Statement of the Problems Significance of the Study Definition of Key Terms

factors stated. On the other hand, teachers should be creative to choose strategies and techniques in teaching. Broadly speaking, developing ideas for making a piece of composition should be conducted by teachers in writing activity. For those reasons above, the writer would like to propose an alternative technique that is “Clustering Technique”. It is one of the alternative techniques for teachers to improve students‟ witing skill. Clustering uses free association to cluster idea, it is a good way to turn a broad idea into a limited and more manageable theme which actually gives the words that closely related to the theme provided. This technique is an effective tool for prewriting stage of the writing process, and it will help students to develop their ideas before they organize into a paragraph. Based on the reasons stated above, the writer proposes a title of this “Skripsi” “Developing Students’ Writing Ability of Descriptive Text Through Clustering Technique.” B. Scope and Limitation of the Study This “skripsi” focuses on teaching descriptive text at first grade of SMPN 38 Bekasi at first semester 20102011 academic year, and to make a description of this “skripsi” deeper, the problems will be limited in: a teaching preparation are made by the English teacher at junior high school in teaching and learning activities, especially in teaching descriptive text through clustering technique, b the implementation of using clustering technique in teaching writing of descriptive text, c the students‟ improvement in learning writing of descriptive text using clustering technique.

C. Statement of the Problems

In this section, the writer plans to analyze the use of clustering technique to develop stud ents‟ writing ability of descriptive text at firs grade students of SMPN 38 Bekasi. The general questions of this research: “Is clustering technique effective in teaching writing of descriptive text?” The main problem of this research can be formulated into specific problems as stated below: 1. How does the English teacher make the teaching preparation in teaching descriptive text? 2. How are the instructional activities conducted by the English teacher in teaching descriptive text? 3. How much is the students‟ improvement in learning writing of descriptive text using clustering technique?

D. Significance of the Study

The result of the study can provide useful information for three important groups of people, namely: 1 The English teachers of Junior High School level, they will get information about teaching descriptive text through clustering technique and how they are used in teaching-learning process. In this study they also get available information to improve their students‟ average in writing skill. 2 The school principal as a decision maker of junior high school level. Because he or she observes to the teaching and learning activities and the teaching strategies which are used in teaching-learning process directly, and also he or she can sends the English teachers to join an up grading course to improve the teachers‟ competencies. 3 The other researchers, who are interested in teaching descriptive text by using different variables can get basic information from this study to do further research.

E. Definition of Key Terms

The following are given to make the readers have the same perception for some terms used in this study to avoid misunderstanding. The terms here are to be defined as follows:

1. Clustering Technique