TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYS ABOUT ANIMALS BY USING

REALIA TO THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF STATE JUNIOR HIGH

SCHOOL 21 OF PALEMBANG

A Journal By

VINTORINA FARAJOKIAN

Student Registration Number 2011111067

English Education Study Program
Language and Arts Education Department

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION

UNIVERSITY OF PGRI PALEMBANG
2016
 ABSTRACT

TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYS ABOUT ANIMALS BY USING

REALIA TO THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF STATE JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL 21 OF PALEMBANG

VINTORINA FARAJOKIAN
2011111067

The main problem of this study was Is it effective to teach writing descriptive
text about animals by using realia to the eighth grade Students of State Junior High
School 21 of Palembang? Therefore, the purpose of this study was to find out whether
it is effective or not to teach writing descriptive text about animals by using realia to the
eighth grade Students of State Junior High School 21 of Palembang.
The total population of this study was 265 students consist of seven classes.
choosing the sample for this study, the writer used convenience non-random sampling
method with the total 37 students. The method used in this study was the pre
experimental method. In this study, the data were collected through the written test and
were analyzed by using the matched t-test.
Based on the findings, the writer concludes the result of t-obtain was 12,674 it
was more than t-table was 1.688 or 12.674 > 1.688. So, the Null Hypothesis (Ho) was
rejected and consequently Alternative Hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. In other words,
teaching writing descriptive text about animals by using realia to the eighth grade
students of the State Junior High School 21 of Palembang was effective

Keywords : Teaching, Descriptive Text, Realia.

 ABSTRAK

PENGAJARAN MENULIS DESKRIPTIF TENTANG HEWAN DENGAN

MENGGUNAKAN REALIA UNTUK SISWA KELAS KEDELAPAN NEGARA
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 21 PALEMBANG

VINTORINA FARAJOKIAN
2011111067

Masalah utama dari penelitian ini adalah "Apakah efektif untuk mengajarkan
menulis teks deskriptif tentang hewan dengan menggunakan realia ke Siswa kelas VIII
SMP Negeri 21 Palembang?" Oleh karena itu, tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk
mengetahui apakah efektif atau tidak untuk mengajar menulis teks deskriptif tentang
hewan dengan menggunakan realia ke Siswa kelas VIII SMP Negeri 21 Palembang.
Total populasi dari penelitian ini adalah 265 siswa terdiri dari tujuh kelas.
memilih sampel untuk penelitian ini, penulis menggunakan kenyamanan non-random
sampling dengan total 37 siswa. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah
metode eksperimental pra. Dalam penelitian ini, data yang dikumpulkan melalui tes
tertulis dan dianalisis dengan menggunakan cocok t-tes.
Berdasarkan temuan, penulis menyimpulkan hasil dari t-memperoleh adalah
12.674 itu lebih dari t-tabel adalah 1,688 atau 12,674> 1,688. Jadi, Hipotesis Nol (Ho)
ditolak dan akibatnya Alternatif Hipotesis (Ha) diterima. Dengan kata lain, mengajar
menulis teks deskriptif tentang hewan dengan menggunakan realia untuk siswa kelas
delapan dari SMP Negeri 21 Palembang efektif

Kata kunci: Pengajaran, Teks Deskriptif, Realia

Background speaking, reading and writing (Saleh,

The communication can be
implemented orally and in written. In
oral language, we know listening and
speaking, in which listening means
understanding the spoken language, and
speaking means using the language
orally. In written language, there are
reading and writing. Learning a
language means learning to gain the
competence in the language skills.
Learning a foreign language means
trying to get a good mastery of the
language for the purpose of
communication. The learners make
effort to gain competence in listening,
2001:27). The mastery of the language,
especially English will have a student to
develop him or herself to get knowledge
easily in every field of the study since
many books are written in that
language. In teaching and learning
English as a foreign language at Junior
high school grade, the teacher teaches
the language based on curriculum and
KTSP.
Competency based curriculum
and KTSP deals with an approach that
stresses on knowledge, skill and attitude
that should be based on the
understanding that will form the
learners competence. The aim of
curriculum based competency are to
develop the quality of education not
only the quality of human source but
also the quality of teaching and learning
process KTSP curriculum develops the
four skills language, listening, speaking,
reading, writing (Depdiknas, 2003: 1).
In fact, writing is the last skill that is
drafting to give ideas and form in the
symbols of written language. Teaching
writing will always be a challenging
task because writing itself is so difficult.
Many people think that is writing is not
an easy job, thats why it cannot
guarantee someone who is expert in
talking will be good at writing. It also
happens to the students. They find it
difficult to be involved in writing.
Actually, writing is not as difficult as
people think if they have ideas in mind.
The problem is how to get the
ideas. The students do not know how to
get started and generated ideas.
Generating ideas can be enjoyable
process, when writings are generating
ideas. They are free to say what they
want to say, to think what they want to
think and to break as many rules of
grammar and punctuation as they
happen to break. Concerning with the
problem faced by the students in
writing, the writer tries to help them
express and develop their ideas, feelings
and thoughts in written form through an
activity in writing a paragraph.
Brown (2004:218) argues that
writing skills is necessary condition for
achieving employment in many walks
of life and is simply taken for granted
in literary cultures students are assigned
to write paragraphs with given topics
and hand them in. without any feedback
or correction, the students works are
returned. And very often they are not
return to the students. Attempts to teach
writing usually focused on some
particular problematic aspect of the
writing situation (Byrne, 2008:21). In
other words, the teaching of writing has
not enforced and promoted students to
be engaged in writing. Beside, students
are not providing with a variety of
meaningful activity to write or practice
writing.
To facilitate the teaching of
writing in the classroom, the writer
attempts to give an alternative method
by using realia. Acoording to Argawati
(2009:32) Realia are objects from real
life used to improve students'
understanding of other cultures and real
life situations in classroom instruction.
A teacher of a foreign language often
employs realia to strengthen students'
associations between words for
everyday objects and the objects
themselves.
By presenting information
through diverse media, realia helps to
make English language input as
comprehensible as possible. and to
build an associative bridge between the
classroom and the world. Realia are not
only a series of artifacts that describe
the customs and tradition of a culture,
but they are also a 'set of teaching aids
that facilitate the simulation of
experience in the target culture. Realia
provides language learners with multi-
sensory impressions of the language
which, as Rivers (1983) notes is
"learned partly at least through seeing,
hearing, touching and manipulating"
items. And interaction with authentic
materials aids in contextually grounding
instruction by bringing students into
contact with language as it is used in the
target culture in order to meet actual
communication needs. The use of realia,
then, can enhance linguistic and cultural
comprehensibility, which are both
prerequisites for real language learning.
Dealing with the background
above, the writer is interested in doing
research by using realia. In this case, the
writer will focus on Teaching Writing
Descriptive Text about Animals by
using Realia to the Eighth Grade
Students of State Junior High School
21 of Palembang.
Problem
The problem of this study was
the students are lack of vocabulary.
Beside, the students sometimes found it
difficult to use appropriate vocabulary
with the context, and then media of
teaching learning process is not
interesting. Based on the fact above, in
this study a new media called realia was
used in teaching writing. It focuses on
using realia for improving students
ability in writing paragraph to the
eighth grade students of the State Junior
High School 21 of Palembang.
The Limitation of the Problem
This study was limited on
students ability in writing descriptive
text about animals by using realia. The
material that taught is about animals
they are cat, rabbit, fish, tiger and
panda. The number of sentences was
written ten sentences in paragraph.
The Formulation of the Problem
The Formulation of the problem
was as follows: Is it effective to teach
writing descriptive text about animals
by using realia to the eighth grade
Students of State Junior High School 21
of Palembang?
The Objective of the Study
Based on the formulation of the
problem above, the objectives of this
study was to find out whether or not it is
effective to teach writing descriptive
text about animals by using realia to the
eighth grade students of State Junior
High School 21 of Palembang.
The Concept of Teaching
Teaching may be defined as
showing or helping someone to do
something, giving instruction, guiding
in the study of something, providing
knowledge, causing to know or
understanding (Brown, 1987:7). It
means that as a teacher we have many
duties such as a teacher as facilitator, as
a guide, as a motivator, and as a
manager in the classroom.
According to Saleh (1997:19),
teaching is an interactive process
between the teacher and students and
among students themselves. In relation
to the definition of teaching, Brown
(1987:24) defines teaching as
showing or helping someone to
learn how to do something, giving
instructions, guiding the study of
something, providing with knowledge,
causing to know or understand
Furthermore, Hornby
(2005:1574) say that teaching is the
ideas of particular person or group,
especially about politics, religion or
society that are taught to other people.
Teaching is a carried out on the basis of
specified learning of objectives: (1)
specific behavioral objectives
identifying the exact feature(s) the
students are to learn and use, and (2)
expressive objectives which are closely
connected with communicative
competence (Chastain in Saleh,
1997:17).
From the concept above, it can be
concluded that teaching is guiding and
facilitating the process of teaching, and
setting the condition of learning in the
class.
The Concept of Writing
Sharples (1999:3) states that
writing is peculiar activity, both easy
and difficult. The more we think about
how we do it, the more difficult it
becomes. Learning to write is not just a
natural extension of learning to speak a
language (Raimes,1983:4 ). Writing
also involves the encoding of message
that is a writer translates his or her
thoughts into language.
According Troyka (1987) that
writing is a way of communicating a
message to a reader for a purpose.
Communicating means sending a
message so, a message must have
destination. The message of writing is
its content, and the reader of writing is
the audience. Calkins (1986) in
Peregoy and Boyle (1993:182) argues
that writing is another powerful
strategy that promotes discovery,
comprehension, and retention of
information. It is true that ones success
in learning a language can be measured
through his or her writing.
Concept of Realia
Realia is a term used in library
science and education to refer to certain
real-life objects. In library classification
systems, realia are objects such as
coins, tools, and textiles that do not
easily fit into the orderly categories of
printed material or naturally occurring
(specimens, samples, etc. ), usually
borrowed, purchased, or received as
donation by teacher, library, or museum
for use in classroom instruction or in
exhibits.
According Platt (2002), Realia
(in language teaching) are actual objects
and items which are brought into a
classroom as example or as aids to be
talked written about and used in
teaching or concrete objects and the
paraphernalia of everyday life. In
Education, realia are objects from real
life used in classroom instruction.
Realia include objects used by
educators to help students to understand
better other cultures and real life
situations. Anything which has a
purpose outside of the ESL and can be
bought into the classroom as media in
imitation form of all things, for
examples: replica of landscapes,
miniature of house, imitation of fruits or
vegetable (Robertson, & Hofmann in
http ://www.wlc.com./oxus/realia.htm).
A teacher of a foreign language
often employs realia to strengthen
students' associations between words
for everyday object and the object
themselves. In foreign Language
instruction, the realia has a broader
meaning, which includes photos of
objects from a country where the target
language is spoken. The two meanings
are closely related because of the
support many types of libraries give to
educational endeavors. By presenting
information through diverse media,
realia helps to make English language
input as comprehensible as possible.
and to build "an associative bridge
between the classroom and the world"
(Heaton, 1979). As Berwald (1987) note
so realia o'are not only a series of
artifacts that describe the customs and
tradition of a culture, but they are also a
'set of teaching aids that facilitate the
simulation of experience in the target
culture" (my italics).
Realia provides language
learners with multi-sensory impressions
of the language which, as Rivers (1983)
notes "learned partly at least through
seeing, hearing, touching and
manipulating" items. And interaction
with authentic materials aids in
contextually grounding instruction by
bringing students into contact with
language as it is used in the target
culture in order to meet actual
communication needs. The use of realia,
then, can enhance linguistic and cultural
comprehensibility, which are both
prerequisites for real language learning.
Realia is objects in the class
because it adds interest and relates
language to the real world. The use of
realia fall into three main areas, first, for
descriptions, and second, as props in
drama and another type of activity is a
creative thinking exercise, finding
different uses for object, e.g. a ruler
could be a weapon, musical instrument,
a symbol of authority and so on.
Population and Sample
The population of this study
took from the entire the eighth grade
students of the State Junior High School
21 of Palembang in the academic year
of 2015/2016. The total population of
this study was 265 students consist of
seven classes.
In choosing the sample for this
study, the writer used purposive non-
random sampling because the sample
was chosen based on purpose of the
study. Based on this sample technique
class VIII.4 was chosen as the sample.
The sample is shown in Table 2 below.
Technique for Collecting the Data
In collecting data the writer
used written tests, in format pre-test and
post-test. The pre-test gave to the
students before the investigation. The
test consisted one question. The
students should make a descriptive
paragraph. The post-test gave to the
students after teaching by using realia in
teaching writing descriptive text. The
test items are exactly the same as the
items in pre-test.
Technique for Analyzing the Data
In analyzing the data obtained
from the test, the writer used the
matched t-test. The scoring of written
test was judged by two raters. The first
rater was the writer and the second rater
is teacher to avoid the biased judgment
of writer toward each score of students
written test.
Firstly, the scores of the test was
tabulated into pre-test and post-test to
differentiate the result before treatment
(pre-test) and after treatment (post-test)
and find out the significant difference
between pre-test and post-test (Hatch
and Farhady, 1987:116).
In this study, the data was
analyzed by three techniques; they were
(1) the criteria for scoring the students
writing, (2) the convesion of percentage
range, and (3) matched t-test.
Interpretation
The realia applied for eight
meetings by some topic. In the last
meeting, the researcher did the post-test
to know the students progress before
and after group investigation is applied.
The students average score in the
posttest got 79.95 or good level. The
comparison between pre-test and the
post-test was different; in other word
using group investigation method could
increase the students score it with the
gain score was 14.44 (79.95 65.49).
Realia provides language
learners with multi-sensory impressions
of the language which, as Rivers (1983)
notes is "learned partly at least through
seeing, hearing, touching and
manipulating" items. And interaction
with authentic materials aids in
contextually grounding instruction by
bringing students into contact with
language as it is used in the target
culture in order to meet actual
communication needs. The use of realia,
then, can enhance linguistic and cultural
comprehensibility, which are both
prerequisites for real language learning.
Realia is objects in the class
because it adds interest and relates
language to the real world. The use of
realia fall into three main areas, first, for
descriptions, and second, as props in
drama and another type of activity is a
creative thinking exercise, finding
different uses for object, e.g. a ruler
could be a weapon, musical instrument,
a symbol of authority and so on.
From the description above we
know that realia was good method for
teachers who are new to cooperative
approach, it use the individual quizzes
at the end of class and it can improve
the students especially in teaching
writing descriptive text to the eighth
grade students of the State Junior High
School 21 of Palembang.
The above results, it was given
researchers experience when she
teaches the students. By using realia, in
fact the students will motivate in
teaching learning process.
Conclusion
From the findings of the study,
the writer concluded that :
1) The mean score of the students
in the pre-test was lower than
the mean score of the students in
the post-test. The comparison of
the test was 79.95 to 65.49. It
means realia could develop the
students ability in writing
descriptive text.
2) The students who were
treatment had the highest score.
It means that realia was one of
effective ways in creasing the
students ability in writing
descriptive text.
3) The result of t-obtain was
12,674 it was more than t-table
was 1.688 or 12.674 > 1.688.
So, the Null Hypothesis (Ho)
was rejected and consequently
Alternative Hypothesis (Ha) was
accepted. In other words,
teaching writing descriptive text
through realia to the eighth
grade students of the State
Junior High School 21 of
Palembang was effective.
Suggestions
From the conclusions above,
some suggestions can be dedicated to
teachers of English, students, other
researchers.
1) To Teachers of English
The writer suggests the teacher
of English to use various media
or technique in teaching writing.
2) To Students
The students should pay attention
to the teachers explanation
about the lesson, the students
should increase their writing
ability to get more information
and add their knowledge, the
students consult with the teacher
of English, and when the
students have difficulties in
learning English.
3) To Others Researchers,
The researcher hopes that this
media could be useful to other
researchers to help the students
writing acquisition. And it could
be reference to other researchers
who would take the research
about teaching writing.
REFERENCES
Arikunto. Suharsimi. 2006. Dasar-
dasar Evaluasi pendidikan.
Jakarta: Penerbit Bumi Aksara.
Barnett, Marva A.1989. More Than
Meets The Eve Foreign
Language Reading Theory And
Practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Finocchiaro, Mary. 1989. English as a
Second/Foreign Language:
From Thoery to Practice.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice
Hall Regents.
Fraenkel, Jack R, Norman E MA: Newbury House
Wallen.1990. How to Design Publishers, Inc.
and Evaluate Research in
Education. New York, NY: Joyce et al, Reynolds and Mariane
McGraw-Hill Publishing Clifford. 1992. Reading for
Company. Understanding. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, Inc.
Gunning Thomas G.1992. Creating
Reading in Traction for All Lipson, Marjorie Y and Karen. 1991.
Children. Boston Ma. Allyn Assessment Instruction of
And Bacon. Reading as Ability. An
Interactive Approach, New
Hornby, A.S. 1989. Oxford Advanced York: The University Press.
Learners Dictionary of Current
English. New York, NY: Oxford Mackey, William Francis.1965.
University Press. Language Teaching Analysis.
London: Longman Group.Ltd.
Hornby, A.S.1995. Oxford Advanced
Learners Dictionary for Saleh, Yuslizal. 1997. Methodology Of
Current English.5th (ed). New TEFL: Faculty of Teacher
York, NY: Oxford University Training and Education:
Press. Palembang Sriwijaya
University.
Hatch, Evelyn, Hossein Farhady.1982.
Research Design and Statistics Wright, Andrew.1989. Pictures for
for Applied Linguistics. Rowley, Language Learning. New York:
Cambridge University.