Computer-Assisted Language Learning Method in Teaching Writing for Junior High School Students

Computer-Assisted Language Learning Method in Teaching Writing for Junior High School Students

Introduction                                                                                                              
        Language has the central role in the development of the students’ intelegency, social, and emotion. It is also as the successful aid in learning all subjects. The language learning is hoped to help the students to know themselves, their culture and other people’s culture. In addition to, the language learning also helps the students to propose the idea and feeling, to take  part in the society, and even to find and use their analitic and imaginative ability in their ownselves.
        English as a means  of communication  both in spoken and writen. Communication  is understanding and  expressing   information, thinking, feeling  and develop the science,  technology  and culture. The communication  skill  in complete meaning is discourse competence, that is the ability  in understanding and/or producing spoken or written text in four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Those four skills are used to respon and create a discourse in the living society. Therefore, English teaching and learning is pointed at improving those skills in order to make the graduated students are able to communicate and create discourse in the certain literacy level.
        The literacy level covers the performative, functional, imformational, and epistemic. In the perfomative level, the people are able to read, write, listen and speak using the certain symbols. In the  functional level, the people are able to use the language to meet their daily life, such as reading newspaper, manual or instruction. In the informative level, the people are able to acces the knowledge with their language skills, and in the epistemic level, the people are able to express their knowledge to get the target language.
        The goal of English teaching and learning at Junior high school are the students have the capability in improving the communication competence both in spoken and written to get   functional level, the students have awareness of the essence and importance of English to enhance the national competition power in the global society and improving the students in understanding the connection between the                      language and culture.
        Based on the Competence Based Curriculum, the Basic  Standard Competence of teaching writing in grade 9 of Junior high school is the students are able to express the meaning in functional written text and simple short essay in the form of procedure and report to make interaction in the daily life context. Meanwhile, the Basic Competence are the students are able express the meaning of written short functional text by using the varieted language accurately, smoothly and meaningfully to interact in the daily life context, and the students are able to express the meaning and retorical step  in the form of a simple short essay accurately, smoothly and meaningfully in the daily context in the form of procedure and report.
        The teacher’s duty is to meet the Basic Competence of the curriculum but in the teaching and learningf process, the teacher faced the problem of the  condition of the class which are still conventionally and tradionally both in the number of students in one class and the teaching methodology. In addition to, the students have different backgrounds in intellegency, motivation, interest, attitude, language aptitude and previous knowledge of English that make the teacher and the students difficult to get mastery learning. In  order to solve the problems, the teacher use different methods in teaching writing, namely Computer-Assisted Language Learning method in teaching writing.
The Purpose of the Study
        The purpose of  the study is to find the answer that teaching writing by using Computer -Assisted Language Learning Method make the students more interested in learning writing and meet  the students need of  which having individual differences in mastery learning.
Review of Related Literature
       Most students begin writing a foreign language by doing exercises to develop form, structure, and vocabulary. These mechanics of writing respon well to computerized lessons because answers can be proccessed in some detail and compared to a single correct form, as described earlier. Beyond that, when writing involves free expression, particularly beyond the sentence level, there is very little the computer can do the correct errors. There are still a number of uses for the computer as an aid in the teaching of writing, however. As soon as the computer can no longer take part in correction, the teacher simply takes over the function. As long as forms are processed for correction, exercises remain primarily gramatical. Students can become inhibited in their writing if their mayor concern is forming correct sentences rather than expressing themselves. The  most important activity in learning how to write well is writing itself. Having errors corrected is probably not nearly as crucial as having and keeping the motivation to write. With well-planed, imaginative uses of a text editor, computer allow and can  even encourage the production of significant amount of writing, both guided or free.
       Sentences the students types line by line, transforming a model, can later be assembled by  the program into a paragraph and presented either on the screen or on paper. If the tranformations are  simple and involve single correct responses, the correct version can be shown next to the student’s version. Students can then  make their corrections. letting the students perform the task of answer processing themselves can be important step in developing the skill of copyreading. At least we know that an inteligence higher than the computer’s is guiding the work.
Analysis
       By  writing out responses to series of prompts,  suggestions, directions, or queries, students can be guided to construct whole paragraphs on any number of topics. Without depending on answer processing, the range of questions is infinite. Thios type of exercise could just as easily be done on paper by the students. The computer, however, produces a neat, uniform text from every students for the teacher to grade, mark, or just read. Students  can easily enter teacher’s corrections into their texts to improve their writing. Some teachers prefer not to make  explicit corrections but to respond to student writing with questions whose aim is ti encourage the students develop  their own text further: “Is that the way you always  spend your holiday?” “Tell me where lake Toba is.” “Who are Tommy and Lisa?”  “When did this happen?” With student paragraps on the computer, the teachwer should be able to enter comments quickly and easily, helping all students expand and clarify their own writing and thinking. Useful programs to  manage these activitiea can be expected in the near future.
        What students produce need not remain on the screen, of course. When a printer is available, the teacher can read typed texts of high quality. Neat pages with an attractive format may add to students’s pride in their work. Copy  produced in this way should make  it easier for students to read each  other’s  writing. Students  should  find their  peers’ texts easy and interesting to read  since  the structure and topic  of each paragrap could be identical to texts they have produced themselves. Dialogues between the teacher and the writers can supplemented by dialog among writers. By concentrating on what people write rather than on how they write, the class can begin  to explore real communicative functions in writing.
      Beside responding in writing to direct promting, students can also be asked to write using a more complex stimulus. The computer can present a telegram, love letter, or other  message to be anwered. It can display visual  material- static or moving- on part of the screen. these may be simple pictures or the more  elaborate representations of data characteristic  of some simulation. one typical simulation represents events associated with French.trappers in the North Woods. Players choose the furs to collect  and  the trading fort where they want to sell them. Each variable is associated  with  risk  and  profit  potential: one fort is hard to reach and the player may lose everything to a raging river, but furs bring more money there. A multiple- choice format allow students to make  decisions; chance plays some part in the outcome.
       As  student s follow  the  course of the simulation, they can be asked to write out in French the sorth narrative that simulation develops. At each stage process, they answer questions to indicate what is happening. The students’ writingf will not influence the events; it simply recounts them.
      With other simulations, students can analyze data  from the graph or discuss the situation of their leaking  boat, weighing the decisions necessary to save it. In this way, some ofthe interesting features of computer are used to suply basic information that the students develops further inwriting. The business letter, for example, can become more  meaningful if it is written to account for  events that are being simulated in a dynamic model of profit and loss.
       Beyond the sentence level, whenthe students are writing texts that  are  not  closely  related to specific cues, it may be easier to have them compose on paper and transfer theircompositions, by means of a text editor, to the computer. The text editors are powerful tools and  very easy to use, but they may not  always lend  themselves to free  composition. One   advantage   of using  them for teaching  composition is  that the students can be encourage to   compose a “final” version. From this they can print good, corectable copy that can be easily distributed, altered, and expanded, as discussed above.
 Summary
       In  term of  writing, Computer-Assisted Language Learning will help the students in doing correction of grammatical mistake and give some suggestion for certain expression. In  stimulating students to write, Computer-Assisted Language Learning can present them a telegram, love letter, or message to be answered. It can  display  visual  material-static or motion-on part of screen including the simulation. The students can develop a simple essay through simulations provided by computer.
Recommendation
       Teaching  writing using    Coputer-Assisted language Learning  method is more interesting than the convention way and  meet the students need of which having the individual differences to get the mastery learning.
References
Departemen Pendidikan Nasional.(2006). Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan: Jakarta
Geoffrey R. Hope, Heimy F. Taylor and James P. Pusack. (1994). Using Computers in Teaching Foreign Language. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Hartoyo, M.A, Ph. D. (2006). Individual differences in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. Semarang:  Universitas Negeri Semarang Press.