Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 53 THE EFFICACY OF THINK TALK WRITE (TTW) STRATEGY IN IMPROVING WRITING SKILL FOR TEENAGERS (16TH-17TH) AT BATU WALENRANG PALOPO Masruddin1, Dewi Furwana2, and Abdul Jafar H3 1 State Islamic Institute of Palopo, Palopo, Indonesia jafar011974@gmail.com ABSTRACT This research about the efficacy of think talk write strategy in improving writing skill for teenagers at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The purpose of this research is to find out whether or not the use of think talk write strategy is effective in improving writing skill for teenagers (16th-17th) at Batu Walenrang Palopo. This research applied the pre-experimental method, the research is carried out in one class, the population of this research is teenagers at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The sample of this research are nine teenagers (16th-17th) at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The sampling technique in this research is the total sampling technique. The instrument of this research is writing test. The researcher gives pretest and post-test to the teenagers. the data are analyzed using SPSS 20. The result of this research shows that the use of think talk write strategy is effective in writing. It could be proved from the result of the calculation that students score in the post-test is higher than students score in the pre- test. The mean score in Post-test is higher than the mean score of the pre-test P=0.003>0.005. It means that is the use of think talk write strategy is effective in improving writing skill for teenagers (16th-17th) at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The implementation of this research as an alternative for educators in developing students' understanding in learning. Keywords: Descriptive Text, Think Talk Write Strategy, Writing skill. INTRODUCTION Writing is an activity pouring ideas in writing from, should be able to master the skill in writing because helpful for them to interact, as a form of expression (Wael et al., 2018). They can present ideas in writing. However, writing was not a simple skill, in writing activity, the teenagers are required to master grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation, so writing needs special training to make the learning process effective. Writing is one of the difficult skill among four skills in English writing were not easy for individuals to express their skill, writing was also an activity to requires a language process and understanding such as arranging words and grammar. The writing is very important for every field of education; therefore, teenagers try to improve their writing skill in other to become good. Writing was a process that can help teenagers resolve complex things (Chen & Zhou, 2010). Writing in a second language was very difficult compared to the http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 mailto:jafar011974@gmail.com Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 54 first language. The inability of the students to write was due to a lack of understanding of good vocabulary and grammar. However, in order to be understood and adopted in writing, the order must be good, clear, and in agreement with the purpose.Teenagers need new methods, so teenagers could understood the lesson well so that they were not bored to learn. The researcher must be creative and able to coordinate what the teenagers need in learning (Iksan & Duriani, 2015). Based on observations on teaching for teenagers observer found teachers were lacking in applying various strategies, so teenagers were bored in learning. And there were still many teenagers who lack basic English and writing. Researchers focus on the lack of understanding of teenagers in writing descriptive texts because there were many teenagers participants who found it difficult to express their opinions in write form. The teenagers need new methods, so teenagers can understand lessons well so that they were not bored to learn. Teachers must be creative and able to coordinate what teenagers need in the learning process. A method was a program procedure that identifies as part of a class and belongs to any object of that class. There are several strategies in the process of teaching writing. One of them is thinking Talk write Strategy. In teaching, researchers were interested in using the Think Talk Write strategy because teenagers could improve their skill through this Strategy, especially in writing descriptive text. Therefore, in the form of descriptive text, Think Talk Write is a learning model that can help teenagers share their opinions. Think Talk Write is a strategy where teenagers learn in groups and teenagerswere being expected to exchange ideas with friends in the group. They can also improve their writing skill individually. In teaching, researchers were interested in using the Think Talk Write strategy because teenagers could improve their skills through this Strategy, especially in writing descriptive text. Therefore, in the form of descriptive text, Think Talk Write was a learning model that can help teenagers share their opinions. Think Talk Write was a strategy where teenagers learn in groups and teenagers were being expected to exchange ideas with friends in the group. They can also improve their writing skill individually. According to Huinker and Laughlin, as quoted by the seminar inscription Ratna and Giska Putri, think talk strategy strategies can help teenagers in expressing their ideas to other teenagers before writing (Suminar & Putri, 2018). It was believed to help teenagers in the writing process because they had told their opinions freely. Based on the observation had done, the researcher found that Think Talk Write strategy was the solution to solved teenagers problem specially in writing skill. it can be provided teenagers with many opportunities and help them mastery the material taught through the think talk write learning model so that teenagers were trained to write from the discussion results during the allocated time. They can express their ideas freely because they do activities with their friends. Think Talk Write Strategy was also easy to administer and flexible in terms of subject matter and design. From the description above, the researcher concludes that Think, Talk, Write Strategy was essential because it could be help teenagers in writing descriptive texts. METHODS http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 55 In this research, the researcher used a pre-experimental design. the researcher used pre-experimental as a method in this research because it did not allow the researcher to take two classes to compare because of the COVID 19 so the researcher chose pre-experimental as an alternative. This design may also present as fallow: Class Pretest Treatment Post-test O1 X O2 Where : O1 : Pretest X : Treatment using think talk write strategy O2 : Post-test Operational Definition Variable In this research, there are two categories of variables, namely: The dependent variable is the improvement of writing skills for teenagers at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The independent variable is using think talk write Strategy for teenagers at Batu Walenrang Palopo. Population and Sample The population of this research, the researcher, was used total sampling technique. The population in this research was nine teenagers (16TH-17TH) at Batu Walenrang Palopo. In this research, the researcher had used a total sampling technique. The sample of this research was nine teenagers (16TH-17TH) at Batu Walenrang Palopo. The reason researchers used the total sampling technique because the population was less than one hundred, and all the population was used as the research sample. The Instrument of The Research The instrument in this research was a subjective text that is text given to teenagers to described picture or object, the form of writing tests about 60 minutes. This research was used as a writing test in pretest and post-test in. The pretest was used to measure the teenager's writing before treatment, and the post-test used to measure teenagers after treatment. The Technique of Data Analysis The researcher focused on data analysis after collecting data by performing the pretest, treatment, and post-test using some method. The researchers used the program SPSS (statistic product-service solution) version 20 to analyze the data. The analysis data collected would be tabulated into the mean score, standard deviation, and standard deviation of error. http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 56 RESULTS Table 1. The students score in the pre-test and post-test Classification Pre-test Post-test Score Frequency Percentage Score Frequency Percentage Excellent 90- 100 0 0% 90- 100 0 0% Good 80-89 0 0% 80-89 1 11.11% Adequate 70-79 1 11.11% 70-79 3 33.33% Inadequate 60-69 1 11.11% 60-69 3 33.33% Unacceptable Below 60 7 77.77% Below 60 2 22.22% The table shows that there were nine teenagers observed in this class before giving treatment. There is one teenager (11.11%) who got an adequate score, one student (11.11%) who got an inadequate score, seven students (77.77%) who got an unacceptable score. While in post table shows that there were nine teenagers observed in this class after giving treatment. There was one teenager (11.11%) who gets a good score, three teenagers (33.33%) who got an adequate score, three teenagers (33.33%) who got an inadequate score, two teenagers (22.22%) who got the unacceptable score. Table 2. The mean score and standard deviation of teenagers pre-test and post-test in this class. Class Mean Std. Deviation Sum Minimum Maximum Std. Error of Mean Pretest 45.0000 11.65118 405.00 38.00 70.00 3.88373 Posttest 64.6667 12.07270 582.00 44.00 83.00 4.02423 Total 54.8333 15.32491 987.00 38.00 83.00 3.61212 The table shows that the distinction between the pre-test and post-test mean score and standard deviation. The scores in this class after teaching using think talk strategy show good progress. The standard deviation in this class in pre-test and post-test is 4.02 http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 57 To evaluate whether there was a substantial increase before and after treatment, the researcher used the SPSS 20 analysis to determine the hypothesis of this report. In the statistical group table, the results can be shown, and independent analysis of the sample test. Table 3. The probability value of t-test of post-test The table shows that the probability value was lower than P=0.003 < 0.005 it means that there was a significant difference in the post-test. It indicated that the alternative hypothesis (H1) was accepted and the null hypothesis (H0) rejects it shows that think talk write strategy effective to improve teenagers writing and give a contribution to teenagers significantly writing skill. DISCUSSION Based on the problems that the researchers got in the Walenrang, the researchers observed that students at Batu Walenrang Palopo were less enthusiastic in learning, especially English because they thought that English was difficult to understand. Teenagers at Batu Walenrang still lack understanding in writing. So that researchers apply a think talk write a strategy to arouse their enthusiasm in learning. This is supported by the Laughlin and Huinker in Supriyono (2011) stated, "The think-talk-write Strategy builds in time for thought and reflection and for the organization of ideas and the testing of those ideas before students are expected to write. The flow of communication progresses from students engaging in thought or reflective dialogue with themselves to talking and sharing ideas, to writing". Miftahul Huda (2014), TTW was a strategy that facilitates oral language practice and writes the language fluently. This strategy is used to develop writing fluently and practice language before writing (Huda & Pd, 2014) Putri Lestari (2018) said that they think talk write strategy gives the student's opportunities to gather ideas, to discuss and develo p the teenager's ideas in a small group team, then to write their opinion after receiving Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means F Sig. T df Sig. (2- tailed) Mean Differen ce Std. Error Differe nce 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower Upper Score Equal variances assumed .007 .933 -3.517 16 .003 - 19.6666 7 5.5926 5 - 31.522 56 - 7.81077 Equal variances not assumed -3.517 15. 980 .003 - 19.6666 7 5.5926 5 - 31.523 78 - 7.80955 http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 58 feedback from one another (Lestari, 2018). So that the researcher is conducted this research focused on strategy think talk write. The researcher formulates this research using five items of writing assessment, the researcher to analyze the data, namely content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. Before teaching the researcher prepares pictures, list vocabulary, words about the pictures to drawn so that students in the Walenrang can easier write a descriptive text. The pre-test and post-test scores of teenagers varied significantly. There was significance in the result in writing between pre-test and post-test. There are so many teenagers with very poor score in pretest content criteria, the data show that there were two teenagers who have a good avarage score, one teenager who got a fair to poor score, six teenagers who have a very poor score. The results on the post-test content criteria indicate that so many teenagers got good to average scores. One teenager got very good score, six teenagers got good to average scores, two teenagers got fair to poor score, because learners fund it easier to explain anything described in the descriptive text from the contents described. And in explaining the plan think, Talk, write, teenagers have different opinions. Based on results above statistical analysis, it can be seen on table before and after treatment (using Think Talk Write) that now the mean score of students in the posttests is 64.66, while the mean score of students in the pretest is 45.00, In addition, the score of students in the post-test class is better than the score of students in the pretest, which is 83>70. This suggests that there is an improvement after treatment is provided using the think-talk write strategy. Harmer (2004) states that writing (alongside listening, speaking, and reading) has always played a significant role in forming parts of the syllabus in English teaching. This means that English learners are supposed to master writing skills as it is one of the productive skills in using a language. Furthermore, according to Emilia, (2010) given that writing was central to education, governments in many countries, both in developed countries like Australia and the US and the developing ones such as Indonesia, have been committed to putting more effort into the teaching of writing in schools. For instance, if students cannot express themselves employing writing, i.e. they were not capable of structuring their words into a meaningful form, then they were deemed to be ineligible to pass the course. According to Abid choir, Fikri from Hegarty (2016) said that descriptive text was one of the texts, to describe the object in detail to the reader so that the reader got information about the object being described. Furthermore, Rega Detapratiwi, (2013) text descriptive was used to describe animals, people, and certain objects. In other words, descriptive text is the text that aims to provide detailed descriptions and information about the place or person to be explained. According to Huda, TTW was a strategy that facilitates oral language practice and writes the language fluently. This Strategy is used to develop writing fluently and practice language before writing. The TTW strategy builds thoughts, reflects, and organizes ideas, then tests these ideas before students are expected to write. Starting from the involvement of students in thinking of having a reflective dialogue with themselves, then talking and sharing ideas with friends, ending with presenting the results, and drawing a conclusion with http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 59 the teacher, a lively and fun learning atmosphere will be created. Think Talk Write Strategy, which facilitates the practice of oral and written language proficiency. The Strategy was focused on learning as a social activity. Think talk writes Strategy encourages teenagers to think fluently and write down their opinions on some topics critically. Futhermore the TTW strategy was a cooperative learning model which was basically a learning strategy through the stages of thinking (think), talk (talk) and write (write). This Strategy was first introduced by Huinker and Laughlin (1996) "The think-talk-write Strategy builds in time for thought and reflection and for the organization of ideas and the testing of those ideas before students are expected to write. The flow of communication progresses from student engaging in thought or reflective dialogue with themselves, to talking and sharing ideas with one another, to writing". The TTW strategy generates ideas, reflects, and organizes ideas, then tests these ideas until it is anticipated that students can publish. The TTW learning strategy flow begins from learners' participation in thought or reflective conversation with themselves, then talks with friends and shares ideas before learners write. There are three essential stages in the TTW learning strategy that must be developed and carried out in learning, including the following: 1. Think (Berpikir atau Dialog Reflektif) "Thinking and talking are important steps in the process of bringing meaning into student's writing". The point is that thinking and speaking /discussing is an important step in the process of bringing understanding into the writing of students. 2. Talk (Talking or discussing) At the talk stage, students join the group to reflect, organize, and express ideas in discussion activities. 3. Write (Menulis) "writing can help students make their tacit knowledge and thoughts more explicit so that they can look at, and reflect on their knowledge and thoughts". That is, writing can help students express their knowledge and ideas and reflect on their knowledge and ideas. CONCLUSION Based on the results of research, researchers concluded that the use of think talk write strategies is effective in improving teenagers' writing skill. Based on the data analysis, it can concluded that teach descriptive text by using the think talk write strategy was effective. It can be proved that the teenagers score of the t-test with P= 0.003, where 0.005 is standard two tailed. ACKNOWLEDGMENT Praise our gratitude for the presence of Allah SWT for His blessing and guidance so that researcher can complete this thesis. The researcher never forget to send payers and peace to the prophet Muhammad SAW, his family, his friends. and all His faithful followers carry out Allah's commands and avoid His prohibitions. Researcher realized that there are still many shortcomings in this research. Researcher expect criticism and suggestions so that this thesis can be useful for readers. The researcher realized that this thesis could not be finished without helping from the others, the researcher also would like to express his deepest thanks to: http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 60 1. Prof. Abdul Pirol, M.Ag as the Rector of IAIN Palopo 2. Dr. Nurdin K., M. Pd as the Dean of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training Faculty of IAIN Palopo. 3. Amalia Yahya, SE., M. Hum as the Head of English Study Program of Tarbiyah and Teacher Training Faculty Department of IAIN Palopo who always gives support, and idea to the researcher during studying at IAIN Palopo. 4. Dr. Masruddin, S.S., M. Hum and Dewi Furwana, S. Pd. I., M. Pd as the first consultant and second consultant who has taught, advised, delivered guidance, explanation, suggestion, for the improvement of this thesis. 5. Dr. Jufriadi, S.S., M. Pd and Dr. Magfirah Thayyib, S.S., M. Hum as the first examiner and the second examiner who have provided many directions in the completion of this thesis. 6. Jufriadi, S.S., M. Pd as an academic advisor. 7. All the lecturers as well as the staff of IAIN Palopo. A million thanks for guidance, attention, knowledge, and motivation in the learning process 8. Madehang, S.Ag., M.Pd. as the head of the library along with employees and employees within the scope of IAIN Palopo. which has been of great help, especially in gathering literature related to this thesis discussion. 9. English teachers at Batu Walenrang Palopo, which helps gather teenagers and provides opportunities for researchers to conduct this research. 10. Students at Batu Walenrang Palopo City who have collaborated with researchers in the process of completing this research. 11. The researcher's parents and family who always motivate, support the researcher in finishing this thesis. 12. To all friends in arms, students of the 2016 IAIN Palopo English study program (especially class D dan AMS SQUAD) Rosmita, S.Pd., Ashar Daung Allo S.Pd. Nur Ahmad Hidayat, Rosmiati, Windayanti, Jubeda, Andika, S.Pd. Reski, Wiraldi, S.Pd. Muharram S.Pd. who always give the researcher support, help, and motivation. http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689 Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN: 2723-4126 61 REFERENCES Chen, S., & Zhou, J. (2010). Creative writing strategies of young children: Evidence from a study of Chinese emergent writing. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 5(3), 138–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2010.09.002 Huda, M., & Pd, M. (2014). Model-Model Pengajaran Dan Pembelajaran, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. pustaka pelajar. Iksan, M., & Duriani. (2015). A Survey of Students’ Language Learning Strategies and Their English Learning Achievement in SMA Negeri 1 Palopo. IDEAS: Journal on English Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature, 3(2), 12–27. https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v3i2.146 Lestari, P. (2018). Inproving The Tenht Grade Students Descriptive Text writing Achievenent by Using “ Think Talk Write” Strategy,. universitas Jawa Barat. Suminar, R. P., & Putri, G. (2018). The Effectiveness of TTW (Think-Talk-Write) Strategy in Teaching Writing Descriptive Text. Academic Journal Perspective : Education, Language, and Literature, 2(2), 300. https://doi.org/10.33603/perspective.v2i2.1666 Supriyono. (2011). Developing Mathematical Learning Device Using Ttw (Think- Talk- Write) Strategy Assisted By Learning Cd To Foster Mathematical Communication. International Seminar and the Fourth National Conference on Mathematics Education 2011, 74–84. Wael, A., Asnur, M. N. A., & Ibrahim, I. (2018). Exploring Students’ Learning Strategies in Speaking Performance. International Journal of Language Education, 2(1), 65. https://doi.org/10.26858/ijole.v2i1.5238 http://u.lipi.go.id/1593190689