ABSTRACT
Nurachmad, Hashemi. 2014. The Use of Color Contrast Text to Enhance Students’ Understanding of Grammatical Feature in English Narrative Writing at The Eighth Grade Students of SMPN 5 Surabaya. A Thesis. English Educational Department, Faculty of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training, State University of Islamic Studies Sunan Ampel, Surabaya. Advisor: Masdar Hilmy, MA, Ph.D and Afida Safriani, MA.
Key Words: Color Contrast Text, Grammatical Feature, Narrative Writing.
This study is aimed for two objectives: 1) To know the effectiveness of color contrast in dealing with the implementation of color contrast text in English narrative writing; 2) To know the responses of 8th grade students of SMPN 5 Surabaya in the use of color contrast text in English narrative writing.
The research was carried out at SMPN 5 Surabaya. It was conducted from December 2013 up to February 2014. The subject of the research was the students of class VIII H of SMP Negeri 5 Surabaya in the academic 2013/2014. The research used classroom action research design. The research was conducted in two cycles: three meetings in the first cycle and three meetings in the second cycle. Each cycle consisted of planning, implementing, observation, and reflection. This research aims to examine the use of color contrast text in improving students’ understanding of grammatical feature in English narrative writing.
The research used questionnaire, observation and test to collect data. The tests were conducted before the action (pre test) and after the action (post test). The researcher analyzed the mean score of each test to find out the improvements of students’ understanding of grammatical feature in narrative writing after the action was conducted, while the researcher analyzed the questionnaire to find out students’ responses to the implementation of the action.
The result of the research shows that there is improvement in students’ writing skill. It can be seen from the result are 66 for the pre test, 75 for the post test 1, and 85 for the post test 2. The t-test computation between the pre-test and post test 1 was 12.7 and the post test 1 and post test 2 was 11. The test computation for grammatical feature students’ score between pre test and post test 1 was 9.6 and the post test 1 and post test 2 was 9.6. Meanwhile, the t table for 39 and 7.7% students disagreed about it. 77% students agreed that color contrast text helped them to write narrative essay in correct grammar. 51.2% students also were enthusiast to use color contrast text. They thought color contrast text was suitable for learning simple past tense. From these results, it can be concluded that students supported for the use of color contrast text in learning grammatical feature of narrative.
TABLE OF CONTENT
CHAPTER II : REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE A. Theoritical Background ………. 15
1. Teaching Writing ……… 15
a. The Reason For Teaching Writing ………. 15
b. Teaching Writing in Junior High School ………... 16
c. Approaches In Teaching Writing ………... 17
2. Grammar Teaching For ESL/EFL Classes ……… 20
a. The Issue Of Grammar ……….. 20
b. The Importance Of Grammar In Communication Skill …… 21
c. Grammatical Feature In Narrative ……… 23
d. Theoritical Approaches To Teach English Grammar ……... 25
3. The Use Of Color Contrast Text ………... 27
a. Review Of Color Contrast ………. 27
b. Teaching Narrative By Using Color Contrast Text ………... 31
c. The Example Of Color Contrast Text ……… 34
CHAPTER III : RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design ………. 43
B. Model Of Action Research ………. 45
C. Place And Time Of Research ………. 46
D. Research Subject ……… 46
E. The Procedure Of The Research ……… 47
F. Data Collection Technique ………. 49
G. Data Analysis Technique ……… 51
CHAPTER IV : RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS A. RESEARCH FINDINGS ……… 54
1. Identfying The Problem ………... 56
2. Planning The Action ……… 60
3. Implementing The Action Research ……… 61
a. Cycle 1 ………. 61
1) Planning ………... 61
2) Action ……….. 61
3) Observation ………. 66
4) Reflection ……… 69
b. Cycle 2 ………. 71
1) Revised Plan ………... 71
2) Action ……….. 72
3) Observation ………. 75
4) Reflection ……… 78
B. DISCUSSIONS ………... 79
CHAPTER V : CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION A. CONCLUSION ……… 85
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
Janet Holmes states that, “Over half of the world’s population is
bilingual and many people are multilingual”.1 It means that many people
master other languages besides their mother tongue. In this case, English is
one of the languages that are widely used by people all over the world as their
second language or foreign language. It can be seen by looking at the role of
English in the world. English plays a central role as a medium of
communication in the world since English is recognized as international
language.
The recognition of English as international language cannot be
separated from the history of English developing itself. Broughton explains
that, “It may be seen, then, that the role of English within a nation’s daily life
is influenced by geographical, historical, cultural and political factors, not all
which are immutable”.2 These factors effectively develop English to be the
most language used in the world. The history of English expansion and
colonial has been spreading over the world. It took a significant role for mid-
twentieth century as an official or semi -official language by some countries.
For instance, over seventy countries such as India, Malaysia, Ghana, Nigeria,
and Singapore use English as their official language.
1
Janet Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, (Harlow: Longman, 2001), 73.
English spread in many fields; such as political, cultural, commercial trading, business, economy, advertisement, entertainment, education, and
many other fields. Wherever we go, we will easily find the words that are
written in English. On the street we will see billboards that contain English
words. In the restaurant, we will find the menu that already used English.
English is also performed in a variety of communication tools, such as
television, radio program, newspapers, films, recordings, magazines,
literatures and books. . Therefore, Broughton says, “English is often the only
available tool for twentieth-century learning”.3Based on this statement, we can
see how important English is as a medium to present the knowledge over the
world to the people.
Considering the important role of English for international affairs,
English is not only as a tool for twentieth-century learning but also as a
compulsory subject in some areas. In Indonesia, English has become one of
the compulsory subjects in secondary school. It has been introduced from
play group, elementary school, secondary school, tertiary school, to
university. Besides, English has been chosen as one of the test subjects in the
national examination (UN). According Ministerial Decree of National
Education in 2009 no 75 clause 7, “the subjects for national examination of
SMP/MTs and SMPLB includes; Indonesian language (Bahasa), English, math, and Science.”4That regulation states that there are six subjects in
national examination which areIndonesian language (Bahasa), English, Math,
and Science (Biology, chemistry, and physics) for natural science mainstream
3
students. It shows that English becomes one of the important subjects in Indonesia since English is the requirement for junior high school students to
pass their school to continue their study to the higher level.
Basically in English teaching and learning process, the students are
expected to be able to master the four skills in English. English teaching in
Indonesia is aimed to develop spoken and written communication capability of
students which is reflected in the four skills. The four major skills in
communicating through language are often broadly defined as listening,
speaking, writing and reading. Those basic skills are integrated into one
another. They have different difficulty based on their characteristics but they
are taught equally. As a basis skill of learning English, those skills must be
taught in English classroom.
Talking about those skills, writing is categorized as a productive skill
which concerned with the production of language. Writing as a productive
skill is more difficult than any other skills for foreign language learners. It is
still hard to conduct, even for those who can comprehend what they read and
listen well. As the the matter of fact, most native speakers of the language
have to make their efforts to write in their own language correctly. It means
that writing is even more difficult for non-native speakers since the native
speakers consider writing as a difficult skill.
In addition, writing needs more demands than other skill. Ur states, “A
written text is usually organized and carefully formulated, since its composer
has time and opportunity to edit it before making it available for reading”.5 In
this requirement, the writer are demanded to carry all the meaning in which he/she can deliver his/her message to the reader. The writer should know the
level of knowledge of the reader in order to send the message properly. The
writer also needs to know how to organize and formulate their composition in
a good way since writing is typically bounded by grammatical rules. These
parts will cause the writer in a bit pain in that the writer is required to reveal
organizing number of variables at once.
In the process of writing, the writer cannot avoid the existence of
grammar. Whatever we write, there is grammar within the text. But nowadays
grammar teaching is still debatable as a part of curriculum. According to Ellis,
“There is no convincing direct and indirect evidence to support the teaching of
grammar.6 That statement describes that the effectiveness of teaching
grammar in the development of language have been questioned. The question
usually about whether teaching and learning grammar is necessary for
language learning or not. Instead of asking that question, the question should
be whether grammar knowledge helps students in learning language or not.
Min in her study entitled “How grammar matters in NNS academic writing:
the relationship between verb tense and aspect usage patterns and L2 writing proficiency in academic discourse”, the findings suggested that patterns of using English verb tense and aspect was relevant to the students’ L2 writing
proficiency because higher level students were able to incorporate their
grammatical knowledge to the paper’s purpose, contents, and discourse
register.7 In the study held by Min in 2013, it can be assumed that having grammar knowledge may be helpful in creating a good writing. This is the
same to what Veit says that, “By studying grammar, the students would learn
to makeup of the language and so be able to apply what they learned as a
better speaker, writer, and reader”.8 Thus, it would be reasonable to choose
grammar case that does not stand alone but have significance in meaning,
function, and purpose as they merge into the entire writing process.
Students encounter grammar problem when they write narrativeessay.
In order to write good narrative essay, students are demanded to understand
the features. There are two features in narrative text which are generic
structure and grammatical feature. The generic structure is about a sequence
of events while grammatical feature concerns in grammatical aspects. These
features make students stressed out. It is supported by Jeremy Harmer
statement, “Some students can write a simple story but they are not equipped
to create a complex narrative”.9 It can be said that narrative is categorized in
complex story. However, Narrative is one of text genre that are commonly
read. It is read mostly by all ages. Especially, for the children who like
reading stories like fable. Narrative also provides types of story, such as fairy
stories, science fiction, legends, historical narratives, personal experience that
students may already know. They are not just only entertained by the story
but also they will get some moral values. Narrative also drives students to
write naturally. Therefore, the complexity as well as the amusing of narrative
7Kyung Eun Min, How grammar Matters in NNS Academic Writing: The Relationship Between Verb Tense and Aspect Usage Patterns and L2 Writing Proficiency in Academic Discourse, (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2013), ii.
that I explained earlier becomes the reason to choose narrative to be the material in this study.
The complexity of narrative also happens to the eighth graders of
SMPN 5 Surabaya. Based on the diagnostic test which measured students’
ability in understanding the narrative text, the result shows that the score
average is 73. It is below of the graduation competence standard in that
school which is 85. This result of diagnostic test is also supported by
questionnaire that was held in preliminary research, writing becomes the most
difficult skill for eight graders of SMPN 5 Surabaya with percentage of 42.5
% and 77.5 % students dislike writing. There are many factors why writing
becomes difficult. There are 35% students answer that the most difficult thing
in writing is to write with correct grammar . While there are 30% students get
difficulty in writing because they lack of English vocabulary. These data
conclude that most the eighth graders of SMPN 5 Surabaya get difficulty to
write narrative with the correct grammar. Thus, the research is conducted in
SMPN 5 Surabaya by examining that problem. Besides the problem occurring
in SMPN 5 Surabaya, another reason to carry out the research in SMPN 5
Surabaya is the school can represent all schools in Indonesia since SMPN 5
Surabaya is a national standard school. So, the result of this study can be
generalized to other school in Indonesia. While the sample of the study will
be the eighth grade of SMPN 5 Surabaya. It is because at the level of 8th
grade, students should be able to write functional text and essay in the form of
narrative. This requirement is stated in content standard or commonly called
Based on the problems stated earlier, the researcher limits the case of the study only in grammatical aspect in narrative. The researcher focuses on
students’ understanding of grammatical feature in English narrative writing.
Considering this problem, the researcher proposes color contrast text as an
alternative media to teach narrative writing and analyze whether it can
improve the students’ understanding about grammar or not. Color contrast
text here means that there are some different colors in a text which has
functions to give signs based on the color. Each color has different meaning,
e.g.Iplayed game online yesterday or Shewentto Jakarta last month (red as a
subject, green as regular verbs, yellow as irregular verbs, etc). The signs itself
are expected to help students to identify the formula of the sentence within
text. We can find this kind of signs in the Quran with tajweed which help people to learn tajweed. Tajweed means improvement and perfection. This term is technically used to refer to the science concerned with correct
recitation and pronunciation of the Qur’anic words and verses. By learning tajweed, it helps people to read Quran correctly. That is what on the researcher’s mind that color contrast text has similar principal with Quran with
tajweed. Therefore, this is the reason of why the researcher assumes that color contrast text can be applied in narrative writing in order to improve students’
understanding on grammatical feature. In short, while looking at the colors as
well as reading the text, the students will also learn the grammatical feature of
narrative.
There are fundamental reasons why the researcher take colors contrast
text as the way to improve students’ understanding of grammatical feature in
basis for the use of color contrast text. He states that “good presentation of new grammatical structure should include both form and meaning”.10 In this
theory, a color contrast text seems to be acceptable for teaching writing which
is integrated with grammar. The form and the meaning are presented by color
contrast text. Here, the colors are representative of the form that delivers the
meaning. It is not only those elements but also color contrast text has use of
language since there is context in which it might be used.
Secondly, Knapp says, “grammar needs to be taught and used
primarily in the context of reading and writing.”11 In this study, the students
are asked to read narrative text which has different colors before writing that
the researcher calls color contrast text. So the students are exposed to a lot of
comprehensible new language which the grammar are induced from the color
contrast text. In this case, color contrast text can facilitate the collaboration of
writing and reading. This is suitable for teaching grammar that should
integrate with other skill.
Based on explanation earlier, there is relevancy between the problem
and the suggestion that the researcher gives. Considering the significance of
the role of color contrast text that expected in helping the understanding of
grammatical feature in English narrative writing, the researcher will conduct a
research entitled “IMPROVING STUDENTS’ UNDERSTANDING OF
GRAMMATICAL FEATURE IN ENGLISH NARRATIVE WRITING
THROUGH COLOR CONTRAST TEXT AT THE EIGHTH GRADE
STUDENTS OF SMPN 5 SURABAYA”
10Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English…..82.
B. Statement of The Problem
This research comes up with the problem of narrative writing. The
problem is the difficulty to write narrative essay with the correct grammar .
Considering the problem and those theories above, the researcher intends to
explore whether color contrast text could improve students’ understanding of
the grammatical features in English narrative writing for 8th grade students in
SMPN 5 Surabaya. Based on the background of the study, the study is aimed
at seeing the effectiveness of color contrast text to enhancestudents’
understanding of grammatical feature in English narrative writing for 8th grade
students in SMPN 5 Surabaya. The study would answer the following
questions:
1. Can color contrast text improve students’ understanding of grammatical
features in English narrative writing for students of the 8th grade in SMPN5
Surabaya?
2. What are the 8th grade students of SMPN5 Surabaya responses to the
implementation of color contrast text?
C. Objective of The Study
Related to the statement of the problems there are also two objectives
of the study pointed here. They are:
1. To know the effectiveness of color contrast in dealing with the implementation
of color contrast text in English narrative writing.
2. To know the responses of 8th grade students of SMPN 5 Surabaya in the use of
D. Significance of The Study
As the target of study is for pedagogical purposes, the result of the
research can give information about the use of color contrast text as the
alternative media for teaching. The result of the research is also expected to
give information for other teachers or researchers who want to conduct the
study that relates with this study. The result of the research also can be
references for the teachers who face the problem in teaching narrative writing,
especially in a case of understanding the grammatical feature of narrative.
E. Scope and Limitation of The Study
The scope of the study is to discuss about examining the effectiveness
of color contrast text in English narrative writing. The research limits the
study only for VIII H students of SMPN5 Surabaya by seeing their
understanding in grammatical feature of English narrative writing through
color contrast text. The grammatical feature itself is limited to the simple past
tense pattern that includes subject agreement, regular verb, and irregular verb.
F. Definition of Key Terms
The most important things that I have to explain here from some
operational definitions of key terms of the studies are:
1. Students’ understanding is the ability of student to comprehend
something. In this study, students’ understanding is described as the
ability to understand and write sentences in form of past tense in
narrative.
2. Nordquist defines grammatical feature as a class of units (such as
common set of grammatical feature.12 For this case, the grammatical feature will be focused on the pattern of the sentence which uses past
tense in narrative that includes subject agreement, regular verb, and
irregular verb.
3. Keraf states that “narrative as a story tells or describes an action in
the past time clearly, so narrative is tried to answer the question: What
had happened?”13 In this case, the narrative that will be examined is
English narrative writing for junior high school students that measure
the students’ ability in writing narrative essay.
4. Color contrast text is a writing work that is written in different colors
text. This color contrast text will be the teaching aid to enhance
students’ understanding of grammatical feature in narrative.
G. The Outline of The Thesis
This thesis is divided into five chapters that can be presented as
follows. Chapter 1 gives the introduction that contains the background of the
study, statement of the problem, objective of the study, significance of the
study, scope and limitation of the study, definition of key terms, and the
outline of the thesis.
Chapter 2 presents review of related literature which is divided into
two parts. They are theoretical background and review of previous study.
These parts are explained into sub parts.
Chapter 3 deals with research methodology which discuss place and
time of the research, research subject, research method, model of action
12
Richard Nordquist, Grammatical Category, http://www.grammar.about.com, accessed on August 18, 2014.
research, the procedures of the research, technique of collecting data, and technique of analyzing data.
Chapter 4 will give interpretation of the result of the study which
discusses the analysis of the first cycle and the second cycle.
Chapter 5 will present some conclusion and suggestion
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Background
1. Teaching Writing
Writing is considered as language skill which has to be mastered.
Writing becomes important as speaking, reading, and listening since writing is
a tool for recording and organizing knowledge into useful and reusable note.
To get some purposes of writing, the students should to know how to write
any kinds of writing, such as letter, report, advertisement, etc. The students
also need to learn some writing conventions (punctuations, paragraph
construction, etc.) just as they learn pronunciation in order to speak
appropriately. Therefore, that is why writing is taught in language teaching.
a. The reasons for teaching writing
According to Harmer, the reason for teaching writing includes
reinforcement, language development, learning style, writing as a skill.
For more detail, see the explanation below:
1) Reinforcement: written language helps students to acquire
language. It helps student to understand the way to fit words
together. It becomes main source of learning language since it
presents visually.
2) Language development: the developing of language can be
influenced by the experience in the process of writing itself.
3) Learning style: writing is suitable for learners who produce
4) Writing as a skill: writing is a basic language skill as speaking, listening, and reading. Those skills are definitely important for
language learner.1
b. Teaching writing in Junior High School
Based on curriculum for education unit level or commonly
called Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan 2006 for SMP and MTs,
the program of teaching learning English as a foreign language focuses
on developing students’ skill in four languages skills. The students are
expected to achieve competencies to communicate in spoken and
written form using suitable language variation fluently and accurately
in interaction or monologue in the form of descriptive, recount,
narrative, procedure, and report. Meanwhile, the purposes of teaching
writing based on KTSP for SMP and MTs are as follows:
1) The seventh grade: students are able to write a) simple
functional sentences, b) simple messages and simple
announcement and card, c) procedure and descriptive texts.
2) The eighth grade: students are able to a) write among others
text in the form of narration, description and recount, b) write
personal letters, post card, invitation card, leaflet and
announcement.
3) The ninth grade: students are able to a) write texts in the form
of narration, procedure, report, b) write short messages, letters,
advertisements or announcements.
c. Approaches in Teaching Writing
There are variety of approaches to teach writing. Generally,
there are two main approaches: product and process. These approaches
are discussed in some books about teaching writing. Basically, these
approaches focused on what aspect that the teacher will be concerned .
The teacher can focus on either the product which is their final writing
or the process of writing which has various stages.
1) Product approach
Harmer states, “Product approach is an approach that
concentrates on the end of product.”2 Most teachers use this approach in teaching writing. In this approach, the students focus on how their
final writing should look like. They have to compose their writing
perfectly because the teacher will assess their final writing. Brown
suggests that composition are supposed to a) meet certain standards of
prescribed English rhetorical style, b) reflect accurate grammar, and c)
be organized in conformity with what the audience would consider to
be conventional.3
2) Process approach
According to Harmer, “process approach is an approach of
writing that emphasizes on the various stages that any piece of writing
goes through.”4 This approach requires the teacher to accompany students in the process of writing. The teacher should give feedback to
2
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching, (Cambridge: Longman, 2005), 257. 3
H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, Second Edition (New York: Longman, 2000) 335.
their writing. Brown identifies the characteristics of process approach as follow:
a) This approach of writing concerns in the process of writing
itself.
b) One of the aims of this approach is to make students understand
in composing writing.
c) The approach helps students in strategy for prewriting, drafting,
and rewriting.
d) The approach gives students more time to revise the writing.
e) Revision is theimportant thing in this approach.
f) The approach lets students write down what they want to write.
g) The approach gives students a chance to make their writing
better by giving them feedback.
h) There is peer feedback in this approach.
i) There is communication between teacher and student in the
process of composition dealing with the writing.5
White and Arndt states that process writing has stages which
include:
Drafting, structuring (ordering information, experimenting with arrangements, etc), reviewing (checking context, connections, assessing impact, editing), focusing (that is making sure you are getting the message across you want to get across), and generating ideas and evaluation (assessing the draft and/or subsequent drafts).6
From the explanation mentioned earlier, writing is important
as speaking, reading, and listening in language teaching in order to
5H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching,…..335.
develop the language. The importance of writing becomes a basic reason to teach writing as a part of Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan
Pendidikan 2006 for SMP and Mts. One of the aims that is stated in
this curriculum is that students of the eighth grade will be able to a)
write among others text in the form of narration, description and
recount, b) write personal letters, post card, invitation card, leaflet and
announcement. Given this statement, this study becomes reasonable to
conduct narrative for examining writing problem in the eighth grade
junior high school students. Then what approach that researcher used?
In this study, the researcher taught the writing using product approach.
As the theory above, product approach concentrate on the end of
product. This study that use product approach seems to be reasonable
for this kind of study since it concerns with students’ writing product
rather than the process of the writing.
2. Grammar Teaching for ESL and EFL Classes
a. The Issue of Grammar
Grammar might have been controversial issue in language
teaching. The issue was whether the existence of grammar as an
essential part of language instruction is needed or not.Veit says that,
“By studying grammar, the students would learn to makeup of the
language and so be able to apply what they learned as a better speaker,
writer, and reader”.7This argument was challenged by other experts.
Corder states, “learners had their own built-in syllabus for learning
grammar.”8
In line with this, Krashen argued that grammar instruction
played no role in acquisition, a view based on the conviction that
learners (including classroom learners) would automatically proceed
along their built-in syllabus as long as they had access to
comprehensible input and were sufficiently motivated.9
Those statement stated earlier show that grammar is not needed
to be a part of language instruction. There is beneficial of teaching
grammar. A research by Long about comparing the success of
instructed and naturalistic learners showed that, instructed learners
achieved higher levels of grammatical competence than naturalistic
learner and that instruction was no guarantee that learners would
acquire what they had been taught.10
Thus, grammar may be beneficial
if the process of teaching is suitable with the natural processes of
acquisition.
b. The Importance of Grammar in Communication Skill
Grammar problems mentioned earlier show that grammar is
not the important thing as a part of language instruction. However
grammar is still a part of language that cannot be separated from the
process of learning language itself. Grammar may help either
significantly or not. It may help especially for second or foreign
language learner in that the language they learn is definitely different
from their mother tongue. In addition, there are some roles of grammar
in developing language.
8S.P. Corder, Errror Analysis and Interlanguage: The significance of Learner’s errors, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 5-13.
9
Rod Ellis, Currents Issue in The Teaching Grammar: An SLA perspective,…..85.
According to Savage and Price, there is a role of grammar for ESL students that underlie the importance of grammar which
influences the skills of communication. There are some examples that
underlie how important grammar in developing communication skills.
As we know there are four skills in communication which are;
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. These examples show that
efficient communication cannot take place without correct grammar.
These are the examples:
1) Listening
The listening skill will be improved if the students understand
of underlying grammar. For example, the teacher who says,
“Please bring me the books”, it will be misinterpreted if the
students did not hear the plural –s.
2) Speaking
Misunderstanding of grammar also occurs in a job interview.
For example, the question “how long have you been working at
your current job?” The applicant answer, “I worked there for
two years”. In the dialogue, the interview wonders: is the
applicant still working there or not? In this situation, the
misunderstanding can be avoided if the speakers have
knowledge of the present perfect.
3) Reading
Students may get misunderstanding in reading direction. For
after tightening all of the pieces. The student may do wrong if he or she does not know after signal.
4) Writing
In the example of report written by automotive tech student, he
writes I check the brakes. The supervisor may be confused: did
the student already check the brakes? Or is he going to check
the brakes? The ambiguity can be avoided if the student write
checked on the report.11
c. Grammatical Feature in Narrative
According to Knapp and Watkins, there are grammatical
feature of narrative. These are the features:
1) Narrative uses action verb and temporal cognitive when
sequencing people and events in time and space.
1. Action verb; for example,
One day the man and his son went collecting fire-wood.
They saw a golden tree. They went slowly over to the tree.
When they got closer to the tree they heard a voice coming
from the tree.
2. Temporal cognitive; for example,
We then looked at some games and equipments. After
lunch we walked up to the Sydney Morning Herald and
saw how they make papers. After that we caught the train
back to Marrickville.
2) Recounts and stories use past tense except direct quotation. For example,
They were poor because their pig ate them out of house
and home and he didn’t share with the other animals. His
name was Bob. ‘You should go on a diet’ said Clarabelle.
3) Narrative uses action verbs (bold), while in reflections/
evaluations, mental verbs (italicized) predominate; for
example,
Bells were ringing, sirens screeching and people were
running everywhere.
Maria didn’t know what to do next. She thought about her
mother and wondered what was in her head.
4) Action verbs are used metaphorically to create effective
images. For example:
It was a terrible argument. Words were flying everywhere.
5) Rhythm and repetition are used to create particular effects. For
example:
Riding. Riding. The boy went riding across the wintery
moor, far away from the strife of his unhappy home.
6) Narrative uses sentence structure. Often sentences comprising
one word or a short phrase are used to create poignant effects.
For example:
Rose slowly opened the old wooden door. Dark. There was nothing but black.12
d. Theoretical Approaches to Teach English Grammar
There are two main approaches for presenting grammar
structure. They are deductive and inductive approach. According
Rivers and Temperley, the deductive approach represents a more
traditional style of teaching in that grammatical structures or rules are
dictated to the students first, a more effective and time saving way
under circumstances, namely monolingual classes.13 Meanwhile,
Goner and Phillips state, the inductive approach represents a different
style in teaching where the new grammatical structures or rules are
presented to the students in a real language context.14
Look the
following concept of deductive and inductive in figure 2.1 below:
Figure 2.1: The Concept of Deductive and Inductive.
These approaches have advantages and disadvantages. In most
contexts, inductive approach is recommended. According Brown, there
are following reasons why inductive approach is more suitable:
12Peter Knapp and Megan Watskin, Genre, Text, Grammar,…..221.
13Wilga Rivers and Mary Temperley, A Practical Guide to The Teaching of English as a Second or Foreign Language, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 110.
14Goner and Phillips, Inductive Approach and Deductive Approach in TESOL,
http://www.teflcertificatecourses.com/tefl-articles/tesol-inductive-deductive-approaches.php accessed on January, 13 2014.
1) Inductive approach involves the natural language acquisition where students learn the grammatical rules subconsciously.
2) Inductive approach is closer to the concept of inter language
development that includes learners progress, on variable
timetables, trough stages of rules acquisition.
3) Students get a chance to use language communicatively before
they learn grammar.
4) It allows students to discover the rules by themselves rather
than the teacher explains them.15
To conclude the explanation mentioned earlier, some experts claim
that there is no significance of grammar in developing language. However,
grammar has a role that influences in communication skill for second or
foreign language learners. This role shows that grammar is still acceptable to
be conducted in language teaching. But then this necessity of grammar should
be followed by suitable approach. As explanation above, inductive approach is
recommended. This knowledge will guide the researcher in implementing the
action. As the material itself, the researcher only focus on one aspect of
grammatical feature in narrative which is simple past tense.
3. The Use of Color Contrast Text
a. Review of Color Contrast Text
According to Innateness hypotheses, Lenneberg in Brown proposed
that language is a “species-specific” behavior and that certain modes of
perception, categorizing abilities, and other language related mechanism are
biologically determined. this innate knowledge, according to Chomsky in
Brown, is embodied in a “little black box” of sorts, a language acquisition device (LAD).16 Once it is activated, the child is able to discover the rules of
the language. By this point of view, the teacher should trigger the LAD. In this
case, teacher needs to engage and stimulate the students’ ideas. The question
is how the teacher could engage and stimulate their ideas.
That fundamental statement above demands teachers to be creative in
their teaching. It relates with what media that will be used in the class which
can be considered how creative the teacher. This is what the researcher
concern in this research that I proposed a media which the researcher call
“color contrast text”. Just like the explanation in the previous chapter, color
contrast text seems helpful in improving the students’ understanding of
grammatical features in narrative. In this study, the researcher simply defines
color contrast text as a writing work that is written in different colors text. The
study uses narrative text from some resources, such as text book and internet.
Then the text is colored by the researcher based on the concept of color
contrast text.
Actually color contrast text is already used for many writing works. A
basic reason to use color contrast text is usually to highlight something, to
give codes and clues, or just to make the writing more interesting. For
example, the title or the highlight of news or article in internet mostly is
written in different color. This kind of color contrast text is also can be found
in annotated text. Another example that more detail is can be seen in Quran
with tajweed. We can find some colors in Quran with tajweed that have codes.
Each code will help to learn tajweed in order to read or pronounce the words
of Quran. These kinds of codes are applied in sound charts in silent way in order to sign the pronunciation. See the examples at figure 2.2 and figure 3.3.
The sound/color chart is used to engage students in a variety of games
to help them work on pronounciation at all levels, from individual sounds to
connected speech.17 It is same to Caleb Gattegno statement that,
“color can help to convey a phonetic clue to to words like a relief map does to the spatial arrangem,ent of an area, easing the task of the eye functioning panoranically, as a camera. Consequently, color will be used in the designs of letters and words in order to reduce the chance of overlooking correct spellings.”
Those explanations stated earlier becomes the principle that the
researcher used in his research since they have similiarity. The difference is
only on the purpose. Color codes in tajweed and sound/color chart in silent
way generaly uses for spelling or pronounce appropriately. While color
contrast text is used for understanding the grammatical feature in narrative
writing.
17Donald E. Cherry, Working with a Modified Sound/Color Chart,
Figure 2.2: Sound Color Chart
b. Teaching Narrative by Using Color Contrast Text
Fundamental reason for choosing color contrast text in teaching
narrative writing
1) My teaching experiences show that marking text by
different colors will make students to be more aware or
grammatically conscious. In this case, the students will be
conscious with the text written in different color. Students
will assume that there are reasons why the writer put
different colors in her or his writing. Then indirectly
students will notice and identify what make those
differences. It also engages students’ curiosity to know
what the writer emphasized. So, this is the process that the
researcher believed in a way to improve the students’
understanding of grammatical features in narrative writing.
2) Good presentation of new grammatical structure should
include both form and meaning.18
In this theory, a color
contrast text seems to be acceptable for teaching writing
which integrated with grammar. The form and the meaning
are presented by color contrast text. At this point, the
colors are representative of the form that delivers the
meaning. It is not only form and meaning but also color
contrast text has use of language since there is context in
which it might be used.
3) Grammar needs to be taught and used primarily in the context of reading and writing.19 In this study, the students
are asked to read narrative text which has different colors
for certain chosen texts before writing that the researcher
calls color contrast text. So, the students are exposed to a
lot of comprehensible new language inputs in which the
grammar are induced using the color contrast text. In this
case, color contrast text can facilitate the collaboration of
writing and reading. This is suitable for teaching grammar
that should integrate with other skill.
4) The students will learn the formula of the pattern by
identifying the color contrast text. Since the narrative text is
telling about something in the past time, the formula will be
written in past tense. Here, color contrast text marks what
students need to learn simple past tense. The color will
explain the pattern as follow:
1st and 3rd person singular subject pronoun 2nd singular person and plural subject pronoun
Was
Were
Past verb (regular verb)
Past verb (irregular verb)
The researcher choose the colors that help student to
understanding the grammatical feature in terms of subject
agreement, regular verb, and irregular verb. For the subject agreement, the researcher uses some colors. The red is for
1st and 3rd person singular subject pronoun. Those subjects are followed by auxiliary verb was. Thus, the colors
between 1st and 3rd person singular subject pronoun with auxiliary verb was are a bit similar such as red and pink.
While for 2nd singular person and plural subject pronoun,
the researcher uses aqua color that is a bit similar to blue
color in auxiliary were. These colors indicate that they had
relationship in their function. In the other hand, the
researcher uses contrast colors such as yellow and green to
indicate that they are different. Here, the different is the
verb. The yellow one is for regular verb and the green one
is for irregular verb.
c. The Example of Color Contrast Text
The dragon
Once therewas a dragon that lived near a castle. In
the castle therelived a princess with her mother and
father the King and Queen. Theywere such a happy
family.
Orientation
The dragonfelt lonesome so one day when the
princesswent on her balcony the dragoncame and
kidnapped her. Unfortunately, their parentsdidnot
know about it.
The dragonsaw that shewas sad so when shewas sleeping he gently picked her up and returned her to
the castle.20
Resolution
.
By looking the characteristics of color contrast text as well as the
supported theories above, it is clear to say that color contrast text has tendency
to be suitable media in enhancing students’ understanding of grammatical
feature in narrative text.
B.
Review of Previous Study
In this part, the researcher talks about some researches that relate to
this study. There are five studies which are conducted by some students of
university in Indonesia. These are the studies:
1. The Use of Pictures to Write Narrative in Teaching Writing at MA
Raudatul Ulum, Klampis Bangkalan.
It is written by Arifah who was a student of IAIN Sunan Ampel
Surabaya in 2009.21 This study is about the use of pictures to write
narrative in teaching writing at MA Raudatul Ulum Klampis Bangkalan.
The problems were that students got difficulty in organizing of text and
they could not put their ideas to their writing. This study aimed to
describe; 1) what kind of pictures are used by the teacher to teach narrative
writing at MA Raudatul Ulum, Klampis Bangkalan, 2) how is the picture
used in teaching narrative writing, 3) how is the result of students’
narrative writing text by using pictures.
20
Peter Knapp and Megan Watskin, Genre, Text, Grammar,…..235.
This study found that the teacher of MA Raudatul Ulum Klampis Bangkalan used picture series as a means of teaching narrative writing.
The result of the observation found that the teacher started with explaining
the material and the generic structure. Then the teacher contributed
pictures on order the students write narrative well after the students got
some clues or new vocabularies relates with the picture tell. The result of
this study showed that there was improvement on students’ writing
narrative through picture series.
2. Teaching Narrative Text in Improving Writing to the Tenth Grade
Students of SMA NEGERI 1 PETARUKAN, Pemalang.
The study was conducted by Intan Carolina from University of
Semarang in 2006.22 The objective of the study is to find out the students’
achievement in writing narrative text. The researcher also wanted to know
what the students’ difficulties in understanding narrative.
In this research, the researcher found there are five reasons why
the students tend to make grammatical mistakes in narrative writing. The
reasons are; 1) the students did not fully understand the tense that they
used when they wrote the narrative text. 2) The students did not read the
given material attentively. They only got the information from what they
read at glance and based on their experience before. 3) The students did
not understand pronoun, for example: the use of “them, her, or his.” 4)
Some students failed to arrange the story chronologically, most of them
missed one of the generic structure of narrative text. 5) The students failed
to apply the knowledge of grammar.
The result of the study was that the students’ progress during teaching and learning activity by using narrative text to improve writing
skill was good. The students’ achievement in writing was improved, it was
supported by the significance result of the pre-test was 62.09%; writing the
first draft on the first cycle was 65.52%; writing the second draft 71.53%;
writing the final copy was 74.38%; writing the first draft on the second
cycle was 72%; writing the second draft was 75.42%; and writing the final
copy was 79.71%.
3. Grammatical Errors in Students’ Narrative Writing
The researcher in this study is Isani Astasari from University of
Malang. The research was conducted in 2009.23
This study was intended
to find out and describe grammatical errors in students’ narrative writing.
It was conducted at SMAN 1 Malang and took the eleventh graders of XI
IPA 5 class as the subject.
This study reveals that there are 860 errors found from the data.
The highest frequency of errors is omission errors (41.51%) that consist
of: omission of verb inflection -ed/-d, omission of to be, omission of plural
marker -s/’-es, omission of articles and definite article, omission of
preposition, omission of possessive marker ‘s, and other omission errors,
including omission of –ing, omission of auxiliary verb, and omission of
pronoun. The second highest frequency of errors is error of misformation
(35.5%) including misformation of past tense verb, misformation of verb,
misformation of to be, misformation of preposition, misformation of
articles, misformation of modal auxiliary, misformation of pronoun and
misformation of noun. The next highest frequency is errors of addition (21.74%) that comprise of addition of verb inflection –ed/-d, addition of to
be, addition of preposition, addition of plural marker –s/-es, addition of
articles and definite article, addition of –ing, -ly, and addition of verb
auxiliary. Misordering errors come as the lowest frequency of errors that
only amount to 1.3%. Errors of misordering include misordering of
adverb, misordering of to be, misordering of modal auxiliary, misordering
of noun phrase and misordering of subject. Interlingual and intralingual
interference are considered as the major causes of these errors.
4. Optimizing Windows Movie Maker to Enhance Writing Competence of
Narrative text.
This study is written by Rida Andrik Kusuma Dewi, the students
of Sebelas Maret University in Surakarta.24
It was carried out in 2011 at
SMP NEGERI 14 SURAKARTA. The objectives of the research are 1) to
identify whether and to what extent windows movie maker improves
students’ writing competence of narrative text and 2) the situation when
the window movie maker is implemented in the writing class.
The research findings showed that window movie maker could
improve: 1) the students were able to use appropriate vocabulary better; b)
the students could make past tense sentences correctly; c) the students
were able to use punctuation correctly in the text; d) the students were able
to write a story with more detail information; e) the students were able to
use the appropriate diction in their writing; f) they could organize the story
better from beginning until the end.
The research findings also showed that the students got improvement in writing narrative. The improvements includes: a) the
students were more motivated and confident to write; b) the students were
also active to ask questions to the teacher about the difficulties they met; c)
some students discussed actively about the video in their own group; d)
during the teaching and learning, the students paid attention to the
teacher’s explanation; e) the students focused in their task.
5. The Use of Documentary Portfolio Assessment to Measure the Students'
Growth and Accomplishment in Narrative Writing.
This study is written by Indah Mudji Rahayu, Student from
University of Surabaya.25
It was conducted in 2006 at SMA NEGERI 8
SURABAYA. The researcher used documentary portfolio as assessment
tool in measuring the students’ growth and accomplishment in narrative
writing. There are two questions in this study. First, how does the students'
growth and accomplishment made in schematic structure from the first to
final draft. Second, how does the studentsgrowth and accomplishment
made in language features from the first to final draft.
From the result of this study, it can be concluded that, firstly, the
Documentary Portfolio assessment can be used to measure and assess the
students' growth and accomplishment in narrative's Schematic structure
from the first to final draft. Most of the students are shown to be progress
and there is little number of students who have no progress in
accomplishing their narrative writing from the first to the final draft. The
progresses were the improvement in the use of language feature and
generic structure. This can be shown trough the increasing number of students who category in Very good and Good, while the number of
students who category in poor and fair one is fluctuating. It is because they
got progress in decreasing the errors from the first to final draft. However,
there are no students who fluctuate since the teacher guide them through
some notes of suggestions during the accomplishment from the first to
final draft in a documentary portfolio assessment.
Those studies explain a various of researches about narrative
writing. Some of those studies try to find out the use of media in narrative
writing; such as the use of series picture, narrative text, and windows
movie maker. These studies have similarity with my study since they
involved the teaching media. But the difference is that my study uses other
media which is color contrast text. Relate with this media, there are no
studies that examine color contrast text as a media in enhancing students’
understanding of grammatical feature in narrative text.
The study of Isani Astasari above is same to my study which
talks about grammar in narrative writing. In this case, the difference is the
researcher doesn’t examine what the mistakes of grammar in narrative
writing are, but analyzing the use of color contrast text in improving the
grammatical feature in narrative writing. My study is also more specific
which focusing on the formula of past tense that used in narrative.
My study is also different from the study by Indah Mudji
Rahayu which measuring the Students ability in narrative writing. In this
understanding of grammatical feature in English narrative writing y seeing pre test and post test.
Based on explanation above, it can be summarized that my study
is different compared to those studies. My study focuses on grammatical
feature that is used in narrative. It finds out whether the color contrast text
can help students to understand the grammatical feature in English
narrative writing. But all those studies help the researcher as references to
investigate this study. Hopefully, this study can be a reference for other
researcher in conducting the related study.
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
The research design that is used in this study is collaborative classroom
action research (CCAR). There are some definitions of collaboration
classroom action research proposed by some experts. Butt and Townsend
state that, “Collaborative action research can be defined as a variety of stake
holders cooperating together to explore questions of mutual interest through
cycles of action, experience, and reflection, in order to develop insights into
particular phenomena, create frameworks for understanding, and suggest
actions which improve practice”.1
From the explanation stated by Butt and Townsend earlier, it can be
summarized that collaborative classroom action research has some
characteristics:
1. It designs a systematic learning process to improve the education by
change.
2. It involves the collaboration among educators to work together in
order to improve their practices in empowering relationship.
3. It has a cycle of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.
Those theories above become the fundamental reason to hold
collaborative classroom action research as the research design of this study.
This study involved the English teacher of SMPN 5 Surabaya. The researcher
itself was the teacher assistance to teach students of VIII H for a month. It
needed the teacher assistance because in that time English teacher of VIII H
1 R. L. Butt, D. Townsend, et.al., Bringing Reform to Life: Teacher’s Stories and Professional
was busy in preparing school’s competition. During the learning and teaching process, the researcher always consulted to the English teacher about the class
situation of VIII H. One of the discussions in process consulting was the
students’ problem in writing. Both of the researcher and the English teacher
felt that the students of VIII H had problem in writing with correct grammar.
This problem became the goal of the researcher and the English teacher in
which they want to solve the problem. After that, they discussed about the
research that might solve the problem and improve the class situation. In the
part of the research, the English teacher became the observer of this study. He
observed the teaching and learning process of each cycle. He also gave the
comment and suggestion to the researcher. From these descriptions, it can be
seen that the research is relate to the characteristics of collaborative classroom
action research.
It can be concluded that the research is a collaboratively systematic
study that is conducted by the researcher and teachers to overcome the
learning problem in order to make improvement. In this study, the
collaborative classroom action research is an attempt to investigate the use of
color contras text to enhance students’ understanding of grammatical feature
in English narrative writing.
B. Model of Action Research
Kemmis and McTaggart developed the model of action research.
According to them, “classroom action research is composed of cycles
consisting of four steps; planning, action, observation, and reflection.”2
Visually, the steps can be illustrated in the figure 5 below. It can be seen that
the steps make a spiral. It means that when we do one step, we can come back to previous step to see what we are already done or we can start the new cycle
not from beginning.
Figure 3.1: Kemmis & McTaggart Concept3
C. Place and Time of Research
This research was conducted at SMPN 5 SURABAYA. It is one of the
public schools in North Surabaya. It is located at Jl. Rajawali no. 57
Surabaya. The school consists of 25 classes. The school has facilities that
support students’ activities, such as school yard, laboratories, mosque, even
parking area.
The research was carried out from December 2013 until February
2014. This research implemented color contrast text as a means to enhance
students’ understanding of grammatical features in English narrative text for
the eighth grade students of SMPN 5 Surabaya. This research aimed to
examine the use of color contrast text to enhance students’ understanding of
3Herbert Altrichter, Stephen Kemmis, Robbin McTaggart, Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, The Concept of
grammatical feature in English Narrative writing and to know students’ responses dealing with the implementation of color contrast text.
D. Research Subject
The subject of the research was the students of year eight in SMPN 5
Surabaya. The eighth grade consisted of eight classes. In this case, the
researcher took VIII H class which had 39 students as a subject of the
research. The reasons for choosing students of VIII H is because the
researcher know the situation of VIII H class and VIII H class is filled by the
best students of 8th grade in SMPN 5 Surabaya.
E. The Procedures of The Research
Furchan proposed that the procedure of the research consisted of four
steps, which are identifying the problem, analyzing the problem, choosing the
research strategy and its instrument.4 However based on his model the
procedures consisted of cycles in which each cycle had four steps. Those
were planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting the action. These
steps were ended by revising the action. The procedures of the research were
combination of both theories as follows:
1. Identifying problem
First of all, the researcher identified the problem before planning. In
this research the problem was students’ writing ability. To identify the
problem, the researcher used test and interview.
a. Using test
The researcher used diagnostic test to measure the students’ ability.
The diagnostic test helps the teacher identify problems that they have
