The Use of WPS in Developing Students' Writing Skill and Their Responses in the Implementation

ABSTRAK SUMMARY Zulaekha, Tia. 2018. The Use of WPS in Developing Students’ Writing Skill and Their Responses in the Implementation. Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: (I) Prof. Dr. Nur Mukminatien, M.Pd. (II) Dr. Enny Irawati, M.Pd Keywords: writing skill, writing activity, write pair share, point illustration explanation, peer editing, recount text Most of language learners in Indonesia mostly get difficulties writing in English. They are usually confused with what they will write and how to generate their ideas into a written form. The problems above were also found in VIII-A class of SMPN 2 Malang. The time allotment for English lesson is mostly used for reading, listening and speaking activities. It means that the time allotment to learn writing is limited. Writing is taught only two until four times in one semester as the students are more often asked to do exercises in the coursebook than being asked to produce their writing. Based on the result of the preliminary study, it was found that most of students’ writing were still in ‘fair’ level and their writing scores were still low. These facts revealed that most of students were still confused of what will be written and how to generate it writtenly. To solve these problems, the researcher implemented Write Pair Share (WPS) as stages in writing activity and Point Illustration Explanation (PIE) as a writing technique. The design of this research was Classroom Action Research. The researcher conducted this study in one cycle consisting of five meetings. The subject of this study were 28 students of VIII-A class at SMPN 2 Malang. The instruments used in this study were writing test, observation checklists, field notes, and questionnaires. The data obtained from the instruments were analyzed and compared to the indicators of the criterion of success, namely: (1) the minimum of their average score must be ≥77, (2) at least 93% of the students must get score ≥77. The research findings revealed that the students average score after the implementation was 80.4. This indicated that the class average score was more than the standart minimum score (77). Besides, 93% of the students or 26 of them got score 77 and more than 77. The result of this findings indicated that this study have met the criterion of success. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the use of WPS could improve the ability of VIII-A students at SMPN 2 Malang in writing a recount text. This study proposes some suggestions for the English teachers and further researchers. For the English teacher of SMPN 2 Malang, the result of this study can be a consideration to implement WPS strategy as a solution to students writing problems in class. Last but not least, the researcher is welcome for future researchers to make this study as a reference to conduct further studies in solving students’ writing problems