93
Figure 9: The result of a student’s writing in post-test 2
Figure 10: The result of a student’s writing in post-test 2
C. Discussion
The objective of this research was to impr ove students’ writing ability at
grade VIII in SMP Pembangunan Piyungan by using a picture series in the
94 Academic Year of 20142015. There are five aspects of writing that were
evaluated; those were content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. One of the students’ main problems in writing skill was the difficulties
in expressing their ideas. Besides they lacked in generating ideas, they also lacked in developing their ideas into good paragraphs. They were confused to make
supporting ideas and put the ideas in the logical order. As mentioned before, using a series of pictures as media in the teaching and learning process and combined it
with grammar and vocabulary exercise, using game and giving prizes, providing feedback to students’ writing and providing various activities and tasks are
successful in improving the students’ writing ability in grade VIII A of SMP Pembangunan Piyungan in the academic year of 20142015.
A pre-test was conducted on 1
st
November 2014 to measure the students’ writing skill before the implementation of the actions. In the pre-test, the students
were asked to write a recount text about their yesterday’s activities a diary individually. Post-
test 1 was also conducted to measure students’ progress on writing after the implementation of the actions in Cycle 1. It was done on 2
nd
February 2015. In the post-test 1, the students were asked to write a recount text based on the series of pictures given individually. Since the result of post-test 1
showed that the improvement of the students’ writing skill was not very satisfying, the research team agreed to implement some modified actions in Cycle
2. Then, post-test 2 was also conducted to measure students’ writing skill after the
implementation of the actions in Cycle 2. It was done on 2
nd
March 2015. In the post-test 2, the students were asked to write a recount text based on the series of
