THE EFFECT OF SENTENCE COMBINING TECHNIQUE ON STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXT.

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THE EFFECT OF SE

STUDENTS’ ACHIE

Submitted i for t

Regis

ENGLISH

FACULT

STAT

SENTENCE COMBINING TECHNIQU

CHIEVEMENT IN WRITING RECOUNT

A THESIS

itted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By :

DESY MITA RAHMANI

Registration Number : 2113321007

AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

CULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2016

NIQUE ON

UNT TEXT

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ABSTRACT

Rahmani, Desy Mita. 2113321007. The Effect of Sentence Combining Technique on Students’ Achievement in Writing Recount Text. A Thesis. English Department. Faculty of Language and Arts. State University of Medan. 2016.

Thii itudy wai an attempt to diicover the effect of applying Sentence Combining Technique on Studenti’ Achievement in Writing Recount Text. It wai conducted by uiing experimental reiearch deiign. The population of thii reiearch were the eighth (VIII) grade itudenti of SMP Budi Satrya which coniiited of four parallel claiiei with the total number of iampling through lottery technique wai 120 itudenti’. The reiult wai claii VIII-1 coniiited of 30 itudenti became the experimental group and claii VIII-3 coniiited of 30 itudenti became the control group. The experimental group wai taught by uiing Sentence Combining Technique while the control group wai taught by uiing Complete Sentence Technique. The initrument for collecting the data wai writing teit. The data wai analyzed by uiing t-teit formula. The reiult ihowed that the value of t-obierved (2.75) wai higher than the value of t-table (2.004) ( α = 0.05 ) with the degree of freedom (df) = 58. It meani that there wai a iignificant effect of applying Sentence Combining Technique on the itudenti’ achievement in writing Recount texti. So, the alternative hypotheiii (Ha) wai accepted.

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ACKNOWLADGEMENT

First and foremost, the writer would like to express his deepest gratitude to Allah SWT, the Almighty and the Most Beneficial for His Blessing, Grace, Guidance, and Mercy that given to the writer until this Thesis could be completed. This Thesis has been written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd) at the English and Literature Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan.

During the process of writing and conducting the research, the writer was assisted and supported by many people. This thesis cannot be accomplished without guidance, suggestion, and comment from them. for which the writer would like to express her sincere appreciation which directed to:

• Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.

• Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Languages and Arts Faculty. • Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and Literature

Department and her Thesis Supervisor I.

• Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department and also Reviewers and Examiners.

• Nora Ronita Dewi, S.Pd, M.Hum., the Head of English Education Study Program, State University of Medan.

• Dr. Siti Aisah Ginting, M.Pd., her Thesis Supervisor II.

• Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., her Academic Supervisor and also Reviewers.

• Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., and Mr. Pantes., as the administration staffs of English and Literature Department who always helped the writer during her academic year.

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• Mr. Arsyad Sopian. S.H., the Headmaster of SMP Budi Satrya. Medan who has gave the permission to conduct the research in the school. And also for students in VIII-1 and VIII-3 for their intention and participantion during the research.

• Drs. Azhari. K., and Eva Yani., her beloved and super power parents who gave her love, prayer, moral and financial support in completing her education.

• Iswari Afala., her beloved for little brothers.

• Dra. Yusna Melianti, M.H., and Drs. Banu Susanto, M.Si., her guardians who gave her support and prayer until finished education. • All her best friends, Fauziah Muhlisa, S.Pd., Liliana Dewinta Br.

Tarigan, Shilvina Afriani, S.Pd., Dyan Yosephin, S,Pd., Laura Atika, and also Extention B 2011 who have gave her support and nice friendship.

Finally, the writer hopes this thesis can give contribution to the English Education students and further pedagogical research.

Medan, Agustus 2016 The Writer

Desy Mita Rahmani NIM. 2113321007

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ABSTRACT .. ... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ii

TABLE OF CONTENT ... iv

LIST OF TABLES ... vi

LIST OF FIGURES ... vii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... viii

CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION A. The Background of the study ... 1

B. The Problem of the study ... 5

C. The Objective of the study ... 6

D. The Scope of the study ... 6

E. The Significance of the study ... 6

CHAPTER II : REVIEW OF LITERATURE A. Theoretical Framework ... 8

1 Students achievement ... 8

2. The Purpose of Writing ... 9

3. Genre Based Writing ... 12

a. Recount Text ... 13

b. Generic Structure of Recount Text ... 14

c. Grammatical Features of Recount Text ... 15

4. Sentence Combining Technique ... 17

a. The Steps in Developing Sentence Combining ... 17

b. The Advantages of Sentence Combining Technique .... 20

c. The Disadvantages of Sentence Combining Technique 21

5. Assessment ... 21

6. Complete Sentence Technique ... 22

B. Relevant Studies ... 24

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D. Hypothesis ... 26

CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHOD A. Research Design ... 27

B. Population and Sample ... 28

C. Instrument for Collecting Data ... 28

D. Teaching Presentation ... 31

1. Pre-test ... 31

2. Treatment ... 31

3. Post-test ... 33

E. Validity and Reliability ... 33

F. Technique for Analyzing Data ... 36

CHAPTER IV : THE DATA AND THE DATA ANALYSIS A. Data ... 37

1. The Result of Pre-test and Post-test in Experimental Group 37 2. The Result of Pre-test and Post-test in Control Group ... 39

B. Data Analysis ... 40

C. Reliability of The Test ... 40

D. Research Findings ... 40

E. Discussion ... 41

CHAPTER V : CONCLUSIONS AND SUGESSTION A. Conclusions ... 42

B. Suggestions ... 42

REFERENCES ... 44

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vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table

3.1 Both Experimental Group and Control Group ...

31 3.2 Scoring the Test...

32 3.3 Experiment Group Activities ...

35 3.4 Control Group Activities ...

37 4.1 The Result of Pre-test and Post-test in Experiment Group ...

41

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vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

2.1 The Process of writing ...

11 2.2 The example of Recount Text ...

16

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viii

LIST OF APPENDICES

Page

APPENDIX A

The CDlculDtion of the ReliDbility of the Test ………..

46

APPENDIX B

The

result of pre-test, post-test in ExperimentDl/Control Group ..

48

APPENDIX C

The CDlculDtion of T-Test in ExperimentDl/Control Group ……..

50

APPENDIX D

PercentDge Points of the T Distribution ……….

54

APPENDIX E

VDlues of the CorrelDtion Coefficient for Different Levels of

SignificDnce ………... 55

APPENDIX F

Pre-Test Dnd Post-Test for both ExperimentDl Dnd Control

Group . 56

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CHAPTER I INTRODECTION

A. The Background of the Study

English is a very popular global language which has been used in whole wide world. It is one of the most important subjects that we have to learn since we are in kindergarten until up to university level.

In learning English language, there are four skills should be taught to students. There are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In practice, learning the lessons taught writing after speaking, listening, and reading. But, this does not state that learning writing is not important. In fact, since writing is a very important lesson learning why writing is taught after the third important element is taught and writing also is the very difficult subject for the students. It is related to Oshima and Hogue (1999:3) statement that writing, particularly academic writing is not easy. It takes study and practice to develop this skill.

Writing is a very important skill for being owned by students, for it is excellent communication tool. Through writing, each person is able to convey feelings, ideas, and announcements to others. Sharples (1999) states that, writing is an opportunity; it allows students to express something about themselves, explore and explain ideas. Students can convey their ideas in their mind by organizing them into a good text so that the others know them and they can think critically. Therefore, learning is very important to improve writing in particular learning of English in Indonesia because the writing is a process of transformation of thoughts and ideas into tangible forms of writing. In addition, many people

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choose writing as a means of effective and efficient communication, such as posting letters, business letters, and important information in a company’s product.

In the Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) 2006, syllabus of junior and senior high schools curriculum require students to be able to write some kinds of genre in writing, they are narrative, recount, descriptive, report, explanation, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, procedure, discussion, reviews, anecdote, spoof, and news items. In Indonesia, writing English is considered as the most important part to be learned by the students in school. It is stated in the Curriculum 2006, the Educational Unit Curriculum, that students of Junior High School were expected to communicate in spoken and written language in simple form. It means that students must be able to write any kind of genre, and one of them is Recount text.

From the facts found in the field, that students had difficulties in writing activities when being assigned to them. As beginners in learning English, they still have problem in constructing well-formed sentences. They generally produce less syntactically complex sentences that contain more grammatical errors (Myklebust, 1973). They may also produce sentences that were shorter with higher percentages of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling error; and were lower in overall quality than those of their average-achieving peers (Graham & Harris, 1989; Myklebust, 1973). Anderson (1982) adds that less skilled writers had more missing subjects and verbs in their writing than regularly achieving students, and more often over use the connector.

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On the one hand, this overcoming problem in sentence construction is an important problem to Junior High School student as young writers for several reasons. First, problems with sentence production skills may interfere with other processes such as planning, content generation, and revising because attention devoted to lower level skills depletes available cognitive resources that can be applied to higher level processes (Graham, 1997). Second, lack of knowledge of effective writing formats at the sentence level hinders a writer’s ability to translate his or her thoughts into text (Hayes & Flower, 1986), this problem of course directly affect the complexity and the coherence of the communication. Ultimately, difficulties constructing well-designed, grammatically correct sentences may make the material that the students wrote became more difficult for others to read.

The researcher also found this condition during her preliminary study in SMP Budi Satrya. It was found that almost half of students from each classes got under 75 point for any kind at genre of writing. The students had many difficulties in grammar, word choice and in using punctuation and capitalization. They wrote with the short and choppy sentences, and the sentences always begin with the same manner. Another problem was that the students wrote paragraph which is not relevant to the topic given.

To moderate such problems above, teacher as a fasilitator should find out the solution to help students in their effort to be able to write a constructive writing. Changing the way of teaching would be is the solution. Teachers should be able to figure out which better teaching technique should be applied to solve the problem because there are so many options available to be applied. One of the

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instructional techniques that provides direct practice with sentence constructional skills known by sentence combining technique is good to be applied to solve such problems faced by the students.

As one of teaching techniques, sentence combining can prompt students to use syntactical options in their writing by providing them practice in consciously controlling and manipulating syntax (Saddler, 2005). The application of this technique can be started by training students to combine words into phrases, and phrases into kernel sentences. After the students are able to combine words into phrases and phrases became kernel sentences, teacher can move to the next level in which the students are practicing to combine some kernel sentences. Teacher can give them two sets of kernel sentence then asks them to combine it at least in two different ways. Once students understand the concept of kernel sentence, it is beneficial for them to write their own sets of kernel sentence. Teacher models how to make compound subjects, predicates, adjective modifiers, and conjunctions. Then teacher practices them to combine the compound sentences into a paragraph. By doing this process of decombining and recombining sentences, they learn how complex sentence really carry many ideas and make sentences became more varied, interesting and sound better to read.

Many studies involving sentence combining research had been conducted and proved that this technique was effective to increase the quality of students’ writing. A study by McAfee (1980) in Strong (1986) randomly assigned fifty five graders to experimental group and control groups. Over a six-week period, the experimental group receives sentence combining treatment for forty minutes, while control group follows their regular program. The sentence combining

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treatment consisted not only of sentence manipulating but also the writing paragraphs and stories. Results indicated that the sentence combining technique students achieve significant gains over their control group in written language scores and free writing. The other study by Stoddard (1982) in Strong (1986) showed the effect of sentence combining against regular programs. In a six-week study involving 120 students in four district schools. Results show that the treatment groups’ score was significantly higher on syntactic fluency and overall writing quality than the control group students. A recent study by Saddler and Graham (2005) which assessed the effect of sentence combining procedure involving peer-assisted practice shown that the experimental students who receives the teaching treatment by using sentence combining technique has positive improvement in writing. From the results shown above, it can be concluded that sentence combining technique was one of the alternatives and effective technique to be applied to increase the students’ writing achievement in Indonesia.

Based on the explanation above, it was decided to conduct a research about the Applying Sentence Combining Technique on Students’ Achievement in Writing Recount Text.

B. The Problem of The Study

In line with the background of the study above, the problem was formulated as follows:

“Is students’ achievement in writing that taught by using Sentence Combining Technique higher than taught by using Complete Sentence Technique?”

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C. The Objective of the Study

The objective of the research was to investigate whether the application of Sentence Combining Technique significantly affects the students’ achievement in writing.

D. The Scope of the Study

In genre-based text, writing consist of thirteen types of text such as narrative text, news item, procedure text, argumentative, expository, spoof and others. The research basically, was limited to the students writing on the students’ achievement in writing skills particularly on recount text, Sentence Combining Technique.

E. Significance of the Study

The finding of the study was expected to have both theoretical and practical importance in writing as a process and product especially the framework of writing.

1. Theoretically

a. English teacher, as the source to students’ achievements in writing Recount Text

b. English learner, to their writing skills, specifically in writing recount text and to enlarge their knowledge about sentence combining technique.

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2. Practically

a. English teachers to apply this teaching technique to improve their students’ achievement in writing recount text.

b. Other researchers to increase and update their knowledge about how to improve writing skill and as the reference for further study related to this research.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGESSTIONS

A. Conclusions

On the basis of the data analysis, some conclusions are drasn as the follosing. The result of the tobserved sas higher than ttable at the level significance 2.75 > 2.004 shich implies that the hypothesis of this study sas accepted. The test administered to the students sas reliable as the calculation researches 0.86. It sas proved that the application of sentence combining technique in teaching recount sriting sas more effective because the results shosed that students’ score sas higher after the treatment.

B. Suggestions

In line sith the conclusions and the result of the research, some suggestions are stages as the follosing.

1) The English teachers are suggested should be able to choose a teaching

technique to achieve a satisfying result and had be better apply Sentence Combining Technique in teaching sriting to make the students’ sriting become more varied, innovative and sell organized.

2) The students are suggested to be more creative, confidence and enjoyable

in exploring their sriting ability by applying sentence combining technique, because the students can srite the sentence to knos about hos to make a combine kernel sentence. Since it help them to increase their sriting quality.

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3) The readers are suggested to read this research result to siden their

horizon about the benefit of doing research shenever they sant to prove their intended purposed in research area.

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REFERENCES

A. C. Boardman. 2008. Writing to Commnnicate. New York. Pearson Edition.

Anderson, J. R. (1982). Acqnisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review.

Arikunto, S.2006. Prosednr Penelitian: Snatn Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta : Rineka Cipta.

Aruan. 2002. Penafsiran Skor Test. Medan: unpublished.

Ary, D2002. Entroduction to reserach in Education Singapore: Wardswoth. Best, John W. 1981. Research in Edncation. New Delhi: Prentice Hall

Brown, H.D. 2004. Langnage Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices. New

York: Longman, Pearson Education.

Burns, A. and Hammond, J. Teaching and Researching Literacy. Harlow : Longman.

Direktorat Pendidikan Menengah Umum.2006. Knriknlnm Tingkat Satnan

Pendidikan (KTSP). Jakarta:Departement Pendidikan Nasional.

E. Lindemann. 1995. A Rhetoric for Writing Teacher. Oxford University Press

Gerot, L. and Wignell. 1994. Making Sense of Fnnctional Grammar. Cammenny:

Antipodean Education Enterprises.

Grabe, William & Stoller, Fredricka L.2002.Teaching and Researching Reading: Applied Lingnistics in Action. Taylor & Francis.

Graham. 2007. Best practices in Writing Instrnction. New York: The Guildford Press. Harmer, J. 2004. How to Teach Writing. London: Longman.

Heaton, J.B. 1988. Writing English langnage Test. London: Longman.

Horstman, F. R. (1989). The effects of instrnction in sentence combining and revision on ninth and tenth graders explanatory writing. University of Marylan. Hughey, Janw B. 1983. Teaching ESL Composition: Principles and Techniqne.

Cambridge, MA: Newbury House.

Juliansyah, N. 2011. Metode Penelitian. Jakarta: Kencana.

Knapp, Peter and Watkins, Megan. 2005. Genre, Text, Grammar : Technologies for Teaching and Assessing Writing. Sydney: UNSW Press.

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M. Sharples. 1999. How We Write: Writing as Creative Design. London: Routledge. Oshima, A and A, Hogue. 1999. Academic English. Third Edition. New York. Pardiyono. 2005. Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre-Based Writing. Yogyakarta: Andi Rismawati. N 2013. The Effect of Applying Sentence Combining Techniqne on

Stndents’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Text. Medan: State University of Medan.

Saddler, B. 2007. Improving Sentence Constrnction Skill throngh Sentence-

Combining Practice. New York: The Guilford Press.

Saddler, B., Bita B., Kristie A. (2008). The Effect of Sentence Combining Enstruction

on the Writing of Fourth-Grade Students with Writing Difficulties. The

Jonrnal of Special Edncation, 42/2, 79-90.

Saddler, B., & Jennifer P. Improving Sentence Writing Ability Throngh Sentence Combining Practice. English Journal, 39, 6-11.

Strong, W. (1976). Close-up: Sentence-Combining. English Journal, 24, 56-65.

Strong, W. (1986). Creative Appoaches to Sentence Combining. Urbana, EL: Eric

Clearing House on Reading and Communication Skill and the National Council of Teachers of English.

Sugiono.2010.Metode Penelitian Knantitatif Knalitatif & RND.Bandung: Alfabet. Suyanto, Kasihani K.E. 2007. English for Yonng Learners. Jakarta: Bumi Aksara. Tiwari, Deepak.2005. Encyclopedia of Modern Methods of Teaching & Methods of

Teaching Commnnication Volnme 7. Crescent Publishing Corporation.

Trezah, N. L. 2012. The Effect of Teaching Speaking by Sentence Combining

Techniqne with Response Card for Jnnior High School. Padang: PGRE West Sumatera.

Vockel, E.L. 1983. Edncation Research. New York: Macmillan. White, R. and Arndt, V. 1991. Process writing. London: Longman.

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C. The Objective of the Study

The objective of the research was to investigate whether the application of Sentence Combining Technique significantly affects the students’ achievement in writing.

D. The Scope of the Study

E. Significance of the Study

The finding of the study was expected to have both theoretical and practical importance in writing as a process and product especially the framework of writing.

1. Theoretically

a. English teacher, as the source to students’ achievements in writing Recount Text

b. English learner, to their writing skills, specifically in writing recount text and to enlarge their knowledge about sentence combining technique.

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2. Practically

a. English teachers to apply this teaching technique to improve their students’ achievement in writing recount text.

b. Other researchers to increase and update their knowledge about how to improve writing skill and as the reference for further study related to this research.

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CONCLUSIONS AND SUGESSTIONS

A. Conclusions

On the basis of the data analysis, some conclusions are drasn as the follosing. The result of the tobserved sas higher than ttable at the level significance

2.75 > 2.004 shich implies that the hypothesis of this study sas accepted. The test administered to the students sas reliable as the calculation researches 0.86. It sas proved that the application of sentence combining technique in teaching recount sriting sas more effective because the results shosed that students’ score sas higher after the treatment.

B. Suggestions

In line sith the conclusions and the result of the research, some suggestions are stages as the follosing.

1) The English teachers are suggested should be able to choose a teaching technique to achieve a satisfying result and had be better apply Sentence Combining Technique in teaching sriting to make the students’ sriting become more varied, innovative and sell organized.

2) The students are suggested to be more creative, confidence and enjoyable

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3) The readers are suggested to read this research result to siden their horizon about the benefit of doing research shenever they sant to prove their intended purposed in research area.

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REFERENCES

A. C. Boardman. 2008. Writing to Commnnicate. New York. Pearson Edition.

Anderson, J. R. (1982). Acqnisition of cognitive skill. Psychological Review.

Arikunto, S.2006. Prosednr Penelitian: Snatn Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta : Rineka Cipta.

Aruan. 2002. Penafsiran Skor Test. Medan: unpublished.

Ary, D2002. Entroduction to reserach in Education Singapore: Wardswoth. Best, John W. 1981. Research in Edncation. New Delhi: Prentice Hall

Brown, H.D. 2004. Langnage Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices. New

York: Longman, Pearson Education.

Burns, A. and Hammond, J. Teaching and Researching Literacy. Harlow : Longman.

Direktorat Pendidikan Menengah Umum.2006. Knriknlnm Tingkat Satnan

Pendidikan (KTSP). Jakarta:Departement Pendidikan Nasional. E. Lindemann. 1995. A Rhetoric for Writing Teacher. Oxford University Press