THE EFFECT OF APPLYING CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE
ON THE
STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING
DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPH
A THESIS
Submitted to English and Literature Department Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Medan in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for
the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
Muhammad Yusuf
Registration Number: 2101121031
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
DECLARATION
I have familiarized myself with the University’s Policy on Academic integrity. Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis is my own work, has been
expressed in my own words, and has not been previously been submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this paper may be screened electronically or otherwise for
plagiarism.
Medan, August 2014
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to express his deepest gratitude to Allah SWT, the Almighty and the Most Beneficial for His Blessing, Grace, Guidance, and Mercy that have been given to the writer until this Thesis could be completed. This Thesis has been written in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan (S.Pd.) at English and Literature Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
In the process of accomplishing this Thesis, many people have shown their care and assistance, therefore, the writer would like to express his gratitude and special thanks to:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts and Vice Dean I, II, and III and all administrative staffs.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., The Head of English and Literature Department and also as his Thesis Examiner; Rika, S.Pd., M.Hum., Secretary of English and Literature Department; Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., Head of English Education Study Program; Dra. Meisuri, M.A. Head of English Literature Study Program.
Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D., his Thesis Consultant, who has given the writer brilliant supervision and spent his precious time in guiding, commenting, criticizing, suggesting, and giving valuable insights in the process of completing this Thesis.
Drs. Willem Saragih, Dipl. Appl., M.Pd. his Academic Supervisor and also Thesis Examiner, and Drs. Muhamamad Natsir, M.Hum. as the Thesis Examiner, the writer is also very grateful to all Lecturers who have taught, guided, and advised him throughout the academic years.
Mam Eis, Endah, Indri, and Mr. Pantes as the administration staffs of English and Literature Department who always helped the writer during his academic year.
Drs. H. M. Azhari Rasyid, the Headmaster of MTsS Al Abraar for allowing him to conduct the research in his school. He also would like to convey his gratitude to English Teacher, Sudarman, S.Pd., and Suhartini, S.S. the English teachers for their assistance and guidance during the research. And also to all students of Grade VII-A and VII-B on academic year 2013/2014 for their attention and appreciation.
iii
attention. And also all of his family for giving the inspiration and their great motivation for the writer in finishing his study.
His thankfulness is also directed to his seniors in Students’ Council of English and Literature Department (HMJ BSI Unimed), Dedi Sanjaya, Azhar Aziz Lubis, Budiyanto, Benny Ichsanda, Faisal Hakim, Sukma Septian, Aulia Rahman Sitorus, for their guidance, spirit, and motivation in the organization and campus daily life. He thanks you all so much. All his best friends, Husein, Irwan, Muis, Liza, Elnoviamy, Arsyi,
Husna, Gray, Risqa, Icha, Nisa Lubis, Siti Khadijah, PPL Mates (Rahmi Erwita, Dede Suriyani, Febry Tiffany, Jiwa Dash) and also his dear brothers and Sisters in HMJ BSI Unimed, thank you so much for every single smile, laugh, tear, help, struggle that we have passed and for sweet and happy memories we shared together.
All his classmates in Regular A 2010 who cannot be mentioned one by one that conquered the lectures and shared knowledge, ideas, and bitter-sweet of campus life together and have been cooperatively in supporting the writer as the class monitor.
Aprilza Aswani, for special care, kindness, love and patience in accompanying the writer time by time.
The writer realizes that the content of his Thesis is still far from being perfect, but he warmly welcomes any constructive suggestions that will improve the quality of this Thesis. He also hopes it would be useful for those who are interested in this field of study.
Medan, August 2014 The writer,
Muhammad Yusuf
i
ABSTRACT
Yusuf, Muhammad. 2101121031. The Effect of Applying Clustering Technique on the Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Paragraph. A Thesis. English and Literature Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts. State University of Medan. 2014
This study attempts to investigate the effect of applying clustering technique on the students’ achievement in writing descriptive paragraph. The research design of this study was an experimental one. The population of this study was grade VII of MTSs Al Abraar totaling to 60 students of two parallel classes. The data were obtained from random sampling technique through lottery. The class VII-A became the experimental group and was given the treatment by using clustering technique while class VII-B became control group and was given treatment without using clustering technique. The instrument of collecting data was writing test and inter-rater was used to obtain the reliability of the test. The data were analyzed by using t-test formula. It
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6. The Assessment of Writing Skill in Descriptive Paragraph ... 19
7. Technique ... 20
8. Clustering Technique ... 20
9. Teaching Descriptive Paragraph through Clustering Technique ... 21
10. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Clustering Technique ... 22
11. The Procedure of Clustering Technique ... 23
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E. The Validity and Reliability of the Test ... 32
1. The Validity of the Test ... 32
2. The Reliability of the Test ... 33
F. The Technique for Analyzing the Data ... 34
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDINGS . 35 A.The Data ... 35
B.The Data Analysis ... 36
1. Testing the Reliability of the Test ... 36
2. Analyzing the Data by Using T-Test ... 37
3. Testing Hypotheses ... 39
C.Research Findings ... 39
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 42
A.Conclusion ... 42
B.Suggestion ... 42
REFERENCES ... 44
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LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 2.1 Part of Descriptive Paragraph of Fatin Shidqia. ... 18
Table 2.2 Part of Descriptive Paragraph of Jacob. ... 19
Table 3.1 Research Design. ... 26
Table 3.2 Jacob et al.’s Scoring Profile on Writing Test ... 29
Table 3.3 Experimental Group Activity ... 30
Table 3.4 Control Group Activity ... 31
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LIST OF FIGURE
viii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Page APPENDIX A The Result of the Pre-Test and Post-Test of
Experimental Group ... 47
APPENDIX B The Result of the Pre-Test and Post-Test of Control Group ... 48
APPENDIX C The Calculation of T-Test in Experimental Group ... 49
APPENDIX D The Calculation of the T-Test in Control Group ... 50
APPENDIX E The Calculation of T-Test ... 51
APPENDIX F The Statistical Analysis for Reliability of the Test ... 53
APPENDIX G Values of Correlation Coefficient for Difference Level Of Significance ... 55
APPENDIX H Pre-Test and Post-Test for Both Experimental and Control Group ... 56
APPENDIX I Lesson Plan for Experimental and Control Group ... 57
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.The Background of the Study
Learning English has four integrated skills namely listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. They must be taught and applied in teaching-learning
process. They are also divided into two groups; receptive skills and productive
skills. Receptive skills consist of listening and reading. Meanwhile, Productive
skills consist of speaking and writing.
Writing as one of the four skills that should be mastered by students has
always formed part of the syllabus in the teaching of English (Harmer, 2004:31).
Writing is taught after listening, speaking, and reading. Moreover, the real fact
faced by student is writing is the hardest skill to be mastered. Oshima and Hogue
(1999:3) claim that writing specifically academic writing is not easy. It takes
study and practice to develop this skill. For both native speakers and new learners
of English, it is important to note that writing is a process, not a “product”. It
means that writing is not only a process of linking words into sentences or
paragraphs, but also it is a sequence or steps of ideas, organized thoughts and
feeling in the form of words and combined into sentence into form of paragraphs
in which every sentence is closely related one another. And writing integrates
many aspects of language such as: vocabulary mastery, words-arrangement,
2
The capability of writing as the most super power tool in communication should
be owned by students. Everyone can convey their feelings, ideas, and thoughts to
others. Tabatabaei and Assefi (2012:138) claim that writing has received a great
degree of attention not only because it plays a significant role in transforming
knowledge and learning but also in fostering creativity. Writing also needs more
knowledge. Due to the writing is the process of transforming ideas, and thoughts,
learning is important to improve writing. In addition, writing is chosen to be more
effective and efficient to convey information such as in posting letters, business
card, leaflet, poster, and much information for marketing a company’s product.
In the Curriculum of Educational Stratified Level or Kurikulum Satuan
Tingkat Pendidikan (KTSP) and written in the standard competence in the
syllabus of the first year students of junior high school, students are expected to
be able to write some genres in writing namely descriptive, and procedure. The
curriculum highlights that students have to be able to write various types of the
text genres.
One of the genres that should be mastered by students in the process of
learning English is descriptive paragraph or text. Saragih (2010:20) claims that
descriptive is used to describe a particular person, thing, or place. Kalandadze
(2007:8) states that a paragraph is a group of sentences that support and develop a
single idea or one aspect of a large and more complex topic. So, descriptive
paragraph is a paragraph that contains descriptions of a particular topic such as
3
Based on the preliminary observation conducted in junior high school
namely Madrasah Tsanawiyah Al Abraar Tandem Hilir Grade VII, it is commonly
found that students’ performance poorly in writing.more than 71.9% students had
problems in writing. Their mean of score are still under the Minimum Criteria
Mastery or Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM) applied by the school. The KKM
applied is 75. The mean of students’ score from class VII-A are 54.3 and 56.5 for
1st and 2nd session in 2012/2013 while another class VII-B are 53.6 and 55.8.
From the interview with the teacher, there are some problems are faced by
teacher and students in writing descriptive paragraph. First problem, students
don’t have motivation to write. The second problem is teaching method applied
by the teacher. The teacher still uses lecturing method in teaching writing.
Students are asked to pay attention to the example of one paragraph or text. Next,
they are asked to write independently.
From the conditions illustrated in advance, students’ ability in writing
descriptive paragraph tends to be very less because of the learning method applied
by teacher of English language is unsuitable anymore in the recent time. The
implication of the method applied is students felt bored and lost their interest and
they avoided continuing learning process as they had to do. The students’ also felt
that writing is a difficult activity because they need to express, transfer, and
associate their ideas into written form.
The revolution of teaching-learning process runs very fast at this present
time. Teacher is not the center of the learning process anymore and sometime it is
4
into the needs of the students rather than those of others which are involved in the
educational process and system. This approach is theoretically said as “Student
Centered Learning (SCL)”. The teacher is functioned as a facilitator and no longer
positioned as the main source of knowledge and information in the
teaching-learning process. And the main core of the teaching-teaching-learning process is moved to
the students’ activeness. If the students have difficulty in learning, that is the time
for the teacher to play the role as the facilitator to guide the students and to tell
them what they don’t know and what they don’t understand.
A paragraph is a distinct unit of thought which may contain a topic
sentence (Chitravelu, et.al., 2005:165). Another source, Muschla (2011:113)
states that the paragraph contains a topic sentence that states the main idea of the
paragraph and other sentences support the main idea with details and examples.
As the conclusion, paragraph is a group of sentences that contains a single main
idea and supported by details and examples which is related each other. Writing a
descriptive paragraph is not easy. It needs the way to associate the thoughts and
ideas.
Coffin, et al. (2005:37) says that Clustering is a helpful technique to see a
visual representation of ideas. Kalandadze (2007:6) states that clustering is a
technique used to see a visual map of our ideas and able to make us think more
creatively in making new association. This technique will lead the students to
create and think more creatively in writing. This method is also one of the
applications of students centered learning because the students will be led to be
5
In addition, previous researcher, Hariani (2013) states clustering technique
helps students to improve their achievement in writing recount texts in SMPN 05
Kota Jambi. By considering the different sample, technique, and the genre, the
researcher wants to know the effect of using clustering technique in teaching
descriptive paragraph in MTsS Al Abraar. Recount genre has communicative
purpose to retell events for the purpose of informing or entertaining to the readers
while descriptive genre has communicative purpose to describe a particular
person, place or thing. Moreover, recount has generic structure namely;
orientation-record of event-reorientation while descriptive has generic structure
namely; identification and description.
B.The Problem of the Study
In accordance with the background of the study, the problem of the study
is formulated as follows;
“Is there any significant effect on students’ achievement in writing
descriptive paragraph by applying clustering technique?”
C.The Objective of the Study
In line with the problem, the objective is to investigate if there is a
significant effect of applying clustering technique on the students’ achievement in
writing descriptive paragraph.
D.The Scope of the Study
As written in syllabus of Junior High School, there are some types of
6
students’ achievement in writing descriptive paragraph specifically on describing
personality by applying one technique that is, clustering technique.
E.The Significance of the Study
The findings of this study are expected to be relevant and useful
theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the findings of this study are expected
to be useful for the readers to broaden and to enrich their horizon in theory of
learning English and can be reference for further studies.
Practically, the findings of this study are expected to be useful for:
1) English teachers, as an alternative teaching resource to give more
information about another technique which can be applied in teaching
writing in order to enhance their competence in teaching
2) English learners, to motivate and to enable them to improve their
writing achievement
3) Decision maker, as one of source of information in making a decision in
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Conclusions
After analyzing the data, the conclusions are drawn as the following.
(1) Because of the tobserved is higher than ttable (1.760 > 1.673), null hypothesis is
rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted
(2) The reliability of the test administered to student is 0.63 and it is categorized
as “high”
(3) And it is proven that there is a significant effect of applying clustering
technique on the students’ achievement in writing descriptive paragraph
because the students’ score results is higher after the treatment.
B. Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions, suggestions are staged as the following:
(1) The English teacher is suggested to choose and apply clustering technique
to improve students’ achievement in writing so that the students can be
helped in expressing their ideas and thoughts
(2) The English learners are suggested to be more active, creative, and enjoy in
exploring their ability in writing by applying clustering technique in order to
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(3) The readers are suggested to read the findings to widen and broaden their
horizon in the theory of learning English and the decision makers are
suggested to read the findings of this study as one of the considerations in
44
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About Descriptive Paragraph in (http://www.ehow.com). Accessed on December, 26th 2013
