Improving Students' Writing Skills by Using Practice and Progress Book

One of the language skills that should be learned by English students besides the other skills is writing. Writing is the most difficult skill for the students to master. They do not know what they should write when the teacher asks them to write something. Because of that problem, the researcher tries to use guided questions in teaching writing skills by using Practice and Progress book which is written by L.G. Alexander. Guided Questions is a technique which is used to guide the students to write something by giving some questions. Guided Questions will enable the students to write a good paragraph and bring them to a point where they will be capable of writing a paragraph with a minimum of error. The students will not make a serious error so long as they follow the directions. Guided Questions can help the students explore their ideas in learning writing skills. The aim of this study is to know whether guided questions in Practice and Progress book can improve student’s writing skills in the first year students of MAS Darul Ihsan. Based on the data results which are analyzed by using SPSS 16.0, the application of learning writing skills by using guided questions in Practice and Progress book has improved. The data shows that the significant value is 0.000 for experimental class and 0.006 for control class. However, the improvement in experimental class is more significant than in control class is. In other words, it indicates that there is an improvement of students’ writing skills after learning writing by using guided questions in Practice and Progress book which is conducted by the researcher in MAS Darul Ihsan.