28
each meeting, instead of just seeing the results of students writing. It is supported by Elliot 1991, in McNiff, Lomax Whitehead,1996, “Action
research is about improving practice rather than producing knowledge”. 2.
When doing observation, the researcher acts as a teacher in the classroom, this provides advantages for researcher to conduct investigation as well as
reflect on the cycle that has been done. 3.
This method can be performed from primary school to college Murtiyasa,2008. The researchers assumes that in junior high school is a
good time to accustom them to do free writing activity in order to make them feel that writing in English is not difficult if they are accustomed.
Here in classroom action research, action researchers make their own decisions about what is important and what they should do. They become an
investigator of his or her personal teaching context, while at the same time being one of the participants in it Burns,2010. They may make decisions about the
research procedures, but they do not make own decisions about the aims of the research.
B. Setting of the research
The data in this study was gathered from eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 2 Mlati Sleman Yogyakarta, which consists of 38 students from
class VIII B. This setting and students were chosen because the researcher has done an observation in this school that most of the writing problems occur in this
29
class. The students of this class still have low ability in writing. This factor facilitated the writer to get close to the students.
This school has one teacher room and some other facilities, such as a mosque, a library, parking areas for students, teachers, and staff, one canteen, and
a basketball court in the central part of the school. Moreover, there are also two laboratories computer and sciencebiology laboratory and so on.
The research study was done for about three months, March 2015 until May 2015, including the observation, planning, and the implementation of free
writing activity in two cycles.
C. Subjects of the Research
This study is also collaborative in nature. It means that all members involved should have a thorough discussion, they can share their opinions not
only when the actions are conducted but also in the planning and evaluation. If the research was conducted collaboratively, the validity and reliability of the process
and findings are also strengthened. The subject of this research included 38 eight graders of SMP
Muhammadiyah 2 Mlati in the academic year of 20142015. As described previously, the students‘ writing ability could be assumed as low, indicated by
their ability in generating ideas, using lexico-grammar features, and organizing a text, including applying the correct generic structure.
30
D. Procedure of the Research
In this study, the researcher plan to conduct two cycles and used a simple action research model that has been developed by Kemmis and McTaggart 1988.
The action research typically involves four phases in a cycle of research but this research was done in two cycles.
Figure 2. Action Research of Kemmis and McTaggart model 1988 in Burns 1999:3
The procedure described at the figure 2 shows that the plans is made by considering the fact findings from preliminary observation. Then, the teacher as
the researcher follows all the stages in each cycle in implementing free writing in teaching writing. The detail research description is explained as follows:
1. Planning
Planning is the beginning process of the research to conduct actions or after making sure about the problem of the research, the researcher needs to make
a preparation before doing an action research. In this stage, the researcher
31
prepared some materials that were used in the research process such as the lesson plans based on the teaching materials, choose the theme, prepare the materials that
needed in the learning process, and prepared the checklist for observation and formative test.The researcher also prepared the instruments such asdrama
scenario, technique and the instrument to observe andevaluate the teaching and learning process
Besides, the researcher identifiedsome problemsby interviewing anEnglish teacher and some students in SMP 2 Muhammadiyah Mlati. The researcher asked
problems in teaching English especially teaching writing to students. Moreover, the researcher did informal interviews to some students about how their feeling in
English subject. Therefore, theresearcher and the teacher developed a plan of action inorder to bring animprovement.
2. Action
Action is implementation of planning. It means the researcherperformed as the teacher, students and the teacher performed as an observer conduct activities
based on planning that has been done in classroom. The researcher tried to take how many students abilities tounderstand in writing. The researcher conducted
drawing as activity before teaching the materials, while teacher took note in form of observation sheet. The researcher gave students assignments in indivudual,
pairs and group to do the free writing activity using free theme, sometimes using a given theme and asked students to just write any words that come into their
mind.Then,evaluated their mistakes and summarized the material.
32
3. Observation
In this step, a researcher has to observe all events or activities during the research. The researcher observed the situation in the class during the lesson,
response and attitude of students when they were given explanation, doing task, and knowing their difficulties. This observation is very important for making
analysis on everything that happened in classroom during implementing the free writing activity.
4. Reflection
Reflection means to analyze the result based on the data that have been collected to determine the next action in the next cycle. At this point, the
researcher and the teacher did reflection, evaluation and description on the effects of the action inorder to make sense of what has happened based on the
observation sheet.The researcherthen decided to do further cycle of action research toimprove the situation revise the weaknesses.
This research study was implemented in two cycles. The explanation of these cycles can be presented as follows:
• Cycle 1.
The first cycle in this study was intended to help students generate ideas. The implementation of action in this cycle was done in two meetings.The students
worked in pairs and some groups of work. In this case, the researcher asked the students to do some exercises such as the researcher used drawing as the activity
as the media assissted of the technique. It was begun with writing a sentence using past tense. This tense uses in a recount text. Therefore this activity gave two
33
benefits for students. First, it will help students to generate idea by writing one simple past sentence. Second, it can evaluate students’ understanding in using
simple past tense. Moreover, the researcher used the completing a text activity, the researcher asked the students to complete the missing word related by suitable
picture in the form of recount text. Then, students work in group to write a recount text with holiday as a topic. This was intended to let the students gather ideas
related to the topic provided. Although it was free writing, the researcher guided the topic, to avoid the students‘confusion in starting the writing.
• Cycle 2
In the second cycle, the researcher also conducted in two meetings. The researcher decided that the text does not use the topic. But, it was still related with
recount text. In this cycle the researcher asked some questions to the students and tried to evaluate the mistakes in the first and second meetings. Then, the
researcher gave the students some exercises related the mistakes were found. The researcher also decided to give exercises that lead students to repeat the writing
activity, therefore these activities stimulated the student to write as a habit. Some exercices for instances, correcting sentences using past tense as one of the recount
text characteristics, arranging the random recount text, and write in group and individually to make a recoount text. Beside, the researcher put one game in this
cycle, to create the class atmosphere effectively and avoid students were sleepy along the lesson.
34
E. Instrument
