Implementation of Mind Mapping Technique to Improve The Student's Writing Ability of English Descriptive Texts: A Mixed Method

摘要

The students' problem in writing was technique how to organize the structured and systematic ideas, besides how to write correctly and effectively appropriate to grammatical structure. This study aims to determine the learning outcomes of descriptive writing texts using mind mapping techniques and to find out students' perspectives on the use of these techniques in improving their writing skills. This study used mixed methods, action research and quantitative research. The total respondents were 25 students (from The State Islamic Institute of Lhokseumawe). Instruments used to collect data in this study were pre-test and post-test, and questionnaire to analyze the quantitative data and to investigate the process and the learning outcomes that were structured and systematized using Kemmis and Taggart methods. The results showed that there were increasing points of each student in cycle 1 and 2 from the pre-test and post-test scores. The mean score of students in cycle 1 for the pre-test was 48.8 and the test post was 62.8. Whereas, in cycle 2, the students' mean scores reached 77.4 (test post) from that of the pre-test (53.2). Based on the questionnaire, in the items of "current writing class situation", all students encountered the difficulties of organizing ideas in texts. Mind mapping techniques played an important role in improving their writing skills. This presented the majority of respondents agreed to on all the questions of implementation of mind mapping techniques. In addition, action research using the Kemmis and Taggart methods also increased their self-confidence, so they could organize their correct and systematic ideas.