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IMPROVING STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT IN

WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT THROUGH
QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE

Eva Saskia Rahma
Meisuri

Abstract
This study concerned with the improvement of students achievement in writing
descriptive text by applying Questioning technique. The objective of this study was to
discover whether questioning technique could significantly improve students
achievement in writing descriptive text. It was conducted by using classroom action
research which was carried out in two cycles in six meetings. The subject of the
research was class VIII-1 SMP Negeri 2 Lima Puluh. The number of the students was
30. The instruments for collecting data were writing tests as the quantitative data and
diary notes, observation sheet, questionnaire sheet as qualitative data. Based on the
students writing test, the students score was improved in every test. In the first test,
the mean score was 59.86. In the second test, the mean score was 67.80. In the last
test, the mean score of the students was 74.63. In the line with the data, it was showed
that questioning technique significantly improved students achievement in writing
descriptive text.



Keywords: Writing, Students Achievement, Descriptive Text, Questioning Technique







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Introduction

The Background of Study
Most of the students, in fact, think that writing is complicated to study. Students
always get difficulties when they are asked to write in English. Based on
interviewing conducted on VIII-1 SMPN 2 Lima Puluh Batu Bara , it was found that
students achievement in English subject is still low. It was proved by their
achievement in writing.
As generally, based on the standard competency in the syllabus of the second
grade of Junior High School (Sekolah Menengah Pertama : SMP) called Educational
Unit-Oriented Curriculum (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan: KTSP), students
are expected to be able to write simple paragraphs in descriptive, recount, narrative,
procedure and report. Descriptive text is a type of text that functions to describe
particular person, place, or thing. Wyrick (2011:323) states that the writer of
description creates a word-picture of people, places, objects, and emotions, using a
careful selection of details to make an impression on the reader. Students who are
going to write this type of text should be able to express what they see, hear, feel
vividly.
As generally known, Minimum Mastery Criteria ( MMC ) of English subject in
many schools is up 70. From the KKM above, the score is very high for many
school. Because we found that student has difficult to write a text well based on the
genre. Specially in descriptive, students face difficulties because of reluctance to
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question or less motivation, difficult to build and develop their ideas, the using of
grammar and confuse in determining the generic structure of the text. The teacher just
explained the material from the guiding book and after that asked the students to
answer the question based on descriptive text that they have read. In Sharma
(2008:39) said that the learning of language depends not so much on the number of
years it is studied but on the motivation of the students, the type of teachers, method
of teaching adopted, and instructional material designed.
The reason why students still got low achievement in writing is not only from
students themselves, but also from teacher. The conventional learning method that
teacher applied in teaching writing skill is not effective. During learning activities in
the classroom, the teacher only asks the students to read the text, translate the text by
using dictionary, and rewrite the translation. The students are not asked to practice
their writing ability. In addition, the teacher never makes variation in teaching and
learning process. This situation made the students motivation in writing decrease.
So, teacher has high responsibility to improve students achievement in writing.
Teacher has to create interesting activities in the classroom so that students can
develop their ideas in writing.
From the problems mentioned above, the writer chooses to conduct this study by
using Questioning Technique. Douglas & Nancy (2007:56) state that questioning is a
powerful tool that teachers can use to engage students in authentic. Questioning is
also an excellent way for teachers to check for understanding. It is believed that the
technique can facilities the teaching of writing to the students because questioning
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technique does not only help the teacher to connect the materials to the students real
world but also motivates in teaching to apply questioning technique to the students
writing descriptive text.
However, questions can be effective when they are not thoughfully planned or
when a teachers nonverbal behaviour indicates lack of interest in the responses or
the individual responding. The strengths of this technique seem to help the students to
organize their thoughts in a logical way and improve the use of adding detail to their
writings. The research was conducted by using a classroom action research to
discover improving of questioning technique in students achievement in writing a
descriptive text in Senior High School.

Research Question
Based on the background of the study, the problem of the study is formulated in
the form of the question as follows,
How can the implementation of questioning technique improve the students
achievement in writing descriptive text ?

Methodology
This research was conducted by applying Classroom Action Research (CAR).
According to Burns (2010:2-3), Action Research (AR) can be a very valuable way to
extend our teaching skills and gain more understanding of ourselves as teachers, our
classrooms and our students. AR is part of a broad movement that has been going on
in education generally for some time. It is related to the ideas of reflective practice
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and the teacher as researcher. The central idea of the action part of AR is to
intervene in a deliberate way in the problematic situation in order to bring about
changes and, even better, improvements in practice. Importantly, the improvements
that happen in AR are ones based on information (or to use the research term, data)
that an action researcher collects systematically. The subject of this research was the
second year students of Junior High School (SMPN-2 Lima Puluh Batu Bara) class
VIII -1 which consisted of 30 students.
In this research, the data were collected by using the quantitative and qualitative
data. In the quantitative data, it used writing test as the instrument to measure the
students achievement in writing. They were tested in writing a descriptive text by
using questioning technique. The qualitative data were used to describe the situation
during the teaching-learning process. The qualitative data are observation sheet,
questionnaire, and diary notes.

Research and Findings
This research had two cycles. Every cycle consisted of fours steps of action
research; planning, action, observation, and reflection. Cycle I was conducted in two
meetings and Cycle II was conducted in two meetings. So there were four meetings
altogether. The data were taken from Grade VIII students of SMP N2 Lima Puluh;
VIII-1 consisting of 30 students.
The quantitative data were taken from the mean of students scores in writing
tests. The qualitative data were taken from the observation sheet, interview,
questionnaire, and diary notes. The quantitative data were analyzed from the written
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test during the conduction of the research and in the end of each cycle. In the first
cycle, the teacher did not move to check students work so they could not ask a help
when they found the difficulties for example it was found that the students felt
difficult to classify which one of identification and description. Beside it, they also
did not understand enough about grammar and the words. After knowing the
problems, in the second cycle the researcher tried to improve this weakness by
walking around from one group to other group to assure whether the students
contribute their ideas in discussion or not.
This research had proved the effectiveness of applying questioning technique. It
was shown in the table 1 about the students score from test 1, test 2, and test 3. It
was caused by the teacher controlling the class better and also directly admonishing
the noisy students. So the class became effective. And the students data in the test 3
of cycle II showed that the mean of studentss score was higher than the mean of the
studentss score in the test 2 of cycle I and it was also betetr than the test 1 result.
This improvement not only happened in the mean of the students score but also
the expression, interest, and excitement of the students showed that there was
improvement. It can be seen in the diary notes, observation sheets, and questionnaire
sheets. Most of the students were more active and enthusiast during teaching-learning
process. Therefore, it can be concluded that the application of questioning technique
signficantly improved students writing achievement in descriptive text.

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Conclusions and Suggestions
Conclusions
Based on the result of the study there was an improvement on the students writing
descriptive text by using Questioning Technique. The improvement could be seen
from the mean of students namely: the mean of Test I (59.86) , the mean of test II (
67.80 ) and the mean of test III ( 74.63 ). Beside that, the students were more
enjoyable and interested in learning writing descriptive text by using Questioning
Technique.
Through the observation sheets, questionnaire, and diary notes, the improvement
in learning result by applying questioning technique was also proved. Therefore, the
apply questioning technique could significantly improve the students writing
achievement in writing descriptive text. It is showed by their enthusiasm and respond
in writing descriptive text in the two cycles.

Suggestions
The result of this research shows that the use of questioning technique improves the
students achievement in writing descriptive text. These following suggestions are
directed to the English teachers are recommended to use questioning as the technique
in teaching writing. To the students, to use questioning technique while writing in the
class so they can write descriptive text easily. To all the readers, may this research
bring them into good understanding how to improve the students writing ability
through questioning technique.

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