Using WH-questions Technique to Improve the Second Year Students’ Abilities in Generating Ideas of Writing Recount in MTS Surya Buana Malang

Most of the students of class VIII-A of MTs Surya Buana performed poorly in their writing. The major problem the students face was how to get idea and develop it. To overcome the problem, an alternative strategy was suggested to be applied in teaching writing, namely WH-question technique. The technique is chosen because it is good to generate ideas and develop them. The main objective of the study is to improve the ability of the students in generating ideas for writing recounts using WH-question technique. In this study, the research design used is Classroom Action Research. This research was conducted in one cycle, which covered planning an action, acting on the plan, observing the action and reflecting on the observation. The subjects were the students of class VIII-A of MTs Surya Buana which consisted of 33 students. The instruments used were writing task, scoring rubric and questionnaires. There were three kinds of data gained: the students’ scores, the result of questionnaires, and field notes. The data gained from the students’ writing were analyzed in terms of content, language use and organization using scoring rubric and presented in the form of a description. The data gained from the questionnaires were converted into a form of the description of the students’ response toward the implementation of the technique. The field notes were presented into an explanation describing the students’ attitudes and condition of the classroom. The result of the research showed that the WH-question technique effectively improved the junior high school abilities in generating ideas of writing recount based on their personal experience. The scores of the students’ recount writings did not significantly improve. The insignificant improvement of the students’ scores might have been influenced by the following factors: limited time and interval of the meetings. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested that teacher uses WH-question technique in the teaching of recount writing which based on personal experience continuously in order to make students get used to the writing activities. It is also suggested that further researchers conduct similar studies using more respondents in different types of genres, setting and conditions to see whether the technique can be implemented effectively