Behaviorism Learning Theory Theoretical Description

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5. Behaviorism Learning Theory

In this study, the researcher tried to overcome the students‟ problems in writing a recount text. The researcher offered an assignment which could solve their problems. The researcher used the weekly diary assignment followed by the teacher‟s feedback. Watson 1924, Thorndike 1932, Bloomfield 1933, and Skinner 1975 show that the concept of weekly diary assignment was based on behaviorism learning theory that stated learning as the formation of habit as cited in Mitchell Myles, 2004, p. 29. According to Mitchell and Myles 2004, they saw that learning of any kind of behavior as being based on the notions of stimulus and response. Then, they said that stimuli and response can support the change of students‟ behavior. Through repeated reinforcement, a certain stimulus will elicit the same response time and again, which will then become a habit. The learning of any skill is seen as the formation of habits, that is, creation of stimulus- response pairings, which become stronger with reinforcement. Mitchell and Myles, 2004, p. 30 The concept of weekly diary assignment to improve the students‟ writing abilities was based on those theories above. The weekly diary assignment emphasized how the teacher build a habit so that the students were accustomed to writing in English properly. In this case, the weekly diary assignment as the reinforcement for the students. Moreover, the researcher also gave some feedback so that the students could give some responses. Before getting the weekly diary assignment, they seldom got any writing assignment in the class. In writing a recount text, they had difficulties to express their ideas into English properly. 26 They needed some repeated reinforcement to build a new habit of writing English properly. Mitchell and Myles 2004 state that repeated reinforcement will become a habit. When the students wrote their personal experiences twice a week, they would had been accustomed to writing in English properly. Moreover, the existence of te acher‟s feedback would help the students and showed what went well and what did not go well in the students‟ writing pp. 30-31. After getting several repeated reinforcement of weekly diary assignment, the students had been accustomed to writing in English properly and their writing abilities improved. Their problems in writing a recount text were sucessfully overcome.

6. Classroom Action Research