The document discusses a study that aims to improve 10th grade students' writing skills at a vocational high school using the STAD (Students Teams Achievement Divisions) cooperative learning strategy. It identifies issues with current writing instruction such as lack of vocabulary, weak motivation, and grammatical errors. The study will implement STAD to address these issues by promoting collaboration and self-regulated learning. The researcher expects STAD will increase writing ability, knowledge, and the quality of English education. The scope is limited to using STAD to teach writing skills only.

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the researcher will discuss some general descriptions
related to her research. This chapter contains the description about the background
of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, significance of the
study, scope and limitation, and definition of key terms.
1.1 Background of Study
Language is the most important part in communication. People should
have good language skills to communicate well. In this era, people have to accept
English as an International language, because many important things used English
such as education, business, and communication and so on.
Language has four important skills, which are listening skill, reading skill,
writing skill, and speaking skill. Listening and reading are the receptive skills.
Writing and speaking are the productive skills. These four skills cannot be
separated they have to stand together as a good language skill.
In this study, the researcher focuses on one skill. That is writing skill. Writing is
the most natural activity in the world. It is important in English Language because
we can understand what the writer want to explain by writing, and there are a lot
of important information in English Text in our daily life. By having more
knowledge about language skill, we have much better chance in understanding
and being understood and getting what we want and need from these around us.
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So, students need to understand about what they write. Writing is sufficient to
convey the writer’s ideas, stays mostly focused on the prompt, and contains at
least some effort to produce analysis, direct or indirect (Advanced Placement
Evaluation Rubric in Flaren et al: 2007).
Writing is very important skill. Heaton (1989: 135) states that writing is
complex and difficult to teach also to learn, requiring mastery not only of
grammatical and rhetorical devices but also conceptual and judgmental elements.
According to Axelrod and Coopers (1985: 3) writing is a complex process and as
such contains element of mystery and surprise. But we know that writing is a skill
that anyone can learn to manage.
Based on the observation in the tenth grade A2 of SMKN 2 Ponorogo, the
researcher found some problems in teaching and learning process. They are
difficulties in learning writing, especially in understanding text. It is caused by the
lack of vocabularies. Besides, the students do not have strong motivation in
learning. Students also have weakness in grammatical and spelling. Teacher only
explains the material and doesn’t have attention with students. Teacher is an
important component in learning, he or she should understand about how to
conduct learning English well.
Some of the problems mentioned above teachers should have a new
method to solve it, and one of the strategy can be implemented in this thesis is
STAD strategy. According to Rai (2007) STAD is one of the strategies in
cooperative learning, which helps promote collaboration and self regulating
learning skills. According to Newman and Thompson (1987) states that STAD is

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the most successful cooperative learning technique to improve students’
achievement. According to Slavin (1994), STAD is a cooperative learning method
for mixed-ability groupings involving team recognition and group responsibility
for individual learning. Students are assigned to four or five member learning
teams that are mixed in performance level, gender, and ethnicity. This strategy has
been choosen because it is useful for the learner to have good, active and effective
learning. The researcher found some problems in learning process. They are
difficulties in learning writing, especially in understanding text. It is caused by the
lack of vocabularies.
According to Smith & Cormack (1991) in Moleong (2008: 238) argues
that the classroom action research is the process to obtain the results of the
changes and take advantage of change results obtained in the study. The benefits
of classroom action research by Aqib (2006: 18) first, innovation in learning, the
second is the development of the curriculum at the school level and at the level of
the class, and the last is an increase in the professionalism of teachers.
Based on the background above, the researcher is interested in conducting
Classroom Action Research (CAR) entitle “The Implementation of STAD
Strategy to Improve Students’ Writing Skill at Tenth Grade of SMKN 2 Ponorogo
in Academic Year 2015/2016.”

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1.2 Statements of the Problems
Based on the explanation in the background of study, the statement of the
research is “How can the implementation of STAD strategy improve students’
writing skill at tenth grade A2 of SMKN 2 Ponorogo 2015/2016 lesson year?”
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to implement STAD strategy to improve
students’ writing skill at tenth grade A2 of SMKN 2 Ponorogo in 2015/2016
lesson year.
1.4 Significances of the Study
The result of this research is expected to contribution for:
1.) Students
(a) To increase the students’ skill in learning writing
(b) To implement the students to write more and have much knowledge
2.) Teacher
As guidance in teaching writing and the teacher can help students write
easily.
3.) School
(a) It can be information about factual condition learning writing in
SMKN 2 Ponorogo.
(b) To help the quality of education of the school.

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4.) Researcher
(a) Developing teaching method effectively, efficiently and fun learning
which involve the whole students in English teaching learning process
to improve students’ reading skill.
(b) Correcting and increasing the result of teaching learning process
increasing experience in using method in classroom research.
5.) Next researcher
The significant of this research is to contribute useful information and
teaching method for the future researcher in different field.
1.5 Scope and Limitation of Study
The scope of this research is teaching English to improve student writing
ability. The researcher focuses in improving students’ writing skill ability by
using cooperative learning. There are many kinds of cooperative method that can
be used to teach English. They are CIRC, TAI, TGT, and STAD. In order to focus
on discussion, the scope of this research is limited on using STAD to teach
writing subject.
1.6 Definitions of Key Terms
STAD : cooperative learning method for mixed-ability
groupings involving team recognition and group
responsibility for individual learning (Slavin, 1994).

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Writing : process of expressing ideas or thoughts in words
should be done at our leisure (Sutanto, 2007: 1).

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THE IMPLEMENTATION OF STAD STRATEGY TO
IMPROVE STUDENTS’WRITING SKILL AT TENTHGRADE
A2 OF SMKN 2 PONOROGO IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016
THESIS
BY
OKTA NURLAYLI ULFAIDAH
NIM. 12331715
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY PONOROGO
2016