Improving students' writing performance by using personal photographs in writing Descriptive text at Mts N 12 Tanah Datar

The objectives of this research were to find out whether there is any significant improvement of the students’ writing performance in descriptive texts and to investigate which aspects in writing skills that improve better after the implementation of a personal photograph in writing descriptive texts. The research was quantitative by using one group pre test and post test design. The population of this research was the first grades students of MTs N 12 Tanah Datar in the academic year 2020/2021. The sample of this research was VII F that consisted of 28 students. The instrument of this research was writing test. The results showed that there was a significant improvement of the students’ writing performance after the implementation of a personal photographs in writing descriptive texts. It could be seen from the gain on pretest and posttest score. Based on the data, the mean value obtained in the pre-test was 69.32, while the post-test was 84.43., so mean score increased 15.11, in which t-value>t-table (12.93>2.052) or sig (0.00<0.05). Furthermore, content was one of the aspects in writing skills that improve better after the implementation of a personal photograph in writing descriptive texts. The percentage of this aspect in the pretest was 20.995 while in the post test was 25.37., so the score increased 4.375. As a result, it can be concluded that personal photographs not only improved the students’ writing performance but also all of the aspect of writing skills, because personal photographs can help students in developing their idea in writing descriptive texts. Personal photographs also can make students more active and easier when they want to describe something. Keyword: Personal Photographs, Writing Performance, Descriptive Texts