Situation Prior to Research

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDING AND ANALYSIS

This chapter presents the results of the research conducted in the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Wonogiri. The research was purposed to identify whether and to what extent the use of student blogs improve students writing skill and to analyze what happens when student blog is applied to teach writing. The results will be described and discussed in four sub-headings: Situation Prior to the Research, Research Implementation, Research Findings, and Discussion. It will be explained separately in detail and summarized in the form of table.

A. Situation Prior to Research

Pre-observation was conducted before the action research implementation in order to know the condition of the English class in RSBI 8G. It was conducted within two meetings. The questionnaires were distributed to the students in the second meeting to find out the writing problems based on their point of view. From the questionnaire, it was noted that the students already knew about blog, but 60 students never wrote any blog post. However, they are interested in the use of internet 95 as they often accessed it outside the class. Furthermore, it was found on the observation that the students got difficulty in doing writing task. It was indicated by their expressions that showed disagreement about the teacher’s instruction when they were asked to write a passage containing 10 sentences. In addition, the students did not have a confidence about their writings as indicated by the reaction that ”they were kind of refusing to ‘publish’ their descriptive text in other classes” Research Diary, 18082010. Taken from the observation and interview notes, the causes of the problem were emerged from the media used in teaching writing. The teacher did not give any written model of the text in his teaching, “he directly told a story about narrative text,” Research Diary, 01092010. Besides, the students also rarely practiced to write a complete text, but sentences. They only had a lot of grammar practices instead of writing in a certain context. commit to user 35 Nisa A. Azam Saya meminta ijin untuk melihat buku tugas salah satu siswa yang ada di meja tempat kami berbincang. Saya melihat ada banyak pekerjaan tentang grammar. Tugas yang diberikan adalah mengubah satu kalimat ke dalam berbagai bentuk positif-negatif-tanya Pre-Interview Note. Even though, the students already got the idea of their main text in the second grade which was recount text. Di sela-sela pelajaran, saya pernah menanyakan pada siswa apakah mereka tau tentang materi kelas 2 yang harus mereka kuasai, jenis teks apa saja yang akan mereka pelajari. Beberapa siswa menjawab dengan bahasa mereka yang sederhana, “Kalo kelas satu tu deskriptif Miss, kalo kelas dua recount. Dulu kelas satu pakenya present tense, kalo sekarang past tense.” “Ceritanya harus yang dulu-dulu, Miss. Kalo sekarang nggak boleh; udah kelas dua,” Pre-Interview Note. Once the teacher gave a model in the speaking class, but the students did not show a good attitude toward the lesson. Saya melihat ada beberapa siswa yang tidak terlalu memperhatikan kegiatan wawancara tersebut, tetapi justru berbicara dengan teman disebelahnya. Ada juga siswa yang mengakses internet sejak awal pelajaran tadi dan tampak cukup asyik dengan laptopnya. … Pak PG termasuk guru yang aktif dalam berinteraksi dengan siswanya, hanya saja beberapa siswa masih membutuuhkan perhatian lebih Research Diary, 01092010. The pre-test was held in order to know the detail problems of students’ writing competence. From the result, it was found that the students’ mean score was 74.45 and it was lower than the minimum standard which was 78. Here is some common problems found in students’ writing Student Worksheet A and Student Worksheet B: - My sister bought some new book story. Worksheet no. 4A - Last Holiday, I at mountain. Worksheet no. 6A - We view good scenery. Worksheet no. 20A - One day after new year, i and my family played outbond in Griya Gayatri. Worksheet no. 1B - I was went to Internet caffe with my friend, his name is Ryan, we are played Ninja Saga and Point Blank and after played game online I went back home. Worksheet no. 10B - This is my short story that to arrive for you. Worksheet no. 19B commit to user 36 Nisa A. Azam Based on the pre-observation, student documents, and the pre-test, it was identified that the students’ writing skill should be improved. Therefore, the student blog was used as the teaching-learning media during the writing class. It was used as the main sources and the online worksheet that allowed the students to explore their skill. Finally, the situation before the research is presented briefly in Table 4.1. Table 4.1. Situation Before the Research Indicators Description

a. Students’ Writing Skill

1 The students wrote words incorrectly. 2 Students used improper word within a sentence diction and context. 3 Students were not aware in using grammatical aspects tense, article, preposition, pronoun, phrasal verb, etc.. 4 Students wrote the sentence in wrong word order. 5 Students’ writing texts were sometimes incoherent. 6 There were mispunctuation in students writing. 1 Students rarely consulted to dictionary and mostly used their own interpretation about the word spelling in writing. 2 They tended to use the literal translation of word and did not use it in the proper context. 3 Students frequently made mistakes in writing grammatically correct sentences; once they made it, some details were forgotten, for example the articles. 4 They had the understanding of the composition, but mostly arranged the word in wrong order. 5 The ideas of the story were sometimes not well developed and the use of conjunctions were ambiguous in some cases. 6 Students rarely paid attention to the punctuation and it led to misinterpretation.

b. Mean Score

The students’ mean score in post test was 74.45. The mean score was lower than the school passing grade, which was 78.00.

c. Situation in the Writing Class

1 The students took longer time to start writing. 2 Some of them indicated not too interested in the lesson. 3 Some students did not give full attention to the teacher. 4 Students paid more attention to their laptop. 5 Some students did not have enough self- confidence in their writing. 1 Students had a talk with their friends instead of thinking about the task. 2 Some students seemed bored when they had to wait and saw the model. 3 Some students liked to have chat with their next friend while the teacher gave model. 4 Students who brought their own laptop were more interested in it than the lesson. 5 Students preferred not to show and not to share their writing to others. commit to user 37 Nisa A. Azam

B. Research Implementation