CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Every human needs a media to connect and communicate with

others. The tool or media is language. It is a communication tool which

used by all of people in their daily life. Without the language, someone

cannot socialize and even to meet her daily life. Various thought and

feeling can be communicated to other people through language. The

important thing of language must be understandable in delivering a

message. That’s why the existence of language make humans can

cooperate with each other to build their civilization.

Nowadays, language is important for all education, starting from

the lowest until highest level of education. Language is also important to

be learned because it is a tool to learn anything. Language is a something

unique and powerful thing. It can unite humans being in the world. English

becomes an international language. It means that all of people in this

world need to learn English language to reach international level. That’s

why many scientists and practitioners’ education try to find the easiest and

the effective way to learn English language.

Because English is an international language which connects all of

people in this world, it is important to be learned by all of people in the

world including Indonesia. In Indonesia, English language has a position

as a foreign language. Less than half of the Indonesian people have not

mastered the English language yet. Furthermore, we know that the newest

and the most modern technology come from the western world. In order to

be at the same level as a modern and rich country, Indonesian people

should learn English language to survive in this globalization era.

From the explanation above, we know how the importance of

English. To master English language completely, we should master all of

the skill in English language. There are four skills in English language

teaching: listening, speaking, reading, and writing (Scrivener,1994:20).

Listening and reading are called ‘receptive skills’ (the reader or listener

receives information but does not produce it); while speaking and writing

are the ‘productive skills’.

To master writing completely, we need good enough knowledge

about grammar, vocabularies, and also the context of writing. Because of

its difficulties to master writing skill, many scientist and education

practitioners try to find an effective, efficient, easy, and even fun way to

learn and master writing skill. Their effort has begun many years ago by

conducting many research. Times by time, world of English teaching and

learning have been developing significantly. Nowadays, it is hoped that all

of the elements who take part in English teaching and learning give a

contribution to develop English teaching and learning.

The fact the learning, as we know that students of junior of high

school are required to master all of English skill include writing as the
 most difficult one. The difficulty often experience obstacles and

difficulties by students in writing, usually lies in the structure of the

sentence, writing a punctuation, the incompatibility of the title with the

theme who taken by students , besides that students need a very long time

in arranging paragraphs.

As is the case experienced by students in SMP N 4 Ungaran In

Academic Year 2019/2020. Based on the interview with English teacher

in SMP N 4 Ungaran In Academic Year 2019/2020 , that still many

students still have difficulty in learning to write a paragraph. Most of

their problems are lack of vocabulary, grammar, and even idea or limited

of ideas on students when they want to create a sentence to be a paragraph.

It can be measured from students written task score and exercise in the

classroom. On the other hand, students’ response to English subject also is

enthusiastic. To solve a problem, it is necessary to predict the possibility

of implementing another strategy The researcher hopes that this research

will give a contribution to English language education as one of reference.

B. Statement of Problems

This research is aimed to answer these following questions:

 1. How is the implementation of using Numbered Heads Together with

Picture Series to improve students’ writing skill on degrees

comparison at the eighth grade student at SMP 4 Ungaran in academic

year 2019/2020?

2. Is there any improvement on student’s writing skill after using

Numbered Heads Together with Picture Series for the eighth grade

student at SMP 4 Ungaran in academic year 2019/2020?

C. Objective of Research

Based on the statement of the problem above, the objectives of this

researcher are as follows:

1. To find out the implementation of the use Numbered Heads

Together with Picture Series to improve students’ writing skills

in degrees comparison for the eighth grade student at SMP N 4

Ungaran in academic year 2019/2020.

2. To find out the improvement of students writing skill after

using Numbered Heads Together with Picture Series for the

eighth grade student’s of SMPN 4 Ungaran in the academic

year 2019/2020 or not.

D. Significances of the Research

This research is expected to be used theoretically:

 1. Theoretical benefits of research

This study is expected to provide benefits for the development of

writing in SMP N 4 Ungaran.

2. Practical benefits of research

a. For Students

The students are expected to be able to improve their writing skills

by using cooperative strategy of learning on degrees comparison.

b. For Teacher

By knowing the writing ability lecturer can choose good

strategy of the class, so the students can more easy to try for write.

c. For Researcher

The researchers can enrich the way of teaching writing,

knows the benefit of them optimally, and gets useful experiences in

teaching English writing.

E. Hypothesis and Success Indicator

The success indicator of this research is taken from the students’

Basic Competence shown in Lesson Plan. The students’ success and

failure in doing activities in cycle I and II will be assessed by referring to

the criteria of the passing grade or in Indonesian is Kriteria Ketuntasan

Minimal (KKM). The passing grade of English lesson in SMP N 4

Ungaran is 70. The teacher and the researcher expect that there are at

least 80% of the students who reach the passing grade.

F. Research Methodology
1. Research Design

This research was an Classroom Action Research (CAR) that

conducted at the eighth grade of SMPN 4 Ungaran in the academic year

2019/2020.

The use of Classroom Action Research (CAR) as the research

method is believed can help the teacher to find the appropriate teaching

techniques to solve the problem found in the classroom. Classroom

Action Research (CAR) is about the systematic study of attempts to

improve educational practice by groups of participants of by means of

their own practical actions and by means of own reflection upon the

effects of that actions (Ebbut (1985) in Hopkins (1993: 45)).

Classroom Action Research (CAR) can be done in varieties way.

First the researcher can take a role as the designer of the teaching

method, whereas the teacher as the implementer, second an action

researcher can be done collaboratively.

Based on those theories, it could be said that the main

characteristic of classroom action research is participation and

collaboration between the researcher, teacher and the member of that

target community to solve the problems in the classroom. In this case, the

target community or the subject of the researcher was eighth class in

SMP N 4 Ungaran. The researcher cooperated with an English teacher of

the eighth grade in SMP N 4 Ungaran. The Classroom Action Research

was carried out by the researcher collaboratively with the teacher by

implementing Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique with picture

series as the teaching media.

According to Nunan (1991: 3), an important aspect of methodology

is the development of teaching routines, materials, and task in the

classroom. Moreover Ur (1999: 328), defines ‘’action research’’ is

carried out by teacher on phenomena in their own classroom. Hopkins

(2008:1), stated that classroom research as an activity undertaken by

teacher, to enhance their own or a colleague’s teaching, to test

assumptions of educational theory in practice, or as a means of

evaluating and implementing whole school priorities.

Figure1.1:
A Cyclical Action Research Model by Kemmis and McTaggart(1998)

From the figure 1.1 shows a cycle of action and reflection. It can be

seen that the action research procedures in each cycle covers four main
steps. Those are reconnaissance, planning, action and observation, and

reflection. Each one of these phases is validated by the previous phase

and looks forward to the next. For example, the action phase is

validated by then planning phase, and look forward to the observation.

The cycle can begin at any stage, and does not stop after one cycle has

been completed, but rather begins another one; hence it is a ‘’spiral’’

rather than ‘’cycle’’. The cycle can explain:

1. Planning
The activities planning are as follow:
a. Preparing the syllabus, making lesson plan, materials, and
designing the steps of doing the action.

b. Preparing scoring and students list.

c. Preparing teaching aids (e.g. students’ worksheets, power

point, table, etc.).

d. Preparing sheets for class observation (to know the situation

of teaching learning process when the method is applied.

e. Preparing a test; pre-test and post-test, to know whether the

students’ improve or not.

2. Action and Observation

In this step, the researcher implemented the action.

Observation sheets were used to record the activities happened

during the implementation of the action. Those data were also

used to observed the teacher’s and student’s performance

 which would be discussed further by the researcher and

collaborator. The researcher also conducted a progress test to

see the improvement to student’s writing skills after the

implementation of the action.

3. Reflection

Reflection is a research finding analysis. This reflection can

be done by implementing the action. This reflection has the

purpose to evaluate the teaching-learning process.

Based on the explanation above, it can be conclude that

Classroom Action Research is an action research that does in

the classroom by the teacher and researcher as an effort to solve

the problem in the class.

2. The subject of the research

Subject of this research are the eighth grade student of SMP N 4

Ungaran in the academic year 2019/2020. There are 35 students,

which consist of 16 female and 16 males.

Table 1.1
List of students’ name of eighth grade of SMP N 4 Ungaran

No. Student’s Name

1 ANF
2 ASW
3 AZR
4 APR
5 ASS
6 ANN
7 AMR
8 BPW
9 BTA
10 CR
 11 DAF
12 DAA
13 DH
14 DY
15 ESW
16 EOR
17 FKP
18 GEBA
19 GDP
20 HZR
21 NFA
22 NPC
23 NRSA
24 OK
25 PB
26 RA
27 RNM
28 SAW
29 SP
30 SFMET
31 VAP
32 YA

3. Step of the Research

In conducting the research, the researcher lists the steps which

summarize the following researcher schedule. The table of the

researcher schedule is arranged as follows:

No Activities Time Allocation

1 Preparing the research proposal July

2 Doing cycle August

3 Doing observation August

4 Analysis data September

5 Writing research result September

6 Continuing writing the graduating paper September

 4. Technique Data collection

The name of analysis technique of this research is the

classroom action research. Mujis (2004:56) data collection is

done by observing a situation, setting or interaction.

a. Observation

Observation is investigating activity to see how farther

effect of classroom action research to reach the goal.

b. Interviewing

One of the ways to get information in the classroom was by

interviewing the English teacher and students. It was conducted

before and after implementation Classroom Action Research. It

was to know the general description about process of learning

writing skills, students, situation in writing activity, and the method

or any strategy usually implemented by the teacher in teaching

writing process.

G. Graduating Paper Outline

In order to make a systematic research, the research organizes this

research into five chapter, they are as follows:

Chapter I is an introduction. It contains the background of the

research, the research questions, objectives of the research, significances

of the research, hypothesis and success indicator, research methodology,

and graduating paper outline.

Chapter II literature review. It contains theoretical framework and

previous research.

Chapter III is the implementation of the research. It contains

procedure of the research.

Chapter IV is a research finding. This chapter consists of the result

of the research in the use of collaborative strategy to improve student

writing skill on (MATERI) at the eighth grade at SMP N 4 Ungaran in

academic year 2019/2020.

Chapter V is closure. It contains conclusion and suggestions. After

that, it is followed by bibliography and appendixes.