PROPOSAL
IMPROVING STUDENT’S WRITING ABILITY THROUGH DIARY
(A Classroom Action Research at the PBI 5B
Pekalongan University in the Academic Year 2012/2013)
This proposal is submitted in a
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the mid term of Academic Writing
by
Sri Wahyuningsih
0630078712
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
TEACHERS’ TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
PEKALONGAN UNIVERSITY
2014
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This
chapter reviews the background of the study, statement of the problem,
objectives of the study, significance of the study.
1.1
Background of the study
English is the first language to be
taught ( Departement of Education and Culture, 1993: 28 ) however, for some of
English students might be difficult to learn. Therefore, having English as a
subject at their school seems to be a burden for some of them. There are many
strategies that can make English teaching and learning process communicative
but none is the best. Therefore a teacher must try to find out the appropriate
strategies to teach his or her students because the teacher has a very
important role in the teaching and learning process. One of strategies is using
creative language arts, such as song, essay, writing diary, and so on.
Structure is one of linguistic aspects which students the should learn, even
thought the students may find difficulties in learning and mastering English
writing skill. It is important to learn because it permeates all language
skill. Subiyakti ( 1988: 12 ) mentions that the objectives of the teaching of
English structure is as follows :
“Tujuan pengajaran structure ialah
membimbing para siswa dalam membentuk dan memakai kalimat yang benar dan baik
secara lisan maupun tulisan.
Nowadays in Indonesia, all of the
students at schools from primary school to university learn English as a
foreign language. The purpose of learning English is that students can
communicate in English both oral form and written one. Especially in senior
high school level, the students learn all English language skills like speaking
and writing.
Writing is one of the four language
skills. As stated by Finocchiaro and Brumfit (1983:149), “Writing should
reinforce and help extends the listening, speaking, and reading skills”.
Writing as one of the four language
skills is part of syllabus in English teaching. It can be seen from the
curriculum 2004, standard competency of senior high school (Depdiknas:2003)
starting the aim of English teaching is “Siswa mampu mengembangkan kemampuan
dalam bahasa Inggris dalam bentuk lisan dan tulisan. Kemampuan berkomunikasi meliputi mendengarkan
(Listening), berbicara (Speaking), membaca (Reading), dan menulis (Writing).”
From the statement above, the writer concludes
that writing can support the others language skills. It means that writing is a
complex domain to learn and to teach because it requires many skills. Before
doing and making a good writing, the students need to gather much information
by listening to other people, doing discussion with others, and reading more
books. By writing, the students can deliver their messages to their readers.
1.2
Statements of the problem
Based on the background of the study, the writer will formulates
the statement of problem as follows:
“How can diary improving
students’ writing ability to the students of PBI 5 B University of Pekalongan?
1.3
Objective of the study
The writer
conducted the aims of this study as follows:
“To identify the improvement of students skill in writing diary of PBI 5 B University of
Pekalongan.
1.4
Significance of the study
Theoretically the significance of this study is to introduce tecnique to improve writing skills. Besides, this study also signified to find out the advantages and
disadvantages of the use of writing diary in improving students’ writing ability. The research findings will also enrich the previous theories and
research findings about teaching strategy, especially for teaching writing.
Practically the research findings will give some advantages to the
English teachers and efforts to develop teaching learning strategy in school. Writing diary can be used as an alternative strategy that is the students can do to make they active writing in english.
Pedagogically the result of this study will give some advantages
for further research a reference and empirical evidence. This study can also
conduct to help educators in every level even subject of study to find a good
strategy in teaching writing.
1.5
Scope
and Limitation
This
study is focused on the classroom action research of the teaching writing by
using diary. The subject of this study
are students B class of english departments university of pekalongan academic year 2012/2013
1.6
Definition of Key Term
To avoid misunderstanding of the concept in this study, the writer gives
some definitions as follows:
1.
Writing skill
: Writing skills are specific
abilities which help writers put their
thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the
message ( Lingulink, 1999).
1.7
Outline of the study
This final project contains five chapters. With the purpose of facilitating
the reader to understand the study, this writing is organized as follows
:
Chapter I, Introduction. This chapter consists of background of
the study, statements of the problems objectives
of the study, significances of the study, definition of the key terms,
and outline of the research.
Chapter II, Reviewed related literature.
In this chapter contains review of the previous studies, theoretical review which contains Writing skills & Diary.
Chapter III, Methodology of The Research. This chapter
discusses the research design, setting of the research and subject of the
research instrument of the research, techmique of data collection, method of
data analysis.
.
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This
chapter concerns with the literature review that used as the basis to carry out
a research in this study. The literature reviews of this research namely:
previous studies, theoretical review, and the theoretical framework.
2.1
REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS STUDIES
There are some researches relate to this study. One of them was the
implementation of film to students’ writing skill in descriptive text. The
first study was done by the student of Pekalongan University, Ikhsanudin
(2012), entitled “The effectiveness of using CJ7 film to improve
students’ writing skill in descriptive text The
true experiment of eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Doro in the
academic year of 2011/2012”. The
writer took the whole students of VIII A and VIII B. The numbers of the
students were 32 students and 31 students. There were eight meetings during the
experiment, four meetings used treatments to experiment class, one to conduct
post-test, two meetings were to teach control class and one class was to
conduct post-test. In the test,
the average scores of the
experiment class and control class of
the students were 71.93(standard of deviation = 12.751) and
73.33(standard of deviation = 6.183).While
the independent samples test
table at the Equal
variances not assumed, was
obtained: t-value = -0.392 with
the Sig. (2-tailed) = 0.699.
t-value and t-table were
compared t-table = 2.045 and t-value =
-0.392, it means that
t-table > t-value so
that H0 was accepted and it
was significant (probability) because
the Sig value. = 0.699 and 95% confidence level, it means that Sig. > 0.05,
so H0 was accepted. It means
that there was no significant
influence in using
CJ7 film in teaching descriptive text. Then, from the
additional data collected the writer concluded
that there was
no significant influence
in using CJ7
film in teaching descriptive
text.
The previous research is the thesis
entitled “The
Use of Diary Writing in the Teaching of Writing Recount Text” (An Experimental Study at
the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Nurul Islami Mijen Semarang in the Academic
Year of 2009/2010) written by I‟in Ainatuz Zahiroh, (English Language Education of Walisongo
State Institute for Islamic Studies, Semarang, 2010).
The writer said that, the main
objective of this study is to find out the effectiveness of the teaching of
writing recount text with the use of diary writing.
After the research finished, she
said that there is a significant difference in writing recount text score
between students taught by using diary and those who taught by using non-diary
writing. It is showed the mean of experimental class is higher than control
class.
On the other hand, the test of
hypothesis using t-test formula shows the value of the t-test is higher than
the value of the t -table. The hypothesis is accepted. Based on the result, the
writer concluded that diary writing is effective to be used in the teaching of
writing recount text. It helped the students to solve their proble ms in writing
recount text and improve students‟ fluency in writing.
The research was aimed at proving whether
diary writing is effective to improve students’ skill in writing recount text
or not. The research was pre-experimental research design. The population of
this research was the tenth grade students at SMA Alkhairaat Kalukubula and the
sample was class XA. The number of the sample was 25 students. The writer
employed cluster sampling and adopted one group pre-test and post-test design.
The pre-test was used to measure the students’ skill in writing recount text
before treatment, and post-test was used to measure the students’ skill after
the treatment. Based on the result of both tests, the writer found that the
t-counted was 8.56. The level of
significance counted is set up at 0.05 and the
degree of freedom (df) of the table is 25 – 1 = 24. The writer found that t-table was
2.064. It showed that t-counted was higher than the t-table. It means that the
hypothesis of this research is accepted. In conclusion, the use of
diary writing was effective to improve the students’ skill
in writing recount text.( abstract of IMPROVING WRITING SKILL IN WRITING
RECOUNT TEXT THROUGH DIARY WRITING by Vita Ningrum, Ferry Rita, Hastini)
2.2
THEORETICAL REVIEW
2.2.1
Writing Skills
A. Definition of
Writing
“Writing is
functional communication, making learners possible to create imagined worlds of
their own design.” Writing as one of four language skills is considered as a
difficult skill because the writer should make some aspects in writing such as
content, organization, purpose, vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling in a
balance way.
Writing is the activity or occupation of writing, for
example books, stories, or articles. We can take more times to think and choose
words in order to express our idea, thought, and feeling. We still can make
editing or revision if it is not so clear to express what intends to write.
Writing is a progressive activity. This means that when you first write
something down, you have already been thinking about what you are going to say
and how you are going to say it. The after you have finished writing, you read
over what you have written and make changes and corrections.
Therefore, writing is never a one step actions; it is a
process that has several steps.Writing is a discovery process that involves
discovering ideas, how to organize them and what that you want to put over to
your order, so a lot of what a writer does as a writer doesn‟t actually appear
on the page. It is a means of
communication. Whenever the writer want
to write, he has to knowing the audience or reader, it will help in reaching
the the goal of communicating clearly and effectively.
Communication in writing tends to involve a thinking
process because writing requires the
process of selecting and organizing ideas into coherent and logical whole, so
in this case writing is undeniably based in thought. Finnochiaro says that writing has been
characterized as written thinking.
It means that writing is a way to produce language that
comes from our thought. In the writing process, the writer tries to developing
their ideas and feelings to produce into a good sentence, in order to inform
the other.
B. The Concept of
Writing
Oshima and Hogue ( 1983: 2 ) state
that a paragraph writing is a basic unit of organization in writing in which a
group of related sentences develops one main idea. They further explain that
three major structural parts of paragraph of : the topic sentence, supporting
sentences, and concluding sentence. It can be said that writing is : (1) a. The
act of one who writes, b. The act, practice, or occupation of literary
composition. (2) a. A written letter or words, b. A written composition, c. A
written or printed, notice, document (3) Composition in specific manner or for
a specific purpose. Furthemore, Oshima and Hogue ( 1983: 2 ) say that three
major structural parts of paragraph, they are the topic sentence, supporting
sentences, and concluding sentence. A topic sentence is a sentence which states
the main idea of paragraph ( of diary ). It is called the topic of the
paragraph and limits the topic that can be discussed completely in the space of
single paragraph of diary ( controlling idea ).
Supporting sentences are sentences
that develop the topic sentences by giving reasons, examples, facts, statistic,
quotation, comparison, definition, classifications, descriptive. A concluding
sentence is a sentence which signals the end of the paragraph of diary and leaves
the reader with importation points to remember.
Oshima ang Hogue ( 1983: 4 ) state there are two additional
elements of paragraph : unity and coherence. - Unity means that there is only
one main idea in the paragraph of diary. The main idea is stated in the topic
sentence and then each and every suppoting sentence develops. - Coherence means
that the paragraph ( in this study is diary ) is easy to read and understand
because, (1) The supporting sentences are in some kind of logical order, and
(2) The ideas are connected by the use of appropriate transition signals. The
relationship between the ideas is clearly shown by using appropriate transition
words and phrases such as “first of all”, the second important characteristic”,
“for example” and “in conclusion”. In summary, a well-written diary contains
five elements : a topic sentence, supporting sentence,a concluding sentence,
unity, and coherence
C. Types of
Writing
The type of writing system which exists in the native
language is
an important factor in determining to easy of speech with
which students
learn to write There are two types of writing:
a. Practical Writing
This type deals with the fact and functional
writing. It is purposed to special goal
that we can find it in let ters, papers, summaries, outlines, essays, etc.
b. Creative or Imaginary Writing
This type usually exists in literature. Such
as novel, romance, poem, short story, science fiction, etc.
D. Purposes of Writing
According to O‟Malley and Pierce, there are three
purposes of writing based on the types of writing in English language learning,
those are:
a. Informative
It is represented by “informative writing,”
that is purposed to share knowledge or information, give directions, and state
ideas to other. Informative writing involves describing events or experiences,
analyzing concept, speculating on causes and effect, and developing new ideas
that are purposed to inform something may important to the readers.
b. Expressive or Narrative
It is represented by “expressive writing” or
“narrative writing is” that is purposed to share a personal or imaginative
expression. Commonly it is composed by the writer story or essay. Expressive or
narrative often used to perform a pleasure discovery, story, poems, or short
play.
c. Persuasive
It is represented by “persuasive writing” that
is purposed to persuade the readers to do something. It effort to influences
others and initiate action or change. This type of writing includes evaluation
of book, movie, consumer product, or controversial issues.
E. Writing Process
There are three steps in writing process, they are
prewriting, writing, and revising. All
of those steps are important to make our writing better and systematic.
1.
Prewriting
Prewriting is the first step; it is preparation step before writing process. Prewriting gives warming up
the brain to gathering the ideas to write about. There are several ways to warm
up before we write.
a. Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a prewriting activity to
enlisting the ideas related the topic.
In this technique, we write down
every single thing that passing through or comes into our minds.
b. Clustering
Clustering is another technique to bind ideas.
We visualize our ideas using circles and lines which are interconnected one to
others. The topic is positioned in the
center of blank paper as a core circle, while the ideas are spread around.
There are the steps of clustering process:
1. Write our topic in the center of a blank piece
of paper and draw a circle around it.
2. Write any ideas that come into our mind about
the topic in circles around the main circle.
3. Connect those ideas to the center word with a
line.
4. Think about each of our new ideas, and then
connect them.
5. Repeat this process until you run out of
ideas.
2.
Writing
The next step is writing process. The
result of brainstorming or clustering in
prewriting process is guidance for us to write paragraph.
As we write, the first draft on your
paragraph, use the ideas we generated from prewriting as a guide. As we write,
remember to:
a. Begin with a topic sentence that states the
main ideas, include several sentences that support the main idea.
b. Stick the topic does not include information
that does not directly support the main idea.
c. Arrange the sentences so that the other ideas
make sense.
d. Use signal words to help the reader understand
how the ideas in your paragraph are connected.
3.
Revising
The last step is revising; it is the important
step to do after we have produced a draft. We have to analyze the content of
the draft may unclear, ambiguous or
confusing. We have to ensure that our paragraph is unified and
coherent and improve the grammatical accuracy. So, in this step we can enrich
our writing content with add new sentence to support others idea, or deleting
some sentences those are irrelevant with the topic.
It is almost impossible to write a perfect
paragraph on the first try, so it needs to be revised. The steps are:
a. Add new ideas to support the topic.
b. Cross out sentences that do not support the
topic.
c. Change the order of the sentences.
d. Using the following checklist to revise your
paragraph.
1. Make sure you have a topic sentence.
2. Cross out sentences that do not relate to the
main idea.
3. Check to see if the sentences are in the right
order.
4. Add new ideas if they support the topic
sentences.
5. Make sure you have included signal words to
help guide the reader.
6. Check the punctuations, spelling and grammar.
F. Writing Skill
Writing skills
are specific abilities which help students or writers put their thoughts into words in a meaningful form and
to mentally interact with the message.
It helps the learner gain
independence, comprehensibility,
fluency and creativity in writing.
Independence is the ability to function in a given area
without depending upon another's help. Independence writing is the ability to
write anything one can say or understand in his or her language without
depending upon another's help. Comprehensibility means the ability to be
understood; intelligible. Fluency is the ability to read, speak, or write
easily, smoothly, and expressively. Fluency skills are the ability to see
larger segment and phrases as wholes as an aid to reading and writing more
quickly. If learners have mastered these skills, they will be able to write so
that not only they can read what they have written, but other
speakers of that language can read and understand it.
G. Improving
Students’ Writing Skill
Improvement in
Oxford Learners Pocket Dictionary is the process of becoming or making
something better. Students are
person who is studying at a
college or university, person studying at
secondary school, and any person interested in a
particular
subject. The improving students‟ writing
skill can be done if there is a good
preparation of using aids, it will be possible for the teacher to create a good language learning process in
which the students‟ participation is dominant; as a result, the students‟
knowledge and skill can be improved. In
this study, diary is an aid that
uses to improve students‟ writing skill.
There are some
factors that can influence students‟ writing skill:
1. Limited vocabulary
2. Difficulty in organizing to write about
something
3. No motivation to write
4. Lack of confidence in grammar
Those are the
problems that mostly faced by students in writing. As a teacher, it is
important to help the students when they get problem. When teacher can play
their role, the students will be helped in their writing. The improvement of
students‟ ability in writing skill can be seen by look at the differences or raising the
students‟ ability in those factors.
H. Teaching
Writing Skill
Writing as one
of the four skills has always formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of
English. However, it can be used for a variety of purposes, ranging from being
merely a „backup‟ for grammar teaching to a major syllabus strand in its own
right, where mastering the ability to write effectively is seen as a key
objective for learners.
The important
given to writing differs from teaching situation to teaching situation. In some
cases it shares equal billing with the other skill; in other curricula it is
only used, if at all in its writing for learning role where students write
predominantly to augment their learning of the grammar and vocabulary of the
language.
Partly because
of the nature of the writing process and also because of the need for accuracy
in writing, the mental processes that a student goes through when writing
differ significantly from the way they approach discussion or other kinds of
spoken communication. This is just as
true for single-sentence writing as it with single paragraph or extended text.
Writing is
often not time bound in the way conversation is. When writing, students
frequently have more time to think than they do in oral activities. They can go
through what they know in their minds, and even consult dictionaries, grammar
books, or other reference material to help them. Writing encourages students to
focus on accurate language use and, because they think as they write, it may
well provoke language developme nt as they resolve problems which the writing
puts into their minds.
However, this
quite separates from the issues of writing process and genre. Since here
students are not writing to become better writers, they are writing to help
them learn better.
a. Implications
for Learning and Teaching
A consideration
of the writing process, and how speaking and writing are related to each
other-especially in a world of changing communication media-is not only of
academic interest. It also has implications for the way we teach writing.Many
traditional approaches, for example, failed to incorporate the kind of insight
into the writing process that we have been discussing.
In some
teaching, for example, students write a composition in the classroom which the
teacher corrects and hand back the next day covered in red ink.
The students
put the corrected pieces of work in their folders and rarely look at them
again. For many years the teaching of writing focused on the written product
rather than on the writing process. In other words, the students‟ attention was
directed to the rather than the how of text construction. Product approaches
expected the student to only analyze texts in term of what language they used
and how they were constructed.
b. Strategy for
Writing Teaching Process
There are a
number of strategies we need to consider for concentrate on the process of
writing, they are:
1.
Get students to plan writing
Before getting
students to write we can encourage them to think about they are going to write
by planning the cont ent and sequence of what they will put down on paper (or
type into the computer). There are various ways of doing this. Including, at
one end of the scale, brainstorming (where the students in pairs or groups come
up with as many ideas as they can through
discussion) to more guided tasks where the teacher or the course book
includes a number of activities which leads students to plan for a forthcoming
task. When students are planning we can encourage them to think not just about
the content of what they want to say but also about what the purpose of their
writing is, and who the audience is they are writing for.
2.
Encourage students to draft, reflect and
revise writing
Students who
are unused to process-writing lessons will need to be encouraged to reflect
on what they have written, learning how
to treat first draft as first attempt and not as finishes product. We may want
to train them in using and responding to correction symbols, we may offer them
revision checklist to use when looking through what they have written with a
view to make revision.
One way of
encouraging drafting, reflection, and revision is to have students involved in
collaborative writing. A pair of group of students working together on a piece
of writing can respond to each other‟s ideas (both in terms of language and content),
making suggestion for changes, and so contributing to the success of the
finishes product.
3.
Respond to students’ writing
In order for a process-writing approach to work well,
some teachers may need to rethink the way in which they react to their
students‟ work, in place of making correction to a finished version; they will
need, at times, to respond to a work-in-progress. This may involve talking with
individual students about a first, second, third, and fourth draft, will other
members of the group are working on their own. Alternatively, teachers can read
through a draft and then make written suggestions about how the text could be
reordered. This is especially appropriate, for example, when the class is
working in a computer at a time from a central console.
Another
possibility is for the teacher to write out their own version of how a section
of text might look better. Such reformulation will be beneficial to the student
who compares their version with their teachers.
It is not just
teachers who can respond to the students writing. It is useful to have students
look at work done by their colleagues and respond in their own way. Such peer
response may provide welcome alternative to the teacher‟s feedback as well as
offering a fresh perspective on the writing.
4.
General Concept of Text
Human
being lives in a world of words. When
these words are put together to communicate a meaning, a piece of text is
created. When speaking or writing to
communicate a message, there are constructing a text. When reading,
listening or view a piece of text, there
are interpreting its meaning.
In general,
text is an article which often read. It is
the language unity that expresses the meaning contextually. The limitation of
the text is that the text is not measure
the number of sentence or page, but the text is measured from the meaning
expressed and context. Thus, the quality of the text is not measured from the
quantity of the sentences.
According to
Hartono, text is a unit of meaning which is coherent and appropriate for its
context.Human beings are different from other creatures that live in a world of words. When these words
are put together to communicate a meaning, a piece of text is created. They
will think to express their expressions; it is mean human need to express their own in many ways
that can be understood by others. Human can use a text as one of the ways to
express their own. It means that when the writer uses language to write, he is creating
and constructing a text. When the reader reads a text, he is interpreting texts. Moreover, creating
and interpreting text also occur when
they are talking and listening.
Halliday and
Hasan said that a text is a social exchange of meanings. The meaning of a
sentence may have different meaning
according to the context. For example, I am buying a drink for everybody here,
and the mean of that sentence is one drink for all or one drink for each.
Therefore, the teacher must be able to
develop students‟ abilities to exchange the meanings in different points of
sentence.
2.2.2
DIARY
A.
The meaning of diary
Hornby says that a book, sometimes with spaces for each day of the
year, in which one writer about one’s daily experiences, record’s one’s private
thought.Diary is a record of events, transactions, or observations kept daily
or at frequent intervals. And diary is a daily log of experiences, especially
those of the writer.
B.
The benefit of writing diary
The simple act of writing in a diary may actually give you more
free time by helping to keep your life more structured and organized. Here are
some benefits of keeping a diary on a daily basis:
a.It can help you
stay organized
When you write down your activities of the day in diary form, you
get a clearer picture of how you're spending your time as well as an objective
record of your daily activities. Most people waste more time than they know and
having a written record can make you more aware of wasted time and
opportunities. By keeping a diary documenting what you do each day, you can
review your activities and make changes if you find you're not accomplishing
your goals.
b.
It can make you more disciplined
Setting aside fifteen to twenty minutes each evening to write in
your diary will help you develop focus and discipline. Instead of spending
twenty minutes in front of the television, you'll be doing a structured
activity that requires thought and focus. This kind of focus, once developed,
can help to bring success in other areas of your life. The discipline of
keeping a diary can help to motivate you to accomplish more in all areas of
your life.
c. It's a stress
reliever
Keeping a diary allows you to express your innermost thoughts which
can be an excellent way to relieve stress. If you don't feel comfortable
discussing your problems with another person, you can always express them in
your diary. Writing down your worries and concerns is an excellent catharsis.
Once you set aside that twenty minute period to write in your diary each night,
you'll begin to look forward to it as a welcome break from the hassles of the
day.
d.
diary is a true friend
The diary is a friend that will always listen, never judge and will
have no prejudice. You will get the diary next to you all time when you are
really in need of someone.
e. improve your
writing
The more you write the more your writing improves. So always try to
write something even if that might be a meaningless writing but your writing
skill will definitely improve.
f. teach you to express your thought clearly
The diary helps you to learn to express your thought clearly. Express your thought properly is an art which you can develop by writing a regular diary.
f. teach you to express your thought clearly
The diary helps you to learn to express your thought clearly. Express your thought properly is an art which you can develop by writing a regular diary.
C.
Example of Diary
Adapted from
Arthur Brooked & Peter Grundy, 1998:88)
Yesterday was
in some ways like any other day. I woke up at seven o’clock,
got up, showered, shaved and had my breakfast. Some
happening were less predictable.
For instance, I
heard on the radio that my team
won their match. I also got an unexpected bill through the post.
We had a new teacher at nine o’clock.
Every day has
pleasant and unpleasant events. I was pleased that my team
had won, but the big bill spoilt the
morning
D. Concept of the
Teaching of Diary Writing
Saleh ( 1985: 2
) states that teaching English as a foreign language means that English is
taught as school subject or a dual level solely for the purpose of giving the
learner a foreign language competence which he/ she may use to read literature
technical words and scientific book, to understand the dialogue in films, and
to communicate orally or in writing, with the people of other countries. Beside
that the writing skill is the fourth skills, the learner of English should
develop it. It is the hardest one, but the learner should be able to use
written English for the purpose of writing out forms, informal letters and
business letter also for diary. The way of writing composition can be saparated
into two ways, guided composition and free-Composition. Guided composition is
developed at the intermediate level. Free-composition is writing on a topic of
her or his choices in which the students are taught to express their ideas
clearly in practical writing, and it is engaged at the advanced level. The
teaching of writing diary in this study is doing through guided writing.
“Guide” means something that direct or influences ( conduct, etc ). The words
“guide” refers to the way that directs the students’ conduct, and writing
refers to the skill of expressing ideas in written form. It means that students
enable them to express their ideas in the form of diary, a group of sentences
using main idea.
In order to
make students’ able to express their ideas in writing diaries, it is necessary
for the teacher of English to teach them how a good diary is and what should
they have made a good diary or a standard of writing.
E. Diary Writing
This instance
of personal, expressive writing based on experience or recollection offers very
good insight on the students’ own perception of their learning process by
reflecting on their own lives. Additionally, they will gradually gain
independence from the teacher and autonomy in their learning. Learning diary,
in particular, is multidimensional self-evaluations that create a visible
record of the students’ linguistic growth and simulate the development of
meaning-making strategies, critical thinking and habits of reflective
questioning. A diary is personal record of events that happen over a period of
time, usually consist of date of each diary item, and be as brief or detailed
as the writer of diary like. Record events in the order in which they happened
it. Includes descriptions of the events, impressions about the events, feelings
triggered, and opinions the writer of diary formed based on the events. A diary
is personal and generally not meant for someone else unless the owner gives
permission for it to be shared. Concept of diary is a firsthand record of
ideas, impressions, feelings and opinions about the events in a persons’s life.
Record the events in the order in which they happen, in as brief or as detailed
a way as the writer of diary wish, for example :
June 21st,
2010. Dear diary, today I met Amy after I have been no see her for long time.
We talked everything that remains us fourth years ago, where we as a good
friend in high school. Hanging out and share everything together. That was a
beautiful moment, now she is a wife and mother for two daughters. I’m so glad
to know that, but also make jealous for her beautiful life, I wish that I can
be like her someday.
A written diary
consist of one or more sentences and the sentences should have a clear relation
with each other. In technical fields, the communicative aspect of writing has
gained widespread. Attention as writing has become one of the most widely used
modes of communication. Technical writing involves several genres of reporting:
oral presentations, technical reports, proposals, business letters, journal
articles ( Huckin and Olsen 1983 ).
However the
basic skill involved in writing diaries as their activity and report. The diary
writing describes their daily activity, write on their private book or in other
media, telling about their life. Besides its training teh students to write
well, this could be made the students closer to their teacher. It can also make
the students no seperated walls to learn. The content based approach, which
connects language with the study of specific academics, is widely advocated. In
teaching English for specific purposes. In teaching writing, it is seen as a
good way to develop thinking, researching, and writing ( Shih, 1986: 58 ).
Diary is a
book, sometimes with spaces for each day of the year, in which one writes about
one daily experiences, record one’s private history. In US, diary also means
calender of a book with spaces for each day of the year, in which one can write
down appointments, things to be done in the future, etc. example a desk diary
which consists of a note of the next meeting in diary. Beach and Bridwell (
1984: 47 ) state that if writing is linked to the specific subject matter
students are learning, the ability to think and learn can be strengthened simultaneosly
because of the students’ high motivation to study. In a word, the content based
approach in teaching writing enables student writing to experience the process
of learning to write and writing to learn. ( Shih 1986: 26 ).
Saleh ( 1996: 14-15 ) states that research
findings indicate that successful language learners are those who are not only
able to use the language correctly and appropriately in oral communication, but
also in written communication actively ( speaking and writing ) as well as passively
( reading and listening ). It means that written communication plays an
important role in communicative activities, especially in daily activities.
Diary writing, although not the focus of most writing courses, has probably
been one of the most effective and popular additions to writing activities.
Diary writing can allow a personal voice to develop, which is often lost when
only traditional basic writing skills are stressed. Because diary involves
students in non-threatening exploration and development of ideas. Diary usually
saves the secret of the writer’s life, the open sentences to help you write as
follows:
I wish.........My favorite things are........ I am happy if........>< I hate if......... The best thing of........is........ When I grow up, I will........ Tomorrow........ If only.........
I wish.........My favorite things are........ I am happy if........>< I hate if......... The best thing of........is........ When I grow up, I will........ Tomorrow........ If only.........
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY OF THE
RESEARCH
In this chapter the writer
discusses about research design, location and time of the study, object of the
study, techniques of data collection, procedures of the study, techniques of
data analysis and scoring technique.
3.1 Research Design
This research is Classroom Action research.
Basrowi and Suwandi states, Classroom Action Research is action
research in education sector what do in class area and have the goal to repair
and or to increase the learning quality.
It means that classroom action research is
a kind
of research has qualit y with do specific action so it can repair and or increase the learning practices in classroom with more
professional.
According to Arikunto, action research is one
of the type investigation that has characteristic reflective
participative, collaborative, and spiral that have purpose to repair
and to increase the system, method, process, su bstance, competence and
situation.
Elliot said classroom action research is study about social situation; it means to
improve action quality through diagnosis process, planning doing, observation
and learn about the influence that is affected.
Kemmis and
Taggort add in Nunan‟s book explain that action research is a group of
activity and a piece of descriptive research carried out by the teacher in his
or her own classroom, without the involvement of others, which is aimed at
interesting our understanding rather
than changing the phenomenon under the investigation that would not be
considered by these commentators to be „action research‟, the essential impetus
for carrying out action research is to change the system.
Wiriatmaja in his book Metode Penelitian Tindakan Kelas
states,classroom action research is method how a group of teacher can
organize his teaching learning condition
and learn from his own experience. Teacher can try idea
reparation in his teaching learning process, and look the real
effect o f those efforts There are some characteristics, aims and model of
classroom action research, they are:
1) Characteristics of a classroom action research
Kemmis and Mc. Taggort in Nunan‟s book argue that there are three defining
characteristic of action research, they are:
a. It is carried out by practitioners (for our
purposes, classroom teachers) rather than outside writers.
b.It is collaborative, and
c. It is aimed at changing things.
2) The aim of action research
There are many possible reasons for conducting
a classroom action research as
follow: The teacher wants to know more about his students
and the difficulties in learning process. Teacher wants to learn more
about him as teachers how effective
teacher is, how teacher looks to the
students, how teacher looks at himself as if
observing her own teaching. Teacher wants to gauge the interest generated by certain
topics, or judge the effectiveness of certain activities types. Teacher want
s to see if an activity would work
better done in groups rather than pairs,
or investigate whether reading is more effective with or without pre
teaching vocabulary.
The method of this research was action
research. There are two cycles in this research. Action research is an
educational attempt to improve students’ skill. The term problematic does not
mean that the teacher is an incompetent, but the point is that, as teacher
often sees gaps between actually in happening teaching situation and ideally
like to see happening. The cycle is
described through the scheme of action research phases as follows:
3.2 Location of
study
The writer would like to conduct an
action research that will be taken in the fifth semester b class students of university of pekalongan in academic year 2011/2013. In this case, the writer would like to implement the use of diary in improving students’ writing ability.
3.3
Subject of the study
a.
Population
Based on Sugiyono (2009:80), population is
generalization distinct that consist of object or subject which has specific
quantity and characteristic that ruled by the writer to take the conclusion.
The population in this research is fifth semester students of English departement university of pekalongan.
b.
Sample
Sugiyono ( 2009:
81) states sample is a part of number
and characteristic which is had by population. The collecting sample held by random sampling. Technique of random sampling used in this research
because based on the normality and homogeneity of the population is found that
it is normal distributed and has the same variance.
In this research, the
writer will take b class students of university of pekalongan in academic year
2011/2013 as the object of the study..
They are 40 students consist of 8 men and 32 women. The writer takes the object at b class students of university of pekalongan in academic year 2011/2013 to serve the object through “the
Classroom Action Research” in improving students writing ability through diary.
The Scheme of Classroom Action Research
Action
|
Reflection
|
Cycle I
|
Observation
|
Planning
|
Action
|
Cycle II
|
Observation
|
?
|
Reflection
|
Planning
|
2.2.3
Techniques of data collection,
The writer get the data from the
sources, because in every research there should be data to study. The data
source in a research basically subjects from data that will be got by the
student.
a.Test
According to Hornby
(1974; 193) test is as examination or trial to find its quality, value,
composition, etc. He also pointed out that the other fields in test are
knowledge, proficiency, comprehension and understanding about the subject
matter. Therefore, appropriate test is very crucial in process collecting data
because there are many subfields involved.
In this research,
the writer uses achievement test to collect the data from the
research object. John W. Best explains that the achievement test is such kind
of tool to measure what an individual has learned. Based on the John’s
argument, the writer thinks that achievement test is really appropriate
way to collect data for the research.
b.
Questionnaire
According to
Sugiyono (2008:199) questionnaire is a technique of data collection that is
done by giving a set of questions or a written statement to the respondent.
The questionnaire
used to know the students difficulties in writing.
2.2.4
Procedures of the study
This research
focused on the positive effect of using diary as the media to improve writing skill. The writer also hopes that
the students are able to write in a good sentence.
In this classroom action research,
the research is divided into two cycles. They are:
1.
Cycle
1
The cycle 1 in this classroom action research consisted of plan,
action, observation, and reflection as follow:
a. Planning
In planning, the writer made some plans,
as follows ;
1) The writer made lesson plan of collaborative writing.
2) The writer made instrument of evaluation for classroom action
research cycle.
3) The writer prepare the diary books.
b. Action
This research was conducted in two cycles. Every one cycle included
four meetings.
1. The First meeting
In first meeting,
the teacher will do the action as
follow;
a) The teacher explain recount text.
b) The teacher ask the students to make a group.
c) The teacher show a diary to the students.
2. The Second meeting
In second meeting,
the teacher will do the action as
follow;
a) The teacher asked the students to write recount text in group based on their own story.
b) The students write generic structure
of recount text
c) The writer evaluate the students’ work
c. Observation
The writer observe:
1) The situation of teaching and learning activity.
2) The students’ activeness in learning by diary.
3) The students’ competence in applying “writing recount text”.
d. Reflection
The result of
evaluation which will analyzed in cycle I, will reflected
to the cycle II. The teacher analyze the first cycle to know whether the action
of the cycle achieved the criteria based on the test result of the first
action. If the students’ ability in writing is less in cycle I, the writer
continue to conduct the cycle II.
2.
Cycle
II
The writer continues to conduct the
research of cycle II, to make complete the result in the cycle, the writer will
revise the lesson plan in the cycle II. Cycle II consists of
planning, action, observation, and reflection as follow:
a. Planning
In planning step,
the writer made some plans as follows;
1) The writer revised lesson plan of writing recount text.
2) The writer made instrument of evaluation for classroom action
research cycle.
3) Preparing diary for observation.
b. Action
The cycle II is the
revision of the cycle I that will be conducted with four
meeting. In one cycle included four meetings.
1) The First meeting
In first meeting,
the teacher will do the acting as follow;
a) The teacher show diary to the students.
b) The teacher asked the students to make a group.
2) The Second meeting
In second meeting, the teacher will do the action as follow;
a) The teacher ask the students to write recount text in group based ontheir own story.
b) The teacher give evaluation to the students.
c) The students write recount text by their own words.
d) To make the generic structure of recount text by the
students.
c. Observation
The writer will observe:
1) The situation of teaching and learning activity.
2) The students’ activeness in learning by using diary.
3) The students’ competence in applying “writing recount text”.
d. Reflection
The reflection will be done to know the
result of the students’ ability in applying writing recount text after giving revision. The reflection means for making
conclusions. The writer use cycle II as consideration things for measuring the
students’ ability accordance with the result of cycle I.
2.2.5
Techniques of data
analysis
The writer used some
analyzes for collecting the data:
1. Questionnaire
The questionnaire will given to get the information about the difficulties faced by the
students in writing recount text. The writer
analyze the data of questionnaire after they have been completed.
2. Observation sheet
In this research,
the observation get the data about the
strength and weaknesses of diary when it will be applied to improve
students’ recount writing skill. The writer analyzed the
observation sheet to get that information.
3. Test
Test is use to
assess the students’ recount writing skill by
using diary. This test is to know that the students’ recount writing skill by using diary improve or not. The
test will divided into two tests, they were:
1. Pre-test
The writer give pre-test to the students. The pre-test will in writing form. The students write recount text based on their idea. The pre-test will given before cycle I.
2. Post-test
The second test will be held after the writer apply the cycle to know
how far distinction of the students’ improvement in writing recount text by using diary.
After the tests done, the writer will analyze the students’ work.
To calculate the
mean score the writer use the formula:
Where:
: mean.
∑ : the total score
N : number of students
Glanz (1998:156)