IMPROVING GRADE VIII STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE.
IMPROVING GRADE VIII STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT
IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH
BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts,
State University of Medan, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
FEBRINA MANALU
Registration Number: 209421018
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2014
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Praise and gratitude are highly given by the writer to Jesus Christ for his
countless blessings in her entire life. It is a blessing that the writer has finally been
able to finish this thesis. During the process of completing this thesis, the writer
faced a lot of difficulties due to her limited knowledge and experience, but many
people have given their support and assistance. Therefore, the writer would like to
express her special thanks to:
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum, the Dean of Faculty of Language and
Arts, for her leadership during the writer’s academic year.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar,
M.Ed, the Head of English Department and the Head of English
Education Program, for their leadership, valuable knowledge, advices,
and guidance during the writer’s academic year.
Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga M.Hum, her consultant, for
his
precious time, excellent advices, suggestions, critics, and
guidance to the writer during the process of completing this thesis.
Jonny M. panjaitan, S.Pd, the Headmaster, P. S simamora, and all the
students of class VIII-2 SMP Swasta HKBP Sidorame Medan
The writer sincerely thanks Manoto Manalu and Nurhayati
Samosir, her beloved parents, for their prayers, the endless love and
for continuous support, financial and moral, during his whole studies
up to finish. From the beginning, they gave him the freedom and time
to learn and to explore.
The writer sincerely thanks to her grandfather (J. Samosir) and
grandmother (R. Manalu) and her aunts (Hotmida Samosir S.Pd, Sr.
Veronica Samosir SSpS S.Kep, Rolenta Samosir , kapri’s family and
her uncle and all her big family (Op. Goldmen Samosir ) for their
everlasting love, prayers, sacrifices, and all moral and financial
supports.
Rusnita Manalu, Perdiman Manalu, Jafourmen Manalu, Doni Manalu
and young sister Agnes Manalu and her lovely brothers and sisters,
and old sister Holmes Manalu, luspiking Manalu , and her family for
their supports and prayers to the writer.
The writer’s big family (RESIMEN MAHASISWA SATYA
NAGARA UNIMED) for their encouragement, supports, and prayers
to the writer.
Purba S.Pd, for his car, loyalty, supports, prayers to the writer.
Komandan Dedy . H . Simbolon S.Si, M.Pd, Komandan Joen. P.
Beloved her best friends (Kirana Silaban S.Pd, Enyus Pardede S.Pd,
Doni Tambunan, Maruli Tua, Ika, Dewi, Zansen Sinaga, Boang who
have patiently given moral, their prayer, spiritual help, advises and
financial support.
Writer’s special lovely friends, writer’s lovely classmates, Dik C
Regular ’09(especially for Uli Samosir, Carla, Bintang), and all of
writer’s friends in UK-KMK St. Martinus Unimed, Gelora Theater
(especially for delfy, velin, B. marsinar, candra, B. wily, writer’s
lovely friends in her boarding house, RUMKIBER (riris, b.luker,
putri, nelson, yosi, junpita, tika, ruli, batmen, vasco, sihol, sopar,
melpa, setia, lisbet, irfan, lestari, pagar) for every single help, support
and love that mean a lot to the writer
All people whose names cannot be mentioned one by one, for their
contribution to writer’s life.
Medan,
February 2014
The writer,
Febrina Manalu
209421018
ABSTRACT
Manalu, Febrina. Improving Grade VIII Students’ Achievement in Writing
Descriptive Text Through Brainstorming Technique. AThesis.English
Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
2014.
The objective of this study is to find out whether Brainstorming Technique can
improve students’ Achievement in writing. This study was conducted by using
classroom action research. The subject of this research was the second year
students of SMP VIII-2 Swasta HKBP Sidorame Medan. The research was
conducted in two cycles. The first cycle was three meetings and the second cycle
was also three meetings. The instruments for collecting data used writing test for
quantitative data and used diary notes, interview sheet and observation sheet for
qualitative data and the qualitative data showed that the students were interested
in applying Brainstorming technique. Based on the writing test result, the
students’ score kept improving in every test. In orientation test, the mean score
was 65.50. In the test of cycle 1 the mean score was 73.33 and the mean score in
the test of cycle 2 was 79.97. In line with the data, it was found that the
Brainstorming technique can improve students’ writing achievement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................
iv
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................
vi
LIST OF FIGURE…………………………………………………………... vii
LIST OF APPENDIXES ............................................................................. viii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ..................................................................
A. The Background of the Study ......................... .....................
B. The Problem of the Study .....................................................
C. The Objective of the Study ...................................................
D. The Scope of the Study .........................................................
E. The Significance of the Study ...............................................
1
1
3
3
4
4
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................
5
A. Theoretical Framework .........................................................
5
B. Language skills……………………………………………….
5
C. Student’s Achievement writing ............................................
7
D. Writing ..................................................................................
7
E. Genre of English texts ........................................................... 10
F. Descriptive text ..................................................................... 13
G. An example of descriptive text ............................................. 13
H. Methodology………………………………………………… 14
I. Brainstorming technique ....................................................... 15
1. Brainstorming technique for improving writing skill…… 16
2. The steps of brainstorming technique…………………… 17
3. Advantages and Disadvantages of brainstorming technique 18
J. Conceptual Framework ......................................................... 19
CHAPTER III REVIEW OF LITERATURE ........................................... 21
A. Research Design .................................................................... 21
B. Subject of research ................................................................ 22
C. The Instrument of Collecting Data ........................................ 23
D. The Procedure of Research ................................................... 23
1. The first cycle .............................................................. 24
2. The second cycle .......................................................... 29
E. Scoring of writing ................................................................ 30
F. The Technique of Analyzing Data ........................................ 31
iv
CHAPTER IV THE DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ..............................
A. The Data ......................... .......................................................
1. The Quantitative………………………………………….
2. The Qualitative…………………………………………...
B. Data Analysis ........................................................................
1. The Quantitative………………………………………….
2. The Qualitative…………………………………………...
C. Research finding ....................................................................
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SEUGGESTONS .............................
A. Conclusion ......................... ...................................................
B. Suggestions ...........................................................................
33
33
33
35
40
40
44
45
47
47
48
REFERENCES
APPENDIXES
49
51
..........................................................................................
..........................................................................................
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table
pages
2.1 the language skills ………………………………………………………..6
3.1 Steps of action research in Cycle I……………………………………….25
3.2 Rubric of Descriptive Texts ....................................................................... 30
4.1. The Students’ Writing Scores…………… ............................................... 34
4.2. The Range of Students’ Score Improvement …………………………….41
4.3. The Percentage of Student Who Got Score Up to 75…………………….43
vi
LIST OF FIGURE
Figure
PAGE
3.1. Action Research Model (Kemmis & McTaggart 1998)…………..............22
vii
LIST OF APPENDIX
APPENDIX
PAGES
A
Lesson Plan ................................................................................................ 51
B
Students’ Score .......................................................................................... 78
C
Observation Sheet ..................................................................................... 82
D
Diary Notes ............................................................................................. 85
E
Interview Sheet .......................................................................................... 89
viii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
English is a global language which is used by people in the world. It is used in all
activities as a formal language. Taking part in the activities, Indonesian people must have a good
competence in using English, because it can achieve many opportunities to our country. English
is the first foreign language in Indonesia, so it is important to be taught to Junior High School as
a compulsory subject. It has been developing the students’ communication ability in English,
which includes listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Writing as a part of learning English is very difficult because writing depends on
grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation as well as rules for forming words and making sentences.
Writing for Junior High School students of the first grade consists of writing descriptive,
narrative, and recount texts. The students have to be able to understand and produce a
descriptive text based on the social function and generic structure of the text.
According Harmer (2004:31) states that writing as one of the four skills has always
formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of English. However, it can be used for a variety of
purposes ranging from being merely a backup for grammar teaching to a major syllabus strand in
its own right where mastering the ability to write effectively is seen as a key objective for
learners. The importance given to write differs from teaching situation to teaching situation. In
some cases it shares equal value with the other skills. In other curricula it is only used, if at all, in
its writing for learner role where students write predominantly to augment their learning of the
grammar and vocabulary of the language.
Teaching writing at school is aimed at improving students’ achievement in writing
descriptive text. The aim of teaching writing is to develop the students’ writing skills so the
student can writing English text efficiently and effectively.
In reality, the expected results from learning writing have not been achieved yet based on
the teaching practice program (PPL) at SMP N 1 Berastagi. The students could not write well.
Most of them had difficulties in conveying ideas in writing because they had a lack of
vocabulary and appropriate structures of sentences. So the students felt lazy to write any text as
they assumed that writing was a boring activity.
Based on the problem that the researcher given from an interview with the English
teacher in SMP HKBP Sidorame Medan . The researcher found out that the students’ writing
ability was quite low in terms of writing texts such as narrative, recount and descriptive texts.
Manzo and Thomas (2006) the students failed in writing because they faced some difficulties
such as a lack of vocabulary and poor grammar and also the teacher still used the conventional
technique that made them get bored and have low motivation in learning. Teachers must build
the interest by applying a good technique. For the purpose of improving the students’ ability in
writing, the researcher assumes that brainstorming technique is a way of teaching
One of the appropriate and comprehensive strategies for teaching writing
is
brainstorming technique. Litchf and Vincent(2002) brainstorming is a group or individual
creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by
gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. By using brainstorming
technique, the researcher tries to make students writing easily, because the students free to think
and give information about the topic. Rao (2007) expecting that brainstorming can help students
to make them fluent to write in English. Robert(2008) the advantages of using brainstorming
technique in teaching English for the students’ thought are activated to write their opinion,
makes students think quickly and logically, increases the participation of students in receiving
lessons, even students feel free and happy, and democratic atmosphere and discipline can be
grown in the class.
Based on the discussion above, the technique of teaching writing for helping students
should be provided. Brainstorming is one of techniques that students can use to generate ideas
for writing a paper. In the process of brainstorming, the students should suspend any concerns
about staying organized. The goal is to pour their thoughts onto paper without worrying about
whether they make sense or how they fit together.
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the problem of
the study is formulated as
follows” How does brainstorming technique improve Grade VIII students’
achievement in
writing descriptive texts?”
C. The Objective of the Study
The objective of the study is to find out if the brainstorming technique improves Grade
VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
D. The Scope of the Study
The study is focused on brainstorming technique which is applied to discover when can
improve Grade VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
E. The Significance of the Study
The results of the study will be useful for:
1)
The teachers who apply the technique of teaching writing in the classroom and plan to
conduct a better and interesting method in teaching writing in order to motivate the
students to write.
2)
The students who need to improve their writing ability and who want to make a research
related to the study.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1. Conclusion
Based on the data analysis, it is concluded that in order to improve writing
ability, the Brainstorming Technique has to be applied as follows: Teacher
elaborate more detail about generic structure of descriptive text (identification and
description by using describing some of students in the classroom. In the cycle
one, the teacher just gave the students some texts as their reference. Teacher
explained more detail about grammatical feature in descriptive text, especially to
be, to has/have and adjective. In cycle one, the teacher only explained about
tenses generally. Teacher gave more topics about descriptive text and asked the
students to find their idea by using brainstorming technique in their group.The
result of students score in writing a descriptive text (65.50). In cycle I the score
was 73.33. After doing some changes in cycle II, the students’ score increased to
be 79.97.
5.2. Suggestions
In line with the conclusions, there are two points that would be suggested
for:
1.
English teachers to improve students’ Grade VIII Students achievement in
writing decriptive text through brainstorming technique
because
brainstorming can increase students’ interest in learning to write
descriptive text and make the teaching and learning process became more
enjoyable.
2.
Students of Junior High School to create their own brainstorming
technique to help them to express their idea .So that they have a good
understanding about how to improve their ability in writing descritive text
through brainstorming technique .
REFERENCES
Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy Second Edition. New York: Pearson Education.
Hairston,M. 1986.ContemporaryComposition.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company
Harmer , J. 2004. How to teach writing. Harlow:Pearson Education
Hyland, K. 2002. Teaching and Researching Writing.London:Pearson Education
Hornby, A.S. 2000.Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English.
Oxford: Oxford University.
Siahaan, S. 2008. The English Paragraph.Yogyakarta:Grahailmu
Wallace, M.J. 1998.Action Research For Language Teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Rao Z. (2007). Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing Skills, in ELT
Journal 44(2), 133-143.
Manzo, A., Manzo, U., & Thomas, M. 2006. Rationale for Systematic Vocabulary
Development: Antidote for State Mandate. Journal of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy, 49(7), 610-619.
Litchf Paulus, Paul B. and Vincent R. Brown. 2002. Making Group Brainstorming
More Effective. Cscanada Journal Vol. 11 No.7,pp.82-87. At
www.Cscanada.org.Retrived on 5 February 2013.
http://www.ehow.com/info_8220088_advantages-brainstorming.htmlaccessed on
June 5, 2013
http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/grants/brainstorming.html accessed on May 27ield,
Robert. 2008. Brainstorming reconsidered: A Goal-Based View. The writing
Journal Vol. 3. No. 2. At http://brainstorming-technique.blogspot.com/
Retrieved on 2 April 2013
Widdowson, G. 2008. Teaching Language as Communication. New York: Oxford
University Press
https://sites.google.com/site/assess4learning/assessment-defined/assessment-forlearning-defined. Accessed on 2 February 2013
http://inventors.about.com/od/lessonplans/a/creativity_2.htmaccessed on June 9,
2013
http://www.scribe.comAccessed on March 5th 2013
http://www.coun.uvic.ca /learn /program /hndouts /bloom. html Accessedon
April27th 2013
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htmAccessed on May 15th 2013
http://www.mindtools.comAccessed on june10th 2013
http://www.edwarddebono.comAccessed on june25th 2013
IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH
BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts,
State University of Medan, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
FEBRINA MANALU
Registration Number: 209421018
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2014
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Praise and gratitude are highly given by the writer to Jesus Christ for his
countless blessings in her entire life. It is a blessing that the writer has finally been
able to finish this thesis. During the process of completing this thesis, the writer
faced a lot of difficulties due to her limited knowledge and experience, but many
people have given their support and assistance. Therefore, the writer would like to
express her special thanks to:
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum, the Dean of Faculty of Language and
Arts, for her leadership during the writer’s academic year.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar,
M.Ed, the Head of English Department and the Head of English
Education Program, for their leadership, valuable knowledge, advices,
and guidance during the writer’s academic year.
Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga M.Hum, her consultant, for
his
precious time, excellent advices, suggestions, critics, and
guidance to the writer during the process of completing this thesis.
Jonny M. panjaitan, S.Pd, the Headmaster, P. S simamora, and all the
students of class VIII-2 SMP Swasta HKBP Sidorame Medan
The writer sincerely thanks Manoto Manalu and Nurhayati
Samosir, her beloved parents, for their prayers, the endless love and
for continuous support, financial and moral, during his whole studies
up to finish. From the beginning, they gave him the freedom and time
to learn and to explore.
The writer sincerely thanks to her grandfather (J. Samosir) and
grandmother (R. Manalu) and her aunts (Hotmida Samosir S.Pd, Sr.
Veronica Samosir SSpS S.Kep, Rolenta Samosir , kapri’s family and
her uncle and all her big family (Op. Goldmen Samosir ) for their
everlasting love, prayers, sacrifices, and all moral and financial
supports.
Rusnita Manalu, Perdiman Manalu, Jafourmen Manalu, Doni Manalu
and young sister Agnes Manalu and her lovely brothers and sisters,
and old sister Holmes Manalu, luspiking Manalu , and her family for
their supports and prayers to the writer.
The writer’s big family (RESIMEN MAHASISWA SATYA
NAGARA UNIMED) for their encouragement, supports, and prayers
to the writer.
Purba S.Pd, for his car, loyalty, supports, prayers to the writer.
Komandan Dedy . H . Simbolon S.Si, M.Pd, Komandan Joen. P.
Beloved her best friends (Kirana Silaban S.Pd, Enyus Pardede S.Pd,
Doni Tambunan, Maruli Tua, Ika, Dewi, Zansen Sinaga, Boang who
have patiently given moral, their prayer, spiritual help, advises and
financial support.
Writer’s special lovely friends, writer’s lovely classmates, Dik C
Regular ’09(especially for Uli Samosir, Carla, Bintang), and all of
writer’s friends in UK-KMK St. Martinus Unimed, Gelora Theater
(especially for delfy, velin, B. marsinar, candra, B. wily, writer’s
lovely friends in her boarding house, RUMKIBER (riris, b.luker,
putri, nelson, yosi, junpita, tika, ruli, batmen, vasco, sihol, sopar,
melpa, setia, lisbet, irfan, lestari, pagar) for every single help, support
and love that mean a lot to the writer
All people whose names cannot be mentioned one by one, for their
contribution to writer’s life.
Medan,
February 2014
The writer,
Febrina Manalu
209421018
ABSTRACT
Manalu, Febrina. Improving Grade VIII Students’ Achievement in Writing
Descriptive Text Through Brainstorming Technique. AThesis.English
Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan.
2014.
The objective of this study is to find out whether Brainstorming Technique can
improve students’ Achievement in writing. This study was conducted by using
classroom action research. The subject of this research was the second year
students of SMP VIII-2 Swasta HKBP Sidorame Medan. The research was
conducted in two cycles. The first cycle was three meetings and the second cycle
was also three meetings. The instruments for collecting data used writing test for
quantitative data and used diary notes, interview sheet and observation sheet for
qualitative data and the qualitative data showed that the students were interested
in applying Brainstorming technique. Based on the writing test result, the
students’ score kept improving in every test. In orientation test, the mean score
was 65.50. In the test of cycle 1 the mean score was 73.33 and the mean score in
the test of cycle 2 was 79.97. In line with the data, it was found that the
Brainstorming technique can improve students’ writing achievement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................
i
ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ..............................................................................
iv
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................
vi
LIST OF FIGURE…………………………………………………………... vii
LIST OF APPENDIXES ............................................................................. viii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ..................................................................
A. The Background of the Study ......................... .....................
B. The Problem of the Study .....................................................
C. The Objective of the Study ...................................................
D. The Scope of the Study .........................................................
E. The Significance of the Study ...............................................
1
1
3
3
4
4
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................
5
A. Theoretical Framework .........................................................
5
B. Language skills……………………………………………….
5
C. Student’s Achievement writing ............................................
7
D. Writing ..................................................................................
7
E. Genre of English texts ........................................................... 10
F. Descriptive text ..................................................................... 13
G. An example of descriptive text ............................................. 13
H. Methodology………………………………………………… 14
I. Brainstorming technique ....................................................... 15
1. Brainstorming technique for improving writing skill…… 16
2. The steps of brainstorming technique…………………… 17
3. Advantages and Disadvantages of brainstorming technique 18
J. Conceptual Framework ......................................................... 19
CHAPTER III REVIEW OF LITERATURE ........................................... 21
A. Research Design .................................................................... 21
B. Subject of research ................................................................ 22
C. The Instrument of Collecting Data ........................................ 23
D. The Procedure of Research ................................................... 23
1. The first cycle .............................................................. 24
2. The second cycle .......................................................... 29
E. Scoring of writing ................................................................ 30
F. The Technique of Analyzing Data ........................................ 31
iv
CHAPTER IV THE DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ..............................
A. The Data ......................... .......................................................
1. The Quantitative………………………………………….
2. The Qualitative…………………………………………...
B. Data Analysis ........................................................................
1. The Quantitative………………………………………….
2. The Qualitative…………………………………………...
C. Research finding ....................................................................
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SEUGGESTONS .............................
A. Conclusion ......................... ...................................................
B. Suggestions ...........................................................................
33
33
33
35
40
40
44
45
47
47
48
REFERENCES
APPENDIXES
49
51
..........................................................................................
..........................................................................................
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table
pages
2.1 the language skills ………………………………………………………..6
3.1 Steps of action research in Cycle I……………………………………….25
3.2 Rubric of Descriptive Texts ....................................................................... 30
4.1. The Students’ Writing Scores…………… ............................................... 34
4.2. The Range of Students’ Score Improvement …………………………….41
4.3. The Percentage of Student Who Got Score Up to 75…………………….43
vi
LIST OF FIGURE
Figure
PAGE
3.1. Action Research Model (Kemmis & McTaggart 1998)…………..............22
vii
LIST OF APPENDIX
APPENDIX
PAGES
A
Lesson Plan ................................................................................................ 51
B
Students’ Score .......................................................................................... 78
C
Observation Sheet ..................................................................................... 82
D
Diary Notes ............................................................................................. 85
E
Interview Sheet .......................................................................................... 89
viii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
English is a global language which is used by people in the world. It is used in all
activities as a formal language. Taking part in the activities, Indonesian people must have a good
competence in using English, because it can achieve many opportunities to our country. English
is the first foreign language in Indonesia, so it is important to be taught to Junior High School as
a compulsory subject. It has been developing the students’ communication ability in English,
which includes listening, speaking, reading and writing.
Writing as a part of learning English is very difficult because writing depends on
grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation as well as rules for forming words and making sentences.
Writing for Junior High School students of the first grade consists of writing descriptive,
narrative, and recount texts. The students have to be able to understand and produce a
descriptive text based on the social function and generic structure of the text.
According Harmer (2004:31) states that writing as one of the four skills has always
formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of English. However, it can be used for a variety of
purposes ranging from being merely a backup for grammar teaching to a major syllabus strand in
its own right where mastering the ability to write effectively is seen as a key objective for
learners. The importance given to write differs from teaching situation to teaching situation. In
some cases it shares equal value with the other skills. In other curricula it is only used, if at all, in
its writing for learner role where students write predominantly to augment their learning of the
grammar and vocabulary of the language.
Teaching writing at school is aimed at improving students’ achievement in writing
descriptive text. The aim of teaching writing is to develop the students’ writing skills so the
student can writing English text efficiently and effectively.
In reality, the expected results from learning writing have not been achieved yet based on
the teaching practice program (PPL) at SMP N 1 Berastagi. The students could not write well.
Most of them had difficulties in conveying ideas in writing because they had a lack of
vocabulary and appropriate structures of sentences. So the students felt lazy to write any text as
they assumed that writing was a boring activity.
Based on the problem that the researcher given from an interview with the English
teacher in SMP HKBP Sidorame Medan . The researcher found out that the students’ writing
ability was quite low in terms of writing texts such as narrative, recount and descriptive texts.
Manzo and Thomas (2006) the students failed in writing because they faced some difficulties
such as a lack of vocabulary and poor grammar and also the teacher still used the conventional
technique that made them get bored and have low motivation in learning. Teachers must build
the interest by applying a good technique. For the purpose of improving the students’ ability in
writing, the researcher assumes that brainstorming technique is a way of teaching
One of the appropriate and comprehensive strategies for teaching writing
is
brainstorming technique. Litchf and Vincent(2002) brainstorming is a group or individual
creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by
gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. By using brainstorming
technique, the researcher tries to make students writing easily, because the students free to think
and give information about the topic. Rao (2007) expecting that brainstorming can help students
to make them fluent to write in English. Robert(2008) the advantages of using brainstorming
technique in teaching English for the students’ thought are activated to write their opinion,
makes students think quickly and logically, increases the participation of students in receiving
lessons, even students feel free and happy, and democratic atmosphere and discipline can be
grown in the class.
Based on the discussion above, the technique of teaching writing for helping students
should be provided. Brainstorming is one of techniques that students can use to generate ideas
for writing a paper. In the process of brainstorming, the students should suspend any concerns
about staying organized. The goal is to pour their thoughts onto paper without worrying about
whether they make sense or how they fit together.
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the problem of
the study is formulated as
follows” How does brainstorming technique improve Grade VIII students’
achievement in
writing descriptive texts?”
C. The Objective of the Study
The objective of the study is to find out if the brainstorming technique improves Grade
VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
D. The Scope of the Study
The study is focused on brainstorming technique which is applied to discover when can
improve Grade VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
E. The Significance of the Study
The results of the study will be useful for:
1)
The teachers who apply the technique of teaching writing in the classroom and plan to
conduct a better and interesting method in teaching writing in order to motivate the
students to write.
2)
The students who need to improve their writing ability and who want to make a research
related to the study.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1. Conclusion
Based on the data analysis, it is concluded that in order to improve writing
ability, the Brainstorming Technique has to be applied as follows: Teacher
elaborate more detail about generic structure of descriptive text (identification and
description by using describing some of students in the classroom. In the cycle
one, the teacher just gave the students some texts as their reference. Teacher
explained more detail about grammatical feature in descriptive text, especially to
be, to has/have and adjective. In cycle one, the teacher only explained about
tenses generally. Teacher gave more topics about descriptive text and asked the
students to find their idea by using brainstorming technique in their group.The
result of students score in writing a descriptive text (65.50). In cycle I the score
was 73.33. After doing some changes in cycle II, the students’ score increased to
be 79.97.
5.2. Suggestions
In line with the conclusions, there are two points that would be suggested
for:
1.
English teachers to improve students’ Grade VIII Students achievement in
writing decriptive text through brainstorming technique
because
brainstorming can increase students’ interest in learning to write
descriptive text and make the teaching and learning process became more
enjoyable.
2.
Students of Junior High School to create their own brainstorming
technique to help them to express their idea .So that they have a good
understanding about how to improve their ability in writing descritive text
through brainstorming technique .
REFERENCES
Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language
Pedagogy Second Edition. New York: Pearson Education.
Hairston,M. 1986.ContemporaryComposition.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company
Harmer , J. 2004. How to teach writing. Harlow:Pearson Education
Hyland, K. 2002. Teaching and Researching Writing.London:Pearson Education
Hornby, A.S. 2000.Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English.
Oxford: Oxford University.
Siahaan, S. 2008. The English Paragraph.Yogyakarta:Grahailmu
Wallace, M.J. 1998.Action Research For Language Teachers. Cambridge:
Cambridge University
Rao Z. (2007). Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing Skills, in ELT
Journal 44(2), 133-143.
Manzo, A., Manzo, U., & Thomas, M. 2006. Rationale for Systematic Vocabulary
Development: Antidote for State Mandate. Journal of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy, 49(7), 610-619.
Litchf Paulus, Paul B. and Vincent R. Brown. 2002. Making Group Brainstorming
More Effective. Cscanada Journal Vol. 11 No.7,pp.82-87. At
www.Cscanada.org.Retrived on 5 February 2013.
http://www.ehow.com/info_8220088_advantages-brainstorming.htmlaccessed on
June 5, 2013
http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/grants/brainstorming.html accessed on May 27ield,
Robert. 2008. Brainstorming reconsidered: A Goal-Based View. The writing
Journal Vol. 3. No. 2. At http://brainstorming-technique.blogspot.com/
Retrieved on 2 April 2013
Widdowson, G. 2008. Teaching Language as Communication. New York: Oxford
University Press
https://sites.google.com/site/assess4learning/assessment-defined/assessment-forlearning-defined. Accessed on 2 February 2013
http://inventors.about.com/od/lessonplans/a/creativity_2.htmaccessed on June 9,
2013
http://www.scribe.comAccessed on March 5th 2013
http://www.coun.uvic.ca /learn /program /hndouts /bloom. html Accessedon
April27th 2013
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htmAccessed on May 15th 2013
http://www.mindtools.comAccessed on june10th 2013
http://www.edwarddebono.comAccessed on june25th 2013