IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY ON DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH THROUGH COPYING A PARAGRAPH

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY ON DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH THROUGH COPYING A PARAGRAPH Mariam, Alber Rufinus, Urai Salam

English Language Education Study Program FKIP UNTAN Pontianak Email : Mariam_99@gmail.com

Abstract: Research was conducted in two cycles. In the first cycle

activities, the students are asked to copy a descriptive paragraph same with paragraph model correctly.The results of the students value obtained in these activities reached an average value of 80.00. While activity in the second cycle, students are asked to rewrite a descriptive paragraph by replacing the name and use the appropriate personal pronoun with suitable name that is provided in parentheses. The result of the students’values reached an average value of 84.00. Based on the results of these activities carried out on both cycle can be concluded that the students’ ability improved in copying a paragraph. This means that the act of the copying strategy of hypothesis use to improve students’ writing skills in the classroom prove. It has reached a value above the average KKM is 70.00. Thus the author concludes that copying a paragraph improve skills in writing.Thus, the authors suggest that teachers should determine a strategy is suitable or appropriate for students who are taught in accordance with the condition and may help them in writing.

Keyword: Writing ability, copying descriptive paragraph Abstract: Penelitian ini dilakukan dalam dua siklus. Dalam kegiatan

siklus pertama, siswa diminta untuk menyalin sebuah paragraf deskriptif yang sama dengan model kalimat dengan benar. Hasil nilai siswa yang diperoleh dalam kegiatan ini mencapai nilai rata-rata 80,00. Sementara aktivitas pada siklus kedua, siswa diminta untuk menulis ulang paragraf deskriptif dengan mengganti nama dan menggunakan kata ganti diri yang sesuai dengan nama yang cocok yang disediakan dalam kurung. Hasil students'values mencapai nilai rata-rata 84,00. Berdasarkan hasil kegiatan ini dilakukan pada kedua siklus dapat disimpulkan bahwa kemampuan siswa meningkat dalam menyalin paragraf. Ini berarti bahwa tindakan strategi menyalin hipotesis digunakan untuk meningkatkan siswa keterampilan menulis di kelas membuktikan. Telah mencapai nilai di atas rata-rata KKM adalah 70,00. Dengan demikian penulis menyimpulkan bahwa menyalin paragraf meningkatkan keterampilan dalam menulis. Jadi, penulis menyarankan bahwa guru harus menentukan strategi cocok atau sesuai untuk siswa yang diajar sesuai dengan kondisi dan dapat membantu mereka dalam menulis.

Kata Kunci : Kemampuan siswa menulis, menyalin ayat deskriptif n the English language lesson at the Junior High School level, writing is one of language skills besides listening, speaking, and reading. It is taught to the

students from class VII to class IX. Writing is a product of the three aspects of language skills and it is an important thing should be learned by students.Based on the English syllabus of education basic competency (School Based Curriculum) or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan ( KTSP ) 2006, the ability to write in class VII of second semester i Mengungkapkan makna dan langkah s “

retorika dalam teks esei pendek sangat sederhana, dengan menggunakan ragam

bahasa tulis secara akurat, lancar dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dengan

lingkungan terdekat berbentuk descriptive dan procedure." Writing is

expressing meaning and rhetorical steps into simple short essays text, using a variety of written language accurately, fluently, and acceptability to interact with the immediate environment formed descriptive and procedure text. Based on the ability mentioned in that curriculum, students are expected to express their mind or their ideas into writing and knowing the structure and form of rhetoric steps of descriptive text or procedures text. In this case, the writer have done the research on students' ability in writing descriptive paragraph based on the rhetoric steps of the text. The teacher conducted this research is named “a Classroom Action Research”(CAR). The purpose of this research was determine the problems experienced by students in writing as well as finding solutions to overcome these difficulties. After she finished conducting her research can be find some difficulties experienced her students in writing a paragraph. These problems are in spelling in English, punctuation, especially a period at the end of sentences, so they usually forget to use a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and the beginning of a person's name. The native language is inevitable students to learn their native from their environtment. Meanwhile, students learn the second language through the process of learning activity in the classroom but it is not ever learnt through their environment. In order to be able to write English as the second language well, students must master both gramatically patterns and practice in writing in any languages. Based on these students’problems stated that the teacher looks for appropriate strategies and easy to help as well as train them to write correctly. In this case, the teacher uses strategy in writing by copying a descriptive paragraph. Through copying a paragraph, the writer asks her students to rewrite a paragraph from a given model.Copying is a strategy as a model in teaching learning English in writing, because copying paragraph is basic skill for students in writing at the Junior High school for seventh grade. Copying is an important skill in real life for students, because it can help students learn how to form letters, words, and sentences from a given model. Some students however, are not very good at it. In part this may be due to an inability to notice key features of English spelling or to a general difficulty with attention to detail. The purpose of this way train or drill the students in writing a descriptive paragraph. For this purpose, the writer is proposing a research design in classroom action research through copying a descriptive paragraph in writing. It is expected that this research can be helpful to improve the students’ ability in writing. The problem of this research is as follows: “How well does copying a paragraph improve students’ writing ability on descriptive paragraph?”.The purpose of this research improve student’s ability in writing a descriptive paragraph at the seventh grade A of SMPN I Segedong in academic year

2014/2015. The action hypothesis in this research is that the writing ability of students at seventh grade of SMP Negeri 1 Segedong in academic year 2014/2015. “Through copying a paragraph, the students’ ability is improved in writing a descriptive paragraph.”In order to conduct a research systematically and avoid misinterpretation, is necessary to state research terminology. In order to avoid misinterpretation regarding some term used in this research, the writer provides a simple explanation as follows: Teaching Writing in Foreign Language Context. In Junior High School level for seventh grade, teaching writing in foreign language context through the process learning activity and they must be mastered both grammatically patern and practice in writing. The descriptive paragraph. The descriptive paragraph is a paragraph which describes someone or something and certain place. In the first semester of VII grade at Junior High School, the students have difficulties in putting their ideas into written form. That is, they have problems in translating their ideas into text.

The difference between the writing systems of first language and the English lesson as a foreign language, such as vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. So, they had a lot of trouble when they were asked to write in English as a foreign language. As a result, most of them become confused and even bored in class at the time of writing. According to Bryne (1982) cited in Hambali (2011:9) ” writing is commonly difficult activity for most people in mother tongue and the foreign language.“ Likewise, Richards ( 1996 ) in Hambali ( 2011: 9 )” learning a second language is hard work and for most people involves a considerable commitment of time and effort.” The native language is inevitable students learn their native from their environtment.

Meanwhile, students learn the second language through the process of learning activity in the classroom, but it does not ever learn through their environment. In order to be able to write English as the second language well, students must be mastered both gramatically paterns and practice in writing in any language.They also must write it in correct words or correctly in spelling, note the right punctuation. All those aspects cannot be separated each other.

To support it, the writer quoted Vollete ( 1977 ) in Hambali ( 2011 : 9 ) “ when students learning a foreign language, they must follow a series of series of steps in developing the writing skill. The mechanics such as choices of the vocabulary, spelling and grammar must be master before the students can aspire to precision of expression fluency. In addition to Olshtain ( 2001 : 206 ) said that “ Writing skill for low level English Second Language or English Foreign Language learners, it starts with letter and word recognition, discrimination and production and move to basic rules of English spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization, in teaching reading and writing skill in a foreign language classroom center around those mechanics. The other objectives of foreign language teaching writing class is for students to recognize and write the text according to the text of rhetoric measures introduced, such as text descriptive and procedure, so that they can their thoughts and feelings into sentences according to the proper language structure and easy they understand it. According to Hampton (1989 ) cited in Novitasari ( 2011 : 8 ) “ Writing is one ability to put their thought into words in a meaningfull form and one ability to express and explain ideas in a sentence or paragraph with correct grammar and mechanic.” Grammar refers to the students ability in demonstrating their mastery in applying some forms of simple present tense, simple past tense, present countinuous tense and future tense have to mastered by students in the seventh grade in the Junior High School. In conclusion, that learning a second language must follow its own pattern both instructure and choices of vocabulary. Teacher were mostly concerned on the final product of writing. In poin of fact, writing is not something instanly comes out from people’s mind. Thus, to be mastered in writing, it needs long process. The students have to do a lot practices to develop their writing.

Teaching is guiding, making learner easier to learn, enabling the learner to learn and setting the condition. Teaching English means that teach the students not only how to speak, how to read, how to listen, but also how to write. Hampton (1989) in Harsyaf, et al. (2009:4) describes “the reasons for teaching writing to students of English as a foreign language include reinforcement, language development, learning style and the most important reason for teaching writing that it is a basic language skill, just as important as speaking, listening and reading.“According to Brown & Hood (1998 ) in Harsyaf, et al. ( 2009 : 7) ” there are three main stages of the writing process: preparing to write or pre- writing, drafting and revisin g.” Pre-writing is the process when the students gather the information and begin to organize it into a cohesive unit. Students can start pre-writing with note taking, brainstorming or listing. Teacher can help the student in pre-writing by making list the ideas or by writing the difficult words on the blackboard or sheet paper. In this stage, the writer gives a paragraph model into a descriptive paragraph based on the picture provided to the students on the sheet paper. Drafting is the process or the stage in which writer render through into visible language, or we can call it as the physical act of writing. Here, the student transfers the information they have gathered and organized into a traditional format such as a simple paragraph model. In this stage, the writer asks the students copying a descriptive paragraph based a paragraph model provided on the sheet paper. Revising or editing is usually the least favorite stage of the writing process. Revising can include adding, deleting, rearranging and substituting words or sentences, and even entire paragraphs to make their writing more accurately based paragraph model. In this stage, the writer asks the students to check or edit their revised writing by checking the spelling, capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure. Descriptive paragraph is a paragraph which describes the features of someone, something, or a certain place. The goal of descriptive is transfering the experience of the writers. The experience can be what they see, read, or feel. Descriptive paragraphs are often used to describe what a person looks and acts like. Here is an example of a descriptive paragraph: I am forty years old, rather

tall and I have blue eyes and short black hair. I wear casual clothes as I teach

students in a relaxed atmosphere. I enjoy my job because I get to meet and help

so many different people from all over the world. During my spare time, I like

playing tennis which I play at least three times a week. I also love listening to

classical music and I must admit that I spend a lot of money on buying new CDs!

I live in a pretty seaside town on the Italian coast. I enjoy eating great Italian

food and laughing with the likable people who live here. ( Adapted from

Kenneth Beare, About.com Guide ). Descriptive paragraph commonly tries to reveal the image of certain person, place, animal or thing. The purpose in descriptive writing is “ to engage a reader’s attention, to create character, to set a mood or created an atmosphere, to bring writing to life, and also to help a writer develope an aspect of their work. For the example to create a particular mood, atmosphere or describe a place so that the reader can create vivid pictures of character, places, objects etc. “(Grabe and Kaplan, 1999) cited Anindita ( 2011: 18 ). Based on its generic structure, descriptive paragraph is devided into two parts. They are : 1) Identification/introduction is the part of the paragraph that introduces the character. 2) Description is the part of the paragraph that describes the character, the phenomenon in parts and qualities. In addition, Pardiyono ( 2006 ) that “ to begin a description paragraph, as the first step a writer should make identification is used to introduce an object or something that will be describe. Part of identification in descriptive paragraph is the topic sentence in paragraph writing generally. The next part is description that described the object in part of identification. The description or content of the descriptive are supporting sentences in paragraph writing generally. Part of identification and description are the essential element of descriptive paragraph.” The descriptive text focuses on specific participants and also includes parts of qualities and characteristics of the object. A) The language feature of descriptive paragraph, Using the simple present tense, Using attributive and identifying process. Using adjective and classifiers in nominal group.

Descriptive text often uses the form of be : Present or past tense. The present tense is often used in this kind of text, but sometimes we can also use the past tense to describe a certain thing which is extinct or not available nowadays. The vocabularies often used in a descriptive text are the word which are related to names of places : locations, destinations, the functions, the appearances and the evidences if needed (for building, animals ). The words are used to describe the

classification, the physical appearances, habits, behavior, life cycles and the

function .

The language is neutral or objective. The passive form is also often used here. Here is the example of descriptive paragraph describe a certain place.

Borobudur : Well-known all over the world. Its contruction is influenced by the

Gupta architecture of india. The temple is contructed on a hill 46 m high and

consist of eight step like stone terrace. The first five terrace are square and

surrounded by walls adorned with Budist sculpture in basrelief. The upper three

are circular. Each of them is with a circle of bell shape-stupa. The entire adifice

is crowned by a large stupa at the centre of the top circle. The way to the summit

extends through some 4.8 km of passage and starways. The design of borobudur

which symbolizes the structure of universe influences temples at Angkor,

Cambodia. Borobudur temple which is rededicated as an Indonesian monument

in 1983 is a valuable treasure for Indonesian people. ( Triyanto, p. 84 ). In

descriptive paragraph about borobudur describing about a certain place which are organized spatially to give the reader a clear picture of scene being described details about parts, condition and qualities of borobudur as an Indonesian monument well-known all over the world. In additonal, Pardiyono (2007) Cited in Anindita (2011: 19) descriptive paragraph writing is characterized as follows :

Social function, it describes the future of condition of an object by using adjective or attributes.Writing focus, it describes the quality, condition or character of the object.Grammatical patterns Using simple present Tense. The use of adjectives to describe the qualities and characteristics of the object. For example : large, simple, small, sunny and confort. Descriptive paragraph contains three elements. Those are information, context and descriptive language. 1) Information : descriptive paragraph describe ideas and things as well as inform about their function. 2) Context: in descriptive paragraph, information is always contextualized. 3) Descriptive language: descriptive paragraphs use considerable amounts of vocabulary that describes action verbs as well as vocabulary denoting value and attributes of things (nouns, adverbs and adjectives). Desciptive writing may also paint pictures of the feelings the person, place or thing invokes in the writer. General adjectives, nouns, and passive verbs do not have a place in good descriptive writing. Specific adjectives and nouns and strong action verbs to give life to the picture you are painting in the reader’s mind. Descriptive paragraph also must be organized. Someways to organize descriptive writing include: chronological (time), special (location), and order of importance. When describing a person, we might begin with a physical description, followed by how that person thinks, feels and acts. Descriptive writing aims to show rather than tell the reader what something/someone is like, relies on precisely chosen vocabulary with carefully chosen adjectives and adverbs, it is focused and consentrates only on the aspects that add something to the main purpose of the description. Then sensory description what is heard, seen introduce the topic described. Then, it is followed by description. Copying is a strategy in teaching learning for students that teacher used to guide the students in writing activity in the classroom by imitating a written model. According Harmer ( 2007 : 52 ) “ To help students overcome problem with handwriting and spelling, for example are enabling exercise on the way to developing an overal writing ability.” Similarly the technique is used copying and parallel writing (imitating a written model ), help to give students a basic mechanical competence which they can then put to use when they write more creatively. The copying activities potential for helping students to learn ( as we have seen with handwriting and spelling), because some students however are not very good at it especially in spelling and punctuation. According Graeme Porte ( 1998 : 53 ) found that some of his ‘underachieving’ students had great difficulty copying accurately when making notes or when answering exam questions, for example. As a result he had these same students, under time pressure, copy a straightforward text which was out in fairly short lines. They copied line by line, but any one time they covered the whole text from the line they were working on.

This mean, they could give their whole concentration to that one line. Their ability to copy accurately improve as result of this activity. Students need to learn and practice the art of putting words together in well formed sentences, paragraphs and texts. One way of doing this is parallel writing where students follow a written model, then they have to write similar sentence or paragraph based a paragraph model. The writer does teaching writing activity in three main stages in the process, they are pre-writing, drafting and revising. Pre-writing: At this stage, the teacher gives a paragraph model that is provided on a piece of paper to guide the students in writing and a blank sheet for them to rewrite a paragraph model. Drafting: In this stage, the writer asks the students to copy or rewrite a descriptive paragraph written as a model provided on the sheet paper into a blank sheet. Revising: In this stage, the writer asks the students to check or edit their revised writing by checking the spelling, capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure. Copying a paragraph means imitating sentences or a paragraph from a written model similarly. Classroom Action Research is a classroom based research which is applied to find the best solution, the problem faced in teaching learning process by teacher in the classroom to improve the students’ writing ability on descriptive paragraph. The seven grade class A of the students SMPN I

Segedong are the students who registered as the subject of the research in academic year 2014/2015.

METHOD

This chapter deals with the form of research, population and sample, and finally the technique and tools of data collecting. The aim of a research is to solve the problems. It is necessary to describe the design to be used when research is conducted. In this research a classroom action research design is used.According to Madya (2007) in Setiawati (2010:10)

“classroom action research consist of four stages which embody planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

” The first of planning is meant to plan the action; in order to help the researcher to overcome the problems appeared in the classroom and improve the student ability. The second is acting. Acting is the implementation of the plans that have been made. Next is observing where the researcher observes the process of implementation; which functioned to record the activity during the treatment. And the last is reflecting, where the researcher evaluated the implementation which had been done.The researcher plans activities that helpfully will overcome the problem that appears in the classroom, so the problem will not appear in the next treatment.In addition Kurt Lewin (1946) in McNiff (1992:19) that he drew action research as a series step in spiral form. Every steps have four stages, those are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The research consists of one cycle, where the writer applies a process copying a paragraph into descriptive text. The process of writing will be going on about eighty minutes. Prosedure of Classroom Action Research. The procedure of this research consist of : Planning: The plan include the writer preparation before teaching learning activity such as lesson plan, teaching material, observations checklist table and field notes, the Key answer and students’ score, a blank and sheet paper for students. Based on the result of analysis and interpretation the data, the writer will arrange a preparation before doing the action. In this stage, the writer will guide to write a descriptive paragraph through guided words such as; name, age, size, black eyes, hair, kindly, etc, based on the picture provided to the students. Acting: In this step, the writer guide to write a descriptive paragraph based guided words or clues and picture provided on the blackboard. It is a paragraph model that has given by teacher. After that, the writer asks the students to copy the paragraph. That has written on the whiteboard correctly and they also write generic structure and the language features of the descriptive paragraph. In the observing step, the writer will observe the data to know whether the result is high or low. In this process, the writer will check the students tasks about writing a descriptive paragraph which the students have done. In this session, the writer helped by a collaborator to see the process in teaching and learning, and the writer asked the students correct their tasks based the criteria stated into the key answers, including; functional text, the grammar pattern of the sentences, spelling of the words, generic structure and the language features of the paragraph. The collaborator fills the field notes to jot down anything that occurred in teaching learning process, including that things probable are found as well as solution to overcome. The collaborator also concerned with teacher’s work whether or not she applies this way by following phases. Finally, to get the scores of judgment, the researcher sum and write the students’ score one by one to get the objective result. When the teacher will deliver the strategy based on the planning, the collaborator will observe the st udents’ activity by using observation checklist table and field note. The writer will find and know what have been achieved and the solution for these students’ problem is the next cycle. From the process of teaching learning the writer gets some important the students’ score. If the students’ score is low, it means they had problems in writing. So the writer will overcome the students’ problems in writing the next cycle. The feedback is very important in re-planning the next action. It can change a certain action or add some more actions in order to improve the teaching learning process in writing a descriptive paragraph. Subject of this research is seven grade students of class A at SMPN 1 Segedong in academic year 2014/2015. There is one class A and total number of the students are thirty-six students. Techniques of data collecting that are applied in this research are : Measurement, Observation. The tool of data collecting used in this researcher are : Copying a paragraph Test, Scoring Rubric. Observation checklist Field NoteIn this research, the researcher would focus on computation of mean score. The mean score was computed by using the formula bellows:

M = ∑ N N

Based on the criteria, the researcher found the KKM ( Kriteria Ketuntasan

Minimal) of the school, for seven grade in English subject is 70. If the students score is seventy or more than seventy, means that the students can achieve the KKM. From the students score, it can be judge that the students have improved their writing through copying strategy.Research preparation: a) Propose the outline to team, b) Prepare the research design after collecting the suitable references from the library. c) Apply some additional input from the result of seminar. d) Revise the research design based on the inputs that are given in seninar. e) Ask for the the research licence from the Dean assistant of FKIP Untan. f) Submit the research licence to the head master of SMPN 1 Segedong to ask permission to conduct the research. The steps of research implementation are as follows : a) Observe the teaching learninng process and complete the field notes based on what is seen from direct observetion. b)

Give score to student’s worksheet based on the rubric score. c) Analyze the collected data based on the field notes and the result of students’mean score. d) Reflected to the next cycle based on the finding gained in frevious cycle. e) Described the findings qualitatively consisted of the result of data analyses which contained the result of research from all of tools of data collecting such as field note, observetion checklist and scoring table.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Findings

Cycle 1: In the first cycle, the students got score good in copying a descriptive paragraph, the results of the acquisition value of students can be seen in appendix 2. It means that the students had obtained a value above the standard minimum value or KKM, and but the writer needs to improve students' writing on several aspects such as punctuation, capital letters are still mistakenly placing it in a sentence. Then copying a paragraph continued improvement in the second cycle to obtain better results.

That table shows the main score of students’ability in writing a descriptive paragraph model namely 80,00. It was categorized good to average. The writer uses a formula to determine the average students' writing

∑

skills as follows : = = = 79,94 = 80,00.

Based on the data of students’ writing in cycle 1, the writer concluded that the students’ability in copying a paragraph are good but still needs improvement in the second cycle to correct errors such as writing a capital letter at the beginning of the name, annotate the dot in the name stands for and many of them forgot to affix the dot end of sentences. Cycle 2: After the writer obtain results of students copying a paragraph model then can be seen rising from the first cycle, value students can be seen on the appendix 2. Acquisition of student scores on the second cycles to average into 84,00. So it can be concluded that students' writing ability improved to copying a paragraph by the teacher given.Results of

∑

average scores on the second cycle are: = = =83,92= 84,00.

In cycle 2, the writer found several findings in copying a paragraph this strategy writing for students can improve students’ wrting ability in descriptive paragraph. The findings are follows : 1) The implementation of cycle 2 had been conducted well. 2) The students easy to write a paragraph throught copying. So. The writer decided not continuous to the third cycle.

Discussion

From the writer findings, it could be seen that the students’writing ability helpful by using copying a descriptive paragraph improved from cycle to cycle. The score of the students before using this strategy in teaching learning was bad from the first cycle to second cycle. In the first cycle, the m ean score of students’ was 80,00 the second cycle was 84,00. The improvement which was taken place in the classroom was considered as the result of treatment. The treatment which was mentioned here is using c opying a paragraph was increasing students’writing ability in descriptive text the seventh grade students of SMPN 1 Segedong in Academic Year 2014/2015. From the diagram above, it is observable that the students’writing ability is increased in the next cycle. It shows that the mean score in the last cycle is increasing. This point indicates that the students’writing ability is getting better in the second cycle.

The meeting lasted about two days. In the first meeting, the teaching

learning process the students were provided a sample of decscriptive paragraph, a worksheet for students and there are some keywords in it to tells about picture. The teacher started the lesson by giving brainstorming to the students about family members.Then she rexplained about parts of the text such as, definition of descriptive text, generic structure and the language features of the text. After that the writer asked the students write sentences based the ficture and some words provided by teacher to write about some one’s family members in a descriptive paragraph.

In this cases, the writer provided opportunity to the students to do their

tasks for 30 minutes. After that, the writer asks her students correcting their tasks with random, while the teacher guides answers by writing a sentence by sentence based on the keywords that have been provided, then arranged the sentences into a paragraph. From this cases, the writer found the students’problems when their correcting their tasks in the worksheets. They had difficulties to write their statement in true sentences. They use of capital letters is less precise, most of them do not give punctuation such as; point end in a sentence or abbreviation in the name of a person. Their errors caused by lack of vocabularies and mistakes in grammar and punctuation master. However, as a whole in the first meeting teaching learning ran well. In the second meeting the students showed their significant progress.The students were easy to write the sentences from a paragraph model by teacher given. They just have copied the sentence by sentence for twenty minutes. Then the teacher asks the students correcting their tasks, turns copying sentences can help students write a paragraph correctly although there are some errors of some students but not as much as the errors found at the first meeting and the average values achieved for the entire class of students can reach a value above KKM set out in the curriculum 2006.

During the second meeting, the teacher only finds errors the capital letters in

writing still wrong placement, there are some of them who do not give a period at the end of the sentence. At the end of the second meeting they can finish their task easily. Along the treatments, the strength of using copying as a streategy for students writing ability to write a descriptive paragraph. The first strength is the students helpful to write a paragraph in English well. The second strength, the students are easy to do their tasks quickly. The weakness of using copying in learning students can only copy but they were not able to pour his own ideas in the sentences or paragraphs.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Conclusions

Referring to the research finding and analysis of the students test result, it can be concluded that: 1) Student’s writing ability was increased by using copying a paragraph as strategy when teaching learning descriptive. This was proved by the result of mean score and the result of observation. The mean score students before using copying as a strategy was poor, and then increase when use strategy the firstt cycle was 80,00 and the second cycle was 84,00. 2) Using copying as strategy in teaching learning proved that the students’ achievement and writing a paragraph in descriptive text can be increased. They were easier to copy the sentence by sentence as a paragraph model that has given by teacher and the students did not have much time to do finish their tasks as they usually did before. 3) Using copying a paragraph is helpful for the students to practice in writing English for the seven grade students. More over, this strategy will be able to motivate them tobe good for handwriting.

Suggestions

Based on the above conclusion, the results of this paper are expected to be able to contribute to improving the quality of the learning process of writing, while the suggestions can be described as follows: 1) For the Teacher / Researcher a.Teachers should use appropriate strategies and simple in learning writing beginning at the seven grade.b.Teachers are expected to guide her students to follow and understand learning process. 2) For Studentsa.Students should be active in participating in learning activities through demonstration, observation, and exercises to improve learning outcomes.b.Students always practice their writing skill in order to imprive not only can copy but also pour their ideas or opinion in writing.3.For Schoolsa.Schools must provide the facilities and infrastructure such props in learning activities to improve studen ts’ learning outcomes. b.Schools should provide the opportunity for teachers as possible to develop their creativity with education and training activities increase professionalism of teachers.

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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING ABILITY ON DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH THROUGH COPYING A PARAGRAPH