The Results of the Implementation of Weekly Diary Assignment followed

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the researcher will explain the results and the process of this research. The results reveal the findings of this research. The process will tell all of the steps during the research. This research was aimed at solving the students‟ problems in writing a recount text. Weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback was implemented to improve students‟ writing abilities. The researcher got the data from class observations, analyzing the results of questionnaires, and interviewing some students and the teacher. The main data was the students‟ writings in their weekly diaries. The process explains the cycles during the research. Before doing the cycles, the researcher conducted a preliminary study to know and identify the students‟ problem deeply. There were three cycles conducted by the researcher. In each cycle, the researcher conducted planning, action, collecting and analyzing data, and reflecting the cycle.

A. The Results of the Implementation of Weekly Diary Assignment followed

by Teacher’s Feedback The researcher implemented the weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback to overcome problems faced by the students of VIII D in 47 SMPN 1 Wungu. The results of this research would answer the research question. It is to what extent the implementation of weekly diary assignment followed by teacher‟s feedback improves students‟ writing abilities in writing a recount text. The research used one month periode to do three cycles of weekly diary assignment. During the research, students‟ writing abilities improved slightly. Before the implementation, based on the results of the questionnaires in the pre- limnary study, all students agreed that they had difficullties in writing a recount text. The researcher also observed the class once. The teacher taught them in Indonesian to make them understand. The researcher identified the problems deeply by interviewing some students. All of interviewees said that they had problems in writing a recount text. Their writing abilities were low because they could not master all of the elements in writing, especially the recount text. As the researcher has explained in chapter II, acccording to Brown Bailey 1984, pp. 39-41, there are five major elements which should be analyzed in writing. They are organization, content, grammar, mechanics spelling, punctuation,etc., and vocabulary style and quality as cited in Brown, 2007, pp. 144-145. When the researcher conducted an informal interview with the teacher, she asked the scores of the students‟ recount text draft. The teacher did not give the draft to the researcher but she allowed the researcher to see them. The results were very poor. Their sentences were not grammatical. Moreover, they could not order the words properly based on the basic sentence pattern. They could not consider the topic carefully, and the idea was jumpy. The other elements were also not 48 good. The researcher sometimes could not understand what the students wanted to tell. There were many words having wrong spelling. They also did not use vocabulary based on the context. As a result, all of them could not pass the minimum passing grade, 70. Based on the results of the questionnaire distributed before the research, 78.9 students stated that their writing abilities were not good and 21.1 students stated that their writing abilities were good. Even though, there were 12 students 63.2 who had some problems in writing a recount text and 7 students 36.8 who really had problems in writing a recount text. Moreover, there were 17 students who stated that their difficulties were in the grammar. There were 13 students who had difficulties in the vocabulary, 14 students who had difficulties in the mechanics, 14 students who had difficulties in the content, and 9 students who had difficulties in the organization. From those results, the researcher concluded the students had difficulties almost in all elements of writing and the most appeared difficulty was in the grammar. It was supported by the results from interviewing the students. According to the res ults of students‟ interviews, they seldom wrote any texts, such as the recount text. Writing in English was very difficult because they seldom practiced writing sentences in the form of text. They only wrote some sentences to answer questions in the students worksheet. They were also confused how to write properly because they did not get any feedback from the teacher. Therefore, they did not know whether their writing were correct or not. 49 During this research, the researcher implemented the weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback to solve the problems of VIII D students of SMPN 1 Wungu in writing a recount text. The implementation of weekly diary followed by the teacher‟s feedback was able to improve the students‟ writing abilities in a recount text. The results of their diaries were increased day by day. Before getting the weekly diary assignment, they could not make any sentences in English properly. Then, after getting the weekly diary assignment, they could tell their personal experiences in English properly. The researcher thought that it was the most important thing of this research. From the first time, the researcher‟s main goal was that at least they could write sentences in English properly. Even though, after the implementation of weekly diary assignment, other elements in writing like the organization, the content, the mechanics, and the vocabulary also improved. It was supported by the results of the questionnaires which stated that the weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback could help them to improve their writing abilities in writing a recount text. There were 10 students stating that the weekly diary assignment really helped them to improve their writing abilities in writing a recount text. There were 7 students stating that the weekly diary assignment helped them to improve their writing abilities in a recount text. Even though, there was a students who stated that the weekly diary assignment did not help him or her to improve their writing abilities in a recount text. The weekly diary assignment improved the students‟ writing abilities in the recount text by making them accustom to writing in 50 English. Before getting the weekly diary assignment, they were not accustomed to writing text in English. HRD wrote in questionnaire: “Ya, sangat membantu, Setelah terbiasa menulis recount text, saya sudah mulai hafal pergantian V1 ke V2. Dan saya jadi bisa nulis kalimat dalam Inggris dengan benar. ” Yes, it really helps me, after being accustomed to writing a recount text, It can remind me to change V1 into V2. And I am able to write in English with the correct grammar. VRD also wrote in questionnaire: “Mungkin karena terbiasa diberi tugas weekly diary jadi saya juga bisa terbiasa menulis dengan bahasa Inggris termasuk terbiasa nulis dengan grammar yang benar, tanda bacanya, ejaannya, dll. Jadi kemampuan menulisku meningkat. ” Maybe because of conducting weekly diary assignment, I am accustomed to writing in English including writing with correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. So, my writing ability is improved The results above were fixed and appropriate with behaviorism theory as explained well in the second chapter. Mitchell and Myles 2004 state “through repeated reinforcement, a certain stimulus will elicit the same response time and again, which will then become a habit” p. 30. In this study, the weekly diary assignment played a role as the reinforcement for the students. The students were required to write their personal experiences based on the topic given in the form of a recount text twice a week. It made them be accustomed to writing in English. Writing in English properly would become a habit for them. The more often an activity repeated, the more it will bring effects towards someone‟s behavior. The researcher used this principle to implement the weekly 51 diary assignment. This assignment built the writing habit to the students. As a result, their writing abilities improved. The habit of writing diary helped the students to write better in the next writing assignment. The students were able to write sentences based on the basic sentence pattern properly. They had been accustomed to writing their personal experiences twice a week. Mitchell and Myles 2004 state “the learning of any skill is seen as the formation of habits, that is, the creation of stimulus-response pairings, which become stronger with reinforcement” pp. 30-31. The weekly diary assignment was followed by the teacher‟s feedback which represented the stimulus for the students. In the next assignment, the students‟ responses of the stimulus would be seen from their writing. This assignment required them to express their Indonesian idea into English sentences. It brought some effects for the students as written in the preliminary questionnaire. 14 students stated that they had difficulties in translating their ideas from Indonesian into English sentences. It happened because they had lack of vocabulary and they seldom wrote many sentences in the form of text, especially in writing a recount text. VRD: “Susah, sering-sering sudah banyak ide dalam otak, tapi bingung nulisnya ke bahasa Inggris gimana, kata-katanya sulit .”it‟s difficult. I often had some ideas in Indonesian but I was confused how to wrote it in English, the words were difficult 52 Writing English as much as possible would also require them to think about the vocabulary more. Although they were allowed to find out some difficult words in dictionary, this assignment reinforced them to find out some new words and some difficult words. Besides, the implementation of weekly diary assignment twice a week was also followed by the teacher‟s feedback. The researcher thought that she had to give some feedback to make the students understand what their mistakes were. There were 8 students 42.1 and 10 students 52.6 stating that the feedback given by the teacher in their diaries help them to improve their writing abilities. Moreover, all of them stated that the teacher‟s feedback motivated them to be better. In the questionnaire, DNI wrote: “Feedback membuat saya tahu kesalahan saya dan apa aja yang perlu diperbaiki” Feedback makes me know what my mistakes are and the things which should be fixed In the result of the interview, AD said that: “Feedback... emmm... sangat membantu, karena saya jadi merasa diperhatikan dan tahu mana yang salah terus bisa saya perbaiki pas penulisan diary berikutnya. Jadi nanti ga salah lagi. Jadi tahu lah gimana benernya nulis recount text ” Feedback.... emmm... really helps me because I feel that the teacher cares at me and I know where the mistakes are so I can revise it in the next diaries. Therefore, I will not do the same mistakes ag ain. I‟m getting understand how to write recount text properly. AD felt the teacher caring about him by giving him feedback for each diary. It shows that feedback could motivate students to do better in the next assignment. 53 The teacher always gave some positive and negative feedback. She provided the feedback, such as giving some information as the positive feedback and telling what their mistakes were as the negative feedback. The teacher did not forget to praise the students whenever they made some improvement. As stated by Kwong 2001, Positive feedback generally provides more information than negative feedback, and strengthens a students motivation and self-confidence. For example, students can be told when they have succeeded in decreasing the number of errors made on a worksheet p. 2 . The teacher had to give the negative feedback because the feedback would directly told them what went wrong in their writing. The researcher did it by observing the students‟ condition in the class. They sometimes had some difficulties to understand the teacher‟s intention if the teacher did not explain directly what happens to them, as the example, for mechanics, a student wrote “embarased”. She made a wrong spelling of the word “embarrassed”. Then, the teacher gave feedback and corrected it. Later on, she would be more careful to write every word in writing a recount text. As ADL said in interview: Dari feedback itu ya akhirnya tahu mana yang salah. Gara-gara dikasi feedback, saya jadi hati-hati kalau nulis kata-kata, sering lihat kamus, habis takut salah ejaannya. Lama-lama jadi terbiasa deh ...from the feedback, I finally know where my mistakes are. When I am writing, I will be more careful with the spelling. Then, I am accustomed to writing with the right spelling. The stude nts‟ difficulties in using punctuation were also solved by the weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback. After getting this assignment, they became familliar how to write some paragraphs of a recount text 54 with appropriate punctuation, as the example, before getting this assignment, they did not put comma , after the word “then”. After getting this assignment they did not forget to put comma , in the right place. As said by ATK in interview, “Bagus sih, miss. Seneng aja. Sekarang saya jadi bisa nulis lebih baik. Ya karena sudah sering nulis dalam bahasa Inggris itu miss, 2x seminggu. Feedabck dari Miss sangat berguna banget...Feedback nya itu jadi bikin teringat terus. Jadi kalau mau nulis terus salah gitu tiba-tiba ingat feedback yang miss kasi, kayak tanda baca. Kalau nulis kalimat jadi ingat harus ngasi tanda baca yang benar dimana saja”That‟s good, Miss. I feel happy. Now, I can write better. That‟s all because I often write in English twice a week. The feedback was very useful...The feedback could help me to recall everything. Whenever I made mistakes, then, I remember your feedback, for example punctuation. Everytime I wrote in English, I remember how to put the punctuation correctly During the implementation, the teacher wrote her feedback for all of the students‟ diaries. Meanwhile, the teacher reviewed those feedback in each of the class meeting. As DNA said in the interview, accepting the feedback personally from the teacher made her feel that the teacher cared about her. It was supported by Kwong 2001, who states “monitoring students thinking processes, giving them feedback and motivating them to learn are not only very important tasks of a facilitator, but they are also intimately related” p. 1. Moreover, he adds “if used correctly, feedback can function as a very powerful tool to motivate students to learn”. In other words, the feedback was an important which formed a set of weekly diary assignment. Beside giving the weekly diary assignment followed by teacher‟s feedback, written and orally, the researcher gave the enrichment test on Tuesday. The 55 researcher analyzed the students‟ mistakes from their diaries to make the exercises. It was also as the media to convince that the students had really understood th e teacher‟s explanation. In other words, it could be included into the teacher‟s feedback to the students‟ writing in the form of a class discussion. Therefore, the teacher always discussed the exercises together. It was as one set of weekly diary assignment. It is supported by Hyland 2003, who writes “Master 1995 found that corrective grammar feedback was valued by students and effective when combined with classroom discussion p. 184. In this case, the enrichment here was something to monitor the students‟ process in the learning activity. Kwong 2001 states “it is more efficient if the entire class is privy to the monitoring process and feedback so that students can learn from one another” p. 2. Some exercises as the feedback were some kinds of monitoring process towards the students‟ improvement what went well and what did not go well. In first exercise on Tuesday, April 2, the researcher gave exercise about past tense by analyzing their first diaries. The researcher found that they were not able to make some sentences in the past form. Then, the researcher decided to give past tense exercise. The researcher also explained past tense materials and discussed the exercise together. As a result, in the next diaries, students‟ mistakes in past tense grammar had been diminished. On Tuesday, April 9, the researcher gave some exercises about spelling, word order, and punctuation. After analyzing the students‟ last diaries, the researcher found that some students still made some incorrect spelling, 56 inappropriate word order, incomplete punctuation. Therefore, the researcher decided to give those exercises and discuss them together. The researcher also explained the basic sentence pattern again so they were able to make the sentences in the right order. The results could be seen in the next diaries. They could diminish the mistakes in the word spelling, the word order, and punctuation. Finally, the researcher analyzed wheteher the implementation of weekly diary assignment had been successful or not by looking at the score o f students‟ writing week by week. There were 14 students whose writing had improved during the implementation of weekly diary assignment. In the last cycle, they could reach the high scores for their recount text writing. The students wrote their personal experiences in the form of a recount text twice a week. The researcher took the score of each diary submission. The researcher analyzed the data by taking the students‟ average score for each cycle. Here is the calculation of the average score for each cycle: Diary‟s scoreTuesday submission+Diary‟s scoreFriday submission 2 In the first cycle, all of the students got scores under the minimum passing grade of this school, 70. There were 3 students who did not submit their diaries in that week. The researcher asked them why they did not bring their diaries. They said that they forgot writing the diaries. Generally, almost all of their scores improved from the first diary to the second diary. In the second cycle, almost all of them got scores under the minimum passing grade of this school, 70. Their scores improved compare with the scores 57 in the first cycle. The three extraordinary students still did not submit their weekly diaries. Then, the researcher asked them why they did not submit their diaries. They said that they really could not do it. The researcher also asked the other students and the teacher about these students. Their friends said that these three students were very lazy in all subject. They were absent for many meetings. The teacher also said that they were naughty and they had never paid some attention to the teacher‟s explanation in the class. This is the table of students‟ diaries scores and their scores in the preliminary study : Table 4.1 The students’ scores in the diaries No Name Pre- liminary Score Cycle I Cycle II Cycle III 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1st 2nd 1. ATK 46 53 57 55 61 63 62 77 81 79 2. ISM - - - - - - - - - 3. YSE 56 60 62 61 62 70 66 81 82 81.5 4. DNA 50 62 63 62.5 69 74 71.5 80 84 82 5. DMS 10 - - - - - - - - - 6. JKO - - - - - - - - - - 7. AD 44 57 58 57.5 65 70 67.5 70 76 73 8. MRZ 47 52 52 52 51 65 58 72 78 75 9. RZN 52 68 66 67 67 75 71 78 77 77.5 10. SMT 58 56 58 57 68 72 70 73 78 75.5 11. WHY 48 58 59 58.5 67 69 68 78 81 79.5 12. DNI 54 55 58 56.5 64 68 66 78 80 79 13. LLA 54 56 53 54.5 58 63 60.5 72 79 75.5 14. HNS 56 57 58 57.5 60 67 63.5 75 81 78 15. MRL 52 58 59 58.5 61 65 63 74 80 77 16. HRD 54 62 63 62.5 71 71 71 82 83 82.5 17. ADL 49 62 64 63 74 75 74.5 83 84 83.5 18. VRD 56 60 60 60 70 73 71.5 80 81 80.5 19. KRZ 52 57 58 57.5 63 75 69 79 82 80.5 From the table above, the researcher analyzed the third cycle. The stud ents‟ writing abilities had improved. Almost all of the students 89.5 could 58 write a recount text well, including their grammar, mechanics, vocabulary, content and organization. Their writing abilities had improved followed by their scores which also improved. There was a student whose last average score could not reach 75. Even though he got 76 in his last diary, his writing on the third cycle had improved. In the last classroom observation, the teacher said that the students‟ writing abilities had improved. They got more motivated to write their personal experiences. The students had some willingness to write through the weekly diary assignment. Moreover, the teacher would extend this assignment in her teaching schedule. It was supported by the results of the questionnaires. 11 students 57.9 students who agreed and 8 students 42.1 who strongly agreed that writing personal experiences through the weekly diary assignment was interesting for them. The researcher concluded that the implementation of weekly diary followed by the teacher‟s feedback had improved students‟ writing abilities in a recount text in VIII D of SMPN 1 Wungu. It means that the implementation of weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback had overcome their problems in writing a recount text. The data analysis was done by taking the students‟ writing, questionnaires, and interviews. The last data were from the students‟ scores. There was no one of the students who passed the minimum passing grade in the cycle one. Then, there were 6 students in the second cycle and 16 students in the last cycle who passed the minimum passing grade of this school, 70. 59

A. The Process of the Implementation