1 ELT FORUM 3 (1) (2014) Journal of English Language Teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt COMPARISON BETWEEN USING AUTHENTIC SONG LYRICS AND PICTURES AS MEDIA TO TEACH STUDENTS’ WRITING COMPETENCE OF NARRATIVE TEXT Aditya Rizkiyanto  English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, State University of Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Received in April 2014 Approved in Mei 2014 Published in Juni 2014 ________________ Keywords: Authentic song lyrics, Pictures, Media, Writing, Narrative text ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ This final project is a quasi experimental research aiming at investigating any significant difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative texts which are taught by using authentic song lyrics and the one who are taught by using pictures with an assumption that these media can help them to interpret the content of the course. The subjects of the study were the eleventh graders of Semarang State Senior High School 2 in the academic year of 2013/2014. There were two groups which were given different treatments. The first group was the experimental group consisting of 34 students that was taught by using “authentic song lyrics” as media and the second group was the control group consisting of 34 students that was taught by using “pictures”. In conducting experimental research, there were two classes that were used, XI Natural Science Program 11 as the experimental group and XI Natural Science Program 9 as the control group. Both groups were given pre test, treatments, and post test. In analyzing the data, normality test, homogeneity test, and t-test were used. The results of the study showed that the “authentic song lyrics” media which was applied in creating narrative text gave contribution in helping them write narrative texts. The data proved that there was a significant difference between the experimental and the control group achievement. Based on the statistical analysis, it could be seen that the students’ post-test in the experimental group was higher than the control group. The mean of the experimental group improved than the control group. The t-value for two means of post-test was 3.333; meanwhile the critical value at α = 5% was 2.035. It proved that there is significant difference between the experimental group which was given “authentic song lyrics” media and the control group which was given “picture”. It can be concluded that the “authentic song lyrics” is more effective than “pictures” to help the students in writing narrative texts. © 2014 Universitas Negeri Semarang  Correspondent Address: B3 Building FBS Unnes Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 E-mail: storyofmachiatto@yahoo.com ISSN 2252-6706 Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 2 INTRODUCTION “Language”, that is a simple word, but it has an enormous meaning in our life. Every word that human said is language. Every activity that human do is language. But, they are simple forms of language. Language is a very important thing for human being as a means to communicate among society. Human in society needs languages both spoken and written not only to convey their problems but also to communicate each other. As Ramelan (1992:8) said, “With language man can express his ideas and wishes to other people such as when he needs their help so that close operation among members of the group can be carried out”. In order to communicate each other, human not only use first language but also second language. There are many kinds of language used among the country that is also different among other country because language is an identity of the country. Every country has its own language that usually used by their society in order to communicate each other. In this case, every country need a unite language in order to do communication between at least two countries or more. They agree that English is a language that can unite every country around the world. With English they can communicate with other people from other countries. No wonder if there is no united language; it is very difficult to communicate with people around the world even when it can be conducted, there are a lot of misunderstandings between two countries when they are communicating using their own language. So, English is an important language which has to be understood by every human in the world during their life. “Some people study English because they think it offers a chance for advancement in their professional lives. They will get a better job with two languages than if they only know their mother tongue. English has special position here since it becomes the international language of communication” (Harmer 1991:1). Based on this statement, we know more that English is a united language that is very important to learn because of there are many advantages of it. Study English is compulsory for every productive people, especially students in many stages like elementary school, junior high school, senior high school, even at a university level. Considering the important of English, the government included English as a program in education field. Indonesia as a developing country needs English as an international language to communicate with other country in many sectors. With English included in the curricula, hopefully most of the Indonesian society can acquired English as a foreign language carefully. We can imagine if every people in Indonesia can acquire English fluently both spoken and written, it can be a pride of our nations to master in English. It also can make our nations not only as a developing country but also developed country in every people’s point of view. It also can be applied on all of students that are still learning English in their education programs. It would be a part of life when students acquire English because through mastering in English, every student can apply for job in virtually every profession that is needed English as a communication means. It can be an important thing for their future life by mastering in English both spoken and written. By mastering English, the students are supposed to be able to gain valuable information and knowledge from the texts and books about science, commerce, economy, technology, etc which are written in English. Based on the School – Based Curriculum (SBC) or we can called it as Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP), the teaching learning of English has to develop four language skill; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, not only the four aspect that must be acquired by students, but also there will be others aspects that can support the development of students in mastering English, they are vocabulary, structure, and also pronunciation. These components are very important to support the four English skills. It means that English teachers have to mastering on these aspects and also taught them for supporting four skills on English. Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 3 In order to teach all of components and skills in English, the English teachers should use a certain media related to the material that will be delivered. The use of media itself has been applied for increasing students’ interest during the lessons. Another purpose that should be achieved from the use of media is to make students understand about material. One of the writer’s suggestions that will be examined in this final project is about the implementation of teaching English to see the students’ improvement in writing narrative text by using media that are authentic song lyrics and pictures and also find out the most effective of it by comparing the significant differences between both of them. Harmer (2004:24), states that students who are writing within certain genre need to consider a number of different factors. Based on this statement, the students have to consider many components constructing a text with certain genre. According to Anderson (1997:1), creating a text requires us to make choices about the words we use and how we put them together. It means that in order to know how to construct a text, we have to understand about the important elements before creating a text. Hazel (2007:1), states that narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst different substances as though any material were fit to receive man’s stories. “Narrative text type tells a story using spoken or written language. It can be communicated using radio, television, books, newspapers or computer files. Pictures, facial expressions and camera angles can also be used to help communicate meaning.” (Anderson, M & K. Anderson, 1997:2). Based on the explanation, several media can be used to deliver and also create narrative text. The study will focus on writing a narrative text only, which is included on the material in English lesson for SMA. We know that writing is very complex skill that must be acquired by students in Senior High School. In this study, the writer will compare two media that can be used in writing narrative text in order to know which media is more effective for narrative. Song lyrics can be delivered by using paper at the same time as the music played. While pictures can be deliver in a form of printed paper that must be understood by students. The students have to write a narrative text by their own words based on the story from both media used. Hopefully both media can be understood easily by the student in writing narrative. The objectives are to find out the significant difference of students’ achievement in the improvement of students’ competence in writing narrative text between using authentic song lyrics and pictures; to compare the effectiveness of both medium that for students in order to improve their competencies in writing narrative text. METHODS OF THE STUDY This study used quasi experimental design that can be described as follow: E 01 X 02 C 03 Y 04 (Arikunto, 2006:86) E is experimental group C is control group 01 is pre – test for the experimental group 02 is post – test for the experimental group 03 is pre – test for the control group 04 is post – test for the control group X is treatment for experimental group (authentic song lyrics) Y is treatment for control group (pictures) The population of the study was the eleventh grade students of SMA N 2 Semarang in the academic year of 2013/2014 and the samples were XI IA 9 as a control group and XI IA 11 as an experimental group. The hypotheses of this study are stated below: (H1): There is a significant difference of students’ achievements in writing narrative text Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 4 that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures. (H0): There is no difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures. I used experimental method by doing three activities: a pre-test, a treatment, and a post-test. The pre-tests of experimental and control were conducted on the first meeting. For two next meetings, both classes were given different treatment. The experimental group was given “authentic song lyrics” media as the treatment and the control group was given pictures equipped with helper sentences. On the forth meeting, they were given a post-test to measure their achievement in creating narrative texts. After collecting data, I analyzed it by doing these steps: scoring, tabulating data, and using the appropriate formula to analyze the data. In facilitating to analyze the students’ test result in writing narrative text of the both groups, i.e. the experimental and the control group, the writer limited only to the analytic scale as stated by Brown and Bailey (1984:39-41) as quoted by Brown (2004:244). The following is the table of analytic scale for rating composition task devised by Brown: 20-18 Excellent to Good 17-15 Good to Adequate 14-12 Adequate to fair 11-6 Unacceptable – not 5-1 College –level work 1. Organization: Introduction, Body, and Conclusion. Appropriate title, effective introductory paragraph, topic is stated and leads to body; supporting evidence given for generalizations; Conclusion logical and complete. Adequate title, introduction, body and conclusion of essay are acceptable but some evidence may be lacking. Mediocre or scant introduction or conclusion; problems with the order of ideas in body. Shaky or minimally recognizable introduction; severe problems with ordering of ideas; lack of supporting evidence; conclusion weak or illogical. Absence of introduction or conclusion; no apparent organization of body. 2.Logical development of ideas: content Essay addresses the assigned topic; the ideas are concrete and thoroughly developed; no extraneous materials; essay reflect thought. Essay addresses the issues but misses some points; Ideas could be more fully developed; some extraneous material is present. Development of ideas is not complete or essay is somewhat off the topic; paragraphs aren’t divided exactly right. Ideas incomplete; essay doesn’t reflect careful thinking or was hurried written; inadequate effort in the area of content. Essay is completely inadequate and doesn’t reflect college level work; no apparent effort to consider the topic carefully. Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 5 3.Grammar Native-like fluency in English grammar; correct use of relative clauses, prepositions, modals, articles, verb forms, and tense sequencing; no fragments or run-on sentences. Advanced proficiency in English grammar; some grammar problems don’t influence communication; no fragments or run-on sentences. Grammar problems are apparent and have a negative effect on communication ; run-on sentences or fragments presents. Numerous serious grammar problems interfere with communicati on of the writer’s ideas; grammar review of some area clearly needed; difficult to read sentences. Severe grammar problems interfere greatly with the message, reader can’t understand what the writer was trying to say. 4.Punctuation, spelling, and mechanics Correct use of English writing conventions: all needed capitals, paragraphs intended, punctuation and spelling; very neat. Some problems with writing conventions or punctuations; occasional spelling errors; paper is neat and legible. Uses general writing conventions but has errors; spelling problems distract reader; punctuation errors interfere with ideas. Parts of essay not legible; errors in sentence punctuation and final punctuation; unacceptable to educated reader. Complete disregard for English conventions; paper illegible; obvious capitals missing, severe spelling problems. 5.Style and quality of expression Precise vocabulary usage; use of parallel structures; concise; register good. Attempts variety; good vocabulary; not wordy; register OK; style fairly concise. Some vocabulary misused; lack awareness of register; may be too wordy. Poor expression of ideas; problems in vocabulary; lack variety of structure Inappropriate use of vocabulary; no concept of register or sentence variety. (Brown, 2004:244) RESULTS OF THE STUDY After conducting the pre-test, treatment for both groups, and the post-test, I calculated the scores which are shown in the following tables: Experimental Group Five Components Organization Content Grammar Punctuation Style Pre Test 13.235 13.118 12.029 12.412 12.029 Post Test 15.323 15.559 13.823 14.294 13.5 Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 6 Control Group Five Components Organization Content Grammar Punctuation Style Pre Test 12.794 12.235 11.206 12.147 11.441 Post Test 14.353 13.677 12.853 13 12.118 According to the data from the pre-test and the post-test, it was obtained the average scores for both groups: Group Average Score of Pre Test Average Score of Post Test Difference between Pre Test and Post Test Experimental Group 62.823 72.5 9.677 Control Group 59.823 66 6.177 The difference between experimental group and control group 3 6.5 The average difference between the pre test of the experimental group and the control group was 3. The average difference between the post test of the experimental group and the control group was 6.5. The difference between pre test and post test of the experimental group was 9.677. Meanwhile, the difference between pre test and post test of the control group was 6.177. It means that the difference between pre test and post test of the students who are treated by authentic song lyrics is better than the students who are treated by sequence of pictures. In analyzing data, I calculated the normality test and the homogeneity test by using SPSS program. The following tables are the normality test result and the homogeneity test result: Table of Normality Test Pre-Test of Experimental Group Sig. = 0.200 Pre-Test of Control Group Sig. = 0.434 Post-Test of Experimental Group Sig. = 0.076 Post-Test of Control Group Sig. = 0.844 According to the table, all the Sig values as p-values are higher than the level of significance: 0.05. Then, all the scores of pre- tests and post-tests for experimental and control group are said to be normally distributed. Test of Homogeneity of Variance Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig. VAR00001 Based on Mean 1.910 1 66 .172 Based on Median 2.008 1 66 .161 Based on Median and with adjusted df 2.008 1 65.406 .161 Based on trimmed mean 1.870 1 66 .176 Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 7 According to the table, Sig value Based on Mean is 0.172, while the level of significance is 0.05. Because of Sig value is higher than level of significance; it means that the data of both pre tests are homogeny. In order to measure the significance of pre test and post test, t-test was used. The writer used SPSS 21 to calculate the t-test result. Below is the table of T-Test calculation by using SPSS. T-Test Table 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 VAR00001 - VAR00002 6.50000 11.37048 1.95002 2.53265 10.46735 3.333 33 .002 Based on the calculation of t-test using SPSS 21, t-value should be interpreted. In order to interpret t-value, it should be consulted with t- table whether the difference was significant or not. If the t-value is higher than t-table, it means that there is significant difference between the experimental group and control group. Level of significant in educational research was 0.05 and the degree of freedom was 33. Based on the degree of freedom, it was obtained that t-table was 2.035. Meanwhile, according to the calculation by using SPSS above, t-value was 3.333. It meant that t-value was higher than t-table, so it could be concluded that there was significant difference between the experimental group and the control group. Based on that result, the hypothesis that there is significant difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using picture was accepted. Thereby, the hypothesis that there is no difference of students’ achievement in writing narrative text that are taught by using authentic song lyrics and those who are taught by using pictures was refused. After calculating all data, I can conclude that the improvement of the students’ writing in experimental group is higher than the control group. There was a pre test for the experimental group and a post test for the experimental group. Both of the tests were aimed to measure the students’ competence in writing narrative text. If the pre test was designed to measure the students’ basic competence in writing narrative text, it would be different with the post test that was designed to measure the students’ competence after given treatment. When the results were compared, the post test result showed improvements in the students’ writing competence. Based on the result, the writer concluded that there is a significant difference in achievement between the students of the experimental group that was taught by using authentic song lyrics as media and the students of the control group that was taught by using pictures as media. The following table is the table which shows the average score of pre test and post test difference based on the five components. Test Five Components Organization Content Grammar Punctuation Style Pre Test 13,235 13,118 12,029 12,412 12,029 Post Test 15,323 15,559 13,823 14,294 13,5 Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 8 From the table above, it can be seen that there is an improvement in the post test of the experimental group for each component. After analyzed the students’ project, it was found that the students’ competence in organizing sentences into a good paragraph was poor at the first time before treatment. They arranged sentences to introduce the participants in narrative not clearly enough. After being given the treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” as media, the students’ organization in writing improved. They were not producing uncompleted introduction anymore and they used more appropriate title in the story to construct better narrative text than before given treatment. The students’ competence in developing content or idea to be a good paragraph was poor at the first time before treatment. Most of them developed uncompleted ideas on the paragraph and seemed like produced it hurriedly in the pre test. Thereby, they produced uncompleted chronological of situation in the text, so it could make the reader confuse when reading the story. After being given treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” as media, their competence in developing content component improved. The media that used could stimulate their creativity to construct good paragraphs in order to make the content better than their pre test. The students’ competence of the experimental group in grammar was so poor. Their work in the pre-test showed that they had poor ability in producing good structure. They could not differentiate word forms and did not use the correct tense in writing narrative text. The given treatment influenced their grammar understanding and gave contribution in improving their grammatical structure in writing although there were still many students made mistakes in their writing. In constructing a narrative text, the students’ competence in spelling the words, using punctuation and mechanics in writing was poor at the first time before treatment. They often used wrong spelling, punctuation, and mechanics when they wrote words and combined into sentences. The errors made by the students in spelling words, using punctuation and mechanics in writing interfered with their ideas. The treatments given influenced the students’ competence to use right spelling, punctuation, and mechanics in writing text. In constructing a narrative text, the students’ style and quality of expression in writing was poor at the first time before treatment. They often chose the inappropriate words to construct sentences in writing narrative text. They also lacked of vocabulary mastery. The given treatment by using “authentic song lyrics” influenced their style and quality of expression and gave contribution in improving their vocabulary to construct sentences in writing. Using “Pictures” in Control Group In the control group, the result of pre test and post test were lower than the experimental group. In the control group, the media that used to improve the students’ competence in writing narrative text was sequence of pictures. The students were interested in this media because the media showed the chronological pictures of the story. Sequence of pictures in the control group was applied to improve the students’ creativity in writing story. By using the media, the students understood the story line, but they didn’t understand well about the participants in the story. In order to help the students, the writer mentioned the participants in the story and gave information about the participants’ background. Thereby, the students could understand who were the participants and they could develop the story by using their creativity to make a good narrative text. CONCLUSION According to the results of the study, I will conclude that in writing narrative text, the use of “authentic song lyrics” gives much contribution and supports the students. By using This media, the students are able to catch the story in the lyrics. They are able to use their own words to convey their own story based on Aditya Rizkiyanto / Journal of English Language Teaching 3 (1) (2014) 9 the lyrics. By using this media, the students’ creativity is used to make the story more colorful. This media stimulates the students to think creatively after the story in a form of song was available. On the other side, the use of “pictures” also gives contributions to the students in writing narrative text. However, it has many disadvantages to apply this media in order to write a narrative text. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, M. & K. Anderson. 1997. Text Types in English 1. Macmillan: Education Australia PTY LTD. Arikunto, S. 2006. Prosedure Penelitian: Suatu Pendekatan Praktik.Jakarta; PT. Rineka Cipta. Brown, H. D. 2004. Language Assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices. United States: Pearson Education,Inc. Brown, J.W. 1977. 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