Friday, September 16, 2011

TEACHING WRITING PROCEDURE TEXT THROUGH BLOG

Intan Nabilawati Fatimah
O8211210021
6_C




ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION
BOGOR IBN KHALDUN UNIVERSITY






Introduction
1. Background of the Study

English as the first foreign language for Indonesian which is should be though to the students of each level school. Students are expected to be able to communicate in English well. Communicate means comprehending and expressing information thoughts feeling and developing knowledge technology, and culture. Writing is learned, while speaking is acquired as part of growing up. And while most people who have been to school can write to some degree, it is the minority who write a lot or frequently. Writing is indeed difficult, for several reasons. The communication skill is the ability in producing and applying oral and written text that is realized in four-language skill. Those are listening speaking, reading and writing. Language has central role in students’ intellectual, social, and emotional development and it supports the success in learning of all subjects. The language learning is expected to help the students’ to know themselves, their culture and another culture. Beside that, language learning also helps students to express their idea, and to participate in their society. Since English is an international language, it is important to teach English in Indonesia.
In this paper, writer chooses the topic, “Teaching Writing Procedure text through blog”. Teaching Writing is the most important factor in writing exercises is that students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value. Encouraging student participation in the exercise, while at the same time refining and expanding writing skills, requires a certain pragmatic approach. The teacher should be clear on what skills he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which means (or type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area. Once the target skill areas and means of implementation are defined, the teacher can then proceed to focus on what topic can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically combing these objectives, the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.

Procedure text is a text that shows sequence of ways in making or doing something, therefore as visual aids in teaching process. Procedure text is a kind of the text that still unfamiliar for students than descriptive or narrative text. In writing, there are many kinds of genre. Genre–based approaches are concerned with the social purposes of language. The genres in focus are generally defined according to social purposes communication. There are many kinds of genre–based approach; recount, report, narration, description, explanation, exposition, procedure, news item etc. Procedure is a text form in which found instruction of action sequence concerning something, contain a procedure sequence treatment for something, the focus of writing is located in speech manner or the sequence how it is finished. Language feature use of simple present tense (Imperative sentence), mainly temporal conjunctions, material processes and focus on generalized human agents.

2. The Purpose of Study

The purpose of study is started as follow:
a. To know the students writing ability on procedure text through blog.
b. To identify the students writing ability on procedure text without using blog.
c. To identify whether there is a different ability between the students who were taught through blog and those who were not taught by using blog.
d. To know how teach writing, especially procedure text through blog.

Theoretical Foundation
1. Writing
A. Definition Of writing
Writing is an artificial activity in a way that speech is not, while every normal human being on this planet learns, eventually, to talk and listen, far fewer people become literate, able to read and or write. Writing is learned, while speaking is acquired as part of growing up. And while most people who have been to school can write to some degree, it is the minority who write a lot or frequently. It is an interesting exercise to do a straw poll by asking acquaintances what kinds of writing they do, and when how often the answer usually is, not very much and rather rarely, unless of course you ask a student, a school child, or a teacher. Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It too is more complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way. Teaching Writing is the most important factor in writing exercises is that students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value. Encouraging student participation in the exercise, while at the same time refining and expanding writing skills, requires a certain pragmatic approach. The teacher should be clear on what skills he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which means (or type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area. Once the target skill areas and means of implementation are defined, the teacher can then proceed to focus on what topic can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically combing these objectives, the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.




B. Process Of Writing
For teachers of foreign languages, writing lessons have an aura of difficulty, of seriousness, and this is also true for their students. Writing is indeed difficult, for several reasons. Firstly the writer has to decide what information the eventual reader needs, and how best to express this. So there is a psychological difficulty, in that the writer cannot consult the reader the audience is not immediately present, in contrast with most conversations. Writers have no immediate feedback to let them know how they are doing and whether they should change their approach. There is no immediate interaction between the producer and the receiver. Secondly, there is a linguistic difficulty, in that the language used in written language is different in most ways from that used in speech. It is either simplified (list, telegrams, notes). Or more elaborate, more formal. In our mother tongue we have to learn an elaborate network of conventions and rules (and a knowledge of when these can legitimately be broken) before we become good writers. In a foreign language this process is all the more difficult as there may be interference on a cultural level, not just the linguistic, between mother tongue and the foreign language. Thirdly, there is a cognitive difficulty, in that students have to organize thoughts on paper, for unknown readers, for reasons that may not immediately be apparent (task imposed by the teacher, for homework, and for an exam, but most probably not for any personal reasons. It is not nearly so hard for a speaker to answer these questions. The answer is usually right there in the situation, in the interaction between speaker and audience. There is immediate feedback. But the writer must answer these questions alone, for writing is usually done as a solo activity and students find it hard to imagine the audience or reader they are writing to. In schools the world over, writing is taught partly as a vital part of the literacy programmer, but also in order to show that work is being done. Writing is often associated, particularly in weaker student’s minds, with chores or even with discipline or the traditional writing lesson is of course quite quiet, so the teacher is easily able to keep control.


2. Procedure Text a Kind Of Genre
A. Definition Of Genre
Genre is kinds of text which has communicative purposes text schematic or structural and particular linguistic characteristic.
The definition above explains that genre is really necessary comprehended by students as frame of reference when they want to make a certain text, though the text will be easier understood by others. Rudi Hartono adds in his book “Genre is used to refer to particular text types, not to traditional varieties of literature. It is a type or kind of text, defined in terms of its social purposes, also the level of context.

B. The Kinds Of Text
1) Narrative text, there are many types of narrative. They can be imaginary, factual or a combination of both. They many include fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, romances, horror stories adventure stories fables, myths and legends, historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, personal experience.
2) Recount is a text that retells events or experiences in the past. The social function of recount is to inform and describe past experiences by retelling events in the order in which they happened.
3) Description Text, the social function of descriptions text is to describe specific, individuals, objects, events. The generic structures of descriptive text are identification (identifies phenomenon to be described), description (describes parts, qualities, and characteristics).
4) Report Text is to describe the way things in around of our environment. The generic structure of report text usually consists of two parts. The first is an opening classification (statement) and the second is series of descriptions of phenomenon including some or all of qualities, parts and their function and also habits or uses.


5) Explanation text is generally one in which a process is being explained, not just described. It is explain how or why things happen.
6) Exposition text can be in the form of an essay or a letter to the editor. An exposition begins with a thesis.
7) Anecdote is a kind of text which deals white something unexpected or out of ordinary. It is usually containing some unusual or amusing incident.

C. Definition Of Procedure Text
Procedure text is the text tells us about the process in making or doing something. By following the instructions, people can make and know the information. Procedure text is a text that is designed to describe how something is achieved through a sequence of actions or steps. It explains how people perform different processes in a sequence of steps. This text uses simple present tense, often imperative sentences. It also uses the temporal conjunction such as first, second, then, next, finally.

3. Definition Of Blog
A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. Individual articles on a blog are called “blog posts,” “posts” or “entries”. A person who posts these entries is called a “blogger”. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular “area of interest”, such as Washington, D.C.’s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.





Blogs are one technological tool that can help improve writing. To improve at anything, individuals need practice and feedback. They also need to be able to chart their progress, to compare their work and see improvement. With this in mind blogs can be used by teachers as a formative assessment tool in place of writing portfolios. Since blogs are on-line there is the potential for feedback from inside the classroom as well as outside the classroom. Blogs are a great way to get students motivated and hooked on writing.
Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly said that “a blog is essentially a web page with a regular diary or journal entries. A blog is one of the internet facilities which enable the users to send their data and regular diaries that can be accessed by other people.” (2007:84).

4. Types Of Blog
There are many different types of blogs. Differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.

A. Personal Blogs
The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. A type of personal blog is referred to as micro blogging, which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time.
B. Corporate Blogs
A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public corporate blogs.





C. Question Blogging
Question blogs is a type of blog that answers questions. Questions can be submitted in the form of a submittal form, or through email or other means such as telephone or VOIP. Blogs can be used to display show notes from podcasts or the means of conveying information through the internet.
D. By Media Type
A blog comprising videos is called a lug, one comprising links is called a link log, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchbook or one comprising photos is called a photo blog.

E. By Device
Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a mob log. One early blog was wearable wifeless webcam an online shared diary of a person’s personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted.
F. By Genre
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs quizzing blogs and legal blogs. White not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a slogs.


Finding Data

Every research needs the data, which describes about something. The data is in the form of information and evidence. Research is not incidental or trial and error activity, which collects data by chance or coincidentally, but research is purposeful activity, which intentionally looks for data or material determined first in the research program. The collected data and information must be related to the statement problem. So all activities in the research can work purposeful and carried out effectively and efficiently. The data is taken by giving the test as an instrument of collecting data. Before teaching, the writer has prepares the material. After presently the material, the writer gives the test. According to the subject of this study, the writer has to use the blog as the teaching in the experiment class. Another class the control class got the material and also for both the test without using blog.
Teaching Writing strategies is the most important factor in writing exercises is that students need to be personally involved in order to make the learning experience of lasting value. Encouraging student participation in the exercise, while at the same time refining and expanding writing skills, requires a certain pragmatic approach. The teacher should be clear on what skills he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which means (or type of exercise) can facilitate learning of the target area. Once the target skill areas and means of implementation are defined, the teacher can then proceed to focus on what topic can be employed to ensure student participation. By pragmatically combing these objectives, the teacher can expect both enthusiasm and effective learning.






Teaching Writing Procedure Text through Blog is to know the students interest in studying writing procedure text through blog, it is very simple. The following was the text procedure writing through blog based on their experience. Most of students stated that English was very useful for the students because English as a foreign language was needed for their future. Basically, English was very difficult to learn for students but if the teacher could facilitate and motivate them in learning English, the students would enjoy and interest above showed that students liked to study English.
Writing is an artificial activity in a way that speech is not, while every normal human being on this planet learns, eventually, to talk and listen, far fewer people become literate, able to read and or write. Writing is learned, while speaking is acquired as part of growing up. And while most people who have been to school can write to some degree, it is the minority who write a lot or frequently. It is an interesting exercise to do a straw poll by asking acquaintances what kinds of writing they do, and when how often the answer usually is, not very much and rather rarely, unless of course you ask a student, a school child, or a teacher. Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It too is more complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way.
Procedure text is the text tells us about the process in making or doing something. By following the instructions, people can make an know the information. Procedure text is a text that is designed to describe how something is achieved through a sequence of actions or steps. It explains how people perform different processes in a sequence of steps. This text uses simple present tense, often imperative sentences. It also uses the temporal conjunction such as first, second, then, next, finally.




A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Blogs are one technological tool that can help improve writing. To improve at anything, individuals need practice and feedback. They also need to be able to chart their progress, to compare their work and see improvement. With this in mind blogs can be used by teachers as a formative assessment tool in place of writing portfolios. Since blogs are on-line there is the potential for feedback from inside the classroom as well as outside the classroom. Blogs are a great way to get students motivated and hooked on writing.
Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs. It can be found on the web at http://www.blogger.com. Blogs, short for web-logs, are a form of online journal.

Screen Capture by Intan Nabilawati F
Getting Started With Blogger
You can use blogs for everything from updating your friends and family about your life, giving your own advice column, discussing your political views, or relating your experience in a topic of interest. You can host blogs with multiple contributors, or you can run your own solo show. You can even use Blogger to make your own podcast feeds. Although there are fancier blog tools out there, the mixture of cost (free) and flexibility makes Blogger one of the best deals around.



Setting Up Your Blog
Setting up a Blogger account takes three easy steps. Create an account, name your blog, and choose a template. You can host multiple blogs with the same account name, so you only need to do that part once. This way you could separate your professional blog about your business from your personal blog about dogs, for instance.
Hosting Your Blog
Screen Capture by Intan Nabilawati F
Blogger will host your blog for free on blogspot.com. You can also use Blogger to automatically ftp your blog posts to your own web space. Make sure you have the correct server settings from your internet service provider, otherwise you may have unpredictable results.
Posting
Once your blog is set up, Blogger has a basic WYSIWYG editor. (What you see is what you get) This is not necessarily a bad thing. Most blogging tools do not have robust html editors, and the ones that do often require java or other plug-ins.
If you need more formatting options and a larger window, you can use Google Docs to post to your Blogger blog. You could also do advanced editing with HTML. Blogger has an HTML tab to let you do this directly, although it does not allow JavaScript.
Email Your Posts
You can optionally configure Blogger with a secret email address, so you can email your posts to your blog. This is handy for making updates on the fly or updating from your cell phone or other mobile device.
Pictures

Blogger will let you upload pictures from your desktop and post them to your blog. You can choose the basic layout and size of your images, and they’ll be uploaded to Bloggers server space, so you don’t have to host the pictures on a different website. That doesn't mean you can't post with pictures that you've hosted elsewhere on the Web. You can also use Picasa Web Albums to post pictures to your blog. Google Video and YouTube videos can similarly be directly linked into your blog posts.
In teaching writing, the students still have many difficulties. For example, in procedure text, there is still incorrectness. This is example in the procedure text How to Refill Lux Body Shower:
How to Refill Lux Body Shower
Materials:
- Bottle
- Lux Body Shower
- Scissors
Steps:
First, prepare the materials.
Second, cut along the dotted line to open the pouch.
Then, pour the product into the bottle.
After that, dispose the pouch after using.
Finally, Lux body shower ready to use.
Conclusion

Writing is the productive skill in the written mode. It too is more complicated than it seems at first, and often seems to be hardest of the skills, even for native speakers of a language, since it involves not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way. Writing is an artificial activity in a way that speech is not, while every normal human being on this planet learns, eventually, to talk and listen, far fewer people become literate, able to read and or write.
Blog was one technological tool that could help improve writing. To improve at anything, individuals needed practice and feedback. They also needed to be able to chart their progress and to compare their work and see improvement. Finally, blog could be used by teachers as a formative assessment tool.
Based on the result of the research, teaching writing procedure text through blog is better than teaching procedure text without using blog. The result of the research has shown that studying the procedure text through blog was more effective than studying the procedure text without using blog. The students were easier to explore their knowledge and ideas in writing the steps of procedure text by looking at the blog.

Suggestion
Technology is becoming increasingly important in both of personal and professional lives and learners are using technology more and more. Yet teacher training in the use of information and communication technology, and teachers are often far less skilled and knowledgeable than their own students when it comes to using current technology.




Bibliography
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Depdiknas. 2004. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan SMP. Depdiknas: Jakarta: Depdiknas.
Hadfield, Charles. 2005. Writing Games. Harlow: Longman.
Harmer, J. (2001). The prentice of English Language Teaching. England: Longman.
Hartono, Rudi, M.Pd.SS. 2005. Genres of texts. Semarang English Departement Faculty of language and art state university. Semarang.

http://adityadndr.blogspot.com/2009/12/definition-of-procedure-text-procedure.html
http://arieftirta.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/procedure-text-8/
http://etd.eprints.ums.ac.id/6561/1/A320050378.pdf.
http://google.about.com/od/googleblogging/fr/bloggerreview.htm
http.//wikipedia.org/wiki/writing
Nasution s. Prof. Dr. MA.2002. Metode Research, Jakarta: Bumi Aksara.
Padiyono, M.Pd. 2006. 12 Writing clues for Better Writing Competenmce Yogyakarta: CV. Andi OFFSET.
Sudarwati. Th.M and Grace. 2005. Look A Head an English Course. Jakarta: Erlangga.

1 comment:

  1. As a student of English Department, I feel really helped by this post. Thanks for posting. Don't forget to visit and join my blog, ya?! :)
    On http://thoen-djank-tulen.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete