Writing is the process of expressing ideas, thinking, or feeling in words on the piece of paper. Writing actually is transferring information, message or idea in grammatical sentence. The information, message or idea is necessary to be expressed in a text.
Writing skill is one of activity that is difficult to be mastered, because in writing activities every writer has to comprehend and understand about the use of language composition. Writing is a form of problem solving where writers faces two main tasks there are generating ideas in language and composing these ideas into a written structure adapted to the needs of the reader and the goals of the writers (Lyons, 1987: 1). Furthermore, writing is a process and what they write is often heavily influenced by constraints of genre, then these elements have to be present in learning activity it is cited by Harmer (2004: 86).
Another opinion writing is a communication tool with other people which use written form. Writing is a language skill which is used to communicate indirectly to other people it is stated by Tarigan (1986 : 3). This is used to communicate indirectly there must be processes which have to be fulfilled.
Based on the explanation, it can be concluded that writing can be said as a means of communication where written from is use to express the
2. The Importance of Writing
Writing is very important for the students. From writing students can explore their mind. Writing is basic language skill, as important as a speaking, listening, and reading (Harmer, 2006: 79-80) as cited in (Suwandita, 2013: 1). Students need to know how to write letters, how to put written reports together, how to reply advertisement and increasingly how to write using electronic media. Writing also as a difficult process. It means that in the writing students should be able to explored the appropriate aspects words. Writing as a creativity process to explored some of the ways this process develops it is cited by Lyons (1987: 2). There were some important of learning writing (Harmer, 2004: 31). Those were :
a. writing encourages the students to focus on accurate language use,
because students’ have to think critically when students will start writing. It can reduce students problem in writing.
b. writing is often used as means of reinforcing language that has been thought. Students used writing skill to make a note about what students have learnt in learning process.
c. writing is frequently useful as preparation for some other activity.
Example : students’ activity in the past and students daily activity.
d. writing can be used as an integral part of a large activity where the focus is on something else such as language practice.
In conclusion, writing is very important for the students. By writing, the students can make correct sentences to organize a paragraph and also have the purpose to communicate with the readers using written language.
3. The Purpose of Writing
There are some reasons for people to write. Writing is the reader
should be able to understand what the writer’s purpose. It is to give
information, suggest a course of action, make a judgment on a book or play, or express an opinion about world events, for example a coherent text
will not mask the writer’s purpose it is cited by Harmer ( 2004: 25).
Writing is used by educated people to record, to report, and to persuade, and those purposes can be reached by people who can organize well their thought and express it clearly (Tarigan, 1994: 4). Every writing activity has purpose. The meaning of purpose in writing is the respond hoped by the writer from the readers. In relation to the purpose of writing it is cited by Tarigan (1986 : 24-25), those are :
a. Assignment purpose
Assignment purpose, writers will start writing when someone asks writers to write about something. Therefore, the idea which will be written by the writers does not come from writers itself.
b. Altruistic purpose
It can be used to entertain the readers, to reduce the reader’
sadness, to help the readers to understand and comprehend the feeling and their logic, to make their lives much easier by using his writing. c. Persuasive purpose
It has purpose to ensure the reader about the truth of idea given. d. Information purpose
The purpose of writing is to give information, explanation to the readers.
e. Self-expresive purpose
The purpose is to introduce the writer to the reader. f. Creative purpose
This purpose is closely related to the self-expression purpose. However, it tends to get the artistic values.
g. Problem-solving purpose
This writing is used to solve problem faced by the writer. Writers want to explain and observe carefully about his thought and idea to be understood and accepted by the readers.
4. The Process of Writing
Writing is commonly seen as a three-stage process. There are pre-writing, pre-writing, and rewriting (Lyons, 1987 : 2). All of these stages should be done well to get a good writing result. There are four main elements in writing process. They are planning, drafting, editing (editing and revising),
and final version it is cited by Harmer (2004: 4-6). Those process will be explanation, those are :
a. Planning
In planning process, there are three main issues that have to be thought by writers. It means the writers have to decided the purpose of writing. It is important that students to have to know about the purpose of writing. By knowing the purpose of our writing, the writers can decide the most appropriate style of the language. Therefore, the result will be effective to reach the purpose. Then, writers have to think about the audience. The reader will be the audience, because most of the language styles, diction, and paragraph structure will be influenced by the readers. Next, writers have to consider the content structure that is how best to sequence that facts, ideas, or arguments which they have to decided it include (Harmer, 2004: 4).
b. Drafting
Drafting is the first version of a piece of writing. A lot of time should be given for the first draft, and the students should be reminded that at this point students need to focus on the development ideas and the organization of those ideas more than the development of perfect grammar, punctuations or spelling (Harmer, 2004: 5).
c. Editing
writing be effective. In editing, the students find something bad it can be change to make writing well. For example, the information is not clear, the grammar is not wrong, the sentences have ambiguous meaning, the diction is not appropriate, and writers write in bad sequence. If the students find these condition, the students should be change or correct it (Harmer, 2004: 5).
d. Final version
The last stage is the final version. After all process have been done, the writers make final version. It is possible that the final version is much different in the plan and the draft has been made before. It happens since there are many change in editing process. Any unimportant information stated in the draft can be deleted and inappropriate diction is change (Harmer, 2004: 5-6).
After running those processes, the result of our writing is ready to be sent out to the reader. It must be completely different if students write spontaneously. Therefore, the result of writing will be better, if the students follow this processes.
5. Problem of Learning Writing
Learning to write English in foreign language is not easy for the students Junior High School, especially at seventh grade students. There are some problems faced by students in learning writing, those are
organizing idea, lack of vocabulary, and grammar accuracy (Nurgiyantoro, 2001 : 298-299). Those are :
a) Organizing ideas
The problem usually faced by the students in writing composition is about how to organize the idea into sentences. There are some learner are able to say what they want to write but have difficulty in putting it into written form (Nation, 2009: 119). It is because the students get difficulties in developing idea and some students do not know what they will write.
The students can write composition if they know the rules in writing. Before the students write the students write a composition, they have to start by choosing the theme, and then they make an outline, which can help them in arrange the sentence or paragraph. With those step, they can avoid some mistake in writing composition. Of course the content of the composition will be suitable with the theme.
b) Lack of vocabulary
Vocabulary also becomes an important part in writing composition. The teacher realizes if the students do not master the vocabularies well, they will get difficulties in expressing their ideas, especially in writing. Most of the students face this problem, because they lack vocabulary. They often write sentences which are not communicative. They also usually choose incorrect word when they want to write a composition.
From the problems, it can be concluded that the students can learn writing easier if they can organize their ideas, and use good vocabulary so, it makes the students often write sentences which are not communicative.
c) Grammar Accuracy
When the students are trying to make composition, they are usually confused whether their sentences are grammatically correct or not. They just start learn English so their competence is still weak, especially in grammar. It becomes a problem when they have to make composition, which consist of sentence.
6. Task of Teacher in Writing
It means that teacher as a model, because the teacher has a rule important to help students in teaching learning and making the students
become a good writer. There are many teacher’s tasks in writing process it
is cited by Harmer ( 2004: 41-42). a. Demonstrating
Teacher must be able to make the students aware of the language used or other show certain writing function by using whatever the ways. b. Motivating and provoking
Teacher must be able to motivated and provoke their students to start writing and help them find out their motivation when they lost it. It is known that some students often lost their idea, spirit, and confidence.
It is the teacher’s rule to help students to find out their idea if students
lost it. c. Supporting
Teachers must be supportive all times to help students solve their difficulties. It means that they have to be ready to be asked and then to answer their students question.
d. Responding
Responding is giving reaction or suggestion to the students writing draft. It is completely different from evaluating. Here, teacher do not judge the students writing to get the marks but we will instead tell the students how well it is going so far,
e. Evaluating
Teacher need evaluate their students tasks to find out the real condition of their students achievement. The result of the test will show well the learning process has been run.
7. The Aspect of Writing
The type of test used to measure writing descriptive text is subjective test. The subjective test will be used in paragraph. From the topic given, students make descriptive text by using its generic structure. They also use language feature of descriptive text.
There are some aspects can be evaluated in writing. Not only vocabulary and grammar but also content, mechanic and organization (Nurgiyantoro, 2010: 307), those aspect are as follow:
a. Content ( The agreement, with the Title Chosen)
Contents include the topic and its explanation, discussion, evaluation, and conclusion, Nurgiyantoro (2010: 441). It should be clear, specific, and relevant. The good content had to fulfill the criteria such as full of information, substantive make a clear thesis development and relevant with the problem (Nurgiyantoro, 2001:48)
b. Organization ( Paragraph Unity, Coherence, Cohesion)
Organization means that how the students organize their idea. Whether each paragraph is organize well or not. As stated by Brown (2004: 73) that writing section measure the ability to write English, including the ability to organize, develop ideas, to support those idea with examples or evidence, to compose a response to one assigned topic in standard written English, and to generate.
c. Vocabulary ( The Precision of Using Vocabulary)
Vocabulary is the most important thing that forms a phrase, sentence, and paragraph. Rivers as cited in Nunan (1992:11) writes that vocabulary is essential for successful study on the second language. In writing, a writer should use the appropriate vocabulary to
express what they want to write. The diction chosen will determine the
level of student’s vocabulary mastery.
d. Grammar
Grammar is a study of words and the ways word work together to form a sentence. Grammar is stated as the set of rules that combine words into larger unit, the statement is stated by (Greenbaum & Nelson, 2002: 1). Tenses and structure mastery really important to have paragraph constructed. It is difficult for students to arrange a good paragraph if the students do not understand well about tenses and structure mastery.
e. Mechanics (Spelling and Punctuation)
Paragraph is a combination of some sentences which needs good spelling and punctuation. If the use of punctuation is not appropriate, the paragraph will be unreadable.
In conclusion, there are some aspects in evaluating writing result of the students, those are content, organization, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanic.
8. Assessing Writing
There are some aspects should be consideres in giving score to the
students’ English writing like content, oirganization, vocabulary, language
and writing mechanic. The table of scoring system as follow (Nurgiantoro 2001: 307-308):
Table 1 Table of Nurgiantoros’ scoring profile No Aspect
Writing Score Classification Indicators
1 Content expressing the idea, complete, well organization, logic and cohesive.
10 – 13 Fair complex construction, there is a mistake but it does not change the meaning.
11 – 17 Fair There is a mistake in sentence construction, unclear meaning. 5 – 10 Bad
Not mastering in syntactical construction, many mistakes
Sometimes there is spelling error but it does not change the meaning.
Total score is calculated with the following formula : Total score = content+orga+vocab+lang+writing mechanic
Then, students’ score can be calculated as follows:
Students’ score =
B. The Nature of Descriptive text 1. Definition of descriptive text
A descriptive text is a text that describe the features of someone, something, or a certain place. Descriptive text a kind of text which describes particular thing, person, or other, for instance : our pet or a person that is known well Wardiman as cited in fitriyanti (2014 : 16). Descriptive text is a text which say what a person or a thing is like. Its purpose is to describe and reveal a particular person, place, or thing (rugayamanan. wordpress. Com). After the explanation above, it can be conclude descriptive text is a text which says what a person, place, animal, or thing is like. The writers have to see directly what they describe about something.
2. Function of descriptive text
The specific function of descriptive text is to give description about an object (human or non human) it is cited by Pardiyono (2007: 34)
3. Generic structure of descriptive text
To guide the students to write descriptive text, Pardiono (2007: 34) give explanation about generic structure of descriptive text, those are: a. Identification : consisting of identification phenomenon to be described
b. Description : consisting of the description parts or things (physical appearance), qualities (degree of beauty, excellence, or worth of value), characteristics (prominent aspects that are unique) of the person, animal, thing, or place.
4. Language features of descriptive text
There are some main language features of descriptive text it is cited by Wardiman (2008 : 122) :
a. Specific Participant
Descriptive text describes about specific object, not in general, and unique. b. The use of Adjectives
Examples : beautiful, sharp, strong, small, big, handsome, and etc. c. The Use of Simple Present Tense
Pattern :
Subject + Verb1 +. . .
For subject : I / You / They / We
Subject +Verb s/es + . . . For subject : He / She / It Examples : She studies English twice a week.
We celebrate our independence day once in a year. Example of descriptive text
Title My Shaun the Sheep Bolster
Identification
character.
Description
This new bolster is made of soft fabric. When i touch it, it feels like touching woolly fabric, soft, and fluffy. The
length of the bolster is about a meter. The lower part’s
colour is black, while the upper part is white. The bolster
has two front legs, but strangely it doesn’t have back legs.
Taken from Nur Zaida 2013
C.The Nature of Roundtable Technique 1. Definition of roundtable
Roudtable technique is one of cooperative learning model, here students work in group and sit around a table, in group consist of 4-5 students in a group doing their own work. Roundtable technique is one of teaching technique where the teacher gives the picture and divided the students into groups consist of 4-5 students, the groups are divided in heterogeneous and it is considered based on the score before, because it will make combination between the highest and the lowest students (Isjoni as cited in Astuti, 2013 : 14).
It means that the clever students can help the other students who are low. In this discussion, all of members in the group are given opportunity to share their ideas or answer the question based on the text
themselves, they would be able to solve problems to comprehend the text easily.
Roundtable technique is the scientific deliberation that contains ideas exchange, opinion exchange carried out by several people who gather in the group to find out the truth Tarmuji as cited in Astuti, (2013 : 14). It means that in this discussion, all of students share their ideas or opinion based on the text in with their group and it will be found the conclusion of the content of the text. This interaction with group mate encourage students to restructure their ideas. They might need to summarize, elaborate, and explain their ideas.
Based on the description previously, it can be concluded that roundtable is one of teaching technique which is expected can have a role to make learning active and effective particularly in teaching writing.
2. Teaching Writing through Roundtable Technique
From the description mentioned previously, it is better to apply the appropriate technique in teaching writing to make students active in joining teaching learning process. One of the appropriate techniques that will be applied in teaching writing is Roundtable technique.
Roundtable technique there were some steps that can be used to teaching writing it is cited by Kagan (2009: 6.34), the steps are :
1. Preparation
a. The teacher provides a task to which there are multiple possible responses, and provides think time.
b. Students take turns passing a paper and pencil or a team project, each writing one answer or making a contribution.
2. Procedure
a. From groups of four students and tell groups the prompt or distribute the handout.
b. Identify which group member will begin and inform students that they will circulate the paper clockwise.
c. Ask the first students to write words, phrases, or sentences as rapidly as possible and then read the response aloud so, that other students have an opportunity to think about and build upon each other’s responses.
3. Implementation
b. Students sit in circle with their group. c. The students are given picture to describe.
d. Each member of the team begins a 15 second to write.
e. When the time is over, teacher as the students to move the paper on the right.
f. This process continues until all students on the team have added to
each other’s work.
g. This process repeated 2 round.
h. Papers are then read aloud by the team and shared with the whole class.
It can be conclude that in applying Roundtable especially on writing lesson, there is no students who passive because all of students are given time to participate to share their ideas about the material.
3. The advantages and disadvantages of roundtable technique
Every technique of teaching learning has advantages and disadvantages. There are advantages and disadvantages of roundtable technique discussion proposed by Semiawan as cited in Astuti (2013 : 16). There are :
a. The advantages
2) Training to regard the opinion of each other, students have to receive the opinion from other students.
3) Pooling ideas and experiences from group, students have concentrate all of the ideas to make conclusion.
4) Enhancing the participation in an active process, the students are active in the discussion.
In short, the application of Roundtable technique is important for students in order that the students can enjoy in teaching learning English and the students will be active in teaching and learning process.
b. The disadvantages 1) The class will be noisy 2) It needs much time
Semiawan as cited in Astuti (2013: 16) In short, by doing roundtable technique it will make the students need much time in teaching learning process, but makes the students more active when they learn. In addition, every stuents make a sentences or paragraph based on the theme what they got from the teacher.
D. Relevant Studies on Roundtable
Large Regional University. It is said that the purpose of this study is to know in a school of business at a large regional university and to gave knowledge to how the assessment process can be improved. The idea to use Roundtable is to help the students can assesment process writing.
Next, the study proposed by Siregar (2014). The title is the use of cooperative learning type roundtable technique to improve the ability of the
second yeard students of sman 10 pekan baru in writing hortatory text.
According to the research, the finding indicated that Roundtable technique had a positive effect to students writing ability. It can be seen in the presents the mean score of experimental and control classes. The experimental class got the mean 54.26 in pre-test and in post-test the mean score was 70.46. While, in pre-test the control class got mean score 52.43 and then the post-test it increased in to 63.03. The result of this data told that both classes it was different for the mean result for the post-test. Based on the data, The mean of the experimental class in post-test was 70.46 while control class was 63.03. It means that the Roundtable was effectiveness for teaching descriptive writing.
E. Basic Assumption
help students’ writing skill. Roundtable is one of the teaching techniques that expected to make the students active in learning and can help the students to more active in writing, because the students are given opportunity to share their ideas one by one about the picture with their group it means that it will help them to understand the text and write the descriptive text easily.
F. Hypothesis
