Journal of English Language Teaching 

http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt 

DOI:10.33394/jo-elt.v6i2.2360 

Volume 6 Nomor 2, Desember 2019 

online: 2548-5865, print: 2355-0309 

pp.91-98  
 

91 
 

THE USE OF TRUE AND FALSE ESSAY GAMES TO ENHANCE 

STUDENTS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT  

AND CLASSROOM INTERACTION 

Anhar 

SMKN 3 Pujut, Central Lombok 

anhariss86@gmail.com 
 

Abstract 
This study was aimed at investigating the students’ writing performance and classroom 

interaction through the use of true and false essay game strategy. This study was 

collaborative action research consisted of two cycles. The steps were planning, action, 

observation, and reflection. This research involved the 19 students of class 11th grade 

students of SMKN 3 Pujut. The data were qualitative in nature and supported by those of 

quantitative. The data were obtained from the observation sheet, questionnaire, and writing 

test. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were obtained by conducting writing post-test at the 

end of the actions. The research finding showed that use “True and False Essay Games” 

was proved to be significant to improve the students’ writing skills and classroom 

interaction. The strategy of True and False Essay Games makes an enthusiasm, 

empowering and challenging series of activities that vary the classroom interaction and 

activities during the teaching-learning process. Moreover, this strategy helped the students 

to build a positive relationship among them. Quantitatively, the mean of the students‟ 

writing scores in the pre-test is 50. Meanwhile, the students’ score of the post-test was 55. 

The improvement was 5 in the first cycle.  In cycle 2, the students’ score of the post-test 

was 80.32. In the presentations between cycle 1 and cycle 2 was 30.4 It can be concluded 

that the True and False Essay Games was able to enhance students’ writing skill and 

classroom interaction viewed from organization, content, grammar, vocabulary, and 

mechanics. 

Keywords: True-False Essay Game, Writing Skill, and Classroom Interaction 

 

 

INTRODUCTION 

Writing is one of the most language 

skills that are uneasy to be mastered by 

foreign language learners and even for 

native speaker (Haerazi & Irawan, 2019). 

According to Hyland (2003: 4), writing is 

rigidly controlled through guided 

composition where learners are provided 

with short texts. Then, they are asked to 

fill in gaps, complete sentences, transform 

tenses or personal pronouns, and complete 

other exercises that focus on achieving 

accuracy and avoiding errors.  

Many instructional strategies are 

applied by English teachers to help 

learners improve their writing achievement 

and classroom interaction. Besides, the 

change of curriculum is carried out to meet 

the demands to compete internationally 

(Haerazi, Vikasari, & Prayati, 2019). At 

the top of it, learners can use English both 

orally and in written. In doing so, English 

teachers apply an appropriate strategy to 

meet the EFL learning goals. 

SMKN 3 Pujut is one of the 

vocational high school in central Lombok. 

The researcher is an in-service teacher at 

this vocational high school. The researcher 

found some problems at the 11th-grade 

students of SMKN 3 Pujut in which they 

still have a lack of how to write topics, 

topic sentences and even supporting 

sentences. Besides, they still feel difficult 

to express their ideas paragraphs.  

mailto:anhariss86@gmail.com


 

92 
 

Based on the problems above, the 

researcher wants to give a solution 

especially in writing skill. The solution is 

by using true and false essay games. Game 

is an appropriate way to teach teenagers 

because one of the characteristics of 

teenagers is they are able to work with 

others and learn from others. The 

researcher hopes that it would make the 

students feel something pleasant and 

motivate them to learn more about writing 

so the researcher believes to investigate 

the use of true and false essay games to 

enhance student’s writing skills and 

classroom interaction with the 11th-grade 

students of SMKN 3 Pujut. 

 

Literature Review  

Teaching Writing in Vocational high 

schools 

According to Wright, et al. (2006: 

58) writing like speaking is normally 

intended to communicate something to 

somebody. Writing skill is the one of skill 

which has to be mastered by students. 

Spoken and written languages are 

obviously different. Teachers should 

provide learners with interesting writing 

materials to practice writing (Haerazi et 

al., 2018). It is reinforced by Hyland 

(2003: 4) who state writing is rigidly 

controlled through guided composition 

since learners are given short texts and 

asked to fill in gaps, complete sentences, 

transform tenses or personal pronouns, and 

complete other exercises that focus 

students on achieving accuracy and 

avoiding errors. Based on those definitions 

above, writing is a creative process that 

uses generating ideas into language and 

put them on paper with good structure to 

analyze the word, clauses, and sentences. 

 

True and False Essay games 

According to Wright, et al. (2006: 

59) the procedure of teaching by using true 

and false essay game, those are; (1) ask 

each learner to write an essay based on 

description of real places and or events, 

and tell them that each essay must contain 

five things that are not true; (2) invite each 

learner to read at least three essays and try 

to find the five untrue proves difficult and 

the five untrue bits of information; (3) if it 

proves difficult to find the five untrue bits 

of information in a particular essay than 

invite the writer to read it to the whole 

class and try to find the five things 

together.  

Variation of true and false sentences; 

(1) organize the class into pairs; ask each 

pair to write ten statements or separate 

strips of paper, some true and some false; 

and; (2) Invite the pairs to exchange their 

strips of paper and try to group them into 

true and untrue statements. Based on the 

explanation above, it can be said that the 

game will make the students more 

involved in the learning process. So, the 

learning process will be more active if the 

students get involved in it. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

Research Design 

In this study, the researcher applies 

Classroom Action Research (CAR). It is 

small-scaled and collaborative research 

that investigates a problematic situation in 

order to bring improvements in practice 

(Burns:  2010). The research on the use of 

true and false essay games is aimed at 

enhancing student’s writing skills. It is 

conducted in the action research focusing 

on the action to improve the classroom 

interaction of the English teaching-

learning process at B class of the 11th-

grade students of SMKN 3 Pujut. The 



 

93 
 

actions consist of four stages: planning, 

action, observation and reflection as 

proposed by Kemmis and McTaggart 

(1988: 9) and Burns (2009: 9).  

This study is categorized as 

collaborative research. Burns (2010) states 

this study allows the researcher and the 

collaborator collaboratively to share the 

common problems and examine the 

research data. Therefore, the researcher 

collaborated with collaborators during the 

research. This research adopted a 

descriptive-qualitative design. Therefore, 

the researcher also uses quantitative data 

to support qualitative data to be a more 

valid result. 

Setting of the Research 

The place of this research was held 

at the 11th-grade students of SMKN 3 

Pujut. Generally, there times English 

subject regular in the classroom, each 

meeting 2 x 45 minutes, so in week 270 

minutes or about 4 hours and 30 minutes. 

The researcher was considered about 4 

weeks or 1 month for the research. The 

subjects of this research were 19 students, 

6 male and 13 female of B class at the 

11
th

-grade students of SMKN 3 Pujut. The 

object in this research was the use of the 

strategy of true and false essay games to 

enhance students’ writing skill and 

classroom interaction.   

The Research Procedure 

1. Planning  

In this stage, the researcher began 

the action as the implementation of 

teaching scenarios in the planning the 

researcher decided to enhance students’ 

writing skill through true and false essay 

games to overcome the problem above 

with the following activities. 

 

Preliminary Observation 

Before doing the cycle in this research, the 

researcher conducted preliminary 

observation on 25
th 

November
 
2018. It was 

done there was also an informal interview 

with the teacher there also to observe the 

writing skill used explanation text at the 

second-grade student of SMKN 3 Pujut. 

Based on the observation then 

identification of the problems is made. 

a. Lesson plan: For designing learning 

activities using syllabus in the school 

referring to the English teacher, the text 

type to teach is descriptive text 

covering writing skills. Since the 

research focus of this study to improve 

students’ writing skill and classroom 

interaction. Each meeting covers 2 x 45 

minutes. 

b. Materials: In the first cycle consist of 

two meetings; the teacher applied 

descriptive text theme to describe a 

particular someone and places. The 

teacher applied a few books as a source, 

such as Effective English etc.  

c. Criteria Standard of Competency and 

Basic Competency are the basis for 

developing the materials, arranging 

learning activities and for defining the 

indicators for assessment and in gaining 

the class percentage which passes the 

minimum mastery criteria (KKM). It 

was 75 and students' average score was 

85. 

2. Action 

During the implementation of the 

action, the researcher used the true and 

false essay game in the leaning activity. 

The collaborator and the English teacher 

who acts as an observer collaborate in the 

class during implementing the actions. The 

second collaborator is the real English 

teacher who helps to interpret the data. 

After the implementation, they conducted 



 

94 
 

discussions in planning, implementing and 

reflecting the actions. After the 

implementation, she conducted interviews 

with the participants to know their 

opinions related to the actions, 

improvements, problems they faced and so 

on. They are recorded and then were 

transcribed into interview transcripts. In 

addition, the collaborator occasionally 

photographed particular moments during 

the actions through the digital camera. 

Meanwhile, the quantitative data were 

obtained twice in the Preliminary 

Observation which is conducted before the 

implementation and in the test essay for 

students writing skill which was conducted 

after the implementation. 

3. Observation 

The observation in classroom action 

research was conducted to know and 

gotten complete descriptions objectively 

about the improvement of the process of 

the learning and the effect of the action in 

the form of data the instrument used in the 

research was intended to measure the 

students’ Writing Skill. The instrument of 

this research there were observation sheet 

and test  

a. Observation sheet: The observation 

sheet was used to monitor the students 

and teacher activities during the 

teaching-learning process. The use of 

an observation sheet, hopefully, will 

help the researcher to observe the real 

situation.  

b. Test: In completing this research the 

test was based on an achievement test 

which was the result later used as 

data. In order to gotten enough data, 

the researcher divided the writing test 

purpose of giving the classroom test 

was to check the students’ 

achievement as an indicator of 

progress toward education for the 

students,  it important toward this 

research which would determine 

whether of true and false essay games 

could be Enhancing students’ writing 

skill or no. The true and false essay 

games of students in learning writing 

also influenced the achievement 

(score) of students’ writing skill. The 

test could be in the form of essay 

writing. 

4. Reflection 

Reflecting is to see what effect your 
change has made. Reflection has an 

evaluate aspect, to judge whether the 

method could be problem-solving to 

Enhancing students’ writing skill. 

 

Data Analysis 

In this research, quantitative and 

qualitative analysis was used to analyze 

the data. The qualitative data was gathered 

through observation sheet which was 

already explained, whereas the data from 

the test (quantitative analysis) was 

investigated through counting the total 

average of each cycle and discovering the 

difference between each cycle. 

Quantitative analysis was analyzed by 

using descriptive statistical analysis by 

using SPSS IBM 2.1. Meanwhile, the 

qualitative analysis used the formula of 

percentages to measure the score of 

observation sheet, questionnaire, and 

teacher's and students’ feedback. 

The data analysis of this study used 

the three concurrent flow activities; (1) 

data reduction, (2) data display, and (3) 

drawing a conclusion. In the process of 

data reduction, the data are selected, 

simplified, and abstracted in the field note. 

It is done during the research activities. In 

other words, the researcher reduces the 



 

95 
 

information during the research activities 

because the data do not support the 

research data needed. In displaying data, 

the selected data are depicted and 

explained in the form of description or 

narration based on the filed notes and 

interview transcripts. The last stage of data 

analysis is taking a conclusion. The data 

reduced are concluded at the end of each 

action deal with classroom interaction. 

Meanwhile, the students’ English 

achievement is concluded at the end of the 

posttest. The conclusions are about the 

improvement of ELT achievement and 

classroom interaction of the 11th-grade 

students of SMKN 3 Pujut, Central 

Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. 

 

FINDING AND DISCUSSION 

The data consisted of data obtained 

from the observation sheet and data 

obtained from students’ writing skill. To 

the efforts of the implementation of true 

and false essay games to enhance student 

writing skill. This research consisted of 

two cycles, For the whole steps of this 

research explained in the description as 

follows. 

Cycle I 

Data observations of implementation 

on the teaching-learning process Based on 

observations on the learning process about 

the material of writing a descriptive text. 

The writer intended to analyze the data 

obtained from the students’ test results and 

students` activities in the class instead of 

any other result of research. The data was 

attained from the teaching-learning 

process and evaluation. One of the aimed 

of giving an evaluation was to know how 

far the students’ writing skill given in this 

classroom action research. The analysis of 

each activity started from the first cycle up 

to the second cycle.   

In this subchapter, the researcher 

would like to discuss the result of the 

study of true and false essay games in 

enhancing students writing skill at the 

11th-grade students of SMKN 3 Pujut. 

Based on the finding, true and false essay 

games can increase students’ writing skill 

in writing a descriptive text. It was proven 

either by students’ mean score and the 

total class percentage of the students’ 

learning activity that is increased in every 

meeting during teaching and learning. 

Based on the result of the two cycles, there 

was a significant improvement in the 

students’ writing skill.  

From the result analysis of the table 

of the students’ scores toward the 

students’ writing skill in learning writing. 

It showed that the result mean score of the 

post-test was highest than the mean score 

of the pre-test. The mean score of pre-test 

in cycle I was 50 and cycle II was 55 

taken from post-test 1. While the score of 

post-test in cycle I was 55 and cycle II was 

80.32. The difference between pre-test 

and post-test in cycle 1 was 5 and the 

difference between pre-test and post-test 

in cycle 2 was 30.3.  

The use of the scientific-based 

approach in cycle 1 could not be stated one 

hundred percent (100%) effective. The 

effect of the approach in ELT classroom 

disappears in the first, second, and third 

meetings. However, the effect of that is 

seen at the fourth meeting. The stages of 

the scientific-based activities stimulated 

students to be more confident and active to 

complete their learning tasks, acquire 

enough vocabularies and grammatical 

competences. These competencies were 

then utilized by students to improve their 

reading, listening, speaking, and writing 



 

96 
 

skills. In addition, almost all of the 

students are active in the classroom 

interaction in various learning activities 

with the teacher and with other students. 

In Cycle 1, it can be concluded that 

the use of the scientific-based approach 

was not effective to solve all of the 

students’ problems in the ELT classroom. 

Cycle 1 indicated that some problems 

faced by students were solved by using the 

approach. Those problems included (1) 

students have difficulties to understand the 

teacher’s instruction to complete their 

learning tasks, (2) students do not have 

enough vocabulary acquisition to complete 

reading tasks, and (3) students have lack of 

grammatical competence to arrange 

sentences. Based on the students’ 

problems solved in Cycle 1, the researcher 

and the teacher agreed to continue to the 

second cycle. The teacher and the 

researcher in the next cycle were focused 

on different students’ problems. 

Cycle 2 would be addressed to the 

students’ speaking ability, asking 

activities, and listening activities coming 

from native speaker videos to improve 

students’ individual achievement and ELT 

classroom interaction. These problems 

were assumed as the same difficulties that 

make students have low achievement and 

low interaction among them and between 

students and the teacher.  

From the result of the analysis, the 

students’ score toward the student’s 

writing skill in learning writing was 

improved. It showed that the students 

who got the highest score on cycle 1 were 

some of the students with their scores 

were 75; some of the students who got the 

lowest score were 40. In cycle 1 the 

students failed. Whereas in cycle 2, there 

is a student who got the highest score 

with his score was 90 and some students 

who got the lowest score were 60. 

Because the passing grade of students’ 

achievement in cycle 1 was not achieved, 

this study was continued into the next 

cycle, which is Cycle 2. The explanation 

of the use of true and false essay game in 

Cycle 2 can be read as follows. 

Cycle 2 

From the data calculations ab o v e  

the students’ mean score i n  c y c l e  1  

was 55 and the increase in cycle 2 was 

80,32 The difference between cycle 1 and 

cycle 2 was 19,4. It  w a s  shown t h at  b y 

applying true and false essay games could 

improve their writing mastery. It was 

because of the application of true and 

false essay games to give more support 

and build students’ writing skill and in 

learning English, especially in learning 

writing.  

From the data above, showed the 

changes on the students’ score increased 

significantly. that students’ score was 

increased after giving treatment by using 

true and false essay games, it means that 

the games succeed in increasing the 

students’ writing skill and the criteria of 

achievement was completed where 80,32 

of the students in the 11th-grade students 

of SMKN 3 Pujut and it attained the 

passing grade. Most of t h e  students said 

that teaching-learning English by true 

and false essay games is fun and could 

enthusiastic them increase their writing 

skill they were enthusiastically engaged in 

the teaching-learning process in which 

various teaching aids were employed. 

Furthermore, they varied the materials 

during the lesson. The real objects, 

examples of descriptive texts and models 

provided the students with more 

interesting language input. It enriched their 

vocabulary and grammatical mastery. 



 

97 
 

Moreover, the worksheets provided them 

with some exercises on vocabulary and 

grammar to write a descriptive text. 

 

CONCLUSION 

This study can be concluded that the 

use of True and false essay games is 

able to enhance student students’ writing 

skill and classroom interaction at the 11th-

grade students of SMKN 3 Pujut in the 

academic year 2017/2018. The students’ 

progress during the teaching-learning 

process was better than the conventional 

one before the strategy was applied. This 

statement is supported by the result of the 

mean in post-test at cycle 1 w e r e  55 and 

post-test at cycle 2 w e r e  80,32 From the 

data calculation shown that by applying  

True and false essay games could 

improve their writing skill. It showed a 

significant difference between the post-

test in cycle 1 and cycle 2. To students 

improve, True and false essay games could 

enhance students’ writing skill by 

improving their writing in terms of that 

organization, content, grammar and use 

vocabulary and mechanics by improving 

the writing skill of students’ could true and 

false essay games. 

 

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