AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON THE USE OF CONTEXTUAL LEARNING METHOD IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXT WRITING
ABSTRACT Epafras Blegur, Tiarma Marpaung, Zuvyati Aryani Tloanen This study studied the development of students' writing skills through Contextual teaching in class VIII SMP Swasta Swadaya Tarus. The purpose of this research is to find out whether Contextual Teaching can improve students' skills in writing descriptive text. The research used is quantitative research, the teaching method used is pictures. This study used a pre-experimental design in this study. Class VIII SMP Swasta Swadaya Tarus School who took part in the class were 42 students of Class A and B as the population and further divided into 21 students of class B as the sample. Data collection was obtained using tests, pre-tests and post-tests. When data collection techniques are found by calculating the average score on the pre-test and post-test. The results of this study showed that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test with an average pre-test score of 34.85 and a post-test of 77.61. Based on this, students' vocabulary mastery increased by 77.61 points. The hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and the hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. This shows that the use of media images in writing can improve students' writing skills. The research question has been answered.