Jurnal Fokus Konseling Volume 1 No. 1, Januari 2015 hlm 1-8 SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 60 IMPROVING THE SKILL AND THE INTEREST OF WRITING ADVERTISEMENTS AND POSTERS THROUGH ESA SEQUENCE Fatma Yuniarti English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Abstract The action reserach aims at improving the students’ writing skill especially to write advertsements and posters. Both are the short functional texts to be learned at the first semester of the ninth grade. According to the data on pre cycle, the students of class IXA Junior High School Swadhipa Natar, South Lampung got difficulties in writing advertisements and posters. A treatment was necessary to help the students overcome their problem. To consider the related literature, the writer decided to implement ESA sequence in the class. The elements of teaching in ESA Sequence are Engage (to arouse the students’ interests), Study (learn the language focus), and Activate (use the language freely and communicatively).The data were taken from the test of the linguistic competence mastery, the students writing, and the questionnaire. The result shows ESA Sequence can improve the students’ ability in writing advertisements and posters. Key words : ESA (Engange Study Activate), advertisement, poster. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the communicative competences for the SMP students is to design and write an advertisement. In the syllabus it is the part of short functional texts. The written advertisemets are usually found in the printed media. It is an effective media for promoting a product. Poster is another kind of short functional text to be published for the people. It is brief, concice, and it usually gives announcement, campaign something, or promote a show, and the other purposes. At the first semester of the ninth grade the teaching of short functional text is stated in SK 6/KD 6.1. Although the teaching of advertisement is not explicitly written in the syllabus model, the implementation of school-based curriculum gives possibility for the teachers to put the material as a part of the short functional texts. In the English sylabus of SMP Swadipha Natar at the first semester of the ninth grade the materials include promoting products through spoken and written advertisements. SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 61 At the productive phase, as the follow up of the receptive step, the students of class IXA got difficulties to choose the theme of the advertisement, design the layout, use the effective expressions, as well as give the illustration of the advertisement. The early works of the students show the low quality of the written advertisement. The average score of the advertisement is under the standard (the average score = 48). The questionnaires also indicates that most students get difficulty to design an advertisement. 12 0f 34 students thought that creating an ads is very difficult. 18 students think it difficult and only 4 students think it moderate. To consider the difficulties the students get on designing advertisement, a special treatment is needed to improve the teaching learning process in class IXA. The treatment in this class is ESA Sequence as suggested by Harmer (2001). ESA sequence stands for three phases of teaching i.e. Engage, Study, and Activate. Engage is the phase of teaching aims at arousing the students’ interests on learning the subject. Study aims at learning a linguistic aspect while Activate is the phase for activating the students’ knowledge for productive purposes. The Aims of The Research Specifically the action research aims at 1). Improving the students’ ability to write short functional texts (advertisement and poster) indicated by the increase of the average score of writing the short functional text above 65, 2). Improving the students’ interests to write short functional texts (advertisement and poster) indicated by the increase of the average score of the questionnaire, 3). Improving the quality of teaching learning process by designing the steps of teaching learning activities more systematically. Advertisement and poster are two kinds of short functional texts we usually find in daily life. Nearly every day we watch commercial shows on TV or read advertisements in newspapers or magazines. The teaching of English advertisement & poster is not only directed toward reading comprehension but also producing them. Designing advertisement is not fairly difficult. Dixon (2010) states the steps for designing advertisements i.e. 1). Open the word processing program, 2). Concentrate on and plan to start writing SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 62 immediately, 3). Write the deep description and the whole things of the subject, 4). Include photos if possible, 5). Put the advertisement at the appropriate category. Not so different from writing an advertisement, creating a poster is moderate for the students. Finley (2010) states some steps to make posters i.e. 1). Check the task to create a poster, 2). Consider the aspect of the report or the presentation to be presented at the report, 3). Design the poster by creating the draft previously, 4). Get pictures, graphs, painting to give illustration to the poster, 5). Write the short description of the report and the project of the report, 6). Add pictures or written description at the poster, 7). Make the poster easier to see for the audience. ESA Sequence for Teaching Writing Advertisement/Poster Teaching writing can be done in many methods. One of the steps for teaching the writing skill in the class is done through the process writing. Seow in Richards and Renandya (2002:316) states some steps of teaching writing through process writing i.e. Group Brainstorming, creating cluster, quick free writing, giving W-H questions, creating draft, responding, revising, editing, evaluating, and post writing. Harmer (2001:25) states three elements that must be present in the process of learning i.e. Engage, Study, and Activate. Engage is an element of learning process in which the teacher tries to arouse the students’ interest in learning in such a way that it can involve the students’ emotion. Study is the other phase of learning in which the students concentrate on learning the language and on how the language is constructed. The last element is activating. It is the phase in which the learners do the activities or exercises to make the students use the language freely and more communicatively. 2. RESEARCH METHOD This study is action research method. The action research wass carried out at class IXA SMP Swadipha Natar, Lampung Selatan at the first semester of the academic year of 2015/2016. This research was done in 2 cycles and each cycle runs through the four steps i.e. planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The research was done on October to November 2015. SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 63 This action research uses test and non-test techniques. The test includes the essay test at pre-cycle, the end of cycle 1, the end of cycle 2. The instruments to collect data in this research stand for 20 questions in Indonesian that the students must change into English expressions. The expressions are created in sentences usually found in the advertisement or posters. They range from statements, orders, to questions. This test aims at measuring the students’ linguistic competence to express meaning. Besides, the action research also uses non-test technique i.e. the documentation of the students’ works, the documentation of the teaching learning interaction, and the questionnaires. The documentation of the students’ work includes advertisement 1, advertisement 2, and poster. Advertisement 1 is the free advertisement created by the students before they join the learning process with ESA sequence. Advertisement 2 is various kinds of advertisement created by the students at the end of cycle 1, and poster is the poster that the students created after they joined the teaching learning activities of cycle 2. The questionnaires are given three times (before cycle 1, at the cycle 1, and at the cycle 2). Research Procedures The action research was done in two cycles. The general steps were planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. At cycle 1 the activity started from pre-cycle. The researcher collected the students’ works on writing advertisement freely. The works then were scored. The assessment of the students’ work was made based on the grammar and the vocabulary. Then the students also gave the answers of the questionnaire 1. The analysis of the students’ works and the questionnaire lead to the conclusion that the class needed a special treatment. The treatment was the implementation of ESA sequence. Then, the researcher made the planning of instruction by writing lesson plan 7. The lesson plan reflects the steps of teaching in cycle 1. The preparation of the media, the worksheet, the guides for group works were the other things to prepare. After the preparation had been made, the steps of teaching (ESA Sequence) had to be implemented in the classroom. At the first step (Engage) the activity was brainstorming. Teacher asked the students to discuss about advertisements SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 64 the students were familiar with. Some advertisements were displayed at the slide shows. They were the models of the advertisement the students should know. While surveying the advertisement, the students had to choose which one was the favorite advertisement. The advertisement of PONARI SWEAT was selected as the most favorite ads. The students made a discussion about the content of the commercials. After they had finished the discussion, they continued to observe the other advertisements. They learned the advertisement of PLAYBOY and a computer course. At the second phase (Study) the activity focuses on the analysis of the general structures found in an advertisement. They range from questions, exclamation, statement, or negative sentences. The teacher exposed a great number of the expressions. Then, the students got drilling to produce the similar expressions. The expressions are needed to create an advertisement. At the post test the students got some questions to measure whether they have mastered the patterns or not. The last step (Activate) was intended to make the students’ memory more active. The students worked in group of five to choose the theme of the advertisement they wanted to create. Each group worked to design and finished their advertisement. At the end of the step the works were displayed at the wall magazine. After creating the advertisement in group, the students had to make the advertisement individually ad independently. At last, the students had to fill in the questionnaire given to them. When the teaching learning activities had been done in cycle 1, the reflection was made. The results showed that the research had to be continued to the next cycle (Cycle 2). In cycle 2 the steps looked like the steps of cycle 1. However, there were some differences compared to the previous cycle. In the phase of Engage (Cycle 2), the students were exposed to some English posters. They were presented in videos. After being exposed to the model, they gave their perception about the posters. The other difference was at the study phase, the students learned the patterns and the sentence structures that the students have not mastered through meaningful drilling. On activate the students did not design advertisement but posters. SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 65 3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Pre-Cycle Description Firstly, the linguistic competence as shown by the Linguistic Competence Test shows that the students’ average score is 58. Some sentences are not made under the English sentence patterns. The students forget to use do (does) to make negative sentences or interrogative sentences. The structures of the sentences are also influenced by Indonesian language structure. Secondly, the assessment to the students’ works shows that the learning products a shown by the advertisement made are not well-designed. 27 works are not appropriate. 5 works are appropriate but much-influenced by the model and only 2 works are created appropriately and free from the influence of the model. The average score of the students’ works is only 53. Thirdly, the questionnaire shows that the interest of the students to join the learning activities is moderate. It is indicated by the average score of the questionnaire i.e. 22,3 (moderate) with the range of 21 t0 30. Cycle 1 Description Firstly, the average score of the Linguistic Competence Test is 66. Some notes are taken i.e. 1). The ability to make questions get improved (only 3 of 34 failed) because they do not use do/does correctly. 2).The ability to create imperative also get better, 3). Some students still include the word ‘you’ on creating the imperative such as you take this medicine!, You go to the shop! Etc. 4).The ability to make statement and the negative sentences also get improved with minimum errors. Secondly, the students’ work shows some creativity. 23 works have fulfilled the criteria of writing advertisements. 6 works fulfilled the requirements but low creativity, and only 3 works do not fulfill the criteria. The average score of the works is 63. Thirdly, the questionnaire shows that the students; interest on writing advertisement get improved. In the cycle 1 they think it is easy (score 32,5). Cycle 2 Description Firstly, the test of Linguistic Competition shows that the students get higher average score (70). They get improved to make questions, statements, imperative, and also negative sentences. Fayan Manggala Yuda Galutama still does a mistake on creating questions and SMART Journal Volume 2 No. 1, Januari 2016 Hlm. 60-66 Published in: http://ejournal.stkipmpringsewu-lpg.ac.id/index.php/smart English Department of STKIP Muhammadiyah Pringsewu Lampung 66 Efa Salfiya got difficulties to make negative sentences. Secondly, the increase of the score can be gained on the students’ work. Students’ average score is 72. At the end of cycle 2 the work of the students are 8 posters (excellent), 17 works (good), 7 works (fair), and 2 works (bad). The two works are the works of Ernawati and Rizqi Irfangi. Thirdly, the questionnaire also shows that the students’ interest on writing poster is 37 (easy). 4. CONCLUSION Based on the data of the action research it can be concluded that ESA sequence can improve the students’ ability and interest on writing advertisement and poster. The ability to write advertisement (poster) is indicated by the score of Linguistic Competence Test and the assessment of the students’ works. The linguistic Competence test get improved from 58 (pre-cycle) to be 66 (cycle 1) and 70 (cycle 2). The score f the students’ work get increased from 53 (pre- cycle) to be 63 (cycle 1) and 72 (cycle 2). The interest is indicated by the score of the questionnaire. It get increased from 22,3 (pre-cycle) to be 33,5 (cycle 1), and 37 (cycle 2). 5. REFERENCE Dixone, Michelle. (2010). ‘How to write good eyecatching advertisements’ dalam http://www.ehow.com/how_493339 1_write-good-eyecatching- advertisement.html Finley, Irene. (2010). ‘How to do a report with posters for an elementary school projects’ dalam http://www.ehow.com/how_770058 0_do-posters-elementary-school- project.html Harmer, Jeremy. (2001). How to Teach English. Essex: Longman Pearson Education Limited. Richards, Jack C dan Willy A. Renandya. (2002). Methodology in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.ehow.com/how_4933391_write-good-eyecatching-advertisement.html http://www.ehow.com/how_4933391_write-good-eyecatching-advertisement.html http://www.ehow.com/how_4933391_write-good-eyecatching-advertisement.html