The Influence of Running Dictation Method on Students’ Descriptive Text Writing Ability (A Quasi-Experimental Research at 10th Grade Students of SMA Negeri 1 Jalancagak, Subang)

The purpose of this research was to investigate the significant influence of running dictation on students’ descriptive text writing ability and to find out the students’ responses toward the running dictation method used for improving their writing descriptive text. Using quasi experimental design, the quantitative data were taken from the first semester students of the tenth grade, SMA Negeri 1 Jalancagak. The data obtained from pre-test and post-test were analyzed using SPSS 22.00 while the data collected from the questionnaires were analyzed using a Likert Scale. The results from Independent Sample t-test show that Sig = 0.006 and α = 0.05 meaning Ha is accepted because ofSig < α = 0.05. It is implied that there is a significant influence of the running dictation method on students’ descriptive text writing ability. This is also supported by the questionnaires’ results showing the majority of students (82.4%) gave positive responses to the running dictation method in writing descriptive text. It can be claimed that running dictation is an effective method for teaching students to write descriptive texts; students enjoy learning and improve their interest in English, especially writing.


INTRODUCTION
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Senior High School includes four skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among the four skills, writing is considered to be the foremost complex ability for EFL students, because it needs good knowledge when they are producing words, sentences, and paragraphs with good grammar. According to Lyons&Heasley in Nunan (2000:91), writing clearly required a complex process and competence. It means that writing is a continuous activity that has more than one step and writing is more than a medium of communication. In other words, writing is not only a way to communicate to each other but also a tool to express ideas and emotion (Raymond, 1980). To improve the students' writing skills, scholars have used several approaches; one of which is called running dictation.
Vol. 6/ Nomor 2/ Oktober 2020 56 Running dictation as described by Wan Chai (2011:58) is an activity for students who like moving around and working in teams. The students need to read and memorize a short text, and tell the phrases/sentences to the other group member who will write down the text. Thus, this activity is a great way to enliven a tired class due to some reasons.
This activity is often used to inject some fun into the learning which makes learning enjoyable. It can also be useful for introducing a new theme or topic or to focus on a particular grammatical point. This method can help students to get new ideas easily while writing. So, it could be more effective to encourage students to learn English.
Running dictation has been conducted previously by several researchers.
Mutmainnah et al (2017) applied this approach to find out the influence of running dictation strategy on writing narrative text done by 11th grade students of SMAN 1 Punggur, Central Lampung. They found out that the strategy was applicable since it could improve the students' writing skills significantly, especially in writing narrative texts.
Besides, running dictation is also well applied in improving students' writing ability of descriptive texts (Arin, 2015). By conducting an action research focusing on task-based, she investigated the influence of this strategy on writing descriptive texts done by the 10th grade students of SMAN 1 Bawang-Banjarnegara. She found out that the running dictation technique gives a good contribution to improve the writing ability of the students under investigation. In addition to previous studies, Nurdianingsih and Rahmawati (2018) also used a running dictation strategy to improve the students' writing ability. The results show that the implementation of the running dictation technique can improve students' writing, memorizing, and communicating cooperatively with their group and students' creativity as well during teaching and learning process. The studies discussed above suggest that this technique gives good contribution and a positive effect in improving the students' writing skill achievement.
Referring to the results of the previous studies, this research also applied this technique to improve the students' writing ability of descriptive texts. The object of this study was 10th grade students of SMA Negeri 1, Jalan Cagak. The results of this study may be used to improve students' writing ability of different types of texts and different grades.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This research mainly emphasizes the theory from Victoria (2008:10) describing that running dictation is a collaborative activity, whose successful completion relies on the use of spoken and written English. Writing is the most challenging skill to master since it includes three different skills such as listening, speaking, and reading, all information on the authors, a great deal of training, and a decent inspiration to have the option to write well (Brown, 2004:218).
Another guided writing test is dictation. Most teachers know about this technique, but few handle it properly. Actually, this is one of the easier tests to use, and it gives very good information on the students' language ability, (Madsen, 1983:112).

METHOD
Experimental design was used. The design was applied considering the research question, namely "Is there any significant influence after using the running dictation method toward students' descriptive text ability?" Based on Ary, et al (2010:301), the basic plan for carrying out a study with an active independent variable is known as experimental design.
Creswell (2012:309-310) discovers that quasi experimental involves an assignment, but it is not a purposeless task of participants to classes. A pre-test and post-test can be used in a quasi-experiment method. To determine the discrepancies between the two groups, the writer administered a pre-test and a post-test to each group category.
Meanwhile, the experimental treatment was only carried out in the experimental group, and the treatment was carried out by applying the running dictation process. The experimental class has 36 students, while the control class has 36 students.
In line with the second research question, this research used a questionnaire. This method was used considering the research question, namely "What are student responses toward running dictation method in writing descriptive text?" A questionnaire with a Likert Scale is conducted by the author. According to Sugiyono (2017:93), Likert scale is used for measuring person or group attitude, opinion, and perception about social phenomenon.
Vol. 6/ Nomor 2/ Oktober 2020 58 In collecting the data, there were two types of instruments used in this study, namely writing descriptive text test; pre-test and post-test for both experimental and control groups, and questionnaire for experimental group. The aim of the pre-test was to determine the students' prior abilities. Here, they were given the task of writing a descriptive text on the given subject. The subject was: Classmate, The treatment was conducted four times. It needed 2x45 minutes for every meeting. Students received explanations about the aims and directions, as well as points of writing within a good work, during the treatments. A post-test was given to determine whether or not the students' descriptive writing abilities had improved. Students were given the task of writing a description related to the subject presented. The topics were: Tourist destination.
The questionnaire was used to investigate the students' responses toward the use of Running Dictation. After the post-test, the questionnaires were distributed.
The results of the post-test of the experimental and control classes were measured to find out which one is better. In investigating the questionnaire, Likert Scale was used to gain information about the student responses toward running dictation in the experimental group. The data were analysed quantitatively.

The Result of Experimental Class Test
The pre-test was conducted before treatment, while the post-test was after treatment. In terms of running dictation, the researcher used the treatment in the experimental class. Table 1 shows the results of students' descriptive texts evaluated in pre-test and post-test in the experimental class. and post-test was 81. It is possible to say that the value of pre-test to post-test is increasing.
As a result, the total amount of value increase was 30.47.

The Result of Control Class Test
The pre-test was conducted before treatment, while the post-test was after treatment. In terms of conventional, the researcher used the treatment in the experimental class. Table 2 shows the results of students' descriptive text tests in pre-test and post-test in the control class. From the result above, it can be concluded that the post-test score of each class has increased significantly, but the higher increase of score was the experimental class with a total amount of 30.47, whereas, the control class was 25. This means that the running dictation method can help students improve their writing skills.

Hypothesis testing
The null hypothesis (H.) and alternative hypothesis (H.) were written as follows by the author: : There is no significant influence of the running dictation method on students' descriptive text writing ability.
: There is a significant influence of the running dictation method on students' descriptive text writing ability.  table 3 shows the value of significantly generated Sig. (P-value) = 0.006 < α = 0.05. So, Ho is rejected, while Ha is accepted. Based on the results, it is possible to conclude that the running dictation method had a significant impact on students' descriptive text writing ability.

Finding on the Questionnaire
In order to answer the second research question, the researcher analysed the questionnaire test results to learn about the students' reactions to the running dictation method in writing descriptive text. For recapitulations the result of five Likert Scale questionnaire it can be seen in the diagram below:

Figure 1. Graph Recapitulation Five Likert Scale of Questionnaire
From diagram above, it shows that students who give strongly agree response toward running dictation method was 39%, Agree was 43.40%, Uncertain was 15%, Disagree was 2.40% and Strongly Disagree was 0.20%.

Discussion
Writing skills deal with the ability to arrange the graphic system such as the letter, word, and sentences in specific language used in written correspondence so that the reader can comprehend the message or information. In fact, many students have difficulties developing their writing.
Teaching writing needed a right method to become applied during the learning process. Therefore, the teacher has to choose the proper method to develop students' writing skill creatively. In this research the researcher has implemented a method by using the running dictation strategy to reach the learning process successfully. It has been supported by theory of Harmer (2007:261-162) that the teacher not only needs to deploy some or all the usual roles when they ask students to write, but also they should have the ones of these important roles when they are teaching writing, the roles are: motivator, resource, and feedback provider.
The objective of this research is to investigate whether there was a significant influence of using running dictation on students' descriptive text writing ability or not and to know the students' responses after using the running dictation method.
Vol. 6/ Nomor 2/ Oktober 2020 62 The response to the first question in the research problems was revealed by statistical analysis in data analysis. The first research question is asking "is there any significant influence after using running dictation method on students' descriptive text writing ability?" Based on the data analysis and hypothesis testing, the calculation determined that the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and the alternative (Ha) is accepted.
It could be noted that there was a significant influence of running dictation method on students' descriptive text writing ability. It has been supported by data analysis. The author was aware that students who used running dictation frequently received higher scores. It was proved by the average score in both classes. It can be seen in table 4. From the table, the average score for the experimental class was 81, while the average score for the control class was 74.7, indicating that the experimental class got a better score than the control class. Therefore, it can be assumed that using running dictation is the best way for motivating students to become active in the teaching and learning process, especially in writing. It means that the running dictation method influenced students' writing ability. It has been supported by the theory of Victoria (2008:10) describe that running dictation is a collaborative activity, whose successful completion relies on the use of spoken and written English.
Finally, to answer the second research question, dealing with what are students' responses toward running dictation methods in writing descriptive text? It can be answered using the questionnaire results.
According to the results of the questionnaire, strongly agree response toward running dictation method was 39%, Agree was 43.40%. It indicates positive response toward the use of running dictation. In contrast, Disagree was 2.40% and Strongly Disagree was 0.20%. This shows that students responded negatively.
It can be noticed that students were happy while learning, they were motivated to learn and their interest through English learning especially writing was rising. It shows that the Running Dictation method gives influence in improving students' writing skill, because the students' achievement has increased after the students did the Running dictation method. It has been supported in the previous researchers conducted by Arin (2015) her research found that the students are being helped by applying running dictation in writing descriptive text. The conclusion drawn from the study is that running dictation technique gives good contribution to improve the writing ability and conducted by Nurdianingsih and Rahmawati (2018) it was found that running dictation technique motivates the students to encourage the students to improve their writing skill and gives good contribution and had a positive effect in improving the students' writing skill achievement.

CONCLUSION
The purpose of this research was to determine whether or not the running dictation method had a significant influence on students' descriptive text writing ability, as well as to know the students' responses after using the running dictation method in teaching writing descriptive text.
Based on the findings and discussion in the previous chapter, the research resulted in a p value (sign. (2-tailed) of 0.006. It is less than = 0.05, implying that Ho is rejected, and Ha is accepted. Using the running dictation to teach writing can increase students' interest and create a positive learning environment, especially for descriptive texts.
Therefore, these activities can give the students motivation in order to increase their writing ability especially in descriptive text. It is supported by the students' score of the experimental class which is higher after getting treatments using running dictation. Based on the questionnaire results, 82.4% students gave positive responses to the Running Dictation, while only 22.4% gave negative responses to it.
Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that: 1. Running dictation is an excellent way to improve students' descriptive text writing skills; most students can improve their scores and are motivated to write better.
The post-test score of experimental class is higher than the control class.