THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE IN

TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

A PAPER
Submitted to English Education Department
The Faculty of Education and Teaching Training

BY

SITI RAHAYU

SRN. 161230087

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHING TRAINING

STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY

SULTAN MAULANA HASANUDDIN BANTEN

2019 A.D / 1440 A.H

 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the research

English is the first foreign language in our country, which is taught

of elementary level to the university level. It becomes very important in
education aspect. Because English language including to several language lesson in
our country. And there are several functions of foreign language: a) international
communication and study of language, b) language as a system of communication, c)
the most complex of man’s tool, d. each language is structurally different system.

The researcher choose the using of clustering technique of writing descriptive

text. By assumption that the use of clustering technique can improve studens’ writing
skill. Kane (2000: 352) states that description is about sensory experience-how
something looks, sounds, tastes. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description
also deals with other kinds of perception. In our country, English learned since
elementary school. Because English is not our native language, the students are
difficult to learn it, based on that statement, English taught with many methods to
make student easily to learn English as their second language. One of method that
helps the students to master English is by using clustering technique.

In English language, there are integrated skills to be mastered such as:

speaking, listening, reading, and writing. As Haycraft states (1978:8) that there are
various skills in mastering of language: respective skill, listening (understanding the
spoken language), reading (understanding the written language), and productive
skills-speaking and writing. We know that English not our native language, as a fact
that mastery it is not easy. The components and skill of English language is important
for language learner. The components include grammatical structure, phonology,
vocabulary and pronunciation that can give the effect to the English-language skills;
such as listening, reading, speaking and writing. Writing is the written productive
language skill. It refers to the ability to communicate to the reader with the written
language. Reading is refers to produce the spoken language. Listening is the receptive
spoken. It refers to the ability to understand the spoken language. It is the skill of a
listener or group of listener to interpret information transferred by the speaker.
 Speaking is the spoken productive language. It refers to produce spoken language. It
the skill of speaker to communicate the information to the listener.

In writing, students have to know about grammar, vocabulary, sentence

structure, sentence sequence, sentence connection. Sometimes the students could
speak English fluently but they did not definite understand in Writing or making
essay. But in fact, most Indonesian students could not learn English well, especially in
Writing. It is usually indicated when they write paper or thesis in English. Many
students make mistake when they write essay. Not all students had some ability in
pouring the ideas when they write essay, it is because they do not have interest in
studying writing skill.
This is also happens at Islamic Senior High School 3 Pandglang, students less
vocabulary so they can’t write, they do not master in grammar, and many students
were not interested in writing. Because writing activity was considered bored, and
they saldom practice writing in English. The researcher did observation at Islamic
Senior High School 3 Pandeglang. The researcher found some problems related to the
instructional activities at the school. Those problems are that: the students have low
writing ability, the students have low motivation in learning English, and the teacher
still uses monotonous and inappropriate teaching technique. So, probably, it was
caused by students’ uninterested in lesson, because there is not variation in teaching
English from teacher. The teachers should implement an appropriate method to
improve students’ ability. One way to improve students writing skills is the students
have to be more active than the teacher and the students also have to be coincident. It
can be tried clustering technique. By using clustering technique, the researcher would
like to the analyzing the Ten Grade Students of Isalmic Senior High School 3
Pandeglang as subject of this research.
Based on explanation above, researcher is interested to do a research entitle
“The Effectiveness of Clustering Technique in Teaching Writing Descriptive Text”.

B. Statement of The Problem

This research is about clustering technique in teaching writing descriptive text.
Based on the background of the study above, the problem of the study above, the
problem of the study are as a follow :
 1. Does the use of clustering technique is more effective than traditional
method in teaching writing descriptive text?
2. How is the respond of the students to clustering technique ?

C. The Objectives of The Research

From the statements above, this research is conducted with purpose as follows :
1. To compare the effect os usingb clustering technique and traditional
method in teaching wrriting descriptive text.
2. To describe the respond of the students to clustering technique.

D. The Purpose and Significant of The Research

The purpose of this research is:
1. To know whether the clustering technique can improve students’ writing
skill in English at Tent Grade of the Islamic Senior High School 3
Pandeglang.
2. To help students in improve English language.
The result of this research is expected to give contribution to teacher, students and
other researcher. The significance of the studies are:
1. For the writer (researcher)
By using this method perhaps to researcher will get one solution to
evaluate. The researcher will know what the advantages are by using
clustering technique in teaching English language. And next time,
researcher will choose this method as one of solution to evaluate.
2. For the teacher
Teacher can evaluate clearly what the result of teaching English
language uses the clustering technique. This research can be given to the
teacher as variation in teaching English language.
3. For the student
This research as presence to increase students interest in learning
English language with enjoyable and can be used to broaden and develop.

E. Previous Study
In this study, the researcher use two previous studies as concideration in
making this thesis. The previous studies are:
1. The use of clustering technique in teaching writing narrative text.
The journal that written by Meliya Adriati explain about clustering technique
in teachingg writing narrative text. This specific obajective was to find out
whether the use of clustering technique is effective in teaching writing narrative
text, and how the response of students to this technique in one Senior High School
in Bandung.
2. The effectiveness of Teaching Writing Recount Text Through Clustering
Technique.
The aim of this study was to find out whether there was a statistically
significant increase of students’ writing ability in recount texts after they were
taught through clustering technique.
There are the similarities and differences between this study and the first
previous study. The similarity is on the technique used thatt is clustering
technique. Meanwhile, the differences is on the aspect that analyze. The previous
study is analyzing on writing narrative text, and this study is analyzing on writing
descriptive text. And also, the previous study is using quasy experimental, while
this study is using true experiment design.
The similaritiy this study with the second previous study is on the technique
that use, it is clustering tgechnique. But the differences is on the aspect, in the
second previous study is analyzing on writing recount text, while this study is
analyzing descriptive text. The previous study is using pre-test post-test, and this
study is using true experiment design.
 CHAPTER II
THEORITICAL FOUNDATION

In this chapter presents the theoretical framework, which covers the definition of
writing, descriptive writing, and clustering technique.

A. Writing
Writing is a process of transforming thoughts and ideas into written form to inform
or communicate with the reader. Hyland supported that “writing is way of sharing of
personal meanings and emphasizes the power of the individual to construct their own
views on a topic”.1 It means that writing is one of the important skills that must be learned.
By writing students will be able to learn any aspects of language like grammatical aspect
and language used. It believed that writing is a good way to develop students’ English
ability.
In addition, Heaton stated that “writing skills are complex and also sometimes
difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but
also of conceptual and judge mental elements”.2

B. Descriptive Text
1. Definition of descriptive text

Descriptive or description is a way to describe something by giving more details

in order to visualize the thing that will be described. So, we can visualized how its
looks like, what its taste and etc, through our sense. The definition of descriptive text
can be varied from any sources.

As stated by Rega Deta Pratiwi, the descriptive text is used to describe a

particular person, place or thing.3 In another words, descriptive text is a kind of text that
has a purpose to give information or details about a thing or person that will be
described. Furthermore, Pardiyono stated that description paragraph is a type of
written text paragraph, in which has the specific function to describe an object (living
or non-living things) and it has the aim that is giving a description of the object to the

1
Ken Hyland. Second Language Writing, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
2
J.B. Heaton. Writing English Language Tests, (New York: Longman Inc, 1995)
3
Deta pratiwi Rega (2013). The Impact of Team Pair solo Technique and Round Robin Technique on Student’s
Ability in Writing Descriptive Text retrieved on January, 14, 2013
 reader clearly.4 It means, descriptive text genre of text that convey the specific details of
the object that be described in order to make the reader understand.

C. CLUSTERING TECHNIQUE
1. Definition of clustering technique
Sometimes people getting confuse how to develop their idea and what they
know about the topic before their start to write. Therefore, people have to know about
how to write well. In order to get a good result of their writing. In the writing process
there are some steps that will bring us to bea good writer andto producea good writing.
One of the step is pre-writing process. This step is one of important process to produce
a good writing. Because, this process helps the writer to generate the ideas before
startig to write. There are many technique that can be implemented in the pprocess of
pre-writing. One of the technique is clustering technique.
As Sandra scary and jhon scary stated that, clustering is another method of
gathering ideas during the prewriting stage. Clustering is very similar to brainstorming,
except that when you cluster, you produce a visual map of your ideas rather than a list.5
This method is helpful for people to think in a visual way. We can use lines, boxes,
arrows, and circle in implementing the clustering to show the ideas and details that exist
in our mind.
On the other hand, Sabarun stated that clustering is a technique where we map
out our thinking using a ciecles or line to display branches of our.6 Meanwhile,
Meliya Adriati stated that clustering is a kind of technique which can be used in
pre-writing stage. In line with Barbara Fine Clause, clustering lets the writer see at a
glance how ideas relate to one anothers. By implementing the clustering technique, the
students can stimulate their ideas to flow the ideas in their mind.

2. The Technique of Using Clustering

Clustering technique is a way to generate the idea in writing, besides a way to

connect the idea visually. It is useful to see how to connect the idea. It also helps the
4
Pardiyono. (2007). Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre Based Writing. Yogyakarta: 2013
5
Sandra Scarry, Jhon scarry, The Writer’s Work Place with Reading, (New York: Wadsword CENGAGE
Larning), 2010, p. 10.
6
Sandra Scarry, Jhon scarry, The Writer’s Work Place with Reading, (New York: Wadsword CENGAGE
Larning), 2010
 students to generate the topic to the subtopic of the idea. Here are the steps of
clustering, for example:

a) Write the topic in the center of a blank piece of paper, write and circle the word
Campus life.
b) Arround the circle, add reasons and details about the campus life.
c) Use a series of boxes, circles or others shapes, along with connecting lines to set
off the reasons and details.7

7
Jhon Langan, Sentence Skill, Seventh Addition, ( New York: McGrawHill. 2004)
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH

This chapter describes methodological activities to examine the teaching of writing by

using clustering technique there are six parts discussed in this chapter such as research
method, place and time of the research, population sample of research, research instrument,
data collecting and analyzing, and scoring system.

A. Research method
The method used in this study is quantitative method. It use to see the effectiveness of
clustering technique on students’ writing ability of descriptive text. According to
Creswell, quantitative method is defined as a method that focuses on investigating the use
of positive statement to develop knowledge, use enquiry strategies such as experiment,
survey, and collect and get statistic data on predetermined instrument. 8
The design of this study was true experiment design. There were two classes for this
study; one as a control group and one as an experimental group. In the control class was
taught by using traditional technique, meanwhile in the experimental class was taught by
using clustering technique as a treatment.

B. Place And Time Of Research

The study was conducted in one of school in Banten province , Pandeglang district,
panimbang subdistrict. That is MAN 3 PANDEGLANG. And was conducted on Friday,
29 of march 2019.

C. Population And Sample

1. Population
To collect the data of this study, the researcher take the population of this
study were the Social class of tenth grade of MAN 3 PANDEGLANG that is located
in Panimbang which consist of 40 students.
In taking sample of this study, the reasearcher takes 2 classes, one class (X
IPS2) for the controlled class and second class (X IPS3) for experimental class. The
researcher took 20 students on each class. The total participants in this were 40

8
John W. Creswell, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative And Mixed Methods Approaches: Second
Edition. (New York : Sage Publication, 2003), p. 21
 students. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling. Cohen
stated that purposive sampling is often used in quantitative research in which the
researcher choosing the informant deliberately due to the qualities the informant’s
spesific needs. “as it name suggests, the sample has beeb choosen for spesific
purposes”. Moreover, the researcher choose those classes is based on the teacher’s
recommendation of the students score and consideration about the sample. X IPS 2
and X IPS 3 have the similar quality.
D. Instrument
1. Witten test
The data in this study was students writing skill in descriptive text. In order to get
the data, the researcher used a written test as the instrument. The written test was
aplied to see the effectiveness of clustering technique on students’ writing ability of
descriptive text.
The test include just post test. The post test was giving to each class after giving
treatment in experimental class, and non treatment or using traditional technique in
control class. It was to know “does the use of clustering technique as pre-writing
stage in descriptive text is more affective than the traditional technique?”. Here are
the instrument of the research was provided in the following table.

Table 1.1
Research instrument
WORKSHEET
Test of writing descriptive text for experimental group
Name :
Class :
Please write a descriptive text according to the topic below! (choose 1 topic, and make
minimal 2 paragraph).
1. Person
2. Animal
3. Building
4. Place
E. Technique of Data Collecting and Data Analyzing
1. Data collecting
To know the effectiveness of clutering technique in this study, the researcher
applied 2 techniques to get valid data objective information as follows :
1) Post Test
Test is the main instrument in this study. The post test was to know the result
of the students after giving the treatment. The researcher conducted the post-test
after the treatment using clusterig technique was given to the experimental class,
and also given to control class after non treatment or used traditional technique.
The test was supposed to know the students’ ability in writing descriptive text
after giving or no the treatment.
2) Questionnaire
Questionnaire is a research instruments that consists the questions. It is aimed
to gathering the information from respondents. The researcher gives a
questionnaire in order to know and gather the data which questions about the
technique applied.

2. Data analyzing
The process of analyzing the data, the researcher collected all data and using t-test
to know is there an effect or not from two samples of study. The data of the test in
this study were calculated by using SPSS. In analyzing the data, here are some steps
in analyzing the data of research:
1. Test normallity
This test was conducted in order to know whether the data from 2 classes were
normal or not.
2. Test homogenity
This test was conducted in order to know whether the data from two classes
had the same oor different variant.
a. Hypotesis test
After getting data from te post-test of 2 classes, the researcher should find out
the differencess between using clustering technique and traditional technique.
According to the 2 classes are compared to the independent variables, the
experimental (Xips3) is x and control class (Xips2) is y variable. The formula of t-
test as follow:
 1. Determining the mean of variable X by using formula :
∑𝑥
𝑀𝑥 =
𝑛
2. Determining the mean of variable Y by using formula :
∑𝑦
𝑀𝑦 =
𝑛
3. Determining the standard deviation score of variable X :
√∑ 𝑥 2
𝑆𝐷𝑥 =
𝑁1
4. Determining standar deviation score of variable Y :
∑ 𝑦2
𝑆𝐷𝑦 =
𝑁2
5. Determining standard error of the different mean of X and mean Y :

𝑆𝐸𝑚𝑥−𝑚𝑦 = √𝑆𝐸𝑚𝑥 1 + 𝑆𝐸𝑚𝑥 2

6. The conclusion from research can be seen from the result of t0

F. Scoring System

Pedoman penilaian keterampilan menulis teks deskriptif

G. No Aspek/unsur Skor maksimal

1 Isi/gagasan yang dikemukakan 30

2 Organisasi isi 20

3 Tata bahasa 20

4 Gaya : pilihan struktur dan kosakata 15

5 Ejaan dan tata tulis 15

Jumlah skor 100

Kisi-kisi penilaian

No Aspek Indikator Skor Kriteria

1 Isi/gagasan 1. Kesesuaian judul, pengembangan 27-30 Sanga baik
yang gagasan yang cermat, banyak fakta
dikemukakan pendukung, sesuai dengan topik karangan.

2. Kesesuaian judul, pengembangan

gagasan terbatas, banyak mengetahui 22-26 Baik
subjek, sesuai dengan topik namun kurang
rinci.

3. Judul kurang sesuai, pengembangan 17-21 Cukup

gagasan terbatas, pengetahuan mengetahui
subjek terbatas, pengembangan topik
kurang memadai 13-16 Kurang
4. Tidak menunjukan kesesuaian judul,
tidak menunjukan pengetahuan mengenai
subjek/topik, tidak ada data pendukung.

2 Organisasi isi 1. Organisasi isi sesuai dengan gagasan 18-20 Sangat baik
pokok, keseluruhan susunan kalimat jelas,
urutan logis, kohesi tinggi.

2. Organisasi isi sesuai dengan gagasan

pokok, namun kurang rinci, keseluruhan 14-17 Baik
kalimat jelas, urutan logis tetapi tidak
lengkap, kohesi kurang tinggi.

3. Organisasi isi kurang sesuai dengan

gagasan pokok, susunan kalimat
10-13 Cukup
membingungkan/ tidak berhubungan,
kurang berurutan dan kurang logis.

4. Organisasi isi tidak sesuai dengan 7-9 Kurang

gagasan pokok, tidak mengkomunikasikan
apa-apa, urutan tidak logis.

3 Tata bahasa 1. Tata bahasa kompleks dan efektif. 18-20 Sangat baik

2. Tata bahasa kompleks dan hanya terjadi 14-17 Baik

sedikit kesalahan

3. Tata bahasa kabur dan terjadi banyak

kesalahan. 10-13 Cukup

4. Tata bahasa tidak komunikatif dan 7-9 Kurang baik

terdapat banyak kesalahan.
4 Gaya : pilihan 1. Penggunaan dan pemilihan kata yang 13-15 Sangat baik
struktur dan tata efektif, pemilihan kata yang tepat,
bahasa menguasai pembentukan kata.

2. Penggunaan dan pemilihan kata 10-12 Baik

terkadang keliru, tetapi tidak mengaburkan
arti.
7-9 Cukup
3. Pilihan kata dan ungkapan terbatas.
4-6 Kurang baik
4. Pilihan kata asal-asalan dan penguasaan
rendah.

5 Ejaan dan tata 1. Menguasai EYD, menguasai tanda baca, 13-15 Sangat baik
bahasa menguasai kaidah penulisan.

2. Ejaan sesuai hanya terdapat sedikit

kesalahan dan tidak menimbulkan 10-12 Baik
pengburan makna.

7-9 Cukup
3. Ejaan sering terjadi kesalahan dan
mengaburkan makna.

4. Ejaan terdapat banyak kesalahan dan 4-6 Kurang baik

tidak sesuai aturan
 REFERENCES

Alwasilah, A.C. (2005) pokoknya menulis : cara baru menulis dengan metodw
kolaborasi. Bandung: Andira.
Kalandaze, Maya., (2007). English academic writing. Europe : CSS
Tuan, L.T. (2010). "enhancing EFL Learners writing skill via journal writing”.
English Language Teaching, 3, (3).
https://www.scribd.com/doc/27089912/Proposal-Skripsi-Inggris