Steps of the Research

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Reconnaissance

Identifying the problems is the first step in conducting action research. To identify the field problems the researcher conducted some activities. First, the research was started by identifying the problems in the classroom. Class observation was conducted to know the teaching and learning process. Second, interviews were also conducted to both students and the teacher. Those were conducted to gain more information related to the teaching and learning process and their writing problems. Third, a pretest was conducted to measure their writing skills. Generally, it was found that their writing skills were still low. They had several problems in writing. The first problem faced by students was content. They had difficulty in developing ideas they wanted to write. In the pretest, they were given 40 minutes to write their favorite narrative texts especially a fable in at least three paragraphs. During the test, most of them were confused and were not confident to write. In the first ten minutes, most of their worksheets were still blank. They did not get ideas in a flash of inspiration. They could not express their ideas and thoughts freely. As a result, most of their stories were not finished yet. It was because they lacked vocabulary and they were afraid of making mistakes dealing with the sentence structure. Sentence structure mastery was the next problem. Students had a problem with the sentence structure. They were confused about how to construct sentences. It was supported by the following interview transcript. The next problem faced by students was vocabulary mastery. It could be said that their vocabulary mastery was very low. It was represented in their word choices in their writing. In the pretest, they were not allowed to open their dictionaries. As a result, they used many Indonesian words in their writing. Sometimes, they misspelled some words. The figure below is an example of students’ writing from the pretest. Figure 2: Student ’s Writing in the Pretest The following transcript involved the teacher and the researcher. From the interview transcript, it could be concluded that students had problems wirh vocabulary, tenses, and ideas. P: “And, what problems you face when you were given a task to write?” S: “Sometimes, I don’t know how to write, I get confused Miss. Then, I do not know how to construct sentences.” P: “How about grammar and vocabulary?” S: “Yes, those are confusing too. But sentence structure is the most difficult.” Interview transcript 7, February 26 th 2015 From the interview transcripts and pretest, the researcher found some problems. Those problems are presented in the following table. Table 4: Field Problems No. Categories Field Problems 1. Learning Materials Materials were limited. 2. Students’ writing skills Students had difficulty in developing ideas. 3. Students’ writing skills Students lacked vocabulary. 4. Students’ writing skills Students made some errors in punctuation, capital letters and spelling. 5. Students’ writing skills Students had a problem with sentence structure. 6. Students’ writing skills Students made mistakes in using tenses. 7. Students’ writing skills Students could not finish the task by the given time. 8. Learning media The teacher did not use any media. Before conducting the action, the researcher conducted a pretest to recognize how good students’ writing was. They had to write a narrative text especially a fable in at least three paragraphs. From the results of the pretest, she found that they made many mistakes. They were told that in a narrative text they should use the simple past tense, but the fact many of them did not use the simple past tense. It means that they still got difficulties in applying the grammatical rule. They also used many Indonesian words and misspelled some words. It means that their vocabulary mastery was still low. Their sentence structure mastery was also very R: “How about students’ writing skills, in your opinion, is it good?” T: “Still low.” R: “What is the biggest problem that makes students’ writing skills low ma’am?” T: “Grammar. They have problem with tenses. And their vocabulary mastery is still low. But, the focus is on grammar. They also did not seem having an idea to write.” Interview Transcript 1, March 5 th 2015 bad. They made mistakes even in constructing simple sentences. They also did not pay attention to capital letters and punctuation. In addition, they also did not finish their stories. It could be said that they had limited ideas to write. The figures below are examples of t he students’ writing in the pretest. Figure 3: Stu dent’s Writing in the Pretest Figure 4 : Student’s Writing in the Pretest