Improving Students’ Writing Skill of a Procedure Text by Using Pictures at the Grade X6 of SMA 1 Tanjung Mutiara of Agam Regency

This research was done based on the fact that there were so many problems and difficulties faced by researcher’s students to write in English in teaching learning process in X6 SMA 1 Tanjung Mutiara of Agam Regency. Some of the problems were many students did not know how to develop their ideas. They did not know how to arrange words into a good sentence. They felt writing was difficult and uncomfortable skill. They were not given interesting strategy for writing activity to stimulate their thinking in the process of writing. The purpose of this research was to find out whether using pictures could improve the students writing skill of a procedure text and to find out the factors contributes to change the students’ writing skill by using pictures at the grade X6 of SMA 1 Tanjung Mutiara Agam Regency. The methodology of this research was Classroom Action Research (CAR) which consisted of two cycles. Every cycle consisted of four meetings which the sequence of activities namely: plan, action, observation and reflection. The participants of the research were the tenth grade students’ class X6 of SMA 1 Tanjung Mutiara of Agam regency in 2009/2010 academic year and one of English teacher who help the researcher as collaborator. The data were collected by using writing test, observation checklist, interviews and field notes. The data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. The finding of this research showed that picture could improve students’ writing skill of a procedure text at the grade X6 of SMA 1 Tanjung Mutiara Agam Regency and the factors that improved their writing skill were: (1) The students are encouraged to develop ideas, (2) The students are helped to broaden their vocabulary in looking the pictures, (3) Pictures have changed the writing class atmosphere become interesting and enjoyable, (4) Pictures make students and teacher satisfy in the term of adding variety to the classroom activities and improving teaching and learning writing in the classroom.