THE EFFECT OF RAFT STRATEGY ON STUDENTS` ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING SHORT FUNCTIONAL TEXT.

THE EFFECT OF

RAFT STRATEGY ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT

IN WRITING SHORT FUNCTIONAL TEXT

A THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By :

CONNIE ARITONANG

Registration Number 2113121015

ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ART

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and the foremost, the writer would like to express his deepest gratitude to

&ist

for

His

blessing, health and opportunity which has enabled her to ttris thesis. She realizes that she would never have been able to complete it

the love of Jesus, the guidance of his lecturers, help from friends, and support

kfrmily.

This thesis has been written in fulfillment of the requirements of the of Sarjana Pendidikan of the English Departnent Faculty of Languages and St*e University of Medan.

Dring

the process of writng, the writer realizes that she can not accomplish God blessing and supporting from many people, therefore the writer would

b

arpress her sincere gratitue to:

l-

Prof. Dr. Syawal

Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector

of

State University

of

Medan.

2.

Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M. Hum., the Dean of Languages and Arts, State

University of Medan.

3.

Prof.

Dr.

Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd.,

the Head

of

English and Literature Department and as her Reviewer.

4.

Dra. Meisuri., M.A., the Secretary of English and Literature Deparhnent and as her Reviewer.

5.

.Nora,

Ronita

Dew!, S.S., M.Hu_p., the head

of

English Education Program.

6.

All

Lecturers

in

English Department. Thanks for their support and advice during her academic

years.

,

7.

Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd., her Thesis Consultant, who has given her great supervision and spent precious her time in guiding, commenting,

suggesting, inspiring,

ffid

giving valuable insights

in

the process

of

completing this thesis.

&ni-,

Virre Headmaster, SMPN 24 Medan,

for allowing her

to

[h

rcseach in the school.

&Etrh

sfucerely

to

her beloved parents,

T.

Aritonang and R.

d

frmily, aunt Sedia Bakara, aunt Mura Bakara, S.Pd, aunt

ffinl

ltrrpeung,

M.Pd., uncle Drs.

V. Redward

W. Bakara,

fu

frEir erdless love,

prays, motivation, mental and financial

rq|lld

&ring

the completion of her study; her lovely brother and sisters,

fhd

Aritoneng SH, Ruth Ima Aritotrang, Julia Aritonang for their

!

flp[t"

bve, and care.

&'

bcsn friends

in Partner

in

Crime, Nancy

Pratiwi,

Christanti

fprn,

Ade Hutagalung, Tika Aruan, Putra Tambunan, Renol

.lFio,

rnd

Dicky Bastian for their support, rnotivation, guidance and

th

sritsr realizes that the content of this thesis is not perfect, so she warmly

4r

constnrctive suggestions that

will

improve the quahty of this thesis.

i

would be useful for those who are interested in this field of study.

Medan, September 2015

iii

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages

ABSTRACT ... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... iv

LIST OF TABLE ... vi

LIST OF APPENDICES ... vii

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. Background of the Study ... 1

B. The Problem of the Study ... 4

C. The Objective of the Study ... 4

D. The Scope of the Study ... 6

E. The Significance of the Study ... 6

CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW ... 7

A. Theoretical Framework ... 7

1. General Concepts of Writing ... 7

a. Definition of Writing ... 7

b. Teaching Writing ... 8

c. Writing Process ... 9

d. Types of Writing ... 11

2. Students’ Writing Achievement ... 12

3. Writing Assessment ... 13

4. The Nature of Short Functional Text ... 15

a. Definition of Short Functional Text ... 15

b. Kinds of Short Functional Text ... 15

c. Function of Short Functional Text ... 16

5. Advertisement ... 16

a. Definition of Advertisement ... 16

b. Features in Advertisement ... 17

c. Steps for Designing Advertisement ... 17

d. Kinds of Advertisements ... 18

6. RAFT Strategy ... 20

a. Definition of RAFT Strategy ... 20

b. Procedure of RAFT Strategy ... 22

c. The Advantages of RAFT Strategy ... 23

v

C. Hypothesis ... 25

CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 26

A. Research Design ... 26

B. Population and Sample ... 27

C. Instrument for Collecting Data ... 28

1. Observation ... 28

2. Test ... 29

D. Procedure of Collecting Data... 29

1. Pre-Test ... 29

2. Treatment ... 30

a. Teaching Presentation for Experimental Group ... 30

b. Teaching Presentation for Control Group... 33

E. Scoring of The Test ... 34

F. The Validity and the Reliability of the Test ... 38

1. The Validity of the Test ... 38

2. The Reliability of the Test ... 39

G. The Technique for Analyzing Data ... 40

CHAPTER IV. DATA, DATA ANALYSIS, AND FINDING ... 41

A. Data ... ₄₁

B. The Data Analysis ... 42

1. The Reliability of the Test ... 42

2. Data Analysis by Using t-Test Formula... 43

C. Testing Hypothesis... 45

D. Research Finding ... 45

E. Discussion ... 46

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 47

A. Conclusion ... 47

B. Suggestions ... 47

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Pages

Table 1.1 Students’ Scores of Writing ... 3

Table 3.1 Research Design ... 27

Table 3.2 The Treatment for Experimental Group... 30

Table 3.3 RAFT Format Table ... 32

Table 3.4 The Treatment fot Control Group ... 33

Table 3.5 RAFT Assignment Assessment and Feedback Rubric ... 35

Table 3.6 Content Scoring... 36

Table 3.7 Organization Scoring ... 37

Table 3.8 Mechanics Scoring ... 37

vii

LIST OF APPENDICES

Pages

APPENDIX A ... 52

APPENDIX B ... 53

APPENDIX C ... 54

APPENDIX D ... 56

APPENDIX E ... 59

APPENDIX F ... 62

APPENDIX G ... 63

1

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In learning English, writing is one the basic language skills that should be

mastered by students. According to Meyers (2005:75) writing is similar to

producing speech. Through writing, everybody is not only able to express feeling

and ideas, but also to communicate with other. In learning writing, students are

taught how to transform their ideas and messages into written form that is

composing a paragraph or a text.

Paul (2003:96) says that writing is generally as the most difficult of the

four skills, especially in generating and organizing ideas which is completed by

the mastery of the aspects of writing such as grammar, spelling, word choice,

punctuation, and so on. The students need to think what they will write down and

they should be able to use the correct grammar in order to make the reader(s)

understand well. Professional writers often say that, “hard writing is easy

reading.” In other words, writing is not easy. They should be able to write

effectively because they perform their writing skill throughout their life for

academic and occupational purposes.

Based on Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (2006), teaching English

to Junior High School is expected to raise functional level. The students should be

able to communicate both oral and written form in a daily life, understand and

produce the text in functional level. Therefore, teaching writing to junior high

2

text. Functional text refers to a short text that provides information and directions

to help a reader. Short functional text is a transcription that meant to help the

reader to accomplish an everyday task which contains the command, direction,

something to be done or should not be done which may be instructed. Based on

Halliday and Hasan (1994:13), a text can be said as functional that means that

language in a text is doing something in context and may help the reader in

day-to-day life.

The fact was found when the researcher did the observation in SMP

Negeri 24 Medan and did an interview with the English teacher and some of

students. The researcher found that there was still problem in learning writing.

The students’ achievement in writing is still low. Most of students had difficulty

in writing. They were lack of ideas or if they have, mostly students didn’t know

how to write it, did not know how to build sentences which are grammatically

correct, did not know the generic structure of each kind of texts, and lack of

vocabularies.

There were more than 68% students had problems in writing and more

than 65% of students who could not write functional text properly. Their score

were still low and under the Minimun Criteria Mastery (KKM) applied by school

3

Table 1.1 Students’ Scores of Writing Competence Tests in 2nd semester

2013/2014

Class Number Score Students Percentage

8C 32

≥ 75 23 Students 71,87

< 75 9 Students 28,12

8E 32

≥ 75 21 Students 65,62

< 75 11 Students 34,37

The researcher found that it was also caused by inappropriate strategy

which was used by the teacher. The teacher mostly taught the students only about

the theories, asked the students to memorize them without giving chance for the

students to practice their writing skill. In this case, teachers need to use a

technique or strategy in their teaching process in order to make students success in

achieving the goal of the lesson. In Junior High Schools syllabus, advertisement is

a kind of short functional text that must be achieved. But the fact is, instead of

asking students to create by their own, the teacher just asked them to find out from

the internet and collect it as their assignment. The teacher didn’t have a strategy or

technique to teach short functional text advertisement.

There are several techniques and strategies that can be implemented to

teaching writing such as dictogloss, CIRC, STAD, Outside-Inside circle, KWL

Plus and the strategy proposed that can overcome the problems is called Role,

Audience, Format, Topic (RAFT). RAFT strategy was introduced by Nancy

4

from different perspective (Santa, 1988). By using RAFT strategy, teacher

encourages students to write creatively, to think a topic from various points of

view, to a specific audience in a variety formats of texts because to convey the

reader, the researcher needed to consider those aspects. In guiding students to

write a short functional text by using this strategy, the teacher can provides

opportunities for the students to demonstrate their understanding or enhance

comprehension of a topic or subject through a writing experience that helps them

to think about subject and communicate their understanding of it in creative and

interesting way, enhance students’ engagement in writing, and encourages

students to organize their thoughts, and keeps the students attention because they

are focused on the certain topic by considering it in various perspective. Even

RAFT strategy would be time consuming, but the teacher that fully implementes

RAFT strategy was worth the result (Richard and Skolits, 2009).

RAFT strategy was implemented in various subject areas, in social or

science studies. Some researcher found that implementation of RAFT Strategy in

language studies was successful. RAFT Strategy was implemented to find out the

students’ writing competency. Parilasanti et al (2014) claim there was a

significant differences in students’ writing competency between the students who

taught by RAFT strategy and conventional strategy. Likewise Alisa and Rosa

(2013) state that RAFT strategy can be chosen for the alternative strategy to teach

writing skill especially in writing functional text.

Although RAFT strategy were initially developed as a literacy and writing

5

(2009) claim RAFT strategy was successfully implemented in science class. They

found that the RAFT strategy was easy to impelement and effective at engaging

their students in higher levels of thinking while promoting cooperative team work

among students. In line with Groenke and Puckett (2006) that state RAFT strategy

has been used in science classes to enable students to address environmental

literacy and citizenship and to develop skills that will be beneficial beyond the

classroom. RAFT Strategy has been implemented in science classes to integrate

and asses science literacy, including writing in small-group literature circles,

keeping science journals, and creating nonfiction science books (Senn, et al.,

2013). So that, the researcher challenged and want to prove that RAFT strategy

can help students’ problem in writing advertisement as a kind of short functional

text.

By considering the importance of the statements and facts above, the

researcher is motivated to do a research on the effect of students’ achievement in

writing short functional text escpecially advertisement by using RAFT strategy.

B. The Problem of the Study

Based on the background of the study, the research problem is formulated

as the following:

“Does the Role-Audience-Format-Topic (RAFT) Strategy significantly

6

C. The Objective of the Study

This study is aimed to find out the effectiveness of applying RAFT

strategy on students’ grade VIII SMP Negeri 24 Medan achievement in writing

short functional text.

D. The Scope of the Study

The scope of this study is limited to investigate the students’ achievement

in writing Short Functional text escpecially advertisement by applying the RAFT

strategy.

E. The Significance of the Study

Dealing with the purposes which would like to be achieved, this study is

expected to give some benefits to English teaching learning development. These

benefits can be categorized as the followings:

Theoretically, this study is expected to be able to strengthen some

typically previous researches, give contribution in educational research

development in Indonesia and becomes references for further references.

Practically, in the context of teaching and learning process, this study is

expected to provide an effective way to facilitate English teachers in teaching

writing to students, especially writing short functional text.

Later, the use of RAFT Strategy in teaching writing hopefully can help

students improve their ability to write short functional text by following teacher’s

47

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusion

Based the calculation of the data, it can be concluded that RAFT strategy

significantly affects the students’ achievement in writing short functional text

especially advertisement. It can be seen from the mean of control and

experimental group in the post-test score are 73.03 and 80.19. The number of the

students for each groups is 32. It means that the mean score of experimental group

is higher than those of control group.

The result of calculation t-test shows that the score of t-observed (5.65) <

the score of t-table (2.000). It means that the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and

the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted.

B. Suggestions

Based on the result of the study above, the suggestions are given to the

following:

1. It is recommended for English teacher to use RAFT strategy as an

alternative strategy in improving students’ ability in short functional text.

2. The students should use RAFT strategy because this strategy allows

students to explore their mind to generate ideas which are reflected to get

meaningful ideas in order to improve their ability in writing.

3. Since this study is only focused on students’ achievement in writing short

48

researcher to apply RAFT strategy in order to find out that this strategy

49

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