well as improving students’ language skills, content learning, and cognitive abilities.
Moreover, Heines in Fragoulis 2009 states that project-based learning can improve language
skills. As students get involve
in purposeful communication to complete authentic activities, they have opportunity to use
language in relative natural context and participate in meaningful activities which require authentic language.
The implementation of project-based learning as a teaching method and the additional actions such as providing grammar exercises, providing vocabulary
exercises, providing feedback and making use of media were successful in improving students’ writing skills of the class VIII C students of SMPN 11
Magelang. It could be seen from the improvement of five aspects of writing including content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. As a
result, the students could produce better writing than before. The researcher started the research in February 2015 and ended it in April
2015. She implemented two cycles in this research. There were some successful and unsuccessful during the implementation of project-based learning in the
classroom. The explanation of these two cycles is presented below:
1. The Design of Actions in Cycle I
a. The successful actions 1 The implementation of project-based learning in the classroom
could improve the students to write confidently.
2 They enjoyed learning through project-based learning. The activities in the project-based learning could improve their
creativity and also cooperative skills. 3 They could improve their participation in the teaching learning
process. Besides, their motivation to learn English was also enhanced. They became actively involved in the learning process.
4 Their attitudes toward writing were significantly improved through the implementation of project-based learning in the classroom.
5 The feedback was beneficial for them to improve their awareness of grammatical rules and sentence structure and also help them to
notice and learn from others’ mistakes. 6 The students could produce a narrative text better than the previous
one. b. The Unsuccessful actions
1 The lesson spent more time than the time planned. 2 There were some students who did not work cooperatively and
bothered other members of the groups. 3 There was a technical problem dealing with the use of media in the
teaching-learning process.
2. The Design of Actions in Cycle 2
In Cycle 2, project-based learning was still employed. The actions of this cycle were improved from the previous cycle. The project planned in the Cycle 2
was called “Story Book”. The topic of this cycle was fable. PBL has been
successful to bring the students into better performances of teaching and learning process in writing skills. Besides, the motivation and students’ involvement and
participation during the teaching-learning process also improved. The use of project-based learning could be a way to improve students’ writing ability.
D. The Students’ Score
In conducting the research, the researcher also used quantitative data to support the qualitative data. She compared the pretest, Cycle 1 test, and Cycle 2
test. The difference among pretest, Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 test can be seen from the table below.
Table 10: The Mean of the Test Scores for Five Aspects of Writing Text Test
Content Organization
Vocabulary Language
Use Writing
Mechanics
Pretest 2.00
2.03 1.83
1.67 2.06
Cycle 1
2.58 2.67
2.00 2.03
2.16
Cycle 2
3.22 3.19
2.87 2.61
2.90
The table above shows the improvement of the students’ writing skills in all aspects. It presents the mean score in five aspects of writing including content,
organization, vocabulary, language use, and also writing mechanics. The first aspect is content. The means score of content increased from 2.00
points in the pretest to 3.22 points in Cycle 2 test. Then, the organization aspect also improved from 2.03 points in the pretest to 3.19 points in Cycle 2 test.
Besides, the mean score of vocabulary aspect gained 1.04 points from pretest to Cycle 2 test. The students’ language use scores improved from 1.67 to 2.61. The
last aspect being assessed is writing mechanics. The mean score of writing
