TEACHING WRITING OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY USING THINK PAIR SHARE STRATEGY (TPSS) (An Experimental Study at the Second Semester Diploma III Students in Taxation Study Program, the Faculty of Economics and Business, Diponegoro University)

Abstract

The main purposes of this research are to find out whether the strategy is effective and appropriate to be applied to teach writing and to find out a significant difference between a group of the students treated by using Think-Pair-Share Strategy (TPSS) and without it. This research was conducted in Diploma III Study Program in Taxation Study Program, FEB, Diponegoro University. The research started in March up to May 2012. It began in the first week of March and ended in the last May 2012. The students learnt the descriptive text, which was one of materials taught for the second semester students in Diploma III in Taxation Study Program. The subjects of this research were students in Diploma III Program in Taxation Study Program, FEB, Diponegoro University. There are two groups named experimental group and control group. The data were collected through observation, questionnaire, and test. The writer conducted pretest and posttest to both groups. The posttest mean results showed that experimental group was higher than control group. The posttest-score mean of the experimental group was 78.50, while control group was 71.82. The result implied that there was improvement for both experimental and control group, but there was a significant improvement on variance for experimental group. However, there was improvement on variance of control group but it was lower than that of experimental group. After the questionnaire was analyzed, the result showed that 34% of the students strongly agreed with the implementation of the TPSS, 55% of the students agreed, 10% was neutral and only 1% of the students disagreed. It indicated that 89% of the students accepted on application of TPSS. It can be concluded that there was a significant difference of English writing achievement between experimental group and control group and Think-Pair-Share Strategy (TPSS) was proved be capable of increasing students’ achievement in writing descriptive text.