Improving Students' Writing Descriptive Text Ability by Using Realia
Improving Students' Writing Descriptive Text Ability by Using Realia
Improving Students' Writing Descriptive Text Ability by Using Realia
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents several aspects related to the topic of the research. They are the
research background, the research problem, and the research contribution.
This chapter highlights the discussion of some literatures related to the variables of the
research. It consists of writing achievement, aspects of writing achievement, definition of realia,
advantages and disadvantages of realia, descriptive text, assessing students’ writing, the
procedures of teaching writing descriptive text by using realia, the research hypothesis, and the
previous research findings.
2.2.2 Vocabulary
According to Bram (1995:48), words are the basic tool for writing, because words carry
meaning where the writer’s message across. Having good mastery of vocabulary is very crucial
to conveys their ideas in writing. However, a large vocabularies is not enough for the writer if
he/she does not use words appropriately. There will be some miscommunication. In this research,
the vocabularies used in writing descriptive text are noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition,
pronoun, conjunction, and article.
2.2.3 Mechanics
Mechanics refers to the use of conventional graphic of the language, the step of arranging
letters, words, paragraphs, by using knowledge of structure and some others related to one
another. Mechanics is one of the important aspects for composing a good writing. It deals with
spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. The students should understand how to apply
mechanics in their writing in order to make a good paragraph of writing.
2.2.4 Content
Content refers to how the writer develop his or her ideas to the reader. How expressive the
writer in conveying the content is important to make the reader easier to grab the meaning of the
text. Heaton (1991:35) states that content deals with the writer’s ability to think creatively and
develop thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information. It is necessary for the writer to pay
attention more because the idea will be conveyed in details in this part. A good writing will have
an understandable content, which consist of at least clarity, conciseness, and completeness as
suggested by Camp (2001:290). Clarity means that the writing must be understandable to the
reader. Conciseness means choosing the diction appropriately in expressing the idea, and
completeness means details in every part needed while constructing a good writing.
2.2.5 Organization
Organization in writing is the students’ ability in arranging their ideas, a sentence to
another sentences in order to make logical arrangement and cohesion to construct a paragraph
unity. Wingersky (1996:36) states that a well-organized paragraph must have unity and
coherence. He adds that a paragraph has a unity if the information in it clearly and directly
related to the main idea. McCrimmon (1967:113) says that unity can be achieved as long as the
paragraph has a good and clear topic sentence, because a unified paragraph makes clear reading.
Carino (1991:160) says that coherence occurs when each sentence follows logically and
clearly from one sentence to the following sentence. It means that every sentence in a paragraph
should connect smoothly. Oshima and Hogue (1983:91) argue that coherence means the
paragraph is easy to read because the supporting sentences are in some kind of logical order.
Moreover, the ideas are connected by the use of appropriate transition signal such as: next, then,
after, that, finally, etc.
2.3 Definition of Realia
Kasbolah (1995:71) states that realia which are brought in EFL (English as Foreign
Language) classroom would stimulate learning of the young students, who like to see, to touch,
and to hold things. The teacher can bring realia into the classroom and used it as a teaching aid.
According to Pearson (2008:24), realia is a term for real things-concrete objects-that are used in
the classroom to build background knowledge and vocabulary. Realia can help the students to
give some memories by observing the things. Soames (2010) adds that the word realia means
using real items found in everyday life as an aid to teach English. According to Gebhard
(2006:101), some examples of realia are food, drink, clothes, plants, toys, dolls, puppets, hats,
umbrellas, bag, pencil, eraser, fruits, vegetables, newspaper, etc. From those example of realia,
the students are able to see and touch the three dimensional objects and enable them to describe
the object correctly. Even besides seeing and touching, they also can use their other senses such
as hear, smell, and taste.
From the points above, realia can give a life experience to the students while learning by see
and touch the object directly.
On the other hand, there are some disadvantages of using realia in the classroom. As stated
by Hidayati (2010) that the disadvantages of realia is not all of realia can be brought into the
classroom. Sometimes the size of realia is too big or it can make some danger. The teacher
needs to consider what kind of realia that are suitable as media in teaching and learning process.
It is impossible for the teacher to bring such as wild animals, transportation, something that
potential hazard, and object may too large or too small. Another disadvantages is the cost of
some realia is expensive and not all of the teachers can buy those realia. It is necessary for the
teacher to prepare everything before teaching. The teacher should be able to choose the
appropriate theme with the level of the students. Make sure that the realia is easy to be observed
by the students, not distract the students’ attention, and safety. A good classroom management is
needed to control the students’ activities while observing the realia.
3.3.2 Observation
McMillan (1992:128) states that observation in the classroom action research is used to
describe the activities, responses, and involvement of the students in teaching learning process.
The observation in this research is intended to get data about the students’ activities in the
classroom during the teaching learning process in writing. The students are considered as the
active participants if 70% of the students fulfill at least four indicators, but if they could not, they
are passive students.
3.3.3 Interview
Interview in this research will be conduct in the preliminary study. The interviewee is the
English teacher of class VIII-A SMPN 1 Grujugan, Bondowoso. The purpose of the interview is
to get the supporting data about the teaching media used by English teacher and the students’
difficulties in writing achievement. From the interviewee, the researcher got the information that
the students faced some problems how to express their ideas, thoughts, experiences, and opinion
in written form.
3.3.4 Documentation
According to Arikunto (2006:231), documentation is a method of collecting data about
the variables in the form of notes, transcripts, news, magazines. In this research, documentation
is used to get the supporting data about the respondents’ names and their previous English
writing scores from the English teacher.
3.4 Research Procedures
This classroom action research will be implement in the form of cycles in which each cycle
consisted of four steps. They are: (1) planning; (2) acting; (3) observing; (4) reflecting.
3.4.1 Planning
Planning will be use to make the implementation of the action research run properly. It
referred to some preparations needed in all steps to implement the action of the research. They are
as follows;
1) Constructing the lesson plan for the first cycle (meeting I and meeting II)
2) Preparing realia as media in teaching writing
3) Preparing the scoring rubric to score the students’ writing
4) Constructing the writing test by realia to measure the students’ descriptive text writing
achievement.
3.4.2 Acting
Acting in this research, the researcher collaboratively with the English teacher of the
eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Grujugan. In the first meeting, the researcher had a role as a
teacher who taught writing descriptive text by using realia, while the role of the English teacher as
an observer. In the second meeting, there are an exchange role between the teacher and the
researcher. This actions is planned to be conducted in two cycles. The first cycle consisted of two
meetings for teaching writing and followed by the writing test in the third meeting. The second
cycle is conducted if the result of the first cycle had not achieve the target of the research score
yet. This research is conducted during the school hours according to the schedule of the class.
3.4.3 Observing
Observation is needed to monitor the students’ participation during teaching and learning
process. This observation is conducted collaboratively with the English teacher. The researcher
provide the observation checklist which consists of four indicators. They are; 1) The students pay
attention to the teachers’ explanation, 2) The students ask questions to the teacher, 3) The students
answer the teachers’ question, and 4) The students do the writing task given by the teacher. The
students are categorized as active students when they fulfill at least three indicators.
3.4.4 Reflecting
Reflecting is conducted to know the result whether or not the action given could
successfully improve the students’ writing achievement. The researcher and the English teacher
did the reflection after analyzing the result of writing test and the result of observation. The result
of the first cycle is used to decide whether the action is stopped or not
Notes:
E = The percentage of the students who get ≥ 75 in the writing test.
n = The number of the students who get ≥ 75 in the writing test.
N = The total number of the students
(Adapted from Ali, 1993: 186)
The result of writing test in the form of the students’ score of writing test is analyzed by
using the following formula to find mean score:
Σx
M=
N
M = the mean score of the students’ writing test
Σx = total score of the students’ writing test
N = the number of the students
(Adapted from Hadi, 1989:186)
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Lesson Plan I
(Meeting 1 in Cycle I)
Subject : English
Level/Semester : VII/2
Language skill : Writing
Theme : Fruits
Topic : Descriptive Text
Time allocation : 2 x 40 minutes
I. Kompetensi Inti
3. Memahami pengetahuan (faktual, konseptual, dan prosedural) berdasarkan rasa ingin
tahunya tentang ilmu pengetahuan, teknologi, seni, budaya terkait fenomena dan
kejadian tampak mata
4. Mencoba, mengolah, dan menyaji dalam ranah konkret (menggunakan, mengurai,
merangkai, memodifikasi, dan membuat) dan ranah abstrak (menulis, membaca,
menghitung, menggambar, dan mengarang) sesuai dengan yang dipelajari di sekolah dan
sumber lain yang sama dalam sudut pandang/teori
V. Learning Materials
1. Topic: Descriptive text
2. Definition of Descriptive text
It is a text which used to describe something, someone, or place.
3. Social function
It is used to describe something, someone, or place.
4. Generic structures
Identification
Introducing who, where or what is being described.
Description
Describing parts, qualities, and the characteristic of the person, place, or thing to be
describe.
5. Language Features
Using simple present tense
Using adjective
Using noun and pronoun
6. Example of Descriptive text
Grapes Title
Resources :
https://naminadia.wordpress.com/2013/11/
the pictures of fruits available at: Google images
VIII. Teaching Learning Activity
Activity Description Time Allocation
IX. Assessment
Components Scores and Criteria
Subject : English
Level/Semester : VII/2
Language skill : Writing
Theme : Vegetables
Topic : Descriptive Text
Time allocation : 2 x 40 minutes
I. Kompetensi Inti
3. Memahami pengetahuan (faktual, konseptual, dan prosedural) berdasarkan rasa ingin
tahunya tentang ilmu pengetahuan, teknologi, seni, budaya terkait fenomena dan
kejadian tampak mata
4. Mencoba, mengolah, dan menyaji dalam ranah konkret (menggunakan, mengurai,
merangkai, memodifikasi, dan membuat) dan ranah abstrak (menulis, membaca,
menghitung, menggambar, dan mengarang) sesuai dengan yang dipelajari di sekolah dan
sumber lain yang sama dalam sudut pandang/teori
V. Learning Materials
1. Topic: Descriptive text
2. Definition of Descriptive text
It is a text which used to describe something, someone, or place.
3. Social function
It is used to describe something, someone, or place.
4. Generic structures
Identification
Introducing who, where or what is being described.
Description
Describing parts, qualities, and the characteristic of the person, place, or thing to
be describe.
5. Language Features
Using simple present tense
Using adjective
Using noun and pronoun
6. Example of Descriptive text
Grapes Title
IX. Assessment
Components Scores and Criteria
A. Leading Questions
1. I am a fruit. My flesh color is yellow and the texture is very soft. I have sweet taste.
My peel color is bright yellow. Who am I?
2. Can you mention another characteristics of banana?
3. Is the taste delicious or not?
4. Do you like banana?
B. Students’ Exercise
Task 1 (Group Task)
Write down the sentences based on the realia given in the form of Simple Present
Tense correctly!
No. Kinds of Realia Description
1. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
2. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
3. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
4. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
A. Leading Questions
1. I am a vegetable. My color is orange. I have a long shape and rabbits loves to eat me.
Who am I?
2. Can you mention another characteristics of carrot?
3. Is the taste delicious or not?
4. Do you like carrot?
B. Students’ Exercise
Task 1 (Group Task)
Write down the sentences based on the realia given in the form of Simple Present
Tense correctly!
No. Kinds of Realia Description
1. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
2. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
3. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
4. Name:
Shape:
Taste:
Color:
Texture:
Smell:
Size:
Write a descriptive text based on the realia given by using your own words!
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