TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY USING PICK,

LIST, EVALUATE, ACTIVE, SUPPLY, END (PLEASE) STRATEGY TO

THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP NURUL IMAN
PALEMBANG.

Denny Alfi Rangga

dennyalfirangga1994@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The objectives of the study were to find out whether or not there was a
significant difference between the eighth grade students’ descriptive writing
achievement who were taught by using PLEASE strategy and those who were not
and to find out whether or not there was a significant improvement on the eighth
grade students’ descriptive writing achievement before and after taught by using
PLEASE strategy at SMP Nurul Iman Palembang. The population of this study
consisted of 154 students of SMP Nurul Iman Palembang in the academic year of
2016/2017. There were 78 students taken as sample. Each class consisted of 39
students from class VIII 3chosen as control group and class VIII 4chosen as
experimental group. The instrument in measuring students’ descroptive writing
achievement was administered twice, as the pretest and posttest for both
experimental and control group. The results of the test were analyzed by using
independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test. From the result of the
independent sample t-test, it was found that there was a significant difference
from students’ posttest experimental and control group, since the p-output (0.000)
was lower than 0.05 and t-obtained (8.666) was higher than t-table (1.991).From
the result of the paired sample t-test, it was found that there was a significant
improvement on students’ descriptive writing who were taught by using PLEASE
strategy, since the p-output (0.000) was lower than 0.05 and t-obtained (12.594)
was higher than t-table (2.04523).

Keyword: descriptive writingachievement, PLEASE strategy

Introduction
Language is practically defined as a characteristic of the human species
and knowledge of language. According to Algeo (2010), “a language is a system
of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate” (p.
2).Morever, Richards and Schmdt (2010) state that “ language is the system of
human communication which consist of the structured, arrangement of sounds (or
their written representation) into larger units” (as cited in Rahmawati, 2016, p.
40). Therefore, language is very important means of communication among
humans. Furthermore, the use of language is very effective as an individual needs
to communicate with others both by written and spoken.
English is one of languages that is used for communication all over the
world, therefore English has become a global language. According to
Harmer,“English is a worldwide language spoken throughout all parts of life such
as in the arts, sciences, human sciences, travel and the social sciences “(as cited in
Astrid, 2011, p. 176). In addition, Nga (2008 ) says that English dominate as a
global language because English is used as an official or semiofficial language, it
is the main language of books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control,
international business and academic conferences, science, technology, medicine,
diplomacy, sports, international competitions, pop music, and advertising”(p.
261). Therefore, reality encourages many countries to put English as a subject that
must be learned in world education, one of those countries is Indonesia.
In Indonesia, English becomes one of important subjects to be
mastered.English as an international language and its position as foreign language
too, it is undeniable that English is regarded very important to be mastered so that
English is taught from Elementary to University level. Matarrima and Hamdan
state that teaching of English has become increasingly important as a first foreign
language in Indonesia” (as cited in Pratiwi, 2016, p. 148). Furthermore, in
learning English, there are four major language skills. They are speaking, reading,
and writing. Depdiknas (2006) declares that there are four competences in English
subject that students should master, they are: listening, speaking, reading and
writing (as cited in Carolina, 2017, p. 46-47).
Based on the four language skills above,one skill which has important
function for the students is writing. Writing is a part of language skills and it
becomes one of important aspects in learning a language. Zhaminang (2013)
states that “writing is an activity which expression of idea, message or
information in written form” (as cited in Nisa, 2014, p. 81). While, Petel and Jain
(2008 ) state that “writing is essential features of learning a language because it
provides a very good means of foxing vocabulary, spelling, and sentence pattern
and writing is the most efficiently acquired when practice in writing parallels
practice in other skills” (p. 125). It means that the student should master writing
skill, because by writing, students can share their feeling, ideas, and anything that
exist in their mind.
However, it is not easy to learn writing. Richard and Renandya ( 2002) say
that writing is the most difficult skill for language learners to master, the difficulty
is not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas
into readable text” (p. 303). Harmer states that “the students can become very
frustrated when they do not have the words or the grammar they need to express
in writing” (as cited in Habibi, Wachyuni, and Husni, 2017, p. 97). So, there are
some difficulties that the students face in writing.
Based on the junior high level syllabus, there are some texts that should be
learned by the students, especially on the eighth grade. Those are descriptive,
narrative, and recount texts. In this research, the writer focused on descriptive
text. Descriptive text is a text that describes particular person place or thing.
Descriptive also describes someone or something in detail (Zaida, 2009, p. 9).
According to Mukarto (2007) “descriptive text is a kind of text to describe
something, someone or place. Descriptive text has two main parts, they are
identification and description. The structure of the text is called the generic
structure” (p. 140). However, Kane (2000) states that “description is about
sensory experience, how something looks, sounds, tastes” (p. 351).
Based on the informal interview at SMP Nurul Iman Palembang, I found
the student’s problem by interviewing the English teacher. I found out that the
students had difficulties in writing, many students still had problems in writing,
especially in writing descriptive texts. When the teacher asked the students to
write a descriptive text, they were still confused about what they should write and
how they should organize their writing. It was likely that they had so many things
to write, but unable to express their ideas in a written form well. The problem
mainly faced by the students was their confusion on what is first, next, especially
in writing a descriptive text, then the students’ grammatical abilities were low.
Then, their weak comprehension and mastery of grammar also made their writings
difficult to understand. Some of the students had difficulties to start writing
because they only translated their thoughts from their native language into
English. They didn’t know what kind of tenses that are used in descriptive text.
Furthermore Kern & McGuire (2003) mention that “descriptive text is
typically more difficult because students have fewer experience instruction with
them, therefore, students need explicit instruction in the ways text are organized
and they need to practice with all of the writing modes, which are termed genres
in the school” (p. 92). Therefore, to solve those problems the teacher should be
creative to find the best way and strategies how to improve, motivate and establish
the condition of the students in writing descriptive text because the teacher’s role
is very influence the students’ achievement.Ho, Lee, and Teng state that “one
strategic way in improving schools is fostering and promoting professional
learning in which teachers develop their practice and build learning communities”
(as cited in Faiz and Yakoob, 2017, p. 73). However, Snow(2002) states that
“teacher quality is one of the most critical variables in students’ achievement” (p.
48). So, teacher’s role is very important to determine the best things for the
students in order to they are challenged to learn especially in writing descriptive
text.
Therefore, related to these problems, I intended to help the students
improve their ability in writing essays. There are many writing strategies that help
students learn in writing. One of the strategies that can be used by the teacher in
teaching descriptive text is PLEASE Strategy. PLEASE Strategy is one of the
strategies that can be used to facilitate the students to write a descriptive
paragraph. Akincilar (2010) tells that “PLEASE Strategy is effective for
improving the students’ ability in writing paragraph, PLEASE is acronym from,
six strategies for each letter, those are: P is for Pick, pick a topic. L is for List, list
the ideas about the topic. E is for Evaluate, evaluate the list of ideas and plan the
best way to organize the ideas. A is for Active, active the paragraph with a topic
sentence. S is for Supply, supply the supporting sentence. E is for End, end
writing and evaluate your work” (p. 53).
This strategy is not only can be used in paragraph writing but this strategy
can also be used in writing essay text. Welch said (1992) states that “PLEASE
strategy aims to improve the ability of students with learning disabilities to write
paragraphs. The strategy provides a structure to help students generate and
organize ideas and to write sentences and paragraphs. The PLEASE strategy is
useful because it provides cues to help students with disabilities remember and
apply activities involved in the process of planning and writing. It is useful for all
students and specifically for students in the middle grades students” (p. 155).
By using this strategy the students will be helped to start writing and it will
help them to write step by step until they finish writing descriptive text. They will
be helped by the teacher and PLEASE strategy in writing descriptive text. In
PLEASE strategy the students should know who will read their writing and
choose the appropriate topic and then start to collect the data information about
what they will write and start their writing.
Then, based on the study that written by Mona Liza and Refnaldi (2013),
the title “ Using PLEASE Strategy in Teaching Writing a Descriptive text”. The
PLEASE strategy also effective for improving the students’ ability in writing and
essay. PLEASE strategy is suitable for students at junior high school and can help
the students in improving their writing skill. The teacher can teach the students
how to use PLEASE strategy in helping the students to write a text, the teacher
can adapt this strategy and use it in writing text, because basically this strategy is
the same as writing process. This strategy guides the students how to their start
writing and generate their idea. So, PLEASE strategy is a strategy in writing
process. PLEASE strategy can help the students to improve the students writing
ability especially in writing paragraph. The teacher can also use PLEASE strategy
to teach other genre of the text. The PLEASE strategy can be applied in teaching
procedure text, narrative text, recount text, and other texts in the curriculum.
Based on the thesis which written by Akincilar (2010), the thesis’ title is
“The Effect Of “Please” Strategy Training Through The Self-Regulated Strategy
Development (Srsd) Model On Fifth Grade EFL Students’ Descriptive Writing:
Strategy Training On Planning”. This study aims to investigate the effects of the
“PLEASE” (a general paragraph writing strategy ) writing strategy instruction
through the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model on descriptive
writing of fifth grade English language learners studying in a private primary
school in Istanbul. The current study specifically focuses on if instruction on pre-
writing planning through the SRSD model results in improvements in students’
written products, planning behaviors and self-beliefs as writers. For the study, the
fifthgrade students participated in a writing club activity offered by the researcher
at school.
As a result, the pre-test and the post-test writingscores indicated that each
student experienced improvement in terms of overall qualityand length of the
written products. The strategy training helped students become more aware of the
need for pre-writing planning and they started to engage in planning prior to
writing in real practice. After the treatment, the students also experienced
increased self-confidence
This was also supported by the result of a classroom action result done by
Sinambela (2012). The undertaking of the present classroom action research was
mainly based on the problems existed in academic year 2013. The thesis’ title
“Improving Students’ Achievement In Writing Hortatory Exposition Text
Through Please Strategy” .This study attempts to improve students’ achievement
in writing hortatory exposition text by using PLEASE (Pick, List, Evaluate,
Activate, Supply, End) strategy through classroom action research. The subjects
of the research were 41 students of class XI IA 2 SMA Negeri 1
TanjungMorawa. After analyzing the data in the two-cycle of classroom action
research, it was found that there was an improvement of students score from
49.88 in the test I became 64.90 in the test II in cycle I and improved again
became 74.23 in the test III in cycle II. In line with the data, it was showed that
the use of PLEASE (Pick, List, Evaluate, Activate, Supply, End) strategy
significantly improved student’s achievement in writing hortatory exposition text.
Based on the above explanation about the importance of mastering writing
skill especially descriptive paragraph for junior high school students, researcher is
motivated to conduct research on the use of PLEASE Strategy to gather
information whether this strategy can improve students’ ability in writing
descriptive paragraph or not, the researcherwould like to conduct entitled
“Teaching Writing Descriptive Text by Using Pick, List, Evaluate, Active, Supply,
End (PLEASE) Strategy to the Eighth Grade Students of SMP NurulIman
Palembang.”

Concept of Teaching
Teaching means to help and share knowledge to others and also can give
an information and can do something. According to Brown (2007, p.7), teaching
may be defined as showing or helping someone to learn how to do something,
giving instruction, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge,
causing to know or understand. He also states that teaching is guiding and
facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the condition for
learning. It can be concluded that teaching is not only to facilitate the students to
be able in learning the material but also gives some information of a subject
matter to the students in the classroom.
Teaching is to educate people that have not known something. Allah SWT
says in surah Al-Mujaddalah
‫ش ُز ْوا ِق ْيلَ َواِذَا‬ ُ ‫ َخ ِبي ٌْرتَ ْع َملُ ْو َن ِب َماالل ُه َودَ َر َجت ٍْال ِع ْل َما ُ ْوت ُ ْواالَّ ِذ ْين ََو ِم ْن ُك ْما َ َمنُ ْواالَّ ِذ ْينَالل ُه َي ْرفَ ِعفَا ْن‬....
ُ ‫ش ُز ْواا ْن‬
Means,
...And when you are told, "Arise," then arise; Allah will raise those who
have believed among you and those who were given knowledge, by degrees. And
Allah is Acquainted with what you do.
`From the holy verse of Al-Qur’an above, the writer interpret that Allah
SWT asks us to learn all of God’s creations where Allah is the most generous who
knows everything. Then Allah SWT explains about the primacy of the faithful and
learned knowledge and those who believe and learned knowledge will be raised in
degrees by Allah SWT. Teaching materials should be organized in order to make
teaching process run well, so the teacher will know students’ achievement by
preparing learning objectives and lesson plan. According to Stringer, Christensen,
and Baldwin (2010), “common views of teaching see it as relatively
straightforward process, selected content being organized into a lesson plan that
sets out the sequence of activities required to accomplish student learning
objectives and outcomes” (p. 3). In addition, Coe, Aloisi, Higgins, and Major state
that “great teaching is defined as that which leads to improved student progress”
(as cited in Purwati, 2017, p. 85). It means a great teaching as that which leads to
improve student achievement using outcomes that matter to their future success”
Morever, Arends says that “the ultimate of teaching is assist students to
become independent and self-regulated learners.” (as cited in Hedyan and
Marzulina, p. 188). In line with this, teaching has been recognized as a profession
because it is an occupation that requires advanced education and special training.
Concept of Writing
Writing is very complex communication process which includes a number
of cognative and metacognative. Richardson and Morgan (2003, p. 286) state that
writing may be the most complex communication process within the
communicative arts. Similarly, According to Negari (2011, p. 299) states:
“Writing is a complicated process which involves a number of
cognitive and metacognitive, for instance; brainstorming,
planning, outling, organization, drafting, and revising. Further,
writing isn’t only complex but also hard to teach where we need
to master the grammatical and other components of writing”.

Furthermore, Harmer (2004) states that writing has mechanical components

like any other skill; those are, handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and the
construction of well – formed sentences, paragraphs, and text” (p. 44). So, the
teachers of writing skill should realize if the students are qualified for those
components before moving to the process of writing itself.
However, writing is not easy. It needs a lot of knowledge to write well such
as how to use appropriate vocabulary, grammar and how to select the ideas.
Lyons and Heasley state that “writing is clearly a complex process, and is
frequently accepted as being the last language skill to be required” (as cited in
Holandiyah and Lestari, 2016, p. 48). Furthemore, Linse (2005) says that “writing
is a combination of process in gathering ideas and working with them and makes
reader comprehensible to the writer ideas” (p. 88). Based on the two experts’
opinions, it can be concluded that writing is a way to express ideas or thoughts
and to organize them into sentence and paragraph based on the determined
pattern.
In addition, there are severalcomponents of writing process that proposed
by Clark (2007, p. 10) such as:
1) Prewriting
At this stage, writers generate ideas, brainstorm topics, web ideas together, or
talk or think about ideas. Teachers explain that students may get writing ideas
from personal experiences, stories, pictures, magazines, newspapers,
television, and a variety of other sources.
2) Drafting
Students begin to put their ideas on paper. Students need to keep in mind the
genre or format, audience, and purpose.
3) Revising
Revision looks at the organization and the structure of the writing. When
revising, students analyze their writing for required traits: sequencing words
in a lab report, descriptive language in science fiction story, topic sentences
and supporting details in a persuasive essay. They also askquestions of their
writing: “Does it make sense? Is anything out of order? Should anything be
added or deleted? ”. While editing, looks at the mechanics of the writing. So,
students must understand how to do both.
4) Publishing
At this stage, teacher allows students to celebrate their hard work. It occurs
after the other steps are completed and the students are ready to produce the
final copy, which can be handwritten or typed on a word processor
5) Reflecting
Reflecting is a key element in the writing process. It encourages the writer to
think about his or her writing. Reflection also allows the writer to look back
at brainstorming and the beginning of a writing project to see if the original
goals were met.
Concept of Descriptive Text
 Descriptive text is a text which describes a specific person, please, thing,
or any subject. Fiderer states that “descriptive text gives a clear picture of a
person, place, object, event, or idea.” (as cited in Herizal and Afriani, 2015, p. 28).
It is also suggested by Jolly (1994, p. 56) says:
“In descriptive text, there are some categories that should be
considered in writing description text. First, place, and position:
direction. Second, measurement: weight, size/ volume, distance.
Third, shape, and pattern.Fourth, colors and textures.Fifth,
material and substance. Sixth, technical vocabulary; faces and
bodies, character, clothes, building, weather, and so on”.Finally,
use any value.

So, descriptive text is a kind of writings which describes object orany

subject with detail. Such as colors, size, shapes, textures, materials, subject,
technical of vocabularies and value of the object.Finally, use any value. So,
descriptive text is a kind of writings which describes object or any subject with
detail. Such as colors, size, shapes, textures, materials, subject, technical of
vocabularies and value of the object.
In descriptive text, it should consist of generic structure, such as:
identification and description. Pardiyono (2010) states that “the descriptive text
follows some particular statges.
1) Identification
Identification (introduction) is a statement or a short paragraph that
identifies the object that is going to be described, it is usually interesting and able
to provoke the reader to be eager to read the text.
2) Description
It may consist of one of several paragraphs. This part is used to give
sufficient description about the object as mentioned in the identification part” (p.
44).The description of the object can be done according to different angles, such
as size, length, strength, color, height, condition, of the location, weather,
qualities, shapes, etc.
 “My classroom”
There are 30 tables and chairs in the classroom. There
Identification
are two picturesof the president and the vice president hanging
on the front wall.
The Garuda is hanging between the picture of the
president and the vicepresident. There is a whiteboard in front of
Description the class and also the teacher’sdesk and chair in front of the
class. The color of the wall paint is white.There is a rubbish bin
near the door.My class is really clean and comfortable.

Concept ofPLEASE Strategy

The “PLEASE” strategy is one of the strategies suggested to be taught
according to the guidelines of the SRSD model. It is a mnemonic that provides
learners with a road map for writing a paragraph. It reminds learners to carry out
the following steps while writing (Graham and Harris, 2007). According to Welch
(1992) “PLEASE” strategy is assumed to use as a management strategy in solving
this problem. The steps of PLEASE strategy based on Akincilar (2010):
1) Pick a topic, audience and type of paragraph.
2) List your ideas about the topic.
3) Evaluate your list.
4) Activate the paragraph with a topic sentence.
5) Supply supporting sentences.
6) End with a concluding sentence and evaluate your work.
Graham and Harris (2005) provided a brief overview of how this strategy
might be implemented, and their out-line is referenced throughout the description
that follows. This writing strategy was developed as a metacognitive strategy for
written expression, to assist students in planning and writing compositions by
modifying a highly structured, step-by-step procedure. This is intended to enable
students to generate and organize ideas in simple paragraph form. In applying this
strategy to write a text there are some step that should be revise, such as activate
the text with an introduction, and supply the supporting detail. So the full step in
using PLEASE strategy in writing a text is pick a topic, purpose and audience, list
the ideas about the topic, evaluate the list of ideas and plan the best way to
organize the ideas, activate the text with an introduction, supply the supporting
detail, end your writing and evaluate your work.
In conclusion, PLEASE is a strategy in writing process. PLEASE strategy
can help the students to improve the students writing ability especially in writing a
paragraph. This strategy is not only can be used in paragraph writing but this
strategy can also be used in writing a text and an essay. By using this strategy the
students will be helped to start writing and help them to write step by step until
they finish writing a descriptive text. They will be lead by the teacher and
PLEASE strategy in writing their descriptive text. In PLEASE strategy the
students should know who will read their writing and choose the appropriate topic
and they start to collect the data information about what they will write and start
their writing.

Research Design
The method used in conducting this study was an experimental design.
According to Best and Khan (1993), “experimental design is the blueprint of the
procedures that enable the researcher to test the hypothesis by reaching valid
conclusion about the relationships between independent and dependent variable”
(p. 146). In this research, the researcherapplied one of quasi experimental design.
This study was conducted by using quasi experimental design, pre-test and
post-test nonequivalent group design. The figure of Pretest-Posttest
Nonequivalent Groups Design is suggested by Cohen, Manion, and Morrison
(2007, p. 283), as follows:

O1 X O2 Experimental Group
----------------------
O3 O4 Control Group

Where:
O1 = Pretest for experimental group design
 X = Treatments (PLEASE Strategy)
O2 = Posttest for experimental group design
O3 = Pretest for Control group design
O4 = Postest for Control group design
--- = Dashed line (separating the parallel rows in the
diagram of the non-equivalent control group
indicates that experimental and control groups)
There were two groups, they were experimental group and control group. The
experimental group was taught by usingPLEASE Strategy.
Population and Sample
According to Frankel, et. al, (2012), the population is the group of interest
to the researcher, the group of whom the researcher would like to generalize the
result of study” (p. 92). In this study, the population was conducted at the Eighth
Grade Students of SMP Nurul Iman Palembang of the first semester in academic
year of 2016-2017. The total numbers were 154 students consist of 74 male and80
female.
According to Fraenkel et. al. (2012, p. 91), “sample is a group of subjects
on which information is obtained” (p. 91). In this study, two classes are needed as
a sample to collect the data. The sample was taken by using purposive sampling.
Fraenkelet. al. (2012) also state that “purposive sampling is technique in selecting
the sample based on previous knowledge of a population and the specific purpose
of the research, investigators use personal judgement to select a sample” (p. 100).
Thus, the writer decided to study take two classes at the eighth grade where VIII.3
and VIII.4 as the sample where those classes were easier for the study. Moreover,
both of the classes have the problem in English, especially in writing. These
samples were chosen with some consideration. First, the teacher of English is
similar of each class. Second, the total of the students were also similar. The
number of the sample was 78 students, 39 students for experimental group and 39
students for control group. After conducted the pretest, the scores of class VIII 3
was higher than class VIII 4. Therefore, class VIII 3 was selected as control group
and class VIII 4 as experimental group.
Data Collection
In this study, I used test to collect the data. The test was conducted twice as
pre-test and post-test in control and experimental group. According to Brown
(2004), “test is a method of measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or
performance in a given domain” (p. 3).In this study, I used pretest and posttest.
The pre-test was the test that given before giving some treatments from the
teacher. According to Creswell (2012), a pretest provides a measure on some
attribute or characteristic that you assess for participants in an experiment before
they receive a treatment” (p. 297). The pretest taken by conducted to the sample.
Both an experimental and control group given pretest. It measures the students’
writing achievement before treatment. The purpose of giving pretest to the
students was to know the students’ ability in learning writing before implementing
PLEASE Strategy.
According to Creswell (2012), a posttest is a measure on some attribute or
characteristic that is assessed for participants in an experiment after a treatment”
(p. 297). The treatment which given to the experimental group was PLEASE
strategy. The type of posttest was the same as the pretest. The aim of giving
posttest to the students was to measure students’ ability in writing after
implementing PLEASE Strategy. The same as pretest, three raters checked and
give score to the students’ work. The result of this test was compared with the
result of pretest in order to know the effect of teaching writing by using PLEASE
Strategy to students’ writing ability. From the posttest, the writer got the data that
can be used to measure the students’ progress taught by using PLEASE Strategy.
This test calculated the composition of essay test by using descriptive
writing rubric adapted from Brown (2008) there were five aspect in scoring
writing descriptive text. Five aspects were : content, consist of 30 %, organization,
consist of 20%, grammar, consists of 20%, vocabulary, consist of 15% and the
last mechanic, consist of 15 %.
Data Instrument Analysis
Validity Test
A good test should fulfill its validity. According to Fraenklel, et.al (2012)
“validity is the most important idea to consider when preparing or selecting an
instrument for use” (p. 147). Therefore validity test was find out whether the
instrument for pretest and posttest activities valid or not.

Content Validity
Then, I estimated the content validity. According to Cohen, Manion, &
Morrison (2000), “content validity is achieved by ensuring that the content of the
test fairly samples the class or fields of the situations or subject matter in question,
achieved by making professional judgements about the relevance and sampling of
the contents of the test to a particular domain, and concerned with coverage and
representativeness rather than with patterns of response or scores” (p. 131).
Furthermore, Fraenkel,et. al (2012) state that “content validity refers to the
content and format of the instrument” (p. 148).

Construct Validity
I did construct validity of the test to judge or measure whether or not a test
instrument and lesson plan well to measure the students’ability. In construct
validity of this study, I submitted three validators or expert judgements. The
format of the writing instrument test is measured by three raters before doing
research. According to Brown (2004), “construct validity is a major issues in
validating large-scale standardized test of profiency” (p. 25).
In this study, I found out the construct validity of the instruments by
having expert judgment from at least three validators to evaluate whether the
component of the instruments was valid or not to apply in research activities. Ihas
several criteria in choosing expert judgment. The criteria of the raters were: 1)
they have experience in teaching English, 2) they have finished their magister
degree, 3) their TOEFL score is more than 550, 4) their experience is in writing
skill and after that the instrument will be evaluated by raters.
Reliability Test
Fraenkel, et al. (2012) state that “reliability refers to the consistency of the
scores obtained how consistent they are for each individual from one
administration of an instrument to another and from one set of items to
another”(p. 154). Reliability test measured whether or not research instrument
used for activities of pretest and posttest were reliable. Inter-rater reliability was
used to know whether the test was reliable or not. Inter-rater reliability occured
when two or more scores yield inconsistent scores of the same test, possibility for
lack or attention for scoring criteria, inexperience, inattention, or even
preconceived biases (Brown, 2004, p. 21).

In this study, I calculated the students’ score by using Spearman rank

order correlation. In scoring students’ expository writing, I used scoring rubric
which is adapted from www.iRubric.com. Before, the raters gave students’ score,
the instrument of assessing written content was given earlier to the raters. Then,
three set of scores will be calculated by using this formula:
R1+R2+R3
3
The test was reliable if the result of the data measurement is higher than 0.
70. According to Fraenkel and Wallen (2012), state that “the reliability should be
at least 0, 70 and preferably higher”(p. 156).

Conclusions and Rocommendations

Based on the findings and interpretation in the previous chapter, some
conclusions can be drawn as follows: First, from the result of pretest to postest in
teaching descriptive writing by using PLEASE strategy, there was a significant
improvement on the eighth grade students’ descriptive writing achievement at the
eighth grade students of SMP Nurul Iman Palembang. Second, it was found that
there was a significant difference on the eigth grade students’ descriptive writing
achievement who were taught by using PLEASE strategy and those who were not
at SMP Nurul Iman Palembang.
 In relation to the study that has been conducted, I would like to offer some
suggestion in order to develop the teaching and learning in EFL classroom. Some
suggestions are offered to the English teacher, students and reseacher.
The first, the teacher especially teachers at SMP Nurul Iman Palembang
should motivate the students and should give positive responses towards the
teacher. Therefore, PLEASE strategy can be used as alternative technique to
motivate the students and improve their writing achievement.
The second is the for students especially for the eigth grade students of SMP
Nurul Iman Palembang. It is suggested that they should be more confident in
expressing their ideas, read more books to enlarge the knowlwdge. The students
should also learn more about writing not only descriptive writing but also another
text sinces PLEASE strategy can be implemented in various text.
The last is for the other reseachers. Hopefully, this research can be useful as
theoritical references for other reseachers who want to conduct similar studies
with different variables or condition and focus on the aspects of writing
achievement. The other reseachers can also consider the weaknesses of the
findings of the study, so that they can conduct better reseach.
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