IMPROVING THE ELEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ WRITING ABIILTY THROUGH WRITING CONFERENCE AT SMA NEGERI 1 SLEMAN IN THE 2013/2014 ACADEMIC YEAR

This study is aimed at improving the eleventh grade students’ writing ability through writing conference at SMA N 1 Sleman, Yogyakarta in the 2013/2014 academic year. This study is action research. The researcher followed procedures of action research proposed by Kemmis and McTaggert (1988 in Burns 2000: 7-8). This research consisted of four procedures. They were planning, action, observation, and reflection. The action consisted of two cycles with three meetings in cycle 1 and two meetings in cycle 2. The subjects of the research were 27 students of XI Science 3 class of SMA N 1 Sleman, the English teacher of SMA N 1 Sleman as the collaborator, and the researcher. The data of this study were qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative data were obtained through observations and interviews with the students and collaborator. Quantitative data were obtained through writing tests in pre-test and post test. The data were in the form of field notes, interview transcripts, and the scores of students’ pre-test and post-test. The findings of the analyses show that (1) the students can minimize their writing problems in five aspects of writing namely content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics (spelling, capitalization and punctuation). (2) the students are able to identify and correct their mistakes in writing aspects because of the steps applied in writing conference. (3) the students are able to produce a coherent and cohesive text with the steps of writing applied in writing conference. (4) there is an increase on the students’ mean score from the pre-test, Cycle 1, Cycle 2, to the post-test. The mean score on the pre-test was 60.18, on Cycle 1 was 66.11, on Cycle 2 was 74.90, and on the pos-test was 78.05