JoAL Journal of Applied Linguistics JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS Vol.
1 No.
January 2022 e- ISSN 2809 - 1922 , p-ISSN 2809 - 1914 Available online at:
https://journal.
org/index.
php/joal/index THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING SEQUENCE PICTURE MEDIA IN TEACHING EFL STUDENTS IN WRITING PROCEDURE TEXT Jonris Tampubolon1.
Edi Suprayetno2 Universitas Prima Indonesia1.
APP APIPSU Medan2 john89tpb@gmail.
Abstract Teaching EFL students are both challenging and demanding as English is neither the studentsAo mother tongue nor their second language.
Therefore, it is essentially required to select an effective way or technique in achieving the objectives of the lesson.
This study was aimed to investigate the use of sequence picture media and its effectiveness in teaching EFL students how to write a procedure text.
This study was conducted by using quantitative research with one group pretest-posttest design at Universitas Prima Indonesia.
The steps involve administering pretest measuring the dependent variable, applying the experimental treatment X to the subjects.
and administering a posttest again measuring the dependent variable.
There were 40 students taken as the subject of the study.
The data were collected through a pretest and a posttest.
The result on this study showed that the studentsAo responses and performances were improved.
It can be seen from the finding which showed that studentsAo percentage in using the language components such as grammar, sequence words, commands or imperative sentences, and adverbial phrases accurately.
The result of the questionnaire also showed that the students considered sequence picture technique was effective in helping them write procedure text correctly.
Key Words: EFL Students.
Procedure Text.
Sequence Picture Media INTRODUCTION Writing is one of the four skills that must be mastered by students who use English as a foreign language (EFL) since it is one of the ways for them to express their ideas, thoughts and Aside from that, writing is also essentially required in academic purposes such as writing procedures on how to operate a new electronic device or how to install that device, writing application letters, writing emails, even writing daily journals and other necessary needs.
Furthermore, students also have need of writing in order to enable them communicate with their pen pals or their cyber friends on social media.
Being able to successfully demonstrate their ideas, thoughts and feelings will help them overlook challenges on their future.
Leki .
also described that English writing in both educational and professional settings is increasingly important in countries of non-native speakers of English.
But unfortunately, writing has been perceived as the most difficult thing to do by most of EFL students.
Before conducting this research, the writer has observed studentsAo responses toward writing-based tasks during the on-going class.
It was found that the majority of the students were reluctant to do their task when it came to writing.
After being observed and asked several questions.
Published by English Lecturers and Teachers Association (ELTA) Copyright A 2022, authors DOI : 10.
52622/joal.
Journal of Applied Linguistics (JoAL).
Vol.
1 No.
January 2022.
e-ISSN 2809-1922, p-ISSN 2809-1914 some of the causes of this problem are lack of vocabulary.
Lacking of vocabulary puts boundaries for students to expand their ideas and thoughts.
It was often found that their writing was stuck or remained unfinished due to the absence of the words they need in writing.
Another cause is failing to structure their ideas effectively.
This happened because they did not have the outlines of the writing which actually would help them organize their ideas in writing.
Besides that, poor understanding of grammar and syntax skills have been one of the major obstacles for students to This has been affecting their willingness to write.
They were afraid that their writing would be scored low due to the errors on their grammar.
And the result of this observation is in line with the previous finding by Tampubolon .
which described that writing in English was not only viewed as a difficult task to do due the lack of the vocabulary mastery but also resulted from the lack of self-confidence the students have when they are asked to write their own composition.
And the other one is plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the most common case been found in writing especially among students.
One of the main factors of this plagiarism was due to the lack of argumentative ideas within the students.
So they always tried to find ways to copy their friendsAo work or taking existed writing on internet.
As a result, they showed tendency to use Google translation by copying the whole sentences from source language and some of them even did not submit their work with an excuse that they did not have any ideas on how to do that.
This phenomenon must be taken seriously and needs an effort on how to deal with it.
Therefore, the writer was interested to do this research to investigate this problem and to find out the answer to the phenomenon as stated above.
English as a foreign language (EFL) is the term used to describe the study of English by non-native speakers in countries where English is not the dominant language (Nordquist, 2.
Teaching EFL students are both challenging and demanding as English is neither the studentsAo mother tongue nor their second language.
English educators are demanded to select an effective technique in aiming the objective of the lesson in possible way.
In this study, the writer was using sequence picture technique in teaching how to write procedure text.
Procedure text is one of so many genres of writing which allows students to elaborate the process of doing something or showing how something is done.
This could be burdensome for them if they are not familiar with the terms and the things related to it.
Therefore they need some guidance to help them brainstorm the ideas and stimulate their schemata on things they have to work on.
Hence, the writer was investigating the use of sequence picture technique to teach them on how to write a procedure text Procedure text is a type of text which is designed to elaborate the procedure of doing or using something, for example the procedure of using washing machine, cooking spaghetti and so Its generic structure consists of introductory paragraph, list of material or tools needed, and sequence of steps (Hartono, 2.
The purpose of writing procedure text is to give an overview for the readers about the process of doing something so they can visualize the process even though they have not done or used it.
Sequence picture media is a teaching media which consists of series of pictures compiled into a collage that is described in order.
Sequencing pictures in writing will help the students write their ideas in order.
So they will know what to do first, second, and next.
Besides that, it also gives them a visualization about what they are going to write.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study is a quantitative research with one group pretest-posttest design aiming to investigate the effectiveness of sequence picture technique in teaching how to write a procedure text among the students of Universitas Prima Indonesia.
There were 40 students taken as the subject of this study.
The study started by observing the studentsAo attitude towards writing-based tasks during Published by English Lecturers and Teachers Association (ELTA) Copyright A 2022, authors Journal of Applied Linguistics (JoAL).
Vol.
1 No.
January 2022.
e-ISSN 2809-1922, p-ISSN 2809-1914 teaching experiences.
After obtaining preliminary data through observation, then the writer planned to administer a writing test as a pretest then analyzed the result.
Afterwards, the writer conduct a teaching process by implementing the use sequence picture media in order to find the solution toward the problem gathered in the previous observation and enhance the writing score on pretest.
On the implementation of sequence picture media, on the very first step, the writer prepared a series of picture that have been sequenced accordingly.
The pictures were presented in the classroom during teaching and learning process.
Then the writer prepared an explanation on how to write a procedure text by following its generic structure which consists of introductory paragraph, list of material or tools needed, and sequence of steps (Hartono, 2.
Aside from that, the writer also provided and explanation the language components such as target grammar and vocabulary used in writing procedure text and other writing features like transition markers .
irst, second, third, ) and also punctuation and capitalization.
The students were given an exposure by showing the series of pictures that have been prepared and giving them a proper explanation about how to write a procedure text.
The students then were formed into groups of 4 to have discussion to do the first task which is writing a procedure text for cycle one.
While doing the task, the writer observed the classroom by recording studentsAo attitude towards the task such as their behavior, cooperation, action and expression.
During group work, most of students participated in the discussion and showed good cooperative behavior towards the given task.
And to see individual performance, the writer then gave a posttest.
The writing were analyzed based on the language features used in the text such as using simple present tense correctly, using command or imperative sentence appropriately, using adverbial phrases properly such as adverb of time, manner, and place and using adverbs of sequence accurately such first, second, third, etc.
(Andersons, 2.
Figure 1 Sequence Picture of Making Chocolate The above figure was one of the pictures used by the writer in teaching students how to write a procedure text which is about process of making chocolate.
The sequence picture was presented to accommodate the students with their writing so they could get the ideas and guidance in deliberating it.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
The result on cycle one showed the effectiveness of applying sequence picture technique in teaching procedure text as seen as follow.
Published by English Lecturers and Teachers Association (ELTA) Copyright A 2022, authors Journal of Applied Linguistics (JoAL).
Vol.
1 No.
January 2022.
e-ISSN 2809-1922, p-ISSN 2809-1914 Fair Good Very Good Figure 2 Result of Pre Test The result on pretest as indicated on the above chart shows that 19% of the students could write the procedure text very good which was categorized into good and 37% of the students could demonstrate their writing well which reached good category while the rest of the students which consists of 46% performed fairly.
While in term of vocabulary, 16% of the subjects were able to use the vocabulary appropriately which then categorized into very good, then there were 34% of the students could utilize the vocabulary quite well which then grouped into good, and the rest of the students which is the other 50% still needed help and more guidance in writing the procedure text using proper words.
The last language component which was also analyzed by the writer is the use of grammar.
As seen, 18% of the students could make use of the grammar correctly in writing their sentences, which is categorized in very good.
And 27% of the participants were able to demonstrate the use of grammar well which labeled into good.
While the other 28% of the students still could not use the grammar accordingly then labeled into fair, which means they need more exposure and encouragement about how to build correct sentences in English.
Based on the above result, it was necessarily required to conduct an alternative way to see the improvement of the studentsAo grades in writing procedure text through sequence picture media.
After conducting pretest, the writer gave some feedback towards studentsAo writing by showing what they did wrong and which part they were already good at.
The writer encouraged the students to select the right words used in their sentences since the lowest point in cycle one was in term of vocabulary.
And majority of the inappropriateness was due to the error in word choice.
The writer also reminded students to use the proper grammar when writing their sentence which is present simple tense since most sentences in procedure text are written in that kind of tense.
After making sure all of the students understood the parts they had to work on, the writer then gave another writing task for them by making some little changes.
It only took around 15 minutes for some students to finish their writing, while some other students spent around 20-30 minutes to do it.
After making sure all of the students have submitted their writing, the writer then analyzed them by considering the three main writing components in procedure text such as grammar, vocabulary and body structure.
Then the writer found the data as follow.
Fair Good Very good Figure 3 Result of Post Test Published by English Lecturers and Teachers Association (ELTA) Copyright A 2022, authors Journal of Applied Linguistics (JoAL).
Vol.
1 No.
January 2022.
e-ISSN 2809-1922, p-ISSN 2809-1914 The above chart shows that 60% of the students could follow the generic structure of the procedure text in writing their text very well which means there are 24 students performed very And the chart also indicates that 30% of the students could write well, meaning there are 12 students who are categorized into good performance.
While the rest of the students which is 10% still unable to write well.
It means there are 4 students who performed fair.
On second part which is vocabulary, it shows that 55% of the students used the vocabulary appropriately which means there are twenty two students who performed well in term of vocabulary that is categorized into very And another 30% of the students were able to utilize the vocabulary properly.
It means there were around eleven students who were categorized into good.
While the other 15% number of the subject consisting of six students could make use of the vocabulary fairly.
While on the last language component namely grammar, there were also twenty two students as shown on the above chart as much as 55% who could use the grammar correctly.
And another 30% which consists of 12 students were able to use the grammar well and grouped into good category.
Then the last 15% of the students which consists of six showed less understanding in the use of grammar in their writing.
The findings on this study are in line with the findings on the previous study conducted by Anisa which shows that there was a significant progress on studentsAo writing after being taught using sequence picture technique.
Therefore the study suggests that the use of sequence picture technique can improve studentsAo writing performance.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Based on the findings and discussions on the previous chapter, the writer comes into some Teaching EFL students in writing procedure text using sequence picture media is significantly effective.
The studentsAo writing scores are impressively increased after being taught using picture sequence media.
The use of this media is considered successful because the students find it helpful in giving them ideas about the writing.
Furthermore, the media can help them write their composition smoothly by following the sequence of the pictures therefore their writing organization is found easily to be followed.
Besides that, the studentsAo score in terms of vocabulary is also improved due to the use of this media.
It is because the media can activate their schemata and stimulates their mind in selecting the proper words to be used in their writing.
Lastly, the studentsAo grammar is also significantly improved.
By using the sequence picture media, students can view the use of appropriate type of verbs in their sentences through the help of this media.
Therefore they can write their sentences with proper types of verbs and tenses.
The writer suggests that the use of sequence pictures must in line with English educatorsAo guidance especially in explaining the procedure of the writing the outlines of the studentsAo composition and also giving example of the model writing.
Aside from that, the explanation of the grammar use in writing procedure text is essentially needed.
It is also suggested to the further writer to expand the complexity of the writing so the students will find it more challenging.
And this sequence picture media might be considerably used for another type of writing with some necessary Published by English Lecturers and Teachers Association (ELTA) Copyright A 2022, authors Journal of Applied Linguistics (JoAL).
Vol.
1 No.
January 2022.
e-ISSN 2809-1922, p-ISSN 2809-1914
REFERENCES