Writing Skill

The improvements were not only of the students’ writing skill but also the students’ attitudes toward writing itself. In the first ³»»¬·²¹ô ¬¸» -¬«¼»²¬- ©»®» -¬·´´ ¿-¸¿³»¼ ¿²¼ ¿©µ©¿®¼ ¬± ¹»¬ ·²ª±´ª»¼ ·² ¬¸» ¿½¬·ª·¬·»-ô ¾«¬ ·² ¬¸» ²»¨¬ ³»»¬·²¹-ô ¬¸»§ ¾»¹¿² ¬± °¿®¬·½·°¿¬» ¿½¬·ª»´§ ¾§ ¹·ª·²¹ ¬¸»·® ±°·²·±² ·² ¾®¿·²-¬±®³·²¹ -¬¿¹» ¿²¼ ¿-µ·²¹ questions. They also tried to be active in answering the researcher’s ¯«»-¬·ons and responding the researcher’s instructions. Besides, the -¬«¼»²¬- ³¿-¬»®»¼ ³±®» ª±½¿¾«´¿®·»-ò ̸»·® ©®·¬·²¹ ©¿- ¾»¬¬»® ¿²¼ better both in quality and quantity. The students’ attitude toward ©®·¬·²¹ ½¸¿²¹»¼ ¬± ¾» ¾»¬¬»®ò ̸»§ ©»®» ²±¬ ®»´«½¬¿²¬ ¿²§³±®» ¬± ©®·¬»ò ̸»§ ©»®» ¿´-± ·²¬»®»-¬»¼ ¿²¼ ³±¬·ª¿¬»¼ ¬± ¶±·² ¿²¼ ¹»¬ ·²ª±´ª»¼ ·² ¬¸» ¬»¿½¸·²¹ ´»¿®²·²¹ °®±½»--ò

127 The students’ writing skill improved because by e-mail provides the opportunity for students to improve their knowledge of the use of punctuation, capital letter, and mechanical writing. E-mail cannot be separated from computer because e-mail is one of program provided in internet soft ware application. When they type the assignment or message on the computer before sending it via e-mail, they can check and proofread the use of punctuation, capital letter, and mechanical writing correctly. They can also check the synonym, antonym, and even the meaning of the words electronically. It means that they save their valuable time in writing text. Gil Lavitov (2008: 1) said that by writing text on the e-mail, the students could utilize the E-mail Grammar Correction Software which helps on checking, correcting, and constructing their English sentences so they become accurate, clean, and fluent. He also said that by using e-mail grammar checker, the students can easily find several advantages namely: (1) automatically identify sentences construction problems that may have been missed during a manual proofreading; (2) Assisting students assimilating English grammar rules; (3) Improving students’ self confidence with their writing.

“There was a significant difference on writing skill between students who use monolingual dictionary and those who use bilingual dictionary”. The null hypothesis (Ho): “There was no significant difference on writing skill between students who use monolingual dictionary and those who use bilingual dictionary”

learning English. English teachers have to be able to arrange their assignment effectively. They are demanded to motivate the students in order to learn English well. Mastering the art of writing is the single most important aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and a success is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a text, in the language. One of the most important in English teaching is a “how do we develop our students’ writing skill”.

Abstract: The study is aimed at developing the implementation of Writing Process Approach (WPA) to enhance the students’ skill in writing essay. The study employed Classroom Action Research. The subjects of the study were 15 university students enrolled in the writing class. The data were gained from writing task, observation and field notes. The findings show that the implementation of WPA with the proper model procedures developed can enhance the students’ skill in writing essay. Before the strategy was implemented, the percentage of the students achieving the score greater than or equal to C (56-70) was 40.00% (6 students of the class). However, after the strategy was implemented in Cycle I, it enhanced enough to 60.00% (9 students of the class), but this result did not meet the criteria of success set up in the study. Next, in Cycle II it increased slightly to 86.67% (13 students of the class). Thus, the enhancement of the students’ skill in writing essay can be reached but it should follow the proper model procedures of the implementation of WPA developed. Keywords: writing process approach, writing skill, essay writing

The aims of this research are to find of reading intensity, to examine the student’ wr iting skills, and to probe th e influence of the students’ reading intensity toward the students’ writing skill. By applying descriptive quantitative approach and using correlation research, the subject of the study are the third year students of SMP N 1 Grabag, Kab. Magelang, in the academic year of 2008/2009. Meanwhile, the sample of the research are 40 students of two classes that are taken by applying stratified sampling technique. Furthermore, there are two variables that are analyzed. They are students’ reading in tensity as independent variable and students’ writing skill as dependents variable. Based on the calculation of the critical r in the level of significant of 5%, the writer found that rxy aritmethical is higher than rxy table. Therefore, there is influence of reading intensity toward writing skill. Keywords: Reading, Intensity, Writing

The effectiveness of sharing or giving information could be seen when person tries to communicate with other persons in written forms. The writer thinks that the information could be effective if the readers understand what writer says in written form. It is different from spoken form; the speaker speaks to the listener directly. Here, speaker does not have much time to think more. Writing is one of the four language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Writing and speaking are productive skill. That means they involve producing language rather than receiving it. Moreover writing skill is more complicated than others skills in English language. Writing skill is not only talking about grammars and vocabularies but also talking about conceptual and judgment elements. Because of the difficulties, some efforts have been done to solve the problems, the purpose is to make writing becomes easier and interesting to learn for students.

Revising is an activity where the students revise their writing and understood the correct sentences when the students listen to the words as they read. “The word of revision literally means “to see again” that is what revising all about.The teachers would suggest the students to read their writing aloud, then the teachers have them to work together to make changes that enhance understanding” (Kendall & Khuon, 2006:5). Actually when the planning, drafting, and revising are done, the final stage for students who intend to share their work is call as editing. Urquhart & Mclver (2005:21), “When students revise, they are attending to language quality and message cohesion but, when students edit, they often concentrate on the writing assessment”. So, the students would understood what should they did in editing time. As a matter of the fact, writing is a communication and if the students write something, they must intend for someone to read it, even if that person is only a student itself. The last stage in writing process is publishing. “ It offer students opportunity to take their writing out to their friends and the teachers have to provide the media or tool to motivate students to publish their writing” (Kendall & Khuon, 2006:8).

This research employs qualitative research design and was undertaken at Intermediate Listening classes at faculty of Humanities Dian Nuswantoro University. The curriculum of English skills at Faculty of Humanities Dian Nuswantoro University employed genre-based approach in which all the English skills are integrated to one another. The students were taught description as the theme of the material given at intermediate listening classes. At the same time, in other English skill subjects, e.g in Intermediate Writing, they also learned description text. Description is one of the genres that seeks to describe a particular person, place or thing (Hammond et.al, 1992:78). At first, students were given listening material and then discussed the material including the questions in pair or in group by asking students to take note the important of specific participants and vocabularies. In gaining the data, the students were asked to write a description text at the end of the listening class. Writing was the final report in every meeting at Intermediate Listening classes. There were 78 students and for the sake of data analysis, the researcher took 3 students‘ description writings as the samples of this research purposively. In analyzing the data, genre based approach was applied and systemic functional linguistics in term of schematic structure and linguistic feautures used in order to reveal students‘ description writing development. In addition, listening learning cycle developed by Field (2008) covers: pre-listening, extensive listening, intensive listening and post-listening was implemented to guide students to write a text after they listened to the audio given as described in the figure 1 below:

The research findings show that Four Square Writing M ethod could improve: (1) students’ writing skill of recoun t text (2) classroom situation. Related to the improvement of (1), it includes: (a) The students had fewer difficulties in exploring ideas to write (b) They also made fewer mistakes in constructing new sentences using simple past tense (c) Their word choice got richer after the research (d) They were able to differentiate the generic structure of recount text and use the appropriate word transition (e) They were able to use the appropriate word order in their sentences. Concerning on the improvement of (2), it comprises: (a) The students seldom complained when they were asked to write (b) They were able to answer teacher’s questions and being active to ask questions to the teacher (c) They did not refuse to present their writings in front of the class (d) They spent shorter time and were able to finish the writing on time (e) They paid attention to the teacher, students did not look bored or make noise. Besides the two findings above, there were other findings as follows: (3) The students greeted the researcher outside the class (4) They asked the researcher to teach them longer.

He has conducted several technical writing and tools workshops. He was a Guest Faculty at National Institute of Design-Ahmedabad, Indian Institute of Technology-Mumbai, and Department of Journalism-Pune. He has given talks on technical writing in forums such as TWIN, STC India,

In telling their experiences written in a recount text, students must think about past tense and the stages of recount: orientation, record of events and reorientation (Feez & Joyce, 2000, p. 4-5). To stimulate the students’ writing skill, especially writing recount text, teacher can use several sources such as student experience, book, magazine, television or movie. Teacher can also use different teaching technique for example jigsaw.

Among the four skills of language taught in school, writing is difficult to be learned and taught. Writing is not only drawing some words on a piece of paper and formulating letter together, but also a combination of process and product. It needs a specialization to combine an idea and good product of writing. In producing good writing, writers should fulfill some rules. They should master the terms of vocabulary, choices of word, paragraph organization, and grammar. This process of writing also needs some competencies and skill. This writing skill cannot develop naturally like speaking skill, but it needs to be trained and learned. Writing skill needs some practice and continuous training.