USING FACEBOOK TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

 M.N. Hidayad

Introduction

Compared to the other three language skills, there is no doubt that writing is the most difficult skill for second or foreign language learners to master (Richard and Renandya, 2002: 303). According to Byrne (1998), Heaton (1988) and Harmer (2004) in Mulyati 2012 the difficulties cover three common problems. The first problem is the process and organization which cover the choice of sentence structure, the way the sentence are linked together and sequenced together and the organization of ideas. Second is the problem of language use which deals with the ability to use certain structures or mechanical skills. Third problem is about what to say in writing. In consequence, English teachers should select the appropriate approach, materials, and procedures to use in teaching writing and create an apt condition to make the students write. In addition, English teachers need to provide the students with enough writing practices and information to allow them to complete writing task successfully.

From the preliminary study that has been conducted, it was revealed that the students of grade 7 encountered some problems in writing descriptive text. Descriptive writing is one among the text types that are taught for seventh graders of Junior High School. The students say that they often get stuck in expressing and organizing their ideas, choosing the appropriate words and using the correct structure. As a result, their writing products are not satisfactory. 

Trying to overcome these problems, the researcher suggests that Facebook is implemented as an alternative medium to use in teaching writing. Facebook is chosen because it has profile picture and information that can help the students to express and organize ideas. Moreover, Facebook also has wall application which can make the students motivated to publish their final result of writing. 

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites used by people at any ages, especially teenagers. Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 while he was studying at Harvard University. Although Facebook started out in early 2004 as a Harvard-only social networking sites, it is currently the leading social networking site with more than 500 million active users as of March 2011 and Indonesia has the highest number of Facebook users in Asia (Yunus and Salehi: 2012). 

 Due to the fact that most of the students have Facebook account and use it most of the time, they are familiar with the application and features of Facebook. Therefore, it is a good idea for teachers to use Facebook as a medium to teach English. Some previous studies have shown that Facebook is useful for the teaching of English. Zahroh (2012) has conducted a research on the use of Facebook as a medium to improve students’ interaction in speaking. The result shows that Facebook can encourage the students to interact and communicate in English. Meanwhile, Cahyani (2011), Prihatiningsih (2011), Sahdan (2012), Yunus & Salehi (2012), and Irmawati (2012) have investigated the use of Facebook to teach writing. The studies show that Facebook is useful for the teaching of writing in English and it can enhance the students’ ability and motivation in writing. 

Method

The design applied in this study was classroom action research. According to McNiff and Whitehead (2006: 13) action research is used when the researcher wants to evaluate whether what he/she is doing is influencing his/her own or other people’s learning, or whether he/she needs to do something different to ensure that it is. The central idea of the action part of action research is to intervene in a deliberate way in the problematic situation in order to bring about changes and, even better, improvements in practice (Burns, 2010: 2). 

Action Research is defined as a form of self-reflection enquiry undertaken by participants in a social setting (including educational setting) in order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own practice, (b) their understanding of these practices, and (c) the situation in which the practices are carried out (Carr and Kemmis, 1986: 182).  It is related to the ideas of ‘reflective practice’ and ‘the teacher as researcher’ (Burns, 2010: 2). According to Kemmis and McTaggart (1988) in Burns (2010: 7 - 8) action research typically involves four broad phases in a cycle of research. They are planning, acting, observing and reflecting.

Result and Discussion

As has been mentioned earlier, this study was designed to improve students’ ability in writing descriptive text by using Facebook as a medium. The results of the data analysis show that the students’ ability in writing descriptive text improved after the Facebook was used. The data from the observation and questionnaire also prove that the use of Facebook helps the students in writing descriptive text, make the learning more interested and easy, and involve the students during the teaching and learning process.

The result of the study showed that the use of Facebook can improve the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. The data from the students’ writing product show that the number of the students who got the score 70 or above increased, from only 8.82% (3 students) in preliminary study to 44.12% (15 students) in Cycle 1 and to 73.53% (25 students) in Cycle 2. In other words, the use of Facebook can improve the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. There are three significant improvements that the students made after the implementation of the technique; content, vocabulary, and language use.

According to the findings above, the students’ improvement in writing descriptive text was gained through the use of Facebook as interactive medium. This is in line with Cahyani (2011) who says that the use of Facebook can improve students’ writing skill since the students become more active in writing class by giving comments and responses.  

The finding also reveals that Facebook does help the students in writing descriptive text, especially in the brainstorming process (generating ideas) before the actual writing since Facebook has profile pictures, profile information, and Facebook group features. The students also agree that they learn new vocabulary from reading the comments of others in the group, and the spell-check feature helps reduce their spelling errors. This fact is supported by Yunus and Salehi (2012), who say that Facebook group can help the students getting better idea in writing and the students find it easier to complete their essays after participating in the FB group discussion.

Conclusion

Based on the results of the study, it could be concluded that the use of Facebook can improve the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. The use of Facebook can make the students become more active in writing class. In addition, Facebook also helped the students in generating and organizing the ideas since in Facebook there are profile pictures, profile information, and Facebook group features. 

In line with this, English teachers are suggested to use Facebook as an alternative medium in teaching writing, especially descriptive text. 

References

Burns, Anne. 2010. Doing Action Research in Language Teaching; a Guide for Practitioners. New York: Routledge.

Cahyani, Hilda. 2011. Teaching Company Profile Writing through Facebook. In B. Y. Cahyono & H. Cahyani (Eds), Best Practices in the Teaching of English, (pp247-260). Malang: State University of Malang Press. 

Carr, W. & Kemmis, S. 1986. Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research. London: Routledge Falmer Press

McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J. 2006. All You Need to Know about Action Research. London: Sage Publication.

Mulyati, Momoh. 2012. The Implementation of Genre Based Approach in Teaching Writing Recount Texts. Unpublished Post Graduate Thesis. Bandung: Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia. 

Prihatiningsih, Agustina. 2011. Developing Materials for Teaching Descriptive Texts Through Facebook for Year Seven Students of Junior High School. English Education Journal Vol 1, No 1 (2011)

Richard, J.C. & Renandya, W.A. 2002. Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sahdan. 2012. Using Facebook to Teach Students to Write Descriptive Text. In B. Y. Cahyono (Ed.), Teaching English by Using Internet Resources (pp. 183-187). Malang: State University of Malang Press.

Yunus, M & Salehi, H. 2012. The Effectiveness of Facebook Groups on Teaching and Improving Writing: Students’ Perceptions. International Journal of Education and Information Technologies. Issue 1, Volume 6, 2012.

Yunus, M., Salehi, H., and Chenzi, C. 2012. Integrating Social Networking Tools into ESL Writing Classroom: Strengths and Weaknesses. ELT Journal, 5(8), 42-48. Retrieved October 28, 2012 from www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/elt/article/download

Zahroh, N. 2012. Improving Students’ Interaction in Speaking Class through Web-Based Social Networking in B.Y. Cahyono and N Yannuar (Eds), English for Communication and Interaction in the Classroom and Beyond, (pp403-420). Malang: State University of Malang Press.