Using Picture Series To Improve The Writing Skills For Second Grade Students of SMP Negeri 1 Sragen
Using Picture Series To Improve The Writing Skills For Second Grade Students of SMP Negeri 1 Sragen
Using Picture Series To Improve The Writing Skills For Second Grade Students of SMP Negeri 1 Sragen
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
English is one of the subjects that have to be mastered by the students in certain
education levels in Indonesia. There are four major skills of English that have to be
mastered: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Compared to other skills,
writing is considered as the most difficult skills because there are many aspects to
be considered such as content, organisation, grammar, and mechanics. However, the
students have to master writing skills because it is undeniable that writing is very
familiar in daily life. Everyday people get written information in news papers,
written announcements, letters, e-mail, and many more. It is supported by Weigle
(2000) who says that the ability to write is very important for the academic context,
business, and personal relation in the global community. Because of those reasons, it
can be concluded that writing has very important role in daily life to be able to
communicate with others. On the other hand, for students, having a high ability in
writing can contribute to high English achievement. It is in accordance with the goal
of English teaching and learning in Indonesia which is to make students be able to
communicate in spoken and written form.
It is very clear that writing is very important but in fact the teaching and
learning of writing is not successful yet. The students’ writing ability is also low.
The students still find difficulties in expressing ideas in the written form. Next,
they have problems related to organisation, vocabulary, grammar, and mechanics.
Based on the data obtained in the observation in the English teaching and learning process
conducted at SMP Negeri 1 Sragen and the interview with the students and the teacher, the
researcher found some problems that were similar to the problems above. It could be seen
that the students made many mistakes in the writing performance. Most of them had
difficulties in expressing their ideas in a good paragraph. They still made mistakes and
errors in terms of content, vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation. In terms of content, the
students had difficulties in writing a text because they did not have a lot of ideas. As the
result, when they were asked to write a text, they just simply copy a text from the Internet.
Moreover, the students’ vocabulary mastery was also low. It made them find difficulty in
developing their ideas in writing. The last, grammar mastery was another problem faced by
the students in writing. Some of them made mistakes in translating word by word based on
It is true that writing is considered as the most difficult skill to master but there are
some efforts that can be done to overcome this problem. Here, the researcher offered an
action to solve the students’ problems in writing. She used picture series that was chosen
as one of the effective efforts used to deal with the students’ writing difficulties in the
teaching and learning process of writing. Picture series was recommended because it has
many benefits in the teaching and learning process of writing. The first advantage of using
picture series is that it will make the students interested and stimulated in participating in
the process of teaching and learning writing. Another benefit is that the picture series wil
stimulate them to develop and to use their imagination so that they will be able to
write well. It will also help them express their ideas into readable writing work.
Identification of the Problems
To identify the problems, the researcher did observation in the teaching and
learning process of writing in Grade VIII A of SMP Negeri 1 Sragen. After doing
the observation, the researcher gained information about sources of the problem
related to the teaching and learning process of writing in the classroom. The
sources of the problem found in the classroom that contributed to the students’
low performance in writing were classified into three categories. They were the
The first problem was related to the students. They had difficulties in terms of
generating ideas. Based on the interview with the students, they often felt hard to
decide what they should write and how to develop their ideas. Moreover, they
often needed a lot of time to generate their ideas. Therefore, the contents of their
writing were poor. Furthermore, they thought that making a good paragraph was
very difficult. They often wrote a text or paragraph that was not cohesive and lack
of logical development and sequencing. They also had low vocabulary. They often
Sometimes, they wrote the meaning of certain words they found in the dictionary
without considering the context. Moreover, some of them had a little attention to
in the teaching and learning process. However, based on the observation and
interview with the teacher and the students, the researcher found problems related
to the teacher. She seemed not to give a very clear instruction to make a well-
organized paragraph. Moreover, in the teaching and learning process, mistakes are
a part of the learning process but the teacher did not pay a lot of attention to these.
The mistakes and errors that the students made were rarely discussed in the
classroom.
The last problem was related to the media. In the teaching and learning
process, the teacher rarely used interesting media to help the students write a good
writing. Moreover, the researcher found that when the students had to write their
own writing, the teacher did not give any clues to help the student write step by
step. Because the student was at Grade VIII, they often found many difficulties in
writing a paragraph or a text without any clues. As the result, there were a lot of
to overcome the problems. By using picture series, the students would feel easier
could make the students interested and stimulated in participating in the process of
teaching and learning writing. Added to that, it can help the students express the
focused on the problems related to how to improve the students’ writing skills.
The researcher proposed using picture series as the media to help the students
improve their writing due to the advantages of picture series that can overcome
By using the picture series, the students would feel easier to create a well-
organized paragraph or text. Picture series also could make the students interested
Added to that, it can help the students express their ideas into readable writing
products
Based on the explanation of the English teaching and learning problems that
has been mentioned in the identification of the problems and based on the focus of the
1) how can the writing skills of Grade VIII A students of SMP Negeri 1 Sragen be
aimed at improving the students’ writing skills by using picture series for Grade
The result of this study can contribute to some benefits to the students and
eachers. Here are the benefits:
- Practical benefit :
1. For students
It may motivate students to improve their speaking skills since they
will find out that speaking is not always difficult to learn. Their
improvement of speaking skills will help them master English well.
2. The English teachers in SMP Negeri 1 Sragen; the findings of this study
hopefully can be valuable source of information to improve the quality of
English teaching and learning process. The other teachers in SMP Negeri
1 Sragen ; the findings of this study hopefully become one of useful
references used to improve the students’ learning achievement.
3. The other English teachers; the findings of this study can be references
for them in solving their problem on how to improve their students’
writing skills.
- Theoretical benefit
1. For the English teachers
It will give the English teachers a description about how to teach and
to motivate the students to learn about English especially in speaking skills.
Here, they will not be stuck only in some particular teaching strategies. The
use of media, in this context “Picture Series” can be a good alternative or
variation in teaching speaking, where it will make the students enjoy
joining
the lesson
2. The English education department students of Surakarta State University;
the findings of this study hopefully become one of the considerable reading
materials either to enrich their references in writing their thesis or to
improve their knowledge in the English teaching and learning process.
3. To future researchers who wish to discuss the topic of writing ability and
the Picture Series, the result of this research study can be a beneficial
reference.
CHAPTER II
A. Theoretical Review
As stated in the previous section, the aim of this research study is to improve
students’ writing skills. Therefore, the discussion in this chapter focuses on the
review related to the theories underlying. The study of the theory of writing,
1. Writing
Writing is one of the important skills to develop. Weigle (2000) says that
the ability to write is very important for the academic context, business, and
personal relation in the global community. In the academic context, people often
write academic essay and some texts stated in the curriculum. Moreover, people
often send email to across nation composing business reports. The last, for
messages to others.
when writers compose writing work, they commonly have two main purposes.
Firstly, the intention or desires to express the ideas or feeling they have in minds,
Secondly, the text is written to communicate the ideas to the readers or audience.
That is why, writers need to have ability to communicate and express the ideas in
drafting, and revising that require specialized skills on how to generate ideas, how
conventions coherently into a written text, how to revise text for clearer meaning
and how to edit text for appropriate grammar and how to produce a final products.
In short, some stages of the text composition proposed by Brown involve the act
of physical and mental, for example how to generate ideas and how to organise
them coherently.
making a sign on a page. In addition, making a good piece of writing means that it
requires the ability to write grammatically correct sentence, and organise them
There are also other two important aspects in order to make good writing.
McCharthy states that there are two important aspects in writing which are
cohesion and coherence (2000). Cohesion is the surface link between the clauses
and the sentences of a text, while coherence is the filling that the elements of a
text are bound together, that it makes sense and not only a group of sentences.
Those two aspects eventually determine the quality of the structure and the flow
do not have the necessary knowledge and experience of language that writing
demands (1989). Furthermore, Grenville (2001) adds that it becomes hard when
they should think about grabbing the first interesting sentence, are blank about
what to write, and find that writing is to find interesting stuff to write.
The writing process itself involves several steps. The writing process is
stage that the writer goes through in order to produce something in his final
written form (Harmer, 2004). Furthermore, Harmer argues that there are four steps
in writing process. They are planning, drafting, editing, and final draft. Besides
the writing process recursive and cyclical, which means that a writer may go to
life, people often communicate with other by using written language. However, to
be able to communicate with the reader, the people have to have good writing.
There are two important aspects of writing should be considered namely cohesion
and coherence.
performance.
Imitative
At the very beginning of learning to write, the learners must have basic task
of writing letter, words, and very brief sentences. The learners are simply
asked to imitate certain simple texts or sentences. At this stage, the context
Intensive
At this stage, the learners are expected to be able to apply proper using
grammatical features.
Responsive
The responsive writing concerns the way how the learners are able to write in
Certain guidelines and criteria can be applied when this writing performance
Extensive
Writers are not bounded by certain rules and criteria when they are dealing
freedom to manage their writing work. The focus is that whether the writers
can achieve their writing purposes and arrange the ideas logically or not.
limited amount.
Micro- and macro-skills of writing are stated as follows (Brown, 2001: 343):
Micro-skills
Micro-skills
There are four steps of writing according to Richards and Renandya (2002).
Planning
generate ideas.
Drafting
The writers focus on the content and the meaning of the writing product.
Revising
The writers review and reexamine the writing product. They revise the errors
and mistakes that expected to improve the content and organization of the text
Editing
This is the last step to the writer to prepare the final product. Meanwhile,
Furthermore, Oshima and Hogue have the same steps in writing (1999).
There are four steps, namely prewriting, planning, writing and revising drafts, and
To sum up, the researcher concluded that there are several steps in writing. In
the planning stage, the writers begin to brainstorm to generate the ideas. The
second step is creating draft. The writers compose the first draft. The last, the
writer review and revise the writing products
2. Teaching Writing
Brown (2007) states that teaching is the process of facilitating learning and
enabling students to learn and to see the condition for learning. He adds that
teaching is showing or helping the students how to do something, giving instructions,
guiding in the study of something, providing the students with knowledge, and
causing learners to know and to understand.
According to Westwood (2008), there are two main approaches to learn
writing; a skills-based approach and a process approach. The skills-based
approach involves a fairly structure program in which the skills and concepts are
taught by the teacher directly. On the other hand, the process approach gives an
opportunity to the students to be independent learners, it is also called student-
centred approach (Graves, 1983).
However, according to Harmer, the teaching of writing only focused on the
product writing not the process for many years. The students were directed to
what rather than to how they produce a text (2004). Still according to Harmer
(2004), there are number of strategies for teachers to consider. They are the way to
get the students to plan, the way to encourage them to draft, the way to reflect and
revise, and the way to respond to the students’ writing.
A teacher has to develop some techniques to guide the students in doing step
of writing. There are some principles of designing writing techniques according
Brown (2001:346-356):
a. Incorporate practice of “good” writers.
Table 1: The Standard of Competence and Basic Competence in Writing for Grade
VIII
a. Motivator
class to help the students in generating ideas, persuade the students of the
b. Resource
necessary especially during more extended writing tasks. She/he needs to give
0 Feedback provider
correction, she/he should choose what and how much to focus on based on what
media support the learners to learn. The use of media can create a good
atmosphere in the teaching and learning process. By using media, teachers and
that can be in various forms. They can be in the forms of video/audio recordings,
in the learning process. Smaldino et al (2005) mentions six media used in learning
formats. These can be in the forms of a book, a poster, a chalk board, and a
computer screen.
b. Next are audio. Audio refers to the learning media that covers everything that
c. The third type of media is visual. Visuals are highly used to promote learning.
subject-matter experts.
Byrne in Ratnasari (2010) states that visual media has great potential as a
teaching aid to develop writing skills and can provide both context and
stimulation for a variety of activities. This media also can develop the different
language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Moreover, the
use of visualization can get the students inverted and awakened their thought to be
more creative thinker. This can create natural situation and active teaching and
the teaching and learning process. Mc Alpine and Weston (1994) in Smaldino et
engaging. One of the visual media commonly used in the teaching and learning
representations of people, places, and things in the form of two dimensional that
0 7. Picture Series
picture can be a medium that can show people, places, and things that are far.
One of the types of pictures used in English teaching and learning process is
writing stories. Moreover, picture series can eagerness to start writing and develop
their ideas (2007). There are three considerations in choosing and using pictures
a. The pictures have to be appropriate not only for the purpose in hand but also
for the classes they are being used. If they are too childish, the students may
not like them, and if they are culturally inappropriate they can offend people.
b. The pictures should be visible. They have to be big enough so that the
meaningful and authentic, and 5) the activities should give rise to a sufficient
the students’ interest and motivation, make the students have sense of the
stimulus to the students. To support the previous ideas on the roles of picture
series in the teaching and learning process, Harmer (2007) states that there are
various numbers of writing tasks that students can be asked to undertake and
one of them is students can be given a series of pictures which tell story and
they have to write story based on the pictures. He then adds that giving the
writers. The students will explain their understanding of pieces of art, revealing
details about their literacy processes and strategies. The same kinds of
revealed in this lesson, where students explore background actions and others
related to the art they study. All students can find success "where they are"
process. The first benefit of using picture series is that it makes the students
interested in writing English because picture series is one of the visual teaching
students to develop and use their imagination so that they are able to write well.
Then, it also helps students expressing their ideas they have more readable. The last
benefit is that picture series improves the students’ motivation in writing.In this
research study, the picture series is used as the main media to improve the students’
writing skills. In implementing picture series in the research, there are processes
that need to be done by the researcher and other members of the research. They are
designing the lesson plan for the teaching and learning, designing the teaching
techniques used to implement the picture series, then selecting the appropriate and
B. Related Studies
Similar to the effort to improve the students’ writing skills, there are many
researchers conducting studies on picture series. They found that picture series
the students’ ability in writing a descriptive text trough the use of a picture series-
aided learning strategy. The research was conducted in Grade X.2 of SMA Negeri
toward the use of picture series to learn descriptive text and the improvement of
Yusnita, Sada, and Novita (2012) conducted action research with the
purpose of improving the students’ recount text writing by using picture series.
The research was conducted in two cycles with 40 Grade X students as the
participants. The picture series was given to the students to help them to write
recount texts. The result of the research has shown that the students had good
progress in writing recount text. The students’ writing scores improved from
Cycle 1 to Cycle 2. Picture series could be the clues for the students in writing
research was aimed at improving the writing skills of the first grade students of
two cycles. The results of the research show that picture series was effective to
improve the students’ writing skills. The students’ writing problems in the aspects
Implementing picture series was also effective to improve the students’ motivation
in the writing process. Moreover, the students’ skills in four aspects of writing
language teaching and learning process. By using picture series, the students’
attitudes toward English improved. Picture series also helped the students to write
texts. Therefore, the students writing skills improved. Hence, the researcher
believed that picture series was th e right media to overcome the problems.
C. Conceptual Framework
The students’ ability in writing in SMP N 1 Sewon was still low. As stated
earlier, there were some problems which could make the students get difficulty in
writing. One of the problems was that the teacher did not give clear guidelines for
could not produce a coherent and understandable text. They also cannot develop
their ideas. Besides, the teacher only focused on the product of writing not the
process. The teacher also did not provide interesting media to help the students
As stated above, media are the important thing in the process of teaching
and learning. Media can help the students who have the lack of experiences to be
able to connect the students out of the environment and can improve their
motivation. Visual media are more preferable because most people learn more by
their sight than other sensory perception. A picture is one of the visual which can
help the students learn English. Furthermore, a picture contributes to increase the
students’ interest and motivation, which make the students have the sense of the
context of language.
With those reasons, the researcher though that picture series were the best media to
help the students write because it has many benefits in the teaching and learning
process. The first, the picture series can help the students retell their experience in a
good sequence. Secondly, picture series can stimulate the students’ idea and develop
their ideas in chronological order. Third, by using picture series, the students are
engaged in the writing process. Picture series-based activities can also improve the