Improving Writing Skills of the Eighth Grade Students Of SMP Negeri 1 Turi Sleman by Using Picture Series

Abstract

The objective of this research is to improve the writing skills of Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri 1 Turi Sleman by using picture series.This research is categorized as action research. It was conducted in two cycles, which was held for two meetings in Cycle 1 and two meetings in Cycle 2. The subjects of this research were 30 students of Class VIII C of SMP Negeri 1 Turi Sleman. The data were collected in two forms, qualitative and quantitaive. The qualitative data were obtained through observations and interviews with the students and the English teacher. The data were in the form of field notes, observation sheet and interview transcript, while the quantitative data were obtained from pre-test, progress-test and post-test. This research used five criteria of validity; they were democratic, outcome, process, catalytic, and dialogic validities. Furthermore, this research implemented three triangulation techniques; they were time, space and investigator types of triangulation. The result of this research shows that the implementation of picture series in the teaching and learning process of writing skill obviously could improve the students’ writing skill. The actions made significant improvement to their writing skills, especially in the aspect of content and organization. Implementing picture series could also improve the students’ motivation in learning writing. Moreover, by comparing the means of scores from the pre-test, progress-test and post-test, it can be concluded that the students’ writing scores increased. The mean of the students’ writing scores increased from 38.33 in pre-test, to 57.86 in progress-test and to 75.67 in post-test.

Keywords: writing skills, picture series