IMPROVING GRADE VIII STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE.

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IMPROVING GRADE VIII

STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT

IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH

BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE

A THESIS

Submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By:

FEBRINA MANALU

Registration Number: 209421018

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Praise and gratitude are highly given by the writer to Jesus Christ for his

countless blessings in her entire life. It is a blessing that the writer has finally been

able to finish this thesis. During the process of completing this thesis, the writer

faced a lot of difficulties due to her limited knowledge and experience, but many

people have given their support and assistance. Therefore, the writer would like to

express her special thanks to:

 Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum, the Dean of Faculty of Language and Arts, for her leadership during the writer’s academic year.

 Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd and Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed, the Head of English Department and the Head of English Education Program, for their leadership, valuable knowledge, advices, and guidance during the writer’s academic year.

 Drs. Lidiman Sahat Martua Sinaga M.Hum, her consultant, for his precious time, excellent advices, suggestions, critics, and

guidance to the writer during the process of completing this thesis.  Jonny M. panjaitan, S.Pd, the Headmaster, P. S simamora, and all the

students of class VIII-2 SMP Swasta HKBP Sidorame Medan

 The writer sincerely thanks Manoto Manalu and Nurhayati Samosir, her beloved parents, for their prayers, the endless love and for continuous support, financial and moral, during his whole studies

up to finish. From the beginning, they gave him the freedom and time

to learn and to explore.

 The writer sincerely thanks to her grandfather (J. Samosir) and grandmother (R. Manalu) and her aunts (Hotmida Samosir S.Pd, Sr.

Veronica Samosir SSpS S.Kep, Rolenta Samosir , kapri’s family and

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everlasting love, prayers, sacrifices, and all moral and financial

supports.

 Rusnita Manalu, Perdiman Manalu, Jafourmen Manalu, Doni Manalu and young sister Agnes Manalu and her lovely brothers and sisters,

and old sister Holmes Manalu, luspiking Manalu , and her family for

their supports and prayers to the writer.

 The writer’s big family (RESIMEN MAHASISWA SATYA NAGARA UNIMED) for their encouragement, supports, and prayers to the writer.

 Komandan Dedy . H . Simbolon S.Si, M.Pd, Komandan Joen. P. Purba S.Pd, for his car, loyalty, supports, prayers to the writer.  Beloved her best friends (Kirana Silaban S.Pd, Enyus Pardede S.Pd,

Doni Tambunan, Maruli Tua, Ika, Dewi, Zansen Sinaga, Boang who

have patiently given moral, their prayer, spiritual help, advises and

financial support.

 Writer’s special lovely friends, writer’s lovely classmates, Dik C Regular ’09(especially for Uli Samosir, Carla, Bintang), and all of writer’s friends in UK-KMK St. Martinus Unimed, Gelora Theater (especially for delfy, velin, B. marsinar, candra, B. wily, writer’s

lovely friends in her boarding house, RUMKIBER (riris, b.luker,

putri, nelson, yosi, junpita, tika, ruli, batmen, vasco, sihol, sopar,

melpa, setia, lisbet, irfan, lestari, pagar) for every single help, support

and love that mean a lot to the writer

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ABSTRACT

Manalu, Febrina. Improving Grade VIII Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Text Through Brainstorming Technique. AThesis.English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2014.

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iv

1. Brainstorming technique for improving writing skill…… 16

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CHAPTER IV THE DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS ... 33

A.The Data ... ... 33

1. The Quantitative………. 33

2. The Qualitative………... 35

B.Data Analysis ... 40

1. The Quantitative………. 40

2. The Qualitative………... 44

C.Research finding ... 45

CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SEUGGESTONS ... 47

A.Conclusion ... ... 47

B.Suggestions ... 48

REFERENCES ... 49

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LIST OF TABLES

Table pages

2.1 the language skills ………..6

3.1 Steps of action research in Cycle I……….25

3.2 Rubric of Descriptive Texts ... 30

4.1. The Students’ Writing Scores……… ... 34

4.2. The Range of Students’ Score Improvement……….41

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LIST OF FIGURE

Figure PAGE

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viii

LIST OF APPENDIX

APPENDIX PAGES

A Lesson Plan ... 51

B Students’ Score ... 78

C Observation Sheet ... 82

D Diary Notes ... 85

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

English is a global language which is used by people in the world. It is used in all

activities as a formal language. Taking part in the activities, Indonesian people must have a good

competence in using English, because it can achieve many opportunities to our country. English

is the first foreign language in Indonesia, so it is important to be taught to Junior High School as

a compulsory subject. It has been developing the students’ communication ability in English,

which includes listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Writing as a part of learning English is very difficult because writing depends on

grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation as well as rules for forming words and making sentences.

Writing for Junior High School students of the first grade consists of writing descriptive,

narrative, and recount texts. The students have to be able to understand and produce a

descriptive text based on the social function and generic structure of the text.

According Harmer (2004:31) states that writing as one of the four skills has always

formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of English. However, it can be used for a variety of

purposes ranging from being merely a backup for grammar teaching to a major syllabus strand in

its own right where mastering the ability to write effectively is seen as a key objective for

learners. The importance given to write differs from teaching situation to teaching situation. In

some cases it shares equal value with the other skills. In other curricula it is only used, if at all, in

its writing for learner role where students write predominantly to augment their learning of the

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Teaching writing at school is aimed at improving students’ achievement in writing

descriptive text. The aim of teaching writing is to develop the students’ writing skills so the

student can writing English text efficiently and effectively.

In reality, the expected results from learning writing have not been achieved yet based on

the teaching practice program (PPL) at SMP N 1 Berastagi. The students could not write well.

Most of them had difficulties in conveying ideas in writing because they had a lack of

vocabulary and appropriate structures of sentences. So the students felt lazy to write any text as

they assumed that writing was a boring activity.

Based on the problem that the researcher given from an interview with the English

teacher in SMP HKBP Sidorame Medan . The researcher found out that the students’ writing

ability was quite low in terms of writing texts such as narrative, recount and descriptive texts.

Manzo and Thomas (2006) the students failed in writing because they faced some difficulties

such as a lack of vocabulary and poor grammar and also the teacher still used the conventional

technique that made them get bored and have low motivation in learning. Teachers must build

the interest by applying a good technique. For the purpose of improving the students’ ability in

writing, the researcher assumes that brainstorming technique is a way of teaching

One of the appropriate and comprehensive strategies for teaching writing is

brainstorming technique. Litchf and Vincent(2002) brainstorming is a group or individual

creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by

gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members. By using brainstorming

technique, the researcher tries to make students writing easily, because the students free to think

and give information about the topic. Rao (2007) expecting that brainstorming can help students

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technique in teaching English for the students’ thought are activated to write their opinion,

makes students think quickly and logically, increases the participation of students in receiving

lessons, even students feel free and happy, and democratic atmosphere and discipline can be

grown in the class.

Based on the discussion above, the technique of teaching writing for helping students

should be provided. Brainstorming is one of techniques that students can use to generate ideas

for writing a paper. In the process of brainstorming, the students should suspend any concerns

about staying organized. The goal is to pour their thoughts onto paper without worrying about

whether they make sense or how they fit together.

B. The Problem of the Study

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

follows” How does brainstorming technique improve Grade VIII students’ achievement in

writing descriptive texts?”

C. The Objective of the Study

The objective of the study is to find out if the brainstorming technique improves Grade

VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.

D. The Scope of the Study

The study is focused on brainstorming technique which is applied to discover when can

improve Grade VIII students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.

E. The Significance of the Study

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1) The teachers who apply the technique of teaching writing in the classroom and plan to

conduct a better and interesting method in teaching writing in order to motivate the

students to write.

2) The students who need to improve their writing ability and who want to make a research

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1. Conclusion

Based on the data analysis, it is concluded that in order to improve writing

ability, the Brainstorming Technique has to be applied as follows: Teacher

elaborate more detail about generic structure of descriptive text (identification and

description by using describing some of students in the classroom. In the cycle

one, the teacher just gave the students some texts as their reference. Teacher

explained more detail about grammatical feature in descriptive text, especially to

be, to has/have and adjective. In cycle one, the teacher only explained about

tenses generally. Teacher gave more topics about descriptive text and asked the

students to find their idea by using brainstorming technique in their group.The

result of students score in writing a descriptive text (65.50). In cycle I the score

was 73.33. After doing some changes in cycle II, the students’ score increased to

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5.2. Suggestions

In line with the conclusions, there are two points that would be suggested

for:

1. English teachers to improve students’ Grade VIII Students achievement in

writing decriptive text through brainstorming technique because

brainstorming can increase students’ interest in learning to write

descriptive text and make the teaching and learning process became more

enjoyable.

2. Students of Junior High School to create their own brainstorming

technique to help them to express their idea .So that they have a good

understanding about how to improve their ability in writing descritive text

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REFERENCES

Brown, H.D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy Second Edition. New York: Pearson Education.

Hairston,M. 1986.ContemporaryComposition.Boston:Houghton Mifflin Company

Harmer , J. 2004. How to teach writing. Harlow:Pearson Education

Hyland, K. 2002. Teaching and Researching Writing.London:Pearson Education

Hornby, A.S. 2000.Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary of Current English. Oxford: Oxford University.

Siahaan, S. 2008. The English Paragraph.Yogyakarta:Grahailmu

Wallace, M.J. 1998.Action Research For Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Rao Z. (2007). Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing Skills, in ELT Journal 44(2), 133-143.

Manzo, A., Manzo, U., & Thomas, M. 2006. Rationale for Systematic Vocabulary Development: Antidote for State Mandate. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(7), 610-619.

Litchf Paulus, Paul B. and Vincent R. Brown. 2002. Making Group Brainstorming More Effective. Cscanada Journal Vol. 11 No.7,pp.82-87. At www.Cscanada.org.Retrived on 5 February 2013.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8220088_advantages-brainstorming.htmlaccessed on June 5, 2013

http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/grants/brainstorming.html accessed on May 27ield,

Robert. 2008. Brainstorming reconsidered: A Goal-Based View. The writing Journal Vol. 3. No. 2. At http://brainstorming-technique.blogspot.com/ Retrieved on 2 April 2013

Widdowson, G. 2008. Teaching Language as Communication. New York: Oxford University Press

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http://inventors.about.com/od/lessonplans/a/creativity_2.htmaccessed on June 9, 2013

http://www.scribe.comAccessed on March 5th 2013

http://www.coun.uvic.ca /learn /program /hndouts /bloom. html Accessedon April27th 2013

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/definition.htmAccessed on May 15th 2013

http://www.mindtools.comAccessed on june10th 2013