THE EFFECT OF FLASHCARDS ON
STUDENTS’
ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
A THESIS
Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree OfSarjanaPendidikan
By
MASTORA LUMBANTORUAN
Reg. No. 2124121002
ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DEPARTMEN
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
DECLARATION
Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis is my own word,
has been expressed in my own words and has not previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this paper may be screened electronically or otherwise
for plagiarism.
Medan, Agustus 2016
i
ABSTRACT
Lumbantoruan, Mastora. 2124121002. The Effect of Flashcards on Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Text. A Thesis. Medan : English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan, 2016.
This study deals with The Effect of Flashcards on students’ achievement in writing Descriptive text.The objective of this study is to find out whether applying flashcard significantly affect on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text or not. This study was conducted by using experimental design. The population of this study was the students of grade of SMA Negeri 1 Dolok Masihul in academic year 2015/2016. Where, there were five classes, namely 3 classes of science and 2 classes of social. From the fifth classes , there were two classes were selected as the sample randomly. The sample was divided into two groups , namely experimental with consist of 30 students and control group with consist of 30 students. As experimental group(X MIA-A) was taught by applying flashcards while as control group (X MIA –C) was taught without applying flashcards or conventional method. The data of the study were obtained from the students’ score of writing text. The data were analyzed by using t-test formula. After analyzing the data, the result of the study showed that t-observed(3.77) was higher than t-table (2.00) ( t-observed > t-table). It showed that the score of students’ in experimental group which taught by applying flashcards was higher than the students’ score in control group which taught without flashcards, at the level of significance (α) 0.05 with the degree of freedom (df) = 58.It showed that the hypothesis is accepted. It can be concluded that applying flashcards significantly affects students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
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ACKNOWLEDMENT
First of all, the writer would like to express her deepest gratitude to Jesus Christ for the love, blessing and strength given to the writer during her study and in finishing her thesis with the title “ The Effect of Flashcard on Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Text. This thesis is aimed to fulfill one of the requirements for the degree of SarjanaPendidikan of English Department, faculty of language and arts, state University of Medan ( UNIMED). Therefore , the writer would like to extend her sincere gratitude to :
1. Prof.Dr.Syawal Gultom,M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan. 2. Dr. IsdaPramuniati,M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of language and arts,
State University of Medan.
3. Prof.Dr.Hj.Sumarsih,M.Pd., the Head of English Department,
4. Nora RonitaDewi, S.S.,S.Pd., M.Hum., the Head of English Education Study Program.
5. Drs.Willem Saragih,Dipl. Appl.,M.Pd., as Her Thesis Consultant I who has given his guidance, inspiration, suggestions and spent his precious time in the finishing this thesis.
6. Dr.I.WayanDirgeyasa,M.Hum.,as her Thesis Consultant II Who has given his guidance and support in the process completing this thesis. 7. Prof .AmrinSaragih, M.A., Ph.D., her Thesis Examiner I who has given
suggestions and good comments
8. Dra.MasitowarniSiregar, M.Ed.,as her Thesis Examiner II and also her Academic Advisor.
9. All the Lecturers of English Department., who has taught guided and advised his throughout the academic years.
10.Eis Sri wahyuni,S.Pd.,M.Pd.,the Administration Staff of English Department , for her attention, support and suggestion in finishing this thesis.
11.AmansyahSaragih,S.Pd.,the Headmaster of SMA N 1 DolokMasihul for his permission and opportunities in allowing the writer to do the research and collect data.
12.RahmaS.Pd., the English Teacher of SMA N 1 DolokMasihul for her Guidance and Spent precious time to lead the writer during PPLT until Completing this thesis.
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14.Her beloved Husband, Samat HBJ Samosir, SE for his greatest love, support material and moral and also his attention that has given a power to the writer in finishing this thesis.
15.My deepest and Beloved Daughter Wildeeva Hillary SarjaniSamosir, as her spiritless and support to finishing this thesis.
16.Her beloved extended familiesPargoLumbantoruan and his wife, NardoLumbantoruan and his wife, SwedisLumbantoruan and his wife ,Abdul Lumbantoruan and his wife, HatoLumbantoruan, KarjoLumbantoruan, Martini Lumbantoruan and her husband, DortaLumbantoruan and her husband, NorminaLumbantoruan for the love and prays.
17. Her husband’s families GotmaSamosir,S.Pd and his wife SwandroS.Pd,
LamhotAmd and her husbandIr. JantoSamosir.
18.Her beloved Aunt Jolindasihombing for her love and prays to the writer. 19.Her Teacher Friends SMA N 1 LintongNihuta for love and support and
her best friends Rislen, mastiana, sulwana , fitri, rostiana, nomita and the others who can not present one by one.
The writer realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Therefore the writer would be thankful to accept any suggestions and corrections from anyone for the better writing. And the writer hopes that this thesis would be useful for those who read and interested in field of this study.
Medan, Agustus 2016
The writer,
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9. The advantages and disadvantages of flash card... 23
10.Teaching writing descriptivetext using flash cards ... 24
B. Conceptual Framework ... 25
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CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS A. The Data ... 36
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. Conclusion... 46
B. Suggestion ... 46
REFERENCES ... 47
vi
LIST OF TABLE
Pages
Table 3.1.Research Design………..………29
vii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
APPENDIX A.The Writing Test………...………..49
APPENDIX B.Lesson Plan For Experimental And Control Group………..……….50 APPENDIX C.The Result of Pre-Test and Post-Test of Experimental Group and Control
Group……….79
APPENDIX D.The Calculation of T-Test ForExperimental and Control Group………..……81 APPENDIX E.The Calculation of the Reliability of the Test……….86
APPENDIX F.T-Table……….88
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Language is an instrument to convey information. It is used to express ideas,
feelings, purposes, thoughts, and opinions in the written or in the spoken way.
Through language someone can store and transfer her/his knowledge or ideas.
One of the languages is English.English is a very important language in the
world, because English as an international language that used in some aspects of
human life. In Indonesia, English considered as the first foreign language and
taught formally in school and university level. It is proved by Educational
curriculum of Indonesia.
Based on Educational Curriculum 2006 ( KTSP) and Curriculum 2013 ,
learning English is emphasized on four skills of language. They are listening,
speaking, reading and writing. By these four skills, students are expected to have
a good prestige in their school or in their place when they are working. One of
these four skills which is very important and most required in academic is
Writing.According to Hyland (2002 :1) writing is the evidence our personal
experience and it can be evaluated by reading our own writing.And according to
Walsh ( 2010 : 1) , writing is used extensively in higher education which leads to
a future career. Because of that, writing is an important skill to be learned.
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The aim of writing is conveying the ideas, thoughts, and feelings in writing form.
Writing. (Hyland:2002) a good writing is discovered by combination of words
which allow people integrity to dominate their subject with a pattern both fresh
and original. Writing requires the mastery of vocabulary, spelling, grammar,
punctuation, appropriate content, and coherence.
Through writing, someone can share his/her knowledge .Enre (1988:6)said
that the benefit of studyingwriting for students are; they can share theirgood
ideas for their understanding on one thing, they are helped in thier ability of using
language, they can increase their vocabularies and they can progress their
cognition to every one who reads it. The knowledge which we have until now
mostly we got by reading written information or text. Such as a book, article,
newspaper, story and etc which has been written by those who share their
information through writing. It is caused that writing is one important skill to be
mastered.
In fact, teaching and learning writing is not easy as it looks. Among the
four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), writing is the most difficult
to be mastered by the students. This is supported by Heaton (1990:135) who states
that writing skills are complex and difficult to teach, not only requiring mastery of
grammatical and rhetorical devices, but also of conceptual and judgmental
elements. It means that , the teacher is expected to help students to write their
ideas by using correct grammar, appropriate vocabulary and punctuation which
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In Senior High School for English lesson, the students must be able to build a
text in learning process of writing. They must know communicative purpose,
rhetorical structure and grammatical patterns in building a text,such as descriptive,
narrative, recount, report, hortatory, procedure, reports, news item, and anecdote,
commentary, spoof, analytical, and discussion.Base on syllabus, the researcher
chose one of the genre that the students must learn namely Descriptive text.
Descriptive text is description about an object (human or non human or
idea)vividlyso that the readers can visualize the object described,
Dirgeyasa(2014:3).The students must be more active than teacher. And the
students can make a creation from their lettering. It means that the students have to
more than one skill
In fact, many students think that writing is a difficult skill.Based on the
researcher’s teaching training practice observation (PPLT) at SMA N 1
DolokMasihul,students’ achievement in writing is still very low .Most of the
students can’t write a text. Its caused they don’t own idea, so that they face
problem in building a text. And also they lack of vocabularies, so that they can’t
choosee the right words, and using the grammar in organizing the text.Teacheralso
only gives the topic to the students and then explains it and asks them to answer
the questions base on the text..
By interview with the teacher and students, the problem come from the
students, where students seldom practice in writing, so that they don’t own and
not understand what ideas will be built or written . The other way,teacher does not
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motivate also not encourage them. Therefore, researcherassumes that those
problems come because the students do not have ideas. Consequently, theycan not
build a good writing text.At last, students think that writing is a difficult and a
boring subject.
Considering the condition above, the researcer offers to use teaching
media to help students solve their problem. One of media that can encourage
students in producing writing a text is flashcard. According to Hamalik (1994)
states that using media in the process of teaching and learning can increase
willingness and new interest, increase students’ motivation in the process teaching
and learning and even bring psychology effects for the students.That is mean that
flashcard is one of media can effect the students’ psychology in thinking . By
looking at flashcard students can find ideas from pictures looked. So,
Flashcardcan make students more creative and comfortable in writing descriptive
text. Where flashcard is a kind of media that can be seen and can be touched by
the teacher also the students related to the subject of the study.Through flashcards,
students will be more interestedandthey can learn about the lesson with fun
especially study about descriptive text in writing skill.
In relation to the problem, the researcher would like to conduct a research
to find the effect of flashcards on students’ achievement in writing descriptive
text, because descriptive text is one of writing skills that is difficult for students. It
is caused by they can not make good ideas in building a descriptive text. So,
flashcard is very important to support and help students to solve their difficult. By
5
make a good descriptive text.This is a reason to use flashcard as guading teaching
and learning process in improving student’s achievment in writing descriptive text
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the previous discussion in background of the study above, the
research problem isformulated as follows :“Is there any significant effect of
Applying Flashcards on the Students’ achievement in writing descriptive text?”
C. The Scope of the Study
There are many genres of writingsuch as descriptive, narrative, recount,
report, hortatory, procedure, reports, news item, and anecdote, commentary,
spoof, analytical, and discussion.This research focus on identifying the effect of
flashcards on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text .so, In this study
the research focus on describing about thing ( human and animal).
D. The objective of the study
The objective of the study is to find outthe significanteffect of flashcards
on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
E. The Significance of the Study
The findings of the study are expected to have both theoritical and practical
importance to the teacher, students and the next researcher.
1. Theoretically , this study is to increase and expand the knowledge for
teaching writing, expecially for senior high school level.
2. Practically, this study is expect to :
a. ForEnglish teacher, as knowledge and skill to construct program of
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b. For English teacher, as reference and to improve the quality of English
teaching learning process.
c. For the students, to minimize the difficulties that students face in
teaching and develop writing skill.
d. For students, to make more fun and active in learning their lesson.
e. For researcer, as an experiance research that useful in next research
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
After analyzing the data, it was found that the scores of the students that
were taught by applying flashcard was higher than those who were taught without
applying flashcard. The alternative hypothesis (Hα) is accepted and null
hypothesis is rejected. This is proven by the data analysis
t
observed = 3,77 ishigher than t-table = 2.00. T- test analysis is (3.77> 2.00) which means that there
was significant effect of applying flashcard on students’achievement in writing
descriptive text.
B. Suggestion
Based on the result of this study, the suggestion can be stated as the
following:
1. Theoretical perspectives
The result of this research can be used as reference for those who
want to conduct a research about writing descriptive text.
2. Practical perspectives
Flashcard can be used as one of tools in teaching and learning
process, especially in teaching descriptive text.
By using flashcard, students would be more able to explore their
idea in to a good writing.
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Students can get more vocabularies to create it become a good
sentences and descriptive text well done
Teachers are easier to guide the students in making a text.
Teachers can use flashcard as one of way to encourage the
students to develop their writing achievement, especially in
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