Studying English as a foreign language is gradually getting
more important. In Indonesian government, English is considered as a first
foreign language and compulsory subject to be taught in secondary school.
English is one of the compulsory subjects in Indonesia. One of the aims of
teaching English is to develop the ability to communicate. The ability involves
the four skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. The researcher
mainly focused on writing skill, because writing is considered the most
difficult and complicated language skill to be learned. Writing needs hard
thinking to produce ideas, words, sentences, paragraphs, and composition. Writing
is one of the important skills to be mastered by the students. They use it to communicate
to each other, as means of ideas and emotional expression, because when they
write their ideas and emotion creatively, they are communicating on paper in
their very best ways and purposes.
Based on
Competency Standard- Standar Kompetensi (SK) and Basic
Competency- Kompetensi Dasar (KD), the second year students are
expected to be able to express meaningful ideas in term of functional text and
simple short essay in the form of descriptive and recount to
interact with people in their nearest environment. The work of writing is
presented in the form text types, usually known as genres, which are closely
related to the purpose of each type. There must be a convergence between
English teaching and learning. Therefore, efforts to developed students writing
skill in English are not only one of the important objectives of English
teaching, but also to adapt to the needs of examination.
Researchers
and all teachers aware that writing is difficult subject than the other
language skill especially for the students, most of foreign language students
cannot write composition well, because they have to be able to mix their idea
and have enough capability in vocabulary and grammar. “Writing is one of language skills that are
more complex and difficult than the others, because students must master
grammar and vocabulary. The students must have concept of writing not only in
their brain but they also have to translate it in writing language, and it is
difficult to write concepts that exist in our brain. (Retno 2007, p. 28).
Based on the statement above,
the researcher argued that Clustering technique can solve the students’ problem in writing.
1. Literature Review
The General Concept of Writing
There are a lot of definitions stated by experts; Raymond
(1980, p. 2) states one of them, he defined that writing is more than a medium
of communication. It means that writing is not just the way to communicate to
each other but also as means of ideas and emotional expression. Writing makes
word permanent, and thus expands the collective memory of human being from the
relatively small store that we can remember and pass on orally to the infinite
capacity of a modern library.
Writing is also a way of finding
out what people know and what people need to learn. Spoken words disappear as
soon as they are spoken, but writing freezes their thought, make them visible
and permanent so people can examine and test their quality. It can be seen that
writing is a way of remembering because it make word permanent and writing also is a good
way to communicate because when writing, the researcher really thinks about
what he or she want to be communicated by writing it. That is a way of keeping
themselves honest because writing is a way of arguing with them.
Writing is a process of
discovering and shaping meaning. Experienced writers rarely gather and
understand immediately all the information they need. From the definition
above, writing needs a process which must be surpassed by the researcher. And
writing is a tools of human beings to share information or stories to others
because someone can read it by several times.
When
someone writes something, he or she has purposes for writing. Each writer has
own purpose, in accordance with the text of which was planning to write. In
addition, based on competency standard- standar kompetensi (SK), and basic
competency- kompetensi dasar (KD), the second semester students are expected to
be able to express meaningful ideas in term of functional text and simple short
essay in the form of descriptive or recount to interact with people in their
nearest environment.
According to Braine and May
defined four comment purposes in writing, there are; writing to inform, writing
to explain, writing to persuade, and writing to amuse others. First, writing to
inform purposed to educate the readers about a topic of which we have some
knowledge. Writing that provides interesting details and facts to hold an
audience’s attention. It means that writers share interest knowledge to readers
knows. Second, writing to explain is to describe the topic which was not
clearly become more understandable, by using examples or other facts. In other words, a writer takes what is unclear and makes it clear.
Then, writing to persuade is more demanding and more ambitious than many other
types of writing. It means that writers convince the readers to accept the
ideas. The last, writing to amuse other means someone who uses language and
established forms well to express his or her point of view. It is writing to
entertain and give the reader something to enjoy.
The Process of Writing
Writing
process is learning how to write by writing. This current emphasis in writing instruction
focuses on the process of creating writing rather than the end product. The
basic premise of process writing is that all children, regardless of age, can
write. The initial focus is on creating quality content and learning the genres
of writing. Langan stated that writing is a process that involves the following
steps:
1. Discovering
a point-often through prewriting
2. Developing
solid support for the point-often through more prewriting.
3. Organizing
the supporting material and writing it out in a first draft.
4. Revising
and then editing carefully to ensure an effective,
error-free paper.
Learning this sequence will give
you confidence when the time comes to write. You will know that you can use
prewriting as a way to think on paper and to gradually discover just what ideas
you want to develop. You will understand that there are four clear-cut
goals-unity, support, organization, and error-free sentences to aim for in your
writing. You will realize that you can use revision to rework a paper until it
is a strong and effective piece of writing. And you will be able to edit a
paper so that your sentences are clear and error-free. Langan (2006, p. 20)
The Problems of Writing
The first problem is “ the
less proficient writer “ problem. Less proficient writers jump the process of
writing by skip the prewriting strategies to generate ideas. Students might
take much time to write down their ideas. The suggestion for this problem is
teacher should teach less proficient writes the writing process. Teachers also
need to give full attention to them, to show them how to plan a piece of
writing through prewriting activities. The second problem is “ I can’t write
English “ problem. Students usually give up toward writing and believe that
they cannot write. The solution is teachers should apply the writing process to
the students. Teacher can lead students through prewriting, drafting, and
revising activities. By doing this, students can see that writing is indeed a
process of development that takes time and efford. The last problem is “teacher
respond” problem. Writing teachers often spend many hours reading and marking
students’ papers. The suggestion for this problem is teachers can work with students on developing
their written work through student-to-student conferences. Gebhard (2006, pp. 223-226).
Clustering Technique
Definition of Technique
The term technique is commonly used in teaching learning
process. It is often misunderstood with two others term, they are approach and
method. Therefore, it is important to give clear description of those terms to
avoid misunderstanding.
The Definition of Clustering Technique
Cooper and Axelrod (1996, p. 21) viewed that clustering is an invention
activity which reveal possible relations among facts and ideas. It means that
clustering is a creative activity, because when creating a clustering people
tries to find things related to the topic. Clustering requires a brief period
of initial planning. Based on that
definition, clustering is activity before writing a text by making a note in
advance about the ideas that are owned and relevance of the fact that the text
will be written.
Clustering is another effective method you could use
to narrow a subject. To cluster, write the subject in the middle of a blank
sheet of paper and draw a circle around it. Because through clustering technique, a writer could
be easily to give an idea of what will be written especially helpful for visual
learners. In a cluster diagram the central events or components of an essay are
presented visually, more detailed events branch of the main events to provide a
visual overview of the entire.
As Langan (2001, p. 22)
said that clustering also known as diagramming or mapping, is another strategy
that can be used to generate material for a paper. This method is helpful for
people to think in a visual way. In addition, clustering
is another strategy that can be used to generate material for a paper.
The Step of Using Clustering
Axelord
and Cooper (1985, p. 461) stated that clustering can be useful for any kind of
writing. Writers use it in the early stages of planning an essay in order to
find subtopic in a topic or to organize information. They may try and discard
several clusters before finding one that is promising. Clustering works as
follows:
1.
In a word or phrase, write your topic in
the center of a piece of paper. Circle it.
2.
Also in a word or phrase, write down the
main parts or central ideas of your topic. Circle these, and connect them to
the topic in the center.
3.
The next step is to generate fact,
details, examples, or ideas related in any way to these main parts of the topic.
Cluster these around the main parts.
Teaching Writing Using Clustering Technique
The followings are steps in teaching writing using
clustering technique:
Step 1: Introduce the concept of clustering technique to
students. Tell them that clustering technique would help them in
generate ideas when they started to write.
Step 2: Leading
student to generate ideas in form clustering technique on the whiteboard as a
model. Put the topic in the center by using box or other shape to make it more
interesting, and put keywords related to the topic by using lines or arrows.
Students don’t have to worry in generating ideas; it is free for them to
organize their ideas as long as related to the topic given.
Step 3: Ask student to
write the first draft based on the design of clustering technique samples that
have been made on the whiteboard to know that students have easy when started
to write by using clustering technique.
Step 4: After students
are able to use clustering technique, ask them through selected topic to make a
procedural recount text referred to their own experience. Give students an
evaluation to check their ability and writing and to know their problems in
writing.
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