Sawitri, 2201408106 (2012) The Use of Foxit Reader Soft Copy to Improve Students’ Writing of Descriptive Text (A Collaborative Action Research at the Year Eight Students of SMP N 24 Semarang in the Academic Year of 2011/2012. Under Graduates thesis, Universitas Negeri Semarang.

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Abstract

This final project is an action research that answers the three research questions: (1) What are the students’ difficulties in writing a descriptive text? (2) Why are the students difficult to write descriptive text? (3) How does the use Foxit Reader as a medium for improving students’ ability in writing descriptive text? The answers were proven through a research. In the research, the subjects of the study were twenty eight students of eight graders of SMP N 24 Semarang. To solve the problems, I introduced Foxit Reader soft copy to improve students’ writing of descriptive text. Foxit Reader is a PDF viewer. I explained all the material by using Foxit Reader. To obtain the data, I carried out three steps: pre – test, formative test, and post – test. Besides, the observation using checklist was also used to support the data. The result of this research revealed that the students had some problems in grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, relevance and fluency. The reasons of their difficulties were they seldom practiced to write in English correctly, their teacher did not have much time to teach grammar and their limited vocabulary in English. However, their problems were solved after they got treatments. It can be seen by seeing the result of the students’ writing test. The result also revealed that Foxit Reader gives some contributions to change the students’ behavior in writing descriptive text. It can be seen by seeing the result of the checklist. The score was improved. In the cycle 1 the mean of students’ attendance score was 3, students’ enthusiasm was 2.71, students’ activity was 2.36, students’ curiosity was 2.29, and students’ understanding was 2.39. In the cycle 2 the mean of students’ attendance score was 4, students’ enthusiasm was 3, students’ activity was 2.61, students’ curiosity was 2.93, and students’ understanding was 3.3. The improvements of item score between cycle 1 and cycle 2 were students’ attendance was 1 point, students’ enthusiasm was 0.29 points, students’ activity was 0.25, students’ curiosity was 0.64 and students’ understanding was0.91 points. From the findings, I can conclude that there is improvement on the students’ ability in writing a descriptive text by using Foxit Reader as media. Thus, the teacher can use Foxit Reader as media to improve the students’ ability in writing descriptive text. Hopefully, there will be further studies observing another advantage of Foxit Reader as media, not only in writing but also in the other linguistic skills.

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