USING CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

Abstract

The paper entitled “Using clustering technique to improve students’ writing skills of descriptive text”. The aim of the research paper is to find out the effectiveness of clustering technique to improve students’ writing skills of descriptive text and also to know whether or not the students like being taught the writing descriptive using clustering technique at the second grade of SMP Manggala. The research method is a pre-experimental using 33 students as sample from 104 students of population. To obtain the data, the researcher uses pre-test, post-test and questionnaire. The sample is given the pre-test before the treatment and post-test afterwards. The post-test and the questionnaire are given in order to find out the improvement of the sample after the treatment using clustering technique. The data result of the test is analyzed by using t-test. The finding of this research shows that clustering technique is not effective to improve students’ writing skills of descriptive text. It can be seen from the t-observed is lowest that t-table (-1.973 < 2.042) at p = 0.5. That means Ha is rejected and Ho is accepted. Other than that, from the questionnaire data result clustering technique get the positive responses from the participant. Although, clustering technique can not improve their writing skills but can made the students interested in writing descriptive text.
Key words: Writing Skills, Descriptive Text, Clustering Technique