THE EFFECT OF APPLYING FOUR SQUARE TECHNIQUE
ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING NARRATIVE
TEXT
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Department Faculty of Language and Arts, State University of Medan in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of SarjanaPendidikan
By :
SURYANI
Registration Number: 2102121014
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all the writer would like to thank the almighty to Allah SWT who has blessed the writer to complete her thesis and his prophet Muhammad SAW accomplish without God blessings and supporting from many people, therefore the writer would like to express her sincere gratitude to:
1. Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom, M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
4. Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts, Vice Dean I,II,III and all the staffs for their sincere assistance in the process of completing the academic procedures
5. Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English and literature Department, and her thesis consultant, who has given advice, suggestions, guidance and also encouragement, so that this thesis could have been accomplished.
6. Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department.
7. Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S.,M.Hum. the Head of English of English education study program
8. Dr. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga, M.Hum., her academic advisor, and her reviewer, who has given his great supervision.
9. All the lectures of English and literature Department thanks for their valuable knowledge, advices, and guidance during her academic years in English Department and the assistance in setting the administration procedures.
10.Hj.Masraya S.Pd. the Headmaster of SMP Negeri 27 Medan, for the permission to conduct the research in that school SMP Negeri 27 Medan. 11.Chairiyah Sitompul S.Pd. the English Teacher , for the assistance and
guidance during the research, all the teachers and the students for their good attention at the time
iv
Afni, Wardatul Jannah, Azka Aqilah, Sahlan), for being so cute and relieving and her Sisters (Maslela) for being so good her younger sister (Fitriyani) who always keep the writer on the right way and cover her with so much love and caring.
13. Special Thanks to writer’s someone that special Bunda Atin , who give her a shelter whenever she need it also to who supported her.
14.A lot of thanks all her beloved best friends reg A ( Mia adilla panjaitan, S.Pd, Rabiah Al Adawiyah, S.Pd, Afrilza Aswani, S.Pd, Sartika Dewi, Sabar Parsaulian, Angrayni.) For many valuable times spend together at class and anywhere together in love, and all helps and support in completing the thesis. and understanding each other; (Lely Liana, Maylia Bicerdi, Tania, Desi, Yuni, Ardina, Bela, Melisa, Weni, Astrice, Juita, Sita, Halimah, Anisa, Mira, for my friends in campus, and all my friends in organization Hizbut tahrir chapter campus Perjuangan. For my friends PPL (Idah, Sapna, Desi, Sulis).
15. All students of class A Regular ’10 of English education that could not be mentioned one by one for their support, Information, and encouragement in the precious time of studying, learning, and playing together.
Medan, September 2015 The Writer
ii ABSTRACT
Suryani. 2102121014. The Effect of Applying Four Square Technique
o
n Students’ Achievement
in Writing Narrative Text. A Thesis.
English Department. Faculty of Languages and Art, State University of Medan. 2015.vii
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 1.1. The mean of the Class VII-1 Students’ Score in Writing ... 4
Table 1.1. The mean of the Class VII-2 Students’ Score in Writing ... 4
Table 2.1. The Illustration of Four Square Technique ... 19
Table 2.2. The example of Four Square Technique in Writing Narrative ... 20
Table 3.1. Research Design ... 27
viiI
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page
APPENDIX 1 ... 48
APPENDIX 2 ... 50
APPENDIX 3 ... 52
APPENDIX 4 ... 54
APPENDIX 5 ... 55
APPENDIX 6 ... 56
APPENDIX 7 ... 57
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the study
Language is basic form of communication. It is a tool used by human beings
to communicate to others. By using languages, human beings can narrate and
share their experience to others and tell some information to others. One of those
languages is English. The position of English in Indonesia is as compulsory first
foreign language taught at the school start from kindergarten up to university
level. Although it is just a foreign language, it is very imfortance, it proves that it
is one of the subjects required for passing the National examination for junior and
senior high school. These show how important English in this world is, therefore
it is expected that everyone should be able to master English.
English is an important language in the world. In learning English, there are
four major skills which should be achieved by learners, namely listening, reading,
speaking, and writing. Listening and reading are grouped into receptive skills
while speaking and writing are grouped into productive skills. These skills have
different meaning but have the same purpose, which is increasing the creativity of
language. All the skills are taught by the teacher to the student. They are needed
by the students as the good skill in improving their knowledge in English.
Based on those reality, Writing is a skill exposing facts and idea which is
interpreted clearly, effectively, and well-organized. It is important to note that
writing is a process of transforming thoughts and ideas into written form. Writing
2
sequence or steps of ideas, organized thoughts and feeling in the form of words
and combined into sentence into form of texts in which every sentence is closely
related one another.
Writing well is not just an option for young people—it is a necessity. Along
with reading comprehension, writing skill is a predictor of academic success and a
basic requirement for participation in civic life and in the global economy
(Graham & Perin, 2007).
Based on the standard competence in the syllabus of the second year
students of junior High School called Educational Unit-Oriented Curriculum (
Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan: KTSP) students are expected to be able to
write some genres in writing namely narrative text. Expessing the ideas and
thought should be known by the students since it becomes the goal of writing. On
the other hand the students should be able to express their ideas or opinions in text
form.
The students are not able to write English well, they don’t use appropriate
words and grammar in writing. Actually, many teachers and students always find
the difficulties in improving writing skill. Teachers tend to ignore teaching writing
in classroom and many students consider writing as a complex skill that is
difficult to acquire and to be thought by teachers. Another reason why writing is
difficult for students is students always face a problem in finding ideas to write
and do not know what to do if they want to start their writing. Many students also
feel frustrated when they could not find the appropriate words, students do not
know how to do free writing, and they do not possess the strategies for composing
3
Furthermore, most of them do not enjoy writing and lack confidence in
writing on their own. The problem is students cannot improve their writing
achievement. There are some reasons which make writing difficult: Firstly,
writing requires good grammar. A non-native persons have to remember rules in
structure which quite different from their own language; Secondly, people are
often known to spend less time writing than listening, speaking and even reading;
Thirdly, when students who learn English as a foreign language write
something, they have a big question in mind whether it is correct or not. In
conclusion, writing is the most difficult skill that learners of any foreign language
may face.
It was also found by the researcher during her Teaching Practice Program
in 2013 that learning writing was still in problem. It was proved by students’
achievement in writing. In class, the teacher only asked students to read the book,
and then translated the text and rewrote translation. They were not asked to
practice their writing ability.
The researcher also found that the students’ are not able to write in simple
sentence especially in writing narrative text. They are not confident to use their
own english, because of their limited mastery on grammar and vocabulary, and
they are not able to organize their ideas into a good text. They had difficulty in
writing narrative text because they didn’t understand what their teacher had
explained. Students are asked to pay attention to the example of one text. Next,
they are asked to write independently. So, they think that English is not fun and
4
Based on the preliminary observation has be done at SMP Negeri 27
Medan on maret 27th 2014 that was by asking the English teacher about the
students’ achievement in writing especially Narrative text, she said that most of
the students thought that writing is difficult. She found that the students still did
not understand clearly what a Narrative text. They do not know how to transfer
their ideas, even how to arrange a sentence. So, the teacher should teach by other
methods or techniques which can intimate the students to write.
When the researcher asked the teacher about the students’ score list for
writing test in two semesters, it was found out that, the minimum criteria mastery
(KKM or Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimum) which is applied by school for English
lesson. The minimum criteria mastery (KKM) is applied 75 meanwhile the scores
of the students are lower. When the researcher observed two English teachers who
teach grade VIII, they agree with the opinion that the researcher asked. From the
data that the researcher got from them, there were more than 70% of students who
couldn’t write Narrative text properly in SMP Negeri 27 Medan. And the data of
two semester are follows :
Table 1.1
The mean of the Class VII-1 Students’ Score in Writing
Semester Score Students Percentage
1st Semester 2013/2014 Source : Students’ accumulated score of SMP Negeri 27 Medan academic year
5
Table 1.2
The mean of the Class VII-2 Students’ Score in Writing
Semester Score Students Percentage
1st Semester 2013/2014
< 75 25 Students 69.4 %
≥ 75 11 Students 30.6 %
2nd Semester 2013/2014
< 75 28 Students 77.8 %
≥ 75 8 Students 22.2 %
Source : Students’ accumulated score of SMP Negeri 27 Medan academic year
2013-2014
Based on those reality, it is necessary to know some methods for helping
students in writing. The appropriate and comprehensive methods for teaching
writing related with four square technique. Four square technique is a technique to
make the students can understand the text or narrative text. The students are
taught to work together with their friends. They work together to achieve the goal
or the success which has always been desired by them. It will help the students in
writing narrative text.
From the previous explanation, the research will conducted to see how the
application of four square technique affects students’ achievement in writing
narrative text.
B. The Problem of the Study
Based on background of the study before, the problem is formulated as
follow: “Is the student's achievement in writing narrative text taught by using four
6
C. The Scope of the Study
The scope of the study is focuses on the applying four square Technique to
improve students’ achievement in writing narrative text. The object of the study
is limited on the Junior High School students grade VIII at SMP Negeri 27
Medan .
D. The Objective of the Study
In line with the problem, the objective is to investigate whether students’
achievement in writing narrative text by using four square technique is higher than
those taught by lecture method.
E. The Significance of the Study
Results of this study are expected to be giving out the theoretical and practical
significance. Theoretically, the expected of this research is to enrich the learning
of science writing especially in writing narrative text by using four square
technique.
Practically, the result of the study is important and useful for those :
1. Teacher, to increase their own professionalism in teaching writing by
using four square Technique and the result of the study would be very
useful for teachers of English and others who are concerning wtih
assessment of teaching English.
2. Students, giving information to increase their writing ability and to
motivate the students to be better in writing narrative text.
3. The readers, to have interest research to enlarge their understanding about
46
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusion
After analyzing the data, it can be concluded that using four square
technique significantly affect on students’ achievement in writing Narrative Text.
Because it was found that the value of tobserve was 2.870 with the degree of
freedom (df) = 58 at the level of significance ɑ (0,05) = 1.673. It means that tobserve
is higher than ttable (2.870 > 1.673), null hypothesis is rejected and alternative
hypothesis is accepted. So, four square technique is better to increase students’
achievement in writing Narrative text.
B. Suggestions
The writer points out some suggestions for the following:
1. teacher to increase their own professionalism in teaching writing
especially narrative text.
2. students to give information to increase their writing ability and to
motivate the students to be better in writing narrative text.
3. the readers to have interest research to enlarge their understanding about
46
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