THE APPLICATION OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL (An Action Research at Eighth Grade of SMP Negeri 1 Nguter Sukoharjo in Academic Year 2009/2010)

This thesis is written 1) to find out whether guided writing using authentic materials can improve the students’ writing skill; 2) to find out how the students participate in the writing instruction; 3) to find out how the students’ attitude is toward the instruction of guided writing using authentic materials. The method used in this research is a collaborative action research. The research was conducted in two cycles from March 2010 to July 2010 at the eighth grade of SMP Negeri 1 Nguter. The procedure of the research consists of identifying the problems, planning the action, implementing the action, observing or monitoring the action, reflecting the result, and revising the plan for the following steps. The research data were collected using techniques of observation, interview, document, and test (pre-test and post-test). The technique to analyze the tests result is by comparing the score of pre-test and post-test. The results of this research show that teaching writing using authentic materials in guided writing can effectively improve students’ writing skill. The improvement can be seen in the form of students’ score. The improvement of students’ score can be seen from the differences between pre-test and post-test. The mean score of pretest is 57.60 and it improves to 64.70 in the first post test. Then, in the second they get mean score 61.50 in pre-test and the final post-test is 70.20. From the test result, it shows that there is a significant improvement of students’ writing skill after the writer conducts the research. It proves that the application of authentic materials can improve students’ writing skill. Besides, this improvement is proven by the findings after the research was conducted. The findings are 1) students have fewer difficulties in exploring ideas to write 2) the students also make fewer mistakes in constructing new sentences using simple past tense 3) their word choice get richer after the research 4) in writing recount and narrative text, the students are able to mention the generic structure and use the appropriate word transition 5) they are able to use the appropriate word order in their sentences. The result of the research implies that English teachers need to choose the appropriate srategy and materials in teaching writing. The one of the appropriate materials to teach writing is teaching writing using authentic materials in guided writing