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Developing Media to Teach Writing Skill for EFL

Learners at Indonesia

Conference Paper · November 2016

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 Developing Media to Teach Writing Skill
for EFL Learners at Indonesia

Dewi Rosita Liasari

Dewirosita304@gmail.com

Hari Prastyo
harrylinguist@yahoo.com

Abstract

This article discussed about Developing Media to Teach Writing Skill for EFL Learners at Indonesia.
The objective of this research was intended to develop appropriate writing electronic media for the
Tenth Grade Students’ of Vocational Senior High Schools and English teachers. It was kind of
research article that used Research and Development (R&D) Design.The procedures of this research
were need analysis, media development, validations of experts and teachers, revision, try out, revision
and final product. The instruments in need analysis were interview, questionnaire, and field note.
Data from students and teacher were reported descriptively and data from need analysis were used as
the basic of media development. Meanwhile, the validation form was used to gain the experts and
teachers judgement toward the media. The product of this research was an electronic instructional
media for writing skill in the form of CD and teacher’s guide book. The guide book consisted of the
technical guideline in how this media should be operated. The topics which were included were
descriptive, recount, and narrative text.

Keywords : Developing, Instructional Media for Writing Skill, Vocational Senior High School

Abstrak

Artikel ini membahas tentang Pengembangan Media dalam Menulis bagi Pembelajar Bahasa Inggris
sebagai Bahasa Asing yang ada di Indonesia. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk
mengembangkan Media Menulis berbasis Elektronik yang bisa dimanfaatkan untuk siswa SMK dan
Guru bahasa Inggris yang ada di SMK. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain Pengembangan. Berikut ini
adalah langkah-langkah yang dilakukan dalam penelitian ini: analisis kebutuhan, pengembangan
media, validasi ahli dan guru, revisi, uji coba, revisi dan produk akhir. Instrumen dalam analisis
kebutuhan adalah wawancara, angket, and catatan lapangan. Data yang didapatkan dari peserta didik
dan guru dilaporkan secara deskriptif dan data dari hasil analisis kebutuhan digunakan sebagai dasar
pengembangan media. Selanjutnya, validasi digunakan untuk mendapatkan penilaian dari ahli bidang
media dan guru bahasa Inggris. Produk penelitian ini adalah media elektronik untuk pembelajaran
menulis dalam bentuk CD dan buku Panduan untuk Guru dalam mengoperasikan media. Buku
panduan berisikan tentang petunjuk teknis tentang tata cara mengoperasikan media. Topik yang
dimasukkan dalam media ini adalah teks descriptive, recount, dan narrative.

Keywords : Pengembangan, Media Pembelajaran Menulis, SMK

INTRODUCTION

Language is a tool to communicate. There are several forms for communication, such as
spoken language and written language. The purpose of communication is to send a message from the
speaker to the listener or the written text to the reader. English as one of international language in the
world. It has four skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Speaking and writing are productive
skills meanwhile listening and reading are receptive skills. According to Alexandre LG (in Nawawi,
2011 : 1) said that ”all of four basic skills were understanding, speaking, reading and writing. In his
book, he also said that the most important of all basic language skills were speaking and writing”.
 In this section, this article focussed on writing skill. Among the other four skills, writing was
considered as one of the most difficult language skill since it was a productive language skill (As
Feez, 2002:103). Writing was regarded as a productive skill purpose assisting students in expressing
their written idea. In teaching writing, we could focus on the product of that writing or on the writing
process it self. Besides, writing needs more effort to generate sentences carefully and arrange it into
good structure. Some of students have low competence in writing, they also found difficulties in
vocabulary and grammar. They were often stuck with a blank paper for a long time to find inspiration
to write (Feez, 2002: 7)
A number of theories that supporting teachers’ efforts to understand L2 writing and learning
have developed since EFL/ESL writing first emerged as a distinctive area of scholarship in the 1980s
(Hyland, 2008: 91). Teachers as educators need to offer a valuable resource for assisting both pre- and
in service writing instructors to assist their students to produce effective and relevant texts. The focus
could be on the process of composition, the content of texts, or the abstract prescriptions of
disembodied grammars. Teachers need an attractive media to enable them ground their courses in the
texts that students will have to write in their target contexts, thereby supporting learners to participate
effectively in the world outside the classroom.
Interactive English Learning (IEL) is a compact disc (CD) learning which contains of writing
instructions and materials to improve student’s writing skill. It uses Adobe Flash software to compile
many sources of writing instructional and topics. It consists of two major menus; material and
exercise. Each of the sub menus has writing typical text such as descriptive, narrative and recount
text. Pictures and videos are put in sub menus to be adjusted into related topics.
This media was made as a result of Research and Development (R&D) report that we have
done in 2014. The issue was came up when we had a chance to have internship program in one of
private Vocational High Schools in my home town, Mojokerto in East Java, Indonesia. We faced a
condition whereas tenth grade students in vocational high school should begin their improvement in
producing good writing composition in facing National Examination in their third year. The teachers
should help them in preparing themselves through today's technology and science development.
Innovational media in this case was needed to break teacher's stuck in conventional writing teaching
as by the name of media is any kind of tool that can be used for delivering the message to reach goals
in teaching (Djamarah and Syaodih, 2010: 122).
Based on the curriculum of Vocational High School which is recommended by the
government, writing skill has types of text; descriptive, recount and narrative text. Descriptive text is
the text which describes something, someone, situation, and etc, or write the way persons, places or
things. Recount text is the text which retell about the experience by people. Narrative text is the
telling of a story, the succession of events is given in chronological order. In learning about types of
text, students might have difficulties in learning. Students might be confused what to write although
they know the topic which has been given by their teacher. They were confused to write their idea
about the topic. They need particular media to gain their understanding in writing comprehension.
The topics included descriptive, recount, and narrative text. Descriptive text itself has
subtopics: describing people, famous historical places and tourist objects. The pictures were so much
help in this section of discussion as it was also happened in narrative text. In recount text, we put
some of videos about Indonesian local legend as the material. Classic music can be played as
background sound during the learning process to stimulate student’s brain capacity.
In this case, we have developed a media toward above phenomenon. It was a computer
software program in term that has instruction for the users to write. This developing media hopefully
could stimulate students’ motivation in learning process and simplify the application of writing
theories. As Djamarah and Zain (2010: 120) stated that “the complexity of material toward students
could be simplified through media”. The use of computer technology was very potential for language
learning because it can perform multiple tasks for teaching activity (Al-Seghayer, 2001: 203).
Accordingly, teaching writing will also be more meaningful and successfull if we can use attractive
media.
Media comes from the Latin meaning of the medium in general is a means of communication,
or between, it’s anything that carries information between the source and the receiver. According to
Heinich and Rusello in Kasihani English for Young Learners (2010; 101) “These object are called
instructional media when these items are used to deliver messages in an educational environment”.
 From the statement above, it can be understood how important the use of media for learning a
foreign language. Media is carriers of the messages, which is a tool to deliver a message of teachers to
students. In learning activities, the media can help teachers deliver instructional materials to make
more clearly and easily understood by students. But now appears the term of e-Learning. The letter
“e” stands for “electronic”. It meant that the electronic media a tool of learning, like interactive
multimedia CD as offline materials teaching and web as online materials teaching.

METHOD
This research took Research and Development (R & D) as its type since the aim of this
research was to develop a new product and modification term of previous study as a media in teaching
writing for vocational senior high school. According to Latief (2013: 173), there are several steps used
in the R & D cycle to develop a new product. In this study, all the procedures suggested were not fully
undertaken by the researcher. It would be done by the researcher intended to develop a new
educational product and to examine the effectiveness of the product on student's academic
achievement in writing. In short, the procedures would be used by the researcher are needs analysis,
developing media, expert and teacher validation, revision, try out, revision, final product.
In developing instructional media, need analysis is the first step that should be done. The
intended purpose of conducting need survey is to gather as much information as posssible about the
students that are involved in the program. Therefore, specifications are made for media should be
based on detailed studies of the needs. In conceptically, according to Latief (2013) need analysis is
information collecting. Besides, need analysis is a necessary procedure to follow as it gives
contribution in determining what media to be of interest. Conducting needs survey is meant to gather
necessary information about the students including their needs, motivation, and interest to develop the
instructional media. In selecting media, if instructional resources are carefully selected and prepared,
they can fulfil the needs and the objectives of instruction.
Developing media is the next step in which the selected media are organized tobe presented in
the learning experience. Developing media in this study refers to the development of writing media
which is based on the result of the needs survey and the consideration on the English curriculum. The
try out of the products in media development design is meant to collect data to identify problems
faced in implementing the media, to revise the instructional media, to identify portions of the media
that need to be revised. The final step is revising the products. Revising of the product is based on the
data gathered from the previous steps and try out.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

We took a study used research and development by Etisia Pamula (2012: xiv). The subjects of
her study were the expert of learning materials, the expert of media, and the second graders of class
2B in SDIT At-Taqwa Surabaya. Her results in revision I and II showed that there were some revisons
made dealing with the features and content during the development of the game. The features revised
color, font size, additional answer button, and additional sound in the answer box. While the content
was revised by adding more questions and variation. Overall the material used and the features
exposed in electronic Snakes and Ladders game were appropriate with the second graders
characteristics and learning objective. Furthermore, the students showed positive response toward the
electronic Snakes and Ladders game.
Then some points were drawn as finding which was used as the basis for developing this
study. We employed a model of media development by adpting and adjusting the models of
instructional development by Latief (2013). The adaptation and adjustment were intended to meet
with the real condition in the field and for the sake of practically (see appendix 1 and 2). The adapted
and adjusted model took the steps as follows: (1) the first two steps of Latief’s model (classroom
problems related to instructional supporting documents like syllabus/textbook/media, theories or
criteria of effective instructional supporting documents) were simplified into one step which is needs
survey, (2) the second steps (the selected instructional documents to be the cause of the problem was
developed, the product was reviewed closely by us) were simplified into one step which was
developing media, (3) the third one step (the product was validated to related experts and revised
accordingly to get quality assurance) were simplified into two steps which are experts validation and
revision, (4) the fourth one step (the instructional product was tried out and revised based on the
results of try out) was simplified into two steps which were try out, revision, (5) the fifth one step (the
final product) was simplified into one step was final product.
The media were developed based on the standard of content (2013 Curriculum). There was on
the syllabus since SMK Tamansiswa Mojokerto already decided to implement it for first year students
of the 2013/2014 academic years. The spesification of the product was made based on the result of
needs survey.
The criteria employed for the developed media were the suited with 2013 curriculum
espesially suited to steps of scientific approach. The value criteria of media were software
manipulation, instructional design, and communication visual.
We developed a new educational product and examined the effectiveness of the product on
student's academic achievement in writing. We used three research instruments. The first was
interview guide, the second were questionnaires, and the third was fieldnotes. We had interviewed the
English teacher and took the quesionnaires from the students and English teachers. By those terms,
We intended to obtain the information on the learners and teachers need of writing media. we also had
observation in getting factual picture of the teaching learning process by taking notes on some
important information as the basic line to develop the media.
Based on the need analysis and preliminary observation, we found that every student
nowadays is used to operate computer technology. It was the time when no more teachers get
attention without the assistant of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in front of the
classroom and students. It was a part of analysis of learner's characteristics. From the discussion and
unstructured interview with the classroom teacher that stated, most students were visual learners and
commonly used computer and games. They were more receptive to something that was presented
visually rather than in auditory. That is the fundamental reason for us to use Interactive English
Learning to teach writing. Moreover, we constructed the blue print of this electronic media based on
the curriculum and syllabus. So the accountability of materials suited to the curriculum and the goals
of learning process can be achieved.
We took two experts and two teachers to validate the product. Those two experts are in
teaching media and scientific approach. We gave them questionnaire sheet in judging the product
result. The expert in teaching media stated learning media assessment criteria has three aspects; aspect
of software manipulation, aspect of instructional design, and aspect of visual communication.
Meanwhile the expert in scientific approach assessed the comformity measures of scientific approach
which included observing, questioning, associating, experimenting and networking, but for this media
we skipped the Networking Stage to give the teacher space to develop it by him/her. The result of the
validation was in the form of quality comments on each aspect which consist of three ranges; poor,
fair, and good. The teacher validation of SMK Tamansiswa assesed with the practicality and
effectiveness in implementing the product. Practicallity deal with the preparation and ease to use.
Their quality comments put in a valiadation form by giving cheklist to two of the ranges; easy and
difficult. Effectiveness deal with the learning motivation, easy to be understood, interactivy.
The result of the validation was in the form of quality comments on each aspect which consist
of three ranges; poor, fair, and good. The data from experts and teacher validation would be used to
see whether the electronic media already meet the criteria of good media. The criterias which were
ask to the media expert to get his judgement were as follow: (1) software manipulation included
reliable, maintainable, usable, compatible, reusable; (2) instructional design included clarity of the
objectives, relevancy between objective and KI/KD/Curriculum, interactivity, learning motivation,
completness and quality of leaning material, appropriation between material and the objetives, easy to
be understood, systematic; (3) Visual Communication: simple and attractive, audio, visual,
animation/movie, navigation icon. The criterias which were asked to the expert in Scientific Approach
to get his judgement were as follow: (1) Obeserving, (2) Questioning; (3) Assosiating; (4)
Experimenting. Those criteria were asked to the teacher judge were (1) Practicality: easy in preparing
and operating the electronic media (2) Effectiveness: interactivity, learning motivation, easy to be
understood.
The subject of the try-out of this media was the tenth grade students of SMK Tamansiswa
Mojokerto of the academic year of 2013/2014. There were 18 classes. Each of the classes consisted of
about 40 students. The try out was conducted at X TKR 3 and X TPM 3 class, the class consist of
about 30 students.
The data were obtained from some students of tenth grade of the 2013/2014 academic year.
There were 18 classes. Each week they had two hours English lesson. To obtain the data, we have
given the questionnaire to the students in February. We distributed the questionnaire to the students
from one class to another by herself. She told the students the purpose and explained how to answer
the questions. They did not have to write their identity in order to make them felt free to express their
opinion.
During the observation we took notes some important information of the English teaching and
learning process in the tenth grade. The information can be summarized as follows: (1) the teaching
and learning process were mostly conducted using Indonesian language; (2) Most of the students felt
afraid of expressing their opinion in English because they were worried about making mistakes; (3)
without media in teaching, the students found difficulties to understand what the teacher taught.
The tryout was conducted from April to May. The teachers suggested that try out was carry
out when the regular teaching and learning process. During the try out , we observed the process of
the teaching and learning in implementating the media. It was done to find out whether the media was
practical and effective to teach writing.
The data obtained from the try out were divided into three parts, they are from the
observation, from the students’ opinion on the media, and from the teacher’s opinion.
A number of important things which showed that the media were effective to teach writing
and that the media practical were noted as follows: (1) all of students were seriously and interactive in
learning process, (2) in the process of teaching and learning, the teacher implemented the steps
suggested in the teachers’ guide easily,(3) the teacher could operate the media easily, (4) the students
were brave to ask the teacher when they found difficult word, (5) the students learned narrative text
(watched video) more ethusiastically because they were interrested with the media.
The students were asked to answer the questions about the media in terms of the clarity of the
picture or movie in the electronic media and the attractiveness of the media. The data was analyzed
quantitatively using presentage based on the result students answer of the questionnaires. This
questionnaires has been done on May, 2014 in SMK Tamansiswa with about 50 students in Tenth
grade. There are ten questions as follow:

Table 1.1 the result of questionnaires

Student
No Questions Answer Percentage Total %
Yes No Yes (%) No (%)
1 did you enjoy the media ? 53 0 100,00 0,00 100,00
did you find interesting from the
2 media? 51 2 96,23 3,77 100,00
did you find any difficulty in
3 doing the practice? 36 17 67,92 32,08 100,00
do you like the background song
4 of the media? 44 9 83,02 16,98 100,00
do you like the picture or movies
5 of the media? 48 5 90,57 9,43 100,00
do you like the background
6 colour of the media? 47 6 88,68 11,32 100,00
do you like the arrangement of
7 menu and sub menu? 44 9 83,02 16,98 100,00
8 do you like the instructions? 49 4 92,45 7,55 100,00
did you ever try the similiar
9 media before? 20 33 37,74 62,26 100,00
Based on the result of questionnaires that has been done on May, 2014, We reports the result as
follow:
Number 1 : show that 100,00% “yes” and 0,00% answer “no”. It means that all of students
enjoy with the media
Number 2 : show that 96,23% “yes” and 3,77% answer “no”. It means that
number of students who interesting more that the students that didn’t interest.
Number 3 : show that 67,92% “yes” and 32,08% “no”. It means that not all of students easy to
doing practice because font on the media is small for them besides, they has limited
vocabulary.
Number 4 : show that 83,02% “yes” and 16,98% “no”. It means that number of students who
like background song more that the students that didn’t like.
Number 5 : show that 90,57% “yes” and 9,43% “no”. It means that number of students who like
pictures or movies more that the students that didn’t like.
Number 6 : show that 88,68% “yes” and 11,32% “no”. It means that number of students who
like background colour more that the students that didn’t like.
Number 7 : show that 83,02% “yes” and 16,98% “no”. It means that the students like
arrangement menu/sub menu more that the students didn’t like.
Number 8 : show that 92,45% “yes” and 7,55% “no”. It means that the students like instructions
more that the students didn’t like.
Number 9 : show that 37,74% “yes” and 62,26% “no”. It means that number of students who
didn’t ever try the similar media before more that the students that ever.
After trying out media, two teachers were given an evaluation form of the product. They
gave their opinion on two aspects: the practicality and the effectiveness of the media. The practicality
is indicated ease of preparing and using the media. The effectiveness is indicated interactivity,
learning motivation and easy to be understood.
All topics in terms of practicality were considered easy in preparing and using the media by
the first teacher and difficult for narrative text by the second teacher. In term of effectiveness, she
said that the materials could increase the students’ motivation to learn English.
The discussion and the result of this study could be summarized as follows: (1) the stages of
the development of the media were based on the Latief’s media development model (2013) which was
adapted into the stages employed in this study such as needs survey, developing the media, experts
and teachers validation, revision, try out of the media, revision, and final product; (2) the product was
in the form of compact disc electronic instructional media and a teacher’s guide; (3) the criteria of
selecting media were based on those proposed by Wahono (2006) i.e. software manipulation,
instructional design, communication visual. Besides, the practicality and effectiveness was also taken
as the criterion; (4) the media was appropriate for the students since it was relevant to the students’
need, interest, and level of students’ English ability; (5) the media could improve the students’
motivation to learn English.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGESTIONS

The product of this research is Interactive English Learning (IEL) in the form of a compact
disc (CD). This media was developed based on Latief that was begun with the need analysis of the
students and teachers. Based on the need analysis the product of electronic media was developed. It
uses Adobe Flash Software This media consists of two major menus; material and exercise. Each of
the sub menus has writing typical text such as descriptive, narrative and recount text. Pictures and
videos are put in sub menus to be adjusted into related topics.
A number of recommendations were presented in this part which might be taken into
consideration for those who will conduct a similar study as well as for the teachers who will use the
product. They are as follows: (1) other researchers can conduct further study to develop writing media
for the eleventh and the twelveth grade students of SMK by employing the same model since this
study focuses on the writing media for the tenth grade students; (2) the teachers’ guide book of this
product should be made and it must be fixed and matched with the syllabus/lesson plans.; (3) the
teachers should motivate the students not to worry if they do not understand or do not know of
meaning every word since a writing task can be completed
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Wahono, Romi Satria. 2006. Aspek dan Kriteria Penilaian Media Pembelajaran.
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Appendix 1: figure of Research and Development by Latief (2013)

IDENTIFYING CLASSROOM PROBLEMS

IDENTIFYING THEORIES,PRINCIPLES, OR
CRITERIA OF EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL

DEVELOPED THE SELECTED

INSTRUCTIONAL DOCUMENTS

REVIEWED THE PRODUCT

VALIDATED THE PRODUCT

TRIED OUT THE INSTRUCTIONAL PRODUCT

PUBLISHED THE FINAL PRODUCT

 Appendix 2: Figure of Model of Media Development adapted from Latief

NEEDS ANALYSIS

DEVELOPING MEDIA

EXPERTS AND TEACHER VALIDATION

REVISION

TRY OUT

REVISION

FINAL PRODUCT

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