Definitions of Classroom Action Research

32 2 Action and Observation Kemmis and McTaggart 1988 affirm action step to be used as a platform for the further development. Furthermore, action should be synchronized with the plan which was done in the previous step. This step explores the researcher to apply the strategy in order to overcome the problems which happened. Action stage will be done simultaneously with the observation stage. The implementation of action cannot be separated from the observation. The importance of observation step is to collect the evidences of the action in order to able to evaluate it thoroughly. The researcher observes the situation of the environment and tries to analyze the data. Kemmis and McTaggart 1988 say, “Observation has function of documenting the effects of critically informed action – it looks forward, providing the basis for reflection...” p.13. Observation should be responsive, open-eyed, and open- minded. According to Foster 1996, observation involves receiving data through the sense, processing, interpreting, and combinating the information in a complex way. Moreover, Foster 1996 says that through observing, the researchers obtain valuable information by soliciting the knowledge, experiences, and ideas. 3 Reflection Kemmis and McTaggart 1988 affirm, “Reflection has an evaluative aspect – it asks action researchers to weigh their experience– to judge whether the effects were desirable and to suggest ways of proceeding” p.13. After the researcher getting the results of the analysis, the researcher tries to assess what shehe has done by the object and propose the next action for the next cycle. 33

B. Theoretical Framework

English, as the first foreign language which should be taught in Indonesia, has four skills; listening, reading, speaking, and writing. In order to use English as a language that can be applied by the students well, the researcher focuses on the productive skills which are shown in students‟ performances. One of the skills that directly showed students‟ performances is writing skill. As stated by Tiedt 1989 that writing skill is the most difficult skill and needs hard work, it is alsi faced by the students. The students consider writing is difficult skill to be mastered. Referring to the purpose of the curriculum, the students should be able to write various types of text. Narrative is one of the texts that have to be taught in junior high school level. Based on the observation, Class VIII F students in SMP Negeri 10 Surakarta faced difficulty in writing narrative text. The thought that writing is difficult skill to be learnt lead them to face some problems because of the lack of English competence. In the preliminary observation, the researcher found several problems encountered by the students such as grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, fluency style and quality of expressions, and form organization. As a result, the students ‟ performance in writing text is not satisfying enough. The problems in writing faced by class VIII F students in SMP Negeri 10 Surakarta motivate the researcher to conduct the action research. The researcher plans to conduct classroom action research CAR. The purpose of conducting the classroom action research CAR is that to answer the research problems and to improve classroom practice Ary et al., 2010; Richard, 2005; Kemmis