Using “CQGS” to improve the students’ writing competence (a classroom action research at grade eight c of SMP Negeri 5 Probolinggo, in the academic year of 2009/2010)

Oleh :
Asrofin - S890208102 - Sekolah Pascasarjana

ABSTRACT This research done at class VIIIC of SMPN 5 Probolinggo aims at finding out whether or not: (1) “CQGS” techniques can improve the students’ writing competence; (2) “CQGS” techniques are effective to improve the students’ writing competence; (3) there are some weaknesses and strengths of using “CQGS” in teaching writing. Based on the result of the score of pre-test, questionnaire and interview to the students that had been gained by the researcher, he found out some factors causing the students’ low writing achievement. They were; (1) lack of practice; (2) unsuitable teaching technique; (3) students’ low motivation; (4) lack of students’ learning resources, and (5) less opportunity to have a lot of exposure and practice in reading English language. “CQGS” which stands for Control Composition, Questions and Answer, Guided Composition, and Sentence Combining. This research consists of four cycles. The main activity of the first and second cycle was practicing writing recount text which was focused on the correct punctuation, agreement, tenses, syntax, and diction and constructing the questions to produce a coherent text. While the main activity of the third and fourth cycle was writing Narrative text which focused on both grammatical competence and developing the ideas and imagination based on the given guided clues of the first and the last sentence of the story and writing the sentences effectively. In general, the process of teaching and learning writing in the classroom was started by; discussing students’ grammatical problem of writing and correcting the students’ own drafts; then, giving a model of the certain text type to be understood and discussing its language feature and generic structure, then, practicing some difficult grammar, and at last writing the text. The data collected in this research consists of quantitative which were taken from the writing test and qualitative data which were taken from the interview, questionnaire, and observation. Quantitative analysis was used to analyze the students’ achievement before and after the cycle was implemented by using descriptive statistics. While, constant comparative method used to analyze the qualitative data consisted of 4 steps: (1) comparing incidents applicable to each category, (2) integrating categories and their properties, (3) delimiting the theory, and (4) writing the theory. The result of the study shows that there was: (1) improvement of the students’ writing competence. The score in post test was higher than the score in pre-test; (2) improvement of the teacher’s performance class. It could be seen from the direct observation of the collaborator during the process of teaching and learning in the classroom; (3) improvement of students’ motivation. By analyzing the data collection from questionnaire and interview, the researcher found out that most of the students had positive response toward writing activity.; (4) improvement of the students’ participation. In general, from the data collected from the observation, the researcher found out that the students were so quiet in the first cycle, but in the second to the fourth cycle their participation in discussing and correcting the mistakes gradually improved. The weaknesses of the “CQGS” were that: (1) Before the students had good language competence in writing, the students were not allowed to express their ideas freely in writing to avoid the interference of the grammar of students’ first language; (2) For the students who had excellent background of English lesson, “CQGS” made them disable to express their ideas freely. The strength of the “CQGS” were that: (1) The Application of “CQGS” especially Control Composition, Question and Answer, and Sentence Combining were good to improve students’ writing competence focusing on accuracy.. For Guided Composition, it was good to improve students’ writing competence focusing on generating ideas; (2) Students became more active and were motivated to improve their writing competence . (3) It helped the teacher guide the students systematically in improving their writing competence and improvise their way of teaching. Finally, the researcher suggested that “Control Composition and Question and Answer” be used as the main technique for teaching Writing at the seventh grade because their background knowledge of English proficiency was mostly considered at early beginning level. While “Guided Composition” and “Sentence Combining” would be suitable used in eight grade of Junior High School, because they had got much more background knowledge of English than the students at the first grade.