Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation

E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

INCREASING THE WRITING ABILITY THROUGH WHOLESOME

SCATTERING GAME

Juvrianto CJ

Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia

juvrianto.chrissunday@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

The objective of the research is to find out whether or not the teaching through
wholesome scattering game can increase the students’ writing ability of
Indonesian seventh-year secondary school students. Quantitative approach with
two groups pre-test post-test design undertaken in this research. The population
was the seventh year students of one state secondary school in 2013/2014 school
year. The total number of population is 392 students and two classes of nine
classes were taken as the sample by using cluster random sampling. They were
given treatment for writing descriptive text. The findings of this study as the
effect of wholesome scattering game to increase student’s writing ability, as
shown the result of post-test (75.18) is higher than the result of pre-test (65.79),
and the t-test value (4.916) is greater than t-table value in the level 0.05 (1.671).
It indicated that H1 was accepted and H0 was rejected. It means that wholesome
scattering game can increase the students writing ability.

Keywords: Wholesome Scattering Game, Writing, Descriptive Text

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

INTRODUCTION

Writing is one of the four language skills that can be the measurement of
literacy development in a country, it also has not become entrenched yet, especially in
Indonesia. The writing skill is regarded as the most difficult and complex language skill
because it requires t h e extent of perception and involves thinking process
extensively. Disabilities in writing convince by the most people caused by t h e failure of
teaching writing. A large amount of research show that all this time teaching writing
only focuses on the theory of grammar or writing concept, it does not support the students
to write as much as possible. The result is although the students get the teaching writing,
they only master the theory, proposition, or the principle how to write.
According to Celce (2001), the ability to express an idea in second or foreign
language especially in writing skill is a major problem for many native speakers to write
coherence of paragraph and accuracy in choosing sentences. Next, she has stressed that
there is no doubt that writing is a difficult skill for second language or foreign language
learners to be mastered.
Hashemi (2013) stated that writing is an integral part of a language course. It is
complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and
rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgmental elements. Sun (2009) stated that
writing a process including several stages, namely prewriting or invention activities
drafting; seeking feedback from peers or the instructor; revising on the whole-text level
followed by revising at the paragraph or sentence level, proofreading, and “publishing” the
final text.
Based on the observation of the seventh year secondary school students, the
researcher found that the students’ rate score writing ability is 59.44 score. This score is as
poor level based standardization, while the standardization of the seventh year students
should be 71. Learning English in terms weak caused by motivation and learning style
students still lacking and weak.

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

Regarding those studies, one of alternatives solutions to increase writing ability is

through wholesome scattering game. The use of game in teaching can be a good technique
that can be used by an English teacher in order to reach students’ motivation and
understanding in a learning process. An English teacher, in that case, needs to be responsive
to the classroom situation in order to take an accurate measure. The classroom atmosphere
should be relaxed so that learners can be active in every activity. A game is one of the ways
that can be used in teaching writing a descriptive text by using game the students are able to
write the composition of the object easily and enjoyable.
According to McCallum (1980), games provide language teachers with many
advantages are that learners are motivated to learn the language when they are in a game.
For many children between four and twelve years old, especially the youngest, language
learning will not be the key motivational factor. Games can provide this stimulus.
Similarly, Crookal (1990) says that games are advantageous at this point because they
reduce anxiety, increase positive feeling and improve self-confidence because learners do
not afraid of punishment or criticism while practicing the target language freely.
Wholesome scattering game is one game that is interesting and useful to increase
students' writing ability. In this game, the students are given some keywords to stimulate
their writing ability. The student can find ideas to write sentences or paragraphs from
keywords.
Wholesome scattering game is a game which students predict the content of
passage and duplicate sentences by using a single word that has been given by the
teacher. It was promoted by Hess (1991) on her book entitle Head Stars. Students, on
occasion not only predict the content of the passage they are about to read, but also almost
duplicate sentences, which actually appear in it. The teacher might find that the first step
of arranging the words in weird and unusual ways is fun and takes quite a while. It is
worth the effort. Students will not quickly forget these words.
Hess (1991) stated some advantages of using wholesome scattering game in the
classroom, namely:

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

a) To stimulate students` ideas to write sentences. Students usually have blank ideas
when they are thought material. In this game, students will be given some keywords
to stimulate their brain. They hoped can get some ideas in writing descriptive text.
b) It is easy to be prepared when teachers want to use a media in their activities, they
have to decide whether it is difficult to prepare or not, wholesome scattering game is
a simple game, so it is easy to be prepared. The teacher prepares some keywords
appropriate for the material.
c) Students could develop their text based on keywords have been given by the teacher.
Finally, whole scattering game drills students to know the spelling, meaning,
pronunciation all keywords.

METHOD

1. Research Design
This research applied a quantitative approach with two classes as the sample. This
research used cluster random sampling technique to choose two classes from the
population which represented the experimental and control class because the population
was relative homogeny and the amount of the sample was large.
2. Research Subjects
The population of this research was the seventh year students of a state secondary
school in Pare-Pare, Indonesia. Two from the nine classes used as the sample for the
experimental and control class. The total number of participants was 87 students.
3. Research Procedures
The procedures for collecting data were conducted with three steps: pre-test,
treatment, and post-test. The pre-test intended to know and check the prior knowledge of
English writing ability of students before treatment. The students are free to choose a topic
from four topics that given by the researcher. The treatment conducted into four meeting,
each meeting is run during 2 x 40 minutes. Every meeting used descriptive text as material
in teaching and learning process with different themes like people, animal, and thing. The

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

post-test is given to know the result after the treatment. In the post-test, the researchers also
gave four kinds of topic.
4. Research Instruments
The instrument of this research was a writing test. The pre-test and post-test are
intended to measure the ability and the progress of the students in writing descriptive
paragraphs. The students are free to choose a topic from four topics (my idol, my pet, my
favorite thing, and my classmate) given by the researcher. The paragraph length is
minimally 100 words.

RESULT

The findings were obtained through the writing test of the participants in the
2017/2018 school year. The researcher applied all of the procedures that had been shown
in the last chapter. In addition, the researcher gave to the students both of pre-test and post-
test. After that, it was continued by analyzing their score between pre-test and post-test
both of the classes, experimental class, and control class. It aims to find out the significant
difference of the student from both of the classes, the researcher collected data from the
tests which have been given to the students after analyzing the data, the researcher found
the students’ score and it was tabulated in table 1.
Table 1. Frequency and percentages of two groups pretest and posttest
Experimental class Control class
No Classification Score G Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test
F % F % F % F %
1 Very good 96-100 A 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
91-95 A- 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 Good 86-90 B+ 0 0 3 6.81 0 0 0 0
81-85 B 0 0 12 27.27 0 0 1 2.32
75-80 B- 2 4.54 8 18.18 2 4.65 12 27.90
3 Fair 70-74 C+ 3 6.81 8 18.18 3 6.97 4 9.30
65-69 C 5 11.36 12 27.27 5 16.27 9 20.93
60-64 C- 11 25 1 2.27 11 25.58 5 11.62
4 Poor 55-59 D+ 14 31.81 0 0 14 9.30 7 11.27
< 55 D- 9 20.45 0 0 9 37.20 5 11.62
Total 44 100 44 100 43 100 43 100

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

The pre-test score of experimental class shows that two students (4.54%) got good
classification, 19 (43.17%) students got fair classification, 23 (52.26%) students got poor
classification, but in the post-test 23 (52.26%) students got good classification, 21
(47.72%) students in fair classification and none student in poor got poor classification.
The result of the pre-test in the experimental class is not suitable with what researcher
expected but in the post-test had seen some increasing score although there some students
still in fair classification. It indicates that the students writing ability increased after being
taught through wholesome scattering game.
The mean score of the total scores for two classes for α = 0.05 level significance are
different this shows that t-test value in pre-test (0.661) was smaller than t-table value
(1.671), it means that there was no significant difference between the students’ pre-test of
both classes. The t-test value in post-test (4.916) was greater than t-table value (1.671), it
means that there was a significant difference between the students’ post-test of both
classes.
This research supports some previous research findings. The first is conducted by
Arif (2012) in his research entitled “Improving the writing skill of the eighth year students
of SMP Negeri 1 Suppa through clustering technique”. He concludes through clustering
technique able to improve the writing ability and motivate the students to write in learning
English, it is proven that the students writing ability score taught through clustering
technique are better than before.
The second previous research finding is conducted by Herman (2012) in his
research entitled “Improving the writing ability of the eighth year students through
paraphrasing technique”. He concludes that paraphrasing technique was able to improve
the writing ability of the eighth year students.
The last previous research finding is conducted by Syafitra (2012) in her research
entitled “Improving the writing skill by using puzzle game”. She concludes that the using
of puzzle game able to improve the students writing ability and the students more
enjoyable.

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The previous findings above have a relationship with this research is the use of
some words to develop the writing ability. Clustering technique is listing words to get
ideas to write about something in a circle around the topic. Paraphrasing technique is
restated other’s in the own words while puzzle game is to arrange random words into a
sentence or perfect text.
This research increases the writing ability through wholesome scattering game. In
this game, students are given some words to stimulate their brain and they can get some
ideas in writing. The students predict the content of passage by using those keywords. In
other words, the students write descriptive text by using some words that have been given.
Therefore, the researcher believed that wholesome scattering game is better to increase the
students writing ability than the other technique who found the previous researcher.
Wholesome scattering game able to stimulate students’ ideas to write sentence especially
to write descriptive text, students used keywords to stimulate their brain to write similar
with theory who expressed by Hess (1991) that wholesome scattering game able to
stimulate students’ ideas to write sentences.
After using wholesome scattering game, the researcher found that through
wholesome scattering game able to increase the writing ability especially to write
descriptive text in experimental class. Students more motivated to learn the English
language to write descriptive text when they play in this game and it helps the students to
learn English. This game also improves the self-confidence of students because they are
more enjoyable and interested when learning English through wholesome scattering game.
Besides learning writing students also know the spelling, meaning, pronunciation all
keywords that have been given.
From the result of the research reveals through wholesome scattering game can
increase the students writing ability. From this research shows the hypothesis which
through wholesome scattering game was better than conventional way (scientific
approach) to increase the writing ability. The truth of the hypothesis indicator suitable
with the result of the research, explicitly can show based on the score of minimum

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 Educativ: Journal of English Education and Teaching Innovation
E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

achievement criteria should be 71. An indicator of the increased of the students writing
ability if they were got an upper expected score was > 70.
Before giving treatment the student’s ability in writing was poor, which was proven
by the percentage of the total score of pre-test for the two groups (experimental and control
group) and the students’ mean score from the pre-test obtained by the students’ for the
experimental group was 60.06 and for the control class was 58.81. It means that the mean
score of the pre-test obtained by the two classes are almost the same and there was no
significant difference between the students’ pre-test of both classes in writing ability.
After giving treatment for four times to each class, the student’s ability in writing was
categorized increase both for both classes especially in experimental class, which was
proven by the percentage of the total of post-test for both classes (experimental and
control class). The experimental group which taught through wholesome scattering game
is 75.18, while the control group which taught through conventional way (scientific
approach) is 65.79. It means that the mean score of the experimental class is better than
the mean score of the control class and there was a significant difference between the
students’ post-test of both classes in writing ability.
After applying the t-test formula, the result of computation of t-test war for pre-test
(0.661) and for post-test (4.916) if it concluded with the t-table value with the degree
freedom (df)= 85 and the level significance α= 0.05=1.671. The t-test value for post-test
value for pre-test (0.661) is smaller than t-table value (1.671) and t-test value for post-test
is higher (4.916) than for table value (1.671). This indicates that the null hypothesis is
rejecting and the alternative hypothesis is accepting. It means that the students who are
taught through wholesome scattering game have better writing ability than the students
who are taught through conventional way (scientific approach).
In this research, it was found that teaching through wholesome scattering game can
increase the students’ writing ability. The students who are taught through wholesome
scattering game have better than the students who are taught through conventional way
(scientific approach). It is caused the percentage of students score and mean score of the

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E-ISSN 2580-975X, P-ISSN 2654-380X

students are different between experimental class and control class.

The discussion above indicates that the null hypothesis is rejecting and the alternative
hypothesis is accepting. It means that wholesome scattering game is able to increase the
students’ writing ability. The students who are taught through wholesome scattering game
have better writing ability than the students who are taught through conventional way
(scientific approach).

CONCLUSION

The researcher concluded that teaching writing ability through wholesome was better
than teaching through the conventional way (scientific approach). It was proved by
rejecting of the null hypothesis (H0) and accepting of the alternative hypothesis (H1), after
the application of t-test formula of p`11ost-test where t-test value is higher than t-table
value. It means that wholesome scattering game can increase significantly the writing
ability of the seventh year secondary school students.

SUGGESTION

Based on the conclusion above, the researcher give some suggestions as follow: For
the English teacher, it is suggested to apply wholesome scattering game as one of the
alternative ways in teaching writing because, through this game, the teacher can expect
the students’ writing result well. Wholesome scattering game stimulates students` brain in
arrange sentences. It is more effective and makes the student more enjoyable and
interested. For the students, the students should be trying this game to increasing their
ability in writing, it is more enjoyable and motivating in learning English. The students
should be interested in English first so they will feel enjoy along learning by using game in
English language teaching. For the next researcher, it is suggested to find out the result of
research as one of comparative study in employing their research because of wholesome

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scattering able to increase the writing ability, in additional this game also able you try to
research the speaking ability.

REFERENCES

Arif. 2012. Improving the writing ability of the eighth year students of SMP Negeri 1
Suppa through clustering technique. Parepare: Thesis FKIP UMPAR.

Celce, Marianne. 2001. Teaching English as Second or Foreign Language.

Hashemi, Behnam. 2013. Deciding on the Degree of Emphasis on Micro Skills for Writing
Classes Based on the Frequency of Error Occurrence. International Journal of
Science and Research (IJSR), India Online ISSN: 2319-706.

Herman. 2012. Improving the Writing Ability of the Eight Year Students of SMP Negeri 9
Parepare through Paraphrasing Technique. Parepare: Thesis FKIP UMPAR.

Hess, Natalie. 1991. Head Star. England: Longman Group Ltd, p. 39.

McCallum, G. P. 1980. 101 Word Ggames for Students of English as a Second or Foreign
Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sun, Chunling. 2009. Process Approach to Teaching Writing Applied in Different

Teaching Models. CCSENET Journal. Retrieved from
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal.html.

Syafitra, Nur. 2012. Improving the writing ability of the seventh year students of SMP
Negeri 2 Parepare by using puzzle game. Parepare: Thesis FKIP UMPAR.

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