sentence structure to discuss what they see. In this context, the students will need to use English words to write their ideas of what they see. So, pictures are
valuable in that they provide for the use of vocabulary items and language forms. In cue cards with the presence of pictures, the teacher can also explain the
organization of the text more easily, no matter whether it is in the form of single picture or a series of pictures. In the form of single picture, the researcher had put
some key words about the general information of the subject that could be used in the orientation part of a descriptive text in Cycle I. Other than that, the reseacher
also separated certain topic in several pictures so that the students would focus on aparticular topic in a paragraph. In Cycle II, where the students were taught
recount text with cue cards in the form of series of pictures, the researcher discussed each picture with the students first to figure which ones went to the
orientation part, which ones went to the events part, and the others which belonged to the re-orientation part.
Therefore, based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that teaching writing with cue cards can improve the writing ability of class VIII of SMPN 1
Rembang, especially in the aspects of generating ideas, vocabulary mastery and text organization, and motivation.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODS
A. Type of the Research
The type of this research is action research. Koshy 2005:1 defines action research as an enquiry, undertaken with rigour and understanding so as
to constantly refine practice; the emerging evidence-based outcomes will then contribute to the researching practitioner’s continuing professional
development. The nature of the action research is to identify the problem happening in the teaching and learning class and then decides an action to
overcome the problems. Burns 2010:2 also states that the central idea of the action part of action research is to identify a ‘problematic’ situation or issue
that the paticipants, including teachers, students, administrators, or even parents, consider worth looking into more deeply and systematically. Thus,
action research requires the researcher to look at the real problems faced by all of the participants and choose the ones to be solved based on the
feasibility and the urgency. In this research, the researcher identified some problems related to the
students writing skill. After that, she formulated the actions to solve the problem. In improving the students writing skill, the researcher decided to
conduct action research based on Kemmis and McTaggart model as cited in Burns 2010:7-9. There were four phases in each cycle involved in this
research. Those were planning, action, observation, and reflection. The processes of the phases could be drawn in Figure 2.
Figure 3.1: Scheme of Action Research by Kemmis and McTaggart in Burns 2010: 7-9
According to Figure 2, the researcher identified the problems or issues found and developed a plan of action to be carried out in order to bring
improvements in a specific area of the research context in planning phase. In the action phase, the researcher implemented the actions by using cue cards
planned previously and questioned her assumptions about the current situation and planned new and alternative ways of doing things. During and
after the implementation the action, the researcher also observed systematically the effects of the action and documented the context, actions,
and opinions of those who were involved. It is the data collection stage in the observation phase. Finally, in the reflection phase, the researcher reflected on,
evaluated and described the effects of the action in order to make sense of what has happened and to explore the issues more deeply and clearly. In this
phase, the researcher decided to do further cycles of action research to
improve the situation, or not. The researcher decided to do 2 cycles of the research and then shared the result as part of her professional development.
B. Subject of the Research
The subjects of this research were the students of grade VIIID of SMPN 1 Rembang in the academic year of 20132014.
C. Research Setting
1. Place of the Research
The research was conducted in SMPN 1 Rembang. It is located in Losari, Rembang, Purbalingga. It is 2 km from Jendral Soedirman Monument
and 27 km from the main district, Purbalingga. 2.
Schedule of the Research The research study was conducted in the second semester of the
academic year of 20132014. The observation was done on January 27
th
, 2014.
D. Instruments of the Research
The instruments consist of several documents. According to Burns 1999:17, documents in action research are relevant to the research questions
which can include students ’ written works, student record and profiles, course
overviews, lesson plans, and classroom materials. The documents used in this research are students
’ written works, and questionnaires student record and profiles.
In order to gain the valid data on the students writing performance, some instruments were used. They were the rubrics for the students written
