Validity and Reliability of the Data

35 4. Reflection The reflection was made by all involved members of the research. The successful actions then were continued in the teaching and learning process. Actually, unsuccessful actions were modified into the better ones. The illustration of the spiral model proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart, cited in Koshy 2005: 4 are presented in figure 2 below: Figure 2. Cycle of Action Research

I. Research Schedule

The research was held in the second semester of the academic year of 20132014. The research was conducted in two cycles and there were two 36 meetings in every cycle. The research was conducted from April until May 2014. The schedule was shown in the table below: Table 3: Research Schedule No Day Date Time Material 1. 2. 3. 4. Saturday, April 12 th , 2014 Tuesday, April 15 th , 2014 Saturday, May 10 th , 2014 Tuesday, May 13 th , 2014 12.00 12.30 12.00 12.30 Narrative Texts Narrative Text Narrative Text Narrative Text 37

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS

The research aimed to improve the students’ ability in writing narrative texts. The researcher focused on using comic strips to improve the eighth grade students’ narrative writing ability in SMP Negeri 1 Pandak.

A. Reconnaissance

Before conducting the research, the researcher did the reconnaissance stage. In this stage, the researcher tried to find the problem found in SMP Negeri 1 Pandak, particularly in class VIII G. The class consisted of 26 students. The reconnaissance step was conducted through observation, interview, and a pre-test. The observation was held on Thursday, April 10 th , 2014 at 10.15 a.m. The result of the observation showed that there were some problems found in the class. When the researcher came to the class and observed the teaching and learning process, she found out that the male students seemed not interested in the subject and all of them looked inactive. Most students in the class did not understand well about Past-tense. It was showed from their answer when the teacher asked them about the past-tense. The teacher asked them which form was true, “did not agree” or “did not agreed”, and most of the students gave the wrong answer. Besides, the researcher also conducted interviews. The interviewees were the students of class VIII G and the English teacher of class VIII G. The result of the interview showed that the students still felt so difficult to write texts in English. The English teacher