THE EFFECT OF SENTENCE COMBINING PRACTICE IN STUDENTS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT A CASE STUDY AT SMA AL KAUTSAR BANDAR LAMPUNG

i ABSTRACT

THE EFFECT OF SENTENCE COMBINING PRACTICE IN STUDENTS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT BY USING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT A CASE STUDY AT SMA AL KAUTSAR BANADAR LAMPUNG

Dewi Firdanti

Theoretically, among the four language skills, writing is the most difficult skills to learn. This is true because these skills cover many crucial aspects such as organization, vocabulary, and grammar. It was found in the field that there are some students who experienced difficulties in writing activities when they achieve the writing skills.

This study aimed to discover the effect of applying sentence Combining Practice on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. It was conducted by using experimental research design. The population of this research was the tenth (X) grade students of SMA Al-Kautsar with eight parallel classes. The sample of this research was class X.4 which was chosen by using lottery technique. Thirty five students were taken as the sample.

The instrument for collecting the data was a writing test. Pearson Product Moment formula was applied to obtain the reliability of the test. Based on the calculation, it showed that the reliability of the pre-test was 0.81 categorized as very high reliability, meanwhile reliability of the post test was 0.70 categorized as high reliability.

The result of the research showed the average score of students’ writing achievement in the pretest was 59.171. While in posttest the average score of students’ writing achievement was 70.686, which indicated that the score rose 11.515 points. This researach used paired sample t-test the significance of students’ writing achievement from pre-test to post-test, after analyzing the data, it was found that the value of t was -9.575 with the degree of freedom (df)=34 at the level of significance (a = 0.05). It could be pointed out that t observed was higher than t table (9.575 > 2.0301). The result of this study showed that Sentence Combining Practice had a significant effect on students’ writing achievement by using descriptive text.

THE EFFECT OF SENTENCE COMBINING PRACTICE IN

STUDENTS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT

BY USING

DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

A CASE STUDY AT SMA AL-KAUTSAR BANDAR LAMPUNG

By

DEWI FIRDANTI A Script

Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for S-1 Degree

in

The Language and Arts Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF LAMPUNG

BANDAR LAMPUNG

2015

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CURRICULUM VITAE

The writer, Dewi Firdanti, was born on December 19th 1993 in Bandar Lampung. She is the third child of four children of Burhanuddin and Sutiana.

She joined elementary school at SD Al-Azhar Bandar Lampung in 1999 and graduated in 2005. In the same year, she entered SMP Negeri 1 Bandar Lampung and graduated in 2008. Three years later, she completed her study at SMA Negeri 5 Bandar Lampung. Then, in 2011 she was accepted as a student at the Teacher Training and Education Faculty, English Education Study Program, Lampung University. She conducted KKN at Pesisir Barat and teaching PPL at SMA Negeri 1 Pesisir Selatan, Lampung in July 2014 for approximately 2 and a half months.

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DEDICATION

Alhamdulillah, this script would humbly be dedicated to:

My beloved parents My brother and sisters

My Advisors and examiner: Mr. Basturi, Mr. Sudirman, And Mrs. Flora My friends

iv MOTTO

“Many of the failures in life because people did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up”

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All praises to Allah SWT, the almighty God, for the gracious mercy and blessing that enables the writer to finish her script. Greeting is never forgotten, praise upon Prophet Muhammad SAW and his family, followers and all Muslims. This script entitled ―The Effect of Sentence Combining Practice in Students’ Writing Achievement by Using Descriptive Text. A Case Study at SMA Al-Kautsar Bandar Lampung‖ is submitted as a compulsory fulfilment of the requirement for S-1 Degree at The Language and Arts Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of University of Lampung.

Gratitude and honor are addressed to all persons who have helped and supported the writer in completing of this research. Since, it is necessary to be known that this research will never have come into its existence without any supports, encouragements and assistences by several outstanding people and institutions. Therefore, the writer would like to acknowledge her respect and best gratitude to:

1. Drs. Basturi Hasan, M.Pd., as the first advisor, for his criticism, motivation and encouragement in supporting the writer.

2. _{Drs. Sudirman, M.Pd., as the second advisor, for his ideas, guidance and} carefulness in correcting the writer’s research.

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3. Dr. Flora, M.Pd., as the examiner, for her encouragement, ideas, and suggestions in supporting the writer.

4. Dr. Ari Nurweni, M.A., as the Chief of English Education Study Program and all lecturers of English Education Study Program who have contributed their guidance during the completion process until accomplishing this research 5. Eko Anzair, S.Si., as the Headmaster of SMA Al- Kautsar Bandar Lampung,

for giving the writer the permission to conduct the research

6. _{Taufiq Hidayat, S.Pd., as the English teacher of SMA Al-Kautsar Bandar} Lampung who has helped much and given his full support for this research. Also all the students of X.4 year of 2014/2015, for the participation as the subject of this research.

7. _{For the greatest family in the world, Ibu, Bapak, Kakak, Ses Kia, Nabila.} Thank you so much for the hope, the spirit, the prayers, and the faith in me. 8. All the writer’s friend_{s, Elisabeth, Arthadina, Revi, Sofia, Nitta, Luh Ayu,}

Yohanes, Ratih, Riana, Nidya, Vania, Vina, Jaendra, and all of my friends in English Education Study Program’11 that cannot be mentioned one by one. Thank you for the motivation, love, sharing and support.

Finnaly, the writer believes that her writing is still far from perfection. There are might be weakness in this research. Thus, comments, critiques, and suggestions are always opened for better research. Somehow, the writer hopes this research would give a positive contribution to the educational development, the readers and to those who want accomplish further research.

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Bandar Lampung, July 2015 The writer,

viii CONTENTS

Page

ABSTRACT ... i

CURRICULUM VITAE ... ii

DEDICATION ... iii

MOTTO ... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... v

CONTENT ... viii

LIST OF TABLES ... x

LIST OF GRAPHS ... xi

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xii

I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background ... 1

1.2 Research Questions... 6

1.3 Objectives of The Research ... 6

1.4 Uses of The Research ... 6

1.5 Scope ... 7

1.6 Definition of Terms ... 7

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Concept of Writing Skill... 9

2.2 Aspects of Writing ... 11

2.3 Concept of Sentence Combining ... 16

2.4 Notion of Descritive Text ... 23

2.4.1 Concept of Descriptive Text ... 23

2.4.2 Elements of Descriptive Text ... 23

2.5 The Procedure of Teaching Writing Trough SCP ... 25

2.6 Theoretical Framework ... 28

2.7 Hypotheses Test... ... 28

III. METHODS OF THE RESEARCH 3.1 Research Design ... 30

3.2 Population and Sample ... 31

3.3 Data Collecting Technique ... 31

3.4 Scoring Criteria ... 32

3.5 Procedure of Data Collecting Technique. ... 33

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3.6.1 Validity of the Writing Test. ... 34

3.6.2 Reliability of the Writing Test. ... 36

3.7 Data Analysis ... 38

3.8 Hypotheses Test ... 38

3.9 Schedule of the Research.. ...40

IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Result of Research ... 42

4.1.1 The Result of Pre-test ... 43

4.1.2 The Result of Post-test ... 45

4.1.3 The Increase of Students’ Writing Achievement ... 46

4.1.4 Normality Test ... 49

4.1.5 Hypothesis Testing ... 50

4.2 Discussion of Research Findings ... 52

V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 60

5.2 Suggestions ... 61

1 Suggestion for English Teacher ... 61

2 Suggestion for Further Research ... 62

REFERENCES ... 63

x

LIST OF TABLES

Page

3.1 Scoring Criteria ... 32

3.2 Value of Reliability Coefficient ... 37

3.3 Result of Reliability Test of Pre-test and Post-test ... 37

3.4 Schedule of the Research ... 40

4.1 Distribution of Pre-test score ... 44

4.2. Distribution of Posttest Score ... 46

4.3 The Increase of Students’ Score ... 47

4.4 Test of normality ... 49

x

LIST OF APPENDICES

Page

1. Lesson Plan ... 67

2. Pre Test ... 72

3. Post Test ... 73

4. Result of Students’ Pre Test Score ... 74

5. Result of Students’ Post Test Score ... 76

6. Reliability of Pre Test Score ... 78

7. Reliability of Post Test Score ... 80

8. Normality Test ... 82

9. Paired Sample T Test ... 84 10. Students’ Work

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LIST OF GRAPHS

Page 4.1 The Average of Students’ Writing Score in Pretest ... 43 4.2. The Average of Students’ Writing Score in Posttest ... 45 4.3. The improvement of Average Score from Pre-test to Posttest ... 47

I. INTRODUCTION

This chapter tells about the problem of this research. It consists of background of the problem, research problem, objectives of the research, uses of the research, scope of the research and definition of terms that are used in this research.

1.1 Background of the problem

In today’s modern society, in general, there are two ways of making communication; they are direct communication and indirect communication. Speaking and listening are known as direct communication, while writing and reading are indirect communication. Writing, in particular, plays a vital role in this modern life, it is not only a process of linking words into sentences or paragraphs, but it is also a sequence or steps of expressing the ideas, organized thoughts and feeling in the form of words and combined into sentences then into paragraphs where in which every sentences are closely related one to another. Writing is also a process of transforming knowledge to create a new knowledge (Graham & Harris, 1989:6).

Broadly, among the four language skills taught in schools, writing is the most difficult skills to learn. This is true because it needs specialized skill that includes the ability to express the writer’s opinions or thoughts clearly and

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efficiently. This ability can be achieved only if a learner masters some techniques of writing such as how to obtain the ideas, how to express them in sequence of sentences, how to organize them chronologically and coherently, and how to review and then how to revise the composition until the writing well- built. In Indonesia, writing English is considered as the most important part to be learned by the students in school. As stated in Curriculum 2006, School Based Curriculum (KTSP), that students of senior high school are expected to be able to communicate in spoken or written form in simple function. For this reason the students should be able to write any kind of genre.

During the pre observation , it was found in the field, there were difficulties found in writing activities when assigned to students. As the beginners in learning English, they still had problem in constructing well-formed sentences. As a result, they generally produced less syntactically complex sentences that contained more grammatical errors ( Myklebust, 1973:7).

The previous research of writing achievement conducted by Andayani (2010) in SMA Al Kautsar found that the students experienced difficulties in writing, especially in terms of vocabulary, grammar, and organization. Students often produced sentences that were shorter; had higher percentages of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling error; and were lower in overall quality. Anderson (1982:359) 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 and.

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Therefore, this overcoming problem in sentence construction is an important problem to senior 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, 1997:201). 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, 1986:3). These problems, of course, directly affect the complexity and the coherence of the communication. The difficulties of constructing well-designed and grammatically correct sentences may make the students’ writing become more difficult for others to read.

The observer also found this condition in reference to the writer’s experience through Teaching Practice (PPL) in SMA N 1 Pesisir Selatan. It was objectively observed that almost half of students from each class still obtained score under 70 in any genres of writing. The students attained many difficulties in grammar, word choice and still weak in using punctuation and capitalization. They wrote with the short and choppy sentences also, and the sentences always began in the same manner. Another problem occurred was mainly related to writing paragraph which was not relevant to the topic given.

In relation to the problem above, a study conducted by Azizah (2012) showed that SMA students found crucial difficulties in their writing especially in terms of

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organization, vocabulary, and grammar. To moderate such problems above, teacher as a fasilitator should find out solution to help students in their effort to be able to write a constructive writing. Certainly changing the way of teaching done by teacher is the solution. But the teacher may be able to figure out how to solve the problem because, in fact, there are so many options available to be applied. Sentence combining practice is good to be chosen to solve such problems faced by the students.

This stands to reason for sentence combining can prompt students to use syntactical options in their writing by providing them practice in consciously controlling and manipulating syntax (Saddler, 2005:43). The application of this technique can be started by giving practices to the 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 accordingly move to the next level in which the students can practice to combine some kernel sentences. In this way, 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 so, the process of decombining and recombining sentences will provide activities of how complex sentence carries many ideas and makes the sentences

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become more varied, interesting and sound better to read.

Evidently, many studies involving sentence combining research have been conducted and shown that this practice is 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 received sentence combining treatment for forty five minutes, while control group followed their regular program. The sentence combining treatment consists not only sentence manipulating but also the writing paragraphs and stories. Results indicated that sentence combining practices made students achieve significant gains over their control group in written language scores and free writing. The next study by Stoddard (1982) in Strong (1986) tested the effects of sentence combining against regular programs. In a six-week study involving 180 students in four district schools. Results showed that the treatment groups’ score 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 received the teaching treatment by using sentence combining practice had positive improvement in writing. From the results shown above, it can be inferred that sentence combining technique is one of alternative and effective strategies to be applied to increase the students’ writing achievement in SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung.

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In reference to the explanation above, this study chooses to conduct a research about the effect of sentence combining practice toward students’ writing achievement.

1.2 Research Questions

Considering the background presented above, the researcher formulate following research problem:

1. In general, is there any significant effect of sentence combining practice on students’ writing achievement at the first grade of SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung?

2. Specifically, which aspects of writing skills improve after they are being taught using sentence combining practice?

1.3 Objectives of The Research

In line with the research questions, the objectives of this research are as follows:

1. To find out wether there is significant effect of sentence combining practice on students’ writing achievement at the first grade of SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung.

2. To find out the improvement of each aspects of writing

1.4 Uses of The Research The uses of this research are:

1. Theoretically, the result of this research can be used as a contribution for educational research especially the one concerning teaching of writing.

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2. Practically, the result of this research can be used as information sharing for English teachers in senior high School that sentence combining practice is applicable or not.

1.5 Scope

This research will be conducted at the first year of SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung of academic year 2014/2015. In this case this study will use one class only that consists of + 35 students. In genre based text, writing consists of thirteen types of text such as narrative text, news item, procedure text, argumentative, expository, spoof and others. The research basically limits to students writing skill on students’ achievement in writing particularly on descriptive genre text, specifically describing personality or person. There are three aspects of writing measured in this research that are grammar, vocabulary and organization. Students’ improvement will find out by comparing the result of students’ recorded answers of pre-test and post-test.

1.6 Definition of Terms

There are several terms needed to be clearly defined in order to have similar understanding. The terms can be described as follows:

Writing Skills

Writing skills are refer to the ability of using written language with certain elements to express ideas, issues, events, feeling or thinking to the others through written form.

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Sentence Combining

Sentence combining is the practice of putting together strings of basic kernel sentences into more complex, syntactically mature and fluent sentences which refers to the effectiveness of the sentences.

Writing Practice

This is the act of rehearsing a behavior (writing) over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect".

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

In order to reach the goal of this reasearch, there are several points will be discused in this chapter. They are classifying like the following: concept of writing skill, aspects of writing, sentence combining, descriptive text, theoretical assumption and hypotheses.

2.1 Concept of Writing Skills

Theoretically, writing skills become an important part of communication. Good writing skills allow us to communicate our message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations. Writing skills are productive skills in the written mode. Which are naturally more complicated than they seem at first, and often to be the most complex of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since these skills involve not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way.

In other words, Writing skills are used as a means to communicate in very organized and logical way to convey message, ideas, and feeling in a written

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form. Raimes (1983:76) states that writing skills are used to express ideas, feeling and thought to be arranged in words, sentences and paragraph. These skills also reinforce the use of sentence’s structure and tenses, idiom and the choice of vocabulary correctly in order to make the reader get the idea clearly.

Writing, according to Barton (2000:5) is a complicated and often mysterious process. Although the writers may think of it as little more than arranging letters and words on a page, a few moments’ reflection reveal that it is much more than that. Meanwhile, Meyers (2005:2) states that writing is a way to produce language that the writers do naturally when they speak. Writing is speaking to other on paper or on computer screen. Writing is also an action or a process of discovering and organizing their ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping and revising them. Palmer (1994: 5) adds that writing is recursive activities. Thus, it goes back and forth we plan a little, put words on paper, stop plan when we want to say next, go back and change a sentence, or change their minds altogether.

Furthermore, writing, as one of the productive skills, as noted earliear,is considered difficult, especially writing English as a foreign languge. According to Axelord and Cooper in Ma’mun (2004:5) writing is a complex process and such contains element of mastery and surprise. This is reasonable true because when students intend to write something they should have a lot of information ideas, and thought in their mind so that they will be able to express them into sentences, and paragraphs.

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In addition, according to Angelo (1989:5), writing is a form of thinking. It means that writing is an activity to express ideas, issues, events, feeling or thinking to the others through written form. Cohen and Reil (1989: 13) say that writing can be defined as communicate act, a way of sharing observation, thought, or ideas with ourselves and others, it is a tool of thinking. Thus, by writing we can tell about people, remember the facts and ideas.

In reference to the statement above, it can be logically inferred that writing is expressing ideas, facts, feeling, experience, and thought in written form. In writing, there are, among others, some aspects to be included,namely:the use of vocabulary, structure of the sentence, composition of the sentence, spelling and punctuation. These aspects are important to master in order to be able to produce good writing. The writing ability is the main activity of composition which should be systematical and detail.

2.2 Aspects of Writing

In writing, there are several aspects which should be considered by students in order to write well. Brown (2001: 21) proposes six major aspects of writing that have to be required by a writer in producing a written text namely content, organization, discourse, syntax, vocabulary, and mechanics.

Naturally, content deals with thesis statement, topic sentence, related ideas, development ideas, and the use of description. Organization covers the effectiveness of introduction, logical sequences of ideas, conclusion, and

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appropriate length. Discourses include topic sentence, paragraph unity, transition, discourse maker, cohesion, rhetorical convention, reference, fluency, economy, and variation which will be elaborated in the next part. While mechanics include the use of spelling, punctuation, citation of reference, and appearance.

Harris (1979: 68) proposes five aspects of writing namely content (the substance of writing), form (the organization of content), grammar (the employment of grammatical form and syntatic pattern), and style (the choices of structure and lexical items to give a particular tone or flavour to the writing). Since the focus of the study are on organization, vocabulary, and language use (grammar), so the basic framework will deal mainly with the three writing aspects above.

Moreover, Jacobson (2003: 35) states that in order to be effective, a piece of composition should meet the following qualities:

1. _Organization

Organization is the progression, relatedness, and completeness of ideas. The writer establishes for the reader a well-organized composition, which exhibits a constancy of purpose through the development of elements forming an effective beginning, middle, and end. The response demonstrates a clear progression of related ideas and/or events and is unified and complete.Organization refers to the logical organization of content. It is scarely more than attempt to piece together all collection of fact and jumble ideas. Even in early drafts it may still be searching for order, trying to make out patterns in its materials and working to bring particulars of its subject inline with what is still only a half-formed notion

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of purpose. The logical organization of content provides readers with a framework to help them fulfill their expectations for the text. A well-organized piece of writing supports readers by making it easy for them to follow, otherwise a poorly organized piece leads readers through a maze of confusion and confounded expectations.The ideas and actions should connect to each other in result that the reader could follow the idea clearly.Here is an example of a well organized paragraph that would make the reader follow the piece logically from beginning to the end:

My Guitar

My most valuable possession is an old, slightly warped blond guitar--the first instrument I taught myself how to play. It's nothing fancy, just a Madeira folk guitar, all scuffed and scratched and finger-printed. At the top is a bramble of copper-wound strings, each one hooked through the eye of a silver tuning key. The body of the Madeira is shaped like an enormous yellow pear, one that was slightly damaged in shipping. The blond wood has been chipped and gouged to gray, particularly where the pick guard fell off years ago. No, it's not a beautiful instrument, but it still lets me make music, and for that I will always treasure it.

It can be seen that the paragraph above has the unity by seeing that each sentence has conjunction or connector such as and and the use of punctuation to give a clear and smooth description of the guitar. The paragraph contains sentences that are logically arranged (coherence) by seeing the development of the writing which has a clear topic sentence in the beginning, followed by supporting sentences with good vocabulary that makes the readers could understand the idea of the paragraph clearly.

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2. Vocabulary

Vocabulary refers to the selection of words those are suitable with the content. It begins with the assumption that writer wants to express the ideas as clearly and directly as he or she can.A good vocabulary will provide for clear communication of your ideas and thoughts.The selection of words those are suitable with the content naturally refers to select a general topic and then gradually narrow down to an appropriately specific topic. This approach is most helpful to consider the selection words that compatible with the topic.The breadth and depth of a student's vocabulary will have a direct influence upon the descriptiveness, accuracy, and quality of his or her writing. For example, if the topic is about mother, then the selection of words would be:nice, woderful, proud, cook, love, clean, make,sweep,housewives, beautiful, everyday, everytime.

3. Language use (grammar)

People associate grammar with errors and correctness. But knowing about grammar also helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and precise.Grammar is the sound, structure, and meaning system of language. All languages have grammar, and each language has its own grammar. People who speak the same language are able to communicate because they intuitively know the grammar system of that language—that is, the rules of making meaning.

Language use refers to the use of correct grammatical form and synthetic pattern of separating, combining, and grouping ideas in words , phrases,

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clauses, and sentences to bring out logical relationship in paragraph writing. Theoretically, words denote any group of characters separated by spaces or punctuation on both sides. Words isthe smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content (with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme, for example: oh!, rock, red, quick, run, expect, or several:rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected, whereas a morpheme may not be able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed).

Phrases denote a group of words that stand together as a single unit, typically as part of a clause or a sentence. It does not contain a subject and verb and, consequently, cannot convey a complete thought, for example,smashing into a fence. Clauses denote a group of words that includes a subject and a verb, for example,she laughs at different men. Sentences denote a group of words that are put together to mean something. A sentence is the basic unit of language which expresses a complete thought by following the grammatical rules of syntax, for example,Yesterday, Mary wrote letters to her mother.Grammatical rules of syntax can mean the selection of a word or the word's tense, the arrangement of the words and the selection of the punctuation.

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2.3Concept of Sentence Combining

Sentence combining is the practice of ―putting together strings of basic kernel sentences into more complex, syntactically mature and fluent sentences‖ (Savage, 1979: 11).A kernel sentence does not contain any optional expression and is simple in the sense that it is unmarked in mood, therefore, it is indicative. It is also unmarked in voice therefore it is active rather than passive. And, finally, it is unmarked in polarity therefore it is a positive rather than a negative sentence(Moitra, 1998: 9). The example of basic kernel sentence; “My dog is fat. My dog is black,” the writer can learn through sentence combining practice to combine these kernel sentences into more syntactically mature and fluent sentences, such as “My dog is fat and black” or “The fat black dog is mine,” depending on what idea in the sentence the writer wish to emphasize. The strategy of sentence combining is one way students can improve their syntax. According to the aforementioned definition of grammar, syntax is one aspect of grammar.Stated by Merriam Webster dictionary, syntax is ―the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (as phrases or clauses)‖. While the focus in this research is the improvement of students’ writing achievement, the direct effect of these improvements is also an improvement in written composition. The primary goal of exercises in sentence combining is not to produce longer sentences but rather to develop more effective ones.

Frank O'Hare (1973: 7)defines sentence combining as ―a type of pedagogy involving sequence practice of specially formulated print-based exercises through which a student is said to acquire dexterity in complex sentence structure".Nutter

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and Safran also acknowledge Chomsky's contribution: sentence combining derives from Noam Chomsky's (1965) theory that the basis of grammar is the irreducible sentence (the "kernel") and that the structure of grammar is the syntactic operations (the "transformations") we perform on kernels to generate new sentences.

The most obvious way to combine two or more sentences is to conect them with conjunction or conjunctive adverbs (George and Dorothy, 1981: 5). Each sentence in such a combination is then reffered to as a clause. Sometimes the logical relationships among the clauses will be immediately obvious, and the choice of connective will be relatively automatic.

There are number of different ways to combine sentences, they are systematically illustrated as follows:

a. Punctuation: Sentences can be combined by using special punctuation marks. We know that a period [ . ] question mark [ ? ] and exclamation point [ ! ] are used at the end of a sentence, so they cannot be used for combining sentences. We also know that a comma [ , ] is not strong enough to connect 2 sentences. There are 3 punctuation marks that are stronger than a comma but weaker than a period, question mark, or exclamation point. These are the dash [ -- ] colon [ : ] and semi-colon [ ; ].

1. A dash is used to add more information about some part of your sentence, e.g, Abby gave me a terrible haircut—and she expected a tip!

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2. A colon is also used to add more information and especially to give examples of something in the sentence, for example, He plays many sports: soccer, baseball and basketball.

3. A semi-colon is used to connect clauses and is the most important punctuation mark for combining sentences, e.g, ―Some people write with a word processor; others write with a pen or pencil”.

A semicolon can also be used to connect clauses together with special linking words namely:however, morover, therefore which grammar books call conjunctive adverbs. Here are the examples:

1. However : ―We wanted to spend the day at the beach. It was raining. We stayed home”

“We wanted to spend the day at the beach; However, it rained so we stayed home.”

2. Moreover: ―He set a new record in the race. it was his third record of the month”

“He set a new record in the race; Moreover, it was his third record of the month”

3. Therefore: ―John was tired after a long day at school. John

immediately took a nap when he got home.”

“John was tired after a long day at school;Therefore, he immediately took a nap when he got home.”

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b. Coordination: Coordination is a way of adding sentences together. In this type of sentence the 2 or more sentences (clauses) which are combined are equal partners. One clause is not more important than the other grammatically. Words that connect clauses in this way are called coordinating conjunctions and the most common ones are: and, or, but, so.For examples:

1. Conjunction and is used to join clauses that contain additional information, e.g, I bought a ticket and I got on the bus.

2. Conjunctionor is used to join clauses that contain choices or alternatives, e.g,Write me a letter or send an e-mail message.

3. Conjunctionbut is used to join clauses that contain opposing ideas, e.g,

I arrived early but no one was there.

4. Conjunctionso is used to join clauses that contain ideas of cause and effect, e.g,The jacket didn't fit so I took it back to the store.

c. Subordination: Subordination is a way of combining sentences that makes one sentence more important than the other. One sentence is under the other sentence (sub means under). Sentences that use subordination have a main clause or independent clause and one or more subordinate clauses or dependent clauses. One or more of the sentences being combined is reduced from an independent clause to a dependent clause by adding words as after, when, although, if or such words as who, what, that (called relative pronouns). Here is an example:

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Basic kernel sentence : The two countries reached an agreement on trade policies. They then were able to complete their peace treaty.

Sentence combination : After the two countries reached an agreement on trade policies, they were able to complete their peace treaty.

d. Reduction: We can go one step beyond reducing one of the sentences to a subordinate clause. We can reduce it to less than clause. We can reduce it to a phrase (a group of words without both a subject and verb). A sentence may be reduced to a:

1. participial phrase: The boy, scared by the movie, began to cry. The boy was scared by the movie. The boy began to cry.

2. Gerundphrase: Studying for the test increased his confidence. He studied for the test. He felt confident.

e. Apposition: In apposition, we take a word or phrase and place it in a parallel position to a noun in the sentence. An appositive is like a parenthetical statement surrounded not by parentheses but by commas. Here is an example:

1. Basic kernel sentences: Sara was the most serious student in the class. Sara always did her homework.

2. Sentence combination: Sara, the most serious student in the class, always did her homework.

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To be more concrete, here is an example how to combine basic kernel sentences into more complex sentences forming a paragraph:

Draft 1:

It was my birthday. I ask for a bike. My parents bought me a red bike.It hadwhite strips on the fenders. I like to ride my bike everywhere. I like to ride onsmooth payment best. I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk. People walk onthe side walk. If I have time. I ride on the bike trail in the park.

It can be noticed that:

Sentence 1: It was my birthday. Sentence 2: I ask for a bike.

To construct compound sentence, these two sentences should read: ―It was my birthday, so I ask for a bike”.

Clause 1: My parents bought me a red bike.

Clause 2: It hadwhite strips on the fenders.

To construct complex sentence, these two sentences should read: ―My parents bought me a red bike, and it had white strips on the fenders”.

Sentence 1: I like to ride my bike everywhere.

Sentence 2: I like to ride on smooth payment best.

To construct compound sentence, these two sentences should read: ―I like to ride my bike everywhere,but I like to ride on smooth payment best”.

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Clause 2: People walk on the sidewalk.

To construct complex sentence, these two sentences should read: “I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk because people walk on the sidewalk”.

Clause 1: If I have time.

Clause 2: I ride on the bike trail in the park.

To construct complex sentence, these two sentences should read:“Whenever I have time, I ride on the bike trail in the park”.

Draft 2:

It was my birthday, so I ask for a bike. My parents bought me a red bike, and it had white strips on the fenders. I like to ride my bike everywhere, but I like to rideon smooth payment best. I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk becausepeople walk on the sidewalk. Whenever I have time, I ride on the bike trail in thepark.

For the sake of brevity, after the clasification of the subdivision of sentence combining presented peviously, it now can be clearly seen that sentence combining can appear in dozens of ways in the classroom. Depending on the grade, level, and syntactic maturity of students, there are many different ways to teach the combining of sentences.

In line with the statement above, it can be concluded that sentence combining is the process of joining two or more short, simple sentences to make one longer sentence--an alternative to traditional grammar instruction.

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2.4 Notion of Descriptive text

Descriptive text is one of the texts taught in KTSP besides, narrative, spoof, procedure, report, news item, anecdote, exposition, explanation, discussion, commentary, and review.

2.4.1 Concept of Descriptive Texts

Wishon and M. Burks (1980:14) say that the descriptive text is a description reproduces the way things look, smell, taste, feel, or sound; it may also evoke moods, such as happiness, loneliness, or fear. Furthermore, they state that description of text used to create a visual image of people, places, even of units all time – days, times of day, or seasons. The others state that description is a piece of writing or speech that says what someone or something like(Sofyanda (2007:40). This descriptive text is a text which lists the characteristics of something (Larson (1984: 366).

In short, based the definition above, the concept of descriptive text can be concluded that description a piece of writing or speech that says what someone or something is like where it can create a visual image of people, place, even of units all time – days, time of day, season, of lists of the quality and the characteristic of something.

2.4.2Elements of descriptive texts

Social function of communicative approach of descriptive text is to describe a particular person, place, or thing in detail or clearly. According to Sofyanda (2007:40) the element of descriptive text is divided into two kinds

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are;identification and description. To achieve its purpose, the descriptive text will move through a different set of stage:

1. Identification : identifies phenomenon to be described

2. Description : provides details of topic such as parts, qualities characteristic, etc.

The stage above are the generic structure or text organzation of the descriptve text. The structures of descriptive text mostly use simple present tense, but sometimes it uses simple past tense when the person, thing, or place that is talked about nolonger exists. Tolkien (2010) states that descriptive text writing, sometimes called "showing writing" is writing that describes a particular person, place or event in great detail. Descriptive writing uses a lot of flowery adjectives and adverbs to describe what is going on or how something appears. So, the elements of descriptive text is used the definition and classification for introduces person, thing, or place that will be described and description describing for the pictures of the characteristic of the person, the thing or the place that’s talked about.

Here is an example of descriptive text about a mother:

My Mother

My mother is a wonderful mom. She looks beautiful because she has brightest skin in my family. My mother has a pointed nose and little eyes. Her eyebrows are almost invisible because they are so rare. She is short woman, but I

don’t care about it, I still love her anyway. My mother is a working woman as a

Identifi -cation

25

civil servant in Jombang local government. Everyday she always faces her laptop to do her jobs. Sometimes she has to go back to her office in the evening after receiving a sudden job, then she rides her car by herself.

My mother is a busy woman. But she has full love to give to her children. I’mproud of being her daughter.

2.5 The Procedure of Teaching Writing through Sentence Combining Practice

The material is presented using the followings stages:

My Bicycle

It was my birthday. I ask for a bike. My parents bought me a red bike. It

hadwhite strips on the fenders. I like to ride my bike everywhere. I like to ride

onsmooth payment best. I am not allowed to ride on the sidewalk. People

walk onthe side walk. If I have time. I ride on the bike trail in the park.

The procedure of Teaching Writing through Sentence Combining Practice:

Pre-writing activity:

a. The students are asked to mention their special thing, e.g.

T: Students, what is your most favorite thing?

S: I think, the most special thing is my bicycle, Mam.

Descri-ption

26

b. The students are asked what they know about descriptive text is?

T: Do you know what descriptive text is?

S: Yes, I know Mam, descriptive text is a text that describes about something.

T: That is good, Descriptive text tells about a person, a place, or a thing.

c. The students are explained about the generic stucture, language features, and social function of the text, e.g.

T: Let me explain about the generic structure, language features, and social function of descriptive text.

d. The students are explained about sentence combining using punctuation, coordination, and subordination, e.g.

T: Let me explain about sentence combining using punctuation, coordination, and subordination

Writing activity:

a. The students are asked to make group in pair, e.g.

T: You can make a group with your chairmate.

b. The students in group are given copies of descriptive textwhich consists of nothing but short, choppy sentences, e.g.

T: Here is an example of descriptive text

c. The students revise the story by combining simple sentences into complex sentences.

27

T: You may discuss with your friend the revision of the story by combining simple sentences into complex sentences.

S: Yes, Mam. We will revise the story by combining simple sentences into complex sentences.

d. The students write their revised versions on a blank transparency.

T: Please write your revised versions on a blank transparency

e. The students share the different versions on the overhead and discuss the different ways that students combined their sentences.

T: After you finish the writing, we will share the different versions on the overhead and discuss the different ways that students combined their sentences.

S: Yes mam, we will.

Post-writing activity

a. The students reflect on the lesson they learned.

T: What did we learn today?

S: We learn what descriptive text is and how to combine sentences using, punctuation, coordination, and subordination.

b. The students are given the homework

T: Here is your homework, you can submit it and we will duscuss it on the next meeting

S: Yes, Mam. T: Good bye

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2.6 TheoreticalAssumption

There has been assumption on this study that is the teaching writing to the students faced some problems. Students found that writing skill is not interesting and frustrating, which can lead them to an avoidance of writing and contribute to poor overall academic achievement.

In teaching writing, there are many techniques that can be used by the teachers to reach the goal of teaching learning process. Sentence combining practice is a technique that can be used to teach writing skill. It is also a tool that helps the Students to learn to create more mature and interesting sentences by combining short, simple sentencesand helps the writer place greater emphasis on the more important and relevant feature, depending on his or her intent.The researcher takes a conclusion that this technique probablywork effectively in her classroom as well. It is hoped through applying sentence combining practice; the students writing skill will improve. And the teacher teaching writing strategy is also enriched.

2.7 Hypothesis Test

H0 : There is significant improvement of students’ writing achievement beforeand after pretest and posttest through sentence combining practice.

H1 : There is no significant improvement of students’ writing achievement before and after pretest and posttest through sentence combining practice.

29

Besides the hypothesis above, the researcher also has another hypothesis states that organization is the most affected aspect in rising point.

III. METHODS OF THE RESEARCH

In order to reach the goal of this reasearch, there are several points will be discused in this chapter. They are classifying like the following: research design, population and sample, data collecting technique, scoring criteria, procedure of data collecting technique, data analysis, hypotheses test and schedule of the research.

3.1 Research Design

This research used quantitative method. The quantitative method was used to gather quantitative data and information dealing with numbers and anything that was measurable. Therefore, quantitative research involves analysis of numerical data, statistics, tables, and graphs often used to present results of research.

In this research, the researcher conducted the research by using one class and applied quasi experimental design that was one group pretest posttest design. The students were given a pretest, three treatments and a posttest. Concerning the effect of sentence combining practice in students’ writing achievement, the two variables were formulated as follows:

31

Where:

T1 : Pre-test

T2 : Post-test

X : Sentence Combining Practice

3.2 Population and Sample

The population of this research was the first year students of SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung in academic year of 2014/2015 that consisted of eight classes. One class was used as the sample of this research. The observer used lottery technique to choose the treatment class. So those eight classes had the same chance to be the sample. After applying the lottery technique, class X.4 was chosen as the class sample, consisting of 35 students.

3.3 Data Collecting Technique

The following instruments were deployed for data collection. In collecting the data, the researcher used pre-test and post-test

a. Pre-Test

The aim of this test was to know students’ descriptive writing achievement before they were given treatment. In this case, the researcher gave the topic to the students and let them create their own descriptive paragraph in approximately 10 sentences. The researcher used the pretest in 90 minutes.

b. Post-Test

The aim of this test was to know whether there was improvement or not in

32

observer gave the students test in 90 minutes. The observer gave same test with pre-test, which was the students were asked to make approximately 10 sentences of descriptive writing in a different topic from the pre-test. This test showed the improvement after using sentence combining practice

3.4 Scoring Criteria

Three aspects of writing were evaluated by the researcher: vocabulary, grammar, and organization, since the focus of this study were on the three mentioned aspects. The researcher used computation as follows:

1. Grammar was scored as much as 20 from sentences used correct grammar. 2. Organization was evaluated as much as 20 from the total sentences were

written in chronological order (coherence).

3. Vocabulary was scored 20 as much as from vocabularies were used correctly.

The scoring criteria for writing was adopted from ESL Composition Profile (Jacobson, 2003)

Table 3.1 Scoring Criteria

Aspect Criteria Score

Grammar - Excellent. All sentences written in the correct grammar/ few errors in past tense

- Good. Some errors in past tense - Fair. Numerous errors in past tense - Poor. Frequent errors in past tense

- Very poor. No sentence written in the correct grammar

20 15 10 5 0 Organization - Excellent. Most of sentences are related to the main idea

- Good.some sentences are related to the main idea - Fair. Few sentence related to the main idea - Poor. The sentences are unrelated to each other.

- Very poor. No supporting sentences written in chronological order 20 15 10 5 0 Vocabulary - Excellent. All vocabulary used correctly/ few errors in 20

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word choice

- Good.some errors in word choice - Fair. Occasional errors in word choice - Poor. Frequent errors in word choice - Very poor. No vocabulary used correctly

15 10 5 0

In reference to the content above, the researcher evaluated the aspects of descriptive text writing based on grammar, form or organization, and vocabulary. The lowest score was 0 and the highest score was 60 and divided by 6.

3.5 Procedure of Data Collecting Technique

In conducting research, the observer applied some steps as follows 1. Determining the population and sample

In this stage, the researcher chose SMA Al Kautsar Bandar Lampung as the population of this research. There were eight classes in the first year level. The observer took one class as the sample. Each class consisted approximately 35 students. And the class X.4 was chosen as the sample 2. Conducting pre-test

The pre-test was administered before the treatment session. The students were asked to write a short descriptive text.

3. Giving treatment

The sample class received treatment by using sentence combining practice. 4. Conducting post-test

The students were given a post-test on writing test. This test was aimed to measure the students’ achievement on writing descriptive text.

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Writing test was used to obtain the data of learners’ writing competence. 6. Analyzing the score

Determining whether there was any significant improvement in students’ writing achievement by using the score attained from the writing test. 7. Reporting the result of data analysis.

3.6 Instrument of the Research

To gain the data, the observer applied one kind of instrument that was writing test.

Writing Test

The Instrument of this research was descriptive writing test. The researcher conducted writing test to find out how far sentence combining practice improved

students’ writing achievement and what were the elements of writing that can be improved by sentence combining practice. The students were asked to write descriptive text with the topic already provided, the topics were “my bedroom”

and “the person I love”. The students were given a chance to make their writing for about 60 minutes.

3.6.1 Validity of the Writing Tests

Validity refers to the degree to which a method, a test or research tool actually measures what it is supposed to measure (Wellington, 2000:30). There are kinds of test validity: content validity, construct validity, and face validity.

Construct validity is the degree to which a test measures what it claims or purports, to be measured (Brown, 1996:231).

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Content validity is a non-statistical type of validity that involves "the systematic examination of the test content to determine whether it covers a representative sample of the behavior domain to be measured" (Anastasi & Urbina, 1997: 14). Face validity is the extent to which a test is subjectively viewed as covering the concept it purports to measure. It refers to the transparency or relevance of a test as it appears to test participants (Holden, 2010: 637).

In this study, validity of the writing test covered content and construct validity.

a. Content Validity of the Test

Furlong and Lovelace (2000: 72) state that a test is said to have content validity when the items of the test accurately represent the concept being measured. The writing test is developed in reference to standard competency and basic competencies stated in the first year of the second semester of English subject. It means that the whole materials which are covered in the test reflect the materials which are given to the tenth grade students. The test was considered as valid in content validity since the test of writing constitutes a representatives sample of the language skill and structure and also the material used were chosen based on 2006 English Curriculum of KTSP for tenth grade students.

b. Construct Validity of the Test

Construct validity is achieved by considering whether the test measures just the ability which it is supposed to measure. In this study, there were three aspects or characteristics that were assessed

in students’ writing, namely; grammar, organization, and vocabulary that were suggested by the notion suggested by Jacobson (2003)

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3.6.2 Reliability of the Writing Test

The reliability of a research instrument is the degree of consistency and dependence with which the instrument measures the attribute. Wellington (2000: 200) states that reliability is also used in connection with research methods in order to estimate the degree of confidence in the data. Reliability refers to the extent to which a test or technique functions consistently and accurately by yielding the same results at different times or when used by different researchers. In this research, inter-rater reliability was used. Inter-rater reliability is established when the results of the writing test are assessed using subjective judgment. It was applied to know whether or not the data of the writing score that were given by two raters were reliable. The researcher was the first rater and the teacher of SMA Al-Kautsar as the second rater in gaining students’ score. The second rater had 11 years teaching experience and graduated from S1 English Department, University of Lampung. After the raters gained the results, they were compared. When there was a high degree of agreement, the procedure could be considered reliable. In order to determine the level of the instrument reliability, the norm of categorizing the reliability coefficient was employed. The following table was the norm of adopted categorizing the reliability coefficient. To determine the level of reliability of scoring system, the Spearman Rank Correlation was applied in the data. The formula is:

r = 1 –

where :

37

d : difference of rank correlation N : number of students

(Sugiyono, 2006: 28)

This table shows the value of the reliability coefficient. Table 3.2 Value of Reliability Coefficient

Based on the standard of the reliabiliy above, the result of the calculation showed that the reliability coefficient of pre test was very high, while reliabity coeffiient of post test was high. It inferred that the test procedure was administered under similar condition.

It can be seen from the table below:

Table 3.3 Result of Reliability Test of Pre-test and Post-test (r-value)

Pre-test 0.8193277

Post-test 0.7070028

According to the table above, it is found that the reliability coefficient of pre-test were 0.8193277 respectively (see appendix 6). Meanwhile the reliability

Reliability coefficient Reliability Content

0.800- 1.000 Very High

0.600- 0.799 High

0.400- 0.599 Fair

0.200- 0.399 Low

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coefficient of post-test were 0.7070028 respectively (see appendix 7). Based on standard criteria list, both of the test considered as reliable and, therefore could be used in this research.

3.7 Data Analysis

The researcher will compute the students’ score in order to find out the students’

achievement in writing descriptive text through sentence combining practice: 1. Scoring the pre test and post test and tabulate the result.

2. Finding the mean of pre test and post test, as follows:

m =

m : Mean

∑d : Total score of students N : Number of students

3. Drawing conclusion from tabulated result of the test given by comparing the mean of pretest and the post test.

3.8 Hypotheses Test

The hypothesis testing which showed that there was improvement of students’ writing achievement was approved at the significant level of 0.05 (P<0.005). The writer used the level of significance 0.05 in which the hypothesis is approved if sign <p. It means that the probability of error in the hypothesis is only 5%. The formulation is :

39

̅ ̅ With : √

Where:

̅ Mean from pre-test ̅ Mean from post-test

Standard error of differences between means n Subjects on sample

(Hatch and Farhady, 1982:114)

H1 : There is significant improvement of students’ writing achievement from pretest to posttest through sentence combining practice.

H0 : There is no significant improvement of students’ writing achievement from pretest to posttest through sentence combining practice.

The criteria for accepting the hypothesis are as follows: 1. If the t-ratio is higher than t-table: H1 is accepted 2. If the t-ratio is lower than t-table: H0 is accepted

The researcher used SPSS to calculate the result whether it was significant or not based on the hypothesis.

Beside the hypothesis tested above, the researcher also had another hypothesis which stated that organization was the most affected aspect in rising point. With the formulation:

40

Increase = ̅ ̅ Where:

̅ Mean of each aspect from post-test ̅ Mean of each aspect from pre-test

3.9 Schedule of the Research

The researcher held meetings to get the data. The first meeting was pre-test followed by three times meeting for treatment. And the last, post-test was conducted to find out the students’ increase score in their writing achievement.

Table 3.4 Schedule of the Research

The schedule Time

Pre-test Wednesday, April 1st 2015

First treatment Saturday, April 4th 2015 Second treatmement Wednesday, April 8th 2015 Third treatment Saturday, April 18th 2015

Post-test Wednesday, April 22nd 2015

The first activity was done in one meeting, followed by 35 students. The process in this step covered pre-test. The result of pre-test showed the students’ writing achievement before the treatment.

The treatments were done in three meetings followed by the same class before. The process in this activity covered pre activities, while activities, and post-activities.

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The fifth activity done in one meeting by the same class before. The process in this step covered post-test. This activity proved the effectiveness of sentence

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

This final chapter presents the conclusion of the research findings and suggestions for English teachers who want to try sentence combining practice as the strategy to teach writing and for those who want to conduct similar research.

5.1 Conclusions

The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of sentence combining

practice in students’ writing achievement. Based on the result ranging from higer

to lower achievement, conclusions can be cited as follows:

1. There is significant effect in students’ descriptive writing achievement after being taught by Sentence Combining Practice. Sentence Combining Practice

can be applied as one of the techniques to increase the students’ writing

achievement. It can be seen from the research result that there is improvement

in students’ writing achievement, since the average score in pre-test was

59.171 and the average score of students’ writing achievement in post-test was 70.686.

61

2. Sentence combining practice is appropriate in developing students’ descriptive text writing achievement in three aspects of writing. Ranging from the highest to the lowest aspect: (1) Organization: the mean score in pre-test was 11.24 and the mean score in post-test was 13.60, the increase was 11.8%. (2) Vocabulary: the mean of score in pre-test was 11.78 and the mean score in post-test was 14.07, the increase was 11.4%. (3) Grammar: the mean score in pre-test was 12.71 and in the post-test was 14.94. the increase was 11.1%.In sum, it can be concluded that the highest increase was on aspect of organization.

5.2 Suggestions

In reference with the conclusion above, the writer give some suggestions as follow:

1. Suggestion for English Teacher

a. According to the result of the study, the lowest mean score was in the grammar aspect. It was probably because the students still had confusions between different uses of similar forms or grammatical forms that don’t have an equivalent in their first language. Thus, it is suggested that the teacher

should give more attention to increase students’ descriptive text writing

achievement in terms of grammar, for example, by approaching the same grammar points by applying several different ways to let the students’ subconscious get to work.

62

b. English teachers are recommended to pay attention and consider the advantages and disadvantages of sentence combining practice before learning activities using training methods implemented, for example, by explaining clearly basic principles of working on sentence combining including advantages and disadvantages when dealing with these skills.

2. Suggestion for Further Research

a. The next researcher who wants to conduct the same approach, she or he may focus the other kind of genre, such as procedure text, report text, and recount text for instances.

b. In this research, the observer used sentence combining practice to help students of Senior High School, especially in paragraph writing. Further research should conduct this technique on different levels of students, for instance it can be done in Junior High School students.

REFERENCES

Anderson, P. L. 1982. A preliminary study of syntax in the written expression of

learning disabled children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 15, 359–

362.

Angelo, J.D. 1989. Studies in writing series: Vol. 15. Writing in context(s): Textual practices and learning processes in sociocultural settings (G. Rijlaarsdam & E. Espéret, Series Eds.). New York: Springer.

Barton, M. D. 2000. Rhetoric and Composition: A Guide for the College Writer. United States of America: Kaplan University.

Bramer, G.R & Sedley, D. 1981. Writing for Readers. Columbus: Ohio. 6, 165- 177.

Brown, H. Doughlas. 2001. Teaching by principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Longman.

Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press. Cohen, M., & Riel, M. 1989. The effect of distant audiences on students' writing.

American Educational Research Journal,26(2), 143-159.

Edison, T.A. 1968. Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison. Ohio: Abbey Publising.

Graham, S., & Harris, K. 1989. Improving learning disabled students’ skills at

composing essays: Self-instructional strategy training. Exceptional

Children, 56, 201–214.

Harris, D. P. 1979. Testing English as Second Language. Englewood: Prentice Hall.

Harris, K., & Graham, S. 1996. Memo to constructivists: Skills count, too. Educational Leadership, 53, 26–29.

64

Hayes, J. R., & Flower, L. S. 1980. Identifying the organization of writing processes. In L. Gregg & E. R. Steinberg (Eds.), Cognitive processes in writing (pp. 3-30). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Jacobson, E., Degener, S., and Purcell-Gates, V. 2003. Creating Authentic Materials and Activities for the Adult Literacy Classroom: A Handbookk for Practitioners. www.ncsall.net.fileadmin/resources/teach/jacobson.pdf John, S. 1979. Sentence combining and the teaching of writing. Selected papers

from the Miami University Conference. Oxford Ohio Oct 27-28, 1978. Larson, Mildred L. 1984. Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross-language

equivalence. Lanham, MD: University Press of America

Ma’mun K.N.R. 2005. A Descriptive Study of the Students’ Ability in Writing Narration at the First Grade of SMUN 1 Tanjung. Unpublished Thesis Universitas Lambung Mangkurat.

Meyers, A. 2005. Gateways to Academic Writing: Effective Sentences Paragraph and Essay. New York: Longman.

Moitra, S. 1998. "Generative Grammar and Logical Form." Logic Identity and Consistency, ed. by Pranab Kumar Sen.

Myklebust, H. R. 1973. Development and disorders of written language, Vol. 2:

Studies of normal and exceptional children. New York: Grune & Stratton.

O’Hare, F. 1973. Sentence combining: Improving student writing without formal

grammar instruction. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.

Palmer, B. C. 1994. Developing Cultural Literacy through the Writing Process. United States of America: Longwood Professional Book.

Raimes, A. 1983. Techniques in Teaching Writing. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ratnasari, D. 2004. Improving students’ writing skills by using peer editing strategy in the writing process at the 4 Semester of UMM. Thesis. Malang: Postgraduate Program of Islamic University of Malang.

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Saddler, B., & Graham, S. 2005. The effects of peer-assisted sentence combining instruction on the writing of more and less skilled young writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(1), 43–54.

Sugiyono. 2006. Statistika untuk Penelitian. Bandung: Alfabeta.

Wishon, G. E., Burks, J. M. 1980. Let’s Write English. New York: Litton

V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

This final chapter presents the conclusion of the research findings and suggestions

for English teachers who want to try sentence combining practice as the strategy

to teach writing and for those who want to conduct similar research.

5.1 Conclusions

The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of sentence combining practice in students’ writing achievement. Based on the result ranging from higer to lower achievement, conclusions can be cited as follows:

1. There is significant effect in students’ descriptive writing achievement after being taught by Sentence Combining Practice. Sentence Combining Practice can be applied as one of the techniques to increase the students’ writing achievement. It can be seen from the research result that there is improvement in students’ writing achievement, since the average score in pre-test was 59.171 and the average score of students’ writing achievement in post-test was 70.686.

2. Sentence combining practice is appropriate in developing students’ descriptive text writing achievement in three aspects of writing. Ranging

from the highest to the lowest aspect: (1) Organization: the mean score in

pre-test was 11.24 and the mean score in post-test was 13.60, the increase

was 11.8%. (2) Vocabulary: the mean of score in pre-test was 11.78 and

the mean score in post-test was 14.07, the increase was 11.4%. (3)

Grammar: the mean score in pre-test was 12.71 and in the post-test was

14.94. the increase was 11.1%.In sum, it can be concluded that the highest

increase was on aspect of organization.

5.2 Suggestions

In reference with the conclusion above, the writer give some suggestions as

follow:

1. Suggestion for English Teacher

a. According to the result of the study, the lowest mean score was in the

grammar aspect. It was probably because the students still had confusions

between different uses of similar forms or grammatical forms that don’t have an equivalent in their first language. Thus, it is suggested that the teacher should give more attention to increase students’ descriptive text writing achievement in terms of grammar, for example, by approaching the same

grammar points by applying several different ways to let the students’ subconscious get to work.

62

b. English teachers are recommended to pay attention and consider the

advantages and disadvantages of sentence combining practice before learning

activities using training methods implemented, for example, by explaining

clearly basic principles of working on sentence combining including

advantages and disadvantages when dealing with these skills.

2. Suggestion for Further Research

a. The next researcher who wants to conduct the same approach, she or he may

focus the other kind of genre, such as procedure text, report text, and recount

text for instances.

b. In this research, the observer used sentence combining practice to help

students of Senior High School, especially in paragraph writing. Further

research should conduct this technique on different levels of students, for

REFERENCES

Anderson, P. L. 1982. A preliminary study of syntax in the written expression of learning disabled children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 15, 359– 362.

Angelo, J.D. 1989. Studies in writing series: Vol. 15. Writing in context(s): Textual practices and learning processes in sociocultural settings (G. Rijlaarsdam & E. Espéret, Series Eds.). New York: Springer.

Barton, M. D. 2000. Rhetoric and Composition: A Guide for the College Writer. United States of America: Kaplan University.

Bramer, G.R & Sedley, D. 1981. Writing for Readers. Columbus: Ohio. 6, 165- 177.

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