CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Problem
Human being as a social creature needs communication in order to survive in his/her life. They can deliver their idea, mind, thought and ask something to the others through communication. One of the ways of communication is writing. Writing is one of an important skill to be learned in English Language Learning. It has occupied a place in most English language course. Students have to master this skill, because they need it for occupational or academic purpose where it implicates good understanding in English.
The teaching of writing which was once concerned with the final product of writing has shifted the concern into the writers’ composing process. Al Jamal (2009) noted this shift from studying writing itself to study what writers do as they write. Before the process approach emerged, writing was centered on students’ final product and the grade was based on how much students’ product imitate the given model. Meanwhile, the process approach views writing as a process.
Writing is not an easy task as individual product, in term of skill, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing that should do in language. Ken Hyland (2002) divided writing process into 4 stages; prewriting, writing, rewriting and post writing. In that process, writing is skill that used to express idea, thought, feeling and opinion in written form. In expressing all of these, a writer should consider many things such as the grammatical sentences, the choice of words, the flow of thought, and the rhetorical structure. Unfortunately, based on the facts found in the field, students had some problems in writing. Writer’s experience during teaching practice and the result of interview with several English teachers in MAN I Padusunan Pariaman, show that the students were not write essays satisfactory by the competencies expected based on five components in the profile of writing by Jacob (1981:1) which they are content, organization, vocabulary, language use and mechanic.
In conclusion, students could not write essays satisfactorily and it was stated on failing scores on student’s essays assignment were indicated in grade books. Many students failed in writing skill such as writing sentences, paragraphs development (organization), and usage of correct grammar.
Table 1.1
Students’ Writing Score in the First Semester of 2008/2009 Academic Year
| Class | Mean |
| XI.1 | 59,03 |
| XI.2 | 58,66 |
| XI.3 | 59,23 |
| XI.4 | 58,10 |
| XI.5 | 57,80 |
Source: Teacher’s data collection of MAN I Padusunan Pariaman
The table shows the data about students’ achievement in writing of MAN I Padusunan, Pariaman. Student’s problems are lack of vocabulary, difficult to develop the ideas and application of the language features, also student’s ability to organize information or idea to make text is low. They just try to combine some information without good attention to make text coherent and text generic structure. So the result is created not systematic and other people cannot follow the development of the ideas. Factually, teacher’s factor also influenced their ability to develop and improve student’s writing ability.
Teachers still use the traditional classroom management where the classroom organization was a teacher fronted one, with learners sitting in rows facing the teacher. They spent most of their time repeating and manipulating models provided by the teacher and text book. Students do not learn how to express their own ideas and to share these ideas by communicating it.
The facts show that teachers just done administrated short answer test that did not require students to demonstrate writing skill. Teacher did not concern with writing process and the impact to their students. Automatically, students afraid and not confident with the capability and difficult to find their errors in draft writing. This problem made during those time a lot of students consider that writing is a boring activity because of tools or the materials are too monotonous, so that they become bored in writing.
Considering the explanation above, English teachers must have responsibility as they are demanded to have teaching strategy in order to solve the problem faced by the student in learning English. Teachers must be able to arrange their assignments effectively. They are demanded to motivate the student in order to learn English well.
That all indicated teaching method becomes one of the important points of the teaching learning activities. Basically, method refers to the teaching learning approach, design and procedure. The teacher’s notion of writing also is very important to determine the most suitable strategies and approach for good writing. Teachers have to turn their classrooms into communities of learners, as the focus of writing pedagogy shifts from written products to writing as a process and as ways of making knowledge, including writing are viewed from a collaborative or social perspective (Bruffee, 1983 and Faigley, 1985 in Ericdigests.org). Related to the fact, teaching writing need appropriate technique in order that the students are active and creative in writing skill. The writer plans to use a new technique to make students more interested in writing. In this research, writer chooses narrative text in technique application.
Narrative text is one the genre which learned as a material in every class. Many students cannot present it in good written form like opening establishes setting, introduces characters, complication and resulting events. To make the students interested in the materials, using peer response groups is expected to make them understand the step to make the sentence linked together. DiPardo & Freedman (1987) in Jamal (2009) argued convincingly that the use of peer groups in the writing classroom goes beyond the goals of the paradigm shift to process and perhaps more importantly, supports the critical role of social interaction in language learning. Implementation of peer response group in writing narrative text hoped change instruction views writing in progress. Students can improve their ability in writing by drafting and revision process.
Peer response group is one of the strategies of CLL that can be used in writing class. Cooperative Language Learning is part of a more general instructional approach also known as Collaborative Learning (CL). Cooperative Learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom (Harmer, 2001:192). If the teachers train students to work effectively in group, the result can be a very productive (and fun) learning environment. By implementing peer writing groups, teacher encourage students to give, seek, and react to oral feedback among themselves as they write, in addition to reacting to the teacher’s traditional comments on finished papers (Herman in Ericdigests : 2009).
Based on the background of the problem above, the researcher was interested to conduct the research under the title of: “The Use of Peer Response Group Technique in the Teaching and Learning Process of Writing at Islamic Senior High School I Padusunan Pariaman”. The main problem to be answered in this research is "Does the use of peer response group technique improve students’ writing ability?”
B. Identification of the Problem
Writing is a highly complex, goal directed, recursive activity. It develops over time as writers move the production of egocentric, writer based texts to reader based texts (Flower and Hayes (2001) in Kohteck Siew. pdf). Students must be able to organize the idea, to construct the sentence, to use punctuation and spelling well. Beside, they also must be able to arrange their writing into cohesive and coherent paragraphs and text. Writing is not an easy task as individual product, in term of skill, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in language. These matters ask the teacher to find the technique that can change the paradigm of student to think writing is complicated activity.
Writer looked up the crucial problem are teacher centered approach that still used in writing classroom. Teacher correct students’ language errors from the first draft, but they do not provide opportunities for students to think how to improve their written draft. Teacher totally cannot control and care every student’s papers. As a result, students have difficulties in conveying their ideas clearly and what the teacher corrects for them might disappear from their memory in a short time.
Peer response technique, as one of the cooperative learning activities, which may be the primary stage to enhance autonomous learning, it’s included in the process writing approach. A short survey of the theories thus affirms that peer editing has the potential to improve students’ quality of writing. Peer response or usually said as peer editing involves student interaction that promotes the development of interpersonal intelligence (Gardner
Learners working in peers group, students become skilled at cooperating with others and express their own opinions, ideas and feelings guided by the teacher. Students can help each other and themselves through peer response (or peer critique) groups. Peer response groups, if set up carefully, can help students master writing skills, sharpen their editing skills, and become better editors of their own work.
Peer responses can help at any stage of the writing process. More specifically, peers working together can:
- brainstorm on topics and thesis sentences
- develop content and sharpen arguments
- consider how well the writer accommodates to an audience and communicates a purpose
- revise a text conform to the conventions of Edited American English or to the conventions of a given discourse type
- check a text for organization, coherence, and readability (ucwv.edu).
C. Limitation of the Problem
There are many strategies in teaching writing, in this research, the writer will use peer response groups strategy. Peer response or peer feedback can simply mean feedback provided by peers, comparing feedback by teachers (Yang, 2004 in Zeng (2006:1). Liu and Hansen define it in a more detail way as “the use of learners as sources of information and interact ants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor or editor in commenting on and critique each other’s draft in both written and oral formats in the process of writing” (2002:1).
According to identification of the problem above, the writer focus on how peers response group’s strategy can improve students writing ability in genre of narrative text at grade XI of MAN I Padusunan, Pariaman in academic year 2009/2010. The research limited on cognitive aspect only toward students’ writing achievement.
D. Formulation of the Problem
Peer response group can be applied in every kind of text (genre), but writer just chose one of text that usual taught as competency of curriculum that is Narrative text. Based on the focus of study and the literature regarding writing skill, the researcher develops the following research question about peer response groups: “Do students who are taught by using peer response technique have better writing skill than who are not taught by peer response group strategy?” Specifically, the research questions of this study are formulated as follow:
1. Does the use of peer response technique improve students’ writing ability?
2. What kinds of cooperation pattern (activities) in writing can be developed through the use of peer response technique?
E. Purpose of the Study
The general objective of this study is to prove whether peer response groups technique improve students’ writing ability and the specific objectives of the study are as follows:
1. To find out the effect of the use of peer response technique toward students’ achievement in writing
2. To find out the types of cooperation pattern (activities) that can be developed through peer response group strategy.
F. Significance of the Study
This study is expected to stimulate students in writing activity that indirectly develop their ability in writing process itself. Its also contributes to the importance of writing process to develop students’ abilities through work together in that process. It’s also expected to know the impact that caused by application of peer response strategy that can measure how better this strategy contribute to writing teaching and learning process.
This research is demanded to give some contributions to the English teachers to pay more attention in teaching writing and give more practical drills on the writing activity that are found difficult to the students.
G. Operational Definition
It is important to put a clear definition of some key terms used in this study to avoid misunderstanding on some conceptual terms that might occur later on. The following definitions will be used:
1. Cooperative learning: cooperative learning involves working together to accomplish shared goals, using skills that benefit each group member (Johnson and Johnson, 1993).
2. Peer response or peer feedback can simply mean feedback provided by peers, comparing feedback by teachers (Yang, 2004). It is sometimes mentioned as peer response, peer review, peer rating, peer assessment, or peer editing. Liu and Hansen define it in a more detail way as “the use of learners as sources of information and interact ants for each other in such a way that learners assume roles and responsibilities normally taken on by a formally trained teacher, tutor, or editor in commenting on and critique each other’s drafts in both written and oral formats in the process of writing” (2002: 1).
3. Writing is an activity which is done to express our thought, idea, perception on a piece of paper that we want the readers to know and understand what we write.
4. Strategy is one among other factors caused students’ failure in writing. Strategy is all methods, efforts, steps and planning to realize objectives. Strategy is defined by some experts in many kinds. Oxford
5. Technique is a particular way of doing something (Hornby, 2000:1388).
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