ABSTRAK 

Yunita Widya Hapsari. K2211096. USING DIALOGUE JOURNAL TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ WRITING PROFICIENCIES (A Classroom Action Research in Class VIIIG of SMP Negeri 14 Surakarta in the Academic Year 2015/2016). A thesis. Teacher Training and Education Faculty. Sebelas Maret University. 2016.

This research aimed to investigate (1) how dialogue journal can be implemented effectively in improving the students’ writing proficiencies; and (2) to what extent dialogue journal can improve their writing proficiencies.

The research is a classroom action research that consists of four stages: planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The data collected were in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were obtained from observations and interviews, while the quantitative data were collected from tests. The methods of data analysis used were (1) Interactive Model by Miles and Huberman that involves data display, data reduction, conclusion drawing/ verifying for the qualitative data and (2) descriptive statistics for the quantitative data.

The findings shows that Dialogue journal can be implemented effectively due to some considerations, which are: (1) giving a clear explanation of the concept of Dialogue Journal; (2) giving an interesting guide to start the writing; (3) concerning more on the students’ grammar knowledge; (4) giving variety of feedbacks; (5) focusing more on the writing process; and (6) arranging a regular schedules for collecting and responding the journal. By implementing Dialogue Journal in such conditions, the students’ writing proficiency was improved. The students’ mean score in pre-test was 69.9. It was improved to 75.7 in the post-test 1 and 79.9 in the post-test 2. The improvement can also be seen from the improvement of the students’ attitude toward the learning, which was more active and motivated.

The conclusion of this research is the implementation of Dialogue Journal in such conditions can improve the students’ writing proficiencies as well as their attitude toward the learning.

Keywords: Writing Proficiencies, Dialogue Journal, Classroom Action Research.