IMPROVING WRITING SKILL OF THE EIGHTHGRADE STUDENTS OF SMP CIPTA DHARMA DENPASAR IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2022/2023 THROUGH SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION COMBINED WITH PICTURE

Proficient writing skill enables students to express ideas, opinions, knowledge, feelings, and experiences. The students should know well the organization and generic structure in paragraph writing. However, they still had difficulties making a well-written paragraph, especially a descriptive paragraph. In addition, they did not know how to organize it in terms of generic structures, unity, and coherence. The present research objective was mainly intended to determine whether writing skills of the eighth-grade students of SMP Cipta Dharma Denpasar could be improved through small group discussion combined with picture. This research used a classroom action research design conducted in two cycles. The required data were collected using research instruments: paragraph construction tests and a structured questionnaire. After the cyclical research process, it was found that the small group discussion combined with picture was appropriate to improve the subjects’ writing skills. It could be seen from the pre-test, post-test 1, and posttest 2 results, which showed significant improvement in their writing skills. Furthermore, it was supported by the structured questionnaire, which showed positive responses to the implementation of the technique. It can be concluded that writing skill of the eighth-grade students of SMP Cipta Dharma Denpasar could be improved by implementing small group discussion combined with picture.