UPAYA PENINGKATAN KEMAMPUAN STRUCTURE III MAHASISWA PROGRAM STUDI BAHASA DAN SASTRA INGGRIS MELALUI PENDEKATAN BERBASIS TEKS

This classroom action research is aimed at 1) describing the actions done to improve the students’ Structure III competency through text-based approach, and 2) describing the results of the Structure III students’ learning at the end of the actions. The research involved the students of Structure III Sas 3B class in English Language and Literature Study Program, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Yogyakarta State University in the academic year of 2005/2006. There were four steps taken, i.e. planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The data were qualitative in the forms of interview transcription, field notes and questionnaire results. The data analysis followed the following steps: 1) collecting and reading, 2) coding, 3) comparing, and 4) interpreting. The validity was based on five criteria, namely democratic, outcome, process, catalytic and dialogic validities. The actions done to teach Structure III through text-based approach (such as writing post-cards, diaries and explaining pictures) gave some positive effects, namely 1) The students expressed more through the application of the given structures in their writing; 2) They felt happy to be given context to apply their grammar competency; 3) In their opinion, the Structure III class was a good continuation of their previous structure class; 4) They could make use of the texts to give them more understanding about certain structures; 5) The use of pictures could make them more creative in building sentences containing noun clauses; 6) The take-home exam was done optimally and some basic mistakes could be improved; 7) Doing correction together to the structures in their diaries made them improve their grammar awareness. Meanwhile, from the application of this approach the students’works show some progresses and some still show problems that must be tackled. Key Words : classroom action research, structure III, text-based approac