




































mplemented in teaching written descriptive text for seventh grade students   at   secondary school.

assume that Team Pair Solo technique and Round Robin technique are     proven  effective to be 

1 

 

 ELT FORUM 2 (2) (2013) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

THE IMPACT OF TEAM PAIR SOLO TECHNIQUE AND ROUND ROBIN 

TECHNIQUE ON STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT 

 

Rega Detapratiwi  

 

Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia 

 

Info Artikel 

________________ 
Sejarah Artikel: 

Diterima Oktober 2013 

Disetujui Oktober 2013 

Dipublikasikan  

November 2013 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Team Pair Solo, Round 

Robin, writing, descriptive 

text 

____________________ 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 

This journal is based on a study which attempts to improve the students’ writing ability of the 

seventh grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Parakan to write descriptive text using Team Pair Solo 

technique and Round Robin technique. The study aimed to examine the effectiveness of Team Pair 

Solo technique and Round Robin t echnique to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text. 

Test and scoring system were used as the instruments to collect the data needed. Pre- test and post-

test were given to both experimental group and comparison group. In the treatments, the students 

of the experimental group were taught using team pair solo technique. On the other hand, the 

students of comparison group were taught using round robin technique. Posttest was given after the 

treatments. The t-test result showed that tvalue was 2.64 and ttable for σ = 5% was 2.01. It can be 

clearly seen that tvalue is higher than the critical value (2.64>2.01). It means that the hypothesis of 

H1 is accepted and H0 is refused. Based on the proven hypotheses, the writer can conclude and 

i  

 

© 2013 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Alamat korespondensi:  

   Gedung B3  Lantai 3  FBS Unnes  

   Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: theblood.orchid@gmail.com 

 

 

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 

 

 

 

 

 

mailto:theblood.orchid@gmail.com


 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

2 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

 

Writing as one of four language skills 

(listening, speaking, reading, and writing) is very 

important in learning language. Writing activity 

has given an important contribution to human 

life, according to Harmer (2011:4), “Writing is 

used for a wide variety of purposes it is produced 

in many different forms.”  It can be seen in 

people daily life activities when they need to 

write memos, letter, notes, invitation, brochure, 

articles, application letter, and many others. 

Writing plays an important role in modern 

societies. The examples of writing activities 

products are books, magazine and newspaper 

that we read almost every day. 

Writing skill at junior high school is 

taught based on genres. The genres that should 

be taught for junior high school students are 

descriptive and procedure. Furthermore, this 

final project will focus in descriptive text that 

needs more concrete and detail idea than 

procedure text. Descriptive text is one of the 

genres that must be taught, so that the students 

will know how to describe any object (person, 

place or thing) in their surroundings. 

In writing class, the teachers should teach 

their students using proper technique to get 

students’ attention. An interesting activity in 

writing class that can be created by proper 

technique will take more students’ attention and 

they will understand the lesson well. A proper 

teaching technique that used by the teachers can 

also improve the quality of teaching and 

learning. To avoid of being bored and to make 

teaching writing comprehension more effective 

and interesting, in this final project, the writer 

compares the impact of two techniques that can 

be used in teaching writing comprehension; 

Team Pair Solo and Round Robin. Hopefully, 

by using those techniques the students will be 

more interested and enthusiastic in learning 

writing comprehension so that they will improve 

their writing skill and not to mention, they will 

enjoy the lesson. 

Team Pair Solo and Round Robin 

technique are two of the techniques in 

cooperative learning. Those techniques involve 

students’ participation and they have to work 

cooperatively with their classmates in groups. 

The statement about the group work is stated by 

Harmer (2002:260): 

It is considered that writing in groups, 

whether as part of a long process or as part of a 

short game like communicative activity, can be 

greatly motivating students, including as it does, 

not only writing, but also research, discussion, 

peer evaluation, and group pride in a group 

accomplishment. 

Through Team Pair Solo or Round Robin 

technique, it is expected the students can be 

motivated to write descriptive text and improve 

their writing skill. 

 

Literature Review 

As one of the four skills, writing has given 

an important contribution to human life. 

Acquiring writing skill is more laborious and 

demanding than acquiring the three other skills. 

Writing is one of the important skills in studying 

language. However, as Richard and Renandya 

(2010: 303) stated, writing can be said as the 

most difficult skill among the four skills; 

listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Some 

techniques have been applied in teaching 

writing. 

Seow (in Richards and Renandya 

2010:304) states that “Writing consists of four 

basic stages; planning, drafting, revising, and 

editing. Three other stages could be inserted 

after the drafting stage; these are responding, 

evaluating and post-writing.” It means that 

writing is not an instant activity, to improve this 

skill students need to do a lot of practices by 

using some steps/ stages. 

One of text types or genres given to junior 

high school is descriptive text. Descriptive text is 

used to describe a particular person, place or 

thing. A good descriptive text will make the 

readers understand about particular things that 

described in text. Description is a useful tool in 

many kind of writing. A clear and lively 

description depends on close observation. We 

must pay attention to what we see and hear, and 



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

3 

 

to specific word choices that will make those 

observations vivid for our readers. 

As international language, English is 

taught to students from elementary school, 

junior high school, senior high school, and it is 

still taught in university. According KTSP 2006 

for junior high school, students should be able to 

use English to overcome their problems in daily 

life with their language skills in spoken and 

written forms. The seventh graders of junior 

high school are categorized as pre intermediate 

level, so they are not able to produce a long 

writing.  The short writing is the suitable one for 

them. 

Arends (2007:344) states: 

The cooperative learning model requires 

student cooperation and interdependence in its 

task, goal and reward structures. The 

cooperative learning model was developed to 

achieve at least three important instructional 

goals: academic achievement, tolerance and 

acceptance of diversity, and social skill 

development. 

Cooperative learning is a method that 

makes the students learn how to communicate, 

socialize and respect each other in group. They 

can share their opinions or ideas and then 

discuss with the members of group to decide the 

best opinion to solve the problem. In cooperative 

learning activity students are more active than 

the teacher. The students are expected to 

conduct and manage the situation, they are 

demanded to think creatively and 

independently. In this study, the cooperative 

learning techniques used by the writer are 

Round Robin technique and Team Pair Solo 

technique.  

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

 

In this research, the writer chose true 

experimental design which uses pretest-posttest 

control group design. The writer used this design 

because she used two classes, one was as 

experimental group and the other was as control 

or the comparison group; and subjects were 

assigned randomly to each group. 

The study was conducted in SMP N 1 

Parakan. Population of the study was seventh 

grade students of SMP N 1 Parakan in the 

academic year 2012/ 2013. There were eight 

classes of the seventh grade students of SMP N 1 

Parakan. On the average, each class consisted of 

25 students. All of them were given same 

materials in teaching and learning process. The 

samples of the study are two classes of seventh 

grade students of SMP N 1 Parakan. The first 

class was 7-3 as an experimental class and the 

second class was 7-2 as a comparison class. The 

writer chose the sample based on the 

consideration: these classes were given the same 

English material by the same English teacher; 

these classes had the same average in English 

achievement; the students had been studying 

English for the same period. 

In this study, the writer used test and 

scoring system as instruments, then analyzed the 

result of the experiment using t-test formula. It is 

used to know whether there is any significant 

difference between the students who were 

treated by using Team Pair Solo technique and 

those who were treated by using Round Robin 

technique. Before computing the t-test value, the 

writer had to find the normality and 

homogeneity of experimental and comparison 

group’s pre-test to find out that the data was 

normally distributed and homogeneous. If the t-

value is higher than t-table, it means that there is 

a significant difference between two means. On 

the other hand, if the t-value is lower than t-

table, it means that there is no significant 

difference between two means. 

 

RESULT AND DISCUSSION 

 

Result of the Test 

The data were obtained from students’ 

achievement of writing descriptive text. The 

following is the table that shows the average 

scores for pre-test and post-test for all aspects of 

students’ mastery. 

 

 



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

4 

 

 

 

Table 1. The Result of Pre-test and Post-test Average Scores of the Experimental and Comparison 

Group 

Group Mean (X) of Pre-

test 

Mean (X) of 

Post-test 

The Difference between 

Pre-test and Post-test 

Experimental  66.08 80.48 14.4 

Comparison 68.32 75.44 7.12 

The Difference 

between Pre-test and 

Post-test 
2.24 5.04  

 

According to table 4.3, it could be seen 

that the difference in average between the pre-

test of experimental and comparison group is 

2.24. The difference in average between the post-

test of experimental and comparison group is 

5.04, the difference between pre-test and post-

test of experimental group is 14.4, and the 

difference between pre-test and post-test of 

comparison group is 7.12. 

In classifying the score, the writer used 

the measurement of the students’ achievement. 

Table 2. Table of Criteria Assessment 

Students’ Mastery 

Criteria of Assessment Grade 

91-100 Excellent 

81-90 Very good 

71-80 Good 

61-70 Fair 

51-60 Poor 

Less than 50 Very poor 

(Harris 1969:134) 

To make the difference easier to be 

understood, the writer applied the percentage 

scores of pre-test and post-test of both groups 

using the criteria assessment into the chart as 

follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

5 

 

Chart 1. The Percentage of Experimental Group Score 

 

The chart 1 describes about the pre-test 

and post-test result of experimental group. From 

the chart, it is shown that the result of post-test is 

better than pre-test. In pre-test there were 24% of 

students who got “poor” criteria, and only could 

reach “fair” and “good” criteria. In post-test 4% 

got “excellent” and the rest increased from 

“poor” and “fair” to “good” and “very good”. 

Chart 2. The Percentage of Comparison Group Score 

 

Chart 2 shows the achievement of the pre-

test and post-test obtained by comparison group. 

For the pre-test achievement, students who got 

“very good” were only 4%, 36% for “good” and 

40% for “fair” criteria. After the treatment, the 

percentage of the students who got “very good” 

and “good” increased 12% and 32%, while 

“fair” criteria was only 12%. For both pre-test 

and post-test, there were no excellent and very 

poor criteria based on the chart. 

After getting the data of the experimental 

and comparison groups, the normality of those 

data were analyzed to make sure the data are 

normal. The writer used Liliefors Test to analyze 

the normality of the data. Result of the data 

analysis could be seen from the significance that 

was written in the table. If Dvalue < Dtable, it 

means that the data was distributed normally. 

From the tables 4.1 and table 4.2, for 

experimental group the Dvalue was 0.1643 and for 

comparison group the Dvalue was 0.1389. The 

Dtable for σ = 0.05 and n = 24 was 0.27. For both 

groups, each critical value was lower than the D 

table. For experimental group the Dvalue (0.1643) 

< Dtable (0.27) and for comparison group the 

Dvalue (0.1389) < Dtable (0.27). The result proven 

that all of the scores in the data were normally 

distributed. 

The writer used Bartlett test to find the 

variance of homogeneity between the pre-test of 

experimental group and pre-test of comparison 

group. Homogeneity is important to check 

0 0 

28 

48 

24 

0 
4 

44 44 

8 

0 0 
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Excellent Very Good Good Fair Poor Very Poor

Pre-test

Post-test

0 
4 

36 
40 

5 
0 0 

16 

68 

12 

0 0 
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Excellent Very
Good

Good Fair Poor Very Poor

Pre-test

Post-test



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

6 

 

whether the data of each group are homogenous 

or not. If X2
value < X2

table it means that the data 

had the same variance and they were 

homogenous. From the computation using 

Bartlett test, the writer found that the X2
value was 

0.94609 and the X2
table was 3.8414. Because 

X2
value (0.94609) < X2

table (3.8414), it could be said 

that the data had the same variance and they 

were homogenous. 

After the data were considered as normal 

and homogenous, the writer applied the t-test. In 

order to know the t-test, it is needed to find the 

mean score and score deviation of the post-test 

of the two groups. To find the score deviation of 

experimental and comparison group the writer 

used formula: 

∑x2 =      
(  ) 

  
 

Where: 

∑X2  = total of quadrant score of students’ post-test in experimental group. 

.∑x  = total score of students’ post-test in experimental group. 

Nx  = the number of the students in experimental group. 

The computation of score deviation of experimental group’s post-test is as follows: 

∑x2 =      
(  ) 

  
 

 = 162896   
(    ) 

  
 

 = 162896   
       

  
 

 =        – 161925.76 

 = 970.24 

The computation of score deviation of comparison group’s post-test is as follows: 

∑x2 = 143500   
(    ) 

  
 

 = 143500   
       

  
 

 = 143500 – 142279.84 

 = 1220.16 

After getting all data, the result can be put into the formula of t-test: 

t  
  

     

√[
        

       
][
 

  
   

 

  
]
 

 = 
           

√[
              

       
][
 

  
  
 

  
]
 

 = 
    

√[
      

  
][
 

  
]
 

 =  
    

√[     ][    ]
 

 = 
    

√      
 

 = 
    

    
 

 = 2.64 

After calculating t-test, the writer used the 

critical value of t-table to check whether the 

difference is significant or not. For σ = 5% and 

the number of the students (df) was 25+25-2= 

48, it was obtained from the formula ∑Nx+∑Ny-

2. The writer found the t-table = 2.01. Based on 

the computation, the writer found the t-value 

was 2.64. Because t-value (2.64) > t-table (2.01), 

it could be concluded that there is a significant 

difference between experimental and 

comparison group. 

 



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

7 

 

DISCUSSION 

 

After doing the experiment and analyzing 

the result statistically, the writer could conclude 

that there is an improvement to the students’ 

ability in writing descriptive text using Team 

Pair Solo technique and Round Robin technique 

to the seventh grade students of SMP N 1 

Parakan. Based on the computation result, the t-

value (2.64)>the t-table (2.01), it proved that the 

difference is statistically significant. From this 

study, it can be concluded that there is 

significant difference between comparison and 

experimental group. 

The aim of this study is to know if there is 

significant difference in improving writing a 

descriptive text between the group who was 

taught by using Team Pair Solo technique and 

the group who was taught by using Round 

Robin technique in seventh grade students of 

SMP N 1 Parakan in academic year 2012/ 2013. 

From both groups there is an 

improvement, but based on the analysis the 

result of experimental group is higher than the 

result of comparison group. The post-test 

average scores (mean) of comparison and 

experimental group were 75.44 and 80.48. It can 

be said that teaching by using Team Pair Solo 

technique is more effective to improve students’ 

writing ability than using Round Robin 

technique. 

 

 

CONCLUSION  

 

Based on the result of the study that had 

been discussed on previous chapter, there was an 

improvement in both comparison and 

experimental group after they got the treatment. 

In the experimental group which was taught 

using Team Pair Solo technique, their pre-test’s 

mean score was 66.08 and their post-test’s mean 

score was 80.48. While in the comparison group 

which was taught using Round Robin technique, 

their pre-test’s mean score was 68.32 and their 

post-test’s mean score was 75.44.The two 

techniques that used by the writer to teach 

comparison and experimental group were 

effective to improve students’ ability in writing 

descriptive text. However, it could be seen that 

the post-test’s mean score of experimental group 

was higher than comparison group. It proven 

that the students’ improvement in experimental 

group was higher than comparison group. The t-

test result showed that t-value was 2.64 and t-

table for σ = 5% was 2.01. It proven that there 

was a significant difference between teaching 

writing descriptive text by using Team Pair Solo 

technique and Round Robin technique, because 

t-value (2.64)> t-table (2.01). Based on the result 

of the study, the writer concluded that Team 

Pair Solo technique was more effective than 

Round Robin technique to improve students’ 

ability in writing descriptive text. 

Using Team Pair Solo technique in 

teaching writing descriptive text is more effective 

than Using Round Robin technique, because in 

Team Pair Solo technique the students can share 

and develop their idea more frequent. At the first 

time students can share and get the ideas from 

the group, secondly they work in pairs so they 

can add the idea by sharing with their partner 

who has work in different group and finally they 

can write their own descriptive text individually 

by using the ideas they’ve got from previous 

activities. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Arends, Richard I. 2007. Learning to Teach. New 

York: McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 

Arikunto, S. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian: Suatu 

Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta: PT. Rineka Cipta. 

Harmer, Jeremy. 2002. The Practice of English Language 

Teaching: Third edition completely revised and 

updated. Malaysia: Longman. 



 

Rega Detapratiwi / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

8 

 

--------------------. 2011. How to Teach Writing. Essex: 

Longman.  

Harris, D. P. 1969. Teaching English as Second 

Language. New York: McGraw hill Book 

Company. 

Muhidin, Sambas A. and Abdurrahman, Maman. 

2007. Analisis Korelasi, Regresi, dan Jalur dalam 

Penelitian (Dilengkapi Aplikasi Program SPSS). 

Bandung: Pustaka Setia.  

Richards, Jack C. and Renandya, Willy A. 2010. 

Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology 

of Current Practice. USA: Cambridge University 

Press. 

 


