Syntax Literate : Jurnal Ilmiah Indonesia � ISSN : 2541-0849

e-ISSN : 2548-1398

Vol. 2, No 1 Januari 2017

THE EFFECT OF USING PHOTOGRAPH AND DIARY ON STUDENTS� RECOUNT WRITING

Dayu Retno Puspita

Universitas Muhammadiyah Tangerang

[email protected]

Abstrak

This study was to investigate the effect of photograph and diary on students� recount writing at the eighth grade students of SMPN 11 South Jakarta. The subjects of the study were 64 eight grader students. The purposes of this study were: to find out whether there is the effectiveness of using photograph and diary, to find out the students� recount writing using photograph and diary, to find out the different effect of using photograph and diary on students� recount writing.� After applying the experimental design with diary and picture as research treatments, the researcher then gave writing test to see the mean differences between subjects. The formula used to analyze data was the independent t-test. The researcher used SPSS 17 to calculate the data and the result showed the sig. (2 tailed) value lower than 0.05. It means that there is no significant difference effect on students� writing skill between students who were taught using photograph and diary.

Key word: Photograph, diary, recount writing

Introduction

In Indonesia English is a foreign language. It means that English is not used in daily conversation. Because of that, students still get difficulties to communicate using English especially through writing. Ideally, the English teaching in Indonesia can help students to communicate easily especially through writing, as writing is one of the four aspects of language acquisition. Harmer (1991) said in his book:

Literate people who use language have a number of different abilities. They will able to speak on the telephone, write letters, listen to the radio, or read book. In order words they possess the four basic language skills of speaking, writing, listening and reading.

Based on Harmer�s idea, the language teaching involves four aspects, there are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Writing is an activity that can force one to think independently and invent his ideas and tell others about his own thought. Gould (1989) said in his book writing requires us to think and interpret independently, to describe and invent, to explain and argue from our own point of view. It means that writing means organizing the ideas systematically and expresses the ideas clearly.

Many Indonesian students of junior high school still have troubles in writing. Especially at the eighth grade students of SMPN 11 South Jakarta, the students get students get difficulties because most of them face some difficulties in improving their writing ability. They cannot recognize or improve a sentence or paragraph correctly or they do not have an idea about what they want to write. They cannot put the right words down becoming a good sentence or paragraph. Another problem is although they have an idea but they are still confused how to develop it as the correct one. As James (1998) said the students often feel hard to generate, organize and describe the ideas into the right order.

Based on the researcher and teacher discussion on how to solve the students� problem in writing, photograph and diary are chosen as the effective efforts used to deal with the students� writing difficulties in the teaching and learning process of writing. They are recommended because they have many benefits in the teaching and learning process of writing especially in writing recount text. Kellner (2009) states that using photographs will help students to overcome their reluctance to write well. While Carrol and Mchawala (2001) states that through the use of personal writing learning diary, the students are able to rediscover their ability to express their own ideas and perspective in academic writing. It could give the students freedom to express what they had in mind in English and also can help them express their ideas without worrying much about making mistakes.

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Theoretical Framework

Writing

����������� Writing always has an important place in language teaching. By writing one can express his ideas, desires and experiences into written language in order to be understood.

����������� The word of writing has many meaning. According to Meyers (2003), Writing is also an action process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on paper, and reshaping and revising them. Based on Mayer�s definition, writing is an activity which consist of discovering ideas, organizing ideas then putting the ideas on paper in written form. Furthermore, in line with this, Andrew Hart (1986) said that writing is a process of building larger units from smaller ones. It means that writing is a process of building larger units from smaller units, the students firstly make a sentence, sentence to paragraph, and paragraphs to make composition letters, report and college themes.

Recount text

According to school based curriculum there are four kinds of text taught in the eighth grade of Junior High School that are recount, procedure, narrative and descriptive. In this research, the researcher focuses on recount text. According to Wright (1967), a recount is speaking or writing about past events or a piece of text that retells past events, usually in the order which they happened. It means that recount text means the form of the text telling about someone experience in the past, there for the experience of the readers themselves, such as their adventure and their day�s activities. Thus, researcher can make the reader be informed the situation or events that have happened.

Planning on Recount Writing

����������� According to Hammond (1992) there are steps of constructing a recount text as follows:

1. An orientation

The narrator tells the audience about who is in the story, when the story is taking place and where the action is happening.

2. A sequence of event

A record of events usually recounted in chronological order named: event 1, event 2, event 3.

3. A reorientation

It �round off� the sequences of events or retell about what happened in the end.

����������� Planning on recount writing is interesting, because the plot consist of sequence of event. It makes the students want to know the record of events and retell about what happened in the end.

Photograph

����������� According to Harmer (2004) picture or graphics whether drawn, taken from book, newspaper, and magazine, or photographed to facilitate learning. So photograph is often used to remind people of a real experience or to suggest such as experience.

����������� Photograph is very useful for the students to stimulate their thinking about what they want to write and motivate them to develop their writing. Harmer also adds:

Pictures are often used to present situation to help students work with grammar and vocabulary. But their potential to bring students to different worlds also means that they can be used to encourage students to fly in their creative imagination.

����������� Photograph surely can help students remember details about people, places and events from their imagination. It is appropriate with writing recount text because recount text use to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events and incident in order in which they have occurred. As Kellner (2009) urges teacher to use photographs in teaching writing rather than other types of pictures since, according to him, using photographs will help students overcome their reluctance to write. It means that photograph as powerful teaching aids can inspire students at all levels to create both expository and creative composition.�

Diary

����������� According to Progoff (1975) diary is typically a notebook, booklet of blank pages, or any source for students to record thoughts, reactions to learning experiences, and even inner most fears about a learning activity. He also adds:

Diary writing usually involves the unstructured, chronological recording of the events of a person�s life as they are perceived. We have to recognize, However, that the mere fact of continuous writing entries, as is done in the keeping of a diary, is not sufficient in itself to bring about deep changes in a person�s life.

Diary also defined by Bailey McDonough (1997) diary is a first-person account of a language learning or teaching experienced, documented through regular, candid entries in a personal journal / and then analyzed for recurring patterns or silent events. It means that diary can be employed to monitor either the learning process or the teaching process or both.

Research Methodology

The research conducted at SMPN 11 South Jakarta. It was held from February to March 2014. The method used in this study is quantitative with experimental design purposive sampling. This study was intended for testing hypothesis about the effect of photograph and diary on students� writing. The population of this study was the eighth grade students of SMPN 11 South Jakarta. Based on the six classes of eight grades, the researcher purposively selected only two classes which were 8A and 8C class. The researcher used a set of writing test which related to photograph and diary, and the instrument used in this research is on essay writing.�

Result and Discussion ���������

Table. 1 Paired Samples Test
		Paired Differences					t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)
		Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
					Lower	Upper
Pair 1	Pretest - Posttest	-12.422	6.236	.779	-13.979	-10.864	-15.937	63	.000

From the t-test, it can be seen that the t-value of posttest in both groups (experiment and control) was -15.937. Since the sig. (2-tailed) value was 0.000 is less than 0.05, it can be stated that there is a statistically significant difference of students writing skill between they who were taught using photograph and diary. It was shown that the mean of students writing achievement in experiment group achieved better than they in control group were.

Table. 2 Independent Samples Test

		Levene's Test for Equality of Variances		t-test for Equality of Means
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
									Lower	Upper
Pretest	Equal variances assumed	2.633	.110	-4.118	62	.000	-10.156	2.466	-15.086	-5.226
	Equal variances not assumed			-4.118	52.978	.000	-10.156	2.466	-15.103	-5.210
Posttest	Equal variances assumed	20.657	.000	-4.891	62	.000	-11.250	2.300	-15.848	-6.652
	Equal variances not assumed			-4.891	42.069	.000	-11.250	2.300	-15.892	-6.608

From the t-test, it can be seen that the t-value was divided by two (two-tailed test) or equal to 0,110 which is bigger than 0.05. It has been concluded that there is no difference effect on student writing achievement between teaching writing through photograph and diary.

The researcher findings before treatment in that writing activity both groups make the students felt very difficult to set up recount text. They cannot recognize or improve a sentence or paragraph correctly or they do not have an idea about what they want to write, they cannot put the right words down becoming a good sentence or paragraph. Another problem is although they have an idea but they are still confused how to develop it as the correct one.

Other findings revealed after treatment that the students taught using photograph and diary were able to improve students� writing skill. They were able to organize the writing ideas, sentence structure, written expression and mechanic. Photograph can be powerful sources of text. It is appropriate with recount writing because recount text use to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events and incident in order in which they have occurred. Writing an English diary could raise the students� motivation in using English. It could give the students freedom to express what they had in mind in English. It is also appropriate with writing recount text because it used to reconstruct past experiences by retelling events.

Conclusion

Following discussion of the result is obtained. The t-value of posttest in both groups was -15.937. Since the sig. (2 tailed) value was 0.000 is less than 0.05, it can be stated that there is a statistically significant difference of students writing skill between they who were taught using photograph and diary. From t-test, it can be seen that the value was α divided by two (two-tailed test) or 0.110 which is bigger than α 0.05. Thus, the alternate hypothesis (H₁) was rejected and the Null Hypothesis (H₀) was accepted. It has been concluded that there is no difference effect on students� writing skill between students who were taught by photograph and diary, or in other words, there is no difference effect in students� writing achievement between teaching writing through photograph and diary.

Suggestion

The study attempted to investigate the effect of using photograph and diary on students� writing at SMPN 11 South Jakarta. Result of the analysis of the differences between means scores after doing the research, the writer suggest in the following:

1. The teacher is expected to know the suitable method of teaching. It is important because media may influence the result of students� achievement on learning.

2. The teacher who plays a great role in teaching learning process motivates the students in order to help the students understand the material easily.

3. The teacher can evaluate students, how far they understand the material in each meeting.

4. The students are more active during the teaching learning process, so it can make the students interested and motivated in learning English. Moreover, they will get a better result.

BIBLIOGRAFY

Carrol,M&Mchawala, C. 2001. Form or Meaning Academic Writing with a Personal Voice.In J Burton & M Carroll (Eds.), Journal Writing Washington: Tesol Inc.

Hammond, Jenny. 1992. English for Social Purposes. Sidney: Macquarie University.

Harmer, Jeremy. 1991. The Practice of English language Teaching. New York: Longman.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2004. How to Teach Writing. New York: Pearson Education Ltd.

Hart, Andrew. 1986. Writing for Career Education Students. United States: At Martin�s Press Inc.

Gould, Eric, et al. 1989. The Act of Writing. New York: Random House.

Kellner, H. 2009. Using Photography to inspire writing.Retrieved February 24, 2013 from http:/www.creativy-portal.com/prompts/using-photography.

McCrimmon, James. 1998. Writing with the Purpose. New York: Longman Pearson.

McDonough, Jo and Steven McDonough. 1997. Research Methods for English Language Teacher. India: Replika Press.

Meyers, Alan. 2003. Gateways to Academic Writing. Washington: Adison Wesley Longman.

Progoff, I. 1975. At a Journal Workshop. New York: Dialogue House Library.

Wright, Andrew. 1967. Visual Material for the Langauge Teacher. London: Longman Group.