IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILL OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY USING PICTURE

The purpose of the research is to investigate whether or not pictures can improve students’ writing skill and class condition. The subject of this research is students of class VIII A in SMP N 5 Kebumen. The method of the research is a classroom action research. This research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of four steps: planning, action, observation and reflection. To collect the qualitative data, the researcher used field notes, photograph and interview. To collect the quantitative data, the researcher conducted tests. The tests were pre-test and posttests. To analyze the qualitative data, the researcher used interactive model data analysis. For the quantitative data, the researcher analyzed the mean scores of the tests to compare differences between pre-test and post-test. The result of the research shows that teaching writing skill by using pictures could improve the students’ writing skill and the class condition. The improvements of the mean scores showed that there was an improvement on the students’ writing skill. The students’ mean score of pre-test is 51.15, it improves up-to 57.79 in the post-test I and up to 60.82 in the post-test II. Therefore, it could be concluded that teaching writing skill by using picture could improve the students’ writing skill