THE EFFECT OF SEMANTIC MAPPING TECHNIQUE ON
STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN WRITING
DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
A THESIS
Submitted to English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Medan, in Partial of the Requirement for the
Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
DEBBIE IVANALIES TAMPUBOLON Registration Number: 2103121007
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
i
ABSTRACT
Tampubolon, Debbie. 2103121007. The Effect of Semantic Mapping
Technique on Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Paragraph. A Thesis. English Department. Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. Medan: 2014.
This study deals with the effect of semantic mapping technique on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. The method of this research was experimental research. The population of this study were four parallel classes of the eighth grade of SMP Negeri 2 kutalimbaru Deli Serdang totaling students 144 students, 50 percent of totaling students were taken out as the sample of experimental group and control group by using lottery technique. The data were collected by conducting an essay test of writing. The result of the test was analyzed statistically by applying the t-test formula. From the calculation, it was obtained that t-observed (6,4) higher than t-table (1,994) at the level of significance
( and df=70. It means that the application of semantic mapping
technique on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text was effective because the result showed that students’ score were higher after the treatment. In conclusion, it is accepteble that semantic mapping technique gave a significant effect on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
First and foremost, the writer would like to express her deepest thanks to the Almighty God, Jesus Christ for the non-stop blessing during her life time, for all wonderful people with whom she lives a life full of happiness and warmth, for the generous chance to complete her study, and the guidance so that she finally could finish her thesis.
This thesis is submitted to the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Medan as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for taking the degree of Sarjana Pendidikan. The writer believes that this thesis is far from being perfect; however, this is the best work she has ever made.
In completing this thesis, there were many people had given their help directly and indirectly. The writer would like to express her sincere gratitude and appreciation to those wonderful people:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., the Rector of State University of
Medan
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of faculty of Languages and
Arts
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English Department and also
the Writer Consultant, for her patient guidance, immense knowledge,
excellent advice, and constractive comments during completing this thesis Dra. Meisuri, M.A. the Secretary of English Department
Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed. the Head of English Education
Program and also Thesis Examiner
Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M.Pd. her Academic Advisor and also her
M.Pd., her Proposal Reviewers and Thesis Examiners who gave comment,
suggestion and advise to the writer
Mam Euis for the administrative help in requirements process
Farida Eriani, S.Pd., the Headmaster and all Teachers and Staffs of SMP
Negeri 2 Kutalimbaru Deliserdang for their generosity in supporting her in
carrying out her research in the school
Her beloved parents, M.Tampubolon and R.Pardede, S.Pd., for their
constant spiritual, mental, moral and material support, encouragement, motivations, patience, carring, love, the days and nights prays; her dearest sisters, Iin Valentina Tampubolon and Elizabeth Tampubolon, for
sharing a totally unforgettable lifetime with her
Her loving friends, Lala, Afsyah, Kiki, Yuni, Dhian, Mey, Sande, Ira,
Mery, Lidya, Fandy, Freddy, Ernika, Mona, Hertina for the friendly
friendship and for all of their supports and advices. The writer also thanks
for all great times their shared.
Her lovely classmates, DIK Reguler B 2010, for the wonderful four years
she spent with them
Overall, the writer hopes she can give a bit cntribution to language education,
especially major of English.
Medan, December 2014 Writer
a) Paragraph... 11
b) Descriptive text ... 12
4. Semantic Mapping Technique... 15
a) The Advantages of Semantic Mapping Technique ... 17
b) Procedure of a Semantic Mapping ... 17
5. Lecture Method ... 19
B. Conceptual framework ... 20
C. Hypothesis ... 21
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 22
A. Research Design ... 22
B. Population and Sample ... 22
C. The Instrument for Collecting Data ... 23
D. Research Finding ... 37
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ... 39
A. Conclusion ... 39
B. Suggestion ... 39
LIST OF FIGURE
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix A Lesson Plan of Experimental and Control Group ... 42
Appendix B Table Critical Value of t ... 65
Appendix C The Analysis Data of Experimental and Control Group ... 67
REFFERENCES
Ary, D., et.al. 2002. Introduction of Research in Education (6th edition), United State of America: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Brown, H. D. 2001. Teaching by Principle: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (2nd edition). New York: Pearson Education.
Byrne, Donn. 1979. Teaching Writing Skill. Longman.
Harmer, J. 2004. How To Teach Writing. England: Pearson Education. Heaton, J. B. 1988. Writing English Test. Longman.
Jooly, D. 1984. Writing Task. New York: Cambridge University.
Knapp, P., and Watkins, M. (2005). Genre, Text and Grammar. Sidney. University of South Wales.
Nainggolan, Ekavita. 2013. The Effect of Semantic Map in Writing Skill. Medan. Universitas Prima Indonesia.
Nunan, D. (2003). Practical English Language Teaching. New York: McGraw Hill .
Oshima, A., and Hogue. 1999. Writing Academic English; Third Edition. United State of America: Addison Wesley Publishing Company.
Pardiyono. 2007. Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre Based Writing. Yogyakarta: CV. Andi Offset.
Rashdell, Sarah. And Marie-Laure B.2002. New Direction for Research in L2 Writing; Studies in Writing. Dodrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
Sharples, M. 1999 . How We Write; Writing as Creative Design. London: Routledge.
Siddiq, Ahmad. 2013. The Use of Semantic Mapping Technique to Improve Writing Skill in The Descriptive Text. JP3, Vol 12.
Urawan, Agus. 2013. Using Semantic Mapping to Improve Students’ Achievement in Writing Descriptive Text. IKIP PGRI: Semarang.
http://teacherside.blogspot.com/2014/03/genre-kinds-of-text.html. Accessed on March,10th 2014.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
English is the international language that needs to be developed in Indonesia. Due to the ability to communicate in English, people will be able to
obtain and provide information that is very important for oneself and the environment. Studying English is not easy for many Indonesian students since it is
foreign language. Foreign languge is the language that is being learned not spoken in the local community. Although English is foreign language, it is very important
to be mastered, because it is as an international language.
In learning English, there are four skills should be thought to students. They are speaking, listening, reading and writing. From the four skills the
researcher stresses on writing, because writing is difficult subject for most students even though it has been taught since kindergarten up to university.
Writing is a very important capability for being owned by students, writing is also an excellent communication tool. Through writing, someone can express her/his ideas, thoughts, and experiences freely through write language. According
to Sharples (1999:8) Writing is an opportunity; it allows students to express something about themselves, explore and explain ideas. Student can convey their
ideas in their mind by organizing them into a good writing so that the other people understand the text and they can get the idea.
According to sylabus of Junior High School (SMP) for grade eight (VIII),
text by using accurate vocabulary, appropriate grammar and impresses on the discourse level. It means that the teaching process does not only focus on the text
but also focuses on how to construct a new text well. After being taught, they are expected to be able to tell about the real life writtenly.
Based on the explanation above, descriptive text is one of the genres in writing texts that must be mastered by students in learning English. It is taught by teacher in order to make students can describe themselves and their surronding
although it is still in a simple way. Description is enable the categorization or classification of an almost infinite range of experience, observation and
interaction into a system that orders them for immediate and future references which allows us to know them either objectively or subjectively, depending on the learning area or intent of the writer (Knapp and Watkins, 2005:79).
There are most problems of teaching writing in every school which the teacher has to solve it, like in MTS Al-Ma’arif Singosari Malang. In this school,
the students got difficulty to write because they did not know what they should write, and most of them didn’t understand generic structure, function, and lexico
grammatical feature in descriptive text. They only asked by the teacher to translate and fill the blank in exercise in only one book “LKS”. They did not understand the meaning of descriptive text itself. The score of the students’ writing
achievemnet proved an unsatisfactory ability. Their scores were 53.65 in average (Siddiq, 2013:9).
teacher only explained what the generic structure of the text. The teacher orally presented information and the students only passively listened or took note. In
teaching writing, the teacher only asked the students to write the text but they
didn’t give an appropiate way in order to share their idea so that they can write a
good text. They were lack of motivation and ideas, lack of mastering vocabulary, and grammar. Therefore, the students would be unmotivated, bored and have difficulties in writing. They also didn’t able to describe the things in a systematics
order.
The teacher should give students new methods in order to make them
enjoyable, easy, and memorable about the material especially in writing descriptive text, Ransdell and Laure Barbier (2002: 143) say that a good writing technique can be trained, and it can improve writing performance. In this case, the
writer wants to introduce a technique in writing descriptive text by using semantic mapping technique. Semantic mapping is visual technique which shows the major
ideas of certain topic and how they are related. It enhances vocabulary development by helping student link new information with previous experience.
Semantic mapping technique portay the schematic relations that compose the concept. It allows students to conceptually explore their knowledge of a new word by mapping it with other related words or phrases similar in meaning to the new
word.
Based on the discussion above, researcher decided to conduct a research to
B. The problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the problem of the study was
formulated as follows: “Is there any significant effect of applying semantic
mapping technique on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text of grade
eight (VIII) at SMP Negeri 2 Kutalimbaru Kab. Deliserdang?”
C. The Objective of the Study
In relation to the problem, the objective of the study was to find out whether or not semantic mapping technique affect on students’ achievement in
writing descriptive text significantly.
D.The Scope of the Study
There are many genres of writing which learnt in the SMP (Junior High School) such as recount, descriptive, narrative, procedure, and report. Specipically
this study focused on the use of semantic mapping technique on students’ achievement in writing descriptive text. In the other words, the study was
concentrated on the genre of descriptive.
E. The Significant of the Study
The study about the effect of Semantic Mapping Technique on students’
achievement in writing descriptive text hopefully will give contribution to English
1. Theoretically
The result of this study will enrich the technique of English teaching and
learning and also to contribute the development of knowledge in English teaching and learning.
2. Practically
The significances of the study are hopefully useful for:
a) The Students. They can improve their writing ability in descriptive
text through semantic mapping technique.
b) The Teachers. This study also expect to give contribution to the
English teacher in the use of Semantic Mapping Technique on writing descriptive text in order to overcome the problems of
students’ achievement in writing.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Having analized the data that have been presented in the previous chapter,
it was found that the mean of experimental and control group in the post-test score are 71,25 and 61,25. It’s mean that the mean score of post-test of experimental is
higher than those of control group.
Since the value of t-observe was 6,4 with df (70) at the level significance (0,05) is higher than t-table 1,994 the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. So,
from the calculation of the data, it can be concluded that semantic mapping technique significantly affect students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
B.Suggestion
The result of the study showed that the aplication of semantic mapping technique sicnificantly affect the students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.
Based on the conclusion, the suggestion can be stated as the following:
1. It is suggested to the teachers to apply semantic mapping technique in
writing descriptive text because it provides an opportunity for the students to work creatively in writing and it makes students able to develop their
2. It is suggested to the students to keep applying semantic mapping technique in writing descriptive text because this technique is appropriate for the students’ need.
3. Other researcher who are interested for further study (university students)
related to this research shoul explore the knowledge to enlarge the understanding about how to improve students’ achievement in writing
