1 ELT FORUM 2 (1) (2013) English Language Teaching Forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt The Use of Video as a Medium to Improve Students’ Ability in Writing Narrative Texts Dewi Permatasari Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia Info Artikel ________________ SejarahArtikel: DiterimaJanuari 2013 DisetujuiFebruari 2013 DipublikasikanJuni 2013 ________________ Keywords: video, writing, narrative texts, action research ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ The aims of this study were to explain and describe how Video was used in teaching writing narrative texts and to find out the result of the teaching writing and learning process after the students were taught by using Video. The subject of this study was VIIIA students of SMP N 24 Semarang. In this research, I used tests and questionnaires to collect the data. I designed an action research that consisted of pretest and two cycles of the treatment. The first meeting was for pretest, the second until the fourth meeting were for treatments using Video in teaching writing in narrative texts and the fifth meeting was for posttest. The result of the study showed that there was an improvement of the students’ writing after the students were taught by using Video. It could be seen from the average of the pretest was 59.8, the first cycle was 68.55, the second cycle was 79.03, and the posttest was 84.82. In conclusion, the use of fairy tail video as a medium worked well in writing class, especially for the VIIIA of SMP N 24 Semarang. The students also said that they were not bored during the teaching and learning process. They felt fun and their motivation to write the narrative texts increased after using Video. Based on the results above, Video can be an interesting and appropriate medium to teach writing. © 2013UniversitasNegeri Semarang Alamatkorespondensi: GedungB3Lantai3 FBSUnnes KampusSekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 E-mail: dewi88niez@yahoo.co.id ISSN 2252-6706 Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 INTRODUCTION In teaching English, teachers must have four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Those skills are very useful in communication process. It has to be supported by language components, namely grammar, vocabulary, spelling, cohesion and coherent. Among those skills, writing is considered as the most difficult skill for mastering a language. Based on KTSP curriculum for Junior High School students, they are demanded to make a simple text in the spoken and written form. Furthermore, the objective of teaching English at Junior High School does not only teach vocabulary, grammar or introduce a new dialog with a certain topic but also impresses on the discourse level. For this level education, the students should learn writing based on the certain texts. Furthermore KTSP mentions the students of Junior High School are demanded to master written five text types. They are descriptive, narrative, recount, procedure, and report. Teaching the students of Junior High School is not the same as teaching adults. Those students can be categorized as young learners who are not concerned with jobs or university degrees that require knowledge of language. Their world is not as serious as adults’. Therefore, it is possible that the young learners’ motivation is lower than adults’. Brown (2001:160-166) states that, “a cognitive view of motivation includes factors such as the need for exploration, activity, stimulation, new knowledge, and ego enhancement. The motivation can be built from many ways. Besides introducing the interesting text type, the motivation can be increased by using media in teaching”. Brown adds that using a variety of media will increase the probability that the students will learn more and retain better what they learn in improving the performance of the skills they are expected to develop. A video is one of the visual aids that can be used in a writing class. It makes lesson more fun. “Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion” (Harmer, 2001:283). “When a class is working on an area of language, whether grammatical, functional, or lexical – or a mixture of all three – the lesson can be greatly enhanced by a video extract which shows that language in operation. Short video sequences of between one and four minutes can yield a number of exercises, demonstrate a satisfying range of language, are easier to manipulate, and can be highly motivating” (Harmer, 2001:283). Stempleski in Richards and Renandya (2002:362) also adds that “television and video are so closely associated with leisure and entertainment that many, if not most, students watching video in the classroom expect only to be entertained”. Teachers need to led students to an appreciation of video as a valuable tool for language learning and help them to develop viewing skills which they can apply to their video and television viewing experiences outside the classroom. The video will still remain entertaining, but the students will also come to recognition of how the medium can be used for learning. Since writing still becomes a difficult skill for students, teachers should know the suitable method to teach writing. Using insufficient media and method makes the students not interested in learning writing. For example when teachers are teaching writing, they often use monotonous media. The monotonous teaching style such as explaining orally or writing down all the materials is a boring learning. A narrative text is the most interesting genre because it tells something imaginative. In addition, it involves imaginative thoughts and fictive stories to present an amusing and fascinating story. It tells a story to entertain or inform the reader or listener. In order to make students interested in narrative, I use video as the teaching media. I use video as a medium because it is easy to find, it is also sophisticated technology and easy to be understood. Those Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 videos can motivate and attract them in learning the lesson. DATA AND METHOD OF ANALYSIS This study is an action research which is concerned with the use of video in teaching narrative texts in improving students’ writing ability. An action research is a form of educational inquiry that uses real action of the teachers in response to a certain problem encountered during the teaching and learning process through cycles of action. A research method used in this study is an action research. According to Kurt in “Pedoman Teknis Pelaksanaan Classroom Action Research” Depdiknas (2003:4), there are four components in one cycle for doing classroom action research: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. In planning activity, I began with arranging the lesson plan, the students’ attendance list, the teaching media (the teacher’s Video), classroom observation, questionnaires, and the pretest. Acting is the implementation of the planning, which is already made. The acting was done with the teaching narrative texts and learning process using Video. This third step was about trying to get the information of the students’ achievement after given the treatment. It was done by the teacher and me. The teacher observed the implementation of the teaching writing narrative texts and learning process using Video. Reflecting was about trying to analyze the students’ study result whether or not the teaching and learning process was successful. The result of the discussion, here, would be a foundation to determine the next plan. Subject of Study The subject of this study was the the VIII year students 24 Junior High School Semarang of Class VIIIA with Mrs. Siti Zulaekah S.pd as the English teacher. Instruments of the study Saleh (2001:31) states that “the word instrument refers to research tools for data collecting”. It’s therefore, a fundamental thing to be well through out by a researcher before she conducts an experiment. An instrument could be in the form of questionnaire, observation list, interview and test. I used writing test and questionnaire as instruments to collect the data for my research. Here I applied an achievement test to measure the students’ mastery of writing after they were given process approach in their English learning process. Related to the achievement test, there are many types of achievement test such as essay test, completion test, multiple choice tests, cloze test, and so on. In this research, I used essay test. In this research, the tests that I would conduct were pretest, test in each cycle, and posttest. The pretest was conducted for checking whether or not the students could produce the narrative text well. The assessment tests were used for knowing whether there was achievement of the students in producing a narrative text. The posttest was used for knowing whether or not students could really produce a good narrative text. First questionnaire was delivered in the end of pretest. It was used to know the students’ attitude toward the teaching learning process before the treatment by using video as a medium in writing class. After conducting the posttest, the second questionnaires were given to the students to know their interests in Video which was used during the treatment. Brown and Paul (1998:66) state that “questionnaire is a number of question for the researcher who wishes to collect information from a large number of people but has limited time and resources”. Considering the statements above, I conclude that questionnaire is a number of questions to get information from the respondents. The purpose of giving questionnaire in this research was to gather information from the students about the factors that may affect their improvement in writing. A questionnaire was given to gather information from the students based on their needs, interest, like and dislike, about teaching and learning process and about the students’ Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 opinion on the writing class using process approach. The questionnaires were used to find out:  The ability and problem faced by the students in writing activities.  The sustainability of the program conducted during the action research.  The advantages gained through the action research. Scoring Criteria I used rating scale to score or evaluate the students’ achievement in writing. In giving the score to the students’ writing, I used the analytical scoring guidance taken from Heaton’s grid and categories (1974:137). There were five aspects which were used as the consideration in giving scores. Those are: grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, relevance and fluency. In classifying the score, I used the measurement of students’ achievement suggested by Harris (1969:134) as interpreted in Table 3.3 below: Table 3.3 Scoring Criteria by Harris Grade Criteria of Mastery Level A B C D 80 – 100 60 – 79 50 – 59 0 – 49 Good to Excellent Average to good Good Fair Pretest A pretest was conducted on 12 March 2012. This activity was done to measure the students’ achievement in writing narrative texts. By conducting this activity, I knew whether the students understood narrative texts or not. Table 4.1 The Result of Pretest No Students’ Code Writing Assessment Components Score Total Score G V M R F 1. S-01 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 2. S-02 2 3 3 3 2 13 52 3. S-03 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 4. S-04 3 2 3 4 3 15 60 5. S-05 2 2 3 3 2 12 48 6. S-06 2 3 4 3 3 15 60 7. S-07 2 2 3 3 2 12 48 8. S-08 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 9. S-09 4 3 4 4 3 18 72 10. S-10 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 11. S-11 2 3 3 3 2 13 52 12. S-12 3 2 3 4 2 14 56 13. S-13 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 14. S-14 2 3 4 4 3 16 64 15. S-15 2 2 3 3 3 13 52 16. S-16 2 4 4 3 3 16 64 17. S-17 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 18. S-18 4 4 3 4 3 18 72 19. S-19 2 2 4 4 3 15 60 20. S-20 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 21. S-21 2 3 4 3 3 15 60 22. S-22 3 2 4 4 3 16 64 23. S-23 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 24. S-24 2 3 3 3 4 15 60 25. S-25 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 26. S-26 2 2 3 4 3 14 56 27. S-27 2 3 3 3 3 14 56 28. S-28 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 29. S-29 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 ∑ 29 71 79 98 100 86 434 1736 Based on the table and the chart above, there were 16 students or 55.1% who were good in writing narrative texts. However, there were 11 students or 38% who were in the average category and 2 students or 6.9% in the poor category. Furthermore, the average of students’ pretest was 59.86%. In this pretest, I found that the students were poor on the content of their writing. It was because I had not explained in detail about narrative texts yet, so they had not known narrative text was. Based on the result above, I prepared some treatments. The treatments were hoped to improve the students’ ability in writing, especially in writing narrative text. Result of Cycle 1 In this activity I had two meetings; one meeting was used to treat the students with video for teaching them about narrative texts. It was conducted on March 19th 2012. The first meeting was aimed for improving the students’ writing ability and also solving their difficulties that were found in the previous activity. In the first meeting, I explained the general knowledge of narrative texts such as the social functions and generic structure of narrative text by using Video “Cinderella” in teaching writing narrative text. The students paid attention to the explanation. I opened question and answer sessions after explaining the material. Then, I showed them another story and asked them to identify the social functions and generic structure of the text. In this stage I started by asking them whether they had ever watched fairy tail video or not. Many of the students said they had ever watched the fairy tail video from the CD. Giving the direction before the students watched the video actually would become the direction what they had to do during I played the video “Cinderella”. Then I played the video once in the class. I saw that the students were still confused what the Cinderella said. The students of my subjects had difficulties in catching the ideas of the video by using their listening ability. After playing the video once, I explained them about what exactly narrative text is, the social function and the generic structure of narrative text are. After implementing Video in cycle 1, I conducted cycle 1 test to know the improvement of the students’ writing narrative text. The students made a paragraph of narrative text based on the video shown the screen individually. They had to write the story of “Cinderella“. The length of the story is not more than 250 words and the time allotment was 40 minutes. Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 6 Table 4.3 The Result of Cycle 1 No Students’ Code Writing Assessment Components Score Total Score G V M R F 1. S-01 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 2. S-02 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 3. S-03 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 4. S-04 3 3 3 4 3 16 64 5. S-05 2 3 3 4 3 15 60 6. S-06 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 7. S-07 3 3 3 4 3 16 64 8. S-08 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 9. S-09 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 10. S-10 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 11. S-11 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 12. S-12 3 4 3 3 4 17 68 13. S-13 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 14. S-14 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 15. S-15 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 16. S-16 4 3 3 4 4 18 72 17. S-17 4 4 3 4 3 18 72 18. S-18 3 4 3 4 4 18 72 19. S-19 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 20. S-20 3 3 4 3 3 16 64 21. S-21 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 22. S-22 3 4 3 4 3 17 68 23. S-23 3 3 3 3 3 15 60 24. S-24 4 4 4 3 4 19 76 25. S-25 4 3 3 4 3 17 68 26. S-26 3 3 3 3 4 16 64 27. S-27 3 3 4 4 4 18 72 28. S-28 3 3 3 3 3 15 60 29. S-29 3 4 3 3 3 16 64 ∑ 29 91 97 103 107 99 497 1988 The students’ achievement after doing the first cycle seemed improved. It could be seen from the average score of cycle 1 was 68.55%. It increased than the pretest result with the margin 8.7. After being treated with Video, 28 students or 96.5% got the good score and one student or 3.4% got the excellent score. Result of Cycle 2 This cycle was conducted because the first cycle of this research had not been able to reach the research target yet. Therefore in this cycle, I had prepared some teaching improvement in order to help the students reach the target. First, before I played the video I gave the instructions as the guide during the students watched the video. Then I asked the students to list as much as information that found in “Mount Tangkuban Perahu“. Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 7 After watching the video, I asked the students how much information they could list from the video they watched. Some students were still confused with the vocabulary in video. Therefore, I played the video again in order to give more information to the students. After I played the video twice, I asked about the information they gained from the video. I asked the students to write a narrative text individually with the theme “Mount Tangkuban Perahu“. In this stage they were to use their own sentences and arranged the information they got from the video. They should use the information that had been listed in the previous meeting to compose their own narrative text. After giving the instruction to the students about this writing activity, I distributed the paper and asked them to write their name, student number, and their class in the place existed on the paper. During the writing activity for about 40 minutes, I helped them as I could and also observed the students’ activity. After waiting for about 40 minutes, the students submitted their work and arranged their writing based on their student number. This arrangement had a purpose to make the scoring process easier. Table 4.5 The Result of Cycle 2 No Students’ Code Writing Assessment Components Score Total Score G V M R F 1. S-01 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 2. S-02 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 3. S-03 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 4. S-04 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 5. S-05 3 3 4 4 3 17 68 6. S-06 3 4 4 5 4 20 80 7. S-07 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 8. S-08 3 4 4 4 4 19 76 9. S-09 4 5 5 5 4 23 92 10. S-10 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 11. S-11 4 4 3 4 4 19 76 12. S-12 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 13. S-13 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 14. S-14 4 5 4 5 4 22 88 15. S-15 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 16. S-16 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 17. S-17 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 18. S-18 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 19. S-19 3 4 4 4 3 18 72 20. S-20 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 21. S-21 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 22. S-22 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 23. S-23 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 24. S-24 4 4 4 4 5 21 84 25. S-25 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 8 26. S-26 4 3 4 4 4 19 76 27. S-27 4 4 4 4 3 19 76 28. S-28 3 4 3 4 4 18 72 29. S-29 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 ∑ 29 110 112 117 120 114 573 2292 The average of students’ score percentage was then calculated by using this formula; The average of the student result = X 100% = x 100% = 79.03 % Result of Posttest After giving the treatment for each group, I conducted a posttest. The posttest which was conducted on 2 April 2012 was aimed to measure whether there were differences on students’ score before and after getting the treatment. In this stage, I reviewed briefly about the lesson which had been given. The procedure of the posttest was the same as the pretest. The students had to write the story based on the components of writing and the generic structure of a narrative text. In this stage, I reviewed briefly about the lesson which had been given. The procedure of the posttest was the same as the pretest. The students had to write the story based on the components of writing and the generic structure of a narrative text. In pretest, the score of grammar was 71, it improved 91 in formative test 1, the formative test 2 was 110, and finally, it became 115 in the last test which was posttest. It was a good progress, gradually the students improved their grammar. Narrative text uses simple past tense, so it was not a big problem for them to learn that genre, it was very simple. Most of the students knew and mastered the tense. Table 4.7 The Result of Posttest No Students’ Code Writing Assessment Components Score Total Score G V M R F 1. S-01 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 2. S-02 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 3. S-03 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 4. S-04 4 4 4 4 3 19 76 5. S-05 4 3 4 5 4 20 80 6. S-06 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 7. S-07 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 8. S-08 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 9. S-09 4 4 5 5 5 23 92 10. S-10 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 11. S-11 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 12. S-12 4 4 4 5 4 21 84 13. S-13 4 4 4 4 4 20 80 14. S-14 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 15. S-15 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 16. S-16 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 17. S-17 4 3 4 5 4 20 80 Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 9 18. S-18 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 19. S-19 5 4 4 5 4 22 88 20. S-20 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 21. S-21 3 4 5 4 3 19 76 22. S-22 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 23. S-23 4 5 4 4 4 21 84 24. S-24 4 4 4 5 5 22 88 25. S-25 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 26. S-26 4 4 5 4 5 22 88 27. S-27 4 4 5 5 4 22 88 28. S-28 3 4 4 5 3 19 76 29. S-29 4 4 5 4 4 21 84 ∑ 29 115 118 128 132 122 615 2460 The Improvement of Students’ Test Result The result was shown in the chart as follows: Chart 4.9 The Improvement of Students Test Result The average score of pretest was 59.86. The average of students’ score percentage in cycle 1 test was 68.55. The average score of cycle 2 was 79.03. The average score of posttest was 84.82. Analysis of First Questionnaire First questionnaire was delivered in the end of pretest. It was used to know the students’ attitude toward the teaching learning process before the treatment by using video as a medium in writing class. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Pretest Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Post Test Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 10 Table 4.9 The Result of the First Questionnaires No. Questions Answers Yes No 1. Do you like English lesson? 83% 17% 2. Do you like writing in English? 69% 31% 3. Do you think that writing a narrative is difficult? 72% 28% 4. Do you feel bored with your teacher’s method in teaching writing? 93% 7% 5. Do you like watching Fairy tail Video? 76% 24% 6. Do you agree if video is used as one of teaching methods? 93% 7% 7. Do you think that the teacher had used the media? 0% 100% 8. Are you willing to learn writing narrative by using video? 96% 4% 4.2.6 Analysis of Second Questionnaire After conducting the posttest, the questionnaires were given to the students to know their interests in Video which was used during the treatment. There were eight questions in the questionnaires. Then the students should answer them with “yes” or “no”. The questions were written in English. In order to make the students understand my questionnaires, I translated the questions to Indonesian. Table 4.10 The Result of the Second Questionnaires No. Questions Answers Yes No 1. Do you think that writing English is difficult to learn? 79% 21% 2. Do you like learning English with Video? 90% 10% 3. Do you think that the use of Video as a medium to teach writing narrative is necessary? 93% 7% 4. Video is available everywhere, so I can get it easily and use it anytime. 96% 4% 5. Does this treatment help you in answering the questions related to the texts? 76% 24% 6. Does this treatment help you in mastering vocabularies and grammar? 83% 17% 7. Can this medium improve your motivation in learning English? 93% 7% 8. Does the situation of the class become enjoyable after using media? 96% 4% The Advantages of Using Video in Teaching Writing Narrative Texts Using Video in teaching writing narrative texts has some advantages as follows: (1) Teaching using Video can increase the students’ motivation in writing the texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. (2) Using Video makes the students enjoy and interested in English teaching and learning activities. Therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. The Disadvantages of Using Video in Teaching Writing Narrative Texts Dewi Permatasari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 11 The first was when the students were asked to write the text; some students did not understand the vocabulary. To overcome this problem, the teacher asked the students to open their dictionary. The second was when the teacher was using Video. I need some well preparations in order not to spend a lot of time to use this medium in the class. CONCLUSION Based on the data analysis and the discussion about the use of Video in teaching narrative texts for Junior High School students especially for the eighth-year students of SMP N 24 Semarang, the most difficulty that the students had in writing narrative texts was grammar, because they had difficulty in using verb past. Most of them had the same mistake. The students got difficulty in writing narrative texts because they had less motivation. The reason was the teacher did not use any media that could make the students enjoy and relaxed in teaching and learning process.The action research on developing the students’ writing ability especially in writing a narrative text by using videos was successful. The computation result on pretest was 59.86%; 68.55% on formative test 1, 79.03% on formative test 2, and on posttest was 84.82%. It shows that the students’ ability in writing is influenced by a teacher’s way of teaching method. Teaching narrative writing by using video can give contribution to the success of teaching writing. Based on the research, the students showed the improvement in writing narrative texts by using video as a medium. It is because video has many advantages. Teaching using Video can increase the students’ motivation in writing narrative texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. Using Video as a medium makes the students fun and interested in English teaching and learning activities. Therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. Based on the research, the students showed the improvement in writing narrative texts by using video as a medium. It is because video has many advantages. Teaching using Video can increase the students’ motivation in writing narrative texts because the writing activities are not monotonous and more alive. Using Video as a medium makes the students fun and interested in English teaching and learning activities. Therefore, they are not bored with the classroom activity. REFERENCES Brown, D. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. San Fransisco: Longman. Depdiknas 2003. Pedoman Teknis Pelaksanaan Classroom Action Research (CAR). Jakarta : Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. Harmer.J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Essex: Longman. Heaton, J.B.1974. Writing English Language Test. Essex: Longman. Harris, D. 1969. Testing English as a Second language. New York: Mc. Graw Hill book Company Richards, J. and W. Renandya. 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching. New York. Cambridge University Press. Robinson, A. 2003. The Origins of Writing. In David Crowley and Paul Heyer (eds). 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