Using magazine articles to teach descriptive writing to the third semester English Department students of Widya Mandala Catholic University

In order to be a successful learner of English as a foreign language, one needs the mastery of the four language skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading and writing. However, in the process of learning, writing is given less attention than the other skills. It is the neglected skill among the others. Now, attitudes towards the role of writing have changed in the language teaching learning activities. It becomes much more important. Having studied for ten semesters at the English Department of Widya Mandala Catholic University, and having observed and interviewed some of her friends informally, the writer has come to the conclusion that the teachers of writing usually use text books and pictures when they teach descriptive writing. Therefore, the students get bored easily because there is no development of material. Introducing a new material is needed in the process of language teaching and learning since boredom is one of the factors that can decrease the students’ motivation in learning. Because of that reason, the writer would like to introduce magazine articles in descriptive writing class. She hopes that this will help the students overcome their boredom and may bring a new atmosphere in the class thus raise the interest and motivation in descriptive writing. As a result, the students’ writing ability might or is expected to be better. To be successful in the descriptive writing class, the teacher should also concentrate on selecting magazines, because not all English magazines are suitable for third semester students of English Department. She recommends Freeway, Horizon, Life, National Geographic and Newsweek. The writer considers those magazines are suitable for the third semester students of English department in their descriptive writing class. Moreover, those magazines contain easy-to comprehend languages for the students and more interesting and up to date articles. The technique that is used in this study is semicontrolled writing. The reason for this is the students of third semester English Department already got structure and vocabulary III subjects. They are considered to master grammatical rules of English and English vocabulary. After all, the writer realizes that this thesis is far from being perfect. She wishes that there would be another student or researcher who is willing to continue this study by doing a field research to see whether or not the materials taken from magazines give more contributions to the teaching of descriptive writing