THE USE OF PORTFOLIO TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AT THE FIRST GRADE OF SMP 3 MUHAMMADIYAH JETIS IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2015/2016

Key words: Writing skill, Descriptive Text, Portfolio,. This study analyzes some problems about improving students writing skill using portfolio media at the first grade of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Jetis. The students still get difficulty to find idea on writing. In this case, the students must be supported by drilling or example to build their passion on writing. From that, the research aims to know that portfolio media improve writing descriptive text. The subject of the study is the students of the first grade of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Jetis that consisted of 19 students. The research was conducted on May 5-13 2016. Classroom action research (CAR) was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The improvement of students’ score using portfolio could be seen in the exercise one and two. That is the KKM score of cycle 1 was 55.94%, and cycle II was 75.5%. The questionnaire result showed that the students were interested in the media. It was seen from the total of the questionnaire I was 79.6% and questionnaire II was 82.8%. The observation checklist cycle I showed, 32% and cycle II showed 82.14%. From that, it could be seen that students be came active during teaching and learning process. It was seen from the total of observation checklist. Based on these findings, it could be concluded that the use of the portfolio could improve the students’ writing ability of the first grade of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Jetis. Finally, the researcher gave a suggestion that English teacher could use portfolio media as an alternative method of teaching writing. The researcher could develop this method by using kinds of media to get the best result in teaching learning process