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IMPROVING DESCRIPTIVE WRITING SKILL TROUGH MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE OF GRADE SEVEN
STUDENTS AT MTS TAHFIZH AL MADINAH MALANG
THESIS
BY
BINTI MASRUROH NPM 21702073078
UNIVERSITY OF ISLAM MALANG GRADUATE PROGRAM
ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING STUDY PROGRAM MAY 2021
ABSTRACT
Masruroh, Binti. 2021. Improving the writing skills of grade seven Students at Mts Tahfizh Al Madinah Malang through mind mapping technique. Thesis, English Education Department, Postgraduate Program, Islamic University of Malang, Advisor: (1) Dr. H. Sugeng Harianto, M.Pd Key Words: Writing ability, Descriptive Text, Mind Mapping.
The purpose of this research is to improve the students’ writing ability in descriptive text using mind mapping technique. The research was conducted for 7th grade students of MTS Tahfizh Al Madinah Malang because the researcher found that the ability of these students were lower than the passing grade set. This condition was caused by the passiveness of the students in using English both in asking or answering questions. Therefore, the researcher was intended in taking a classroom action research by applying an appropriate technique to help these students. And mind mapping technique was chosen to be applied here.
To do the research, the researcher applied Collaborative Classroom Action Research design where the collaboration between researcher and teacher is applied to plan, implement, observe, and evaluate the actions taken.
The two cycles are applied here; and each cycle contains four primary stages, i.e. action planning, implementation, classroom observation, and reflection.
The main data used in this research is taken from the writing test result. And the secondary data was obtained from the interview and documentation.
The students’ average writing score for the first cycle was M=71, while the targeted average score was M>75. The number of students who reached the score target was only 63%, below the targeted percentage number, 85%. Then, the action taken proceeded the second cycle was using pictures and write down keywords for those. Then, the students’ average writing score improved; it was M=77. The number of the students who reached the targeted score improved as well, 88%. It means that there was improvement in students’ writing skill in the second cycle.
So, it can be concluded that the using of mind mapping technique could help 7th students of Mts. Tahfizh Al Madinah Malang to improve their skill in writing descriptive text.
Abstrak
Masruroh, Binti. 2021. Meningkatkan Kemampuan Menulis Descriptive Text Melalui Tehnik Mind Mapping Untuk Murid Kelas Tujuh di MTs Tahfidz Al Madinah Malang. Tesis, Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Program pascasarjana, Universitas Islam Malang, Pembimbing: Dr.H.
Sugeng Harianto, M.Pd.
Kata Kunci: kemampuan menulis, descriptive text, mind mapping
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk meningkatkan kemampuan menulis descriptive text menggunakan tehnik mind mapping. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan kepada siswa kelas 7 MTs Tahfizh Al-Madinah Malang karena peneliti mendapati bahwa kemampuan menulis siswa-siswa disini lebih rendah dari standar minimal kelulusan. Kondisi ini disebabkan oleh kepasifan murid dalam menggunakan Bahasa inggris baik bertanya maupun menajwab pertanyaan. Oleh karena itu, peneliti berniat untuk melaksanakan penelitian Tindakan kelas dengan mengaplikasikan Teknik yang sesuai untuk membantu siswa. Dan tehnik mind mapping dipilih untuk diaplikasikan disini.
Untuk melakukan penelitian, peneliti mengaplikasikan penelitian Tindakan kelas kolaborasi dimana terdapat kolaborasi antara peneliti dan guru dalam merencanakan, mengimplementasikan, meneliti, dan mengevaluasi aksi yang telah diambil.
Peneliti melakukan dua putaran PTK; dan setiap putaran berisi empat Langkah dasar, yaitu perencanaan, implementasi, observasi kelas, dan refleksi.
Data utama yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini diambil dari nilai menulis. Dan data kedua diambil dari interview dan dokumentasi.
Nilai rata-rata murid untuk putaran pertama yaitu M=71, sementara target rata-rata nilai adalah M>75. Jumlah murid yang mencapai target nilai hanya 63%, dibawah prosentase target nilai , 85%. Lalu, putaran kedua diambil meggunakan gambar pilihan dan menuliskan kata-kata kunci, artinya murid membuat mind mapping sendiri. Kemudian rata-rata nilai menulis menjadi meningkat; yaitu M=77.
Jumlah murid yang mencapai target nilai meningkat dengat baik, 88%. Artinya ada peningkatan di kemampuan menulis murid pada putaran kedua.
Jadi, bisa disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan tehnik mind mapping dapat membantu murid kelas 7 di MTs Tahfizh Al-Madinah Malang untuk meningkatkan kemampuan menulis descriptive text mereka.
1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter is devoted to discuss the introductory text at the research. This discussion involves the background of the study, the research problem, the objective of the study, research hypothesis, basic assumption, scope and limitation, significance of the research, and definition of key terms.
1.1Background of the Study
English as an International language is used by many people by around the world to communicate. Communication probably occurs among people in the world to share information, ideas or feeling. Communication activities play an important role in human lives. Communication occurs not only through oral (spoken) language, but it can also be conveyed through written language. Byrne (1986;8) said that communication involves four skills of language, speaking, writing, reading, and listening skill. While the speaker has to prepare the message that will be conveyed in appropriate language, the listener should interpret the message appropriately.
Nowadays, English becomes increasingly important to learn. The transfer of scientific and technological information among nations makes English important since most of the information is presented and written in English. With a good mastery of English, people will be able to write in English easily. They will be able to express their ideas to other in more acceptable English and be able to understand the useful information writing and spoken in English. Realizing this fact Indonesian curriculum has made English as one of
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the local concerns taught of students of elementary school, and the compulsory subjects taught to students of junior high school. It is because to make education innovation to improve its quality and to improve the human resource quality.
According to the 2013 curriculum, the aim of teaching English as a foreign language in Indonesia, particularly at the Junior High School, is to equip the students with the ability to use the target language for communication. To achieve this goal, English teaching is directed toward the development of the students’ competences in all language skills. The English curriculum for the seven level students of MTs stated that the objective of studying English is to enable the students to have four skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Those skills are presented in harmony since one skill support the other skill. Therefore, English should be taught in meaningful context. This means that English should be taught side by side with the appropriate vocabulary and grammar as well as pronunciation and spelling. The students are expected to use English as a means of communication both in oral and written forms.
Writing is one of the important skills for the students to have, and it cannot be neglected because it plays an important skill to show their idea. In fact, it is not easy for the teachers to teach writing in English. They have important role and challenging tasks. According to Masanjila in Sapitri (2019), there are six common problems that may occur when doing writing. Those problems are capitalization problem, punctuation problem, inexplicitness or fuzziness, poor organization or illogical sequence, spelling problem, and the last is grammatical error
.
The teacher should create the idea before they are start writing. In teaching writing English, there are some techniques that could use,3
one of them is mind mapping technique. Mind mapping techniques have some step to
do.
Buzan in Sugiharti (2020) mentions six stages to make a mind mapping are; first the central image has to describe the main idea of a mind mapping, the second is key word. It is a word that can lead a sentence or event. By using key word, the students would be easy to get ideas, the third is basic ordering ideas are the branches that collect short information. It is connected to the central topic that radiate out from the center, the fourth, the elements of mind are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concept, and are classified into branches or areas, with the goal of representing connection between portions of information, the fifth is color. It is very good in memory sign. It involves the right brain in learning for a long-term memory, and the last but not least is picture. It contributes to the context in which the language is being used. In mind mapping activity, the use of picture will engage the students to be focus on a certain topic provided in it.
Mind mapping technique helps students in calling their ideas before they start writing in paragraph form. Students are expected can improve their ability in writing skill, primarily writing descriptive text. It seems like what Hedge in Fadhila (2015) said in her book entitled “Writing”, she stated that using mind-map before writing can make us have ideas like we make a construction in building. Building which is without planning will be the worst building because it does not have any clear planning from starting until finishing. Engineers have to have some notes about what the materials used for constructing the building are.
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Harmer (2004:89) stated that the mind map is referred to visual way of making preparation note in generating ideas. In this case, the mind map is considered as the strategy that can generate ideas before students start writing.
A mind map is a powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlock the potential of the brain. It harnesses the full range of cortical skills- word, image, number, logic, rhythm, color and spatial awareness- in a single, uniquely powerful manner. In so doing, it gives you the freedom to roam the infinite expanses of your brain. The mind map can be applied to every aspect of life where improved learning and clearer thinking will enhance human performance. (Buzan, 2005)
In the field of mind mapping research, some studies have been conducted dealing with mind mapping strategy. According to Utami (2016) research, mind map concept was used. It can improve students’ ability in writing description text.
Based on the condition of MTs Tahfidz Al Madinah the writing mastery of grade seven was low. The students’ average score in writing ability is 65, but the passing grade is 75. It is inspired the writer to find out the constructive solution of this low achievement problem. The writer believes that this condition might be influenced by techniques used by the teacher that cannot make the students interest and have motivation.
Concerning to the problem above, the writer conducts a classroom action research to seven grade students of MTsTahfizh Al Madinah by using mind mapping technique.
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1.2Problem of the Study
Based on the background above, the problems of this research can be formulated as follows:
“How can mind mapping technique improve the English writing ability of seventh grade students at MTs Tahfizh Al Madinah?”
1.3Objective of the Study
Based on the research problem, the objective of the research can be formulated as follows:
The objective of this research is to improve the writing ability of grade seven at MTs Tahfizh Al Madinah.
1.4Scope and Limitation of the Study
The scope of this research focuses on developing grade seven students’
writing descriptive text using mind mapping technique. The usage of mind mapping technique in this research is implemented to students of 7 at MTs Tahfizh Al Madinah.
The limitation of this research is that it needs much time to do. We can’t do this in one or two meetings because the researcher must observe the improvement of the students after the implementation of mind mapping technique in teaching descriptive text. And the research can’t disturb the activity of teaching learning process. It must follow the curriculum of the subject.
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1.5Significant of the Study
The result of this research is expected to give some benefits for the following people:
a. Junior High School English Teachers
The result can be used by the English teachers as information or input to improve the teaching writing and to increase the students’ writing ability through mind mapping technique.
b. Students
The action of the research is useful to motivate the students to practice writing English a lot in the classroom.
c. Other Researchers
The results can be useful for other researchers as information or reference to conduct a further research dealing with writing ability using mind mapping concept, for example, using mind mapping to increase the writing ability of senior high school students.
1.6Operational Definition of the Term
The operational definition is intended to prevent misunderstanding between the researcher and the about the terms used in this research. The terms that are necessary to be defined operationally in this classroom action research are mind mapping and writing abilities that consist of content, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics.
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1.7Definition of Key Terms
In order to have better understanding and to avoid misinterpretation about the term used in this research, it is necessary for the researcher to explain them in detail as follow:
a. Mind mapping is the method of noting use graphics. The graphics help student to break down the topic became some sub-topics.
b. Writing is a process of expressing ideas or thought in word or sentences, writing ability means ability to communicate, convey and share a particular message, knowledge and ideas in written form. Specifically, in this research writing ability is defined as an ability to make a text in written English in the form of descriptive text.
c. Descriptive text is a text which says what a person or a thing is like. Its purpose is to describe and reveal a particular person, place or thing.
54 CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
This chapter present conclusion and suggestion that derived from the result of the research findings and discussion elaborated in the preceding chapters. The conclusion deal with the result of the implementation of teaching writing in descriptive text using mind mapping. Meanwhile, the suggestions are directed to the action to be done to follow up the findings of the research.
6.1 Conclusion
In general, based on the findings and discussion of this study, it can be concluded that the use of mind mapping as teaching media is able to improve the first-year students’ writing ability of MTs Tahfizh Al Madinah. It was proved by the result of writing test through mind mapping that showed there was an increase of the students that got scores at least 75 from 63% (27) of students in the cycle I to 88% (37) of students in the cycle II.
In particular, the use of mind mapping was effective to improve the students’ writing ability. It can stimulate and motivate students to write and lead them to develop their own interpretation about the people or events involved. It can also enhance the students’ activeness in joining the class. They become more active in asking questions, answering questions, paying attention, and willingness to write English. But the teachers must remember theories in enjoyable way to prevent students’ boredom and the mind mapping used are appropriate to the material that is going to be thought.
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6.2 Suggestion
Based on the result of this classroom action research, some suggestions are given to the following people:
1. The English teacher is suggested to use mind mapping as the media of teaching writing to improve the students’ writing ability.
2. Other researchers are suggested to conduct the classroom action research dealing with similar problem to develop the teaching quality and to improve the students’ writing ability.
3. The school is suggested to provide the teaching media such as mind mapping that can be used by the teacher in teaching English especially writing ability.
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