CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Writing is a fundamental skill that holds a significant role in

communication by delivering messages to the reader across time and places through

written forms. In language learning according to Astuti et al. (2020), writing is an

important language skill because it means to learn, discover, develop and improve other

language skills. Writing is a helpful skill that can reinforce the ability to learn language

because it deals with a complex aspect such as the organization of ideas, the rules of

grammar, motivation to write, and vocabulary mastery (Wahono and Afifah, 2022). To

write, students need the knowledge of vocabulary to deliver meaningful text. It can be

done by integrating other skills such as listening, reading and speaking. Writing also

consists of five elements such as content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and

mechanics which need to be united among all the elements (Margana and Maristy,

2020). The key to write is understanding the basic competence of writing, which

consists of vocabulary and grammar.

Many students face difficulties in writing, especially in terms of grammatical

accuracy and lexical richness. Bulqiyah, Mahbub, and Nugraheni (2021) stated that

linguistic abilities are very important for the writing process, and they found that

students often face difficulties in grammar and vocabulary. Grammar plays an

important role in this field of linguistics because it serves as a structural framework for

building and articulating sentences. On the other hand, Hadi, Izzah, and Paulia (2021)

stated that having strong vocabulary mastery is very important for students who want

to communicate and strengthen their ideas in writing. As a result, developing

grammatical proficiency and lexical mastery becomes an important effort to overcome

the various difficulties associated with written expression, and this helps students

become proficient in writing.

In the curriculum merdeka, junior high school students learn various genres of

text with certain communicative purposes, generic structure and linguistic features,

such as descriptive, narrative, recount, report and procedure text. In merdeka

curriculum, the objective of writing material for seventh grade students is limited only

into descriptive, narrative and procedure text. Procedure text is a written or spoken

text that consists of steps to make or to do something. It is constructed of several

elements such as generic structure, lexico-grammatical and social function. Procedure

text is an elementary to understand, easy to find and students are often seen or

experience in their activity (Nasution et al., 2021). This kind of text can be found daily

and carries vital information to accomplish something in the form of a set of

instructions, directions, or a manual.

However, writing procedure text seems difficult to the students, especially in

the seventh grade of SMP Batik PK Surakarta. Based on the interview with the English

teacher for the pre-observation on 19 September 2023, the researcher founds that the
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students are unable to develop ideas to construct good procedure text and students

easily get bored when they’re asked to write

There are various media that can be applied in writing procedure text to help

students easily produce a good procedure text. The current media used by the teacher

to teach writing is text-based which give students exposure to new set of vocabulary

and enhance their reading competence. Using text as learning writing also consider as

easy and flexible but sometimes students’ easily get bored and uninterested.

On the other hand, there is also another media such as picture sequences that

can be used to teach writing procedure text. Picture sequences is a visual media that

contain a set of images. It can stimulate students in getting and developing ideas into

appropriate sentences and paragraphs. It has positive effects on enhancing students’

motivation and enthusiasm in constructing ideas by analyzing the picture and

generating the idea into a sentence. This media can be applied into all kinds of text,

research by Hafsari and Harahap (2022) shows that picture sequence gives significant

effect to enhancing students’ writing ability of descriptive text. Another research by

Fadila and Fitraawati (2022) supports that picture sequence helps students to increase

their ability to write explanation text with a proper grammar and better structure. Thus,

the researcher interested to use picture sequence to increase students’ writing procedure

text.

A previous related study conducted by Tampubolon, J., & Suprayetno, E.

(2022), titled “The Effectiveness of Using Sequence Picture Media in Teaching EFL
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Students in Writing Procedure Text” revealed that the use of picture sequence is

significantly effective to improve students’ writing ability in writing procedure text.

The final result shows that after being taught by using picture sequence, students

performed a good writing and gained higher score.

Another previous study was conducted by Fitri, Z. H., Farmasari, S., & Aziz,

A. D. (2022), entitled “The Implementation of Picture Series in Teaching Writing

Procedural Text at Tenth Grade of SMAN 1 Sakra in Academic Year 2022/2023”,

found that using picture sequence has a significant effect to increase students’ writing

score. The data shows that the average score of the post-test is supreme over the pre-

test after being treated with a picture sequence. Moreover, the study finds that using

picture sequence improved students’ writing components such as content, organization

and grammar.

The difference between this research and the first research by Tampubolon, J.,

& Suprayetno, E. (2022), is this research using two group, experiment and control

group to investigate if there is a different score between class taught with picture

sequence and class who used teacher’s technique. In the first research only use one

group pretest-posttest. This research also different with the second study by Fitri, Z.

H., Farmasari, S., & Aziz, A. D. (2022). This research is carried for seventh grade

students while the second research is for the ten grade students.

Both previous studies show that picture sequences can be an effective technique

to enhancing students writing ability. It can stimulate students’ ideas and inspiration to
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write and helps students performed a good writing. Hence, the researcher is interested

in exploring more about using picture sequences in writing procedure text. The

researcher wants to know if there is any significant effect of using picture sequences

towards the ability of students to write procedure text in the seventh grade of SMP

Batik PK Surakarta. The title of the study is “The Effectiveness of Picture Sequences

to Increase Students’ Writing Ability of Procedure Text in Seventh Grade of SMP

Batik PK Surakarta”

B. Identification of the Study

Based on the background of the study above, the researcher identified some

problems as follows:

1. Students are unable to find ideas to start writing procedure text

2. Students are facing difficulty in generating their ideas to write a procedure

text

3. Students are unable to construct a systematic procedure text because of their

inadequate knowledge of vocabulary and grammar

C. Limitation of the Study

The researcher in limited this research to investigating specifically on the use

of picture sequence media to enhance the writing ability of seventh-grade students at

SMP Batik PK Surakarta during the academic year 2023/2024 consist of two classes.

The first class is VII A taught by using picture sequence and VII B as the class who
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taught using traditional text-sets. This study focused to testing the effectiveness of

using picture sequences versus traditional text sets in improving students' writing skills

of procedure text.

D. Formulation of the Study

The researcher formulated the problem as:

“Is there any effectiveness of using picture sequences to improve students’

writing ability of procedure text?”

E. Objectives of the Study

The objective of this research formulated from the problem above is to

investigate if is there any effectiveness of using picture sequences to improve students’

ability in writing procedure text.

F. Benefit of the Study

The researcher expected this study to have benefits such as:

1. Theoretical Benefit

The findings in this research can be useful in the education field

especially, to give clear information about the picture sequences technique to

improve students’ writing ability in procedure text with the concrete data from

this research.

2. Practical Benefits
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a. Teachers

The benefit of this research contributes to helping teachers explore

picture sequences as a method of teaching writing, especially in procedure text.

This also helps teachers to develop a new method or technique in teaching that

can engage students and create positive learning experience.

b. Students

The use of picture sequences in the writing class can help students in

developing their ideas, attract their attention and enhance their motivation to

learn by providing sequential image, students can brainstorm their ideas and

stimulating their imagination. So, it can improve students’ grades and learning

outcomes.

c. Other Researchers

This research is expected to inspire other researchers to develop this

technique and also to inspire them to explore new techniques or media in

teaching especially in teaching writing. This encourages researchers to go

beyond conventional learning and explore new technologies, multimedia

platforms and experiential learning tools.

G. Definition of Key Terms

There are terms that are important to describe related to the title “The

Effectiveness of Picture Sequence to Increase Students’ Writing Ability in Procedure

Text”.
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1. Writing Ability

Writing skills are defined as the special abilities that help writers

express their thoughts and words in a meaningful form and interact mentally

with the message.

2. Procedure Text

According to Knapp and Watkins (2006), procedure text is a text

consisting of a sequence of steps to achieve some specific goals. The purpose

of this text is to tell the reader how to make or to do something.

3. Picture Sequence

According to Yunus (1981), a picture sequence is a series of images

arranged in a specific order to inform information about a specific event or

topic.