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Improving Students’ Writing Skill in Recount Text by Using Picture Series Medium

This research aimed to describe how picture series medium can increase the students’ writing skill for eighth grade students in state junior high school 1 of Bintan. The Classroom Action Research was taken for this research design. The research comprised of two cycles with four meeting in the two cycles. A test was the main data of this research. Twenty students in VIII B at state junior high school 1 of Bintan, in the academic year of 2019/2020 were the subject of this research. The outcome appeared that there were developments in students’ writing skill. It tended to be seen from the outcome of each post-test in the two cycles. Students’ test average in cycle 1 was 63.57. Students’ test average in second cycle was 68.87. It meant that picture series medium could help students in improving their writing skill.


I INTRODUCTION
One of the important language skill is writing. The purpose of acquiring a knowledge of English in general at the junior high school level is students can develop competencies in written and oral form, as stated in the Law on the National Education System (2003) that high school students who have graduated must have adequate English language competence.
In curriculum 2013, it is referenced that students are required to be able to comprehend and make a variety of short useful texts and monologues in descriptive form, procedure, narrative, recount, and report. Gradations of teaching material are appeared in the use of vocabulary, grammar, and steps of rhetoric. Basic competencies in the junior level is expressing the significant and verbal steps in the form of simple short essay by using a variety of writing texts correctly, smoothly and adequately to relate with the nearest environment as text recount, namely, with indicators composing recount text and writing recount text. Therefore, English teachers are required to be able to do various efforts to improve students' ability to express ideas into writing to achieve goals predetermined learning.
Writing is an activity that students are not interested in because they find difficulties to express their ideas. This happens because English is indeed a foreign language that is rarely used in everyday life. From the results of interviewing several students, they said that they had been having difficulty to write well, they did not know yet how to write by using good and correct methods so that the writing activity is not their favorite activities. Besides, the limited vocabulary mastery made the students feel insecure to write what they want, as the result, the students did not enjoy the learning.
Medium is one of the tools used by teachers in ideal learning. Learning activities can utilize or involve various learning resources or media both within and around the school. In the process of learning English in state junior high school 1 of Bintan, the media which the teacher uses were only books, namely students learning modules so learning activities tended to be monotonous and boring. Learning medium is used to influence students' learning achievement. By using and selecting the right media, it is expected to improve students' writing achievement.
According to Arsyad (2009), the application of encouraging media can bring the instructional reason for instruction or information about learning. Medium is a tool used for communicating the instruction and information. The cards as media that have been used as a solution for the problems encountered in learning to write a simple essay on English subjects like to find ideas, opinions, and knowledge in writing so that later students have a penchant for writing in many studies. Therefore, picture series medium that has been modified is expected to be one of a solution to the problems encountered in learning to write simple essays on English subjects to find ideas, opinions, opinions, and knowledge in writing so that later students have a penchant for writing. Some pictures showing continuous events of a story are called picture series medium Zhuri (2013). Muhibuddin (2016) revealed that picture series worked in increasing the students' writing skill in recount text. Based on the observation, the researcher concluded picture series medium can enhance the students' writing skill. According to Lidyawati (2016), she confirmed that those who were taught through picture series achieved better in writing recount text than those who were taught without picture series. According to Nugroho (2014), based on the results of his research there were significant differences in students' achievement after being taught by using picture series. Then, according to Pratiwi (2016), using picture series could help the students to improve their writing skill through recount text. Once the students got interested in doing the activities, they found it easy to explore their ideas and feelings based on the picture series.
The use of picture in series as a teaching aid in teaching writing could improve students' achievement and their active participation. Therefore, it is suggested for the English teacher to apply pictures in series to teach writing or even the other skills and language components. Picture in series was proved in having many advantages for the teaching aid in the teaching and learning process such as improving the students' interest and motivation, providing information to be referred in the discussion of lesson, and contributing to the context in which the language is being used (Firdaus, 2015). The purpose of this article is to describe how picture series medium can improve the students' writing skill for eighth grade students at state junior high school 1 of Bintan.

II METHOD
This research used classroom action research. Classroom Action Research is a part of varied sorts of action analysis out of other themes like democratic analysis, essential action analysis, and action learning (Phillips, D.A. & Carr, 2010). Furthermore, Burn (2010) states that action research is part of a broad movement that has been going on in education generally for some time. It is associated with the ideas of "reflective practice" and "the teacher as researcher".
In this study, the researcher used four research instruments. More particularly, the instruments were explored as follows, a test is a method of measuring a persons' ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain (Brown, 2002). While the task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target language (Nunan, 1989). An interview is a purposeful exchange of ideas, the answering of questions between two or more persons (Scott, 1998). The last is observation. Observation is an act to record observable phenomena or behavior in a natural setting (Gorman, 2005).

III RESULT
The researcher conducted the research on March 9th, 2020 until April 2nd, 2020. The picture series medium made students write easier because they could implement their ideas based on the picture series, then they could write using past tense better than before. The students were very excited and there were many students joined the discussion actively. In the beginning, they were very confused to understand what was explained. After that, they were able to understand, and they were able to develop their ideas through the medium. In cycle one, the students' writing skill improved quite well but the indicator of success has not been reached yet. In the cycle two, the students' writing skill improved and the indicator of success has been reached. The findings of the research showed the improvement from the pre-test up to cycle two could be a reflection of the benefits of using picture series as a medium in helping the students in their writing skill. Picture series is recommended for teaching and learning writing skill activities because it has many benefits in the learning process of writing (Smaldino, 2005). The result showed that the students writing skill got better in each cycle and the students have reached the indicator of success for students' recount writing score that was 65. This research comprised of two cycles. In each cycle has four meetings. It was found that the enforcement of the actions in two cycles brought the improvement of their writing skills in recount text. They produced better writing after used the picture series medium. Their post-test which held on last meeting of each cycle also appeared in giving improvement in three aspects of writing namely purpose, structure, and language features. The obtained scores for each aspect in the text were obtained from pre-test to second post-test. The students' score result analysis appeared that the average score in the pre-test was 58.1, in the first post-test was 63.57, and it reached 68.87 in the second post-test. From the result of two cycles, it showed that there was an improvement of students' writing skill using Picture Series medium.
In cycle one, the average score was 63.57. In the teaching-learning process, many students were joining the class enthusiastically. They paid attention to the lesson, although many of the students were still confused with recount text. Based on the data from the researcher, most of the students got scores in fair categories. Meanwhile, two students got good categories in cycle one.
In cycle two, the average score was 68.87. In the teaching-learning process, many students were joining the class enthusiastically. The students paid attention to the lesson and asked the researcher when they found difficulties. In the second meeting until the fourth meeting of the second cycle, the teaching-learning process was done online. Many students were actively joining the class. Based on the data from the researcher, most of the students got scores in fair categories but higher than cycle one.
In the observation, students' writing scores was poor. They could not stash away the ideas to write, and they make some mistakes due to a lack of vocabulary. Their writing scores revealed that their skill in writing was low. It happened due to certain problems, they had poor motivation in writing, the students could not be able to write properly, the students had poor vocabulary, the students were not attentive in the writing and they still have difficulties to find out the idea.

V CONCLUSION
The implementation of the picture series medium in teaching writing was successful, because the picture series medium was an interesting medium where students had a lot of opportunities to write recount text. So, it could be concluded that picture series medium was an appropriate medium used in teaching writing and could improve the students' writing skill.