The use of five-minute freewriting to reduce students` writing anxiety in paragraph writing class.

vii ABSTRACT

Wijaya, Angelina Diva Bellarosa Atas. (2015). The Use of Five-minute

Freewriting to Reduce Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph Writing Class. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Writing is one of the English skills which has to be mastered by the students in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. However writing is not easy since the ELESP students are EFL students. They faced some problems in writing mostly related to ideas development, paragraph organization, and vocabulary mastery. Those problems arise anxiety for them. One of the lecturers in Paragraph writing class of Sanata Dharma University has implemented one of the techniques to reduce students’ writing anxiety. The technique is called freewriting. Further, the researcher has experienced writing anxiety, therefore the researcher was interested to discuss the use of five-minute freewriting to reduce students writing anxiety.

There were two research questions in this study. The first research question was aimed to find out the factors which influence students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class. The second research question was aimed to analyse to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class.

This study belonged to survey research. The data was collected by using two research instruments: questionnaire, and interview. The writer distributed questionnaires to thirty students of Paragraph Writing class D in academic year 2013/2014 of English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University. After that, the researcher interviewed two students from the class to support the result of questionnaire data.

Based on the findings, the writer concluded that students experienced anxiety feeling at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class because of (1) Having lower score in Basic Writing course, (2) Having lack of vocabulary, (3) having lack of structure, (4) having difficulty in developing ideas, and (5) having perception that writing is difficult. From the data gathered, it is shown that since the lecturer implemented five-minute freewriting to the students, their writing anxiety was reduced because they are accustomed to write. Consequently, the students were able to (1) find ideas faster, (2) develop idea, topic sentence, and paragraph, and (3) produce more words.

viii ABSTRAK

Wijaya, Angelina Diva Bellarosa Atas. (2015). The Use of Five-minute

Freewriting to Reduce Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph Writing Class. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Menulis adalah satu kemampuan dalam Bahasa Inggris yang harus di kuasai oleh mahasiswa di Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma. Bagaimanapun juga menulis tidaklah mudah untuk dilakukan sejak mahasiswa PBI adalah mahasiswa yang menggunakan Bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing. Mereka menemukan beberapa masalah dalam menulis yang kebanyakan berhubungan dengan pengembangan ide, organisasi paragraf, dan penguasaan kosakata. Masalah-masalah tersebut menimbulkan perasaan cemas bagi mereka. Salah satu dosen yang mengampu kelas Paragraph Writing sudah mengimplemetasikan satu teknik untuk mengurangi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis. Teknik itu disebut menulis bebas. Selanjutnya, peneliti pernah merasakan kecemasan dalam menulis, sehingga tertarik untuk mendiskusikan penggunaan menulis bebas dalam waktu lima menit untuk mengurangi kecemasan menulis mahasiswa.

Dalam penelitian ini, terdapat dua rumusan masalah. Rumusan masalah yang pertama diarahkan untuk menemukan faktor apa sajakah yang mempengaruhi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis. Rumusan masalah yang kedua diarahkan untuk menganalisis sejauh mana lima menit menulis bebas dapat mengurangi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis.

Penelitian ini termasuk dalam penelitian survey. Data di kumpulkan dengan menggunakan dua instrumen penelitan: kuesioner, dan wawancara. Peneliti membagikan kuesioner kepada tiga puluh mahasiswa Paragraph Writing kelas D di Program Studi PBI Universitas Sanata Dharma. Setelah itu, peneliti mewawancari dua mahasiswa dari kelas tersebut untuk mendukung hasil dari data kuesioner.

Berdasarkan temuan, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan dalam menulis di awal kelas Paragraph Writing karena mendapatkan nilai yang rendah pada pelajaran Basic Writing, kurang kosakata, kurang pengetahuan tentang susunan kata, kesulitan dalam mengembangkan ide, dan memiliki persepsi bahwa menulis sulit. Sejak dosen mata kuliah tersebut mengimplementasikan lima menit menulis bebas, kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis berkurang karena mereka menjadi terbiasa menulis. Hasilnya, mahasiswa dapat menemukan, ide dengan cepat, mengembangkan ide, topik kalimat, dan paragraf lebih cepat, dan menghasilkan kata lebih banyak.

i

THE USE OF FIVE-MINUTE FREEWRITING TO REDUCE

STUDENTS’ WRITING ANXIETY IN PARAGRAPH WRITING

CLASS

A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By:

Angelina Diva B.A.W 111214027

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

iv

This thesis is dedicated to the Lord for the everlasting Love,

Grace, and Faithfullness in my life

This thesis is also dedicated to my mom, Ibu Anna Atas

and my dad, Bapak Albertus Asthy for their everlasting

v

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

I honestly declared that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the works or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, 21 Agustus 2015 The writer

vi

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH

UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertandatangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Angelina Diva

NIM : 111214027

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma, karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

THE USE OF FIVE-MINUTE FREEWRITING TO REDUCE STUDENTS’ WRITING ANXIETY

Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal 12 Oktober 2015 Yang menyatakan

vii ABSTRACT

Wijaya, Angelina Diva Bellarosa Atas. (2015). The Use of Five-minute

Freewriting to Reduce Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph Writing Class.

Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Writing is one of the English skills which has to be mastered by the students in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. However writing is not easy since the ELESP students are EFL students. They faced some problems in writing mostly related to ideas development, paragraph organization, and vocabulary mastery. Those problems arise anxiety for them. One of the lecturers in Paragraph writing class of Sanata Dharma University has implemented one of the techniques to reduce students’ writing anxiety. The technique is called freewriting. Further, the researcher has experienced writing anxiety, therefore the researcher was interested to discuss the use of five-minute freewriting to reduce students writing anxiety.

There were two research questions in this study. The first research question was aimed to find out the factors which influence students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class. The second research question was aimed to analyse to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class.

This study belonged to survey research. The data was collected by using two research instruments: questionnaire, and interview. The writer distributed questionnaires to thirty students of Paragraph Writing class D in academic year 2013/2014 of English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University. After that, the researcher interviewed two students from the class to support the result of questionnaire data.

Based on the findings, the writer concluded that students experienced anxiety feeling at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class because of (1) Having lower score in Basic Writing course, (2) Having lack of vocabulary, (3) having lack of structure, (4) having difficulty in developing ideas, and (5) having perception that writing is difficult. From the data gathered, it is shown that since the lecturer implemented five-minute freewriting to the students, their writing anxiety was reduced because they are accustomed to write. Consequently, the students were able to (1) find ideas faster, (2) develop idea, topic sentence, and paragraph, and (3) produce more words.

viii ABSTRAK

Wijaya, Angelina Diva Bellarosa Atas. (2015). The Use of Five-minute

Freewriting to Reduce Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph Writing Class.

Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

Menulis adalah satu kemampuan dalam Bahasa Inggris yang harus di kuasai oleh mahasiswa di Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Sanata Dharma. Bagaimanapun juga menulis tidaklah mudah untuk dilakukan sejak mahasiswa PBI adalah mahasiswa yang menggunakan Bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing. Mereka menemukan beberapa masalah dalam menulis yang kebanyakan berhubungan dengan pengembangan ide, organisasi paragraf, dan penguasaan kosakata. Masalah-masalah tersebut menimbulkan perasaan cemas bagi mereka. Salah satu dosen yang mengampu kelas Paragraph Writing sudah mengimplemetasikan satu teknik untuk mengurangi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis. Teknik itu disebut menulis bebas. Selanjutnya, peneliti pernah merasakan kecemasan dalam menulis, sehingga tertarik untuk mendiskusikan penggunaan menulis bebas dalam waktu lima menit untuk mengurangi kecemasan menulis mahasiswa.

Dalam penelitian ini, terdapat dua rumusan masalah. Rumusan masalah yang pertama diarahkan untuk menemukan faktor apa sajakah yang mempengaruhi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis. Rumusan masalah yang kedua diarahkan untuk menganalisis sejauh mana lima menit menulis bebas dapat mengurangi kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis.

Penelitian ini termasuk dalam penelitian survey. Data di kumpulkan dengan menggunakan dua instrumen penelitan: kuesioner, dan wawancara. Peneliti membagikan kuesioner kepada tiga puluh mahasiswa Paragraph Writing kelas D di Program Studi PBI Universitas Sanata Dharma. Setelah itu, peneliti mewawancari dua mahasiswa dari kelas tersebut untuk mendukung hasil dari data kuesioner.

Berdasarkan temuan, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa mahasiswa mengalami kecemasan dalam menulis di awal kelas Paragraph Writing karena mendapatkan nilai yang rendah pada pelajaran Basic Writing, kurang kosakata, kurang pengetahuan tentang susunan kata, kesulitan dalam mengembangkan ide, dan memiliki persepsi bahwa menulis sulit. Sejak dosen mata kuliah tersebut mengimplementasikan lima menit menulis bebas, kecemasan mahasiswa dalam menulis berkurang karena mereka menjadi terbiasa menulis. Hasilnya, mahasiswa dapat menemukan, ide dengan cepat, mengembangkan ide, topik kalimat, dan paragraf lebih cepat, dan menghasilkan kata lebih banyak.

ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my Lord, Jesus Christ, who always blesses and gives me spirit, chance, and ideas in writing this

thesis. He gives me strength, love, and care so that my thesis has come into its completion. Secondly, my gratitude goes to my family who supported me the most in finishing this thesis. They are Albertus Asthy Widjaya S. Pd. and Anna Atas N.S. I also thank my sister Angela Carina Devi who always supports me to

finish my thesis faster. I also thanked myself as a person who has struggled for every situation and condition in accomplishing this thesis.

This thesis has been accomplished successfully with the help of many people. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisor, Yuseva Ariyani Iswandari, S.Pd., M.Ed., who is willing to help and give many

suggestions for the completion of my thesis. I thank her for her patience, willingness, care, support, and suggestion so that I can finish my thesis.

In addition, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my academic advisor, Christina Lhaksmita Anandari, S.Pd., Ed.M., and all PBI lecturers for their roles during my study in PBI.

I am mostly indebted to all members of the secretariat staff who always help me in administration matters patiently and librarians who help me in a friendly manner.

x

my sincere thanks go to my grandfathers, Eyang Yos Soenarso and Eyang Soenaryo, my grandmother, Eyang Anna for their prayer and support. I would

also thank my aunts, Tante Tika and Tante Iin Hapsoro, my uncle Om Hepi Hapsoro, for their support, advices, love, care, and patient.

I also thank my best partner in life, Vicki who always pays attention and gives his care, love, and time to always help me whenever and wherever I need. I also give my gratitude to my thunder buddies for life, Mama Aerobic: Ulan, Tari, Mege, Dyas, and Tina for being the best partners, special friends, awesome

girls, and second family who kindly support me during my study and my process in finishing this thesis from the bottom to the top. I would also thank my dearest friends, Novianti Sistalia and Br. Filianus Nasu Rusik, for the lovely care in supporting my study. I am also thankful to my friends, Br. Titus Angga and Diana Kurniawati for her everlasting patience in guiding me to finish my thesis.

Lastly, I want to give my gratitude to the people whom I cannot mention one by one who have supported and helped me during the learning process in ELESP. I am so blessed to live and proceed together with them. They give me a meaningful university life.

Sincerely,

xii

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY ... 29

A. Research Method ... 30

B. Research Setting ... … 30

C. Research Participants ... 30

D. Instrument and Data Gathering Technique ... 32

E. Data Analysis Technique ... 37

F. Research Procedures ... 38

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 40

A. Findings ... 41

B. Discussion ... 55

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS ... 66

A. Conclusion ... 66

B. Suggestions ... 68

xiii

LIST OF TABLE

3.1 The Questionnaire Blueprint ... 33

3.2 EFL Students’ Anxious Feeling before Using Five-minute Freewriting. 34 3.3 EFL Students’ Anxious Feeling after Using Five-minute Freewriting ... 35

3.4 The List of Questions in the Interview ... 36

3.5 Example of Table of Questionnaire ... 37

4.1 Students’ Anxious Feeling Before Using Five-minute Freewriting ... 42

4.2 Factors Which Influence Students’ Writing Anxiety ... 45

4.3 Students’ Anxious Feeling after Using Five-minute Freewriting ... 49

4.4 To What Extent Five-minute Freewriting can Reduce Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph Writing class ... 51

4.5 The Factors Which Influence Students’ Writing Anxiety... 57

xiv

LIST OF FIGURE

4.1 The Quantity of Word Production of One Respondent’s Freewriting

xv

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1. Students’ Questionnaire ... 74

Appendix 2. Data of Close-ended Questionnaire ... 78

Appendix 3. Data of Open-ended Questionnaire ... 81

Appendix 4. The Result of Close-ended Questionnaire ... 88

Appendix 5. Questionnaire Blueprint ... 91

Appendix 6. Result of Interview ... 93

Appendix 7. Paragraph Writing course Outline ... 95

Appendix 8. Example of A Student’s Freewriting ... 97

1 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This study deals with the use of five-minute freewriting to reduce students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class of English Language

Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. This chapter consists of six points, namely the research background, the research problem, the problem limitation, the research objective, the research benefit, and the definition of terms.

A. Research Background

Writing is one of the English skills which has to be mastered by the students in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University who are considered as English as Foreign Language (EFL) students. According to Muhyidin (1988), the students are expected to be able to compose well organized pieces of writing in English as their foreign language. Due to the fact that EFL students can express their ideas through writing, they should make their thought clear to be read. Muhyidin states, “Expressing ideas in well-organized paragraph is essential to your success in your study” (1988, p. 1).

write a good writing to make their thought readable and understandable. However, there are many problems in writing which put the EFL students into trouble. It is shown by the errors they made. Problems in writing for EFL students are not only about the awareness of minimum requirements, grammar and punctuation but also the organization of the paragraph. As Muhyidin states, “…writing has always had problems that put the students into trouble, as shown by errors they made in both the organization of the composition and the language” (1988, p. 5). Problems in writing can appear whether in a paragraph or essay, but in this study the researcher would like to focus on problems in Paragraph Writing Class of ELESP Sanata Dharma University.

The researchers such as MacIntyre (1995), Horwitz et al. (1986) and MacIntyre and Gardner (1989 and 1991) claim that language courses are very anxiety-provoking. Since English is not EFL students’ first language, most of them, on occasion got writing anxiety before they started to write. Anxiety is a common experience to some of EFL students on an almost daily basis. According to Huberty (2004), the central characteristic of anxiety is worry, which is excessive concern about situations with uncertain outcomes. Anxiety is said to be one of the factors that could affect the process of learning.

The researcher chose this topic because ELESP students of Sanata Dharma University often found difficulties in writing and anxiety was one of the causes for EFL Students of ELESP Sanata Dharma University while they are writing a paragraph. It could make their writing products not in a good organization. EFL students usually feel difficult to focus on what they are going to write because they are afraid of making mistake and suddenly have no idea. For example, when EFL students worry about the grammatical mistake before they start to write, they feel anxious and afraid if they make mistake in their writing. According to Hyland (2003) and Sawalha et al. (2012) there are six major factors of which cause writing anxiety. The six major factors are: (1) having difficulties in finding ideas, (2)having lack of vocabulary, (3) having difficulty in producing correct sentences, (4) making grammatical mistake, (5) making minimum requirement mistake, and (6) being evaluated (as cited in Iswandari, 2013, p. 46).

The researcher did not feel confident to write her ideas on a paragraph. As a result, it really affected the researcher’s writing performance.

One of the lecturers of Paragraph Writing class uses five-minute freewriting as the media to reduce students’ writing anxiety before they start the

writing activity. “Freewriting was one of the popular methods used during the late 1960s and early 1970s (Fox & Suhor, 1986) to improve writing fluency (as cited in Hwang, 2010). Students are asked to write anything on a piece of paper before they enter to the material given. They can freely write about anything which comes up to their minds. According to Elbow and Bellanof (2000), freewriting is defined as writing any ideas or thoughts that come to mind in a given time period without stopping (as cited in Hwang, 2010). It can be their feelings, experiences, opinions, suggestion, things, person, and so on.

B. Research Problems

The researcher formulates two research questions:

1. What factors influence EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class?

2. To what extent can five-minute freewriting reduce EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class?

C. Research Objectives

This study is aimed to:

1. Find out the factors influence EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class.

2. Analyze to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class.

D. Problem Limitation

E. Research Benefits

The results of the study are hoped to give benefits to Paragraph Writing Students (EFL) in the academic of year 2014/2015, teachers, writing lecturers, the future researcher and ELESP Sanata Dharma University.

1. For Paragraph Writing Students (EFL) in academic year 2014/2015

This study is aimed to become students’ reference and it will help the students to overcome their writing anxiety and determine if the writing methods can be helpful in improving students’ writing skill. The students also can read and

identify which part of anxiety they belong to and they can reduce it by using five-minute freewriting.

2. For English writing lecturers

This study will help the lecturers to cope with students’ problem in writing especially the writing anxiety. The research will help to identify the factors which influence students’ writing anxiety and implement the five-minute freewriting to reduce students’ writing anxiety.

3. For future researcher

becomes a teacher in the future, this research will help the researcher to know the appropriate method to be used.

5. For ELESP Sanata Dharma University

The researcher hopes that the result of this research will help ELESP Sanata Dharma to develop teaching and learning activity, especially in writing course. Since five-minute freewriting gives positive effect, it can be implemented not only in Paragraph Writing course but also in other courses which are related to writing activity.

F. Definition of Terms

In order to give clear explanation and to avoid misunderstanding from the readers, the researcher provides the definition of terms used in this study. It helps the readers to understand the content or theories in this study.

1. Five-minute freewriting

own period and the subsequent back-to-the basics backlash of the 1970s” (Reynold, 1984, p.81 as cited in Hwang, 2010). Elbow (1998b) who is proponent of freewriting argued that students should not stop writing while do freewriting because “the main thing about freewriting is that it is nonediting” (Elbow, 1998b as cited in Hwang, 2010). In writing, there is more time to do it so the editing is heavier (Elbow, 1973). According to Elbow, the most effective way to improve writing is to do freewriting (1973).

The second characteristic of freewriting is nonediting. Elbow argued that, “the main thing about freewriting is that it is nonediting” (1973). There is no feedback or comments on freewriting. Elbow also claims that what is accomplished through practicing freewriting “separating the producing process

from the revising process” (Elbow, 1998b, p.14 as cited in Hwang, 2010).

The third characteristic of freewriting is written in a page of paper. “It is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on a page” (Elbow, 1973). Some researchers like Polio (2001) are concerned that focusing on fluency might have negative impact on writing quality; however the quality of writing is not considered an issue in freewriting (Polio, 2001 as cited in Hwang, 2010).

minutes. This activity was done frequently before the class began. The students used paper as the media to write their freewriting.

2. Writing Anxiety

Anxiety is a common experience to all of us on an almost daily basis. There are many definitions of anxiety, but the more appropriate one to be used in this research is apprehension or excessive fear about real or imagined circumstances. According to Zanden, anxiety is defined as a diffuse, unfocused emotional state, and fear as a response to tangible stimuli (1984). “Anxiety is a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object” (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971). Anxiety is a term which describes a normal feeling people experience when faced with threat or danger, or when stressed. The central characteristic of anxiety is worry, which is excessive concern about situations with uncertain outcomes (Huberty, 2004).

3. Paragraph Writing Class

11 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This following chapter presents the review of related literature which is used to answer the research questions. This chapter consists of two sections; the theoretical description and the theoretical framework. In theoretical description, the researcher provides some theories about writing, anxiety, writing anxiety, the students in Paragraph Writing class which are considered as EFL (English as Foreign Language) students, and freewriting. While the second section is theoretical framework which consists of the summary of the major relevant theories to help the researcher conducts the study to solve the research problems.

A. Theoretical Description

This study discusses the use of five-minute freewriting to reduce EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class. This chapter provides the theories which are related to the study matter. This section describes the theories of writing which includes the nature of writing, types, benefits and some important information of writing. Then, since the first research problem deals with the factors which influence EFL students’ writing anxiety, the researcher provides

1. Writing

In this section, the researcher provides the theories related to writing. There are three aspects of writing which are going to be discussed in the following parts. There are the nature, benefits, and problems of writing.

a. The Nature of Writing

In this part, the researcher would discuss the nature of writing. First of all, writing is an activity which produces a set of words. Since writing is one of four English skills, writing becomes the important part which has to be mastered. However, there are some theories about writing. By focusing on language structure, writing is seen as a product constructed from the writer’s ability of lexical and grammatical (Hyland, 2003). It means that to have a good writing, a writer should have lexical and grammatical understanding. Besides, by focusing on the creative expression, writing is considered as a way of sharing personal meanings and highlighted individual to construct a topic (Hyland, 2003). On the other hand, writing is the expression of meaning by developing the power to build or raise a topic. In addition, writing is a focused and communicative activity that responds to other people by replying other texts (Hyland, 2003). “Writing lets us communicate with others who are removed by distance or time” (MacArthur C.A, Graham, S, & Fitzgerald, 2006). According to Sokolik in Nunan (2003), writing can be defined by a series of contrasts:

1) Writing is both a physical and a mental activity

onto parchment or an e-mail message which is typed into a computer” (2003). It means that writing is a physical activity in presenting words or ideas either written by hand on a paper directly or typed by hands through computer. Besides, writing is the mental work of developing ideas, thinking about how to express them, and organizing them into statements and paragraph. In this case, writing is the intellectual or emotional activity to develop and organize the sentences to be expressed in a well-formed paragraph.

2) Writing is both a process and a product

Writing is a process which meant by an activity of imagining, organizing, drafting, editing, reading, and reviewing. This process of writing is often repeated, and sometimes disorderly. Repeated means frequently done in several times. As a result, what the readers see is a product. The products can be seen as an essay, letter, story, or research report.

b. The Benefits of Writing

There is a famous quote that sounds “The pen is mightier than a sword”. It means that writing has great power than it seems. In other words, writing is beneficial for people especially when they are trying to communicate some information and knowledge. Besides, writing is very useful because people can express their thought through writing. In these following paragraphs, the researcher provided the benefits of writing according to some experts.

result of their writing. As it is stated by MacArthur C.A, Graham S, & Fitzgerald, “writing makes it possible to gather, preserve, and transmit information widely,

with great detail and accuracy (2006). Writing is combined effectively into all aspects of our society. For instance, administration of social organization depends on memos and emails, job seekers must complete their written application, and scientists shared their findings and ideas in journal or on web (MacArthur C.A, Graham S, & Fitzgerald, 2006).

The second benefit of writing according to Hyland (2003) is providing students with the experience of an independent performance. The students are accustomed to combine the knowledge of content, process, language, context, and genre. In addition, “Writing provides an important means for personal self-expression” (MacArthur C.A, Graham S, & Fitzgerald, 2006). People use writing to discover who they are, to fight loneliness, to report their experience, and to create different realities. In fact, according to MacArthur C.A, Graham S, & Fitzgerald, “writing can also reduce depression, lower blood pressure, and boost immune system” (2006, p.1).

c. Problem of Writing

According to Elbow (1973), writing is not just putting ideas on a paper; it is also creating new ideas during the process. That what makes writing becomes difficult. The following paragraph will discuss the problems in writing according some experts.

Gupta says that writing has long been claimed to be a very difficult skill to acquire and is dreaded by L2 student (Gupta, 1998). It is difficult because L2 students are potentially different with L1 students. In Hyland’s theory of writing problem, (2003) it is distinguished by their bilingual and bicultural backgrounds and particularly their previous experiences as writers and students. It means that their first language and cultural backgrounds are being the factors that should be understood as potential of explanation for writing difference. For instance, Indonesian students will face more difficulties in deciding words to be written or spoken because they learn English as Foreign Language not as their first language. It leads the L2 students to face more problems in writing than L1 students.

d. Problems in Paragraph Level

Expressing ideas in a well-organized paragraph is important to student’s study especially for EFL students (Muhyidin, 1988). It means that both organization and form of the paragraph are the important parts in writing a paragraph. The students are introduced to the concept of topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence to make a well unity and coherence paragraph. Since in this study is focusing in Paragraph Writing, the problems appeared by the students mostly related to the organization of paragraph. As Muhyidin stated, “…a paragraph must be coherent, it must contain

sentences that are logically arranged” (1988, p.12). Each sentence in paragraph

should be related to others in order to make a paragraph coherent and unified. Students sometimes find difficulties in relating each sentence and develop the paragraph to be unified. Besides, writing is seen as a product constructed from the writer’s ability of lexical and grammatical (Hyland, 2003). Likewise, lexical and

grammatical should be understood to produce a good paragraph. Therefore the researcher classified problems in Paragraph level into two:

1). Organization

not relate to the topic sentence, this sentence is irrelevant and should be omitted because the paragraph becomes unified (Muhyidin, 1988). For instance, one student will write about the benefits of freewriting, he or she needs to mention the benefits of freewriting. If the student writes about the other subjects it will make the paragraph incoherent.

2). Forms

Since writing is seen as a product constructed from the writer’s ability of

lexical and grammatical (Hyland, 2003), vocabulary mastery and structure should be well-understood to produce a good paragraph. In fact, EFL students mostly experienced making grammatical errors and minimum requirement errors. According to Msanjila (2005), the highest frequency of writing problem is capitalization problem. Capitalization is related to the use of the first word of sentence, the pronoun “I”, abbreviations and acronyms, and proper nouns.

2. Anxiety

In this section, the researcher provides theories related to anxiety. There are two parts of this section; the nature of anxiety and the types of anxiety.

a. The Nature of Anxiety

researchers such as MacIntyre (1995), Horwitz et al. (1986) and MacIntyre and Gardner (1989 and 1991) claimed that language courses are very anxiety-provoking (as cited in Daud, 2005). “Anxiety is a state of apprehension, a vague fear that is only indirectly associated with an object” (Hilgard, Atkinson, & Atkinson, 1971). It means that anxiety is kind of public feeling of ambiguous fear, which indirectly related with something consider as an object.

The success of learning will affect student’s anxiety because it is related to the student’s optimism. It was revealed that overall, academic achievement was

the best predictor followed by foreign language anxiety (Daud, 2005). The success of learning will lead the students to be more confident and motivated so that they experience less anxiety.

Other researcher, for example, Levine reports that students who come from monolingual background tend to feel more anxious than students who come from bi- or multilingual backgrounds (Levine, 2003 as cited in Daud, 2005). It is because students who come from bilingual or multilingual background get more new knowledge from some languages. However, students who know only one language tend to feel more anxious because their knowledge of other languages is limited.

b. The Types of Anxiety

to Huberty (2004) are concentration difficulties, memory problem, worry, irritability, fear of losing control, fear of failure, and difficulties in problem solving.

Behavioral anxiety related to social anxious feeling. Behavior anxiety exists from the behavior to interact with others. Behavioral anxiety can be seen by shyness, withdrawal, frequently asking question, rapid speech, excessive talking, habit behaviors such as hair pulling or twirling, and impulsiveness (Huberty,2004). While the anxious feeling related to substantial factors called physical anxiety. Physical anxiety can be seen by eyes because it is relevant to physical activity. The examples of physical anxiety are trembling or shaking, increased heart rate, excessive perspiration, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain or discomfort, flushing of the skin, nausea and muscle tension. The type of anxiety which is related to this study is cognitive type. It is because writing is considered as thinking and intellectual activity.

3. Writing Anxiety

The following parts provide the theories of writing anxiety which covers the nature of writing anxiety, the symptoms of writing anxiety, the cause of writing anxiety and the relation between writing anxiety and EFL Students. a. The Nature of Writing anxiety

people are better at learning easy material and poorer at learning more difficult material (Weitzner, 1965 in McClelland, 1985). EFL students tend to learn more difficult material since they learn English as their foreign language and they absolutely experienced anxiety. In this research, the anxious feeling which will be discussed is writing anxiety.

Writing anxiety is defined as “a general avoidance of writing behaviour and of situations thought to potentially require some amount of writing accompanied by the potential for evaluation of that writing (Hasan, 2001, p.4. as cited in Iswandari, 2013).

The students who experienced writing anxiety tend to try avoid to write because some certain situations. Psychologically, learners who are oriented to avoiding negative judgements of their competence are more anxious about test and their performance (Linnenbrink, 2005). Negative judgements can be one of the factors which caused writing anxiety. The students become insecure in writing. As McClelland stated that there is some evidence of what more anxious people seek is some kind of security (1985, p. 376). Besides, “writing anxiety can be detrimental to your writing abilities. It can make you put off completing your work, which can lead to you not writing as well as you could” (Missisipi University,2010). In addition, writing anxiety could affect students’ writing product. Further, they need to be guided and trained to write to get the evaluation of their writing

From the statement above, writing anxiety is related to anxious feeling of self-expression, flow ideas, growing confidence and enjoyment in writing. Students who have problems with them mostly experience writing anxiety. Since EFL students come from one different culture and language background, they experience writing anxiety more.

b. The Symptoms of Writing Anxiety

c. The Cause of Writing Anxiety

According to Daud, The issue to be addressed is whether anxiety is a cause or a consequence of poor achievement in second or foreign language learning (2005, p.3). As Purves states, “Numerous studies suggest that tests produced by L2 writers are generally shorter, less cohesive, less fluent, and contain more errors” (Purves in Hyland, 1988). Moreover, Hyland also states that “students themselves commonly identify language difficulties, particularly an inadequate grasp of vocabulary or grammar, as their main problems with writing” (2003).

On the other hand, there are six major factors which influence students’

writing anxiety. According to Hyland (2003) and Sawalha et al. (2012), the six major factors which influence students writing anxiety are (1). Having difficulties in finding ideas, (2) Having lack of vocabulary, (3) having difficulty in producing correct sentences, (4) Making grammatical mistakes, (5) Making minimum requirements, and (6) Being evaluated (as cited in Iswandari, 2013, p. 46). The other factor which influences students’ writing anxiety is the different motivation in writing. As Hyland states, “Students obviously bring to the L2 writing class different writing experiences, different aptitudes and levels of motivation” (2003).

In finding another factor, teacher also needs to be sensitive with students’ practices and perception of writing (Hyland, 2003). EFL students may have difference perception about writing which lead them to the successful or unsuccessful of their writing.

she found three factors which influenced students’ writing anxiety. According to Iswandari (2013), the three major factors were: (1) Making grammatical mistakes, (2) Having difficulty in finding ideas, and (3) Making minimum requirement mistakes. There are some similarities between Hyland’s and Iswandari’s. The

similar factors which influence students’ writing anxiety are making grammatical mistakes and making minimum requirements.

d. Writing Anxiety and EFL Students in Paragraph Writing

The researcher identifies the students in Paragraph Writing Class as the subject of this study. The researcher found that the EFL students have anxious before they start to write. They are afraid to make mistake in their writing. Both Cheshire (1982, 1991) and Hyland (1998), for example, found that their “students

who worried about grammatical errors had writing anxiety or less confidence in writing” (Both Cheshire (1982, 1991) and Hyland (1998) as cited in Hwang, 2010). MacIntyre et al. (1997), found that anxious students underestimated their competence relative to less anxious ones who on the other hand, overestimated their competence (as cited in Daud, 2005, p.5). Horwitz (1986) comments that self-consciousness and anxiety of the language learner are caused by the mismatch between mature thought, immature foreign and second language proficiency (as cited in Daud, 2005, p.5).

4. Freewriting

essentially considered to be mentioned. The theories are on the nature, types, and benefit of freewriting.

a. The Nature of Freewriting

According to Elbow, “Freewriting is defined as writing any ideas or thoughts that come to mind in a given time period without stopping” (Elbow. P,

1973). However, freewriting is broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing, has been viewed and used as a powerful technique for developing student’s writing since it was initially advocated by writing theorist Peter Elbow

(1973, 1998). “Freewriting was one of the popular methods used during the late 1960 and early 1970 (Fox & Suhor, 1986) to improve writing fluency” (Fox &

Suhor, 1986 as cited in Hwang, 2010). The general characteristic of freewriting can vary depending on context such as changing the amount of time allowed or giving a specific topic (Fontaine, 1991 as cited in Hwang, 2010). MacArthur, C. A, Graham, S, & Fitzgerald (2006) also stated that “It is an exercise in bringing together the process of producing words and putting them down on the page”. In addition, freewriting leads the writer to write any words produced which come ups to the mind and deliver it into the page. Elbow (1998) who is proponent of freewriting argues that students should not stop writing while doing freewriting because “the main thing about freewriting is that it is nonediting” (as cited in Hwang, 2010). Thus, the EFL students may write everything freely in freewriting.

anxious feeling while writing. As Langan stated, “there is no need to feel inhibited, since mistakes do not count and students do not have to hand in their freewriting” (Langan, 2005). The students do not need to feel shy and introverted to make mistake while they do freewriting.

b. Types of Freewriting

There are two types of freewriting; unguided freewriting and guided freewriting. Unguided freewriting is a type of freewriting which leads the students to experience bottom-up process of writing. In this type of freewriting, bottom-up means the students develop ideas by their own self-concept. While guided freewriting is a type of freewriting which leads the students to think inductively instead of make jumping ideas.

Fontaine (1991) mentions in her study that unguided freewriting give students the opportunity to “make meaning with language” (p. 13) by letting to

individual experience to more general, abstract state which is eventually required in academic writing (Hilgers, 1980 as cited in Hwang, 2010).

Guided freewriting is useful for getting start on the actual writing itself which is considered to be one of the most difficult parts of the writing process (Elbow & Belanoff, 2000 as cited in Hwang, 2010). According to Hammond (1991), guided freewriting is used to promote student’s critical thinking. According to Hammond (1991), students were able to have deeper insights on given topics with the help of guided freewriting because it lets them think inductively instead of jumping to hasty conclusions (as cited in Hwang, 2010). Guided freewriting helped students identify all of the available argument or points of view and then make conclusion from first thoughts toward new insights (Hammond, 1991 as cited in Hwang, 2010).

c. Benefits of Freewriting

According to Elbow, the reflection of the using of freewriting will enrich student’s writing product by getting a lot of important words, phrases, and

anxiety-related dangers associated with error correction, since it withholds feedback of any kind (Hwang, 2010).

Casanave (1995), who is another researcher researching L2 writing fluency, mentioned that focusing on writing fluency tends to help students explore more in their writing without worrying about grammatical accuracy or pressure from writing classes. For example, grammar errors or grades (Casanave, 1995), which focus on the benefit of using journal writing activities in EFL college-level classes, she argued that students tend to try out more of their ideas in the “risk -free environment” (Casanave, 1995 as cited in Hwang, 2010).

Another benefit is stated, “Through continued practice in freewriting you will develop the habit of thinking as you write” (Langan, 2005). Practicing more freewriting can develop the habit of thinking in writing because the mind is accustomed to think and find the right word.

B. Theoretical Framework

As the framework of the theories, it sums up that freewriting is one of many ways which is considered as the way to overcome students writing anxiety. The lecturer in Paragraph Writing Class uses freewriting as a method to reduce student’s anxiety. Hence, the researcher would like to find out whether free

With the aim of conducting the research, the researcher uses the basic theory of writing, anxiety, writing anxiety, and freewriting. Since the study is related to writing, the basic theory of Hyland is used to identify the nature of writing and problems appeared in writing. Gupta’s theory is used by the researcher to support the problem in writing. The theory of writing anxiety is taken from Hwang’s (2009), Linnenbrick, and Huberty.

The theory of writing anxiety is used to clarify the factors which influence writing anxiety. The basic theory of Hyland and Iswandari’s findings are used to clarify the factors which influenced students’ writing anxiety. Therefore, the

theory of Hyland and Sawalha are used to be asked in the questionnaire to identify the factors which influence students writing anxiety.

29 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the researcher describes the methodology of the research. Therefore, this chapter is divided into six parts, namely, research method, research setting, research participants, instruments, data gathering technique, data analysis technique and research procedure.

A. Research Method

The researcher used surveys to get sufficient data. According to Johnson & Christensen, survey research is non-experimental research method based on questionnaire and interviews (2012). According to Ary, “Surveys permit the researcher to summarize the characteristics of different groups or to measure their attitudes and opinions toward some issue” (2010, p. 28). It means that the purpose of this survey is to collect the data from people’s opinion about specific issue. The

researcher chose personal interview as part of the survey research in order to get the valid result of the questionnaire.

the questionnaire result and answer the second research problem. The data which were gathered are numeric and textual data. The numerical data was converted into descriptive text. Numeric data was gathered from closed-ended question while textual data was gathered from open-ended questions.

B. Research Setting

The research was conducted in the even semester, the academic year 2013-2014 especially in Paragraph Writing class D. The research took place at the English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University. The research dealt with survey research in classroom and library. This research was conducted in semester 2 because Paragraph Writing course was held in this semester.

C. Research Participants

D. Instruments and data gathering technique

This section deals with research instruments and technique in gathering the data which were used in this study. The instruments were used in this research, namely questionnaire and interview to enable the researcher to get the data. The questionnaire was used to get the data from appropriate and eligible respondents. Later, the interview was used to confirm and recheck respondents’ answer in questionnaire.

1. Instruments

There are two instruments used in this research. Those instruments are questionnaire and interview.

a. Questionnaire

According to Wallace (1998, p. 124), questionnaires are usually set in a very systematic way and often answered by reading the questions, ticking responses, and writing short answers. The questionnaire consisted of close-ended questions and open-ended questions which were set to answer the research questions. There were twenty eight questionnaires which were distributed to twenty eight students at the end of the semester.

b. Interview

respondents’ answer in questionnaire. The researcher interviewed two students of twenty eight students. The interviewee was chosen randomly based on the availability of each student and in order to limit the time, the researcher chose two students.

2. Data Gathering Technique

This section deals with the technique in gathering the data. The researcher used two techniques in this research.

a. Questionnaire

In responding the questionnaire, the participants were expected to put a thick on the column of degrees; whether they were Strongly Disagree (SD), Disagree (D), Agree (A), and Strongly Agree (SA). Each statement in this questionnaire had scale to measure the frequency of agreement. The researcher adapted Likert Scale for the close-ended questionnaire. According to Brown & Rodgers (2002) Likert scale is generally useful for getting at respondents’ views, judgements, or opinion about any side of language learning and teaching.

was open-ended with four questions. The following table is the blueprint of the

Table 3.2. EFL Students’ Anxious Feeling before Using Five-minute anxious feeling before using five-minute freewriting. Statement number 1 aimed to know EFL students’ feeling whether they feel anxious at the beginning of

The following table is the second table of close-ended which was related to EFL students’ anxious feeling after using five-minute freewriting.

Table 3.3 EFL Students’ Anxious Feeling after Using Five-minute

Freewriting

statements of this part are related to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class.

In the open-ended questions, the researcher provided four questions. The respondents were free to write their idea about their anxious feeling before and after using five-minute free writing. Besides, the respondent could also describe to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce their writing anxiety. It was used in order to support the close-ended questionnaire and answer the research problems.

b. Interview

The researcher provided four questions to support the research questions. The researcher provided open-ended structure interview. The questions in interview were taken from the questionnaire. The following table provided questions asked in the interview.

Table 3.4. The List of Questions in the Interview

Questions

1. Did you feel anxious at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class? Please describe your feeling.

2. What did you know about five-minute freewriting which is implemented in your class?

3. Do you think that five-minute freewriting could reduce your writing anxiety?

E. Data Analysis Technique

In this study, the data techniques were expected to be able to gather the information. In order to find the factors which influenced students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class, the researcher distributed questionnaire to 28 students and interviewed two students. The data from the questionnaire and interview were classified into two segments: students’ anxious feeling before using five-minute freewriting and students’ anxious feeling after using five-minute freewriting. The researcher calculated the data from the questionnaire into percentages. The formula of percentages calculation was as follows:

x 100 %

in which:

∑x = the number of students based on the degree of agreement

∑n = the number of all students

After finding the degree of agreement percentage of each statement, the researcher analyzed the data of the questionnaire by using this table:

Table 3.5 Example 1 of Table of Questionnaire

No Statement

Frequencies of Responses

Strongly Agree

Furthermore, the data from interview was analyzed by rewriting the conversation between the researcher and the respondents. Then the researcher summarized the data. The researcher provided four questions as the main questions for the interview and chose two students to be interviewed. The researcher wrote the transcription of the interviews to present clearer data. On the other hand, the factors which influenced students’ writing anxiety and to what

extent five-minute freewriting could reduce students’ writing anxiety were explained clearly.

F. Research Procedures

In this study, there are four steps in conducting this research. The steps are (1) Planning, (2) Defining the Population, (3) Gathering the Data, and (4) Analyzing the Data.

1. Planning

2. Defining the Population

The researcher focused on the students in Class D second semester of ELESP Sanata Dharma University who took Paragraph Writing. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to all of the students. At the end, the researcher interviewed 2 students out of 30 students in Class D randomly.

3. Gathering the Data

In order to gather the data, the researcher distributed the questionnaire on April 13th, 2015. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to all of Paragraph Writing students. In order to avoid the distraction in the teaching and learning process, the researcher distributed the questionnaire after the class. The participants filled the questionnaire directly after the class in order to limit the time. After getting all the questionnaires, the researcher started to analyze the data. The researcher also interviewed 2 students out of 30 students to clarify the result of questionnaire data.

4. Analyzing the Data Result

40 CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter the researcher presents the data obtained and the analysis of the data. There are two major parts which are discussed in this chapter. Those are the research findings and the discussion of the findings which have been gathered by employing two research instruments: questionnaires and interviews.

A. Findings

In this section, the researcher presents the findings of the two research questions. The main instrument was the questionnaire followed by the interview to get the deeper answers from the data. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to twenty eight students of Paragraph Writing class D at the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. Since five-minute freewriting was implemented in Paragraph Writing class D, the researcher chose this class to be observed.

1. Students’ Anxious feeling Before Using Five-minute Freewriting

In this part, the researcher investigated students’ anxious feeling before using five-minute freewriting which means at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class. According to Daud and Kasim (2005), “writing anxiety will affect directly to students’ writing performance, which will lead to the quality of the writing” (as cited in Iswandari, 2013, p.41). Therefore, it is important to find the factors of EFL students’ writing anxiety. The researcher provided seven general close-ended statements related to the feeling and factors which might influence respondents’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class. The result can be seen in Table 4.1.

Table 4.1 Students’ Anxious Feeling before Using Five-minute Freewriting in

Paragraph Writing class

No Statements Frequency of Points Agreements 1

(10.7% for strongly agree and 50% for agree) of the respondents felt anxious at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class and 39.3% (35.7% for disagree and 3.6% for strongly disagree) of the respondents did not feel anxious at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class. In order to clarify students’ answer, the researcher provided an open-ended question in the questionnaire which was related to EFL students’ feeling before using five-minute freewriting. Based on the respondents’ answer, the feeling that they felt before using five-minute freewriting were: anxious, nervous, unconfident, not excited and little bit afraid. The result was also strengthened by the interview result which explained that the respondents felt anxious at the beginning of Paragraph Writing class because they were confused and not confident. One respondent expressed his feeling as follows:

“Yes, I was anxious with my writing because I feel that I was not really confident to write something” (Respondent B).

2. Factors which Influence Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph

Writing class

The following part presented the factors which might influence EFL students’ writing anxiety in Paragraph Writing class. According to Hyland (2003) and Sawalha et al. (2012), the six major factors of anxiety were: (1) having difficulty in finding ideas, (2) having lack of vocabulary, (3) having difficulty in producing correct sentence, (4) making grammatical mistakes, (5) making minimum requirement mistakes, and (6) being evaluated. Moreover, Iswandari (2013) in her research which was conducted to 29 Basic Writing Skill students of English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University found out three major factors which influence students’ writing anxiety. According to

Table 4.2 Factors Which Influence Students’ Writing Anxiety in Paragraph

Writing class

that 60.7% (7.1% for strongly agree and 53.6% for agree) of the respondents felt anxious because their Basic Writing score was bad and 39.3% (35.7% for disagree and 3.6% for strongly disagree) of the respondents felt anxious because their Basic Writing score was not bad. It was also supported by the open-ended result which answered that they were not satisfied with their Basic Writing score and they were afraid if they could not write well. The researcher found that the bad Basic Writing score was one of the factors which influenced their writing anxiety. Therefore, the researcher concluded that EFL Students with low score on their writing mostly felt anxious than others who got high scores.

The second statement is related to whether the respondents felt anxious because their vocabulary is bad. The result showed that six respondents (21.4%) chose “strongly agree”, eleven respondents (39.3%) chose “agree”, and eleven respondents (39.3%) chose “disagree”. It showed that most of the respondents felt anxious because his/her vocabulary was bad since 60.7% (21.4% for strongly agree and 39.3% for agree) of the respondents agreed with that statement. It was supported by the result of open-ended question which answered that they lost their self-esteem because their vocabulary was weak and they thought it could affect their score. It was also strengthened by the interview result which explained that the respondents felt anxious because they were lack of vocabulary as shown by Respondent A:

It can be concluded that lack of vocabulary considered as one of many causes which mostly influenced students’ writing anxiety. In connection with this, it is perceived that the deficient grasp of vocabulary and grammar becomes part of the cause students’ writing anxiety (Hyland, 2003).

The third statement is related to whether the respondents felt anxious because their structure was bad. Based on the data questionnaire, five respondents (17.8%) chose “strongly agree”, fifteen respondents (53.6%) chose “agree”, seven respondents (25%) chose “disagree”, and one respondent (3.6%) chose “strongly disagree”. It showed that 71.4% (17.8% for strongly agree and 53.6% for agree) of the respondents felt anxious because their structure was bad. The open-ended result supported the statement that they felt anxious and afraid to write a paragraph because they often made grammatical mistakes. Based on the interview, one respondent explained that she felt that her grammar was very bad because she had not comprehended the tenses used. Based on the result, the researcher concluded that most of the students in Paragraph writing class felt anxious because his/her structure was bad.

with that statement. The researcher got the reasons from the open-ended questionnaire why Paragraph Writing students could not develop their ideas well. The reasons were because they were confused and got difficulties in finding main topic and idea to write.

The fifth statement is related to whether the respondents felt anxious because they do not like writing. It showed that five respondents (17.8%) chose “strongly agree”, four respondents (14.35%) chose “agree”, seventeen respondents (60.7%) chose “disagree”, and two respondents (7.1%) chose “strongly disagree”. Since 67.8% (60.7% for disagree and 7.1% for strongly disagree) of the respondents disagreed with the statement, the researcher concluded that most of students actually liked writing. However, writing is difficult.

course. They focused on the outcomes of learning. That was why the respondents thought that writing was difficult while actually they liked writing.

3. The Students’ Anxious Feeling After Using Five-minute Freewriting

In this following part, the researcher presented the data related to the students’ anxious feeling after using five-minute freewriting which was conducted at the end of Paragraph Writing class. The researcher provided six general close-ended statements. The first statement was related to the feelings which might be caused by the use of five-minute freewriting in Paragraph Writing class and the following statements were related to what extent five-minute freewriting can reduce the students’ writing anxiety. The result can be seen in Table 4.2.

Table 4.3 The Students’ Anxious Feeling after Using Five-minute Freewriting in

Paragraph Writing class

No Statements Frequency of Points Agreements

1