STUDENTS’ WRITING STRATEGIES: A Case Study at the Second Grade of Senior High School at MA Nurul Islam in Academic Year 2015
STUDENTS’ WRITING STRATEGIES: A Case Study at the Second Grade of
Senior High School at MA Nurul Islam in Academic Year 2015An Article
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment for SarjanaPendidikan (S. Pd.) Degree in
English Department Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Mataram University By
RATIFICATION
This thesis entitled “Students’ Writing Strategies: A Case Study at Second Grade
at Senior High School at MA Nurul Islam in Academic Year 2015”by Ayu Lestari
(E1D011009) accepted by the board of examiner on May 2016 as the requirements in
achieve Sarjana Pendidikan (S. Pd) Degree in English Education Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Mataram University. Board of Examiners:
First Consultant
Dr. Arifuddin, M. Pd
NIP.19661231 1991103 1 017 STUDENTS’ WRITING STRATEGIES: A Case Study at the Second Grade of Senior High School at MA Nurul Islam in Academic Year 2015
By Ayu Lestari E1D011009
Alestariku777@yahoo.co.id ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to reveal the students’ strategies in writing skill at the second grade of MA Nurul Islam. This study is descriptive research that uses qualitative and quantitative research. Questionnaire is used to collect the data from all students at second grade of MA Nurul Islam. 3 out of 53 students were absent. The questionnaire contain some strategies such as use dictionary strtaegy, use English/grammar book strategy, brainstorming strategy, discussion strategy, use writing checklist strategy, apply the grammar that have been learnt. From the strategies, the most popular strategy is discussion. Besides that, the teacher also teach writing strategies such as compel them to use dictionary, brainstorming, ask the students to bring grammar book. The teacher also gives conference and corrective feedback to their writing paper. The students’ writing strategies are not appropriate to their problems. It caused by the teacher’s role that not really focus on their problems in writing or the students not concious to the importance of strategy. Writing strategies can be used related to their difficulties in vocabulary (use dictionary), in grammar (use grammar book), in generating ideas (use brainstorming, draw-label-caption strategy or idea detail strategy). Key words: Learning Strategies, Writing Skill, Writing Strategies. Strategi Siswa Dalam Menulis: Studi Kasus pada Siswa Kelas 2 MA Nurul Islam Tahun Ajaran 2015
Oleh Ayu Lestari E1D011009
Alestariku777@yahoo.co.id ABSTRAK
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui strategi yang digunakan oleh siswa kelas 2 MA Nurul Islam dalam menulis. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif yang menggunakan kwalitatif dan kwantitatif. Kuisoner digunakan untuk mengumpulkan data dari seluruh siswa kelas 2 MA Nurul Islam. 3 dari 53 siswa tidak hadir dalam penelitian ini. Kuisoner tersebut berisi strategi seperti menggunakan kamus, menggunakan buku gramer, melakukan brainstorming (pemanasan), diskusi, menggunakan checklist (mendatar), dan menngunakan aturan yang sudah dipelajari dalam menulis. Dari strategi tersebut, yang paling populer adalah diskusi. Selain itu, guru mereka juga mengajarkan beberapa strategi dalam menulis seperti memaksa mereka menggunakan kamus, brainstorming (pemanasan) dan meminta mereka menggunakan buku grammar. Guru mereka juga memberikan respon pada tulisan mereka sepeti mengkoreksi kesalahan dan diskusi dengan siswa tentang kesalahan mereka. Strategi siswa tidak sesuai dengan masalah mereka dalam menulis. Itu disebabkan karena peranan guru yang kurang fokus dengan masalah mereka atau karena siswa tersebut tidak memahami/peduli terhadap strategi dalam menulis. Strategi yang dapat digunakan berhubungan dengan masalah mereka adalah seperti kekurangan kosa kata dengan kamus, bermasalah di tatabahas/strukturdengan menggunakan buku grammar, dan sulit mengembangkan ide dalam menulis dengan menggunakan brainstorming, draw-label-caption strategy or idea detail strategy. Kata kunci: Strategi dalam Belajar, Menulis, Strategi dalam Menulis
Introduction
Language is an indispensable thing that use to communicate and to interact with family, friends, even the society in daily life. The function of language is to express everything that we want such as opinions, criticisms, advices and ideas and etc. There are many languages in the world. One of them is English language that nowadays is veryimportant since as aworld or international language.
Crystal (2003:2) states that English as a global language because, people will hear politicians speak English all over the world and find signs, advertisements, hotels, restaurants in English when they are travelling. He states that English is an official spoken language in countries. Thus, we shouldmaster Englishbecause, it is very important in global eraasanofficiallanguage ofthe world.
In learning of English, some skills will be learnt such as speaking, reading, listening and writing. Writing may the most important skill because of the written production is eternal and allows everyone to read it. Carroll (1990:1) says” it provides relatively permanent records of information, opinions, beliefs, feelings, arguments, explanation, theories etc”. It can be the most complicated skill in English as more complex than the other skills. A research by Msanjila (2005) investigated student’s problems in writing skills at Kiswahili in Tanzania secondary school. The research showed writing problems in capitalization and punctuation problems, spelling, grammatical errors etc. Thus, it gives a proof that writing is difficult skill and can be a problem for the learners.
Students of MA Nurul Islam also assumed that writing is difficult skill. 76 % students assumed that writing is a complicated skill. The researcher found many of them have problems in grammar, vocabulary, and also hard to develop their ideas.The problems may duo to learning strategies that they use in studying. Therefore, researcher is interested to find out the strategies may be used by the second students of MA Nurul Islam to finish and to support their writing task. Those strategies may appropriate or not for them. Besides that, the researcher will find out the appropriate strategy related to the problem that they face in writing task.
The purpose of this study is to learn about their strategies in writing skill. More details, this reserach aims to:
1. The students learning strategies in writing skill at second grade of MA Nurul Islam in academic year 2015.
2. What the teachers do to treat the students’ in writing.
3. In what extent the learning strategies are appropriate with the writing problems.
Review Related to Literature
. Meyers (2005:2) in Budi (2011) says that “writing is an action-a process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on paper, and reshaping and revising them”. Writing skill allows people to explore what they want and everyone permits to reach it. Carroll (1990:1) says that ” it provides relatively permanent records of information, opinions, beliefs, feelings, arguments, explanation, theories etc”. The importance of writing is also described by Harmer (1998). He states that why writing should be taught because of as the reinforcement, language development, learning style and writing as a skill. Besides that, writing skill helps the students to enhance their vocabulary, reinforce the grammatical structure, and assist other skills such as speaking, reading and listening (Kellog, 2008). Thus, trough writing skill people can increase their knowledge about the language, an aid to the other skills, freely to express what they want, immortalizing their written text and then share to the present or future generation.
Writing also can be the most difficult skill. Javed et al (2013) states that writing is the most difficult skill for the foreign language students. Besides that, Richards and Renandya (2002) in Khoii (2011) say that besides the writer need to generate and organize ideas also translate the ideas in readable text. Moreover, Negari (2011) assumes that writing is a complicated skill including cognitive and metacognitive activities such as brainstorming, panning drafting, organizing, outlining and revising.
Related to the difficulties of writing students need to use strtategies in writing task. Wenden (1987: 7-8) in Lee (2010) says that “learning strategies are various operation that learners use in order to make sense in their learning”. To solve or finish the task the students use different ways from various resources (Williams & Burden, 1987). Besides that, Chamot (1987:17) in Li & Chun (2012) says that learning strategies as “techniques, approaches, deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and recall of both linguistic and content area information”.
There are some strategies in writing skill:
1. Huegli (2008) describes some strategies for the students in writing. The strategies will be discussed as follow: a. Use a Dictionary
When the students need to translate the words in to another language, they need a dictionary. Through a dictionary the students can look at the spelling of the words (Huegli, 2008).
b. Use Quick Word Handbook This book is useful to help the students to find the spelling of common words.
c. The Use of Writing Process To achieve good writing, the students should concern to the process of writing. The first is pre-writing.. The second is drafting. The third is
revising. The last is editing.
d. Structure Your Writing Students need to structure their writing. It concern to the sentence and the paragraph. The students should know the component or element of the sentence and paragraph.
e. Use a Writing Checklist The other strategy that makes your written text perfect is checklist.
The purpose of checklist is to make sure the writing is clear and well organized such as the ideas, sentences, paragraphs, the grammars, spellings and etc.
2. Peha (1995) discusses kind of strategies in writing such as:
a. The Topic T –Chart Strategy The strategy helps the students to choose good topic when they don’t know what to write about by making two lists of ideas at the same time based on opposites. For instance, like-hate T- chart. Good writing comes from strong feeling that student hate and like.
Purpose is the reason why the writer wrote the text. Audience is a specific person that writer is tended.
c. The Draw-Label-Caption Strategy Peha (1995) states that drawing can help the students to write because they can focus on the topic that make the easier and more detailed. In this point, the students draw something and then label that create one or two words for each item that they draw and the last is caption that write a single sentence describing the their drawing.
d. The Idea-Details Strategy In this strategy, the students take a single idea then write it on the side of the chart and on the other side write the details about the idea. The writer should think about the reader want to know about the idea and explain it in details.
e. What-Why-How Strategy WHAT do you think? This sentence or question is about student’s opinion about something, WHY do you think it? This sentence or question is about student’s reasons assuming about something and HOW do you know? It is the evidences or examples to support the opinion. This strategy is good for expository and persuasive writing.
3. PLAN Strategy PLAN strategy describes as: P: preview the audience, goals and words to use L: list main ideas & details on a think-sheet, A: assign number to indicate order, and N: note ideas in your sentences by following your plan.
4. Brainstorming Ibnian (2011) states that a technique to encourage the students to generate the ideas and get possible solution of the problems. Besides that Mohammed and Hussein (2013) state that brainstorming can help the students to discuss, think creatively, solve problem to achieve the task.
King (2010) mentions some techniques in prewriting or brainstorming: listing, clustering, fast writing, reporter’s questions, and journaling.
a. Listing: students make list about their ideas and choose one that they think interesting b. Clustering: students write down key words or phrases that relevant to their topic.
c. Fast writing/ free writing: the students write freely without doubt about the mistakes of grammar punctuation or spelling. d. Reporter’s questions: it includes 5W+1H (who, what, why, where, when and how). This technique can help the students to discover specific ideas and details about the particular topic.
e. Journaling: students write their personal experience and reflection that help them examine certain events, topic or ideas.
(King, 2010). There are some feedback that teacher can be used to respones students’ writing:
a. Commentary Feedback Commentary is a comment that teacher write on the students paper. Hyland (2003) says that commentary is the common form of feedback of second language writing. Through commentary form, the teacher provides written comment or question on the margin or between the sentences (Saito, 1994).
b. Corrective Feedback Ellis (2009) indicates corrective feedback includes direct corrective and indirect corrective. Direct feedback is a response from the teacher that provides the students with the correct form whereas indirect feedback is that the teacher indicates the errors are arise but not give the correct form (Ellis, 2009).
c. Conference Feedback Keh (1990) states that trough conference feedback the teacher can build an interaction to the students with the result that the teacher can ask for clarification check the students understandable of teacher comments, and helping the students in decision-making
Research methodes
This research use descriptive research method to describe and explain the students’ strategies in writing. The researcher uses questionnaires as the instrument. It is used to get information about the student’s strategies in writing skill.
Population is the wholeof characteristics of the unitsthat becomethe object of research (Pasaribu, 2008). The population is second grade of MA Nurul Islam. The students are 53 that divided in two classes: female class with 29 students and male class with 24 students. Researcher takes all population as the sample, because the number of the students of second grade of MA DarulHikmah is 53 students.
The research uses qualitative and qualitative method. According to Kothari (2004:3), quantitative research is the expression of the phenomena base on the quantity or amount whereas qualitative research relate to quality or kind. In analysis data, firstly the researcher identifies questionnaires answer form from the students and the teachers. Secondly, the researcher will analyze and percentage their strategies that they use. The last, the researcher describes and explains the students’ strategies in writing after doing identifying.
Discussion
In the questionnaire form, the researcher provided 10 statements that related to their problems in writing and scored based on likert scale.They are always= 5, often= 4, sometimes= 3, seldom=2, never= 1 (Sugiyono, 2009).
1. I use dictionary when writing
7
5
8
6 20% 40% 30% 12% 0% Strategy
15
20
10
1
2
3
4
5
2 4% 14% 40% 38% 4% Strategy
3
19
20
7
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
19 E 0% 4% 58% 38% 0% S Strategy
4
2
2
21
16
25
6
1
2
3
4
5
10
3 4% 14% 22% 34% 6% Strategy
17
7
1
2
1
2
3
4
5
9
2 14% 14% 46% 22% 4% Strategy
11
23
7
7
29
1 I
2. I use grammar book when writing
3
2
3
4
5
2
8 2% 16% 48% 34% 0% Strategy
24
17
1
1
2
4
7
5
1
Strategy
10. I apply my friends/teacher suggestion in writing
9. I apply the rule of writing that I have learnt
8. I check my spelling and structure after writing finish
7. I ask my friends/teacher about structure of sentence/paragraph
6. I ask my friends to check my writing
5. I make some questions related to the topic
4. I write the key words before writing
3. I write some list of topics before writing
1
18
2
3
3
4
5
5
5 E 2% 10% 44% 34% 10% G Strategy
17
22
5
1
1 T
2
4
20
5
4
19 R 0% 0% 28% 34% 38% A Strategy
17
14
1 T
2
3
4
5
3
5 0% 14% 36% 40% 10% S Strategy
3 12% 50% 32% 6% 0% From the strategies above most students choose sometimes scale. The table shows that many students use the strategies occasionally when they learn to write. It means that most of students not realize how importance of strategy in writing that can facilitate and easier their writing task.
There are some strategy that teacher teach in teaching writing such as use a dictionary, brainstorming, and discussion. The first is compel them to use a dictionary and grammar book in writing task. The second is brainstormingbefore writing by giving an illustration between English sentence and Indonesian sentence and some examples of sentences to be arranged into a paragraph. The third is discussion is an activity that people can share their opinion to each other.
Besides that, kind of response or feedback that teacher apply such as each mistakes is corrected and explained in detail (corrective feedback) and give opportunities to the students to ask questions (conference feedback).
Conclusion
There are some strategies in writing such as use dictionary strtaegy, use English/grammar book strategy, brainstorming strategy (making a list of
some topic, writing the key words, making some questions relating to the topic), discussion strategy (asking friend to check my writing, asking my friends/teacher about structure of sentences, applying my friend’s/teacher’s suggestions/advice), use writing checklist strategy, apply the grammar that
have been learnt. From the strategies, the most popular strategy is discussion. It means the students believe and accustomed to discuss their writing to their friends or teacher.
In the students’ writing paper, the teacher always gives response to the students’ writing when they make mistakes like explains and corrects their mistakes called corrective feedback and also divest them to ask questions called conference feedback. Besides that, in the teaching writing the teacher teaches some strategies in teaching learning writing such as compel them to use dictionary in English class but the students’ answer use this strategy occasionally, ask the students to use grammar book but they use this strategy infrequently, give the students an illustration between Indonesian sentence and English sentence but most of them still not understand the structure of sentence and discussion to make them sharing to each other.
Related the students’ problems such as lack of vocabulary, lack of grammar, hard to generate their ideas are not available to their writting strategies. It caused by the teacher’s role in teaching writing or the students not concious to the importance of strategy. Writing strategies that can be used related to their difficulties in vocabulary (use dictionary), in grammar (use grammar book), in generating ideas (use brainstorming, draw-label- caption strategy or idea detail strategy).
Suggestions
Suggestion for the Teacher The role of teacher in the teaching process is very important for the students. The teacher should help the students to develop their writing by providing various techniques and also appropriate learning strategy for them and should focus on their problems to achieve the teaching learning process especially in writing task Suggestion for the Students
In learning writing not only from the teacher, but also they should find out other strategy that can help, develop and also make them easier to write. To improve their writing task, they should learn and practice more, should read various texts to make them familiar about text, should use various book to help them to improve their grammar or direction to write well or search in internet to get much information about writing.
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