59 EEJ 4 (1) (2014) English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej DEVELOPING DESCRIPTIVE WRITING MATERIAL THROUGH FLASH FOR GRADE SEVEN IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2013/2014 Luluk Alawiyah  Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Program Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Info Artikel ________________ Sejarah Artikel: Diterima Oktober 2014 Disetujui Oktober 2014 Dipublikasikan Juni 2014 ________________ Keywords: flash, descriptive text, writing ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ The use of the interactive media is important to support teaching and learning process. It also helps the teacher and the students in getting better achievement in writing descriptive texts. This aims of this study were to find out what medium is needed and how it gave significant progress in teaching learning process. This study presented the developing flash media for enchancing seven grade students’ writing ability. The results of the try out were found that the mean of pre-test was lower than the post test. The critical value with the degree of freedom 19 at the 5% alpha level of significant is 2.093. The observed t-value is higher that critical value (2.88 > 2.00). It means that there is a significant difference before and after using flash media in teaching writing descriptive texts. Based on the students and the teacher’s perception which gave possitive responses on the using of Flash media and the result of calculating students’ work, it can be concluded that the Flash medium is effective and can be used in teaching learning of writing descriptive text at the seventh grade of Junior High School. © 2014 Universitas Negeri Semarang  Alamat korespondensi: Kampus Unnes Bendan Ngisor, Semarang, 50233 E-mail: pps@unnes.ac.id ISSN 2087-0108 Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 60 INTRODUCTION English is one of the international languages used as a means of communication which is used in many countries. It is basically a means of both oral and written communication. So it is very important for people working in global era. In Indonesia, for example, English as the first foreign language has been given a special attention and role especially in education. This is why the Indonesian government chooses English as the first foreign language to be taught at the formal schools (Ramlan, 1992: 3). English is introduced as a compulsory subject to be taught from the seventh year of high school up to the twelfth year of students and as a local content subject at elementary schools. TEFL in Indonesia has changed from time to time based on what curriculum is used. A curriculum may change once in five years or once in ten years. Now we use 2013 curriculum. As stated in school based curriculum (2006:36) the purpose of English language teaching education are to develop student’ competence in spoken and writing communication, to reach the informational literary level in which the students can understand the importance of English, their understanding of relationship between culture and language. There are four skills that have to be supported by English component such as grammar, vocabulary, fluency, content and spelling. Those four skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The teacher should teach those four skills so that the student can master all these four language skills. Writing skills are more complex and difficult to teach, require, and not only grammatical and rhetorical devices but also in conceptual and judgment (Heaton, 1975:138). In order to get information, the writer holds the interview toward the students of some different Junior High Schools. From the interview, the writer find that in teaching learning process the teacher only uses textbook and simple media to teach writing. This condition makes the students get difficult to understand the material and less motivation to pay attention to the teacher’s explanation. The basic problem arise in the teaching learning process is the students don’t get ideas to share. The activities for writing are adequately available. In addition, the teachers tend to use the material monotonously because interactive learning strategies are not provided. Because of it, some efforts have been done to solve the problem. Kreidler (1965:34) also suggests that if visual aids are to help a teacher write the tasks of teaching a new language, they must be suitable for the classroom situation in which the teacher to achieve the instructional goals of teaching and learning process and they can be easily found in our daily lives. An effective learning material is required to solve the problems in teaching. Unfortunately, the availability of the materials sometimes cannot fulfill the students’ need and motivation to learn. However, many teachers still depend on the material presented in available textbook or worksheet. English textbooks which are used in many junior high schools cannot meet the basic competence. The teacher needs to improve learning material which do not only improve the student’s mastery of English but also develops students’ motivation in learning English especially writing skill. It should be able to attract the students’ attention and make them more creative and active in learning process. The students’ involvement in the classroom activities hopefully is increased by the use of it. Moreover, the students are able to solve their problems concerning with their learning by using an effective learning material. An attractive learning material will probably make a difference in the classroom. The international Reading Association (2000) reported that making a difference in the classroom means making teaching different. Flash media can be a good option to make teaching different. Every level Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 61 of education can used this media in delivering the learning material. Flash consist of audio and video so that the students can enjoy the teaching learning process. METHOD One of the popular research approaches today is R & D which is have closed relationship to the field of instruction technology since 1960s and 1970s. Research and development also refers to the industry research development and business development. The basic aims of education research were not only to develop product, but also to discover the knowledge (through basic research) or to answer specific question about practical problems (through applied research) (Borg and Gall, 1983: 772). According to the purpose of R & D research, the writer decided that the approach which is appropriate with this study is educational R & D. research development which so called Research- based development is a current approach in education research. Borg and Gall (1983) define Educational R & D as a process to develop and validate educational product. Educational R & D nowadays, become famous along with the need of educational to develop products in enhancing the educational quality although more difficult and consuming time. Product refers to not only material subjects, such as textbook, instructional films, and so forth, but also refers to the constructed procedures and the processes such as the material of teaching or method for organizing instruction. Each person or participant in this study was considered as subject (Brown, 1993: 48). In this study, the sources of the data were the English teacher and the seven grade students of Raudatus Saidiyyah Semarang. There were 19 students in B class. Further, validation process was conducted toward each of the flash media aspects. Totally were three experts were asked to validate each of substances material aspects. The two experts; Dr. Abdurrahman Faridi, M. Pd and Prof. Warsono Dip. TEFL, M. A, lecturers of English Postgraduate program Of UNNES, and Laras, S. Sn, an IT programmare were asked to validate the subtances material aspects, and multimedia aspects. This method was utilized in the process of administering in the validation and piloting process in order to provide evaluation and feedback upon the interactive multimedia developed. Finally, it was applied in order to reveal the users’ perception toward the multimedia. It covered validation questionnaire of the substance material, validation questionnaire of the multimedia design aspect, validation questionnaire of the visual communication aspect, the media quality aspect, and the questionnaire of the users’ opinion. FINDING AND DISCUSSION In developing the interactive multimedia of writing descriptive texts, it was begun from the need of analysis stage. Basically, this stage was intended to get the initial data and the need of the teachers and students in teaching and learning writing process. By doing the need analysis, the interactive multimedia was developed based on the situation and condition faced by the students. At the early stage, the writer analyzed standard of competences and basic competences should be achieved seventh grade students of junior high school. It indicated that writing descriptive text as the closest contextual material for the students’ writing competence. The social function of descriptive text is to describe a particular person, place or things in their surroundings. It was considered to be the most familiar idea to the students’ life. Besides that, the students like to describe something they like, they know or they curios. Thus, descriptive text has Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 62 been well known by the students. Furthermore, teaching and learning of writing descriptive text demands interesting classroom interaction to encourage the students to develop their idea. Consequently, the teachers should create and set the interesting media which may best facilitate the students to acquire that skill. In order to get much information, the writer held the interview and gave questionnaire toward the teacher and students in Roudatus Saidiyyah junior high school Semarang. It can be drawn that in teaching and learning writing process, the teacher and the students faced some problems. The basic problem arose in the teaching and learning writing process was the students did not get the idea to share. The activities for writing are adequately available. In addition, the teacher tended to use the materials monotonously because interactive learning strategies are not provided. Considering the previous analysis, the writer tried to solve the problems by developing the interactive multimedia for teaching writing. It is supposed to facilitate the teacher and the students in teaching and learning writing process. It should be fun, various, and challenging media. Thus, the ultimate objective of the study is to develop interactive multimedia which is intended to teach writing descriptive text for seventh grade students of junior high school. The writer focused on Adobe Flash as the interactive media. Because using flash media the material could consist of audio visual, animation, even games. So that, the students can use it easily and attractively. In developing the product the writer did some stages to make it better. The first stage was developing the product based on the result of need analysis. The next stage was expert validation. This step did to get comments and suggestion from the experts of the curriculum and media. The writer hoped by doing the validation the product would be perfect and suitable for the students and the teachers. Revision done after getting some comments and suggestion from the experts. The next step was main testing to find out the effectiveness of the flash media. In designing the multimedia based materials for seven grade students of Junior High School, it was necessary to construct the materials and tasks based on the content standard consisted of Standard of Competence, Core Competence, materials that would be taught, language Skill, and the number of meeting were considered with the relationship of the curriculum, and also the syllabus has been existed. On the other hand the result of students’ interview and their tendency also as consideration to took the materials, so the researcher decided to limit the material of descriptive text. In descriptive text there are there object that can be described; person, thing and place. So, making the media effective and not to board the writer only focus on describing a person. Considering that the material based on the newest curriculum, curriculum 2013, so the writer should also design the material based on it. The interactive media consisted of texts, images, animations and some games. The materials of the interactive media of descriptive writing material were almost the same at the students’ book. It was created on the Compact Disk (CD). The validation product was conducted before applying the media in the field. The goals were determining the relevance of material toward the media, objective, the experts validated the media of descriptive writing material on the content, vocabulary and structure, exercises, suit to curriculum, suit to the students, suit to the teacher, the design and visual of the media. There were three experts validator. The first and the second validator are lecturers who competence in designing curriculum and multimedia for English. The third validator is an IT expert. They gave suggestions and comments in product of media. The goal was to give assessment toward media so it was more effective as teaching and learning media. Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 63 The average of the experts on “welcome to namex planet” was 3.3 for the subject, 3.2 for the vocabulary and structure, 3.6 for the exercises, 3.3 for the suit to curriculum, 3.4 for the suit to the students, 3.1 for the suit to the teacher, 3.5 for the design and 3.4 for the visual of the media. The result of the expert validation were excellent. There were no expert judged that the flash media under adequate. Therefore, the product needs to be redesigned. The judgement and suggestions from the experts were used to make some revision to the product. After getting validation from the material development and multimedia experts and doing revision of the product, the writer conducted the try out for twice in a week. Each meeting took two hours of meeting (2 x 40 minutes). The trying out was conducted on 10th – 11th of June 2014. It was done to find out whether the media was effective or not the writer did main field testing at SMP Islam Raudotus Saidiyyah Semarang. The subject of the try out was seven B of Raudotus Saidiyyah Semarang in the academic year 2013/2014. During the try out, the writer observed the teaching learning process. It was done to find out whether the media was practical and effective to teach descriptive text for seventh grade students of junior high school. The data obtained from the try out were divided into three parts, namely, the students’ point of view, form the teacher’s opinion, and from the students’ work. The students gave responses of the media by answering the questionnaire and the teacher’s opinion also by asking questionnaire. And the final result of the students’ work was got by conducting evaluation to the students. They did the test related to the material given. The students’ point of view After the main field testing was finished, all students were asked to answer the questionnaire about the clarity of the end and the attractiveness of the flash media. The instruments were aimed to know the students’ responses. It could be seen from appendix 1. Based on the students’ perception, it was found that the majority of the students thought that the learning writing descriptive by using the flash media was attractive. The most students thought that the materials were easy to understand. They were 9 students (47.37 %). Meanwhile, 5 students (26.32 %) considered good for understanding the materials easily, and 4 students (21.05 %) thought that it was adequate and only a student (5.26 %) thought that the materials were not easy to understand. Regarding to the opinions that the flash media are interesting, there were 14 students (73.68 %) considered them very interesting and 4 students (21.05 %) thought that the flash media was good and only a student (5.26 %) considered adequate interesting. In relation to the opinions that the directions were easy to understand, a student thought it was very easy and the rest considered easy to understand. Referring to the exercises, there were 3 students (15.79 %) considered they were very easy, 10 students (52.63 %) thought they were easy to do, 3 students (15.79 %) adequate them and 3 students thought that the exercises were not easy to do. Considering whether the guidance in writing helps the students to write a simple descriptive text, 3 students (15.79 %) considered that they were very helpful, 13 students (68.42 %) considered that they were helpful and 3 students (15.79 %) thought they were adequate. In addition, there were 9 students (47.37 %) considered that the flash media was very help them in understanding the material of descriptive text. There were 8 students (42.11 %) considered that it was helpful and only 2 students (10.53 %) said that the flash media was adequate help them in understanding the material. Meanwhile, the assumption that the flash media was interesting or not 11 students (57.89 %) considered that the media was very interesting and 7 students (36.84 Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 64 %) thought that it was interesting and only a student (5.26 %) considered that it was adequate. The teacher’s opinions After trying out the flash media was conducted, the English teacher was given questionnaire. The teacher judged that the materials were easy to understand, easy to deliver in teaching learning process and also easy in preparing the media. He also thought that the flash media was interesting and interactive. Using a good theme and unique animation could make the students pay more attention to the media. The difficulty levels of the materials were suitable for the students. The teacher considered that the flash media helped the students to understand the materials. Result of the students’ work The students’ score of posttest was collected after trying out the flash media. The aim in doing that was to find out whether the flash media was effective to teach descriptive text or not. But, before having the posttest the students had been given a pretest to make sure that the good score of the posttest was really the result of the treatment of the flash media not because of the other factors. In calculating the students’ score of pretest and posttest should base on the agreement of the school regulation of Raudhotus Saidiyyah Islamic Junior High School. The minimum passing grade of writing skill is 60. It means a student is considered having achieved the individual learning mastery if she or he already masters 60 % of the materials. In addition, the classroom learning mastery should also be taken into consideration. It is approved by the teacher that if 80 % of the students is the classroom already gain the minimum passing grade, the materials are considered appropriate for the students in terms of difficulty levels and the classroom learning mastery in achieved. However, the students who have not achieved the minimum passing grade should join the remedial test. For measuring this effectiveness, the researcher applied pre experimental and post-test design. The first the students were given pre-test before giving treatment and also assessed them after giving treatment. The result of pre and posttest were calculated by certain formula. The goal was to know the result of effectiveness after and before treatment. If the second result or posttest was significantly different and influential, it means that the product was very effective and can be used as learning media in teaching and learning process in the future. the calculation of the students’ work result found that the result of pre-test were the Mean was 57.31, the median was 56, and the standard deviation was 9.49. on the other hand, the result of post-test were the mean was 87.79. the median was 88 and the standard deviation was 84. Based on the result of calculating data above, the researcher compared the results of pre-test and post-test by using independent sample t-test. The result of standard deviation (SD) of pre-test was 9.49 and standard deviation (SD) of post-test was 9.72. The result of t-test of both pre-test and post- test was 2.88 and the t – value was 2.093. When t- test < than t-value means that it was significant. It can be conclude that there was a significant different between pre-test and post-test, so the flash media effective in teaching writing descriptive text and can be applied in teaching learning process at Roudhotus Saidiyyah Junior High School Semarang. The discussion The development of the Flash media was proceded by the effort to provide the interactive media in teaching learning writing process. Such effort was intended to make an analysis whether the proposed materials was appropriate to the students’ level. Even such analysis might be deeply conducted in the early stage or the need of analysis Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 65 stage, it served early information to determine whether the media developed had promising prospect to develop for the intended subject of the study. Referring to the interview that further administrated to the English teacher and the students, they were revealed that the most of the students did not interest in learning English. The teacher mostly use text book in teaching English make the students got bored and uninterested. The teacher rare used some kinds of media to increase the students’ motivation in learning english. The teacher sometimes only used a simple medium such as pictures, power point, and games in teaching english. But in teaching writing the teacher never used any kinds of media. The students only listen to the teacher’s explanation. This condition makes the students got some difficulties especially for developing their ideas in writing. They need the other additional sources for writing activity. It simultaneously arouses the spirit to continue developing the proposed media. The flash media “welcome to namex planet” is basically a media composed by more than two media formats of texts, image, animation, audio and video which interactively functions as the self- learning software intended for the seven grade students. The development of the Flash media had been conducted through six stages: need analysis, product design, preliminary test, product revision, field test and final product. It also developed based on the newest curriculum; scientific approach. There are six steps in the scientific approach: observation, identification, questioning, experimenting, associating, and communicating. Based on the data obtained from the expert’s validation, they indicate that the flash media developed has corresponded positively toward all of the indicators under the intended aspect. The flash media developed is considered good toward the materials and multimedia design aspect. Dealing with the expert’s suggestions and comments, the revision had been made. It included providing the font size bigger and should consisted cultural education. In addition, based on the students’ post test score after implementing the flash media “welcome to namex planet”, it was found that there were all the students got good score and they passed the passing grade. It can be concluded that the Flash media is effective for teaching writing descriptive text. Moreover, the result of calculating and interpreting t – value showed that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post- test. In line with the students’ perception, most of them gave positive responses to certain aspects, such as the materials were easy to understand, the instruction of the flash media were easy to understand, the materials and the media were interesting, and it helped in learning writing descriptive text. As well as the teacher who joined in the teaching and learning process also gave positive opinion related to the flash media. They considered that the material provide in flash media were easy to understand, interesting and also easy to prepare and operated. CONCLUSION Convensional teaching learning process that almost implemented in the classroom in seven grade of Raudotus Saidiyyah made the students felt bored and uninterst in learning English. Only a simple media that be used by the teacher to support the teacheing learning process did not enought to increase students’ attention and motivation. The students need an interactive media to learning English, especially in learning writing text. Based on the students’ opinion in the early stage of the study, they claimed that enjoy the learning process by using some kind of media as well as interactive media. The students need reinforcement, guidance and also model for learning English. In can be conclude that the Luluk Alawiyah / English Education Journal 4 (1) (2014) 66 teacher should provide interesting learning in the classroom. Thus, the writer developed an interactive medai through Adope Flash for teaching writing decriptive text. By using Flash media for teaching and learning English, the writer hoped the students are interested and pay more attention in teaching learning process. In developing Flash media, the writer conducted through six stages: (1) Need Analysis, it was done in order to identify the specific skill, procedures, and the learning task in order to develpo materials which are appropiate to the students and suitable in their difficulty level. It was conducted by interviewing the teacher, giving the students questionnaire, identifying the teachers and the students’ need in teaching and learning writing descriptive text, choosing the core competence and standart competence which related to the materials of descriptive text for the seven grade of junior high school. (2) designing of the product, in designing the product the writer paid attention to the level of the students to choose the theme and also the content of the materials to increase the students motivation in learning English. The writer was also helped by an IT expert to make the media better. (3) preliminary Test, after the Flash media were developed, they were validated by the expert both material’s expert and multimedia’s expert. The preliminary test was conducted in order to gain some valuable suggestions dealing with the effectiveness of the Flash media. (4) Product Revision, after the product had been judged and evaluated by the experts, the product had to be revided based on the result of the preliminary test. (5) Main Field Test, and (6) Final Product. Based on the result of the experts validation, they showed that the average of the experts on “welcome to namex planet” was 3.3 for the subject, 3.2 for the vocabulary and structure, 3.6 for the exercises, 3.3 for the suitablity to the curriculum, 3.4 for the suitablity to the students, 3.1 for the suitablity to the teacher, 3.5 for the design of the media and 3.4 for the visual of the media. Based on the result above it is clear that the Flash media run over the objectives that there was no experts’ validation judged under adequate. The judgement and the suggestions from the experts were used to make some revision to the product to make it better. Based on the result of main testing of the flash media, it found that the flash media can be applied in English teaching learning process. The result of the test has progression after appling this media. 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