers and the students to
apply, interpret, or create the descriptive text. These are: (1) writing a descriptive
text based on the picture; (2) getting data by interviewing someone; (3) observing
an object; (4) making a picture based on a descriptive text; (5) making an
imaginary creature and writing the description; (6) comparing, then contrasting
(or vice versa); (7) first doing one idea, then doing the other (Cogdill 2007: 1-3).
Moreover, one of ideas to create a descriptive text is the students write it
based on the picture. The students gets ideas to complete the outline about the
name of objects or things, definition, and generic structure. Hopefully students
can write a good paragraph and the readers can observe and understand what the
students write in real life situation.
Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that a descriptive text is a
text which gives information about a certain or specific object. Its purpose is to
enable the reader to share the writer’s sensual impressions of the subject.
So, from the explanations above it can be concluded that writing skill is a
skill of communicating ideas through written symbols by organizing ideas based
on the rules of language system to convey meaning so that others can understand
the message of writer. These skills include the following abilities: (1) ability to
express ideas, (2) ability to write good organization, (3) ability to select
appropriate vocabulary, (4) ability to write sentences grammatically, and (5)
ability to use the right mechanics.
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e. Writing Process
The writing process is intended to provide a step-by-step model for
writing. According to Glass (2005: 181), there are six steps/stages in writing
process, such as: prewriting, drafting, self-review and peer review, revising,
editing, and publishing.
Oshima and Hogue (1999: 3) say that there are five stages in writing
process, namely: prewriting, planning, writing, revising draft, and writing the final
copy to hand in. Furthermore, Harris (1993: 46) states that there are three steps in
writing process, namely: assembling strategies, creating and developing the text,
and editing.
Table 2.1. The Writing Process
Stages of the writing process Classroom activities 1. Assembling strategies Listing questions
Brain storming Research (including reading and note-making) Diagrams Planning (using grids and planning sheet) Considering text type, purpose and readership)
2. Creating and developing the text Drafting using ‘cut and paste’ technique for revising text
Provisional responses from readers (teacher and response-partners)
Reconsidering text type, purpose and readership 3. Editing Making a final draft
Careful reading/proof-reading of text Publication
Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that in the writing
process there are three stages, namely: prewriting ( motivation and setting goals),
writing (generating ideas, organizing informations, selecting appropriate
language, and making draft), post writing (revising and editing).
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1) Prewriting
Prewriting is the first step in the writing process. It is important for the
students to explore ideas for writing topics using a variety of prewriting strategies,
such as: brainstorming, interviewing a person related to the topics, engaging in
peer or teacher-student discussions and conferencess, free writing, viewing media
( pictures, movies, and television), and listing questions (who, what, where, when
and why). In this initial step, teachers set the stage for students to write by helping
them stimulate ideas. Ideally teachers will have consulted their content standards
to guide them in their expectations for the overarching assignment.
Glass (2005: 182) states there are many ways that the teacher can help the
students to stimulate their ideas, such as the following:
a) Discuss ideas with peers.
b) Draw pictures to generate ideas.
c) Write key thoughts and questions.
d) Interview.
e) Record reactions and observations.
f) Create or complete graphic organizers: story maps, clusters, outlins, and so
forth.
g) Group related ideas by categorizing.
h) Take notes.
i) Freewrite.
j) Brainstrom ideas.
k) Surf internet Web sites.
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l) Organize information according to type and purpose of writing.
2) Writing
The next stages of writing process is translating plans and ideas into
provisional text. The steps of writing are:
a) Planning
It is time for the writers/students to decide a topic which consider its
purpose, readers, point of view and writing format to compose a writing product.
They develop an initial plan for the product they will compose. To develop an
initial plan for drafting, students organize the information they have generated
during prewriting.
To do this process, there are some considerations of relating the planning,
namely: (1) purpose, students write to express (ideas, feelings, emotions, and
opinions); (2) audience, students must consider who they are writing for; (3) point
of view, students must deternine from which point of view their ideas will be
expressed; and (4) format, students must determine format and genre. (Ghaith,
2002: 6).
b) Drafting
Drafting allows the writer/student to start with whatever part of the
projected whole comes most easily.In this stage, students are primed for writing a
rough draft. Students begin to determine to include and make initial decisions
about how these ideas will be organized. Students should be well aware of the
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criteria for a given writing assignment. Glass (2005: 182) states that there are
some criteria items for writing assignment, such as: writes with narrow focus,
stays on topic, elaborates and supports central idea, uses organizational scheme,
uses paragraphs to develop separate ideas, writes with attention to audience and
purpose, varies sentence structure, uses sensory words and figurative language,
uses concept words correctly, writes employing proper grammar and conventions.
3) Post Writing
a) Revising
Revising means changing, repairing, deleting, or adding, in order to make
something better than before. Harris (1993: 58) says that revising a draft,
however, is not just a matter of randomly cutting and pasting and making word
changes. The starting point for helping a writer improve his or her text is to act as
a reader. It is important not to impose on the writer but rather to try to understand
the writer’s intentions and try to help fulfil these.
At this point, students have written their rough drafts, have critically
reviewed their own papers, and have obtained comments from peers. This stage
allows students to take a look at what they’ve written and their own and others’
comments and then to revise their papers accordingly. It might mean students
make a significant change by deleting whole paragraphs or something less
instrusive stronger vocabulary where weaker words and phrases once were.
Students may also have opted to revise their papers after the self-review stage,
before their peers review them. Students are wise to look at their papers
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objectively to help make the changes needed to improve their writing. (Glass,
2005: 184)
b) Editing
Harris (1993: 59) states that editing involves the careful checking of the
text to ensure that there are no errors that will impede communication – error
spelling, puntuation, word choice and word order.
In the editing stage of writing process, students need to focus on the
grammar and conventions of writing: Is the spelling correct? Are sentences
gramatically constructed? What about proper punctuation?, etc
c) Publishing
The final stage of the writing process is publishing. Publishing can be done
with a short piece of writing and does not always indicate the completion of a
major writing assignment. The final piece be very neatly written. And the writing
form can be shared with others
2. Teaching Writing
a. The Meaning of Teaching Writing
Teaching writing is a way of conveying messages or just to keep a record
of what is in our mind. Brown (2001: 334) says that teaching writing is like
swimming; if we learn to swim, we need water in swimming pool and a teacher
teaches us how to be professional swimmer. It means that writing is taught if we
are a member of a part of language society and there is someone teaching us.
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To be a good writer, it needs along time and work hard to create words,
sentences, and arrange them in a good paragraph. Writing as communicative
language is not only taught fluently but also accurately. Furthermore, the
responsibility lies on the teacher’s shoulders to enhance the students’ abilities to
express themselves effectifvely.
b. Teaching Writing Using Media
1) The Meaning of Media
Media, the plural of medium, are means of communication. Derived from
the Latin medium (“between”), the term refers to anything that carries information
between a source and a receiver (Smaldino, et al., 2008: 6). Six basic categories
of media are text, audio, visuals, vidio, manipulatives (object), and people. The
purpose of media is to facilitate communication and learning.
Additionally Smaldino, et al (2008: 6) say that a variety of media can
make students’ learning more realistic and engaging. Moreover, media in
communication are used to store and deliver data or information. In line with
statement above, media are material that hold data in any forms or that allow data
to pass through them, including paper, transparencies, multypart forms, hard,
floppy and optical disc, magnetic tape, wire, cable and fiber. Therefore, using
media in teaching writing is good to stimulate the students to be active during the
teaching and learning process.
Based on the theories above, it can be concluded that media are tools or
means of communication and source of information not only by digital forms but
also traditional forms.
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a) Teaching and Learning Using Media
Driscoll (2000: 11) in Smaldino (2008: 9) defines learning as ”a persisting
change in capability resulting from the learner’s experience and interaction with
the world”.
Furthermore, learning is the development of new knowledge, skills, or
attitudes as an individual interacts with information and the environments. The
learning environment is orchestrated by the teacher and includes the physical
facilities, the academic and emotional atmosphere, and instructional technology.
(Smaldino, 2008: 10). The students can learn anything like watching TV, walking
in the street, observing the nature or objects, surfing the Net, and conversing with
other people in their environment. In psychological atmosphere, we know some
theories of learning like: behaviorist perspective, cocnitivist, perspective and
constructivist perspective.
Based on the description above, it can be concluded that teaching learning
using media is the development of new knowledge, skills, or attitudes as an
individual interaction with information and environments which combines
between understanding of learning styles and multiples intelligences, related
with mastering of using media in teaching learning.
b) Roles of media in learning
Media can serve many roles in learning. When instruction is teacher
teacher-centered, media are used to support the presentation of instruction. On the
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other hand, when instruction is student-centered, students are the primary users of
media (Smaldino, 2008: 11).
A common use of media is for suplementary support during teacher-
centered. For example, the teacher may use a pocket chart to show how the
meaning of a sentence changes when word cards are rearranged. The effectiveness
of media depends on careful planning and selection of the appropriate resources.
Students can use media in a variety of ways to enhance learning. The use
of student-centered activities allows teachers to spend more of their time
diagnosing and correcting students problem, consulting with individual students,
and teaching one-on-one and in small group.
Based on explanation above, it can be concluded that the roles of media in
teaching learning activities can help teacher and students to be more creative.
Indeed, the media make the teaching learning more easily and joyfully.
3. Cue Cards
a. The definition of cue cards
Cue cards are basically cards with small photos or pictures stuck onto the
cards, or flashcards with images (Bazo, 2007: 1). This can be cards in size of 4 x 6
inches (about 10 x 15 cm) with pictures that are smaller than the cards so that
there is a space for short writing or description that can be added to the picture.
Actually, it is a part of picture media for teching learning process in primary
school. Cue cards are known as a note cards, are cards with words written on them
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(Bazo, 2007: 1). Furthermore, Harmer (2001) states that cue cards are cards with
words and pictures on them.
Based on the statement above, cue card is a picture card with short writing,
which helps the students to represent an object that can produce a complete
information.
b. Cue Cards in Teaching Writing
As writing is a difficult skill to master, the presence of teaching aids/media
is usually helpful in the teaching of writing. The teaching media can be used to
explain language meaning and construction, engage the students in the topic, or as
the basic of a whole activity (Harmer, 2001: 134). In teaching writing of
descriptive text, there should be media to motivate the students and to help them
learn more easily. The use of cue cards can be one of the best choices in this case.
Cue cards is a simple picture on a piece of card. The advantages of cue
card are several. It can be fruitful to help students overcome the problem. Wright
(1989: 120) says that things we see play an enermous part in affecting us and in
giving us information. By this statement, cue card as a media can help students
organize information and generate their ideas. Smaldino (2005: 9) defines a
medium (plural,media) as a means of communication and source of information.
It is started by the teacher guides the students to identity the pictures on their card
and ask them to write beside the picture “who” is in the picture. For example: a
great footballer, a famous actrees,etc.
Cue card can help the students to improve their vocabulary. Bazo (2007)
states that utilize flash cards (cue cards) for virtually any subject, they make
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perfect learning tools for memorizing vocabulary to study foreign languages. It
expresses by selecting a certain word (vocab), a sentence then construct it into a
paragraph.
Cue Card has many advantages when it is implemented in writing text: a
descriptive text. The advantages are as follows: (1) It enables the students to
generate the words needed in writing descriptive text; (2) It is a media for the
students to express their ideas; (3) It can stimulate mind, feeling, attention, and
willingness of the students.
The researcher uses cue cards because it can help students generate ideas
and organize them as well. Cue card provides an opportunity for non verbal
response, it means that the students can predict what is the kind of the text type
and recognize the meaning more quickly, so the cue card will be clearly,
authentically and be easy to illustrate the general idea and forms of an object. The
result of these, hopefully the students can write coherent, contextual, and
acceptable sentences into paragraph based on their experiences, and ideas.
Cue card is a useful media for the students to give not only a
brainstorming but also used in recombination practice by giving questions and
answer works, substitution, and transformations that the students must adapt the
basic sentence pattern. Essentially, the activities challenge the students to
remember and to manipulate the language forms correctly. It is hope to help the
students can write grammatically sentences, spelling, and punctuation.
In addition, cue card is used to describe of an objects, person, places, or
things by completing name, characteristic, capability, activity, of them.
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Essentially, this activity to lead the students to write sentences into paragraph
based on the process of writing; planning, drafting, and preparing go to public.
Furthermore, cue cards seems to be the media which can help to solve the
problem of generating ideas (the content), vocabulary, grammar, organization, and
mechanics (spelling and punctuation).
From the statement above, it can be concluded that cue card is a media to
motivate the students and help them to overcome the problem of all writing
aspects
c. The steps of using cue cards
In teaching writing descrptive text by using cue cards, it can be done from
the pre-writing, writing, and post-writing stage. It will be explained further in the
steps below:
1) Preparation:
Before the lesson begins, the teacher prepares the cards in size of 4 x 6
inches (about 10 x 15 cm) and something such as glue or double-tape to stick the
pictures on the cards, while the students prepare the pictures of famous people.
Each student has to bring three pictures in which one of those pictures will be
chosen by the teacher to be used. The preparation is followed by the teacher and
the students. They can work together in preparing teaching material and/or
teaching aid (Bazo, 2007: 1).
At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher gives each student a card
and chooses one of the pictures brought by each student. The considerations of
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choosing the right picture are “appeal, relevance, recognition, size, and clarity”
(Betty and Brown, 1991: 5-7)
a) Appeal
The content of the picture to capture the interest and the imagination of the
student.
b) Relevance
The picture should be appropriate for the topics of the lesson. It means that
the picture should be appropriate for the descriptive text.
c) Recognition
The significant features of the picture should be within the students’
knowledge and cultural understanding.
d) Size
Picture intented for cue card can be proportonally smaller than the card
itself. Because there should be a space for the short writing or description
added to the picture.
e) Clarity
A crowded picture can make students confuse and distract. They should be
able to choose one of the suitable one . Strong outlines and contrast of colour are
important in avoiding ambiguity.Then, the students chose the picture and stuck to
their cards.
2) The steps:
a) The teacher guides the students to identify the pictures on their cue cards
and asks them to write beside the picture “who” is in the picture.
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for example: A great footballer, afamous actress, etc.
b) The teacher helps the students to learn the detailed characteristics on the
picture, using the combination between adjectives and nouns (or noun
phrases) such as white skin, sharp nose, black hair, etc. The teacher
explains and gives example first.
In step a) and b) of this procedure, the teacher plays the role as a controller.
Playing this role, the teacher gives the students information, etc
(Harmer, 2001: 58)
c) The students write the detailed characteristics of the picture below the
phrase of “who”. This step is almost similar with one of the
brainstroming techniques in pre-writing: listing. In listing techniques, the
student think about the topic and make a list whatever words or phrases
come into their mind (Oshima and Hogue, 1997: 4).
d) The teacher explains to the students what they have written and give the
language features of descriptive text, i.e spesific nouns (footballer,
actress,etc), adjective (great, famous, etc), and detailed noun phrases
(straight long hair, sharp black eyes, etc). (Depdiknas, 2006: 39).
e) Then, they turn to the generic structures of descriptive text. The students
practice to develop their simple writing on the cue cards into a
descriptive text in their own paper. Then, the students must give the
generic structure of descriptive text . The first paragraph contains the
phrases of “who”, it will be developed into “ introduction/identification”.
Next , the detailed characteristics, will be developed into “description”.
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In this activity, the students start the writing stage of the writing process
where they arrange, organize, and design their ideas ( Malley And Pierce,
1996: 139).
f) When the students finish their writing, they are asked to work in pairs,
and change their cue cards and their writing with their partner. They have
to check their partner’s writing and discuss it. After that, make a
correction if there are mistakes. It this step, the students are in the post-
writing stage of the writing process where they share their writing with
others (O’Malley and Pierce, 1996: 138)
d. Advantanges of Using Cue Cards
Cue cards, as a medium of teaching writing, have many advantanges.
These are two main advantages of using cue cards:
1) The use of picture on the cue card can motivate the students.
Motivation is some kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do
things in order to achieve something (Harmer, 2001: 51). It means that the
student must have motivation that makes them interested and encouraged to
achieve what they are supposed to achieve in the teaching-learning process.
Without motivation, the students are not able to follow the teaching learning
process. Consequently, they will find difficulties to achieve what they are
supposed to achieve.
Motivation is essential things to reach success: without motivation
someone will almost certainly fail to make the necessary effort (Harmer, 2001:
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51). To help the students succeed in their learning, they must have high
motivation. Besides, the amount of attention given by the students will depend
largely on their motivation (Abbott, et al., 1981: 15). If the students have lack of
motivation, the teacher has to give solution in teaching learning process to arise
students’ motivation.
It is the duty of the teacher to motivate the students, because the teacher is
one of the sources of students’ motivation Harmer (2001: 52). By exploring the
picture stuck on the cards, the teacher can make a link between what the students
learn and interests, thoughts, and experiences, that they can see in the picture.
Harmer (2001: 134) states that cue cards with the picture on it can be used to
encourage the students to respond it.
2) Cue cards are simple, easy to produce and use.
Traditionally, the teacher has been considered the only person who has to
make or provide the material and/or teaching aids to use in the class (Bazo, 2007:
1). However, actually the students can be involved in choosing and making
teaching materials/aids. Both the teacher and the students can work together to
make the cue cards. For example: the teacher prepares the cards and something
such as glue or double-tape to stick the pictures on the cards, while the students
are asked to prepare the picture based on the topic of the lesson. It will make the
students more interested in the teaching learning process.
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e. Disadvantages
Disadvantage is something that makes someone or something less
effective, successful, or attractive. In other word, disadvantage is a bad features of
something.
Bazo (2007: 1) says that in order to prepare cue cards in class, ask the
pupils in plenty of time to look for small pictures from magazines related with the
particular topics you are going to work.
Traditionally the teacher is the only person who must make or provide
materials for use in class. However, teaching materials can also be made by the
students themselves as a class activity with the teacher’s help.
From the explanation above, it means that to make a cue card need much
time to prepare it. It is less effective if cue card used in direct activity without
preparations.
B. Review of Related Study
This section consists of 6 articles that researcher has collected through any
journals related to the use of Cue card media in language learning.
A research done by Eka (2007). She conducts a classroom action research
entitled “The Use of Cue Cards in Teaching Spoken Descriptive Text.” The
subjects of this research are the eighth grade students of SMP 13 Semarang in the
academic year of 2006/2007. The aim of the study is describe the process of
teaching and learning spoken descriptive by using cue cards and to find out the
improvement of students’ achievement in using cue card as the teaching media.
The result of the study shows that using cue cards as teaching media improves the
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average of the students’ speaking ability by 18.4 point, including students’
fluency (31.3 point), pronounciation (25.3 point), but unfortunately the grammar
aspect do not improve (-1.3 point).
Another study comes from Yuliani (2010). She carries out the study
entitled “ The Use of Cue Card in Teaching Spoken Descriptive Text.” It is aimed
to introduce cue cards media to the teacher as solution of the problems of teaching
learning process. Based on the reseach findings the researcher concluded that cue
cards as media can solve the problem on students’ spoken descriptive text. The
result of the study shows that using cue card as a teaching media improved the
average of the students’ speaking score. And she suggests that the use of cue cards
as teaching media can solve speaking difficulties, such as clustering, redundancy,
and reduced forms.
Sunarti conducts a research in 2010. She find that the use of cue cards can
improve the students’ writing ability of descriptive text. From the result known
that cue card is effective for improving ability on writing descriptive text. It
proved by the increasing of scoring rate. She also reports that applying cue cards
can help students to organize the text in good organization. The benefits of the cue
card is develop the motivation and confidence of the students in learning
vocabulary. The cue card also changes the students become more creative
through learning by doing.
Desti (2007) writes a research entitled “Teaching Vocabulary of Irregular
English Verbs by Using Cue Cards.” From the research finding it can be
concluded that cue cards can improve the students’ intelligence in acquiring
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vocabularies. She reports the application of cue cards that can give a new
paradigm for the students in fun and enjoy way.. It also helps the students to
understand, recall, and spell easily. Based on the result of the research, she find
that teaching vocabulary on irregular English verb by using Cue cards influenced
positively.
Morella (2008) in his article entitled “Using Cue Cards with Young
learners” concluded that: first, cue cards as teaching media can exploit the visual
and kinesthetic intelligence; second, cue cards can help students memorizing
vocabulary; and third, the use of cue cards contributes the attainment and
development of language learning process. Then, he suggests the teacher must
take advantage of the great variety of material and resources for teaching English,
such as cue cards, because cue cards is easy to be obtained or created.
Lastly, Cristian (2010), writes about “The Advantages of Cue cards.” He
explaines that students sometimes make mistakes when studying for college
learning too much materials in one time. This can make the learning process can
be overwhelming. Cue cards eliminates extraneous material as they can focus on
only the most important element of what students need to learn. The portability of
cue cards can improve efficiency in learning new material. By taking the cards
everywhere, students can use their time effectively, such as using it while walking
on the treadmill.
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C. Rationale
Writing is one of the four language skills that include listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. It is an activity that combines words to form meaningful
messages that the writer wants to express. For the students, writing seems to be
regarded as the most difficult skill among them. They find difficulties to write a
text, because they still have low ability in writing and feel anxious and frustated to
express idea in the written form and organize ideas into coherent and cohessive
form.
The students have serious problem dealing with writing descriptive text.
They have difficulty on all aspects of writing: ideas organization, content,
selecting appropriate vocabulary, grammatical sentences, punctuation and spelling
(mechanics) in writing.
In addition, during the lesson, students are very passive and have no
courage in giving ideas or asking questions. From the test given before the
research is done, it turns out that they still have serious problem with writing
descriptive text. It arises when the students use a native language into foreign
language. They just translate word by word from Indonesia into English. Based on
the observation and pretest conducted, it is found that the students’ writing ability
is still low. The students write essay with ungrammatical sentences, and their
ideas move away from the topic. They often make mistakes in using modifiers,
word choices, and punctuation. They still fail in writing and have difficulty in
grammar. And based on interview, most of the students answer that writing is
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difficult. They get difficulties in making grammatical sentences, word orders, and
choosing appropriate words.
There are factors why students get difficulties in writing descriptive text.
These factors are from the students, the teacher, and the class. The students factors
are: (1) they do not understand about descriptive text; (2) they have lack
imagination to expres some ideas in writing; (3) most of students have low
motivation in writing; and (4) Most of them come from the family which doesn’t
have educational background. Most of their parents are manual labourers,
farmhands, house maids, etc. Then, the teachers’ factors are: (1) Methods and
strategies are not appropriate; (2) The media are not various. The teacher usually
implements the subject by using a translation techique. It cannot improve the
students’ motivation . This condition leads to the students’ boredom in joining a
writing activity; and (3) The teacher do not consider that writing is a complex skill
in which it needs time for revising the content, grammar, and mechanics. The last
factor is the class. This is the impact of the first and the second factor. The
common complaint are: (1) The class activity is boring. Most of teachers are not
interested in teaching writing because it is time consuming in terms of teaching
preparation and evaluation. Those facts indicate that writing is indeed, not favorite
subject; (2) The class are narrow and near the railway station. The trains often
come and go everytime. The crowded situation can disturb the students’ learning
activity, and influence their motivation.
Using the appropriate media in teaching learning process can arouse
students’ interest to learn how to write a text. Cue cards have kinds of view which
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correspond to the facts, represent the object, and convey predication about a
certain object. It provides shared experience for students in the class and leads to a
variety of language activities. It has many advantages when it is implemented in
writing text: a descriptive text. The advantages are as follows: (1) It enables the
students to generate the words needed in writing descriptive text; (2) It is a media
for the students to express their ideas on; (3) It can stimulate mind, feeling,
attention, and willingness of the students.
The researcher uses cue cards because it can help students generate ideas
and organize them as well. Cue card provides an opportunity for non verbal
response, it means that the students can predict what is the kind of the text type
and recognize the meaning more quickly, so the cue card will be clearly,
authentically and be easy to illustrate the general idea and forms of an object. The
result of these, hopefully the students can write coherent, contextual, and
acceptable sentences into paragraph based on their experiences, and ideas.
Cue card is a useful media for the students to give not only a
brainstorming but also one of the media to arise the students’ imagination on
selecting appropriate vocabulary. It expresses by selecting a certain word (vocab),
a sentence then construct it into a paragraph. Cue card is also used in
recombination practice by giving questions and answer works, substitution, and
transformations that the students must adapt the basic sentence pattern.
Essentially, the activities challenge the students to remember and to manipulate
the language forms correctly. It is hope to help the students can write
grammatically sentences, spelling, and punctuation.
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In addition, cue card is used to describe of an objects, person, places, or
things by completing name, characteristic, capability, activity, of them.
Essentially, this activity to lead the students to write sentences into paragraph
based on the process of writing; planning, drafting, and preparing go to public.
Furthermore, cue cards seems to be the media which can help to solve the
problem of generating ideas (the content), vocabulary, grammar, organization, and
mechanics (spelling and punctuation).
D. Hypothesis
Based on the rationale and exploration of the theories above, it can be
formulated that teaching writing using cue cards can improve the students’ skill in
writing descriptive text, and using cue cards as media makes the teaching writing
more effectively.
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, the researcher explains the research methodology
involving: (1) Place and Time of Research; (2) Research Method; (3) Procedure
of the Research; (4) Data Collecting Technique; (5) Data Analysis Technique.
A. Place and Time of Research
1. Place of the Research
The research was conducted in SMP 2 Barat Kabupaten Magetan. It was
located on Jl Raya Tebon, Barat, Magetan. It was the school where the
researcher has been teaching English since 1999. Besides, in this school the
problem of writing is found.
2. Time of Research
The schedule of the research was as follows:
a. Preparing research proposal : July – August 2011
b. Seminar on research proposal : November 2011
c. Conducting research : November – January 2011
d. Writing research report : January 2011 – February 2012
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B. Research Method
In this research the researcher used Classroom Action Research. It was a
method in class in order to improve students learning. It was more systematic
and data base than proposal reflection, but it was more informal and personal
than formal research (Mettetal, 2001: 1). He also said that some steps in the
Classroom Action Research include: (1) asking a question or identify a problem;
(2) reviewing the literature; (3) planning the research strategy; (4) gathering
data; (5) making sense of data; (6) making decission about teaching strategies;
and (7) sharing of finding.
Kemmiss and Taggart (1998) in Hopkins (1993: 48) said that five steps
in the modeling method of the research are: (1) planning; (2) acting: (3)
observing; (4) reflecting; and (5) revising of planing.
The researcher used classroom action research to find the solution of the
problems in preliminary research significantly. The researcher wanted to change
the practice in teaching learning in the classroom. As long as the researcher
taught there, English teacher never used cue card as media in teaching English.
So, the researcher gave the alternative solution by using this media.
C. Procedure of the Research
The researcher presented the procedure of the research as follows:
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1. Preliminary Observation
It was done on July – August 2011. Based on the pretest, observation,
interview, and questionaire, the researcher identified the problems.
Learning problems
The learning problem of the students was writing. There were some
problems such as: (1) students had difficulty in writing paragraph (60.5); (2)
students had difficulty in finding the topic or idea (64.5); (3) students had
difficulty in vocabulary (64); (4) students had difficulty in mechanics, like:
capitalization, punctuation (63.5), and (5) grammar (61). Then, the writer
interviewed and gave questionnaire to the students. The results showed: (1) their
grammar and vocabulary mastery are limited; (2) teachers did not give a model
of writing to write a sentence or paragraph; (3) teacher did not give outlines to
his students to guide them in writing a sentence or paragraph; and (4) there was
no media to support and motivate them in writing.
Problem Formulation
Based on the identification of the problem above, the researcher
summarized that problems that needed to be overcome in the study are:
a. Writing problem according to indicators
1) The students had difficulty in expressing the ideas
2) The students had difficulty in organizing the text
3) The students had difficulty in using vocabulary
4) The students had difficulty in mastering grammar
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5) The students had difficulty in using the right mechanics (spelling and
punctuation)
b. The causes of the problem
· From students
1) The students did not understand about descriptive text
2) The students lack of imagination to express ideas
3) The students had low motivation
· From teacher
1) The teacher’s methods and strategies were not appropriate
2) The teachers did not use a media in teaching learning process
3) The teachers did not consider that writing is a complex skill
· Class condition
1) The class activity was boring
2) The classroom was narrow and noisy
2. Planning
Based on the problem formulation above, the planning were:
a. Setting out the procedures using cue cards in teaching and learning
b. Preparing the lesson plans, hand out, and materials of topic related to the
teaching and learning, here the writer used descriptive text.
c. Preparing some instruments such as interview guide.
d. Preparing of some specific criteria of success to evaluate the result of their
works.
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3. Implementing the plan and observing
Based on the problem above, the researcher applied cue cards media in
teaching writing. The media of cue cards used some stages. The research was a
classroom action research.
In that case, the researcher gave focus only on the descriptive text. The
researcher began to explain the descriptive text, how to develop their vocabulary
to write descriptive text, how to organize the paragraphs, how to make outline,
and how to use mechanics of writing (spelling, and the punctuation). The steps
of the activities were:
a. Giving the modeling of descriptive text to open and explore their knowledge
of the topic and their idea.
b. Developing their vocabulary by identifying the picture on cue card.
c. Constructing the simple sentences by using the appropriate grammar and
mechanics.
d. Making outline based on the cue cards, so the students were easier to
generate idea and arrange the sentences into paragraphs.
e. Asking students to write a draft based on the outline that had been done
before
f. Discussing about the draft to review it.
4. Reflecting
Then, researcher and the collaborators did reflection to analyze data and
determine whether that activity was successful or unsuccessful. Researcher uses
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test, observation, questionaire, and interview to know the effect of using cue
cards in teaching writing. Then, the researcher examined the strengths and
weaknesses of implementing cue cards media.
The researcher made some notes on the improvement in writing. The
teacher also gave the suggestion on what aspects should be increased, and asked
some students to help each other to make the outlines. And to read some kinds of
texts to get the information related with the topics.
E. Data Collecting Technique
The researcher collects the data using some techniques, they were:
1. Qualitative data
a. Observation
In that research, the observation had been done to cover the process of
implementation of cue cards media in teaching writing. The observation noticed
classroom events and classroom interaction. In that research, the researcher was
a teacher who teaches writing using cue cards media. She was as a direct
observer who observes the activities during the implementation of cue cards
media. The researcher also asked her collaborators to observe the teaching
learning process. Furthermore, collaborator observed, evaluated, and offered
suggestion about the implementation of cue cards media in teaching writing.
b. Interview and Questionnaire
The interview and questionaire had been done to get information from
the students and the collaborator. The information covered their understanding
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of the cue cards media, the implication the students’ writing skill, and the
strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of cue cards media. The
technique or strategy was considered successful if:
1) Students were happy in using cue card media in teaching learning process;
2) Teachers felt that the media can help in teaching learning process;
3) The students were more active and creative in teaching learning process;
4) The students were happy to be able to develop in cooperative studying with
their frieds in teaching learning process;
5) The students had high motivation to study using the media;
6) The students’ skill in writing sentences and paragraphs were better than
before. Here, the researcher’s media was using cue cards to improve the
students’ writing skill.
c. Document Analysis
The document was in the form of students’ portofolio and final product
of writing. By analyzing them, the researcher got information about the students’
progress in writing. Here the researcher analyzed the portofolio in each meeting
of the students to know the improvement of their achievement of their skill in
writing descriptive text based on the cue cards. She analyzed five elements of
writing test; content, organization, words choice, grammar, and mechanics.
2. Quantitative data or test
In study, the researcher used written products of the process of writing to
measure the students’ achievement in writing skill. The researcher gave pre-test
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and post-test to know the students’ writing skill before and after teaching writing
using cue card media. Its aim was to know whether the students’ writing skill
was successfull or not. The researcher applied analytical method in scoring.
In administering a test, it was important to set and determine an
understandable instruction. It was necessary since there had been some cases in
which students failed to do the test due to their ability to understand the given
instruction. Hughes (1989: 39-40) mention some factors to write good
instruction. First, the instruction to be clear and explicit, Second, it should avoid
the supposition that the all students all know what is intended. Third, the test
writer should not rely on students’ power of telephaty to elicit the desire
behavior.
From the explanation above we know that the test has readability. It
means if the test was tested to some students out of the sample group, they
understood the instruction of the test and they did as they asked to. Thus,
readability was important to set and determine an understandable instruction.
On November 13th 2011 the researcher held the try out of readability to
the students of class VIII F of SMPN 2 Barat Magetan that consists of 30
students. The condition of this class was the same as the sample class. The
instruction was: “Write a descriptive text (about three paragraph) consisting of
definition and description about people’s physical appearances.”
The following table was the statements of readability try out and the
students only answered it by giving thick in the colomn “Ya or Tidak.”
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Table 3.1. Try out of Readability NO PERNYATAAN YA TIDAK
1. Instruksi mudah dipahami dan dimengerti
2. Instruksi dapat dikerjakan dengan baik dan benar
3. Instruksi jelas dan tidak berbelit-belit
4. Instruksi dengan mudah dapat diterima
5. Instruksi cukup sederhana
From the result of try out of readability, the researcher got unsatifactory
result. It can be seen from the the following table:
Table 3.2. The Result of Readability Try Out NO PERNYATAAN YA TIDAK
1. Instruksi mudah dipahami dan dimengerti 22 8
2. Instruksi dapat dikerjakan dengan baik dan benar 16 14
3. Instruksi jelas dan tidak berbelit-belit 20 10
4. Instruksi dengan mudah dapat diterima 19 11
5. Instruksi cukup sederhana 18 12
The first instruction had too long sentence. As the result, it was not good
enough. It was proved from the students’ score in some aspects. The score was
under 75%. Then, the researcher revised the instruction into three sentences.
1. Write a simple descriptive text (about three paragraph).
2. Write the first paragraph as definition.
3. Write second and third paragraph that describe people’s physical appearances
and profession.
After that, the researcher held the second try out of readability to the
students of VIII F of SMPN 2 Barat Magetan. The result can be seen from the
following table:
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Table 3.3. The Score of the Second Try Out of Readability NO PERNYATAAN YA TIDAK
1. Instruksi mudah dipahami dan dimengerti 27 3
2. Instruksi dapat dikerjakan dengan baik dan benar 25 5
3. Instruksi jelas dan tidak berbelit-belit 24 6
4. Instruksi dengan mudah dapat diterima 23 7
5. Instruksi cukup sederhana 23 7
From the table above showed that the score of the second try out of
readability reached 75%. So, it can be said that the second try out was readable.
Then, the reseacher used this instruction to the sample class to do the task.
Table 3.4. Writing Rubric
Trait (indication) 0 1 2 3
Relevance and adequacy of content
Compositional organization
Adequacy of vocabulary for purpose
Grammar
Mechanical accuracy (punctuation and spelling)
Table 3.5. The Description of Writing Traits
Aspect Score Description
Relevancy and adequacy of content
0 1 2 3
Bear almost no relation to the task Limited relevance to the task Mostly answer to the task Relevant and adequate answer to the task
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Compositional organization
0 1
2
3
No apparent organization of the content Very little organization of content. Underlying structure not sufficiently apparent Some organizational skills in evidence, but not adequately controlled Overall shape and internal pattern clear, organizational skills adequatelly controlled
Adequacy of vocabulary for purpose
0
1
2
3
Vocabulary in adequate even for thr most basic part of intended communication Frequent inadequacies in vocabulary for the task, perhaps frequent lexical inappropriacies and/or repetition Some inadequacies in vocabulary for the task, perhaps some lexical inappropriacies and/or circumlocution Almost no inadequacies in vocabulary for the task. Only rare inappropriacies and/or circumlocution
Grammar 0 1 2 3
Almost all grammatical pattern inaccurate Frequent grammatical inaccurate Some grammatical inaccurate Almost no grammatical inaccurate
Mechanical accuracy (punctuation and spelling)
0
1 2 3
Ignorance of conventions of punctuation, almost all spelling inaccurate Low standard inaccuracy in punctuation in spelling Some inaccuracy in punctuation and spelling Almost no inaccuracy in punctuation and spelling
F. Data Analysis Technique
1. Quantitative Data
To analyze the quantitative data, the researcher used mean score. It had
been used to know whether there was significant improvement between the
students’ scores before and after being given a treatment. The formula was as
follows:
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2. Qualitative Data
In analyzing the qualitative data, the researcher analyzed the
improvement of teaching learning process by using Constant Comparative
Method as suggested by Glaser and Strauss (1980: 105). This method had four
steps, namely: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category; (2)
integrating categories and their properties; (3) delimiting the theory; and (4)
writing the theory. The following are brief explanation of it:
a. Comparing incidents applicable to each category
The researcher started by coding every incident in her data into as many
categories which had close relationship to the research problem.
b. Integrating categories and their properties
The researcher classified the information which had the same characteristics
into one category and found out the relationship between them.
c. Delimiting theory
After categorizing the information, the researcher analyzed the relationship
from one category to the other categories.
d. Writing the theory
After knowing the relationship among the categories, the researcher could
develop proposition.
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CHAPTER IV
RESEARCH FINDING AND DISCUSSION
In this chapter, the researcher wants to present research findings which
describe the activities conducted during the implementation of using cue card to
improve the students’ skill. The description are gotten from the teacher’s and
collaborator’s field notes, the result of interview to the students and collaborator,
the result of questionaire, and the result of test.
A. Research Findings
1. Introduction
This research began when the researcher realized that the students had
some problems in English, especially in writing. It was based on the preliminary
interview to them that most of them said that writing is difficult. Knowing it, the
researcher did preliminary observation. It was done on 5th of November 2011 to
students of class VIII A SMP Negeri 2 Barat, Magetan. In that activity, the
researcher asked the students to write descriptive text about the famous people.
They worked individually within the time given.
Based on interview to the students they faced some difficulties in all
aspects of writing namely: ideas/content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and
mechanics. It was supported by the result of pre-test. And the score of each
element of writing can be seen from the following table:
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Table 4.1. Average of Writing Components in Pre-test
No Components Corrector 1 Corrector 2 Mean 1. Idea/content 64 65 64.5 2. Organization 60 61 60.5 3. Vocabulary 64 64 64 4. Grammar 60 60 60 5. Mechanics 62 60 61 Average 62 62 62
From the table above it can be seen that their average score was 62. The
worst average score was grammar that was only 60. The average score of
organization was 60.5 and followed by mechanics which was 61, and vocabulary
64. The last element was idea/content which have average score 64.5. From the
writing score there were only 20% or 6 students who got writing score above 75.
It means that it could fulfill the passing grade, while other still failed. The students
scores showed that the most difficult element in writing was grammar. Then it
was followed by organization, mechanics, vocabulary, and idea/content.
Table 4.2. Computation Passing Grade in Pre-test
No Explanation Passing Grade
Number of Students Mean
Corrector I Corrector 2 1. 2.
Above Bellow
75 75
7 23
5 25
6 24
There are factors causing the problems, namely: from the students, the
teacher, and the condition of the class. The students’ factors are: (1) the students
did not like writing; (2) the students had lack immagination to express some ideas;
(3) the students had low motivation; and (4) the students did not know how a good
writing should be. It was also supported by the result of questionnaire. It shows
that from 30 students, there are 27 students (90%) who felt that writing was very
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difficult. The data also showed, that more than 80% students did not like writing.
Most of them felt that it was very difficult in making good sentences.
Furthermore, the students admitted that they need long time to make writing.
The teachers’ factors are: (1) the teacher did not use appropriate methods
and strategies; (2) the teacher did not use media; (3) the teacher did not consider
that writing is a complex skill which needs time for revising the content,
organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
The condition of class also influences the teaching learning process. From
the interview, the students’ motivation in learning writing and joining the English
class was low. Furthermore, the students were passive, lazy, and noisy. It was also
supported by the location of the classroom was which narrow and near the railway
station.
Dealing with the problems arising in the classroom, the researcher
proposed cue card media as solutation in teaching writing. And in the end of
study, the researcher has targets that students are able to develop their ideas, write
correct grammatical sentences, use appropriate vocabularies, use correct
punctuations and spelling, and organize them into good descriptive text.
2. The Implemention of the Research
a. Cycle 1
This cycle consisted of four steps, they were: planning, acting, observing,
and reflecting. There were four meetings in acting. Each meeting consisted of
three activities, they were pre activity, while activity, and post activity.
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1) Planning
Based on the problem found in stage of research finding, the researcher
and the collaborator to arrange a planning. The researcher and collaborator
decided using cue card as media to improve the students’ skill, especially in
writing descriptive text.
Generally, the researcher arranged general lesson for cue card applied in
the classroom action, the objective, and the planned schedule for cycle 1. There
were four meetings in it. And the activities included the preparation phase of
using cue card and the main phase of using cue card applied in teaching and
learning in the classroom.
The objective of using the preparation phase was to set the procedure of
teaching using cue card. There were two activities done in the phase; 1)
preparing/selecting some pictures to make a cue card based on the topic; and 2)
preparing card and other materials for students to make cue card as students’
hand out.
The next phase in the planning was the main phase of using cue card
applied in teaching and learning in the classroom. This stage was to describe in
detail activities of process implementing using cue card in the action to improve
students’ writing skill in the classroom.
2) Acting
a) First meeting
Preparation phase of using cue card in writing descriptive text was carried
on 15th of November 2011. It was done 10 minutes in the classroom. The teacher
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and collaborator prepared the cards in size of 4x6 inches (about 10x15cm) and
something such as glue or double tape to stick the pictures on the cards, while the
students prepared the pictures of famous people.
(1) Pre Activity
The teacher started the lesson by greeting and checking their attendance
list, asking their condition, and asking them to pray together. Then, she continued
lesson by asking the students wheter they knew or not about the picture on their
own cue card. The students gave their answers differently, “Justin Beiber, Bisma
Kharisma, Sandra Dewi, Avril Lavigne, Ayu Ting-ting, etc”. Although it was
crowded, they could answer who and how they were very familiar for them. After
that the teacher gave the topic about people’s physical appearances.
Ater that, the teacher guided the students to identify the picture on their
cue card and asked them to write beside the picture “who” was in the picture. For
example: a famous singer, a famous actress, etc.
(2) While Activity
Firstly, the teacher played role as a controller by explaining and giving
example to the students about the combination between adjective and nouns (noun
phrase) such as: beautiful face, pointed nose, long hair, blue eyes, etc. Then, the
teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics on their own cue
card and make it a list. In this activity the teacher wanted to improve the students
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vocabulary by identifying the picture on card. Although, they often opened the
dictionary to find some difficult words, they looked so enthusiastic.
Picture 4.1: students’ cue card about famous singer
While the students were making a list, the teacher explained what they had
written. Furthermore, she explained about the language features of descriptive
text, like specific nouns, adjective, and detail noun phrase. The teacher
emphasized that noun phrase is a group of related words that does not contain a
subject and a verb and the function is as noun.
After that, to solve the problem in grammar to write descriptive text the
teacher explained the use of present tense. For the positive sentence, it must added
by s/es, especially third singular person (he, she, it) and the students attended the
class very seriously. Furthermore, the teacher also explained about pronoun and
posessive pronoun which is used in the sentences. For example :
I ------------------------- my
You ------------------------- your
We ------------------------- our
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They ------------------------- their
He ------------------------- His
She ------------------------- Her
It ------------------------- Its
The next step was making outline. The teacher and the students discussed
together to make outline based on their own cue card. The teacher gave example,
and the students make it in their second cue card. So the students could easily use
it as the guidance in writing.
Here were the example:
1. Who is your favourite singer/artist/actrees?
2. Where does she/he live?
3. How old is he/she?
4. How does he/she look like?
5. How is his/her hair, face, eyes, etc?
6. What is his/her hobby?
7. What is his/her favorite food?
8. What about his/her profession?
9. Where does he/she work?
10. What does he/she do?
By answering all the questions, they could dig their ideas and contents of writing
to make a descriptive text.
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Picture 4.2: cue card of students’ outline
After that, the teacher explained about capital letter in the beginning and
the first name of people, coma, dot in the last sentence, etc. She asked the students
to make a simple paragraph with correct mechanics in their third cue cards. After
finishing, the teacher and students discussed the task together. She asked some
students to show their task and write on the board. For example, if the sentences
missed the capital letter at the first name of the people, the teacher would asked
them to pay more attention by saying, “ did the sentence have right mechanics?”
The students would be aware and try to analyze it more deeply. Whenever the
teacher found the mistakes in the sentences, she would ask the same question to
the students. She asked them to be more carefully in writing sentences.
Then, the students practiced to develop their simple writing of descriptive
text into their own paper. In writing phase, the students emphasized the
content/idea of writing, the use of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. The
teacher helped the students who faced difficulties in writing. She reminded the
students to be carefull in using punctuation and capital letter. In fact, the students
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did not pay attention in using punctuation. Even, they did not put it after finishing
writing one sentences. The teacher also reminded students about the organization
of descriptive text, they were: identification/definition, and description.
Picture 4.3: cue card of students’ worksheet
While the students were writing, the teacher moved around the class to
know their writing process. By moving around, she knew some of them made
mistakes in writing. She let them make some errors in their writing, for it was still
training stage. She wanted to discuss it next meeting in order to give them a
chance to check their products and correct it by themselves.
(3) Post Activity
Ten minutes before the times was up, the teacher remided the students that
their time would be ended in the ten minutes. She concluded the material and did
the reflection from the teaching learning process about what the students felt and
their difficulty during the activities. Before closing the lesson, the teacher asked
the students to finish their writing as homework. It would be discussed in the
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following meeting. Finally, the teacher ended the lesson by giving motivation and
saying good bye.
b) Second meeting
The second meeting was held on Monday, 22nd November 2011. It was
attended by the researcher as a teacher, her collaborator and 30 students
(1) Pre activity.
The teacher started the lesson by greeting and checking attendance list.
After knowing the classs condition, she asked students some questions about the
previous material, and asked their cue card about the famous people’s physical
apperances in it.
(2) While activity
In this step, the teacher asked the students to submit their cue card and
their writing. The teacher and collaborator corrected it, if they found some
mistakes. Not all their writings were shown. She choose six of them which were
the worst and the best. When the teacher showed them, she hid the names of the
writers. She showed the worst firstly, and asked them to analyze one by one from
the organization, content, vocabularies, grammars, spelling, and puctuations.
After discussing the students writing, the teacher gave back the paper to
the students to edit their mistakes. Next, the teacher asked the students to read
their writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to finish it. But it could
be effective for them to know how to create a good sentences, how to use the right
vocabularies and grammar, and how to improve their ideas in writing.
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(3) Post activity
After all students knew their product, the teacher asked them about their
opinion of using cue card to make a descriptive text. And most of them answered
that they enjoyed using this media because it can make the writing activities more
attractive. Before ending the class, the teacher asked the students to conclude the
material about descriptive text, its language features, generic structures, how to
create good sentences, and how to use the right pronouns and vocabularies. She
suggested them to be careful in writing. They had to pay attention more to its
aspect. Then, she informed the students that in the next meeting, they would write
descriptive text with different cue card about a famous footballer. And the teacher
asked them to make it at home. Finally, she ended the lesson by saying good bye.
c) Third meeting
The third meeting was held on November 24th 2011. It was attended by the
teacher, the collaborator, and 30 students.
(1) Pre activity
Firstly, the teacher opened the class by greeting the students, asking their
condition, and asking them to pray together. Then, the teacher asked the students’
cue card about a famous footballer. The students answered it enthuciastically,
Irfan Bachdim, Gonzales, David Becham, etc. After that, they identified the
picture on their cue card by writing “A Great Footballer” beside it.
(2) While activity
First, the teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics on
the picture. She explained and gave example first about the combination between
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adjective and nouns (or noun phrases) such as blonde hair, white skin, sharp nose,
etc.
Next, listing phase, the students wrote a list whatever words or phrases
from the characteristics on the picture. And the teacher asked what they had
written. Some of the students answered spontaneously. ”The language feature of
descriptive text ma’am”. Then, the teacher reminded the students about the
generic structures of descriptive text. After that, the teacher asked the students to
practice and develop their simple writing about descriptive text in their own paper
from the data (list) on their cue card.
Picture 4.4: students’ cue card about famous footballer
The first paragraph contains introduction/identification. Next, the detailed
characteristics, will be developed into “description”. In this stage the students
must arrange, organize, and develop their ideas. While the students were writing,
the teacher moved around the class to know their writing process. By moving
around, she knew some of them made mistakes in writing.
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(3) Post writing When then students finished their writing, they were asked to work in
pairs, and changed their cue card and their writing with their partner. They had to
check their partner’s writing and discuss it, make a corection if there were
mistakes.
Ten minute before the time was up. The teacher reminded the students that
their time would be ended in ten minutes. Then, the students and the teacher
concluded the material and did reflection from the teaching learning process about
what the students felt and their difficulty during the activities. Before closing the
lesson, the teacher asked the students to edit their writing as homework. She told
the students to write their writing in a good and neat. Finally, the teacher closed
the lesson by saying good bye.
d) Fourth meeting
The fourth meeting was held on November 29th 2011. The researcher, the
collaborator, and 30 students attended the class.
(1) Pre activity
Teacher greeted students and checked their attendance list. After knowing
the class condition, she asked some questions about the previous material.
She reminded the students about the characteristics of their own picture in cue
card.
(2) While activity
First, the teacher asked the students to submit their writing. The teacher
and collaborator read and corrected their writing, if there were mistakes. Then,
they gave back the paper to students to edit the mistakes. Next, the teacher asked
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the students to read their writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to
finish it. But it could effective for them to know how to create a good sentences,
how to use the right vocabularies and grammar, and how to improve their ideas in
writing.
(3) Post activity
After all students knew their product, the teacher asked them about their
opinion of using cue card to make a descriptive text. And most of them answered
that they felt enjoyed to write using this media. Because it can make the writing
activities more attractive. Before ending the class, the teacher asked the students
to conclude the material about descriptive text, its language features, generic
structures, how to create good sentences, and how to use the right pronouns and
vocabularies. She suggested them to be careful in writing. They had to pay
attention more to its aspect. The teacher informed that in the next meeting, they
would be writing evaluation. And the students were asked to prepare it
themselves. Finally, the teacher ended the class by saying good bye.
e) Fifth meeting
This fifth meeting was post test for the students. Teacher and collaborator
entered the class. The post test was held in December 6th 2011. Firstly, the teacher
greeted the students, asked their condition, and checked the student’s presence.
They were all present, 30 students.
The teacher then told the class about the test that day. The students had to
write about describing people physical appearances. The students had to choose
one of the titles provided. All of them were familiar with the students. The
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teacher and the collaborator decided to not allow them to look up their dictionary
in this test. The teacher told them that their writing would be scored based on
criteria: content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
The teacher gave the whole time in that meeting for the post test. She
asked to maximize the time in completing their writing. After the time end, all
studets submitted the test.
3) Observation
The observation stage was done to know the effects of action in solving
problems in writing the descriptive text based on cue card. The researcher’s
techniques were collaborative observation, and student’s interview,
questionnaires, and test. The observation and interview were done to know the
students’ condition and opinion during the teaching learning process by using cue
card, while test was done to know their writing result. It can be explained as
follows:
(a) The first meeting
In the first meeting, the teacher started the lesson by asking the students’
cue card. They were very enthuciastics to show it. They were very familiar for
them, like: Justin Beiber, Bisma Kharisma, Sandra Dewi, Avril Lavigne, Ayu
Ting-tin.g, etc. By the teacher’s guidance, the students identified their cue card,
like: a famous singer, a famous actress, etc.
In listing phase, the students were active writing the detailed
characteristics on their own cue card. They wrote it by using the combination
between adjective and noun (noun phrase). In this phase the students opened the
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dictionary if they found difficult words. They enjoyed it. It can improve the
students vocabulary by making a list
The next step was making outline by using the picture on cue card. By
discussing between students and teacher, they can make outline well. So, the
students could easily use it as the guide in writing. And they felt enjoyed to do it
because they wrote something they like about their idol. Although they had some
difficulties at the beginning, they could do it well. They wrote seriously in writing
phase. They opened the dictionary if they found difficult words, and sometimes
asked to the teacher and collaborator.
While writing process, the teacher moved around the students to know
their writing. By moving around, she knew some of them make mistakes in
writing. Because it was still training stage, she let them made some errors.
Teacher gave them a chance to check and correct their writing by themselves.
When the bell had already rung, the teacher asked to finish it at home. The teacher
wrote down all of the students difficulties in her note book. It would discussed in
next meeting.
(b) The second meeting
In the second meeting, the teacher asked the students to submit their cue
card and their writing. The teacher and collaborator corrected their writing, if they
find some mistakes. Not all their writings were shown. She choose six of them
which were the worst and the best. When the teacher showed them, she hide the
name of the writer. She showed the worst firstly, and asked them to analyze one
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by one from the organization, content, vocabularies, grammars, spelling, and
puctuations.
After discussing, the students writing the teacher gave back the paper to
the students to edit their mistakes. Next, the teacher asked the students to read
their writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to finish it. But it could
effective for them to know how to create a good sentences, how to use the right
vocabularies and grammar, and how to develop their ideas in writing.
Before ending the class, the teacher and the students concluded the
material and did reflection from the teaching learning process during the
activities. Then, the teacher informed to the students that in next meeting they
would write descriptive text with different cue card, and asked them to make it at
home.
(c) The third meeting
In the third meeting, the teacher asked the students’ cue card about a
famous footballer, like: Irfan Bachdim, Gonzales, David Becham, etc. Then, the
teacher asked the students to identify the picture on their cue card and to write “A
great footballer” beside it.
First, the teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics on
the picture. She explained and gave example first about the combination between
adjective and nouns (or noun phrases), such as: blonde hair, white skin, sharp
nose, etc.
In listing phase, the students wrote a list whatever words or phrases from
the characteristics on the picture. Then, the teacher reminded the students about
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the language feature and the generic structure of descriptive text. After that, the
teacher asked the students to practice and develop their simple writing about
descriptive text in their own paper from the data (list) on their cue card. While the
students were writing, the teacher moved around the class to know their writing
process. By moving around, she knew some of them make mistakes in writing.
When the students finished their writing, they were asked to work in pairs,
and changed their cue card and their writing with their partner. They had to check
their partner’s writing and discuss it. After that, made a corection if there were
mistakes. The teacher asked them to conclude the material about descriptive text,
its language features, generic structures, how to create good sentences, how to use
the right pronouns and vocabularies. She also told the students to write their
writing in a good and neat. Because they would display their writing in the wall
of classroom. Before ending the class, the teacher and the students concluded the
material and did reflection from the teaching learning process about what they felt
and their difficulty during the activities. At last, the teacher gave them motivation
and said good bye.
(d) The fourth meeting
In the fourth meeting, it was the time to publish the students product. First,
the teacher asked the students to collect their writing. The teacher and collaborator
read and corrected the students’ writing if there were mistakes. Then,they gave
back the paper to students to edit the mistakes. Next, the teacher asked the
students to read their writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to finish
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it. But it could effective for them to know how to create a good sentences, how to
use the right vocabularies and grammar, and how to develop their ideas in writing.
After all students knew their product, the teacher asked them about their
opinion of using cue card to make a descriptive text. Before ending the class, the
teacher asked the students to conclude the material about descriptive text, its
language features, generic structures, how to create good sentences, and how to
use the right pronouns and vocabularies. She suggested them to be careful in
writing. They had to pay attention more to its aspect. The teacher informed that in
the next meeting, they would be writing evaluation. Finally, the teacher ended the
class by saying good bye.
(e) The fifth meeting
The fifth meeting was the writing evaluation. The result of writing test
showed that after the fourth meeting, the students had better understanding on the
descriptive text. They could develop their idea and improve their vocabulary
well. They knew the generic structure of descriptive text and organize their
writing. The outline helped them to do it. Most of them could develop the outline
easily and enjoy the writing activities.
The elements of writing was improved. It was showed in the students’
score of writing.
a) The Improvement of the Student’s Writing Skill
The improvement of their student writing skill could be seen from the
result of the final drafting that there was improvement in some elements of
writing descriptive texts, especially: in aspects of content, vocabulary, and
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mechanics. Adequate was in organization. However, in grammar was still
decrease that the student got low competency in writing descriptive text. The
reason that grammar was very difficult for them the remind and recall them in
written texts. Especially, they did not know how to use singular and plurals verbs,
and how to use auxiliary verb. Therefore, they did not write negative and
interrogative sentences. The result of the descriptive statistics in the following
table show the highest and lowest score of each cycle, the means, and the average.
Table 4.3. The Result of Statistical Account of Point Score in Cycle 1 No Element of Writing Score
1 Contents 75.5 2 Organization 67 3 Vocabulary 77 4 Grammar 68 5 Mechanics 68 Average score 71.1
Table 4.4. The result of Statistical Account of Point Score in Cycle 1 No Points Pre-test Post-test
1 The highest score 80 86 2 The lowest score 46 53 3 Mean 62 71.1 4 Passing grade 75 75
Table 4.5. The Result of Statistical Account of Student’s Score Passing Grade of Cycle 1
No Points Pre-test Post-test
1 The students who get above 75 6 13 2 The student who get under 75 24 17 3 Passing grade 75 75
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b) The improvement of the Student’s vocabulary and Developing ideas
The improvement of the student’s vocabualry, we could see in the learning
process significantly. They found some new of vocabularies that they said in their
writing descriptive text. By making a list based on the pictures on the cue card,
they knew about the meaning of words easily and quickly. In addition, they got
some new information and knowledge about the people physical appearances,
such as: blonde, wavy, flat, pointed, strong, round, oval, etc.
c) The Improvement of Motivation and Interest
All the student and the English teachers in that research that joined in te
classroom felt that they were happy in the teaching and learning English using cue
card. Especially when the students discussed together about their result group,
arranged the picture in a good position, and matched the pictures and its
description. They were more active and creative in cooperative interaction among
the students in their group to finish their work as well as possible.
4) Reflection
This stage goal at examining the result of the action in the first cycle
accompanied with analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. The result of the
reflection then was used as arranging the general planning in the second cycle.
The student’s expression that was important in the matter namely: 1) what they
felt; 2) the strengths of using cue cards in teaching learning of cycle 1; 3) the
weaknesses of using cue card in teaching learning of cycle 1; and 4) suggestion to
be done in second cycle. We expressed them in our note daily talking, in
discussing about using the cue card in the classroom, and by answering the
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questionnaires. The organization of repirting this reflection included; 1) the result
of using cue cards in teaching learning ; and 3) suggestion
a. The Result of Using Cue Card in Teaching and Learning
Based on the data analysis in the cycle 1, the research concluded that four
improvements were expected as what were predicted before, namely; a) the
improvement of the student’s writing skill. b) the improvement of the student’s
vocabulary; c) the improvement of motivation and interest; and d) the new
problems.
The first, the result of using cue card in teaching learning, it could develop
the mastery of writing descriptive text. It is started in developing the vocabulary,
then followed the implementation of the grammar that have to use the students in
writing a simple sentences up to a simple paragraph. Furthermore, after
understanding the grammar, they would be easier to make the outline based on the
pictures and the models of text. It was useful the support them with the new
information and knowledge about the object that would help them to write and
describe the people’s physical appereances in descriptive text.
The second, the improvement of the student’s vocabulary was rising
significantly. Using cue card had to grow their motivation, their vocabulary and
helped them write a simple sentences by creating and adapting the models of
description text enjoyable. In addition, using cue card and knowing much more
vocabulary, really would help them to develop their knowledge and innovation.
They could create cue card by exploring the internet, reading magazine, and
reading book. They realized that by collecting the pictures would help them to
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develop their expression not only in language aspects but also in psycology
aspects.
The third, the improvement of elements language (grammar, punctuation,
and spelling), the student of Junior School was low. If the students were analyzed
about their writing especially in some aspects, their writing would be known that
they did not know about the language elements. In addition, their teachers were
never explaining the aspects of language seriously in their teaching. Nevertheless,
after the students knew the importance of mechanics aspects, they were giving
more notice and more carefully in creating and writing paragraph in English, they
had to use not only properly in mechanics but also in vocabulary.
The fourth, the improvement of motivation and interest of the students
could be seen in during of process teaching and learning in the classroom. They
were very happy to get some idol pictures in their cue card. Using cue card helped
them to be more active and creative.
b. The Strengths of using Cue Card
Ø The strengths of writing in cycle 1
The strengths of using cue card in cycle 1 could be summarized in
some points, namely: (a) the students can develop their ideas/contents in
writing; and (b) the students can use English words to write the sentences or
paragraph in good writing.
Ø The strengths in teaching learning process
Implementing of using cue card in teaching learning had some the
strengths to improve the writing capability in descriptive text. They were
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some points namely: (a) the students were happier in joining the English
classroom using the cue card; (b) they were more active and creative in
teaching learning using the cue cards; (c) the students had high motivation.
c. The Weaknesses of using Cue Card
Ø The Weaknesses of Writing in cycle 1 Using Cue Card
The weaknesses of using cue card in cycle 1 could be seen in data
analises that could handicap of the goal in improving the student’s writing
skill. The weaknesses could be summarized in some points, namely; (a)
the students were still confused to organize their writing in good
organization; (b) the students were still low in using grammar. It is
difficult for them to write grammatically correct sentences or paragraph;
and (c) they had some errors in mechanics.
Ø The Weaknesess in Teaching Learning Process
The weaknesess of using cue card in teaching learning process
could be summarized in some points, namely; (a) the students were very
crowded while implementing the cue card in writing process; and (b) the
classroom was very dirty after teaching learning process.
5) Recommendation
Based on the findings, weaknesses, and strengths found in the previous
section, in could be identified that there were two still important aspects the
students need to improve: (a) Using correct grammar, mechanics, and
organization that they could write well and proportional; (b) planning to make
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the class situation effective and condussive. Therefore, it was recommended to
do the follow things in cycle 2: (a) using some cue cards which is suitable with
the topic of discussion; (b) discussing more about grammar, especially in
simple present tense, pronoun, posessive adjective, posessive pronoun,etc.
Students were doing some exercises about that material based on their own
cue card. It means that they could make sentences to do the task using the
picture on their card; (c) discussing more about organization, especially to
make outline of descriptive text; (d) asking the students to pay attention to
use the correct punctuation, capital letter, dot, questions mark, etc; (e) asking
the students to prepare the cue card in their home related to the topic in that
meeting, so when the lesson began all of them were ready with their own cue
card without making the classroom dirty and crowded.
b. Cycle 2
Based on reflection in the cycle 1, the students encountered some
problems. The first problem dealt with the language elements, especially in
using grammar, organization, and mechanics. That is why the teacher
explains and discuss them about good writing dealing with the grammar,
organization, and mechanics. The second problem dealing with the condition
of teaching learning process. That is why the researcher asks them to prepare
the material at home. It is hope to make the class situation will be more
effective, condussive, and controlled.
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1) Revising the Plan
After knowing the result of cycle 1, the researcher and collaborator
designed the action. The researcher prepared a lesson plan, students’
worksheet, and schedule for cycle 2. There were four meetings in this cycle.
The text being written by the students is still descriptive text. Based on the
finding and reflection, the researcher and collaborator revised the activities
covering the problems in previous discussion: (a) using some cue cards which
is suitable with the topic of discussion; (b) discussing more about grammar,
especially in simple present tense, pronoun, posessive adjective, posessive
pronoun, etc; (c) discussing more about organization, especially to make
outline of descriptive text; (d) asking the students to pay attention to use the
correct punctuation, capital letter, dot, questions mark, etc; (e) asking the
students to prepare the cue card in their home related to the topic.
After finishing fourth meetings, the teacher hoped that all the students’
difficulties had been solved. Finally, the researcher preceded the final stage or
evaluation as the process of implementing cue card in writing descriptive text.
There were four points important, namely: (1) what they felt; (2) the strengths
of implementing cue card; (3) the weaknesses of implementing cue card; (4)
the suggestion.
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2) Implementing the Action
a. First Meeting
The first meeting was held on Tuesday, 13th of December 2011. It was
attendend by the researcher as a teacher, her collaborator, Mrs.Ely Susilorini
and 30 students. All of them could join the class.
(1) Pre activity
Firstly, the teacher opened the class by greeting the students, asking
their condition, and asking them to pray together. Then, she asked the
students’ cue card that has prepared at home. She also asked whether they
knew or not about the picture on their own cue card. They answered it
differently, “Nikita Willy, Agnes monica, Baim wong, etc.” Although it was
litlle crowded, they could answer who and how they were very familiar for
them. Then, the students write beside the picture “A Famous Actress.”
After that, the teacher explained the material that was to review
students’ difficulties in grammar, organization, and their application in the
right sentence with its correct spelling, punctuation, and mechanics.
(2) While activity
Firstly, the teacher played role as a controller by explaining and giving
example to the students about the combination between adjective and nouns
(noun phrase) such as: beautiful face, pointed nose, long hair, blue eyes, etc.
Then, the teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics on
their own cue card and make it a list. In this activity the teacher want to
improve the students vocabulary by identifying the picture on card. Although,
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they often opened the dictionary to find some difficult words, they look so
enthusiastics.
While the students were making a list, the teacher explained to the
students about the language features of descriptive text, like: specific nouns,
adjective, and detailed noun phrase. After that, to solve the problem in
grammar the teacher distributed another cue card as a hand out covering
about the task. Before the students completed the task, the teacher explained
about the verbs, which enanble to use in the Simple Present Tense. The
teacher would discuss about sentences, which covered two different verbs.
They were some sentences, which covered to be, and the other was verb 1, or
V+(s/es). In the task, the student had to complete sentences correctly. Teacher
reminded them to be carefully, they would make mistakes when they
completed the sentences. It was important to determine whether they used to
be or V1 and V+(s/es) in the sentences. Then, the teacher asked the students
to make three sentences based on the cue card, which they had learned. The
three sentences were positive, negative, and interrogative sentences. They had
to make sentences in two categories. The first, they had to write sentences
which covered to be. Second, they had to write the sentences which covered
singular or plural verbs.
Next, the teacher continued the activity by asking the students to tell
about the kind of subject they had known. She showed the other kinds of
pronouns as possesive, then she wrote some sentences that consisted of
pronoun as subject, possesive, and object.
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Agnes Monica is a beautiful artist. Her hair is straight Many fans like her
Teacher asked the students to guess the function of bold words by
analyzing the sentences presented. By teacher’s guidance, the students could
understand the material. After they understood about pronouns, she asked students
to apply the knowledge step by step. The first, she asked them to complete the
sentences by using pronouns. She asked them to do and share their ideas in group.
After discussing, the teacher asked students to make sentences using pronouns
based on the data presented. They tried to finish the task in the limited time.
The next problem was mechanics. The teacher explained about capital
letter in the beginning and the first name of people, coma, dot in the last sentence,
etc. Then, the teacher asked the students to work in pairs. She distributed cue card
to discuss and make a paragraph with correct mechanics. After finishing, the
teacher and students discussed the task together. For example, if the sentences
missed the capital letter at the first name of the people, the teacher would asked
them to pay more attention by saying, “ did the sentence have right
mechanics?”The students would be aware and try to analyze it more deeply.
Whenever the teacher found the mistakes in the sentences, she would ask the same
question to the students. She asked them to be more carefully in writing sentences.
The next step was teacher gave explanation about organization of writing
descriptive text. Organization had covered structural development including a
functional introduction, body, and conclussion (definition and description). In
definition, it covered the explanation of the object’s identity. And in description, it
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covered the detailed description of the object (eg: description of physical feature,
characteristics, habit, job, etc). Besides, students were very active to answer the
teacher questions in describing their favorite idol orally.
After that, the teacher and students discussed together to make an outline
to write a descriptive text about the idol in their own cue card. Although the class
very crowded, finally they can make outline well. It must cover the organization
of descriptive text. Then, she asked the students to write paragraphs based their
own outline individually. Here, she asked the students to be carefull to write a
draft. They had to write a draft of descriptive text which covers all elements of
writing. The elements of writing text were content, organization, vocabulary,
grammar, punctuation, and spelling. In content, the students had to be able to
describe the general object clearly, acceptably and distinctively. In organization,
the students had to write a draft including the structure of a draft with an
introduction, body, and conclusion. Then, in vocabulary, the students had to write
their draft using words and phrases effectively. While in grammar, punctuation,
and spelling, they had to use the grammar, punctuation, and spelling correctly.
And the teacher and collaborator helped the students who faced difficulties in this
activity.
While the students were writing, the teacher moved arround the class to
know their writing process. By moving arround, she knew some of them making
mistakes in writing.
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The teacher let them make some errors in their writing. She wanted to
discuss it next meeting in order to give them a chance to check their product and
correct it by themselves.
(3) Post Activity.
The main activities ended at ten minutes before the time was over. The
teacher and the students concluded the material and did reflection from the
teaching learning process about what the students felt and their difficulty during
activities. Before closing the lesson, the teacher asked the students to finish their
writing at home. The teacher asked them to study hard and do more exercises at
home about the material today. Finally, she ended the lesson by giving motivation
and saying good bye
b. Second Meeting
The second meeting was held on Tuesday, 20th December 2011 at 07.00
a.m. It was attendend by the researcher as a teacher, her collaborator, Mrs. Elly
Susilorini and 30 students. No body were absent.
(1) Pre Activity
The teacher started the lesson by greeting, and checking attendance list.
After knowing the class condition, she asked students some questions about the
previous material. Then, she checked the students’ homework.
(2) While Activity
In this step, the teacher asked the students to submit their cue card and
their writing. The teacher and collaborator read and corrected it if they find some
mistakes.Not all their writing were shown. She choose six of them which were the
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worst and the best. When the teacher showed them, she hid the name of the writer.
She showed the worst firstly, and asked them to analyze one by one from the
organization, content, vocabularies, grammars, spelling, and puctuations.
After discussing the students writing, the teacher gave back the paper to
the students to edit their mistakes. She asked the students to read their writing in
front of the classrom. It needed long time to finish it, but it could effective for
them to know how to create a good sentences, how to use the right vocabularies
and grammar, and how to develop their ideas in writing.
(3) Post activity
The lesson ended at ten minutes before the time was up. The teacher and
the students concluded the material and did reflection from teaching learning
process about what the students felt and their difficulty during activities. Before
ending the class, the teacher informed that the next meeting they would write
descriptive text with different cue card about “comedian” at home. Finally, she
ended the lesson by giving motivation and saying good bye.
c. The third meeting
The third meeting was held on January 3th 2012. It was attended by the
teacher, the collaborator, and 30 students. No body were absent.
(1) Pre activity
Firstly, the teacher opened the class by greeting the students, asking their
condition, and asking them to pray together. Then, the teacher asked the students’
cue card about comedian. There were, Nunung, Andre Taulani, Sule, etc.
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(2) While activity
Firstly, the teacher played role as a controller by explaining and giving
example to the students about the combination between adjective and nouns (noun
phrase) such as : beautiful face, pointed nose, long hair, blue eyes, etc. Then the
teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics on their own cue
card and make it a list. In this activity the teacher wanted to improve the students
vocabulary by identifying the picture on card. And the students sometimes open
the dictionary to find some difficult words.
While the students were making a list, the teacher explained to the
students about the language features of descriptive text, like: specific nouns,
adjective, and detailed noun phrase. And to solve the problem in grammar, the
teacher reminded the students about the use of Simple Present Tense. There were
two types of sentences. The first type was covered to be, and the other was verb 1,
or V+(s/es). It was important to determine whether they used to be or V1 and
V+(s/es) in the sentences.
Next, the teacher continued the activity by asking the students to tell about
the kind of subject they had known. She showed the other kinds of pronoun as
possesive, then she wrote some sentences that consisted of pronoun as subject,
possesive, and object.
Teacher asked to the students to guess the function of bold words by
analyzing the sentences presented. By teacher’s guidance, the students could
understand the material. After they were understand about pronouns, she asked
students to apply the knowledge step by step. The first, she asked them to
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complete the sentences by using pronouns. Then, she asked them to do and share
their ideas in group. After discussing, she asked students to make sentences using
pronouns on the board. And they tried to finish the task in the limited time.
The next step was teacher reminded about organization of writing
descriptive text. In organization had covered of structural development included a
functional introduction, body, and conclussion (definition and description). In
definition, it covered the explanation of the object’s identity. In description, it
covered the detailed description of the object (eg: description of physical feature,
characteristics, habit, job, etc). The students were very active answered the teacher
questions in describing their favorite idol orally.
After that, the teacher and the students discussed to make an outline of
writing descriptive text. Although the class was very crowded, finally they can
make outline well. She asked the students to develop it in paragraphs
individually. Here, the teacher asked the students to be carefully to write a draft.
They had to write a draft with the specific of descriptive text which covers all
elements of writing. The elements of descriptive text were content, organization,
vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics . In content, the students had to able to
describe the general object clearly, acceptable and distinctive. In organization, the
students had to write a draft included the structural of a draft with an introduction,
body, and conclusion. Then vocabulary, the students had to write their draft used
words and phrases effectively. While in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, they
had to use the grammar, punctuation, and spelling correctly. Meanwhile, the
teacher and collaborator helped the students who faced difficulties in this activity.
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While the students were writing, the teacher moved around the class to
know their writing process. By moving around, she knew some of them making
mistakes in writing.
When the students finished their writing, they were asked to work in pairs
and changed their task. They had to check their partner’s writing and discuss it.
After that, made a corection if there were mistakes.
(3) Post activity
Ten minute before the time was up. The teacher reminded the students that
their time would be ended in ten minutes. The teacher and the students concluded
the material and did reflection from the teaching learning process about what they
felt and their difficulty during activities. Then, the teacher told the students to
write their writing in a good and neat. Finally, the teacher closed the lesson by
saying good bye.
d. The fourth meeting
The fourth meeting was held on January 10th 2012. The researcher, the
collaborator, and 30 students attended the class.
(1) Pre activity
Teacher greeted students and checked their attendance list. After knowing
the class condition, she asked students some questions about the previous
material. She reminded the students about the characteristics of their picture on
cue card. Then, she told to the students that they would continue to publish their
writing.
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(2) While activity
First, the teacher asked the students to collect their writing. The teacher
and collaborator read the students writing and gave corrected if there were
mistakes. Then, they gave back the paper to students to edit the mistakes. Next,
the teacher asked the students to read their writing one by one in front of the
classrom. It needed long time to finish it. But it could effective for them to know
how to create a good sentences, how to use the right vocabularies and grammar,
and how to improve their ideas in writing.
(3) Post activity
After all students know their product, the teacher asked them about their
opinion of using cue card to make a descriptive text. She concluded the material,
and did the reflection from the teaching learning process about what the students
felt and their difficulty during the activities. Before ending the class, the teacher
informed that the next meeting they would be writing evaluation. The students
were asked to prepare themselves. Finally, the teacher ended the class by saying
good bye.
e. The fifth meeting
This fifth meeting was post test for the students. Teacher and collaborator
entered the class. The post test was held in January 17th 2012. Firstly, the teacher
greeted the students and asked their condition and checking the student’s
presence. They were all present.
The teacher told the class about the test that day. The students had to write
about describing people physical appearances. The students had to choose one of
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the titles were provided. All of them were familiar with the students. The teacher
and the collaborator decided to forbid them look up their dictionary in this test.
The teacher told them that their writing would be scored based on criteria:
content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
The teacher gave the whole time in that meeting for the post test. She
asked to maximize the time in completing their writing. After the time end, all
studets submitted the test.
3) Observation
The observation was done toward the implementation of the action of
cycle 2. The objective was to collect the data about what happened during the
teaching learning process by which the researcher used to reflect action. The result
of the observation can be explained as follows:
(1) The first meeting.
In the first meeting, the teacher started the lesson by distributing some cue
cards. She asked whether they knew or not about the picture on their own cue
card. It was little crowded when they could answer who and how they were very
familiar for them
Firstly, the teacher played role as a controller by explaining and giving
example to the students about the combination between adjective and nouns (noun
phrase), etc.
In listing phase, the teacher asked the students to learn the detailed
characteristics on their cue card and make it a list. In this activity the teacher
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wants to improve the students vocabulary by identifying the picture on card. She
explained to the students about the language features of descriptive text.
After that, to solve the problem in grammar the teacher distribute cue
card as hand out to the students. At first the teacher explained about the verbs,
which enanble to use in the Simple Present Tense. The teacher would discuss
about sentences, which covered two different verbs. They were some sentences,
which covered to be, and the other was verb1, or V+(s/es). In the task, the student
had to complete sentences correctly. And the teacher asked the students to make
three sentences. There were positive, negative, and interrogative sentences. They
had to make it in two categories. The first, they had to write sentences, which
covered to be. Second, they had to write the sentences, which covered singular or
plural verbs.
Next, the teacher continued the activity by asking the students to tell
about the kind of subject they had known. She showed the other kinds of
pronouns as possesive, then she wrote some sentences that consisted of pronoun
as subject, possesive, and object.
The next problem was mechanics. By explaining about capital letter in the
beginning and the first name of people, coma, dot in the last sentence, etc, the
teacher asked the students to work in group. She distributed cue card to discuss
and make a paragraph with correct mechanics. After finishing, the teacher and
students discussed the task together. For example, if the sentences missed the
capital letter at the first name of the people, the teacher would asked them to pay
more attention by saying, “ did the sentence have right mechanics?”The students
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would be aware and try to analyze it more deeply. Whenever the teacher found the
mistakes in the sentences, she would ask the same question to the students. She
asked them to be more carefully in writing sentences.
The next step was teacher gave explanation about organization of writing
descriptive text. In organization had covered structural development including a
functional introduction, body, and conclussion (definition and description). In this
activity students were very active to answer the teacher questions in describing
their favorite idol orally.
After that, the teacher and students discussed together to make an outline
to write a descriptive text about the idol in their own cue card. And then, the
students were asked to write paragraphs based on their own cue card individually.
Here, the teacher asked the students to be carefully to write a draft. They had to
write a draft of descriptive text. The specific of a descriptive text that they had to
write a draft which covers all elements of writing descriptive text. The elements of
writing descriptive text were content, organization, word choice, grammar,
punctuation, and spelling. The content, the students had to be able to describe the
general object clearly, acceptably and distinctively. In organization, the students
had to write a draft including the structure of a draft with an introduction, body,
and conclusion. Then, in vocabulary, the students had to write their draft using
words and phrases effectively. While in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, they
had to use the grammar, punctuation, and spelling correctly. The teacher and
collaborator helped the students who faced difficulties in this activity.
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While the students were writing, the teacher moved arround the class to
know their writing process. By moving arround, she knew some of them making
mistakes in writing. The teacher let them make some errors in their writing. She
wanted to discuss it next meeting in order to give them a chance to check their
product and correct it by themselves.
Before the time was over, the teacher asked the students concluded the
material and did reflection. She asked the students about the difficulties during
teaching learning process. At last the teacher asked them to study hard and do
more exercise at home about the material today.
(2) The second meeting
In the second meeting, the teacher asked the students to collect their cue
card and their writing. The teacher and collaborator read and corrected it if they
find some mistakes. Not all their writing were shown. She choose six of them
which were the worst and the best. When the teacher showed them, she hid the
name of the writer. She showed the worst firstly, and asked them to analyze one
by one from the organization, content, vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and
puctuation.
The next step was discussing the students’ writing. The teacher gave back
the paper to the students to edit their mistakes. She asked the students to read their
writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to finish it. But it could
effective for them to know how to create a good sentences, how to use the right
vocabulary and grammar, and how to improve their ideas in writing.
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(3) The third meeting
In the third meeting, the teacher asked the students’ cue card about
comedian. There are, Nunung, Andre Taulani, Sule etc.
Firstly, the teacher played role as a controller by explaining and giving
example to the students about the combination between adjective and nouns (noun
phrase). Then, the teacher asked the students to learn the detailed characteristics
on their own cue card and make it a list. In this activity the teacher wants to
improve the students vocabulary by identifying the picture on card.
While the students were making a list, the teacher explained to the
students about the language features of descriptive text, like specific nouns,
adjective, and detailed noun phrase.
After that, to solve the problem in grammar the teacher reminded the
students about the use of Simple Present Tense. There were two types of
sentences. The first type was covered to be, and the other was verb 1, or V+(s/es).
It was important to determine whether they used to be or V1 and V+(s/es) in the
sentences.
Next, the teacher continued the activity by asked the students to tell about
the kind of subject they had known. She showed the other kinds of pronoun as
possesive, then she wrote some sentences that consisted of pronoun as subject,
possesive, and object. She asked to the students to guess the function of bold word
by analyzing the sentences presented. By the teacher’s guidance, the students
could understand the material. After they were understand about pronouns,
teacher asked them to apply the knowledge step by step. The first, she asked them
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to complete the sentences by using pronouns. She asked them to do and share
their ideas in group. After discussing, the teacher asked students to make
sentences.
The next step was teacher explained the students about organization of
writing descriptive text. In organization had covered of structural development
included a functional introduction, body, and conclussion (definition and
description). In this activity students were very active to answer the teacher
questions in describing their favorite idol orally.
After that, the teacher asked the students to make an outline to write a
descriptive text about the idol in their own cue card. Although the class was little
crowded, finally they can make outline well. Then, teacher asked the students to
write paragraphs based on their own cue card individually. Here, the teacher
asked the students to be carefully to write a draft. They had to write a draft with
the specific of descriptive text. The specific of a descriptive text that they had to
write a draft which covers all elements of writing descriptive text. The elements of
writing descriptive text were content, organization, word choice, grammar,
punctuation, and spelling. The content, the students had to be able to describe the
general object clearly, acceptably and distinctively. In organization, the students
had to write a draft including the structure of a draft with an introduction, body,
and conclusion. Then, in vocabulary, the students had to write their draft using
words and phrases effectively. While in grammar, punctuation, and spelling, they
had to use the grammar, punctuation, and spelling correctly. The teacher and
collaborator helped the students who faced difficulties in this activity.
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While the students were writing, the teacher moved around the class to
know their writing process. By moving around, she knew some of them making
mistakes in writing.
When then students finished their writing, they were asked to work in pairs
and changed their task. They had to check their partner’s writing and discuss it.
After that, made a corection if there were mistakes. Finally, the students and
teacher concluded the material and did reflection from the teaching learning
process about what they felt and their difficulty during the activities.
(4) The fourth meeting
In the fouth meeting, the students would continue to publish their writing.
The teacher asked the students to collect their writing. The teacher and
collaborator read the students writing and gave corrected if there were mistakes.
Then, they gave back the paper to students to edit the mistakes. The teacher asked
the students to read their writing in front of the classrom. It needed long time to
finish it. But it could effective for them to know how to create a good sentences,
how to use the right vocabularies and grammar, and how to develop their ideas in
writing.
After all students knew their product, she asked the students made
conclussion. Then the students and the teacher did reflection from teaching
learning process about what they felt and difficulty during the activities. At last,
the teacher gave motivation and said good bye.
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(5) The fifth meeting
The fifth meeting was the writing evaluation. The result of writing test
showed that after the fourth meeting, the students had better understanding on the
descriptive text. They could develop their idea and improve their vocabulary well.
They knew the generic structure of descriptive text and organize their writing. The
outline helped them to do it. Most of them could develop the outline easily and
enjoy the writing activities. The elements of writing was improved. It was showed
in the students’ score of writing.
Based on the observation in cycle 2, there were some results, namely: (1)
the improvement of students’ writing competence; and (2) the improvement of
students’ creativity in teaching learning.
a. The improvement of students’ writing competence
The improvement of students’ writing can be seen from the product of the
writing. It covered five elements (idea/content, vocabulary, mechanics,
organization, and grammar). And the result of the improvement could be seen in
the table below:
Table 4.6. Average of Writing Components in Pre-test, Cycle 1 and Cycle 2
Components Pre-test Cycle I Cycle 2 Idea/content 64.5 75.5 82 Organization 60.5 67 77.5 Vocabulary 64 77 80.5 Grammar 61 68 76 Mechanics 63.5 68 79
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From the table, it could be seen that all elements of writing improved
significantly and had passed of the minimum standard score (75). The
improvement of each elements could be seen from the following description:
1) The improvement of idea/content score
The chart below showed it from pre –test to cycle 2.
Chart 4.1. The Improvement of Idea/content Score
From the chart above, it can be seen that the mean score of content in pre-
test was (64.5), in cycle 1 (73.5), and in cycle 2 (82). It means that the score of
content/ idea reached above the minimal of standard score.
2) The improvement of organization score
The organization of the text was scored based on the structural
development in the text. Most of the students included definition/identification,
and description in their writing. The chart below described the improvement of
organization score from pre test, cycle 1, and cycle 2.
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Chart 4.2. The Improvement of Organization Score
From the table above, it can be seen that the mean score of organization in
pre test was (60.5), in cycle 1 (67), and in cycle 2 (77.5). The average score in
cycle 2 was above 75. It means that the students passed the minimum standard
score.
3) The improvement of vocabulary score
Vocabulary was scored based on the students’ ability in using proper
vocabulary to represent their idea. It was known that before the implementation of
cue card media in teaching writing, the students’ mean score was 64. After using
cue card, some students used a few vivid words and misused or repetitions words
and phrases. Some other students used effective vivid words and phrases. The
improvement of the students’ score could be seen from the following chart:
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Chart 4.3. The Improvement of Vocabulary Score
From the chart above, it can be seen that the mean score of vocabulary in
pre-test was (64), in cycle 1 (77), and in cycle 2 (80.5). It means that students’
score of vocabulary reached above the passing grade (75).
4) The improvement of grammar score
It had been stated in previous chapter that grammar was the lowest score
for the students. In cycle 1 and cycle 2, grammar was the lowest score too. The
students did not write using correct grammar. The error they made could distract
the reader. Only few students who wrote with correct grammar. The improvement
of the score could be seen as follows:
Chart 4.4.The Improvement of Grammar Score
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In pre test, the students mean score was 61. It was far below the minimum
standard score. After using cue card, there was 68 in cycle 1. But, the
improvement was still below the minimum standard score. In cycle 2, the mean
score was 76. It means that the mean score was a little above minimum standard
score.
5) The improvement of mechanics
In previous discussion had been stated that the students made mistakes in
using correct punctuation and spelling (mechanics). Besides, it was their habit not
to pay attention in using correct mechanics. After evaluating the students’
writing, some students wrote a few errors in mechanics and some students wrote
with mostly correct. The improvement of the students’ scores could be seen in the
following chart:
Chart 4.5. The Improvement of mechanics Score
From the chart above, it could be seen that the students’ score of
mechanics in pre-test was (63.5), in cycle 1(68), and in cycle 2 (79). It means
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there was improvement from pre test to cycle 1 and cycle 2. It was above
minimal standard score.
The result from the statistical account in the following table showed the
improvement of the students’ mean score from pre-test, cycle 1, and cycle 2.
Chart 4.6. The result of Statistical Account point score
From the chart above, it could be seen that the mean score in pre test was
62. It means that the score was still below the minimal standard score. There
were many students failed in writing evaluation. After implementing cue card
media in cycle 1, the mean score was 71.1. The score was below the passing grade
of writing (75). There were some students got score below 75. In cycle 2, the
mean score was 78.9. It reached above minimal standard score.
The following chart showed number of the students who got under 75 in
pre-test, cycle 1, and cycle 2.
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Chart 4.7. The Score under 75 in Cycle 2
From the chart above, it could be seen that the students who got score
under 75 in pre test were 24 students. After applying cue card media, the number
of students who got under 75 became 17 students in cycle 1 and 4 students in
cycle 2.
b. The improvements of students’ writing skill.
The improvement of the students’ writing skill could be seen from the
result of final drafting. In the fourth meeting, the teacher showed their products.
Some products in the second cycle were better than the product in the first cycle.
Almost all students could develop their ideas/contents in writing. They feel that
before using cue card in writing English is difficult to find ideas, but after using
cue card they can develop their knowledge easily and effectively.
The improvement of students’ writing skill is also supported by improving
their vocabularies. The picture on cue card has significant rule to improve the
vocabulary of the students. It could be seen from their activity in creating and
adapting their writing from the cue card. By using cue card and knowing much
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more vocabulary, they had opportunity to write sentences or a paragraph more
acceptably and effectively.
In mechanics, the students could write using punctuation, spelling, and
mechanics correctly. They could state when they had to use the capital letter,
commas, and dots, only a few students could not do it perfectly. The teacher and
collaborator also found only few students who made mistakes in spelling.
In organization, the students had good understanding the function of
outlines. It made their writing matched between the content and organization. In
grammar they could use pronoun based on its function. They could use posessive,
object, and subject. In noun phrase they could create it based on the English rules.
They still found difficulties in using simple present tense. Some of them still
forgot to add “s or es “ at the end of the verbs for third singular person.
4) Reflection.
This was the final stage in cycle 2. The stage is aimed at examining the
result of the action in second cycle accompanied with the analysis of its strengths
and weaknesses. Based on the observation, interview, and test, the researcher got
some fact dealing with the actions of the second cycle. The organization of report
in this reflection included: 1) The result of using cue card; 2) the strengths of
using cue card ; 3) the weaknesses of using cue card; and 4) recommendation.
(1) The result of using cue card media in teaching writing
Based on the data analysis in the cycle 2, the researcher concluded that
four improvements were expected as what were predicted before, namely; a) the
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improvement of the student’s writing skill. b) the strengths of using cue card; and
c) the weaknesess of using cue card.
The improvementof writing’s elements could be seen in the following
diagram.
Chart 4.8. The Average of Writing mean scores in pre-test, cycle 1, and cycle 2
From the chart above, it can be explained that the students’ scores keep
improving from pre-test to cycle 2. In cycle 2, the mean score of each indicator
reached above the minimal standart score(75). It can be said that the
implementation of cue card can improve students’ writing competence.
Using cue card in teaching writing could improve the number of students
who got score above 75.
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Table 4.7. Computation Of Passing Grade
Pre test Cycle 1 Cycle 21 above 75 75 6 13 262 below 75 75 24 17 4
No Explanation Passing Grade
Number of Student
The table above showed that the strengths of cue card in teaching writing
can improve students’ score in writing. The improvement of the score indicated
that there was improvement of the writing competence too.
The class situation of learning and teaching process also improved to
better condition. The improvement were: (1) improvement of students’ creativity
(2) improvement of students’ motivation (3) improvement of students’ interest.
(2) The Strengths of Using Cue Card
a) The strengths of using cue card in writing cycle 2
The strengths of using cue card in cycle 2 could be summarized in some
points, namely: (a) the students can develop their ideas/contents in writing;
(b) the students can use English words to write the sentences or paragraph in
good writing; (c) the students can avoid some errors in mechanics; (d) the
students were able to organize the writing; and (e) the students can write
gramatically correct sentences or paragraph.
b) The strengths of using cue card in teaching learning
Implementing of using cue card in teaching learning had some the
strengths to improve the writing skill in descriptive text. They were some
points namely: (a) the students were happier in joining the English classroom
using the cue card; (b) they were more active and creative in teaching
learning using the cue cards; and (c) the students had high motivation.
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(3) The Weaknesses of Using Cue Card
a) The weaknesess of using cue card in writing cycle 2
The weaknesses of using cue card in cycle 2 could be seen in data analyses
that could handicap the goal in improving the student’s writing skill. The
weaknesses could be summarized in some points, namely: (a) Some students
still could not write a lot. They wrote only two paragraphs consisting of
identification/definition, and description; (b) some students still wrote
without using the right capital letter, clear punctuation, subject, and verb. So,
the sentences was very difficult to be understood; and (c) four students still
got score under 75.
b) The Weaknesess in Teaching Learning Process
The weaknesess of using cue card in teaching learning process could be
summarized in some points, namely: (a) the students were still crowded while
implementing the cue card in writing process. They often spoke about their
idol with each other; and (b) it was need long process to make writing using
cue card.
5) Recommendation
Based on the findings, strengths, and weaknesses in the previous section,
the researcher decided to stop the cycle because the students’ mean score was
above 75. The four students who got under 75 would be taught in remedial
teaching till they pass the writing evaluation.
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B. Discussion
After the implementation of the action within two cycles, there were some
important points to be discussed. The points were: (1) Improvement of students’
writing competence; (2) the strengths and weaknesses of teaching writing using
cue card.
1. Improvement of students’ writing skill
It has been explained in the previous discussion that the classroom action
research was done due to the real condition found during the preliminary study. It
was found that the students’ writing skill was low. The mean scores was only 62.
The scoring was based on the elements of writing namely: content/idea,
organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics as stated by Nunan (1998:373)
that successful writing involves:
1) Mastering the mechanics of letter formation . 2) Mastering and obeying conventions of spelling. 3) Using the grammatical system to convey one’s intended meaning. 4) Organizing content at the level of the paragraph and the complete text to
reflect given/ new information and topic/ comment structures. 5) Polishing and revising ane’s initial effort. 6) Selecting and appropriate style for one’s audiences.
Facing the problems on writing there was a media. The teaching media can
be used to explain language meaning and construction, engage the students in
topic, or as the basic of a whole activity. One of them is cue card. Cue card is a
simple picture on a piece of card. Wright (1989 ) states that pictures for teaching
aids must meet such criteria like: (1) easy to prepare; (2) easy to organize; (3)
interesting, meaningful, and authentic; and (5) sufficient amount of language.
These criteria can be applied by some teachers: teachers of advanced adult
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students or teachers of exam classes, or teachers of beginner. Therefore, it is not
true as most people often say that pictures are all right for beginners and for
young people and not for advanced students and for exam.
Of the simplest picture but probably the most widely used is perhaps the
teaching aid called flashcard or cue card. It is just a simple picture on a piece of
card or paper. It is motivating and eye catching. It is mainly used for presenting
new lexical items, though it may also be used for review.
To overcome the problems above, the researcher used cue card media to
improve the students writing skill. After applying teaching using cue card, there
was improvement of the students’ mean score. The mean score in cycle 1 was
71.1 and the mean score in cycle 2 was 78.9. The students’ mean scores of each
element of writing showed progress too. The improvement is said successful
because it was already reaching the minimum standard score and even higher.
There were some factors which made the improvement. First, the use of
cue card helped the students in generating idea. In preliminary study, it was found
that the students needed long time to think and find the idea of writing. They said
that they had no idea about what to write about. By using cue card, the students
knew what to write about. They needed shorter time to start writing because they
could directly see the things to be written there. The fact was in line with Burn’s
and Broman’s (1975: 11) opinion as follows: “Picture will help a new topic or
catch the interest of the children as they look at point and talk about them.”
Meanwhile, Smaldino (2008: 56) states that to provide powerful visual support to
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abstracts ideas can be used pictures, charts, graphs, posters, and carton, hence the
students can produce themselves.
From the statement above, it could be explained that using cue card can
help the students to find main ideas. Furthermore, pictures as on cue card were
helpful in giving students ideas. Wright (1989: 147) states that picture as a part of
an event, and the event as a whole highlight the meaning of the new language.
Next, cue card also could solve the problem in organization. In
preliminary study, the students were confused what to write next. But, it did not
happen after applying outline in teaching writing. The students knew what to
write next, because there was outline that helped to organize the writing.
According to Raimes (1983: 36), ... pictures that show a similar scene or tell a
similar story provides materials that offer guidance on vocabulary, sentence
stucture, and organization yet lets students write about new subject matter.
The improvement of the students in writing was also supported by
improving their vocabularies. The picture had a significant rule to improve the
vocabulary of the students. It could be seen from their activity in creating and
adapting their writing from the cue card. By using picture, they get more
vocabulary, they had opportunity to write a paragraph or sentences more
acceptably and effectively. Therefore, they had to develop their knowledge and
innovation by exploring the internet and collecting the pictures to make cue card.
These findings were in line with Raimes (1983: 36) who states,‘... Pictures that
show a similar scene or tell a similar story provides material thats offers guidance
on vocabulary’. Another expert, Harmer (2001: 55) states that by showing
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pictures or by drawing them on the board the teacher can also ensure that the
students understand the meaning of word.
The problem in grammar, cue card could be improved because there was
listing step by identifying the characteristics. It was found after the
implementation of action till cycle 2. The teacher taught the use of correct
grammar and gave many exercises to improve the students’ grammar score. It was
in line with Raimes (1983:36) said that picture could also use to work with
grammar. The research proved that pictures on cue card could be media to
improve the students’ grammar.
Next, the students could improve their students’ score on mechanics
element. It has been stated in previous discussion that the students did not pay
attention to the use of correct punctuation and spelling. It was their habit to write
without paying attention to the use of punctuation and spelling in writing. They
did not put dot in the end of the sentence, use capital letter in the beginning of a
sentence, comma, etc. By using cue card students knew how to use capital letter in
the beginning of sentence and the name of their idol, and also correct punctuation
and spelling to write good sentences. Wright (1989: 17) states that picture
contributes to the context in which the language is being used. Another expert,
Heaton (1991: 135) also states that mechanical skill is the ability to use those
conventions peculiar to the written language correctly. Furthermore, he uses the
term mechanical skill for punctuation and spelling .
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The description above showed the reasons of the students’ improvement in
writing after using cue card media. In short, the use of cue card was to improve
the students’ writing skill.
2. The strengths and weaknesses of teaching writing using cue cards
The implementation of teaching using cue card had strengths and
weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses existed in the students’ writing
competence and the situation in teaching and learning process.
a. The strengths of teaching writing using cue cards
Related to the students’ writing competence, there were some
improvements reached from the implementation of using cue card in teaching
writing. They were the improvements of students’ means score in each
components of writing, the improvement of mean score and the improvement of
the number of students who got score above 75.
Besides related to the students’ writing competence, the strengths of using
cue card could be found in improving the class situation. The improvements
were: (2) Improvement of students’ creativity (3) improvement of students’
motivation; (4) Improvement of students’ interest.
(1) Improvement of students’ creativity
Cue card could improve students’ creativity. Creativity means the ability
to create something. The students would be more active and creative by
exploring the internet, magazine, newspaper, etc, to create cue card. According to
Wright (1989: 87) that picture can cue responses to questions, or cue
substitution through controlled practice. This opinion is supported by Everette
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(1997), “ By describing objects or things they can express their opinion from
many different viewpoints, stimulate them to write a story/poem about that image
– enhancing creative and language skills, and encourage the students to become
independent learners. After using cue card in teaching writing, the students could
create the descriptive text well. The students’ creativity is also reflected from their
ability in describing an object in their writing. They were more active and creative
in cooperative interaction among the students in their group to finish their work as
well as possible.
(2) Improvement of students’ motivation
One of the strengths of using cue card is improving students’ motivation.
All the students and the English teacher in that research felt happy in the teaching
and learning writing using cue card, especially when the students discussed
together about their result group, arranged the picture in a good position, matched
the pictures and its description, and identified the pictures. Wright (1989: 17)
states that pictures can motivate the students and make him or her want to pay
attention and want to take part. The students’ motivation also arose when they
described their idol. Harmer (2001; 51) states that motivation is some kind of
internal drive which pushes someone to do things in order to achieve something.
(3) Improvement of students’ interest
The researcher found that the students had better interest in writing
compared with before using cue card media. It could be seen from the fact that
they were more enthusiastic to write a text. They were happy in doing all steps.
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They also did the assignment seriously. Besides, they were more creative in
describing an object in the writing.
From the observation, it was found that the students had internal willing to
write by their own. They could participated all the steps seriously. Based on the
questionnaire, 30 students said that they enjoyed the class because the media of
teaching was interesting. Raimes (1983: 17) states that picture in the classroom
provides a stimulating focus for students’ attention.
The improvements of students’ interest in writing happen because they
enjoy the teaching and learning process using cue card. According to Smaldino
(2008: 56) Visuals can increase interest in lesson. From this statement, it could be
explained that cue card is one of visuals aids which can motivate learners by
attracting their attention, holding attention, and generating engagement in the
learning process.
b. The Weaknesses of teaching using cue card
Besides having strengths, the application of teaching using cue card in
teaching writing also having weaknesses. The weaknesses existed in the students’
writing competence and the class situation in teaching and learning process.
Writing using cue card has several steps, so it also needed long time to do. It
needed preparation phase to implement this media. Meanwhile, the students like
to speak themselves about their idol in cue card. It makes the class situation
crowded.
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded, that writing using
cue card has more strengths/advantages than weaknesses/disadvantages.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
This research was conducted to overcome the problem faced by the students of
grade VII SMP Negeri 2 Barat in academic year of 2011/2012. Based on the
finding in using cue card to teach writing, the researcher tries to make some
conclusion.
Firstly, cue card can improve students’ writing skill. It is proven by the
increase of students’ mean scores from 62 in pre test to 71.1 in cycle 1, and 78.9
in cycle 2. All mean scores of writing elements showed progress too. The mean
score of all indicators reached above the minimum standard score and even
higher.
Secondly, the implementation of teaching using cue card had strengths and
weaknesses. The strengths and weaknesses existed in the students’ writing skill
and the situation in teaching and learning process. The strengths of teaching using
cue card related to the students’ writing skill were the improvements of students’
mean scores in each components of writing, the improvement of mean scores and
the improvement of the number of students who got score above 75.
Besides related to the students’ writing skill, the strengths of using cue card
media could be found in improving the class situation. The improvements were:
(1) improvement of students’ motivation; (2) improvement of students’ creativity;
and (3) improvement of students’ interest.
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Besides having strengths, the application of teaching using cue card in
teaching writing also had weaknesses. The weaknesses existed in the students’
writing skill and the situation in teaching and learning process. Related to the
weaknesses of using cue card in the students’ writing skill, the researcher found
that not all students could follow the steps of using cue card media. Some students
who are left-brain thinkers tend to dislike the method. They are accustomed to
thinking rationally and logically. They like to make the outline or draft in writing.
On the other hand, the right-brain thinker enjoyed the steps of using cue card
because they accustomed to thinking imaginatively.
Related to the class situation in teaching and learning process, the weakness of
using cue card media made some students kept doing daydreaming in the
classroom. The next weakness was the class very dirty and crowded.
B. Implication
The result of this research implies that picture and its techniques is very
important for the teachers. They should use them in teaching learning in the
classroom in order to develop (1) the improvement of the students’ ability in
constructing descriptive text; (2) the improvement of exploring and organizing
ideas; (3) the improvement of students’ vocabulary; (4) the improvement of
students’ grammar; (5) the improvement of students’ mechanics; and (6) The
improvement of students’ creativity, motivation, and interest.
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Realizing that cue card is very essential in improving students’ writing
skill especially in writing descriptive text, some recommendations are put forward
to the English teachers, the institution, and the students.
Firstly, the English teacher can use some kinds of picture to make cue card
in teaching learning process. The teacher should have more active, creative and
innovative. Therefore, the students will become more interested and motivated in
joining English lesson. Here, the teacher can discuss with their students to look
for, and share the pictures to make cue card by exploring from the magazine,
newspaper, and browsing the internet.
Secondly, the school institutions facilitate to establish of English writing
Corner with its program to continue the improvement of the study, not only in
descriptive texts but also in the other texts.
Finally, for the students, they have to study hard and brave their opinion in
writing English. The should not be afraid, and shy or embarrased in expressing
their ideas. The must remember that who often practice, who get the best.
C. Suggestion
Considering the findings and the conclusion, the researcher would like to offer
some suggestions as follows:
1. Teacher
a. The teacher who faces the same problem in teaching can apply the media
such as cue card in teaching.
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b. The teacher should be patient in helping the students to solve their
problems.
c. The teacher is suggested to use various teaching media based on the
students’ condition.
2. Students
a. Students can use cue card in solving their problems in writing.
b. Students must have high motivation and interest in studying so they can
improve their skill.
c. The regular practice must be done because it will make students have
motivation and interest to get better achievement.
3. Other researchers
a. It is needed to do the research on using cue card media in teaching
listening, speaking, and reading.
b. It is suggested to use the findings of the research as a starting point in the
next research about the implementation of using cue card media.