IMPROVING THE WRITING SKILL OF NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH PROJECT-BASED LEARNING FOR GRADE VIII STUDENTS OF SMPN 11 MAGELANG IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2014/2015

摘要

The aim of this research was to improve the writing skills of grade VIII students at SMP N 11 Magelang through project-based learning. This research was classified as action research. The main subjects of this research were 31 students of class VIII C at SMP N 11 Magelang. The data obtained were qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were gained from the observations and the interviews with both the English teacher and the students. The data were transformed into field notes and interview transcripts. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were gained from the writing tests that were conducted before the action implementation and at the end of every cycle. The results of this research showed that the implementation of project-based learning in the English teaching and learning process was able to improve the students’ writing abilities. The students made good improvements in text organization, content, grammar, vocabulary and mechanics. Moreover, the mean of the students’ writing score in the pretest was 47.903 meanwhile that in the post-test was 73.871. The improvement by 25.968 is significant according to the t-test. The standard deviation of the students’ scores in the pretest was 7.82 while that in the post-test was 8.13.