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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL
BY USING WEBLOG
(A Classroom Action Research at the Second Grade of SMA N Colomadu
in the Academic Year of 2010 / 2011)
A Thesis
Written by
Azis Oka Setiawan
X2209010
Submitted to Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret
University as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Obtaining
The Undergraduate Degree of Education in English
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY
SURAKARTA
2011
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ABSTRACT
Azis Oka Setiawan. IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL BY USING
WEBLOG. A CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH AT THE SECOND
GRADE OF SMA N COLOMADU IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2010/2011.
Thesis, Surakarta: Teacher Training and Education Faculty. Sebelas Maret
University, 2011.
The second year students of SMU Negeri I Colomadu, Academic Year
2010/2011, had problems dealing with writing skill. First, they found it hard to
express their idea in writing including expanding content and making a better
organization of sentences. Second, they found it hard to make a better language
use. Third, they lacked vocabulary mastery. Fourth, they lack of mechanics skill
which make them unable to use it correctly. Fifth, their interest or motivation in
learning English is low. To overcome the problems, the researcher designed an
action research to teach writing skill by using weblog. The purpose of the research
is to investigate whether or not weblog writing can improve students’ writing skill
and class condition.
The action research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted
of four steps: planning, action, observation and reflection. To collect the
qualitative data, the researcher used field notes, questionnaires, and interview. To
collect the quantitative data, the researcher conducted tests. The tests were pre-test
and post tests. To analyze the qualitative data, the researcher used Constant
Comparative Method. There were five steps to analyze the qualitative data: (1)
Assembling the data, (2) Coding the data, (3) Comparing the data, (4) Building
interpretations, and reporting the outcomes. For the quantitative data, the
researcher analyzed the mean scores of the tests to compare differences between
pre-test and post-test.
The result of the research shows that weblog writing could improve:
(1) the students’ writing skill. The students could make a story with a good and
well expanded content. Their ideas also had been better. Then, the students had
the ability to construct sentences based on the grammar. They also used
appropriate vocabularies dealing with the topic in their writing and their
mechanics had also been improved. In general, students are encouraged to practice
writing as much as possible. The improvements of the mean scores showed that there was an improvement on the students’ writing skill. Therefore, it could be
concluded that weblog writing could improve the students’ writing skill. (2)
Weblog could also improve the class condition. It is proven by the students’
attendance. They come on time in English class. They always pay attention and
keep listening to the teacher’s explanation.
Based on the result of the study above, the researcher suggests that
English teachers had better implemented weblog writing in their class in order to
help the students improve their writing skill.
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MOTTO
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and
magic in it.
Goethe
Never let your schooling interfere with your education.
Mark Twain
The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to
find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe.
Voltaire
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DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated to:
1. My beloved Mom and Dad, thanks for your care
and prayer for me everywhere and every time.
2. My elder brother who gives me cheers in my life.
3. My girlfriend who always motivates me to be a
better person.
4. All my best friends in English Department.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Praise be to Allah SWT, The Lord of Universe, who always blesses
the researcher in finishing his thesis as a partial requirement for getting the
Undergraduate Degree of Education in English Department. The writer would like
to express his special gratitude to those who have given him their help, guidance,
and support in writing this thesis.
1. Prof. Dr. M. Furqon Hidayatullah, M.Pd, The Dean of Teacher Training and
Education Faculty, who has given his permission to write this thesis.
2. Endang Setyaningsih, S.Pd, M.Hum, The Head of English Department, who
has given his permission to write this thesis.
3. Dr. Ngadiso, M.Pd, the first consultant for his patience, guidance, and
suggestions.
4. Hefy Sulistyawati, S.S, the second consultant for his patience, guidance, and
suggestions.
5. The lecturers of English Education Program who have given him knowledge
and education.
6. The family of SMU Negeri I Colomadu for facilitating, helping, and
participating in this research.
7. My beloved friends in OFIA boarding house, Wisnu, Eka, Yudi, Rifki, Galih,
Habibi, Gilang, and Bambang who pray, support and everything to the writer.
8. My family, friends, and those who are impossible to mention one by one for
their love, support, help, prayer, understanding, and everything that they give
to the writer.
The researcher realizes that this thesis is still far from being perfect.
So, he accepts gratefully every comment and suggestion. Hopefully, this thesis
will be useful for the readers and English education improvement.
Surakarta, November 2011
AOS
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TABLE OF CONTENT
TITLE ............................................................................................................... i
APPROVAL ..................................................................................................... ii
LEGITIMATION ............................................................................................ iii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... iv
MOTTO............................................................................................................ v
DEDICATION ................................................................................................. vi
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................... vii
TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................... viii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... x
LIST OF APPENDICES ................................................................................. xi
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study .................................................. 1
B. Problem Formulation ........................................................ 5
C. The Objectives of the Study .............................................. 5
D. The Benefits of the Study .................................................. 6
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
A. Review of Writing Skill .................................................... 7
1. The Definition of Writing Skill .................................... 7
2. The Elements of Writing ............................................. 10
3. The Types of Writing ................................................... 11
4. The Process of Writing ................................................. 12
5. The Criteria of Good Writing ....................................... 16
B. The Review of Weblog ...................................................... 18
1. The Definition of Weblog ............................................. 18
2. The Types of Weblog in Education .............................. 19
3. Tools for Weblog ......................................................... 19
C. Implementation of Weblog in Writing .............................. 20
D. Steps of Teaching Writing ................................................. 22
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E. Advantages and Disadvantages ......................................... 24
F. Rationale ............................................................................ 27
G. Hypothesis ......................................................................... 28
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. The Setting of the Research ............................................... 30
B. The Subject of the Research .............................................. 30
C. The Research Methodology ............................................... 31
D. The Procedure of Action Research ................................... 33
E. The Technique of Collecting Data ................................... 34
F. The Technique of Analyzing the Data .............................. 38
CHAPTER IV RESULT OF THE RESEARCH
A. Introduction ...................................................................... 41
B. Research Finding .............................................................. 42
1. The First Cycle ............................................................. 43
a. Planning the Action ................................................. 43
b. Implementing the Action ........................................ 43
c. Observing the Action ............................................... 45
d. Reflecting the result of the Observation .................. 47
2. The Second Cycle ......................................................... 50
a. Revising the Plan ..................................................... 50
b. Implementing the Action ......................................... 51
c. Observing the Action .............................................. 54
d. Reflecting the Result of the Observation ................. 55
C. Discussion ......................................................................... 57
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion ........................................................................ 61
B. Implication......................................................................... 61
C. Suggestion ......................................................................... 62
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDICES
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1 Pretest and Post-test I average score of indicators .............................. 48
Table 4.2 Pretest, Post-test I, and Post-test II average score of indicators ......... 56
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Lesson Plans ................................................................................ 68
Appendix 2. Field Notes .................................................................................. 98
Appendix 3. Interview Note ............................................................................. 123
Appendix 4. Sample of Students’ Questionnaires............................................ 138
Appendix 5. Result of Students’ Questionnaires ............................................. 143
Appendix 6. Scoring Rubrics ........................................................................... 151
Appendix 7. Pre and Post Test Items ............................................................... 153
Appendix 8. Sample of Students’ Test Results ................................................ 159
Appendix 9. The result of the Test ................................................................... 171
Appendix 10. Photographs of Students Activities ........................................... 175
Appendix 11 Permission Letters ..................................................................... 177
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
English has been known as an International Language which is used
all over the world. Nowadays, it has become one of the most important subjects
that must be taught in most formal institutions from primary schools until
universities in Indonesia. Besides, in primary and secondary schools, English has
become one of the subjects in the final examination (UAN). This matter is stated
in Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Nomor 75 Tahun 2009 pasal 7 ayat 7
that stated "Mata Pelajaran UN SMP/MTs, dan SMPLB meliputi: Bahasa
Indonesia, Bahasa Inggris, Matematika, dan Ilmu Pengetahuan Alam (IPA)”.
Now, it is clear that English is very important to be learned.
There are four language skills that should be mastered by the students
in learning English, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Harmer
(1983: 44) also empowers this matter that listening and reading belong to
receptive skills in which the language users are required to have the ability to
receive spoken and written language, while speaking and writing belong to
productive skills in which the language users are required to have the ability to
produce language both spoken and written. These four language skills are
integrated and related to each other. Based on KTSP curriculum, all skills in
teaching and learning English that are integrated each other must be learnt and
taught by both students and teacher. Writing will help students master the other
skills and of course in mastering English completely. Besides, the students are
sometimes afraid and shy to say what they want to say but they can write what
they think and what they want to say.
Writing, which belongs to productive skills, can be described as an
act of forming graphic symbol or making marks on flat surface. Graphic symbols
here include letters or combinations of letters that relate to the sound people make
when they speak (Byrne, 1997: 1). The symbols have to be arranged to form
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words, sentences, and/or paragraph. Writing involves transferring message from
our thoughts to the form of flat surface (written form) using language. In addition,
the students’ writing must involve several writing components including content,
organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar), and mechanism which can be
said as a good writing (Jacobs in Haswell, 2007: 1).
According to the pre-research observation in the students of XI IA 4
writing ability of SMA N Colomadu, Karanganyar is still low. The problems
faced by the students in writing text include difficulties in exploring and
expressing their idea, lack of vocabulary, less tenses understanding, difficulties in
making good sentences, and they are often confused in starting writing. It is
shown in their bad marks in English lesson pretest by 26.67 % of students mark
above the KKM in pretest. There are also five indicators of mean score which are
below the KKM in pretest like content (66.38%), organization (65.575%),
vocabulary (60.425%), language use (59.8%) and mechanics (59.7%). Moreover,
the questionnaire indicates that the students have difficulties in all five indicators
of writing, namely, content (sometimes for 66.67%), organization (sometimes for
70%), vocabulary (sometimes for 60%), language use (sometimes for 60%), and
mechanism (sometimes for 50%). The students also seem to feel difficult when
they are asked to write their idea. Then, when they submit their work, it is almost
blank or some students write only a few words. Their attitude and motivation
toward the English lesson also show that they are not so interested in joining the
class. When the English lesson started, the students were still talking and when
the teacher explained the material, they ignored it.
The problems faced by the students and the teacher are caused by
some factors that may come from the students, the teacher, media, or method used
in teaching learning process. The students are not so interested in learning English
especially writing because English is just considered as a foreign language and not
used in daily conversations. They think that learning English is just to know the
grammatical patterns and vocabulary. Besides, they mostly come from families
with low or middle level of social economy that makes them have low
understanding about English and have limited attention from their parents because
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they think English will not be used after they graduate from school. Those are all
that make them have low motivation in learning English.
There are also some causes coming from the teacher. First, the teacher
does not give adequate practice for the students to write because the teacher
merely teaches grammar and reading. Second, no media and creative technique
are used in exploring the students’ skill in writing. Teacher should be able to make
conducive class by using creative media and strategy in presenting the materials,
motivating the students, giving reinforcements, and using variety of methods to
get the goal. So far, most teachers teach conventionally, by giving the students
lecture and presenting the materials without any media. The media are so
important in teaching English. The media include tape recorders, cassettes, video
cameras, film, pictures, television, computers, etc.
Related to the problem above, the teacher proposes the technique and
media to improve the students’ writing skill by using Weblog or Blog which is
simply defined as “online diaries, logs of thoughts, reflections; a space for
individuals to write whatever they choose with an option for readers to comment
on what they have read (Eastment, 2005: 358-361). Blog is one of the newest and
the most promising one with regard to effective writing instruction. This method
uses the class as a discussion class of what material they have worked in the blog.
Likewise, Campbell (2003: i-ii) also discusses the possibilities of
integrating weblogs into educational context, especially in language teaching field
and mentions three types of blogs that are likely to be beneficial for language
learners. The first type is tutor blog through which the class teacher can produce
special texts for reading and vocabulary activities by considering the students
proficiency levels. Creating a tutor blog, the language teacher can also direct the
students towards English websites and guide them in their self-study by creating
“links to online quizzes, English news sites, key-pal networks, audio and video
files for listening practice and interactive websites”.
The second is learner blog run by individual learners. He claims that
this type of blog “may be best suited for reading and writing classes” and he
explained the function of learner blogs in writing as follows: individually, blogs
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can be used as journals for writing practice, or as free-form templates for personal
expression. The idea here is that students can get writing practice, develop a sense
of ownership, and get experience with the practical, legal, and ethical issues of
creating a hypertext document. The last advice for use with language classes is a
collaborative work through effort of an entire class. It can serve like a free form
bulletin board for learners to share thoughts on a common topic assigned as
homework. It can also prove to be useful for an international language exchange.
Ward (2004: 1-15) expresses the place of weblog in writing
instruction. As for the language teacher, the weblog is a timely arrival which can
fulfill many of the needs identified for the effective teaching of writing. The
weblog provides a genuine audience, is authentically communicative, process
driven, peer reviewed, provides unusual context and offers a completely new form
with unchartered creative potential. By forming a learner blog, the writing teacher
can make use of blogging in all the stages of writing process from drafting to
publishing and assessment. In drafting stage, the students can share their writings
through blog pages and this will ease the feedback process. All the class members
and the teacher can reach the drafts at any time and place so they can give
feedback easily. Since the drafts are on the net, there will be no time restriction (as
it is in classroom context) and peers can examine the drafts as long as they want.
There are some advantages and disadvantages coming from the
weblog itself both from the teacher and the students. In teacher side, blog has
advantages that it is a convenient teaching aid because it is simple to edit class
material or if something new needs to be added. Then, on students’ side, weblogs
also serve as a valuable learning assistant because they have the option of
previewing the class material before class and reviewing the material after class
easily. In addition, they can easily look up words they do not understand in an
online dictionary.
The disadvantages from the teacher are that weblog is not easy to be
prepared because weblogs have the potential to be hacked, accidentally deleted or
suddenly out of service. For this reason, hard drive backups and printouts of
material posted to weblogs are essential. On students’ side, network etiquettes
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may sometimes turn out to be a risky matter for students because of the reader
criticism which could be unproductive, hurtful or even offensive.
Apart from reviewing their peers’ writings, weblogs allow the
students to see the feedback given by the teacher to the other students and this is
assumed to contribute to their understanding of successful writing. The
opportunities offered by the weblogs are not restricted only with the teacher and
peer feedback; it is also likely that an awareness of the audience is aroused in the
students depending on open-to-anyone nature of the internet. The concept of
awareness of the audience is continually emphasized in the writing instruction
with the claim that if the students know what they have written will be read by
someone other than the teacher, they will produce more meaningful and
successful texts.
These are the benefits that are probable to be obtained from the learner
blogs. In addition to the learner blogs, teachers can make use of blogging by
setting a tutor blog through which they can provide their students with lots of
materials internet includes, so they can create opportunities for extra studying for
the students. The students can choose among the materials given by the teacher
according to their own needs, and this will lead to the individualization of learning
(Stepp-Greany, 2002: 165-180). When the choice of material to study is left to the
students, they will take much more responsibility for their learning and develop a
sense of autonomous learning, which is assumed to increase success in writing.
Considering the roles of blog in language learning, it is expected that
through blog, students can be motivated in learning language, express their idea
into a good paragraph more easily, and improving their writing skill. In addition,
the teacher will only use tutor and student’s learner blog to improve student
writing skill.
Based on the problems and the proposed solution above, the writer is
interested to conduct an action research with the title “Improving Students’
Writing Skill by Using Weblog (A Classroom Action Research at SMA N
Colomadu in the Academic Year of 2010 / 2011)”.
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B. Problem Formulation
Based on the background of the study above, the problems are
formulated as follows:
1. How can Weblog improve the students' skill in writing a text?
2. What happens when weblog is implemented in teaching writing?
C. Objective of the Study
Based on the problem formulation above, the objectives of this
research are:
1. To describe how weblog can improve the students' skill in writing a text.
2. To describe what happens when weblog is implemented for teaching writing.
D. Benefit of the Study
If the research gives positive result, it is expected to be able to give
some benefits for students, teachers, schools, and other researchers.
1. For students, it is expected that this research result will help them improve their
writing skill. The students will be able to:
a. explore their ideas into words;
b. choose the appropriate words in certain context;
c. make a good sentence with the right word order and tense; and
d. make a simple text correctly and appropriately.
2. For teachers, this research result can be used as resources so teachers can apply
weblog in improving students' writing skill.
3. For schools, this research result can be used as resources in developing
techniques of teaching writing.
4. For other researchers, this research result may help them in finding references
for further research.
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review of Writing Skill
1. Definition of Writing Skill
Generally, writing can be interpreted as the act of forming or
tracing a character on paper or other suitable materials with a pen or pencil.
Byrne (1980: 24) defines that writing is a primary means of recording speech,
even though it must be acknowledged as a secondary medium of
communication. He also defines that writing is an act of forming graphic
symbols, or making marks on flat surface of some kind. Graphic symbols here
include letters or combinations of letters that relate to the sound people make
when they speak. The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain
conventions, to form words, sentences, and/or paragraph
According to Enre (1988: 148) the aims of writing are:
a. to explain or to inform
b. to tell something as it was looked and heard
c. to tell something about something happened
d. to convince someone
Meanwhile, Flower (1989: 54) suggests a more elaborate
definition, he states:
“Writing is best understood as a set of distinctive thinking
processes which writers orchestrate or organize during the act of
composing. The processes of writing are hierarchically organized,
with component processes embedded within other components.
Writing is a goal-directed process. In the act of composing, writers
create a hierarchical network of goals and these in turn guide the
writing process. Writers create their own goals in two key ways: by
generating goals and supporting sub-goals which embody a
purpose; and, at times, by changing or regenerating their own top-
level goals in light of what they have learned by writing.
Meanwhile, Meyers (2005: 2) says that writing is a way to produce
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language when you do and when you speak. Writing is communicating with
others in a verbal way. Meyers states:
“Writing is a way to produce language, which you do naturally
when you speak. Writing is communicating with others in a verbal
way. Writing is also an action- a process of discovering and
organizing your ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping and
revising them”.
Harmer (2004: 86) in How to Teach Writing states “Writing is a
process that what we write is often heavily influenced by the constraints of
genres, then these elements have to be present in learning activities”.
Then, Pelz in Burton, et al. (2009:5) describes:
“writing in which persons seek to probe their experience, to reflect
upon it, with the intentions of discovering and developing their
attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and ideas about experience . . . .The
audience for such writing is the author of it, as well as trusted
friends and colleagues who might be in a position to help the writer
carry on the exploratory purpose of the writing. . . . Its subject
matter perforce draws heavily upon the personal experience and
knowledge of the writer, no matter what the nominal topic of the
writing might be. . . . Thus, its form is typically meditative and
associative, . . and its style is, therefore, casual, adhering to the
natural idiom of the writer.
Next, Jacob in Haswell (2007:1) states that students’ writing ability
refers to the students' competence in applying the components of writing
including content, organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar), and
mechanism.
In the same occasion, Langan (2001: 23) states that for many
people, writing is a process that involves the following steps:
a. Discovering a thesis, often through prewriting.
b. Developing solid support for thesis, often through more prewriting.
c. Organizing the thesis and supporting material and writing it out in a
first draft.
d. Revising and then editing carefully to ensure an effective, error free
paper.
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He also states that there are four clear-cut goals in writing like unity, support,
organization, and error-free sentences to aim for in writing.
Furthermore, Hedge (1998: 5) states that writing requires a number
of things; a high degree of organization in the development of ideas and
information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity of
meaning; the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis; and
a careful choice of vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures to
create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter and the eventual
readers.
The other expert, Freedman, Pringle and Yalden (1979: 2) as cited
in Corbet (1965: 626), defines about writing, he states:
“….that writing was not studied in the schools; for in the
meantime, as suggested above, there had arisen that very limited
tradition of composition teaching which is so familiar to all of us in
first and second language situation, with its emphasis on correct
usage, correct grammar, correct spelling, and its focus on the topic
sentence, the various methods of developing the paragraph
……and the holy trinity of unity, coherence, and emphasis”.
According to Celce-Murcia, writing is an act of communication
that requires an interaction process which takes place between the writer and
reader via text (1991: 331). In other words, writing is an activity that requires
communicative or interactive process between writer and reader.
From the definitions above it can be concluded that writing is a
process of forming graphic symbols from our thought that involves
discovering, developing, organizing and revising by using medias such as
paper or a computer screen and is aimed for several writing competence like
content, organization, vocabulary, language use (grammar), and mechanism.
Skill is defined as the ability to do something well (Hornby, 2004:
1109). To conclude, writing skill can be defined as the ability to form graphic
symbols from our thought that involves discovering, developing, organizing
and revising by using medias such as paper or a computer screen and is aimed
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for several writing competences like content, organization, vocabulary,
language use (grammar), and mechanism.
2. Elements of Writing
Harris (1969: 68-69) states that there are four elements of writing,
as follows:
a. Mastering Vocabulary/Diction
He states that vocabulary’s mastering/diction played an important
role in a language, especially in the writing activity. The choice of
vocabulary could describe the writer’s knowledge. The number of words
that is mastered by a writer could indicate that he/she mastered a number of
concepts, mastery of vocabulary can be improved by reading and listening a
lot.
Furthermore, Keraf (1982:16) said that the vocabulary’s mastery
could be observed from two sides, those were quantitatively and
qualitatively. Quantitative vocabulary mastery is defined as a must for the
students to master the vocabulary in a language as much as possible, in this
case, the students should master the vocabulary actively, it means that they
are able to use vocabulary in communication. Qualitative vocabulary
mastery consists of knowledge, meaning of words, and structure of words.
Its mastery will support the students to choose the appropriate words, so it
can support the effectiveness of using language. The mastery of quantitative
and qualitative vocabulary is a must. The mastery of quantitative vocabulary
is the first demand to broaden a draft, while the mastery of qualitative
vocabulary is the second demand to deepen the knowledge of words.
b. Mastering Grammatical Rules/Sentence Structure
Mastering grammatical rules/sentence structure consists of
phonology, morphology, and syntax. Phonological rules don’t have any
roles in the writing activity, while morphological and syntactical rules play
some important roles in the writing activity. It deals with the effective use of
the right affixes, conjunction, prefixes, and composition, the structure of the
sentences.
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c. Coherence
Coherence means that the writer’s paragraph is easy to read and
understand because the supporting sentences are in some kind of logical
order and the ideas are connected by use of appropriate transition signals.
d. Spelling
One of the most difficult and confusing aspects of the English
language is spelling system. There is often a discrepancy between the
pronunciation of a word and its spelling. They cannot always know how to
spell a word by its pronunciation or how to pronounce it by its spelling, to
avoid this problem, the students are suggested to open dictionaries before
they are going to write.
3. Types of Writing
A composition is a piece of writing that has more than one
paragraph. It is divided into three parts, namely beginning, middle, and end. A
good composition is a composition in which the paragraphs are arranged
logically and smoothly from the beginning until the end.
Reid (1993: 23) states that there are two ways in which students
may express their thoughts and ideas into English writing; namely controlled
writing and free writing/guided writing. Meanwhile, Raimes (1983: 5)
mentions several approaches in teaching writing.
a. Controlled writing
In this type of writing, the students are helped to produce a good
composition by certain control exercises consisting of pieces of discourse in
which students are instructed to copy and then make discrete changes or fill
in the blanks. This will enable students to more practice with the structure,
punctuations, and grammar.
The controlled-to-free approach is sequential: students are first
given sentence exercises, then paragraphs to copy or manipulate
grammatically by changing questions to statements, present to past, or plural
to singular. They might also change words to clauses or combine sentences.
With these controlled compositions, it is relatively easy to for students to
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write and yet avoid errors, which make error correction easy. As such, this
approach stresses on grammar, syntax, and mechanics. It emphasizes
accuracy rather than fluency or originality.
b. Guided Writing
It is the type of writing in which the students from controlled
writing transit before going to the free writing. In this type, the students are
still guided but not given full control by the teacher. The teacher gives only
title scaffolds while the writing process. Students are allowed to try some
free composition after they have reached an intermediate level of
proficiency.
c. Free Writing
This type stresses writing quantity rather than quality. Teachers
who use this approach assign vast amounts of free writing on given topics
with only minimal correction. The emphasis in this approach is on content
and fluency rather than on accuracy and form. Once ideas are written down
on the page, grammatical accuracy and organization follow. Thus, teachers
may begin their classes by asking students to write freely on any topic
without worrying about grammar and spelling for five or ten minutes. The
teacher does not correct these pieces of free writing. They simply read them
and may comment on the ideas the writer expressed. Alternatively, some
students may volunteer to read their own writing aloud to the class. Concern
for audience and content are seen as important in this approach.
4. Process of Writing
Meyers (2005: 3 – 12) states that there are six steps to make a good
writing, among others are:
a. Exploring Ideas
Writing first involves discovering ideas. Before writing, let our
mind explore freely. And then record those thoughts by writing on whatever
you can. As in speaking, you must have something to say, a reason for
saying it, and someone to say it to.
1) Your subject
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Before writing, ask yourself, “what is the subject or the material
you want to write about and what do I know about it?” Choose a subject
that you care about and know about (or can find out about). Then, you
will have something interesting to say, and you will say it more clearly
and confidently. You must select and then narrow your subject. Then,
you will practice doing that in the exercise that follows later.
2) Your purpose
After deciding the subject, now ask yourself, “What is the
purpose?”Communicating always has a purpose: to persuade, or to
entertain or may be to do all the three. You could inform, persuade or to
entertain your classmate with example of odd incidents you have
experienced at your job.
3) Your Audience
After deciding your subject and your purpose, ask yourself, “Who
is the audience?” To answer to that question will determine what you say
about your subject and what the purpose you hope to achieve. You may
need to provide a lot of evidence to persuade a reader who does not agree
with your opinion, but provide far less for someone who tends to agree
with you.
b. Pre Writing
The second step of the writing process involves writing your
thoughts on paper or on the computer. Don’t worry about making mistakes
because you will probably change your mind and your wording later
anyway. This step is called pre writing. It is a time to relax, to write quickly
and to begin organizing your thoughts. There are also a few ways to speed
up the writing, as follows:
1) Brainstorming
One way to capture your thought is by brainstorming, or listing
thoughts as they come to you. You might brainstorm a second or third
time to generate more ideas.
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2) Clustering
In clustering, you write your subject in the middle of the page and
then circle it. You write related ideas around the circle as they occur to
you. Then you circle the ideas and connect them to your subject circle.
These related ideas are like branches.
3) Free Writing
Another way to get started is free writing. You simply write about
the subject without worrying about sentence, structure, spelling, logic
and grammar. Write as you would speak so that you can get your ideas
down fast.
c. Organizing
After you have put your ideas into words, you can begin to
organize them. This process involves selecting, subtracting, and adding.
Think again about your purpose and audience what goal does you want to
accomplish, to inform, persuade, or entertain? What point do you want to
make? And what should you tell your readers so that you can accomplish
those goals?
Return to your pre writing and do the following:
1) Underline or highlight best ideas in your brainstorming list, putting
related ideas together. Add to the as more ideas occur to you and remove
or ignore the parts that are not related to your choices.
2) Choose the part of the clustering diagram that has the best ideas. Do a
second clustering diagram that explores those ideas in greater detail.
Ignore the parts of the original diagram that are not related to your
choice.
3) Circle or highlight the best parts of your free writing. Do a second even a
third free writing on them, ignore the parts of each free writings that are
not related to your choice. And focus more specifically on your subject
and add more details.
4) Outlining after selecting, subtracting and adding, the writer can make an
informal outline (Meyers, 2005: 5-6).
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d. Writing the First Draft
You have done some pre writing, selected your best ideas,
expanded on them, and arranged them in some reasonable order. Now you
can begin the first draft of your paragraph. Don’t worry about being perfect,
so write fast as if you were speaking to your readers.
Some steps for drafting can be stated as follows:
1) Say something about before you write in
2) Write fast by hand or by computer
3) Use only one side of the paper
4) Leave wide margins and double space to make room for changes.
5) Save your work every five or ten minutes on the computer (Meyers,
2005: 6).
e. Revising the Draft
Revising is among the most important steps in writing, especially
for people who write in a second language. Revising means improving what
you have already written. When your revise, you examine how well you
first draft make its point and achieves its purpose for its audience. That may
require rearranging ideas, developing ideas further, cut out ideas that do not
support your point, and changing the wording of your sentences.
These are some tips for revising:
1) Make notes in the margins or write new material on separate sheet of
paper.
2) Circle words you think you misspelled or will want to change later.
3) Tape or staple additions where you want them to go.
4) On the computer, use cut and paste or insert commands to move things
around.
5) Print out a double space copy for revisions: slow down and revise in
pencil (Meyers: 2005: 7).
f. Producing the Final Copy
There are two steps in producing the final copy, they are:
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1) Editing
After you have revised your paragraph, you can edit your work.
Check it carefully. Focus on grammar, words choice, verb forms,
punctuation, and spelling. Read the paper more than once. Copy it over
or print it our again with all your corrections. This draft should be perfect
and should represent your best effort (Meyers, 2005: 8).
2) Proofreading
The final stage in the revision process is proofreading. That
means carefully reading your draft more than once to check that your
revisions and editorial changes were made correctly (Meyers, 2005: 8).
5) Criteria of Good Writing
A good writing must meet at least three requirements. First, it must
discuss one topic only. The writing must have unity of the subject matter.
Second, tire sentences within the paragraph must have coherence and cohesion.
Finally, they must be tied together so that the readers can read the text as a unit,
not as a collection of separate sentences.
a. Unity
Unity of the text means the relevance of the sentences in a
paragraph. A text has unity if all of the sentences in the text discuss one
main idea. The sentences in the paragraph must support the topic sentence.
If there is a sentence in a paragraph which is not in line with the topic
sentence, it means that the paragraph does not have unity of text.
b. Cohesion and Coherence
Conor in Reid (1993: 36) states about cohesion and coherence as
follows:
1) Cohesion
It is defined as the more limited term; specific words and phrases
(transitions, pronouns, repetitions of the key words and phrases) that tie
prose together and direct the readers. Cohesion is achieved through the
rise of variety of lexical and grammatical relationship between items
within a sentence in a text. There are five types of cohesiveness:
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a) References
Anna did not come to school because she was sick
b) Substitution:
I want red skirt and the blue one.
c) Ellipsis:
Do you want another novel? I have ten more.
d) Conjunction:
I was not informed. Otherwise./ would not take some action.
e) Lexical:
John gave his girlfriend his own portrait. As it happened, she has
always wanted the portrait of John.
2) Coherence
Tannen in Reid (1993: 37) states that coherence is broader-based
concept. It is the underlying organizational structure that makes the
words and sentences in discourse unified and significant for the readers.
Achieving coherence in a text is actually the writer's job. The
readers then just follow the writer and not only understand the words
sentences, and paragraphs, but also relate them to each other and see
what purpose the writer serves in the development of the text. The writer
may use connectives to achieve coherence such as although, but, for
example. A paragraph can be said as coherent when the movement from
one sentence to the next is logical and smooth.
From the explanation above, it can be concluded that writing is a
process of forming graphic symbols from our thought through several
processes like exploring ideas, prewriting, organizing, writing the first draft,
revising and producing the final copy, using four important elements, namely,
diction, sentence structure, coherence, and spelling, including the five
indicators of writing, namely content, organization, vocabulary, language use
(grammar), and mechanics which are in a good unity, cohesion, and coherence.
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B. Review of Weblog
1. Definition of Weblog
There are many theories of weblog. One of them is stated by
Lamshed, et al. (2002: 9) in his book “Blogs: ”Personal e-learning spaces”, he
defines a blog (or blog) as a web-based space for writing. Blogs can be
thought of as an online journal where all the writing and editing of information
is managed through a web browser or a handheld device (PDA). Then he
simplify its meaning as a personal web site managed by an individual who
compiles lists of links to personally interesting material interspersed with
information and editorial. The user can instantly place their words and thoughts
onto their own web log site through one of the many pieces of blogging
software available. He also added that blog is like a journal, a blog can be a
continually updated resource that grows over time with the accumulation of
writing and other content. This archived information is accessed using a
simple calendar that highlights the dates on which entries were made.
Other theories come from Grossman (2004: 65), he defines
weblogs, or blogs as amateur websites that provide news, information and,
above all, opinions to rapidly growing and devoted audiences drawn by nothing
more than a shared interest or two and the sheer magnetism of the editor's
personality.
In short, White (2003:10) defines blogs as Web diaries. Blogging
enables individuals to publish their thoughts on the web in a diary format
without a need for programming or HTML knowledge. According to Farmer
(2004: 274), weblogs allow users to:
a. frequently update their blogs through simple web-publishing technology
b. publish items by time and date of publishing
c. attach to items the facility for comments to be added and for postings
elsewhere that have linked to that item to be tracked back
d. publish with each new posting a web feed such as RSS or Atom
From the definition above, it can be concluded that weblog is an
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individual web based space for writing in a shape of online journal or diaries to
place the writer thought, words, or interest which can be commented or linked.
2. The Types of Weblog in Education
There are three types of weblog in education (Campbell, 2003: i-ii),
as follows:
a. Tutor Blog
The tutor blog is run by the tutor for the learner, and its purpose is
to give reading practice to the learners, promote exploration of English
websites, encourage online exchange by use of comment buttons, provide
class or syllabus information, and serve as a resource of links for self-study.
b. Learner Blog
Learner blogs are run by individual learners themselves. Learner
blogs are best suited for English reading and writing classes. This blog is
used to work a homework given by the tutor or teacher.
c. Class Blog
The class blog is the result of the collaborative effort of an entire
class. It can be used for posting messages, images, and links related to
classroom discussion topics in English. Class blogs could also be used as a
virtual space for an international classroom language exchange.
3. Tools for Weblog
There are several tools that can be used to create a blog which can
be got freely from the internet. Below are the examples of free blog tools.
a. Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/)
Prospective users create an account to allow log in and are guided
through a process of creating a blog including decisions about title,
description, public status and whether the blog is open to the public.
Blogger offers several key features including:
1) Archiving of posts
2) Management of membership
3) Adding of permanent links allowing other websites to link directly
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4) A "BlogThis" feature which posts a link from a currently browsed site
directly to a user's blog without entering Blogger
5) An ability to add a search engine to a blog is possible, which allows
users to search content.
b. Wordpress (http://wordpress.com/)
These blog tools are also free to use, and the features are almost
same with the blogger.
c. 21Publish (http://www.21publish.com/)
21Publish is full-featured, meaning users can post images, audio,
video, links, and even documents. This is also a free to use blog.
C. Implementation of Weblog in Writing
Mainly, the cycle of blogging activities that were implemented include
students setting up blogs, collaborating with blogging buddies (some within an
appointed group of classmates called “blogging groups”), making blog posts,
then reading classmates’ post and commenting. The explanation below will
explain about the blogging cycle in teaching writing.
1. Blog posts
Based on Downs (2004: 14) at one time a recurring criticism of the
use of blogs in education was that blogging students only write “trivia”. In
this blog posts well-structured activities and requirements directed by a
classroom teacher, blogging activities and the associated technology provide
the ideal forum not just for informal writing but also writing for academic
purposes.
First, the students before writing anything, students would read
thematically related material, perhaps watch a popular or documentary video
with content of a similar thematic focus, and discuss the content in class.
Students would then use the content materials as a basic for doing narrowly
focused writing tasks, such as question development and answers, idea
outlines, and summarizing exercises. Finally, each student would make a blog
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post in short essay form in response to a teacher-generated question or
assigned task. Such assignments would usually be formulated so as to
generate a clear student opinion
2. Peer reviews
The teacher has been the traditional source of power in the second
language classroom, particularly for the writing classroom. A student’s works
is often corrected, commented on, and graded only by the teacher. Peer
review activities diffuse some of that power, giving students a sense of
responsibility and accomplishment both as readers and writers. Cho,
Christian, and Charney (2006: 270) note that, “Peer feedback appears to bring
about a higher perception of meaning-change revision while most teacher
influenced revisions happen at the surface level”.
The peer review activities usually involve pairs or small groups of
two to four student writers exchanging copies of their blogs work and making
comments based on a number of possible criteria (content focus, style,
organization, language use, writing mechanism). Such activities can be
augmented in three ways with the use of blog-based peer review: peer
comments on blog posts or blogging groups.
3. Peer comments on blog posts
The strong follow up of activity to having students post writing on
their blogs is to have their classmates read those posts and respond with
comments, whether informal feedback or assessments based on pre-
determined criteria. In addition to posting a writing assignment on his/her
blog, each student is required to read and respond to a set number of
classmates’ posts. As this peer commentator reads those posts and responds
with his/her own viewpoints, sometimes in accordance with a classmate, and
sometimes not, a number of written dialogues are initiated. This step
underlies the notion of the blogging activity as a student-centered process,
one in which “active learning, student engagement, and student
responsibility” are central. Ideally, each student writer would also return to
his/her own post of any particular writing assignment, review the
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commentary left by classmates and then, if so motivated, leave them a
response.
4. Blogging groups
A blogging group might consist of any number of students, but
since the purpose is to narrow the field of potential peer
respondents/commentators to a specific manageable group, it is best limited
to no more than six members. In addition, blogging group member have to
work with the posts of their blogging group members, students would also do
other activities as a group, such as peer reviewing various homework
exercises or carrying out content discussions. In this way, they could further
cultivate a sense of meaningful social continuity with their group members.
D. Steps of Teaching Writing
None in this world come in instant because everything needs steps
or process to reach it. In addition, process determines our purpose success in the
future. So, in order to succeed in teaching, there are several important steps that
should be followed. In teaching, the teacher uses process approach technique.
Generally there are two basic ways of teaching writing skills as stated by Lazaro
in Richards (1990: 100-117) they are, the product focused approach and the
process approach.
In process approach there are several principles that should be
followed, they are:
1. This approach starts from an examination of what good writers actually do as
they write.
2. Writing activities should reflect a focus on the different stages in the writing
process: planning, drafting and revising.
3. New role of learners: they assume greater control over what they write, how
they write it, and the evaluation of their own writing
4. New role of teachers: they act as facilitators, organizing writing experiences
that enable the learner to develop effective composing strategies.
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5. Students should produce complete (not isolated sentences), contextualized
pieces of writing.
6. Emphasis on why the writing is being done (a sense of purpose) and who it is
being written for (a sense of audience).
7. Students should spend c1assroom time on writing (not just a homework
activity).
8. Group composition: at each stage of the activity the group interaction
contributes in useful ways to the writing process.
After knowing about the principles in writing process, it is proper
to know about the process approach technique. As introduced by Lazaro in
Richard (1990: 100-117), the technique in process approach consists of three
stages, they are planning, drafting and revising. The details as follows:
1. In the planning stage: brainstorming, free association, word mapping, ranking
activities, quick writing.
2. In the drafting stage: elaboration exercise, reduction exercise, jumbled
paragraph, jumbled essay, writing thesis statements and topic sentences, group
drafting, quick writing.
3. In the revising stage: peer feedback, group correction activities, rewriting
exercises, teacher feedback.
In teaching writing on SMA N Colomadu by using weblog, the
writer will use the same technique above which consists of three stages, planning,
drafting, and revising. The teaching steps are as follows:
1. Planning Stage
In planning stage the writer as the teacher will use brainstorming
and quick writing to test their skill in writing. Brainstorming is used to explore
students’ idea and thought which is followed by simple quick writing. In quick
writing, the students’ grammatical errors are avoided and not too important.
After they finish their writing, they should post or upload it in their own blog.
2. Drafting Stage
In drafting stage, the students are given task to continue writing
idea in brainstorming or arrange the jumbled paragraphs given by the teacher in
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the tutor blog. The tutor blog is shown in front of the class by using LCD
projector. Then, the students do the task in group. After they finish, they should
publish their work in their respective blog with blog revision. Blog revision
works like Microsoft word which will tell the writer about the grammar
mistakes or mistype of vocabulary.
3. Revising Stage
In revising stage, the teacher uses three technique, they are group
correction activities, teacher feedback, and rewriting. In group correction
activities, the teacher divides the class into group. Then, the teacher chooses
one good and bad writing example. In group, they correct the mistakes (revise)
by sharing their ideas. After that, the teacher gives feedback of what the good
writing should be, in order to make the students understand and make a better
writing in the future. Next, they should write the revised writing in blog to
lessen the mistakes in their writing. Finally, they produce the final writing
individually to know how far their writing improves after using blogs.
E. Advantages and Disadvantages
Teaching writing by using weblog has several advantages and
disadvantages both from teacher and student. They are as follows:
1. Advantages
a. On the part of the teacher, blogs are a convenient teaching aid.
For example, the amount of time students use their weblogs is at
the discretion of the teacher. Students can use it to submit a paper, weekly
for class assignments and notes, or anything in between. Maybe, computers
in the classroom are not a prerequisite for the use of blogs but thanks to the
affordability of today’s computers and high speed internet access, most
students have Internet access at home or at internet cafe. All of the teacher’s
notes will be viewable together in chronological order. This is very
convenient when preparing lessons that build upon previous material taught
in the class. It is simple to edit class material if the text can be improved or
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if something new needs to be added. All student writing samples are kept in
one place and can be read from any computer connected to the Internet at
anytime. Teachers can give collective feedback to the class when a recurring
mistake is found by adding entries to a “Writing Feedback” class blog.
Additionally, individual feedback can be given to individual student blogs.
In order to save time when giving feedback, save a copy of the messages at
an additional teacher-only blog. If a class is taught for several years with
different students, teachers might be able to recycle these messages. From
this blog, the teacher can select the appropriate message to send to a student
regarding their feedback to their homework and writing samples (Johnson,
2004 at http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Johnson-Blogs/).
b. On the part of students, weblogs also serve as a valuable learning assistant.
For instance, students have access to the teacher’s complete notes
on the Internet. Students have the option of previewing the class material
before class and reviewing the material after class. Because students are
connected to the Internet, they have access to online English dictionaries.
Students can easily look up words they do not understand by cutting the
unknown word and pasting it into an online dictionary. Because the class
material is organized into sections, students can easily find information.
Students can read comments for the class as a whole and comments directed
at them individually. This maximizes feedback and contact with the teacher.
Students can observe how their writing has changed over time (Johnson,
2004 at http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Johnson-Blogs/).
2. Disadvantages
Like any other medium, the weblog has its shortcomings. As the
weblog becomes more and more visible in teaching, a great deal of worry and
concern may be generated.
a. Teacher
The language teacher using weblogs should also take security
issues into account. Like websites, weblogs have the potential to be hacked,
accidentally deleted or suddenly out of service when most needed. For this
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reason, hard drive backups and printouts of material posted to weblogs are
essential. Furthermore, “Students should be apprised of the lack of
anonymity on Blogger and of the need to use discretion in writing about
sensitive, personal subjects”(Stiler, 2003: 9).
b. Students
1) It could be argued that the weblog may have a detrimental effect on
student’s EFL literacy development, particularly in terms of reading and
writing. In Weblogs and Discourse, Wrede (2003 at
http://weblogs.design.fhaachen.de/owrede/publikationen/weblogs_and_di
scourse,) explains that just as weblog authors are not usually professional
writers, weblog readers are not generally professional readers either. He
warns that “this reading can’t compensate for the weak writing skills of
authors and potentially could be characterized as a kind of ...seeing what
one wants to see, (selective perception)”. It is likely that the reading
skills developed from scrolling the computer screen lead to an
accelerated but superficial, and often inaccurate understanding of the
content. He also voices concerns about some of the disadvantages to
writing skills that may be developed from activities such as blogging.
There have been many cases of students using phrases like BTW (by the
way) cuz (because) and U (you) in submitted written work and there was
a well documented case of a student in Scotland who wrote her entire
essay in SMS.
2) Network etiquettes may sometimes turn out to be a risky matter for
students. Students who post their work and ideas in the public sphere
may receive some criticism which could be unproductive, hurtful or even
offensive. Students also need to take care to ensure that their own
comments might not accidentally cause offence. For example, a student
who posts, “Do you understand now?!!!” might be attempting to convey
a supportive smile and a friendly laugh with the exclamations, but the
reader might interpret these marks as an aggressive rebuke. Likewise
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with the use of capital letters, this is seen by many as a form of shouting.
However, to
3) The novice blogger who posts a blog in capital letters it might mean that
they do not know about this particular form of network etiquette, or how
to deactivate the “Caps Lock” button (Hammersly, 2003a
http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/story/0,5500,956003,00.html).
F. Rationale
Writing has become one of four language skills that must be
mastered in learning English. It means that teaching English in Senior High
School must be aimed to make the students able to express idea in written form by
using appropriate language variation fluently and accurately in writing the text.
In the process of writing, the students of SMA N Colomadu,
Karanganyar, still face some problems in vocabulary, sentence, organization, and
mechanism. The lack of vocabulary, language use, organization and mechanism
makes the students difficult in exploring and expressing idea to begin their
writing. Because they have difficulty with English, the students in the class
become uninterested in joining English class especially in writing task. In
addition, the students have problems in writing content, because their writing
content hasn’t been expanded. Furthermore, they only write English words which
are found in dictionary without knowing the good diction. In class condition, the
students always come late in joining the lesson. They are also sometimes paying
attention to the teacher’s explanation.
The problems faced by the students and the teacher are caused by
some factors that may come from the students, the teacher, media, or method. The
students are not so interested in learning English especially writing because
English is just considered as a foreign language and not used in daily
conversations. They think that learning English is just to know the grammatical
patterns and vocabulary. Besides, they mostly come from families with low or
middle level of social economy that makes them have low understanding about
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English and have limited attention from their parents because they think English
will not be used after they graduate from school.
There are also some causes coming from the teacher. First, the teacher
does not give adequate practice for the students to write because the teacher
merely teaches grammar and reading. Second, no media and creative technique
are used in exploring the students’ skill in writing. So far, most teachers teach
conventionally, by giving the students lecture and presenting the materials without
any media.
The students need some interesting techniques or media to engage
their motivation and imagination in developing idea of their writing. These can be
solved by introducing them with a kind of new media called Weblog which will be
used as a media to convey the materials and develop their ideas. The media
technique is quite simple; the student must see the teacher blog first to see their
exercise or homework. After that, the student writes the answer in their own blog
with or without grammar, spelling and mechanism checking and correction based
on teacher’s order. Next, the teacher looks upon the students’ blog followed by
assessing it. Then, the teacher and students discussed it together in the class.
Finally, the teacher summarizes the lesson and finds problem and solution. By
using this media, the students will be free to express their ideas and thoughts of
writing because they won’t be afraid of making mistakes since there is grammar,
spelling, and mechanism checking and correction. Since it is free to express,
weblog can improve student’s content, organization of ideas and vocabulary. In
this term, the students can expand their content in writing, with a good
organization of ideas and using better vocabulary. In addition, the grammar,
spelling, and mechanics correction can improve the students writing skill in
language use and mechanics.
From the explanation above, it can be assumed that Weblog can
improve the writing skill of the second year students of SMA Negeri 1 Colomadu,
Karanganyar.
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G. Hypothesis
Based on rational above, the writer proposes a hypothesis that
weblog can improve the writing skill of the second grade students of SMA N
Colomadu, Karanganyar in the academic year of 2010/2011. Weblog can also
improve the students’ interest and motivation in involving them in technology-
based learning.
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CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Setting
This research entitled "Improving Students’ Writing Skill by Using
Weblog”' is conducted on March 2011 in Senior High School (SMA) Negeri
Colomadu, Karanganyar, Central Java. It is located at Baturan Village, Colomadu,
Karanganyar, Central Java. This school is the only state schools in Colomadu. The
location is strategic enough in the Fajar Indah Residence of Colomadu.
This school consists of three grades, namely the tenth grade, the
eleventh grade, and twelfth grade. Each grade consists of eight classes, except for
the twelfth grade which only has seven classes. Each class consists of about forty
students. The buildings are in good order and arrangement; there are 23
classrooms, teacher office, administration room, labs, computer room, mosque,
canteens, basketball yard, and also parking area. In each classroom, there are
whiteboard, 20 tables and 40 chairs for students, a teacher's desk and chair, a
clock, a computer and CD player (in certain classes) and good air circulation and
lighting. The class which is used for conducting research has a computer for each
student. It is done in computer classroom or computer laboratory of SMA N
Colomadu with good air circulation and lighting.
B. The Subject of the Research
This research involves the second or eleventh grade students of
SMA Negeri Colomadu, Karanganyar, while the subject of the research is the
students of XI IA 4 consisting of 19 girls and 11 boys. They are diligent and some
of them have low motivation in learning English. This is caused by their bad
perspective of seeing English as not important subject in their daily life because it
is not used after final exam. In addition, there are also a lot of vocabulary and
tenses that should be mastered. This makes them lazy to improve their ability in
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English. Most of them come from families with low or middle level social
economic background which is rarely using English in their life. The classroom
condition of XI IA 4 is clean and conducive enough so that it can support this
research. There are whiteboard, 20 tables and 40 chairs, a teacher's desk and chair,
a clock, and good air circulation and lighting.
C. The Research Methodology
Before deciding the method used in this research, it will be better to
know first what method is. According to Kartono (1983: 15), method is the ways
of thinking that have been well prepared to conduct research and to get the
research aim. Meanwhile, Ary in Furchan (1982: 50) defines method as the
common strategy which is used in collecting and analyzing the data needed to
overcome problems appearing. This is the solving plan for the problem being
studied. From those definitions above, method can be defined as the strategy
which can be used to collect and to analyze data in order to overcome/solve the
problems.
The method used in this research is classroom action research since
its nature is for improving the quality of action within it. Classroom action
research is used in this research because it is directly related with teacher’s
profession. Action research is done by the teacher/researcher because of some
reasons, such as the teaching learning process which isn’t satisfying, the quality of
teaching and learning which should be improved, etc. Action research focuses on
the teaching learning process in the classroom. The general goal of this research is
improvement and change. It should be any improvement and better change after
action research is held.
There are several definitions of action research stated by some
experts. The first definition is stated by Ferrance (2000: 1), who states that action
research is a collaborative activity among colleagues searching for solutions to
everyday, real problems experienced in schools, or looking for ways to improve
instruction and increase student achievement. Rather than dealing with the
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theoretical, action research allows practitioners to address those concerns that are
closest to them, ones over which they can exhibit some influence and make
change.
Ebbutt in Hopkins (I985: 34) states that action research is about the
systematic study of attempts to improve educational practice by groups of
participants by means of their own practical actions and by means of their own
reflection upon the effects of those actions. Zuber-Skerritt (1996: 14) uses an
action research to refer to ways of investigating professional experience which
link practice and the analysis of practice into a single productive and continuously
developing sequence, and which links researchers and research participants into a
single community of interested colleagues. Action research is about the nature of
the learning process, about the link between practice and reflection, about the
process of attempting to have new thoughts about familiar experiences, and about
the relationship between particular experiences and the general ideas.
Similar definition is given by Carr and Kemmis in Burns (1999:
30) who define action research as simply form of reflective enquiry undertaken by
participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of
their own practices, their understanding of their practices, and the situation in
which the practices are carried out.
From the definitions above, action research can be defined as a
systematic study of attempts to overcome the education problems or to improve
educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical
actions and by means of their own reflection upon the effects of those actions.
There are several common features which can be considered
to characterize action research as stated by Burns (1999: 30):
1. Action research is contextual, small-scale and localized, it identifies and
investigates problem within a specific situation.
2. It is evaluative and reflective as it aims to bring about change and
improvement in practice.
3. It is participatory as it provides for collaborative investigation by terms of
colleagues, practitioners, and researchers.
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4. Changes in practice are based on the collection of information or data which
provides the impetus of change.
In this study, action research is conducted as an attempt to improve
students’ skill in writing a text. This research is carried out by the writer in
collaboration with the teacher. The actions that will be done are the
implementation of using weblog in teaching English especially writing. The
observation is done when the technique of using weblog as teaching media is
used. The observation and reflection will give result whether or not weblog can
improve students' skill in writing a text.
D. The Procedures of Action Research
This research will be conducted in the classroom. This activity has
four steps: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. In order to be clear, the
writer will have to present the Lewin’s model of action research. It can be
depicted as follows:
Initial Idea
Reconaissance
General Plan:
Step 1
Step 2 Implement step 1
Evaluate Ammended Plan:
Step 1
Step 2
Implement Step 2
etc evaluate
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According to Elliot (1996: 70), based on the model above, there is a
basic cycle of activities. The activities can be elaborated as follows:
1. Identifying initial idea
The initial idea refers to a state of situation one wishes to change or
to improve on (Elliot, 1991: 72). In this research the initial idea is thought that
there will be a change on writing text.
2. Planning
Planning is followed up for identifying the text to find out solution
for problems. This research is intended to find out:
a. The students’ response during learning process.
b. The students’ improvement in writing text.
c. The writer will conduct the research to know the improvement of writing
text.
d. To know students’ ability in producing the text, the writer asks the
students to produce simple text.
3. Implementing
Implementing is performing the planned action. Based on the
model above, the researcher can change the plans after conducting one cycle
when they are needed.
4. Evaluating
After conducting and observing the implementing cycle, the next step
that the writer will do is evaluating. The evaluating is a fact-finding about the
result of the action. It is an analysis to find out the influence of the Blog for
improving the students in learning writing.
E. Techniques of Collecting Data
The data are collected through observation, interviews, field notes,
the students’ answer of questionnaire sheets, and also the result of the tests,
1. Qualitative Techniques:
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a. Observation
The researcher and collaborator conduct observation by observing
the teaching and learning process in class XI IA 4 to know the students’
attitude toward English lesson before, while, and after implementing the
action and the students’ progress in writing.
b. Questionnaires
This technique is the fastest and simple way of obtaining broad and
rich information from the students. There are two questionnaires given to
students. The first one is given in the beginning of the project, before
introducing the strategies and the second questionnaire is given in the end of
the project. The first questionnaire is used to know the students’ ability and
problems and causes in learning English. In the first questionnaire, there are
several problems of the students towards the five indicators. They feel
difficult to master them. It is shown by the pretest questionnaire result,
namely, content (sometimes for 66.67%), organization (sometimes for
70%), vocabulary (sometimes for 60%), language use (sometimes for 60%),
and mechanism (sometimes for 50%).
The second questionnaire is given after implementing the
techniques of using weblog in teaching writing. It examines how the
students feel about the technique of using weblog, and how it helps them in
improving writing skill. In the post questionnaire, the students feel that
weblog helps them in mastering the five indicators.
c. Interview
The researcher also interviews the teacher and students to know the
problems that they face in learning English and the students’ opinion about
the implementation of weblog in writing. The interview takes place after
each questionnaire has been completed. Informal notes are taken during the
interview. Each student will be asked the same questions with an
opportunity for them to include any other information. The questionnaire
answered by the teacher shows that many of the students feel difficult in
mastering organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanism. The less
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difficulty of the students is in content. Meanwhile, the students answered
that they also feel difficulties in those four aspects, and less difficulties in
content.
2. Quantitative Technique (Test):
Besides the non-test techniques above, researcher also uses test
technique. A test has the purpose of measuring, as stated by Brown (1994:
252), test is a method of measuring a person's ability or knowledge in a given
area. The test techniques are conducted by giving pretest before the action
begins and posttest in the end of the action.
The test instructions must be readable. The primary job of test
instruction must make students know what they are supposed to do. Students
should be informed clearly what to do for each kind of task included in the test
and they should get enough information about the test as a whole to decide how
best to expand their efforts in the time available (Genesee and Upshur, 1996:
201). Other researcher, Dubay (2004: 3) states that writing must have
readability and readability is what makes some texts easier to read than others.
In line with it, Klare cited in Dubay (2004: 3) defines readability as “the ease
of understanding or comprehension due to the style of writing”. This definition
focuses on writing style as separate from issues such as content, coherence, and
organization.
Furthermore, Nuttal (1989: 26), who states that readability is not a
matter of vocabulary but structural difficulty, is also important. To measure
readability means make use of counts of words length and sentence length
which is useful to assess the text. In this research, the researcher will try out
the test to measure the test instructions’ readability. The details of the try out
and exercise is by giving them two sheets of paper. The first sheet contains the
test itself with instruction. Then, the second sheet contains questions of
readability about the test instruction whether it is clear or not. After the
students answer the readability sheet, then, the researcher measures the
readability. Furthermore, after the researcher measures it, the students of XI IA
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4 of SMAN I Colomadu are understand about the instruction given in
readability question mentioned in the second sheet.
In addition, to help scoring in quantitative data, there is scoring
rubric taken from Heaton (1988: 146) to measure the student success in
writing, as follows:
Competency Range Items Score
Content Excellent - Very Good
Good - Average
Fair - Poor
Very Poor
Knowledgeable, substantive, etc
Some knowledge of subject,
adequate range, etc
Limited knowledge of subject,
little substance, etc.
Doesn’t show knowledge of
subject, non-substantive, etc.
30-27
26-22
21-17
16-13
Organization Excellent - Very Good
Good - Average
Fair - Poor
Very Poor
Fluent expression, ideas clearly
stated, etc.
Somewhat choppy, loosely
organized but main idea stand out,
etc.
Non fluent, ideas confused or
disconnected, etc.
Doesn’t communicate, no
organization, etc.
20-18
17-14
13-10
9-7
Vocabulary Excellent - Very Good
Good - Average
Fair - Poor
Sophisticated range, effective
word/idiom choice and usage, etc.
Adequate range, occasional error
of word/idiom form, choice,
usage, but meaning is not
obscured.
Limited range, frequent error of
20-18
17-14
13-10
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Very Poor
word/idiom form, choice, usage,
etc.
Essentially translation, little
knowledge of English vocabulary,
etc.
9-7
Language
Use
Excellent - Very Good
Good - Average
Fair - Poor
Very Poor
Effective complex constructions,
etc.
Effective but simple
constructions, etc.
Major problems in
simple/complex construction, etc.
Virtually no mastery of sentence
construction rules, etc.
25-22
21-19
17-11
10-5
Mechanics Excellent - Very Good
Good - Average
Fair - Poor
Very Poor
Demonstrates mastery of
conventions, etc.
Occasional errors of spelling,
punctuation, etc.
Frequent errors of spelling,
punctuation, capitalization, etc.
No mastery of conventions,
dominated by errors of spelling,
punctuation, capitalization,
paragraphing, etc.
5
4
3
2
F. Technique of Analyzing Data
1. Qualitative Data
The data are analyzed using constant comparative method. Burns
(1999: 156) gives several steps of constant comparative method that can be
used to analyze the qualitative data:
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a. Assembling the data
The first step is to assemble the data that have been collected over
the period of the research: field notes, interview, questionnaires, and so on.
At this stage, broad pattern should begin to show up which can be compared
and contrasted to see what fits together. By scanning the data, it begins to
process of more detailed analysis by bringing up possible patterns which can
be adapted and added lo as it is processed.
b. Coding the data
Coding is a process of attempting to reduce the large amount of
data that may be collected to more manageable categories of concepts,
themes, or types. Data analysis becomes much messier and coding becomes
less clear cut when it is dealing with diary entries, classroom recordings, or
open ended survey questions.
c. Comparing the data
Once the data have been categorized in some way, comparison can
be made to see whether themes or patterns are repeated or developed across
different data gathering techniques.
d. Building interpretations
This is the point where the researcher moves beyond describing,
categorizing, coding, and comparing to make some sense of meaning of the
data. This stage demands creative thinking as it is concerned with
articulating underlying concepts and developing the theories about why
particular patterns of behaviors, interactions or attitudes have emerged.
e. Reporting the outcomes
The final stage involves presenting an account of the research for
others. A major consideration is to ensure that the report sets out the major
processes of the research, and that the findings and outcomes are well
supported with examples from the data.
This research uses the method stated by Burns (1999: 156) to
analyze the data. There are five steps and those steps are clear and sequential. It
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begins with assembling the data, coding, comparing, than building
interpretations, and finally reporting the outcomes.
2. Quantitative Data
To analyze the quantitative data, the researcher uses quantitative
technique of analysis. The mean of the students’ score in pretest and posttest
can be calculated with the formula as follows:
= =
X = mean of post test 1 scores
Y = mean of post test 2 scores
N = number of students
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CHAPTER IV
THE RESULT OF THE STUDY
This chapter deals with how the research was implemented. This chapter
describes some findings and discussions about the implementation of weblog to
improve students’ writing skill. The objective of this research is to get some
information in some terms. The first is to motivate the students in learning
English. Secondly, the research is to improve student’s writing skills in five
indicators such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use and
mechanism. The third, the research is to evaluate the weblog role in improving the
students' skill in writing a text. The cycle in this research consists of series of
steps, namely identifying the problems, planning the action, implementing the
action, observing or monitoring the action, evaluating and reflecting the result of
the observation, and revising the plan. The explanation of the result of the study
described in this chapter is broken down into three sections: introduction, research
finding, and discussion.
A. Introduction
Based on the result of the pre-research observation, pre-questionnaire,
pretest, and interview done in SMA Negeri 1 Colomadu, the researcher could
identify the problems faced by the twelfth year students of XI IA 4 in learning
writing. The problems faced by the students in writing text include difficulties in
exploring and expressing their idea, lack of vocabulary, less tenses understanding,
difficulties in making good sentences, and they are often confused in starting
writing. The students also seem to feel difficult when they are asked to write their
idea. Then, when they submit their work, it is almost blank or some students write
only a few words. Their attitude and motivation toward the English lesson also
show that they are not so interested in joining the class. When the English lesson
started, the students were still talking and when the teacher explained the material,
they ignored it.
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According to the teacher, there were some causes from the students. The
students are not so interested in learning English especially writing because
English is just considered as a foreign language and not used in daily
conversations. They think that learning English is just to know the grammatical
patterns and vocabulary. The students confessed that they could not arrange
sentences in their mind into correct written language. Some of them had low skill
on vocabulary, sentence, organization, and mechanism so that they could not
express their idea freely. Besides, they mostly come from families with low or
middle level of social economy that makes them have low understanding about
English and have limited attention from their parents because they think English
will not be used after they graduate from school. Those are all that make them
have low motivation in learning English.
There are also some causes coming from the teacher. First, the teacher
does not give adequate practice for the students to write because the teacher
merely teaches grammar and reading. Second, no media and creative technique
are used in exploring the students’ skill in writing. Teacher should be able to make
conducive class by using creative media and strategy in presenting the materials,
motivating the students, giving reinforcements, and using variety of methods to
get the goal. So far, most teachers teach conventionally, by giving the students
lecture and presenting the materials without any media. The other causes come
from the class. The facilities in the class haven’t been better yet, which make the
students reluctant to study the lesson especially English.
Based on the interview with the teacher and the pre-test result, the
researcher identified that the students’ writing skill needed to be improved. He
decided to improve it through a technique called weblog. The focus of the use of
weblog in writing is to improve the students’ writing skill on the aspect of
sentence construction (dealing with structure and vocabulary), language use and
mechanism since they became the major problem faced by the students.
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B. Research Finding
The research finding is taken from what happened in the teaching and
learning process from the beginning until the last teaching-learning process done
in this research. It was done from May - June. First cycle consists of three
meetings. After the cycle was done, the researcher conducted post-test to know
the condition of the students’ writing skill. The description of the research finding
can be explained as follows:
1. The First Cycle
a. Planning
The researcher made a preparation to conduct the research. He
made lesson plans for the first cycle. He prepared the teaching material
based on the topic stated in the curriculum. The action plan would be
implemented by the writer. The writer as the teacher in this research was
helped by a collaborator. They collaborated to observe the whole
phenomena during the teaching and learning process in the classroom. The
researcher also chose the appropriate techniques supporting the process of
the teaching of writing using weblog.
b. Implementing the action
In implementing the action, the researcher played a role as the
teacher. Meanwhile, the real English teacher helped the researcher in
observing the students and in overcoming the problems faced by the
researcher in the class (during the teaching and learning process). The
researcher/the teacher did the teaching-learning process in three phases: pre-
activity, main activity, and post-activity. The pre-activity phase covered all
the things done as the opening such as greeting, checking the students’
attendance. In this phase, the researcher also did brainstorming or gave
some questions to students to stimulate their participation in the lesson. The
main activity phase included the following exercises: model paragraph,
language-based exercise, oral composition, and writing composition through
weblog. The post-activity was done by summarizing the lesson, doing
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reflection, and closing the lesson. Here is the description of the action
implementation:
1) The first meeting (06.45 a.m. – 08.15 a.m.)
The first meeting was conducted on Tuesday, 26th May 2011. The topic
was Cinderella. In short, the teaching and learning process ran as
follows. Firstly, the researcher introduced about a weblog and explained
on how to use it and also stated the goal of the lesson. “By the end of this
meeting, I would like you to be able to write anything in your mind based
on the topic and write it on your weblog”. Then, he used LCD projector
to explain and to introduce blog. After that, the students followed what
he did to make a blog and used it. As the researcher understood that the
students are capable of making and using blog, the researcher then gave
several pictures using his weblog through LCD projector. It was the
pieces of Cinderella story picture. Next, the teacher asked the students to
write in blog anything that popped up in their mind after seeing those
pictures as the final task of the main activity. After they finished their
writing, the students then uploaded it in their blog. In the post-activity
phase, they were asked to write a story from their hometown as
individual homework. The writing was done in a paper not in blog. This
homework will be used in the next meeting as a topic. Here, the students
critically asked some questions to the researcher. “Ceritanya apa aja,
Pak? Bebas yang penting dari daerah sendiri, Pak? Dikumpulkan kapan,
Pak?” The researcher replied their question by explaining about the
details of the homework. As the bell was ringing, the researcher closed
the lesson by saying goodbye.
2) The second meeting (08.15 a.m. – 09.45 a.m.)
The second meeting was conducted on Friday, 27th May 2011. The
topic was Story in your hometown. The essence of this meeting was just
to practice and let the students relearn the previous lesson. In short, the
teaching and learning process ran as follows. Firstly, the researcher did
some review dealing with the last meeting. The students were asked to
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show their homework to the teacher. Then, the teacher asked the students
to upload their story in blog. “Okay students, now upload what you have
got about story in your hometown in your blog”. For a few second, they
responded “okay sir”. After they uploaded their story, then the researcher
showed the students about grammar checking and correction. Firstly,
they were confused on how to use it. To check their understanding about
it, the teacher asked the students to pair up to check their pair writing and
correct it using grammatical, spelling, and mechanism correction. Later, a
students came and asked “gimana cara pakai correction ya pak? Saya
masih bingung”. Then, the teacher explained it again using LCD and
tutor blog. After that, the students tried to correct their pair work. After
the time was over, the researcher asked the students to upload their
writing. “Have you finished? if yes then upload them in your friend blog
as comment”, the researcher asked to the class. They said, “Not yet, Sir”
Some of them said, “Baru dua paragraph benerinnya, Pak. Sedikit lagi”.
In this activity, some of the students could not finish their writing. The
researcher gave them a chance to finish it at home and asked them to
upload it in the next day.
3) The third meeting (10.45 a.m. – 12.15 a.m.)
The third meeting was conducted on Saturday, 28th May 2011. The
topic was Malin Kundang. The essence of this meeting was to provide
the students with the new text that was still related to the previous text
but in different location. Firstly, the researcher reviewed the lesson in the
previous meeting and let the students who hadn’t finished their upload to
finish it. After the students uploaded their writing, the researcher
explained about the upcoming material. It’s about the story from
Sumatera Barat called Malin Kundang. To lessen the difficulties of the
students in writing, the researcher had given a sentence starter to be
continued by the students. After that they continued to write the story.
While the other wrote the story, a student asked the researcher,”apa kita
perlu menggunakan correction seperti kemarin pak?”. Then, he answered
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“ya, tentu saja, masih ingat kan caranya?”. Then, the student
answered,”ya pak, insya Alloh”. After the students finished their writing
in blog, the teacher then checked their work. It seemed that some of them
still had mistakes even by using this correction. The teacher showed one
of the student’s work, and correct them without the grammar correction,
only seeing in correction mark below the sentence or word. After the
students understand on how it worked, the researcher closed the lesson
by thanking the students for their attention and saying goodbye.
c. Observing the action
During the teaching and learning process, the researcher not only taught
the students, but also observed the things happening in the class. The
observations were done simultaneously when teaching and learning process
happened. The observation was made based on the field notes written by the
teacher and the observer. The following is the detail explanation about the
result of the observation.
1) The first meeting
In the beginning of the first meeting, the students looked very
enthusiastic to join the lesson because they felt like finding a new nuance in
studying English. Different teacher sometimes brings different nuance for
students. The researcher gave simple explanation about blog as the starter.
They felt enthusiastic to learn about this new method. After that, the
students tried to make their own blog. Some of them still felt confused and
asked the teacher about it. After they finished their blog, the researcher
showed a picture using tutor blog through LCD Projector about a story they
knew. Before the researcher showed the picture, they were very eager to
know. Then, the pictures were shown; the students could guess it directly.
However, when the researcher came into the main task –writing, the
students seemed to be reluctant to join the lesson. It happened since they
found difficulties in constructing ideas to make a story. They had
understood the language function but they could not express their idea in
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their mind freely into an outline. Nevertheless, their eagerness made them
want to try writing using blog. They opened their blog then, tried to write
some sentences. Some of the students could only write a few sentences but
some write better about two or three paragraphs. The class condition was
good but noisy because many of them asked when they tried to make a blog.
They did enthusiastically what the researcher told them to do since they had
few times for writing class. Therefore, the target of time could be reached
while the target of the teaching was not totally reached.
2) The second meeting
In the second meeting, the researcher focused the lesson on
practicing and tried a new method of grammar checking and correction.
Then, the researcher explained about it briefly. When the teacher asked
about their homework, few students confessed that they had not done the
homework yet. Next, the researcher asked the students to upload their story
in blog. For those who hadn’t done the homework, they should upload any
story they knew in the blog. After they finished upload their writing, then,
the researcher paired them up. In this activity, the students should check and
correct their pair writing using grammar, spelling, and mechanism
correction. They were very enthusiastic in using it. But some were confused
and asked the teacher about how to use it. The students, however, become
active in asking their pair friend about vocabulary they didn’t know. But,
some students were trying to find them in dictionary. The class condition
became active when they were paired up with their friends and checked their
pair writing. After the students finished their checking and correction, they
should upload it in the blog. Until the time was over, there were still some
students who had not finished their writing correction, so the researcher
asked them to continue it at home or upload it in the next lesson.
3) The third meeting
In the third meeting, the teaching and learning process were about
reviewing the previous meeting. The topic to be discussed in this meeting
was Malin Kundang. In this opportunity, the researcher let the students who
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hadn’t uploaded their writing in the previous lesson to do so. Firstly, they
are very enthusiastic when entering the class. But, when they were asked to
see the picture and write the story about it, fewer students seemed down and
reluctant to write. But, some students were eager to write because they said
it was easier using blog with correction. To motivate the students writing,
the researcher gave the students a sentence starter to guide their writing.
Then, the researcher asked them to continue the story. While the researcher
walked around to check the students working, there were some students who
asked the meaning of some words and their sentence structure. After the
students finished creating the paragraph, the students were asked to upload
their writing in blog. Next, the teacher checked some of the students work in
the blog and chose one of their works as a sample of teacher correction.
After that, using tutor blog projected through LCD projector, the researcher
checked and corrected it. The students were eager to follow the teacher
correction, because some students also tried to correct their friend work
while the teacher corrected it. This activity was interesting both for the
students and the researcher. The students knew their weaknesses and the
researcher provided them with some feedbacks in their writing.
d. Reflecting the result of the observation
After analyzing the observation result in cycle one, the researcher
made reflection in order to evaluate the teaching and learning process he did so
far. Besides that, after completing the first cycle of this research, the researcher
conducted the first post test. There were some positive and negative results
from the observation that could be used to guide the reflection. In short, the
observation result showed that there were some improvements achieved after
doing the action. The improvements were not only of the students’ writing skill
but also of the students’ attitudes towards writing itself. Their writing was
getting better from day to day since they were accustomed to writing, even
simple composition, in each meeting. Moreover, they used more vocabularies
in writing. It means that there was an improvement of vocabulary mastery.
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They could also identify the generic structure of simple explanation texts.
Moreover, the mean score of the first post test result done at the end of the
cycle one was 73.3 from the researcher and 73.96 from the collaborator with
the average mean 73.63. It showed that there was an improvement from the last
pretest with mean score 62.63 from researcher and 63.56 from the collaborator
with the average mean 62.59. In addition, the students became more active in
joining the lesson taught by the researcher. They paid more attention in the
instructional processes. Nevertheless, the improvement of the students’ writing
skill was not effective enough since there were still some students who were
reluctant to write.
NO
INDICATOR
AVERAGE MEAN SCORE
%
Standard
Score
Pre Test Average
score
(RC)
%
Post Test I Average
score
(RC)
%
(R)
(C)
(R)
(C)
1. Content 20.5 19.3 19.915 66.38 21.4 21.9 21.7 72.33 75
2. Organization 13.3 12.9 13.115 65.575 14.7 14.9 14.785 73.925 75
3. Vocabulary 11.8 12.4 12.085 60.425 14.6 14.6 14.615 73.075 75
4. Language Use 14.1 15.6 14.95 59.8 19.07 18.9 19.185 76.74 75
5. Mechanism 2.9 3.1 2.985 59.7 3.8 3.5 3.665 73.3 75
Table 4.1 Pretest and Post-test I average score of Indicators
Based on the pretest result from both researcher and collaborator,
the students are low in the skill of content, organization, vocabulary, language
use, mechanism. It was shown by their average mean score in five indicators of
pretest. The lowest mark was shown in mechanism. Then, it was followed by
language use, vocabulary, organization, and content. But, in post test, most of
students’ skills are improved slightly in content, organization, vocabulary,
language use, and mechanism. Even though those skills improvement were not
good yet, it was better than pretest result. The lowest improvement was shown
in the skill of content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanism. Then, for
content, it needed more expanding in it. The result of the table can be described
as follows:
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1. Content (66.38% - 72.33%, it improved only 5.95%)
2. Organization (65.575% - 73.925%, it improved only 8.35%)
3. Vocabulary (60.425% - 73.075%, it improved only 12.65%)
4. Language use (59.8% - 76.74%, it improved only 16.94%)
5. Mechanism (59.7% - 73.3%, it improved only 13.6%)
Meanwhile, in the result of pre questionnaire, the students of XI IA
4 commonly faced some problems in organization, vocabulary, language use,
and mechanism but less problem in content. After the method was
implemented, the post questionnaire result stated a good improvement in those
five indicators. Almost the students said that their writing skills improved. It
was shown by the students’ questionnaire when they are asked about whether
weblog improves their writing skills or not in the post questionnaire. Here are
the results:
1. Content (50% Usually, 33.33% Almost always, and 16.67% sometimes)
2. Organization (40% almost always, 36.67 sometimes, 23.33% usually)
3. Vocabulary (40% almost always, 36.67 usually, 23.33% sometimes)
4. Language use (33.33% almost always, usually and sometimes)
5. Mechanism (46.67% usually, 40% almost always, 13.33% sometimes)
From the result of post questionnaire above, it can be concluded
that the students’ feel their skill improved in those five indicators by using
weblog. Not only that, from the post interview, some students stated the same
thing that weblog improves their writing in those five indicators. It was shown
by the answer of the students which can be seen in the appendix.
Based on those result in pretest, post test, questionnaire, and
interview, the researcher concluded that there is a slight improvement from the
students in those five indicators. Here are the results of the research of cycle 1:
1. Strengths
a. Writing Indicators
1) The students’ language use skill is improved well. It is shown by
their average mean score which reached the KKM standard score
(76.74%),
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b. PBM/Class
1) The students’ motivation in joining English lesson is improved. It
is proven by the students’ attendance that comes on time in English
class.
2) The students’ enjoy the method used by the teacher because they
always pay attention and keep listening to the teacher’s
explanation.
2. Weakness
a. Writing Indicators
1) The students’ content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanism
skills are improved slightly but haven’t reached the KKM standard
score. The details are content (72.33%), organization (73.925%),
vocabulary (73.075%), and mechanism (73.3%).
b. PBM/Class
1) Some students still needed guidance in their writing dealing with
expanding the content and outline.
2) The internet connection is sometimes slow, and it can make the
learning process take much times.
Therefore, the researcher decided to take the second cycle in order to
make better improvement of the students’ writing skill especially for expanding
content, sentence organization, vocabulary and mechanism. To overcome those
problems, the researcher will give the students more activity which can make
their content, sentence organization, vocabulary, and mechanism better in the
future.
To improve the content, the researcher guides the students’ to write
plot in the class. It means while the students write, the researcher guide them
on what will be written. In organization, the researcher will let the students do
an exercise by making and combining sentence to make their sentence
organization better. The sentence is made inside Weblog. The details are the
students will be given words, then make them into sentence which will be
combined together into paragraph later in Weblog. This exercise will make
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their idea organization improved. Next, for vocabulary skills, it was done
before the students making sentences. The students should give the synonym of
each word given by the teacher before they make it into sentence and
paragraph. The synonym must be written inside their blog. Finally, for
mechanism, the researcher will give a brief explanation on how and when to
give a better mechanism. The explanation will be given by using tutor blog.
2. The Second Cycle
a. Revising the plan
Based on the first cycle, the researcher realized that there were
improvements in students’ writing skill, but he still found some problems
faced by the students that should be solved soon. Therefore, the researcher
had revised his plan that would be conducted in the second cycle. The plans
were:
1) For improving content, the researcher will guide the students especially
in story’s plot so that they will produce a well expanded the story’s
content. The guiding uses tutor blog, and then the student follows it by
writing the story in their blog.
2) In organization, the researcher will give the students task to make the
sentence from the words given and then make them into good paragraph.
The sentence is made in weblog and combined them inside it too.
3) Then, in vocabulary, the students should give synonym of the words
given before making sentences and also the teacher will introduce more
new words that are related to the writing assignment to the students
before the students start their writing. The synonym is written in student
blog before they start their writing.
4) The teacher will give short explanation in using a better mechanism of
writing by using tutor blog.
5) The plans were realized in three meetings; in the first meeting the
researcher gave an interesting title “Making Your Own Story” for the
writing and in the second meeting the researcher will let the students to
paraphrase a short text with title “No Charge for Love” which will make
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them improve their content, organization, vocabulary and mechanism
above the KKM standard score. Then, in third meeting, the researcher
will give a review and task to test their ability in fifth indicator. The
teacher will ask the students to review the previous writing task of their
friend’s writing, find the mistake and let them fix it with their own
knowledge. It has purpose to improve their logic and understanding in
five indicators of writing.
b. Implementing the action
The researcher implemented the action in two meetings.
1) The first meeting (08.15 a.m. – 09.45 a.m.)
The first meeting was conducted on Tuesday, 30th
May 2011. The topic
was Making your own story. The essence of this lesson was to provide
students with new materials and to make the students able to develop
their content, organization, vocabulary and mechanics. The researcher
started the lesson by reviewing the last discussion and gave some
questions dealing with the topic as brainstorming. In this session, the
researcher introduced some new words related to the material in tutor
blog. Then, the researcher also explained about how to make a better use
of mechanism in their writing. After the brainstorming, the researcher
explained more about simple past tense. Having finished explaining
about simple past tense, he asked the students, “Do you understand?”
They answered together, “Yes!”. He also gave some task to give more
chance in constructing sentences in simple past tense then combined
them together into a paragraph. The students wrote the sentence in their
own blog as an exercise. The researcher went around the class to make
sure that all the students did their task. He gave individual feedback to
some students who really needed it. The researcher asked the students to
pair up. After that, the researcher gave five new words to the students.
Before they constructed it into sentences, the researcher asked the
students to find their synonym first and write them in their blog. After
that, the students should construct it using simple past tense, and then
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make a simple story with the words given. The story should be written in
blog. But before that, the teacher gave an explanation again about the
generic structure of narrative text. “I give you ten minutes to make the
sentence, then twenty minutes to construct them into a story and you
should do it on your blog”. While the students were writing, the
researcher was also guiding the student’s plot by using tutor blog. It has
purpose, to make the students had a better plot in story’s content. They
did it enthusiastically because the topic was interesting enough for them.
Some students asked the researcher about the translation of some words
while some other students decided to look up the meaning in their
dictionaries. After the time was up, the teacher asked the students, “have
you finished?” Some of the students answered “yes” and “no” for others.
Then, the researcher gave them another five minutes of additional time to
finish it. After a while, they had finished their writing and also had
uploaded it on their blog. Before lesson was over, the researcher told the
students to prepare for the next meeting activities. Finally, the researcher
closed the lesson by saying goodbye.
2) The second meeting (06.45a.m. - 08.15 a.m.)
This meeting was conducted on Wednesday, 31st May 2011. The topic
taught was No charge for love. The researcher’s intention in this meeting
was to make the students able to rewrite or paraphrase the story with well
expanded content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanics. This
exercise covered expanding content from the text given, and practicing in
combining sentence into good paragraph with better mechanics in blog.
Then, the researcher also asked about paraphrasing to the student, “In
this chance, I would like you to paraphrase the story, do you know what
is paraphrase?”. Some of the students answered “no”. Then, the
researcher decided to explain about it for a while by using tutor blog.
Before the researcher went into the main topic, the researcher gave some
new words related to the material. The students were asked to memorize
them. After that, the researcher showed the text to the students through
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LCD projector and tutor blog about the story they should have to be
paraphrased. Finally, they made their own story based on the text given.
Suddenly, the class became noisy. Then, the researcher calmed them
down and asked them what happened. The students said they were still
confused. Patiently, the researcher explained about it again by using tutor
blog. Then, the students did the task and continued it in their own blog.
While the students were writing, the researcher was still guiding the
students about the story. It had purposed, none would lose from the story.
Some students asked the researcher about the translation of some words
while some other students decided to look up the meaning in their
dictionaries. After a while, the researcher asked the students, “have you
finished?” only a few of them had answered yes. Then, the researcher
decided to give another ten minutes to finish their writing. Finally, the
students had finished their writing, so the researcher closed the lesson
that day and said good bye.
3) The third meeting (08.15-09.45)
The third meeting was conducted on Wednesday, 31st May 2011. The
topic was reviewing. The essence of this lesson was to make the students
able to review their writing in skills of content, sentence organization,
vocabulary, mechanics, and corrected it in a better ways using their own
knowledge which was got from overall meeting in the class. The
researcher started the lesson by reviewing the last discussion named
“Charge of Love” and gave some questions dealing with the previous
topic. In this session, the researcher introduced some new words related
to the next material in tutor blog. Next, the researcher asked the student
to open their blog and saw their last writing. Then, the researcher asked
them whether their writing was good enough in content, organization,
vocabulary, and mechanics or not. The student answered “yes”. To test
their knowledge and courage in saying yes, the researcher asked them to
give a correction in their friend’s writing in weblog. Then, the students
were asked to open their friend blog, and write any mistakes in content,
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organization, vocabulary, and mechanics as a comment. The researcher
gave them 30 minutes to finish it. Some students asked the researcher
about the translation of some words while some other students decided to
look up the meaning in their dictionaries. After that, the researcher asked
„have you finished?”. Some students said “yes” but some hadn’t finished
it. Then, the researcher gave them another 10 minutes to finish it. Next,
the researcher let the students to rewrite the story with their correction in
it in their friend blog as a comment. While the students rewrite the story,
the researcher gave a little guidance in order to make the students not
lose the content of the story. Finally, the students had finished their
writing, and the researcher gave additional feedback of the task given.
The researcher also gave a further explanation about what they had done
in this meeting, summarized it, closed the lesson and reminded them that
there would be a test after the meeting. Next, the researcher said goodbye
to the students.
c. Observing the action
The result of the observation done during the teaching-learning processes in
the second cycle is as follows:
1) The first meeting
In this meeting, the students seemed to have better understanding about
the way of constructing simple sentences then combining them into good
paragraph by using weblog. They also had their content better expanded
because the researcher guided them in writing the story. Most of the
students could construct sentences almost correctly when they were
asked to write in their blog after the additional method was implemented.
The vocabulary also had been enriched, because before starting the
lesson the researcher gave some words related to the material to enrich
their vocabulary. In addition, their mechanics also had been better,
because they had a less mistake in this indicator. Furthermore, they felt
more at ease to express their idea in their writing. The teaching and
learning process could run smoothly and the students could concentrate
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well. This was also because of researcher guiding in writing the story.
Moreover, the researcher gave individual feedback to some students who
still had problems.
2) The second meeting
In this meeting, the researcher asked the students to paraphrase the topic
as the issue. Before the students paraphrased the story, the researcher
introduced a new vocabulary related to the material. Then, the researcher
also gave a brief explanation about making a good mechanics in writing.
In addition, the researcher also reminded the students on how to make a
better organization in using simple past tense. Before the student started
to paraphrase, the researcher gave another explanation on how to
paraphrase. Some of the students felt it was difficult at the first time. For
a while, the students felt discouraged to do the task given and this made
the entire class noisy. Then, patiently, by the research explanation by
using tutor blog, the students finally understood about it and they felt
encouraged to try it. While the students were writing, the researcher was
guiding them in order none of the story’s content lose from their writing.
By doing this task, the students could expand the story based on their
knowledge and constructed the sentence with their own vocabulary freely
in their own blog. Some students made a correct paraphrasing but some
were unable to do it better. The teaching learning process could run well
and researcher also gave a feedback to them who had problems in the
class.
3) The third meeting
In this meeting, the researcher asked the students to review their previous
writing and their friend’s writing to make it better. The third meeting was
focused in correcting their friend’s writing based on a good content,
organization, vocabulary, and mechanics. Before the student did the task,
the researcher gave a brief explanation on how a good content,
organization of sentence, vocabulary, and mechanism of writing should
be. By doing this task, the student could know what their mistakes are
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and could fix it in better ways. The students did their review and
correction task in their blog. Then, they rewrite the result after that in
their friend’s blog as a comment. Their rewriting activity was still guided
by the researcher, so the content would be better. In this meeting, some
of students still faced difficulty in correcting the sentences, but some of
them could do it better. The teaching learning process could run well and
researcher also gave a feedback to them who had problems in the class.
d. Reflecting the result of the observation
After analyzing the observation results in the second cycle, the researcher
found some improvements. The improvements were as follows:
1) The students were able to construct sentences almost all correct. In this
case, the sentences they constructed were based on the researcher’s
explanation and examples. They also used more vocabularies in their
writing by using weblog.
2) Their writing content had been better expanded.
3) The organization of both ideas and sentences were better improved.
4) The students used many new vocabularies in their writing.
5) Their mechanics was almost all correct.
6) All students were active enough in joining the lesson.
7) The mean score of the second post test result done at the end of the action
showed that there was satisfying improvement of the students’ writing
skill on the aspect of sentence construction. The mean score reached was
77.13 from researcher and 77.07 from collaborator with 77.1 of average
mean score. It was much better than the average mean score of the first
post test result which was just 73.63.
The result of the tests also showed the improvement of the students’
writing skill. Based on the result of the tests, it could be seen that there was
improvement of the mean score among pre-test, post-test 1 and post-test 2
where the average mean score of the pre-test was 63.23, the post-test 1 result
was 73.63 and the second post-test result were 77.1.
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NO
INDICATOR
AVERAGE MEAN SCORE
%
Standard
score
Pretest
score
(RC)
%
Post
Test 1
Score
(RC)
%
Post Test 2 Post Test
2 Average
score
(RC)
%
(R)
(C)
1. Content 19.915 66.38 21.7 72.33 23.2 23.2 23.215 77.38 75
2. Organization 13.115 65.575 14.785 73.925 15.47 15.4 15.435 77.175 75
3. Vocabulary 12.085 60.425 14.615 73.075 15.4 15.3 15.35 76.75 75
4. Language Use 14.95 59.8 19.185 76.74 19.1 19.3 19.2 76.8 75
5. Mechanism 2.985 59.7 3.665 73.3 3.9 3.8 3.865 77.3 75
Table 4.2 Pretest, Post-test I, and Post-test II average score of Indicators
Based on the second posttest result above, the researcher concluded
that there is an improvement from the students in those five indicators. Here are
the results of the research of cycle 2:
1. Strengths
a. Writing Indicators
1) The students’ content, organization, vocabulary, and mechanics are
improved and have reached the KKM standard score. It is shown by
their mean score, namely content (77.38%), organization
(77.175%), vocabulary (76.75%), language use (76.8%) and
mechanism (77.3%). The language use skill is also improved
slightly. It is shown by its mean score (76.8%),
b. PBM/Class
1) The students’ motivation in joining English lesson is improved. It is
proven by the students’ attendance that comes on time in English
class.
2) The students’ enjoy the method used by the teacher because they
always pay attention and keep listening to the teacher’s explanation.
3) The student’s writing in content and outline has better expanded.
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2. Weakness
a. PBM/Class
1) The internet connection is sometimes still slow, and it can make the
learning process take much times.
However, these strengths and weakness did not mean that the actions
done by the researcher were already perfect and final. The use of weblog
writing was only one of the ways in improving the students’ writing skill. It
can still be improved by the teacher as long as he or she is willing to do
betterment on his/her teaching, especially in teaching writing.
By considering the improvements above, the researcher concluded
that weblog writing could improve the students’ writing skill, especially on the
aspect of content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanism.
Besides, the students showed more positive attitudes towards writing although
they seemed to be reluctant to write the first time they were asked to.
Therefore, the researcher decided to stop the cycle.
C. Discussion
In learning English, there are some difficulties faced by students.
For the students of SMA Negeri 1 Colomadu, writing is considered as the most
difficult skill. This research is aimed at improving students’ writing skill in five
indicators including content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and
mechanics. The research findings showed that those skills are improved by
implementing weblog writing in the class. In this section, those findings are
discussed by justifying them with the other theories. In general, weblog writing
is able to improve student’s writing skill. In this case, weblog means using an
online diary to improve the student’s writing skills including content,
organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. The improvement of
students’ writing skill in this research involves five indicators. Each of the
improvement is discussed as follows.
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a. Weblog improves students’ skill in content.
The research finding said that there were some improvements in
student’s content. From the weblog itself, it has purpose to attract the
readers in terms of its content, so the students must make the most attractive
content to make their blog useful for the readers. This explanation is
empowered by Lamshed, et al. (2002: 23-24) who say,” The blog mission as
defined by the site managers is to provide quality e-learning content that
attracts a diverse and emerging audience”. They also give further
explanation about blog’s content,”…. this content be “empowering
content”, which in simple terms should provide some sort of value addition
to our readers”. From the statement above, it can be seen that weblog is
emphasized in content to attract the readers to read.
b. Weblog improves students’ skill in organization of text.
The research findings show that the students made fewer mistakes
in organization of the text. This refers to ideas and structure already
presented. This statement is also empowered by Richardson in Camilleri, et
al. (2007: 9) says “Blogging is not just writing in a blog… To me the
process starts with reading what other people have written and editing that
content for depth and relevance and accuracy. It‟s making connections
about that content to other ideas (organization) to clarify what‟s important
about it. It‟s adding personal reflection to give it context because only in
knowing how the blogger experiences what she is writing about can I as a
reader decide whether her ideas are worth my time. And, finally, it‟s linking
back to that content so that the ideas can be traced to their genesis”. From
above statement, it can be concluded that blog is making connection
between content and ideas (organization) which can make the reader decide
whether the ideas are worth for the time.
c. Weblog improves students’ vocabulary.
The research findings show that the students had richer word
choices. They were able to select the appropriate words to express their
ideas. They also knew some new words which they got from other bloggers
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(classmate). By reviewing their classmate’s blogs including the researcher
efforts in giving them new words from tutor blog each meeting, they had
enriched their vocabulary better than the past time. Dalton and Grisham
(2011: 306) in their article say,” We believe that digital tools and media are
available in most schools that teachers could harness now to improve
vocabulary learning, tools that capture the interest of students and that
provide scaffolds and contexts in which to learn with, and about, words
more profitably”. From this statement, it can be said that weblog as digital
tools can be harnessed to improve student’s vocabulary.
d. Weblog improves students’ language use.
The research findings show that the students were better in
language use skill. The purpose of language use is the students are able to
communicate with other using appropriate language. In this case, blog can
transcend linguistic barrier among the students. It is stated by Raith (in
Hourigan and Muray, 2010: 210),” blogs can transcend linguistic barriers
and may be used for language learning purposes, where bloggers: “become
part of a discourse community in a complex multimodal setting”. In addition,
Richardson (in Hourigan and Muray, 2010: 210) says,” learning together in
“collaborative spaces where people negotiate and construct meaning and
texts improve language use”. In this case, blog has purpose to transcend
linguistic barrier which can improve the student’s language use in
constructing meaning and text better. It is because the more freely they can
express their language use, the better their construction in meaning and text
will be.
e. Weblog improves students’ mechanics skill.
The research findings show that the students were able to apply the
appropriate mechanics in their sentences. This finding is similar to Lamshed,
et al. (2002: 68) who already state that,” This blog has the added feature in
that each contributor is able to edit each other‟s work… So long as the text
content remained the same, spelling, grammar and other revisions could be
made”. The other revision here belongs to mechanics correction from the
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blog itself. It has a purpose to make students have better understanding in
using mechanics.
f. Weblog improves the student’s interest in learning English
The observation results in the form of field notes which are
supported by interview and photographs also show the differences of
students’ interest before and after the implementation of weblog. After the
writer conducted the second cycle, when he asked the students’ feeling, most
of them said that weblog was fun activities in learning writing. The students
paid more attention and more participation in every single activity. The
situation in teaching and learning process became conducive and made the
students were able to write narrative text easily. It is because weblog fulfill
the student’s needs in line with their own individual schedule and their own
interests. Camilleri, et al. (2007: 290 say,” By running their own blog, each
blogger is seeking to express a particular need or needs. Some, by means of
their postings and comments, wish to assert their ego, to feel valued and
recognized”. They also state,” There are also some who see blogs as a way
of expressing themselves freely….. in line with their own individual schedule
and their own interests which they share with the other members of the
community”.
The researcher also found two weaknesses or drawbacks from this
media itself. The first, weblog can’t be used in the school without any internet
connection, so it isn’t applicable in every school especially in non-internet
connection school. Secondly, weblog must be used by using computerization
system, so it needs computer and any other supporting materials for it to be
able to connect to the internet. In short, for the school in rural area, it will be
hard to use this media.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION
This chapter presents the conclusion, implication, and suggestions of
the Classroom Action Research conducted in the eleventh’s grade students of
SMA N 1 Colomadu in 2010/2011. They are presented as the final discussion
from the research findings.
A. Conclusion
Having finished explaining the result of the study, the researcher drew
two conclusions. The first conclusion is that weblog writing can significantly
improve the students’ writing skill in five indicators, namely expanding
content, expressing ideas in organization, enriching the vocabulary, making a
good language use, and using better mechanics. Beforehand, the students had
problems in those five indicators and their interest in joining the lesson. In
content, the students had a less expanded content and outline. Next, the
students had a bad ideas organization which covers pronouns and determiners.
Then, they also had problem in vocabulary which is less enriched or lacked.
And then, they are hardly to make a better language use. Finally, for their
mechanics, they were still sometimes forgotten to use it in better ways which
means lack of mechanics skill. In addition, their motivation towards English
lesson is also low.
Then, after weblog is implemented, the students could make a story
with a good and well expanded content. Their ideas also have been better.
Then, the students had the ability to construct sentences based on the grammar
explained by the researcher correctly. They also used appropriate vocabularies
dealing with the topic in their writing and their mechanics has also been
improved. In general, students are encouraged to practice writing as much as
possible.
Since writing is a skill gained by practicing, it makes sense to say that
the more they practice writing, the better they will write. The second point to
be concluded is that the implementation of weblog writing has improved the
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students’ motivation in learning writing. It could be seen from their positive
attitudes towards writing indicated by their active participation in the writing
lesson conducted by the researcher. They enthusiastically wrote what the
researcher asked to write.
The researcher also find two drawbacks from the research. The first,
weblog can’t be used in the school without any internet connection, so it isn’t
applicable in every school especially in non-internet connection school.
Secondly, weblog must be used by using computerization system, so it needs
computer and any other supporting materials for it to be able to connect to the
internet. In short, for the school in rural area, it will be hard to use this media.
B. Implication
The conclusion above implies that in teaching writing the teacher
should make the students accustomed to writing. Weblog writing has been
proven to be an effective way in improving students’ writing skill. Practically,
weblog writing is a suitable technique to use in teaching and learning process.
Weblog writing is one of the ways of accustoming students to writing. In short,
teachers who are willing to improve their students’ writing skill should use
weblog writing as one of the techniques applied in their teaching. It is because
weblog can improve the students’ content, organization, vocabulary, language
use and mechanics skill. The class condition after the weblog was implemented
was conducive. It is shown by their attitude towards the lesson which was very
active and eager to learn English.
C. Suggestion
Based on the conclusion made and the implication stated above, the
researcher would like to give some suggestions dealing with the teaching of
writing. Hopefully, the suggestions will be useful for those who are willing to
improve the skill in writing including teachers, students, other researchers, and
institutions.
1. for teachers
Teaching writing is not an easy work since lots of students think that
writing is the most difficult skill to be learned. Consequently, teachers will
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face many obstacles during the teaching and learning process. Therefore,
they should be clever in choosing the appropriate techniques that can both
change their students’ attitude towards writing and improve their students’
writing skill. One of the ways they can use is by applying weblog writing.
Teachers should also give the simple examples of good writing to students
as the model they can imitate.
2. for students
Writing is, of course, not easy, but it is less difficult than what many
students imagine. To improve their writing skill, all the students have to do
is practicing writing as much as possible, since, once more to say, writing is
a skill gained by practicing. Practicing writing does not mean that they have
to write something scientific. They can write freely anything they want
without worrying about the correctness of every kind. In this case, weblog is
the right method to use, because weblog writing is freely as the user wants.
Using weblog to practice writing can also enhance the student’s creativity.
They should understand that the main function of weblog writing is
conveying meaning or communicating. Nevertheless, meaningful writing
involves the aspects of writing skill including content, organization,
vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. Therefore, students should read
much from their writing of the more proficient writers from other blogger in
order to get the examples of good writing. The more they read, the more
they understand about the way how they write.
3. for other researchers
This study discusses the implementation of weblog writing as a
means of improving students’ writing skill in a Senior High School. It is
expected that the result of the study can be used as an additional reference
for further researches, especially researches dealing with the teaching of
writing. The researcher also hopes that other researchers can apply this
technique in other level of students. Besides, other researchers can use this
technique to improve students’ writing skill focused on other aspects of
writing skill. They can also conduct researches, experimental researches for
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example, comparing this technique with other techniques in teaching
writing.
4. for institutions
The institution should encourage and support the English teachers to
improve the quality of their teaching. It can be done by providing facilities
needed namely, a lab with computer, internet connection, and LCD projector
by both teachers and students so that the teaching and learning process will
run well. Besides, the institution should hold regular meeting with the
English teachers in order to discuss about the problems they face in teaching
and to find out the best solutions.