SYNOPSIS

Name : Martos Alfitri

NIM : 10714000764

Semester : VI

Title : The Effectiveness of Teacher’s response in improving students’

writing narrative ability in English at the First Year Students of SMA N 3
Kampar

A. Background of the Problem

Language cannot be acquired by mastering some language skills only but we have
to master all of language skills. Haycraft says that in mastering a language at least there
are four skills that involve such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing skill. These
four skills are integrated and relate each other.1

Writing is very important to be taught and learned. Skill in writing is a basic

necessity in an academic environment and nonacademic one. There are some reasons for
teaching writing to students English as a foreign language, 2 they are: (1) Reinforcement:
some students are able to speak, listen to, reading but they cannot write. So they have to
be taught how to write first and then what to write to make them acquire a language
completely. (2) Language development: the process in writing will help us to learn by
using the experiences. (3) Learning style: students have different learning style each
other. Some students are quick in learning a language by looking and listening but others
will need to write something in the process of acquiring the language. (4) Writing as a
skill: writing is as important as other language skills (speaking, listening and reading).
Students need to know how to write a letter, note, reply a letter and etc.

Writing is not as easy as we think to be done by all of students. Writing is viewed

as the result of complex processes of planning, drafting, reviewing and revising and some

1 Haycraft, John. An Introduction to English Language Teaching. (England: Longman Group UK Limited
,1986), p. 8.
2 Harmer, Jeremy. How to Teach English.(England; Pearson Education, 1998), p. 79.

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 approaches to the teaching of first and second language writing teach students to use
these processes. Writing is clearly a complex process.3 According to Arlov there are some
steps in a process of writing such as; prewriting, planning, drafting, revising, and
proofreading.4 These five steps are provided by Arlov to help students’ writer in the
writing process. So that students are able to write by following the steps easily.

Teachers’ response plays an important role in developing students’ writing ability.

The response given to students is an important part of the process of writing. Reid states
that teacher response is very important in the writing course.5 Response based on the
Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics that written by Jack
C. Richard refers to comments or other information that learners receive concerning their
success on learning tasks or tests, either from the teacher or other persons.6 According to
Reid response is some inputs from reader to writer that provides information for
revision.7

SMA N 3 Kampar is one of school that applies School-Based Curriculum. English

is taught from the first grade until the third there, they are taught English twice a week.
Based on the curriculum, the students will not have any difficulties in English especially
in writing because the curriculum has been applied there.

Based on the writer’s preliminary study, he found some problems that are faced
by the first year students at SMA N 3 Kampar in English especially in writing course.
The students have learned writing skills in English at least about for eight years: four
years at elementary school, three years at Junior High School, and one year at Senior
High School. Based on the facts, normally they will not have any troubles in English. But
the reality, their writing ability in English is so worried.

The problems that are faced by the students can be stated in the phenomenon

3 Nunan, David. Language Teaching and Methodology a Textbook for Teachers. (New York: Prentice
Hall, 1991), p. 91.
4 Arlov, Pamela. Wordsmith: A Guide of College Writing. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson
Education, 2004), p. 4-6.
5 Reid, Joy M. Teaching ESL Writing.(United Stated of America: Parentice Hall, 1993), p. 218.
6 Richard, Jack C. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.(London: Pearson
Education Limited, 2002), p. 199.
7 Op.cit.
 below:

1. Most of students do not have attention in English.

2. Most of students cannot construct an English sentence correctly.

3. Most of students cannot develop a topic sentence so that their paragraphs

are difficult to be understood.

4. Most of students cannot develop their ideas effectively

5. Students are taught without a good approach

6. Most of students do not know how to correct their own writing

7. Some students cannot write in English

The problems above can be caused by internal and external factors. Because of the
important of acquiring or mastering writing skills, writer interested in doing research
entitled THE EFFECTIVENESS TEACHER’S RESPONSE IN IMPROVING
STUDENTS’ WRITING ABIILITY IN ENGLISH AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS
OF SMA 3 KAMPAR.

B. Formulation of the Problem

Based on the limitation of the problems depicted above, thus, the problem of this
research will be formulated in the following research question. Is there any significant
effect of teacher’s response in improving students’ writing narrative ability at the first
year students of SMA N 3 Kampar?

C. Method of Research

The design of this research is a quasi-experimental research which intended to

find out the effectiveness of teacher’s written response in improving students’ writing
ability. Dealing with the background that has been explained before, this problem occurs
at SMA N 3 Kampar. The writer will conduct this research for eight meetings of

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 instruction starting from April until May 2011. Subject of this research is the first year
students of SMA N 3 Kampar. The object of this research is the effectiveness of teacher’s
response in improving students’ writing narrative ability in English. The population of
the research is all the first year students of SMA N 3 Kampar that consists of 187
students, and the sample of this research is two classes where each class consists of 38
students. One class as experimental group and another is as control group.

THE POPULATION OF THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS AT SMAN 3 KAMPAR

POPULATION
NO CLASSES TOTAL
MALE FEMALE
1 X. A
2 X. B

3 X. C

4 X. D

5 X. E

TOTAL

THE SAMPLE OF THIS RESEARCH

SAMPLE
NO CLASSES TOTAL
MALE FEMALE
1 X. D
2 X. E

In collecting data the writer will use tests, they are pre-test; is used to determine
the students’ writing ability before getting the treatment and post-test that used to
determine students’ writing ability after getting the treatment. In scoring student’s
writing ability the writer of this paper will use ESL Composition Profile and in analyzing
the data the writer will use t-test. The formula best on Hartono (2004: 208)
References

Arlov, Pamela. (2004). Wordsmith: A Guide to College Writing. Upper Saddle River, New
Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc

Harmer, Jeremy. (1998).How to Teach English. England: Pearson Education

Haycraft, John. (1986). An Introduction to English Language Teaching. England: Longman

Group UK Limited

Nunan, David. (1991). Language Teaching and Methodology a Textbook for Teachers. New
York: Prentice Hall

Reid, Joy M. (1993). Teaching ESL Writing. United State of America: Prentice Hall Regents

Richard, Jack C, Richard Schmidt. (2002). Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics. London: Pearson Education Limited