Interviews Observation Checklist Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

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3. Interviews

In this research, the researcher conducted interviews twice, in the preliminary study and at the end of the research. After distributing the questionnaires, the researcher thought that she needed to convince the students ‟ problems deeply by interviewing a few of the students. Through interview, the researcher could explore the students‟ opinion clearly. The form of the interviews were open-ended questions. Even though, the researcher also adjusted some additional questions which developed during the interviews. Therefore, Wallace 1998, p. 146 states that interviews are more flexible to know someone ‟s opinion. In the preliminary study, the researcher interviewed the teacher and three students based on the teacher‟s suggestion. The first student was the student who had high-ability in writing, the second was the student who had moderate-ability in writing, and the third was the student who had low-ability in writing. The researcher interviewed the teacher to know deeply about the students‟ condition, especially in writing the text, what their difficulties in writing a text in English were, and the roots of th e students‟ problems in writing a recount text. Besides, the researcher‟s interview questions for the students were about their difficulties in writing a recount text deeply. At the end of this research, the researcher interviewed three students who got the highest score, moderate score and the lowest score of the last two diaries. Those students could explain the more things which had not been explained in the questionnaires. The researcher asked how the weekly diary assignment could help 38 them to improve their writing abilities in writing a recount text, whether they liked this assignment or not and the reasons why they liked it or did not like it.

4. Observation Checklist

As stated by Wallace 1998, p. 146, observation checklist is one of some forms of observation in the learning process. During the implementation of weekly diary assignment, the researcher conducted 8 meetings in the class. The English teacher attended the class as the observer. The researcher gave two observation checklists in every meeting. An observation checklist was aimed at observing the researcher and another was aimed at observing the students. This is the sample of the observation checklist: Table 3.3 The Sample of observation checklist for observing students No Statements Yes No 1 The teacher checks the students‟ readiness 2 The teacher explains the materials clearly 3 The teacher give clear instruction to the students for each activity 4 The teacher masters the materials 5 The teacher explains about weekly diary assignment and the purpose clearly 39 Table 3.4 The Sample of Observation Checklist for Observing the Researcher The results of observation checklists could help the researcher to know what went well and what did not go well. The teacher did not write her opinion in the observation sheets. She would rather tell the researcher for the things that needed to improve briefly at the end of the class.

5. Students’ Diaries