Journal of Research and Innovation in Language ISSN (Online): 2685-3906, ISSN (Print): 2685-0818 DOI: https://doi.org/10.31849/reila.8633 Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2022, pp. 54-66 54 The Effectiveness of Contextual Teaching and Learning Approach in Enhancing Indonesian EFL Secondary Learners’ Narrative Writing Skill Yuriatson Jubhari 1*, Luana Sasabone 2 & Nurliah Nurliah 3 1 Politeknik Sandi Karsa, Makassar, Indonesia 2 Universitas Kristen Indonesia Paulus, Makassar, Indonesia 3 IAI DDI Polewali Mandar, Polewali, Indonesia jubhariyuriatson@gmail.com ARTICLE HISTORY Received : 2021-12-09 Revised : 2022-04-04 Accepted : 2022-04-20 KEYWORDS CTL EFL Narrative text Contextual teaching Quasi-experimental ABSTRACT This study investigates the effectiveness of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach in enhancing Indonesian EFL secondary learners’ narrative writing skills and the perception of Indonesian EFL secondary schools toward applying the CTL approach. This study employed a quasi- experimental design with fifty-two eleventh-grade students as participants. The participants were divided into two groups; An experimental group received the CTL approach, and a control group received the conventional way. This study utilized a pre-posttest and perceptional questionnaire. Nonparametric tests (i.e., Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon test) were run to analyze the data in this study. The Man-Whitney U test indicated a significant difference between the mean score for the experimental group with the CTL approach and the control group without the CTL approach (9.86 > 10.12). Meanwhile, the Wilcoxon test illustrated that the leading score of the pre-test (10.14) and the post-test (16.05) in the experimental group differ significantly. Implementation of the CTL approach through its components positively contributes to teaching narrative writing skills. Meanwhile, the perceptional questionnaires showed that the students' experiment group perceived the implementation of the CTL Approach positively. This study results render teachers’ insight into a practical approach to teaching writing to be able to teach narrative writing. 1. Introduction Writing is an activity of forming graphic symbols and making marks on a paper; those produced symbols must be arranged with a particular convention to build words into a sentence to express emotions and thoughts (Byrne, 1993; Cer, 2019; Hacker, 2018). Through writing, we can express our ideas. As a result, people can access information in writing. In communication, writing in English is one of the crucial skills to have people in the globalization era. Through writing, people can communicate at different times and spaces (Graham & Perin, 2007a). The importance of the writing skill is not only as a means of communication but also as means of transforming knowledge to create knowledge (Weigle, 2002). Furthermore, people frequently communicating with one another in written language are not the only reason for learning writing. They can also reinforce their grammatical structure and vocabulary and practice the language learned through writing (Derakhshan & Shirejini, 2020; Raimes, 1983). Therefore, teaching writing should have an important place in language teaching. It is because writing is a communication tool and a valuable tool in the language learning process (Graham & Perin, 2007b). Although the skill has been regarded as vital for language learners, it seems an uneasy skill to learn for second or foreign language learners. Writing tests memory, ability to think, and verbal command to convey ideas successfully. It also needs processes for attaining the intended writing, such as planning, drafting, monitoring, evaluating, and revising (Afinogenova, 2021; Kellogg, 2001, 2008; Nunan, 1989). therefore, writing encompasses a cognitive process and a metacognitive one (Graham & Perin, 2007a; Rodríguez et al., 2018). 55 As the most challenging skills to be mastered for both second and foreign language learners, writing skills need the ability to generate and organize ideas, to use appropriate words, sentence, and paragraph organization, and to change such an idea into a readable (Nourdad & Aghayi, 2016; Qadir et al., 2021; Richards & Renandya, 2002). It is clearly understood that writing is a complex process. Writers write papers to successfully express their ideas or thoughts and combine various language components. In addition, the lack of teachers’ appropriate pedagogic approach (i.e., providing prompt and practical feedback to students) to teaching writing and the ability to motivate students in teaching writing are factors that lead to ineffective teaching of writing (Fareed et al., 2016; Kleij, 2019; Wulandari, 2022). It becomes a challenge for teachers to teach writing skills. Teachers should not apply a conventional teaching approach when teaching writing in EFL/ESL context. Still, they should present various approaches or methods to motivate the students to learn writing. Adas and Bakir (2013) believe that the teaching- learning process in the classroom becomes passive and monotonous if a teacher keeps applying the traditional teaching method. In the traditional approach, many teachers teach based on memorization and drilling. It is mostly teacher-centered and frequently occurs with the whole class, teacher, and students talking. The teacher largely determines the use of class time (Kawinkoonlasate, 2019; Mourtaga, 2010). Therefore, teachers should be more creative to make learning enjoyable, so the learning process can be meaningful and increase the students’ interest. Meaningful learning can happen when students are engaged or integrate their life context into their lessons in school. In addition, the material must be conceptually explicit and presented with language and examples relatable to learners’ prior knowledge (Ausebel, 2000; Novak & Cañas, 2006). One of the adequate approaches to teaching writing is the contextual approach, which emphasizes the process and content of writing (Satriani et al., 2012). Dewey discovered the contextual approach (1916), highlighting that a learning philosophy stresses students’ interests and experiences. The contextual teaching and learning approach (CTL) is a conception of learning that aids teachers link material taught to students' experiences through some effective components working together to build a network. Students can better construct meaning and retain information (Johnson, 2002). Furthermore, Johnson (2002) says that eight CTL approach characteristics become important principles – making a meaningful connection, doing significant work, self-regulated learning, collaborating, critical and creative thinking, nurturing the individual, reaching a high standard, using the authentic assessment. Nurhadi et al. (2004) divide into seven components of the contextual teaching and learning (CTL) that teachers can implement in classrooms - constructivism, inquiry, questioning, modelling, learning community, reflection, and authentic assessment. Studies on contextual teaching and learning approaches have been done in both fields of science and language. CTL makes a positive impact on student's learning process in both fields. For example, in the field of science, Glynn & Winter (2004); Karsli & Yigit (2017); Predmore (2005); and Shamsid & Smith (2006) reported that through CTL, learners were actively engaged, learned from the real-life world and studied from each other in the teaching- learning process. Students studied material within a concrete context, which reinforced memory. In addition, students were more highly interested and motivated in the CTL course. In the field of language, numerous researchers have carried out empirical studies on the implementation of the CTL approach to teaching writing skills in various writing genres, such as Helda et al. (2020); K & Aswandi (2014); Madjid et al. (2017); Satriani et al., 2012); Setiawati et al. (2018); Rafida (2016). K & Aswandi (2014) implemented CTL in teaching writing procedure text in junior high school. The finding indicated that the contextual approach was easy to be understood and made learning enjoyable. Therefore, students could enhance their skills in writing simple procedure texts. Satriani et al. (2012) investigated the strategies of CTL (adapted from Crawford, 2001) to teach recount text – relating, experiencing, applying, and transferring. The study revealed that students could be engaged actively in writing activities, enhanced students’ motivation, assisted them in constructing their writing, solved their problems, rendered the manner for students to discuss or interact with their friends, and helped them summarize and reflect on the lesson. Therefore, students' writing ability improved, including schematic structure, grammar role, and graphic future. Rafida (2016) investigated the role of the CTL approach in teaching a recount text in junior high school. The study reported that CTL significantly affected students’ achievement in writing recount text. Students were more active and enthusiastic in witting recount text. Furthermore, Madjid et al. (2017) explored the CTL approach to teaching academic writing skills in higher education. They reported that it could improve students’ motivation in learning academic writing skills. Setiawati et al. (2018) examined fable writing skills of students taught with CTL and conventional learning models. The study revealed that the CTL models were better than conventional learning models in teaching fable writing skills. Students could understand the material quickly, and encouraged them to cooperate in the learning process. Helda et al. (2020) also explored the efficacy of CTL in writing Pantun. Results suggested 56 that CTL made students in elementary school more interested and enthusiastic in learning writing. In addition, it made students more active and learning more fun. Even though there have been numerous studies on using the CTL approach to enhance the students writing skills, little attention has been made to students' narrative writing skills to utilize the approach to the teaching of writing. Therefore, the current study is expected to bridge the gap by investigating a further study on the implementation of contextual teaching and learning approaches to teaching narrative writing skills. As aforementioned, writing is the most challenging skill to acquire; therefore, it requires efficient instruction. This study explores the implementation of the CTL approach to enhance students’ narrating writing performance. This study renders teachers’ insight into an effective approach to teaching writing that can be implemented to teach narrative writing. Thus, the present study addresses the following questions: a) To what extent does the CTL approach enhance the Indonesian EFL students' writing skills? b) What are the Indonesian EFL students’ perceptions of implementing the CTL approach in teaching narrative writing skills? 2. Literature Review 2.1 Contextual Teaching and Learning The emergence of the contextual approach and learning approach (CTL) commenced when the theory of behaviorism and constructivism emerged. Behaviorism is a teaching and learning theory proposed by E.L Thorndike called the stimulus- response learning theory. The theory posits that learning is the result of the connection between stimuli and response through the application of rewards; in other words, if students’ response to a stimulus is compiled directly with a feeling of exhilaration, learning will be more successful (Berns & Erickson, 2001; Herrnstein, 1976) It means that learners study behaviorism theory that emphasizes the observable behavior produced by a learner to respond to the stimuli. The theory is applied in the form of a conventional way that emphasizes drill or memorization. Another theory then develops as a response, in theory, constructivism one. The theory views learning as an activity in which students construct their new knowledge based on their prior knowledge or experience, utilizing the prior knowledge in a new situation, and integrating the new knowledge with pre-existing one (Baker et al., 2009; Berns & Erickson, 2001; Sulistyowati, 2019). Constructivist learning theory proposes a student- centered classroom activity that focuses on students’ roles rather than the teachers (Sulistyowati, 2019). Both theories affect the development of contextual teaching and learning (CTL). Another factor encouraging the emergence of the CTL approach is the rejection of dualism in the traditional education system of America. Dualism separates abstract and concrete, thought and action, concept and practice. Due to dualism, the teachers teach the head, not the body, in the process of teaching and learning. The teachers teach the students to absorb, but not to use, hear and not act, theorise, but not practice (Johnson, 2002). Thus, students’ task is to remember facts and ideas, not to experience the idea. Contextual Learning, or so-called Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL), is based on John Dewey's research (1916, as cited in Satriani et al. 2012). The contextual approach posits that young people will learn effectively if what they learn has relation to what they have known or what they experience in their environment (Satriani et al., 2012). Moreover, Satriani et al. (2012) claim that contextual instruction was first developed in the USA and began with establishing the Washington State Consortium by the USA’s Education Department. One of the main characteristics of contextual teaching and learning (CTL) is discovering meaning in a teaching-learning process. Students internalize concepts through discovery, reinforcement, and interrelationships. When students catch meaning in their learning process, they will learn and remember their study. The contextual teaching and learning approach is a teaching-learning concept that helps teachers correlate students’ lessons with real lives, stimulates students to link knowledge and its implementation to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers, and engages in the hard work that learning requires (Baker et al., 2009). In addition, Sears and Hersh (1998) argue that CTL is teaching that can empower, enlarge, and utilize the students’ knowledge and skill both in and out of school to solve real-world problems. The contextual teaching and learning approach is a teaching approach that helps students discover meaning in a teaching-learning process employing connecting the school lesson to the context of students’ daily lives, that is, with the context of their personal, social, and cultural circumstances, through its components working together to build a network by which students are better able to construct meaning and retain information (Johnson, 2002). 2.2 Writing Writing plays an important role when we want to deliver messages to readers for a purpose. Through writing, we can explain things; as a result, readers can get information from the writing. Raimes (1983) asserts that people frequently communicate with each other in writing, which is not the only reason to learn writing. First, learning writing helps students 57 reinforce the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabularies teachers have taught. Second, when students learn to write, they have the opportunity to be adventurous with the language and go beyond what they have just learnt to say. Third, they are necessarily engaged in the new language when students write. Therefore, teaching writing should have an important place in language teaching. It is because writing is a communication tool and a valuable tool in the language learning process (Graham & Perin, 2007b). Harmer (2001) contends that writing is a productive skill that encompasses thought and emotion. Writing cannot be mastered, but it needs practice. The practice may include imitating or copying words and sentences from the giving idea or expressing ideas based on the writers’ knowledge, experience, and point of view. Therefore, it may reveal that writing expresses a person's idea or thought on a paper to communicate with others. However, in writing, writers do not merely write words to be a sentence and become a paragraph but also need to combine various language components to produce good writing successfully. Apart from understanding writing, it should also be understood that there are some stages in the writing process. The writing process as a classroom activity incorporates the four primary writing stages (Seow, 2002). Those stages generally comprise prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing (Abas & Abd Aziz, 2018; Terrible, 1996). In the writing activity, learners go through the stages before submitting their papers. Teachers can provide comprehensive feedback to students during the writing process (Kurniasih et al., 2020). Furthermore, Harmer (2004) illustrates four stages in the following way: (Harmer, 2004) In the first stage, writers should determine the purpose of writing and the content of the structure of writing to sequence facts, ideas, or arguments. The next stage organizes the facts and ideas into sentences and paragraphs. The third stage edits writing. In this stage, the writers re-read their writing carefully. Perhaps, the order of information is not clear, or the way something is written is ambiguous or confusing. The writers probably move paragraphs around or write a new introduction. The writers may apply divergent words for particular sentences. In other words, writers also revise their writing in the editing stage. The stage probably can include adding, deleting, rearranging, and substituting words, sentences, and even entire paragraphs to make writing more accurately represent their ideas. After going through those stages, the writers are ready to send their writing to the intended audience. Despite the writing process going through the aforementioned stages, the writing process is not always linear, or the first stage must be completed before carrying on to the next one, but somewhat recursive. In order words, writers can re-plan, re-draft, and re-edit. Even when the writers get to what they think is the final draft, they may find themselves changing their minds and re-planning, drafting, editing, and final revision. The process needs a cognitive process stressing the importance of the recursive procedures of planning, drafting, editing, and revising (Harmer, 2004; Hyland, 2019; Williams, 2003). The writing process may take a longer time; however, those multiple processes gone through by learners can actively engage learners to discuss and interact with both teachers and students. Consequently, learners can indirectly acquire valuable feedback or input to improve their writing. Those processes lead learners to develop their metacognitive awareness - the ability to utilize a particular method to write a piece of written text (Harmer, 2004; Hyland, 2019; Rusinovci, 2015). Researchers have long investigated the implementation of the writing process in teaching writing. For example, Dilidüzgün (2013) stated that writing was the most challenging skill to acquire; therefore, it required detailed instruction. This study used the writing process in teaching writing. The study reported that students could study a planned writing strategy; as a result, they could understand and evaluate text more quickly, analyse how texts had been written, etc. In addition to improving students’ writing skills (Asriati & Maharida, 2013)., the process approach to teaching writing could change students’ attitudes toward writing-more positive and less frustrated, enhanced interaction between the students and teachers throughout the writing process (Nurrohmah, 2011), and reduced students’ anxiety (Kurniasih et al., 2020). Therefore, it is essential to optimise the positive side of the process approach to teaching writing. Regarding this study, the implementation of the contextual teaching and learning approach to teaching writing has been widely studied in various genres; however, most have not studied the CTL with a process approach to teaching writing. Therefore, this study implements the CTL with the process approach to teaching writing 2.3 Narrative writing The narrative text is one of the types of writing text. It is a story that can present in both spoken and written language (Anderson & Anderson, 1997). McClure (2014) defines that narrative text are a kind of writing in which the authors link one event, incident, or experience from their life. In writing, the authors enable to share their life with others, vicariously experiencing the things they describe. McClure further narrates that a good personal Planning Drafting Editing Final Revision 58 narrative, like a good story, makes a thrilling impact, makes us laugh, gives us pleasurable fright, and gets us on the edge of our seats. A narrative text is a text which relates a series of logical and chronologically related events that are caused or experienced by factors (Rebecca, 2003). Therefore, to entertain the readers, such writing tells a real story of authors or what they have experienced, such as in exciting places or unforgettable moments. In writing personal narrative writing, the authors not only tell the readers something interesting, but also they must show the importance and effect of the experience that has taken place on them. Narrative writing can give several vital benefits in the learning process of writing. It can help students write naturally; second, students can use narrative writing as a brainstorming technique to generate ideas for the future essay, regardless of the type of essay students are writing; third, students can employ narrative writing, even in the expository and argumentative context to introduce their essay and to provide a supporting idea for a body paragraph (Nazario et al., 2010; ). The study reports that the establishment of narratives is not only a prerequisite for the development of other genres, such as expository or argumentative structures but also for results during higher education (Feagans & Appelbaum, 1986) (as quoted in Grenner et al., 2020). Narrative writing should be taught to learners to develop their writing skills to acquire the other genre. Nevertheless, teaching and learning writing is the most challenging; therefore, it is crucial to provide practical instruction in the teaching-learning process. CTL is one of the effective teaching approaches to teaching writing. This study investigates the role of the CTL approach on students’ narrative writing skills. Even though there have been numerous studies on using the CTL approach to enhance the students’ writing skills, most of the previous studies investigated the implementation of the CTL approach on writing skills concentrating on students' writing produced while completing the task as the measure of the efficacy of CTL approach. Therefore, this current study implements the CTL approach through its components with the writing process approach. 3. Method This study employed a quasi-experimental one that investigated the effectiveness of the contextual teaching and learning approach to enhance the students’ narrative writing skills. The participants have divided into two groups; an experimental group received the CTL approach, and a control group received the conventional way. The control group was required for comparison purposes to notice if the new treatment was more effective than others (Gay et al., 2006). 3.1 Participants The participants were fifty-two eleventh-year students of selected secondary school in Indonesia (SMAN 3 Pinrang). Two intact classes were randomly selected (control and experimental group), and each group comprised twenty-six students. 3.2 Instruments Writing pre-posttest tests and perceptional questionnaires were used in this study. The test was to write a personal narrative based on the given topic, “Unforgettable experience”. This test examined the two groups writing performance before and after implementing the CTL approach. The perceptional questionnaire involved ten items investigating the perception of the implementation of the CTL approach. 3.3 Procedures The data were collected through steps: 1) the researcher gave a pre-test to experimental and control students. 2) The researcher gave treatments to the only students of the experimental one. 3) The researcher gave the post-test to both groups and gave the questionnaire for the only experimental one. Implementation of the CTL approach to teaching narrative writing involved the components of the approach emphasizing more on the learning community, including the other components such as modelling, inquiry, and questioning. It could be illustrated that before going into the writing process, students were expected to understand the schematic structure and language features of the narrative text to build their insight into how to compose the personal narrative text and develop their ideas or thoughts to write the personal narrative text. In doing the activity, the researcher asked students to make a small group and handed them out a sample of the narrative text as modelling (adapted from Ms McClure’s class website, Language art). Students were asked to read the text and discuss its feature with their group. Those activities were a part of components of CTL, a learning community covering modelling, inquiry, and questioning. In their task, the students in the group were then asked to write a personal narrative text based on a given topic related to their experience. Students integrated their own experience or prior knowledge and ideas with their writing knowledge through the activity. This activity connected what they had previously acquired and the current information to build their knowledge. a) They are generating ideas. In generating ideas, the researcher asked students to use questioning as a free writing technique, such as who, what, when, where, why, and how. Nazario et al. (2010) assert that this involves asking yourself or having a classmate or friend ask you a series of probing questions about the topic idea you are considering. 59 This way is a journalist’s approach to gathering information. It is a quick way to gather information on a specific topic. b) Drafting. In this stage, the researcher had students organize their ideas from the earlier activity into sentences and paragraphs. During this stage, the researcher walked around and monitored students and gave guidance if it was necessary. c) Review and editing. In this stage, the researcher asked the students in their group to re-read and re- check their narrative writing carefully to make writing understandable. If the order of information was unclear, there were ungrammatical sentences, spelling, or punctuation mistakes, students then discussed it and corrected or re-wrote their writing. After students had finished their writing, the researcher assessed it and explained the general mistakes of students. The researcher allowed students to ask about the lesson during the learning process. At the end of the learning process, the researcher spent some minutes reflecting or thinking back on what they had learned. While in the control group, there was no treatment given. Students were only taught with the conventional approach or lecture one in the teaching- learning process. 3.4 Analysis of Data This study used three raters to score the students’ writing in both experimental and control groups to ensure the score's reliability. As Huges (2003) noted, it was essential to have at least two independent scores to avoid the subjectivity of scoring. The raters were at the same English education level and had been involved as a rater in research on writing. The writing test was scored by three independent raters utilizing an analytic score proposed (Cohen, 1994). Furthermore, data analysis used a nonparametric test, i.e., Mann-Whitney Test and Wilcoxon Test (SPSS, version 20), because the data were not distributed generally based on test normality. Meanwhile, the results of perceptional questionnaire data were analyzed employing the Likert scale measurement. 4. Result 4.1 The Implementation of the CTL approach The results of implementing the CTL approach enhance students’ narrative writing skills. The description of the result and statistical analysis of data about the significant difference in the mean score of students' narrative writing in both experimental and control groups and their perceptions of implementing the CTL approach. Table 4.1. Mean score of the experimental and control group, both pre and post-test Group Pre-test Post-test Experimental 10.14 16.05 Control 9.86 10.12 The above table illustrates the mean score of students’ narrative writing skills for both experimental and control groups in terms of pre and post-test. 10.14 is the mean score of the experimental group, and 9.86 is the control group's mean score. Furthermore, 16.05 is the mean score of the experimental group, and 10.12 is the control group's mean score in terms of the post-test. It shows that the experimental group has a better main score than the control one in the post-test. A more in-depth statistical investigation is required to determine whether the difference is significant. Therefore, the test of Man-Whitney U was then run to compare both mean scores for two unrelated groups. This test was run to acquire the significant difference between those groups on pre- test and post-test. A decision-making rule for this test is that the groups differ significantly if a p-value is lower than .05. The test result for the pre-test of both experimental and control groups showed that the Z value was --1.590. The probability value (P) was more significant than 5% at the level of significance (0.112> 0.05). It signifies that H0 is accepted. In other words, there was no significant difference in the students' pre-test scores between the experimental and control groups. It was assumed that at begin of the study, both groups were equal in the ability to write narrative writing. The result of the test is presented in table 4.2: 60 Table 4.2. The output of the Mann-Whitney Test Test Statistics Pre-test Experimental and Control Mann-Whitney U 254.000 Wilcoxon W 605.000 Z -1.590 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .112 a. Grouping Variable: Group Comparing the result of Mann-Whitney U for a post-test score of both experimental and control groups shows that the Z value was -1.590 and the probability value (P) is less than 5% at the level of significance (0.000 < 0.05). It indicates that H1 was accepted. In other words, there is a significant difference in post-test scores between the experimental and the control groups. The result of the test is presented in table 4.3: Table 4.3. The output of the Mann-Whitney Test Test of Statistics Posttest Experimental and Control Mann-Whitney U 1.000 Wilcoxon W 352.000 Z -6.197 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .000 a. Grouping Variable: Group Moreover, a Wilcoxon test was administered to acquire a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test for both groups. A making-decision rule of the test is that the data differ significantly if the probability value (P) is less than 5% at the level of significance (p < 0. 05). The result of the test is presented as follows: Table 4.4. The output of the Wilcoxon Test Test of Statistics Pretest - Posttest of Experimental group Z -4,109b Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 a. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test b. Based on negative ranks. The table 4.4 portrays that -4,109 is Z value and the p-value is 0.000 < 0.05. It indicates that the mean scores pre-test and post-test differ significantly. That indicates a statistically significant enhancement in the experimental group. It was assumed that the enhancement of students’ narrative writing is because the contextual teaching and learning approach, through its components, can make students engaged actively in the writing process, such as discussing and working together to construct students' understanding of writing narrative text. Compared to the result of the Wilcoxon test for the control group, it indicates that -1,622 was the Z value, and the p-value was 0.105 > 0.05. It means insignificant enhancement from pre-test and post-test for the control group. It was assumed that the insignificant enhancement in students’ control group was because it was taught in conventional one with teacher-center learning. Thus, the application of the CTL approach makes a positive contribution to teaching writing narrative skills. The result of the Wilcoxon test for the control group is presented at table 4.5: 61 Table 4.5. The output of the Wilcoxon test Test of Statistics Pretest - Posttest of Control Z -1,622b Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) ,105 a. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test b. Based on negative ranks. 4.2 Students’ Perception of the Application of the CTL Approach to Teaching Narrative Writing Skills Table 4.6. Perception of the students towards the implementation of the CTL approach Statements Negative positive highly Positive Learning to write through the CTL approach is more pleasurable and meaningful than teachers’ strategy beforehand. (1) 3.8 65.4 30.8 Learning to write through the CTL approach enhances my ability to write. (2) - 57.7 42.3 Learning to write through the CTL approach motivates me to write well. (3) 7.7 50.0 42.3 Learning to write through the CTL approach helps me understand how to write well more comprehensively than a strategy which an English teacher applies beforehand. (4) 7.7 53.8 38.5 Learning to write through the CTL approach improves my confidence in writing. (5) 11.5 61.5 26.9 Learning to write through the CTL approach enhances my activeness in the learning process. (6) - 69.2 30.8 Learning to write through the CTL approach stimulates my critical thinking. (7) 11.5 46.2 42.3 Learning to write through the CTL approach makes me easier convey the idea in writing. (8) 15.4 50.0 34.6 Learning to write through the CTL approach makes me optimistic about being able to write better. (9) 7.7 42.3 50.0 CTL approach is suitable to be used in teaching writing. (10) 3.8 38.5 57.7 Regarding to the second aims of this study which to investigate participants’ perception toward the implementation of the contextual teaching and learning approach in writing class, this study revealed that participants showed their positive perception, it is in line with the study conducted (Baker et al., 2009; Diah and Aswandi, 2014; Riance, 2013; Satriani et al., 2012). The data from questionnaire had shown that from 10 statements in the questionnaire, the participants gave their negative perception to 8 the statements in the questionnaire (i.e., 1=3.8%, 3=7.7%, 4= 7.7%, 5= 11.5%, 7= 11.5%, 8 =15.4%, 9 = 7.7%, 10=3.8%). %); the participants gave their positive perception (i.e., 1=65.4%, 2=57.7%, 3 = 50%, 4= 53.8%, 5= 61.5%, 6 =69.2%, 7 = 46.2%, 8=50%); %), and the participants gave their highly positive to 2 the statements in the questionnaire (i.e., 9= 50%, 10 = 57.7%). 62 From the result of statements number 1, 2, and 3, the researcher concluded that more than a half of the participants (those were 17 or participants 65.4%) gave their positive perception that learning to write through the CTL approach is more pleasurable and meaningful and more than a half of participants (those were 15 participants or 57.7%) also gave their positive perception that learning to write through CTL approach enhances my ability to write. Implementation of the CTL through the components improves the students' writing skills. They can engage them actively, interact and cooperate with others, and use their real life in the learning process. The researchers concluded that the students positively perceived the implementation of CTL in writing class. 5. Discussion This recent study investigated the implementation of the contextual teaching and learning approach to teaching students’ narrative writing skills and students’ perception of the implementation of the CTL approach to teaching narrative writing skills. 5.1. The extent of the CTL approach in improving student’s writing skill CTL approach contributes to the enhancement of students’ narrative writing skills. This study renders insight into an effective approach to teaching narrative through the writing process. Contextual teaching and learning is an approach to teaching that emphasizes the discovery of the meaning of the learning process through its components. The components work together to build a network by which students can better construct meaning and retain information (Johnson, 2002). This study emphasized the learning community covering the other components, modelling, inquiry, and questioning. In implementing those components in this study, the researchers found that they can make students actively engaged in the learning process, such as discussing and working together to construct students’ understanding of writing narrative text. The results of the study coincide with the previous findings by Indrilla (2018; Satriani et al. (2012), and Rafida (2016). The CTL approach could make students actively involved in collaborating and socialising with others in order to solve problems. As a result, the contextual approach makes learning more productive. Furthermore, Liu (2015) states that a key to building a learning process is the interaction and cooperation between learners and their surroundings. With teachers’ guidance and organisation, students are engaged actively to discuss, communicate, and debate together or share all ideas and intellect about what and how to write and so forth. Implementation of the learning community, including modelling, inquiry, and questioning, helps students build up their insight into composing their writing. Graham & Perin (2007b) explain that inquiry is an activity engaging students in analysing primary concrete data to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task. In the activities, the students were exposed to an activity working together in a group to inquire with an essay model. Under the teacher's guidance through questions, the students read and discussed the feature of the text and then presented the result. The teacher then gave the feedback. The researcher assumes that those activities render students a good starting point or preparation before composing their writing so that they become familiar with and have sufficient knowledge of the type of the text. As a result of this exposure to the essay model through inquiry, questioning, and cooperating, students can have better ideas of how to write their essays. This result supports the studies of Satriani et al. (2012) and Setiawati et al. (2018) that the application of the CTL approach made students collaborate and discuss in groups in the learning process. Consequently, students can construct their writing. According to Haryanto & Arty (2019), as quoted in Fahmi (2016), an inquiry activity makes students develop their knowledge and trains them to reason and think at a higher level. Learning community practices, students cooperating, sharing ideas, insight, and communicating with one another. Therefore, they have engaged actively in collaborative learning. Hillocks, quoted in Bagheri & Zare (2009), stated that it was essential to provide students with a model essay in teaching writing to be familiar with the type of the essay and understand its parts and their relation. More clearly, an essay model could help students acquire the knowledge of the language, vocabulary, and text structure needed for various purposes (Department of Education and Training, 2007). Therefore, the model essay focuses the students' attention on the text feature and is mainly concerned with developing the students' abilities to produce those features accurately. Furthermore, Krashen (1984) believes that one of the effective ways to learn to write is to obtain rich and comprehensive reading input. It is also important to assert that the learning community gives students benefits to the process of writing in terms of both generating ideas, reviewing and editing. In the process of writing in both group and individual work, the students cooperated with their group-mate to generate ideas that were next developed into a short personal narrative writing, constructed sentences, found vocabulary, and both the editing and revising process. According to Haryanto & Arty (2019), one of the characteristics of the contextual methods is group work, discussion, and peer correction. Therefore, students discuss one another, have the responsibility for solving the problems, and share ideas for solutions if they work together in a 63 group (Harmer, 2004). Winarti and Cahyono's (2020) study affirmed that collaborative writing integrated with process writing could be implemented in EFL writing pedagogy to improve students' writing ability. Most students felt that they gained many benefits from doing collaborative writing. Furthermore, questioning is one of the essential strategies of the CTL approach, as described previously, and it helps students in the inquiry activity and the writing process Raharjo (2013). In the writing process, this strategy is helpful for students to generate ideas and even gain knowledge of writing. Besides, this strategy also facilitates the teacher in guiding students to review their writing. In other words, this strategy is a mutual benefit for both teachers and students in learning writing. It aligns with Firdani & Fitriani's study (2017) on teaching writing through a guided question technique. They claimed that the technique effectively encouraged exploring ideas in the writing process. Therefore, they acquire ideas quickly to write in paragraphs. Another critical thing supporting the students' improvement of writing skills is that students bring their real-life or daily life into the learning process and then interrelate it to their current writing knowledge. In other words, students’ knowledge of how to write built through the inquiry activity was then applied in composing their writing related to real-life through coopering with others. This finding is also in line with the recent study conducted by Wahyuni (2021). They found that students did well in their studies of learning English as a foreign language and actively engaged in discussion due to the topics related to their real life. In addition, students’ motivation is enhanced in studying English because they are not only studying the language but improving their creativity in writing and cooperation. Furthermore, Nurzayyana et al. (2020) and Setiawati et al. (2018) stated that the students would have a joyful learning experience when a learning activity was related to their actual daily lives. In sum, the contextual teaching and learning approach can enhance students’ narrative writing skills. This case is because the CTL is a teaching methodology with some of its mutually supported components that enable students to actively engage in the writing process through learning community to cooperate with others and build their writing knowledge through modelling, inquiry, and questioning. Besides, using students' real life as a learning philosophy of the CTL can make students learn meaningfully. 5.2. The student's perception of the use of the CTL approach The result from the questionnaire indicates that students primarily respond positively to the application of the CTL approach. One of their responses shows that learning to write through the CTL is more pleasurable and meaningful. Furthermore, they also argue that their ability to write has improved. It is proved through the upshot of their mean post-test score improving after implementing the CTL approach. As stated previously, implementation of the components of the CTL through its components in the writing process enables the improvement of the students' narrative writing skills. They can engage them actively, interact and cooperate with others, and use their real life in the writing process. This case is also argued by K & Aswandi (2014), Satriani et al. (2012), and Rafida (2016). Students enthusiastically participated and were active in the learning process, and It also could create an environment conducive to learning writing in the CTL class. Similarly, Baker et al. 2009 contend that CTL is an effective strategy to involve students actively and promote improved learning and skill development. 6. Conclusions The main contribution of this current study was a new insight into the efficacy of the CTL approach to teaching narrative writing through its mutually supported components (i.e., learning community, including modelling, inquiry, and questioning) with the writing process. The current study concluded that the implementation of the CTL approach contributed significantly to the achievement of students’ narrative writing skills. It presented evidence that implementing the CTL approach to teaching writing helped students build up their insight into how to compose narrative writing better. In addition, the students positively perceived the implementation of the CTL approach. Students could be engaged actively, interact and cooperate with others, and use their real-life in learning. Therefore, the students could write narrative text better. The current study corroborated the findings of the prior studies. For future researchers, since the study data are focusing on the nonparametric test, similar studies can be conducted by extending and adding more participants and through an interview method that supports the result of the questionnaires. References Abas, I. H., & Abd Aziz, N. H. (2018). 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