CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Nowadays, English has become more and more important. Nunun cited in (Cahyono, 2009: 91) states that English has become a tool for international communication in transportation, commerce, banking, tourism, process of technology, and scientific research. Moreover, Crystal (2003: 3) states that English has achieved a genuinely global status since it develops a special role that reconized in every country. Therefore English is considered as a global language which is spoken by many people all over the world either as the first or the second language.
Realizing the important of English nowadays, our government states that English is a foreign language should become a compulsory subject at school. It is taught from Junior High School to University and it becomes one of the subjects in National Test (UN). Because of that students need to understand spoken and written English to communicate their ideas effectively.
In the KTSP or content Based on Curriculum students have to muster the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, writing is the most difficult and complicated skill to be learned compred to other language skills. It requires more effort to produce meaning trough writing than organized meaning trough listening and reading (dixon and Nessel, 1983). In line with Dixon and Nessel ( in Cahyono, 2001:44) also noted that writing is the most difficult skill among the four language skills. It is because of writing is not only mustering how to use language but also everything about what we are going to write and the way we arrange and write it.
In relation those problems mentioned above, the researcher choose concept mapping, also called mind mapping, semantic mapping, webbing or clustering, to solve those problems. This technique is expected to help the students in generating ideas before writing so that they can write smoothly based on the mapping that they made. Mapping involve making a visual record of invention and inquiry. It helps writer think and explore about topic and its details. It also shows the relationship between ideas so as to allow the students develop them into passage more easily. In term of discovering ideas, mind mapping is worth applying in the process of writing. To contribute new findings at different level and grade of education, the researcher conduct a study in the form o Classroom Action Research (CAR) about the use of concept mapping to help the tenth grade of vocational high school students to generate ideas for writing descriptive paragraph.
1.2 Problems of the Study
Based on the research background, the research problem is formulated as follows: how can teaching descriptive text using mind maping to improve writing skills on the Tenth grade of Agriculture department at SMKN 01 PALOH West Borneo 2013/2014.
1.3 Objective of the Study
Concerning with the problem mentioned above, the objectives of the study are to describe the teaching writing the Tenth grade of Vocational school. The objective of the study can be stated as follows: to know how can teach descriptive text using mind mapping to improve writing skills on the Tenth grade of Agriculture department at SMKN 1 PALOH West Borneo 2013/2014.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The result of the research was expected to give contribution to the English teacher, students, and the other research.
1. For English Teacher
The result of this study will be hopelessly useful for English teacher in teaching descriptive text to improve writing capability.
2. For the Students
The result of this research will be hopefully useful for students of vocational school in learning, improving, and producing the new interest writing text.
3. For Research
This observational result of this research might be used as an input consideration for those who want to conduct research particularly that concern with improving writing English text.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study
This research is focus on the descriptive text as instrument or object to improve English writing skill. In this research the researcher choose the Tenth grade students of Agriculture department at SMKN 1 Paloh West Borneo in Academic year 2013/2014.
1.6 Definition of Key Term
In order to clarify the title “Improving the Ability of Students in Writing Descriptive Text Using Mind Mapping on the Tenth Grade of Agriculture Department at SMKN 01 PALOH”. The researcher give the definition of key terms to avoid misunderstanding, as follows:
1. Descriptive text refers to paragraph/text that describe an object, a situation, or people by Madden (2004: 26).
2. Improve is become or made better in quality.
3. Writing skill are specific abilities which help writers put their thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message.
4. Mind mapping is the model of learning process to apply the creativity way of thinking in solve faced problem.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 The Nature of Writing
Brown (2001: 335) elaborates the upshot of the nature of writing that has produced writing pedagogic that focuses student on how to generate ideas, how to organize them coherently, how to use discourse markers and rhetorical conventions to put them cohesively into writing text, how to revise text for clearer meaning, how to edit text for appropriate grammar, and how to produce a final product. The point of writing is that writing what is in mind and making the readers understand what has been written.
2.2 Product of Writing
There are two the product of writing, that are:
1. Paragraph
According to Plogger (2000:14), a paragraph is a short piece of writing with the writer can practice many important skills of communication ideas and create good writing without becoming overwhelmed the content needed to write and easy. She/he can tackle simple to complex main ideas in a paragraph. So paragraph is a group of related sentence which always has main idea to be develop and it marked by an indentation in the first line.
2. Descriptive Text
Rozimela (2004: 12) explain that descriptive text is to give the brief explanation from the object clearly about person, place or things as if the reader can visualize and feel it. It usually uses the present tense. Descriptive text has two generic structures, they are identification and description. Meanwhile, description is to describe parts, quality and characteristic.
2.3 The Process of Writing
There are three stages of writing, that are per-writing, writing, and post-writing
1. Pre- writing stage (Concept Mapping)
A concept map is a way of representing relationships between ideas, images, or words, in the same way that a sentence diagram represents the grammar of a sentence, a road map represents the locations of highways and towns, and circuit diagram represents the working of an electrical appliance. In a concept map, each word or phrase is connected to another and linked back to the original idea, word or phrase. Concept maps are a way to develop logical thinking and study skills, by revealing connections and helping students how individual ideas form a large whole (Smalley, 2001: 36).
Concept maps are used to stimulate the generation of ideas, and are believed to aid creativity. For example, concept mapping is sometimes used for brainstorming. Although, they are often personalized and idiosyncratic, concept maps can be used to communicate complex ideas. Similar to mapping, it also adds a visual dimension that helps student gain greater control and fluency in thinking and writing (Brown, 2001: 46).
2. Writing Stage
Writing is drafting to give ideas shape and form in the symbol of written language, involves an attempt to create or conducts a whole text. Writer do not need to be worried with the convention in the writing because it will be reworked, rearranged, reorganized, or revised, and edited to get it satisfactory.
In additions, Ploeger (2007: 7) states that a draft is a beginning, an attempt to clarify thinking about the paragraph’s main ideas. Drafting is also a way to discover more ideas about a certain topic, since new ideas will comes as the writer the draft. That is all a draft is. It is never perfect and should never be turned in as a final version.
3. Post-writing
In post-writing, there are two steps involved, which are revising and editing, as explain follows,
a) Revising
Ploger (2000: 90) assumes that revising is one of the most important phases of the writing process. When revising, focus on different aspect of writing, from how well the ideas are expressed and organized to sentence structure. That is why revision is essential to good writing. remember that a draft may be fermented or out of sequences, with irrelevant information that needs to be moved or thrown away. In the same way, sentences problems have to be corrected or combined.
b) Editing
Latief (2003: 53) say that editing is putting the last touches on your work to make sure it flows well like adding any missing pieces or removing parts that do not fit. Madden (2004: 42) adds that editing involves shaping the message, perhaps changing sentences, or condensing, deleting, or combining them.
CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design
The design of the research is classroom actions research (CAR) since it deals with the classroom setting. It focuses on a particular group of a student in a certain classroom. As defined by Kemmis and Mc Taggart (2007), actions research is a form of self-reflective inquiry experiences by the participants (the teacher, the students, and the principals) in the social (including educational) situation in order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own social and educational practices, (b) their understand of these practices, (c) the situations and institutions in which these practice are carried out.
In addition, Marllasri (2007:29) mentions that the purpose of an actions research is to solve problem through application of a scientific method. It is concerned with a local problem and conducted in a local setting. The primary goal of action research is the solution of a given problem, not the contribution to science.
According to Kemmis and Mc Taggart (in Khoirunnisa, 2007: 25), action research is a cyclic process, which consist of some stages namely: planning an action, implementing the actions, and reelecting on the observation the actions, and reflecting on the observation. Besides, Latief (2003: 99) adds that classroom actions research may be done in several cycles begins with planning, implementing the plan, observing the implementation, and reflecting or evaluating the process and the result of the implementation.
3.2 Population and Sample
1. Populatin
Population is the total all of analysis units have characteristics will expect (Iskandar, 2008: 68). With the research, we can get the conclusion, because population is the all of the research subject/object has quantity and characteristic determined by the researcher. As regards to be population on the research is the Tenth Grade of Agriculture department at SMKN 01 Paloh West Borneo on 2013/2014.
2. Sample
Sample is part of characteristic had by that population (Sugiono, 2007). And according of Iskandar’s opinion (2008: 69), Sample is part of population taken with representative or represented small part of population to research.
Based on the apinion above, we can understand because sample is delegate from population have characteristic to created the source of research. The sample taken by the researcher in this research with the total 42 students from the tenth grade of agriculture department at SMKN 01 PALOH West Borneo on 2013/2014.
3.3 Research Instrument
Instrument is the implement used by the teacher to get data. The kind of data used by researcher are:
1. Noted test
This test is used to measure the creativity in thinking of students. The test given before (pre-test) and after this method applied.
2. The teacher and student observing paper
This observing paper is used to observation the activity of the teacher and the student since teaching and learning process and having content evaluating toward the teacher and student activity.
3.4 Data Collection
Instrument is the implement used by the teacher to get data. The kind of that instrument used by the researcher are:
1. Test
The Test used by the researcher are pre-test and post-test. Pre-test given to know how far the knowledge first of the students about the materials (descriptive text) will given by the researcher. And post-test is done at the last of our research, with the purpose to look development about the materials.
2. Observation
Observation is done to measure of development the result of students study in affective and psychomotoric domain. This activity occur since teaching and learning process and evaluating toward the activity the teacher and the students.
3.5 Data Analysis
Analysis is data is done on data already being gotten good of sheet observation, essay, and RPP. Analysis is data on observational it corresponds to formula problem that done by make descriptive text, which is words scene one that happening at the site by nature without statistic teach by accentuates learning process as effort increase cognitive studying student learning by use of mind mapping.
