PICTURE-CUED
TASK TO KNOW STUDENTS WRITING ABILITY
IN
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL
1.
Introduction
Perception about testing writing is usually not
actualized in what the students’ achievement and what appropriateness between
the students’ testing writing and the student has learned in teaching process.
Brown (2004: 218), states that it follows logically that the assessment of
writing is no simple task. As you consider assessing students’ writing ability,
as usual you need to be clear about your objective or criterion. What is it you
want to test: handwriting ability? Correct spelling? Writing sentences that are
grammatically correct? Paragraph construction? Logical development of a main
idea? All of these, and more, are possible objectives. And each objective can
be assessed through a variety of tasks.
There are many kinds of writing test. Madson states
(1983: 101), “the reason for this is fairly simple: a wide variety of writing
tests is needed to tests the many kinds of writing tasks that we engage in”. Elementary
School is a formal education with any skills to be a ready worker after
graduate. In this case, we must be a wise to create an appropriate tests for
the students of Elementary School.
2.
Problems
and Objectives which will be solved by the picture-cued task
The problems
that will be discussed are:
1.
to what extent is the students’ vocabulary achievement
in writing before being taught by using pictures?
2.
to what extent is the students’ vocabulary achievement
in writing after being taught by using pictures?
3. is
there any significant difference of the students’ achievement between ones
taught by using pictures and those are taught without using pictures?
The objectives are:
1.
to find out the extent of the students’ vocabulary
achievement in writing before being taught by using poster pictures.
2.
to find out the extent of the students’ vocabulary
achievement in writing after being taught by using poster pictures.
3.
to prove whether there is any significant difference of
the students’ vocabulary achievement in writing between ones taught by using
poster pictures and those who are taught without using poster pictures.
3.
General
concept of Basic Writing
Before conducting the test design of writing, we must
know the genres of written language. Scrutinized the different genres of
written language is to make that context and purpose are clear. According to
Brown, there is an Imitative (to produce written language, the learners must
attain skills in the fundamental, basic tasks of writing letters, words,
punctuations, and very brief sentences. This category includes the ability to
spell correctly and to perceive phoneme-grapheme correspondences in the English
spelling systems. It is a level at which learners are trying to master the mechanics
of writing.
4.
Instrument
of the Test
To reach
the goal of the study, the writer had to construct the test which suitable. He
had to choose the type of test and arrangement of the test. In this study, the
writer used the “pictured-cued tasks” test as instrument to collect data. A
variety of picture-cued controlled tasks had been used in English classroom
around the world. The main advantage in this technique was in detaching the
almost ubiquitous reading and writing connections and covering instead a
nonverbal means to stimulate written responses (Brown 2003:226).
The writer used short
sentence answer in poster-cued task. The explanation of this task is a drawing
of some simple action is shown, the-test taker (students) write a brief word.
The reasons for choosing this task, that is easy to correct and more practical
for students.
5.
Subject
and Research
5.1 Types of Research
(Experimental Research)
In this research, some data are needed to achieve the objectives of the
research. The data and information are obtained from experimental research. In this matter, the writer wants to see
about the problems. As stated by Arikunto (2006:3) experimental research is an
experiment which tries to find whether there is any effect relation or not.
The writer took Pre
Test and Post Test results in order to find any answer of the problem
statements. The design of this research was divided in two groups; there were
the students taught by Pictures and the students taught using Conventional
technique. The design of this research as follow:
|
Class
|
Treatment
|
Test
|
|
Experiment
|
X1
|
T2
|
|
Control
|
X2
|
T2
|
In which;
X1= Teaching Using Pictures
X2= Teaching Using Conventional Technique
T2= Post Test
5.2
Population
According to Mardalis (2007:53) population is all individual person that becomes the source of taking sample.Related
to this point, the writer chose the fifth year students of SD Negeri 1
Sidomulyo in the academic year 2011/2012 as population of the research. The
writer chose the fifth year students of SD Negeri 1 Sidomulyo because of the
consideration that English had been taught in that school as local content
subject from the first graders up to sixth graders.
5.3
Sample
According to Mardalis (2007: 55)
“Sample is part of population of research
object”. The writer decided to take a half of fifth year students of SD
Negeri 1 Sidomulyo as the sample. The writer used a class which is divided into
two groups, the control and experimental groups which are chosen randomly as
sample for conducting this research. In this matter, technique of random
sampling was used by mixing the subjects in population. For choosing the
sample, the researcher didn’t want to particularize one or some subjects. There
were some students in the experimental group who are taught by using pictures
and some students in control group who are taught using conventional way.
6.
Instrument
Analysis
The purpose
of Instrument Analysis was to know validity, reliability, and item difficulty.
6.1 Validity
This is students’ score in
validity computation. For example let’s take item number 1
rxy :
the correlation of the scores on the two halves of the test
N : 38 (the total of the subject of
experiment)
Σ X : 26 (the sum of X score item)
Σ Y :
311 (the sum of Y score item)
r
=
=
=
0.813
If Rxy > Rtable
is valid. The result Rtable was 0.32 and Rxy was 0.813. RXY(0.813)
> Rtable(0.32). Item no 1 was valid. The computation of validity
can be seen in appendix. The writer used Microsoft excels in order to help him
in scoring validity.
6.2 Reliability
The
result of reliability computation was shown in appendix. It’s also using
Microsoft excels in order to help the writer in scoring reliability.
r11 :
reliability of total test
n : 38
(the number of items)
r
=
=
= 0.667
The computation of r table =
0,497. Since r11 > r table, so the test was reliable.
6.3 Item Difficulty
The writer used P =
for finding item difficulty.
Where: An item with P 0 --------- 0, 30 = was difficult
An
item with P 0, 31 --------- 0, 70 =
was medium
An item with P 0, 71 --------- 1, 0 = was easy
For example let’s take item
no. 1
P
: the facility value (index of
difficulty)
B : 12 (the number of students who answer
correctly)
JS : 38 (the total number of the students)
P =
=
= 0.316
After
getting the P value, we could say that item number 1 was medium. It was because
the P value = 0, 316 belonged to the interval 0.31 – 0.70 whose criteria were
medium. The whole computation result of difficulty index for each item could be
seen in Appendix. There were number 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 considered as medium
item, and item number 2, 6, 9 and 10 considered as easy item.
7.
Research
Findings
The research object was fifth year students of SD Negeri 1 Sidomulyo in
the academic year 2011/2012. Total of the fifth year students is 38 students.
7.1 Pre-test
The pre-test was conducted by the writer. Both of groups were given the
same test and they did the test individually to answer the pre-test in 30
minutes. The result of this pre test score was very less. It can be seen in
appendix.
7.2 The
Experimental Treatment
After conducting the pre-test, the writer conducted the experimental
treatment. The writer taught experiment group by using pictures as an
alternative way of teaching writing. On the other hand, the control group was
taught by their own English teacher without using pictures. The material was
part of body. The Experimental
Treatment below:
|
Experiment
Group
|
Control Group
|
|
1.
Topic = Part of Body
2.
Teacher put the pictures of the material in front of the students
3.
Teacher asked students to pay attention to the picture, the words, and
the meaning of the object. The students tried to write vocabulary
4.
Teacher read the words a loud and asked student to repeat after him
|
1.
Topic = Part of Body
2.
The teacher
wrote the words to be taught on the blackboard
3.
The students pronounced the word correctly after the teacher. The
students tried to write vocabulary
4.
The teacher gave the meaning of the words to the students
|
7.3 The
Post-test
After the
experiment was conducted, the writer conducted the post-test. The writer
conducted the test at the same time. The writer and the teacher administered
the experiment and control group together. The students did the test
individually in 30 minutes. The result of post-test score had increased. It’s
higher than pre-test score.
8.
Data
Analysis
In this chapter, the
writer would like to determine the different effectiveness of treatment given
both of two groups, experiment and control. It could be seen through the
differences of the two means. The mean of each group could be calculated by
using the following formula:
Mc =
Me =
Where:
Mc : The mean score of the
control group
Me : The mean score of the
experimental group
N : The number of sample
Mc =
=
= 68.95 (The mean
score of control group)
Me =
=
= 91.58 (The mean
score of experimental group)
The computation
between two means of the experimental group and control group has a slight
difference in mean score. The result showed that the experimental group out of
performed the control group. The difference between two means was 22.63.
However, just finding the difference between two means is not enough to
conclude that the experimental group is better than control group. To determine
whether the difference is statistically significant, an appropriate statistical
analysis has to be applied. The following was the computation of t-test. First
of all we had to find the s value (deviation standard). The writer used
Microsoft Excel to get the result of this formula.
s =
=
= 11.8223
After getting the s value, the computation of t-test was as follow:
t =
=
= 5.90032
T-table was 1.702 < T-formula (5.90032).
The
difference between T-formula and T-table was significant. It could be said that
the experimental group had a better result than control group.
9.
Conclusion
Elementary School is a formal education
with any skills that the students are ready to be continued to Junior High
School after graduate. The topics they study suit with their majors in
elementary level. In this case, we must
be a wise to create an appropriate tests for the students of Elementary School.
So the picture-cued tasks will be an appropriate technique in assessing
writing.
Bibliography
Arikunto,
Suharsimi. 2006. Prosedur Penilitian
Suatu Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta: Rineke Cipta
Brown, H. Douglas.
2004. Language Assessment: Principles and
Classroom Practices. New
York:
Person Education Inc
Madson, Harold. S.
1983. Techniques in Testing. New
York: Oxford University Press
Mardalis.
2007. Metode Penelitian Suatu Pendekatan
Proposal. Jakarta: Bumi Aksara
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