Continuous Writing Using Newspaper Articles

ACTION RESEARCH PROPOSAL PAPER
2010

Title : Continuous Writing Using Newspaper Articles –“Accidents”

By

Puan Muhazian Binti Md. Noor
Penolong Kanan Kokurikulum
SMK Permas Jaya 2
81750 Johor Bahru

Previous Reflection

Most of the students in 5 UPM are weak in writing for Continuous Writing Section in Paper 1 Section B. Students are found to be weak in grammar and at the same time they are not able to write a longer essay due to the lack of information. Most of them have limited vocabulary and points to expand.
The topic “Accidents” is chosen because it is a very common topic that is normally tested in the examination. Besides that, the topic is very universal that some of the topics given can be adapted to be “Accidents” . For example, ‘Write an event that you cannot forget’ or ‘ Write a story ending with “…..I cried when I woke up.” These topics are found to be quite common in the SPM exam. Therefore, using the articles on accidents would help students to get more ideas on how to write longer for the free writing essay.

Focus of the Research

Though I found many problems pertaining to the students’ language on the whole, I decided to focus on free writing essay as it makes up about 31% of the marks for the whole paper. Therefore, a big chunk of the marks actually comes from the free writing essay section. This section is also the section that shows the difference between a good student and a weak student. Normally, while marking paper 1, most weak students do not attempt to answer this section as they would just give up on answering due to their lack of command in the Second language.

The reason for choosing this class is because some of the students have the potential to get an A for the real exam so this group of students are chosen.

Objectives of the Research

At the end of the research, the researcher hopes the students will achieve these objectives:-

i. General Objective

To increase the number of students who will get ‘A’ in the real SPM English Language paper.

ii) Specific Objectives

a) to create more background information and knowledge for the students
b) to increase the vocabulary of words normally used in “Accidents”
c) to help students who have the potential to get better grades
d) to increase the number of students to pass the subject thus increasing the school’s

Target Group

Three students in 5 UPM namely : a) Mohd Adiyat Hamka b) Syed Nur Amirul Makry c) Muhd Taufiq

Reasearch Outline

Before the research is carried out there are some problems that the researcher have found during the preliminary test given. The test will be given to find out how much information do the students have before they are given the newspaper articles. These activities are carried out according to the schedule given below:-

Research Schedule

|No. |Activities |Dates planned |Notes |
|1 |Problems are found and simple data collection is carried out |13 March 2009 | |
|2 |Writing of the Research Proposal |23 March 2009 | |
|3 |Planning of the Action Research |27 March 2009 | |
|4 |Finalise the potential respondents |30 March 2009 | |
|5 |Pre Test is carried out |2 April 2009 | |
|6 |Analyzing of the pre test result |5 April 2009 | |
|7 |Discuss the problem |10 April 2009 | |
|8 |Carry out Activity 1- Giving out the articles |11 April 2009 | |
|9 |Discuss with the respondents |15 April 2009 | |
|10 |Carry out action of rectifying the problem |20 April 2009 | |
|11 |Check the respondents’ answers |22 April 2009 | |
|12 |Compare the pre test results and the post test results |24 April 2009 | |
|13 |Reflection of the results |26 April 2009 | |
|14 |Writing of the Research Report |27 April 2009 | |
|15 |Presentation of the Research |30 April 2009 | |

Cost of the Research

|No. |Materials |Price per unit |Cost |
|1 |A4 paper |RM 8.00 |RM 8.00 |
|2 |Newspaper |RM 1.50x 10 days |RM15.00 |
|3 |Photostat |RM 20.00 |RM 20.00 |
|4 |Teacher’s Diary |RM 2.00 |RM 2.00 |
| |TOTAL | |RM 45.00 |