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life. However, learning English at Elementary School, the students are expected to be able to reach the informational level because they are
prepared to continue their study in Junior High School. The epistemic level is too high for Elementary School because English in Indonesia functions as
a foreign language.
2.6 Purposes of Learning English at Elementary School
English at Elementary School have the purpose to make the students have the ability:
a. Developing the communicative competence in spoken and written
language to reach a functional level. b.
Having consciousness about the essence and the importance of English to improve nation’s competence ability in the global society.
c. Developing the students’ comprehension about the relation between
language and culture.
2.7 Classroom Action Research
2.7.1 The Meaning of Action Research
Action research or classroom action research is popular in education field. According to Hopkins 1985:4, the action research is a form of self-
reflective inquiry undertaken by participants in a social including school
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situation in order to improve the rationality and justice of a their own social or educational practices, b their understanding of these practices,
and c the situations in which practices are carried out. Classroom action research begins with a question or questions about classroom experiences,
issues, or challenges. It is a reflective process which helps teachers to explore and examine aspects of teaching and learning and to take action to
change and improve. Action research was a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in terms or as part
of a community of practice to improve the way their address issues and solves problems. http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiaction_research.
2.7.2 Aim of Conducting Action Research
Nowadays, the new information, knowledge and technology in Indonesia’s education world grow very fast. It causes the demand on
educational services, which must be done by teachers. Teachers have to solve the problems they face properly. To solve the problems, they should
use an appropriate method such as action research. Elliot 1998:49 states that fundamental aim of action research is to improve practice rather than to
produce knowledge. The action research is a good method that can be used in teaching learning process. There are many benefits of conducting action
research. The benefits of conducting action research are: 1
Improving the teachers’ self confidence because they have more knowledge experience to solve problems,
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2 Helping the teachers to understand the essence of education
empirically not theoretically, 3
More effective when we compare with other training, and 4
Improve the research tradition among teachers. Elliot,
198:58
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CHAPTER III METHOD OF INVESTIGATION
In this chapter, the writer presents research method. It provides with object of study, population and sample, research variable, research design, validity
and reliability, scoring system, criterion of assessment.
3.1 Object of Study
Object of the study is the source from whom or which we can obtain the data. In this study, the aim of the study was to find out students’ achievement in
improving the quality of writing descriptive. The scope of the study was the fifth year students in SD N Gayamsari 2 Semarang in the academic year of 20092010.
There is only one class of the fifth grade students with 45 students.
3.2 Population and Sample
Population is a group about which the researcher is interested in gaining information and drawing conclusions Saleh,2004:227. The
population of this study is the fifth grade students of SD N Gayamsari 2 Semarang in the academic year of 20092010.
Sample is a group of people, thing or place where data is collected. A sample is actually a part, which is considered as a representative of a
population Saleh,2001:33. In this study the writer only selected one class of the students from population as sample. In order to get the representative
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sample, the sample should represent the true situation of the population. The writer taught by using miniatures and without miniatures in improving
descriptive writing skill. There is one class chosen from the fifth grade students of SD N Gayamsari 2 Semarang. There were only 45 students.
Thus, I took all students as the subjects of my study, in order to research used total sampling.
3.3 Research Variables
Variable is a quality which can take a number of different values of states Brown. A. and Dowping P. 1998:22. According to Saleh, 2004:10,
there are two kinds of variables; they are independent variable and dependent variable. Independent variable is an available that is easily
obtained and can be diversified into free variable, while dependent variable is the effect of the independent variable. Independent Variable
X, in this study, the independent variable is the students’ activity in writing a descriptive text using miniatures. The activity here meant the
students action in writing descriptive. The student’s activity in writing descriptive was indicated by the following
indicators. 1
Frequency of the activity 2
Attention 3
Activity of the students 4
Expectation of the students
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The second variable is called dependent variable Y is the student vocabulary’s achievement. It meant about effectiveness of the two
techniques. This variable describes the students’ level dealing with the vocabulary mastery. Achievement in this research refers to the student total
score of the vocabulary test.
3.4 Research Design
