USING STUDENT TEAMS ACHIEVEMENT DIVISIONS (STAD) METHOD TO IMPROVE STUDENTS WRITING ABILITY Dieni Rahmawati 1 Dede Pertamana, Dra., M.Pd 2 Dienirahmawati07@gmail.com ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES AND TEACHERS TRAINING SILIWANGI UNIVERSITY (Jl. Siliwangi No. 24 Tasikmalaya) Abstract The aim of this research is to find out how the using of Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) improves the students writing ability especially in hortatory text at the eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 4 Tasikmalaya. The method used in this research is classroom action research and the techniques of collecting the data are test and observation. The test is in form essay about hortatory exposition, while the observation is observing the activities of students and teacher during teaching learning process. Cycle I through planning, action, observation and reflection. Cycle II is same as cycle I, but there are some enhancements from the reflection of cycle I. the result of cycle showed that 67.5% students got score equal or over the MAC by the average score is 73.95, where there were still 13 students got scores under MAC, that is 75. Whereas, at the cycle II, 100% of the students achieved MAC by the average of score is 82.4. Based on the research result in cycle II, all the students were able to write by the scorer are equal or over the MAC. In the other words, the students were able to develop their ideas, use the grammar well and put the appropriate words into sentence. Hence, the research should be stop in cycle II. Therefore, the writer concludes that the using of STAD method can improve the students writing especially in hortatory text. Keywords: STAD Method, Writing Ability, Classroom Action Research. INTRODUCTION Writing is an important part of English Skills and it also relates to speaking ability, good writing skill allows us to communicate our message clearly and easily to understand. According to Raimes, Ann (1983:3), The close relationship between writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language course. In fact, writing is difficult and cumbersome, based on the data collected by the writer during PLP at class XI Social 2 in SMA Negeri 4 Tasikmalaya, the writer found that there were still 29 students from 40 students who had not achieved the score of minimal accomplishment criteria (KKM) which is set in 75. The writer found the difficulties faced by the most of students, among others: first, the students are still confused in putting the appropriate words to make sentences or paragraphs. Second, the students have the difficulties 1 The writer 2 The supervisor
in using grammar and structure. Third, the students are still confused in developing their ideas into writing. Fourth, the students are less confident in asking the material that they do not understand yet. The writer also found that the difficulties of writing caused by the teacher itself, especially in delivering material, the teacher could not choose the appropriate method to teach writing and the teacher did not use the principle of writing completely. From the problems above, the writer gives the solution to solve it. In teaching learning process, the teacher should be able to choose an effective method. Effective means appropriate with the circumstance of the class and it can give the improvement to the students. Besides, the teacher should also be able to use classroom management effectively. Therefore, in this research, the writer tries to use the method which is kind of cooperative learning model namely Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) method to improve the students writing ability. According to Slavin, Robert E. (1995:6), The main idea behind Student Teams Achievement Divisions is to motivate students to encourage and help each other master skills presented by the teacher. It means the essential of STAD is to motivate the students, to support and to help each other in mastering the material thought by the teacher. The steps of STAD method can make the students solve their problem in writing. STAD Method Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) is a kind of method of cooperative learning and it has been applied in several subjects. This method is developed by Robert E Slavin and his associates from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore Maryland. According to Slavin, Robert E. (1995:71 ), STAD is one of the simplest of all cooperative learning methods, and is a good model to begin with for teachers who are new to the cooperative approach. It means that STAD is a kind of cooperative model which is the simplest method and it is the best method for the beginner teachers who use cooperative approach. This method is composed of four or five students who present across-section of the class in academic performance, sex, and race or ethnicity or well known as heterogeneous team. There are several components involved in STAD, according to Kagan, Spencer and Miguel Kagan (2009:460), STAD is made up of five interlocking components: class presentations, teams, quizzes, individual improvement scoring, and team recognition. It means that STAD consists of five components that can be separated, among others: class presentations, teams, quizzes, individual improvement scoring, and team recognition. the process of teaching by using STAD method will be conducted as follows: 1. The teacher teaches about hortatory exposition text and how to write the hortatory exposition text correctly. Moreover, the teacher teaches about the purpose, the generic structure and language features of thehortatory exposition text. It will build the students knowledge about writing the hortatory exposition text clearly. 2. The teacher assigns students to teams of four or five member each. To assigns the students, the teacher ranks the students from top to the bottom on some measure of academic performance (e.g. past grades, test score) and divide the ranked list into quarters, place any extra students in the middle quarters. Then the teacher puts one student from each quarter on each group, the groups are well balanced in gender and ethnicity. 3. The teacher gives worksheet in form hortatory exposition text to every group, and they do this exercise together, they discuss and assist each other in group to do their exercise. This exercise is used to practice the skill being taught and to assess themselves and their teammates.
4. The teacher gives individual quiz to the students, namely write the composition about hortatory exposition text based on the instruction. In doing this quiz, the student work individually. It will train the students in writing ability. 5. The teacher gives the reward the best group. It will motivate to the students to do writing better and better. Writing Ability Writing is one of the English skills. It is the productive skill which is a way to express the ideas, thoughts and feeling into the written form and every kind of writing has a particular purpose. Basically, writing ability is the ability to write. The term of writing has several meanings. Kirszner, Laurie G. and Stephen R. Mandell (2009:4) state, Writing is a life skill. If you can write clearly, you can express your ideas convincingly to other, in school, on the job, and in your community. The statement shows that when we are able to write clearly, we are also able to express our ideas convincingly in every area. Meanwhile, Elbow, Peter as quoted by Brown, H. Douglas (2004:336) says, writing is a two-step process. First you figure out your meaning, then you put it into language. It shows that writing consists of two-step process, the first is figuring out the meaning and the second is putting the meaning into written language. Cumming, Alister (2006 ) states that there are several objects of goal of writing improvement, among others: (1) language involves vocabulary, grammar of English and ranging from clauses to morphemes or punctuation. (2) Rhetoric or genres involves conventional discourse or text structures and elements of them. (3) Composing processes involve planning, drafting, editing, and revising text. (4) Ideas and knowledge involve concepts and information for written texts. (5) Affective states involve learners emotional dispositions concerning writing. (6) Learning and transfer involve processes of transforming knowledge and skills, and (7) identity and self-awareness (awareness of self, self-image, or self-concept related to social functions of writing).the explanations above show that writing is important in our life. According to Fawcett, Susan (2012:3), The writing process will be divided into three stages, as follows: (a) prewriting,(b) writing, (c) revising. It means that the writing process includes three steps. The first is prewriting. The second is writing. The Third is revising. METHOD The method used in this research is Classroom Action Research (PTK). Arikunto, Suharsimi, et al., (2007:3) state, penelitian tidakan kelas merupakan suatu pencermatan terhadap kegiatan belajar berupa sebuah tindakan, yang sengaja dimunculkan dan terjadi dalam sebuah kelas secara bersama. It means that classroom action research is a survey to the learning activities and it takes an action which deliberately raises and occurs in a classroom together. the researcher carries out this research as the following steps: 1. Planning, In this step, the researcher prepares about what, why, when, where, and how the action will be conducted. 2. Action is an implementation stage from the plans and the activities which is designed before, and it is controlled activity. 3. Observation is conducted while the action step is conducting.
4. Reflection, in the reflection process, the researcher analyses and reviews the result of the test to find out whether the use of STAD in the learning process which was conducted can improve or not to the students writing ability. The written test result and the observation result are the data of this research with the students at the eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 4 Tasikmalaya, teacher and observer as the sources of the data. To analyse the quantitative data, the writer uses the descriptive statistic from Urdan, Timothy C. (2005) and Ali, Mohammad (1982). Whereas, for qualitative data, the writer uses analysis interactive model by Miles, Matthew B. and A. Michael Huberman (1994) through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. FINDINGS Cycle I Based on the calculation in cycle I, the percentage of the students who achieved the KKM is: = 100% = 27 100% 40 = 67.5% The total number of the students who achieve KKM is 27 students. There are 13 students who have not reached score 75 yet by the average score is 73.95. The observer found some weaknesses during teaching learning activities and after analysing the data in the reflection step, the writer discussed the solution at the following table: No Weaknesses Solution 1. Some of the students were less attention during teaching learning process. 2. Some of the students were still confused about hortatory exposition. They were confused to determine between analytical exposition and hortatory exposition. 3. The teacher did not explain the indicator achievement related to the material. 4. The teacher did not use the various media to make the students focus on the material. 5. Students are still less active during teaching learning process. The teacher should be discipline in managing classroom and give the punishment if the students still do not pay attention to teacher. The teacher should explain the material more and use the variation of media then give more examples of hortatory exposition. The teacher should be discipline in implementing lesson plan. The teacher uses power point media to make the students focus on material, The teacher should stimulate the students to be more active.
Cycle II Based on the observation result, the teacher had increased the teaching learning process and the teacher also managed the well. Besides, based on the result of students writing test, all the students achieved the KKM. The calculation to find out the percentage of students who achieve KKM is as follows: = 100% = 40 100% 40 = 100% Based on the calculation above, all of the students have achieved KKM. The percentage of the students who achieved KKM is 100%. The students got the score over or equal to 75 by the average of score is 82.4. Based on this data in cycle II, the research should be ended. It means the teaching writing ability by using STAD method is effective and successful. DISCUSSION The research result above showed that the use of STAD method can improve the students writing ability. By using STAD method, the students would help and support each other to win their group. It is supported by Majid, Abdul (2013:188), Kelebihan dari STAD adalah sebagai berikut: 1) Dapat memberikan kesempatan kepada siswa untuk bekerjasama dengan siswa lain; 2) Siswa dapat menguasai pelajaran yang disampaikan; 3) Dalam peruses belajar mengajar siswa salaing ketergantungan positif; 4) Setiap siswa dapat saling mengisi satu sama lain. It means that the advantages of using STAD method, among others: giving a chance to the students to help each other, mastering the material, dependence each others, positively dependent each other and completing one another. There is a significant progress of students achievement using STAD method from the cycle I to the cycle II which shows that all students (100%) achieve KKM. It means that STAD method is suitable to use in improving the student writing ability and STAD method is effective. It is supported by the theory of Slavin, Robert E. (1995:21), Effects of STAD have been consistently positive in all subjects. It shows that STAD is proven to be effective in teaching all subjects. Meanwhile, there are some weaknesses faced by the writer in cycle I, the writer found some of the students have still less attention during giving material and the problem of classroom management. But in cycle II, there is a significant improvement during teaching learning process. The progress is shown by the students who achieve KKM. The percentage of the students who achieve KKM is 100%. It means all the students get score over or equal to 75 and the teaching learning process is successful. Moreover, in cycle II, the students are more interesting in learning, it is proven by the attention given by the students. Besides, the interaction between teacher and students are good and they are more confident. It
is seen when they ask to the teacher and answer the teacher s questions. They are also good in interpersonal relationship. It is supported by Jolliffe, Wendy (2007:6), Cooperative learning is one of the most heavily researched areas of education. Studies have shown three main categories of advantages: achievement, interpersonal relationships, and psychological health and social. CONCLUSION The writer does the research to find out the improvement of students writing ability at the eleventh grade of SMA Negeri 4 Tasikmalaya by using Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) method. Based on the research result, the use of STAD method gives the significant improvement to the student. It is proven from the result in cycle I to cycle II. In cycle I, there are 67.5% students who achieve KKM. Meanwhile, there are some weaknesses in cycle I. Some of the students are still less attention and less active during teaching learning process, some of the students are still confused about material and teacher s problem in classroom management and using media. In cycle II, the students writing test result increases more than cycle I. The percentage of the students who achieve KKM is 100%. In other words, there are 40 students who achieve KKM. Based on the explanation above, it is proven that there is improvement from cycle I to cycle II. All of the students achieve KKM in writing hortatory exposition text. It means that the learning of students writing by using STAD method is effective. Therefore, the writer concludes that there is improvement of students writing ability by using STAD method. REFERENCES Ali, Mohammad. (1985). Strategi Penelitian Pendidikan. Bandung: Angkasa. Arikunto, Suharsimi, et al., (2007). Penelitian Tindakan Kelas. Jakarta: PT Bumi Aksara. Brown, H. Douglas. (2004). Language Assessment: principles and classroom practices. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Cumming, Alister. (2006). Goals for Academic Writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Fawcett, Susan. (2012). Evergreen: A Guide to Writing with Readings. Compact Ninth Edition. Canada: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Jolliffe, Wendy. (2007). Cooperative Learning in the Classroom Putting It into Practice. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Kagan, Spencer and Miguel Kagan.(2009). Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente: Kagan Publishing Kirszner, Laurie G and Stephen R. Mandell. (2009). Writing First: practice in context. Fourth Edition.New York: Bedford/St. Martin s. Majid, Abdul. (2013). Strategi Pembelajaran. Bandung: PT. Remaja Rosdakarya. Miles, Matthew B and A. Michael Huberman, (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis.Second Edition.Califorinia: SAGE Publications, Inc. Raimes, Ann. (1983). Techniques in Teaching Writing. New York: Oxford University Press. Slavin. Robert E. (1995). Cooperative Learning: theory, research and practice. Second Edition. London: Allymand Bacon.
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