STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF USINNG STORYBIRD APPLICATION IN

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ NARRATIVE WRITING SKILL

A. INTRODUCTION

Writing is a life skill for people, particularly for college students. If they can write
clearly, they can express their ideas convincingly to others – in college, on the job, and in
their personal life (Kirszner and Mandell, 2011). In college, they might write a single
paragraph, an essay exam, a short paper, or a long research paper. it is strongly supported by
Zemach and Rumisek (2005) who say writing is a very important part of univeristy study. At
work, they might write a memo, a proposal, or a report. In their personal life, they might
write a letter or an email asking for information or pointing out a problem that needs to be
solved, or just post a comment on a blog. If they can write, they will be able to
communicate; if they can communicate effectively, they can succeed at college and beyond.
Writing skill is needed in written communication. In writing, students must convey their
ideas, put them into paper, and also revise them (Saputro, 2013). However, writing is not an
easy skill to master. Writing includes several components of language such as content,
grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation (Fitriani, et al, 2019). Content is one of the writing
components that discuss how the writers can think creatively and develop their thought to
gather all information into the communicative message (Pratama, 2012). Grammar is the
structure of the sentence. Grammar will help people to understand the meaning of the
sentence (Ameliani, 2019). Vocabulary is the total number of words as people know and use
them in their language activities, a group of words and meaning to communicate with others
as a main part of the language (Salawazo, et al, 2020).
The most common problem which is faced by students is to build an idea. If the students
have found an idea, they will know what they are going to write. Another difficulty that
students face is the lack of vocabulary. The lack of vocabulary will limit students in creating
good writing. If they have lack vocabulary, they will use the same words in their writing
frequently. It will make their writing monotonous. They also do not understand the
organization of the text they are going to write.
 There are many kinds of texts that are taught such as descriptive, recount, narrative,
explanation, procedure, and report. Then, the researcher chooses the narrative text to be the
topic of this research. The narrative text is a text on focusing specific participants who tell
an interesting story. Its social function is to tell stories of past events and entertain or amuse
them (Syafitri, et al, 2021). In learning activities, sometimes students feel bored because
they learn by using handbooks in the form of text-only without interesting media. Students
need something more interesting content like pictures in the story to avoid students' boredom
in their learning activities and it is increasing the interest and concentration of students in
absorbing this narrative text material.
The media that can be used is Storybird. Storybird is one of the free writing- related tools
and resources available on the web (Andriani and Wahyuni, 2018). Storybird is one of the
website 2.0 tools that enable students to be more creative and imaginative in their narrative
writing. Storybird also offers a lot of opportunities to start a narrative writing process
delightfully. The lecturer and students, only need to become a member and sign up for the
website (Anita, 2016). Storybird offers a class group that can be created by the teachers. The
class group allows the teachers to give students assignments and students can do the
submission by posting it through the class group. Stories written by students can only be
seen by classmates. Storybird also offers comments column as feedback for the writer.
Students’ ability in writing at IAIN BATUSANGKAR can be said to be medium. Based
on the result of interview with some of the students there are some problems that students
face in learning writing. They have difficulties in finding some vocabularies because they
have not mastered the vocabularies completely. They do not understand correct spelling.
They do not know how to write the correct sentence. This research is to find out the
students’ ability in writing narrative text taught by using and without using storybird at the
B. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

1. RELEVANT THEORIES
a. Writing
There are four skills in the English language that should be learned by students.
One of them is writing. According to Arianti (2018) writing is an important tool for
communication where someone who has good writing will be easier communicate well.
Among the four basic skills, writing is the most complicated one. Then, Sulistyo (2013)
states that writing is the most difficult because people have to attend in spelling, words,
and grammar or structure. Furthermore, Anggraini, et al (2014) state that writing is an
alternative way of expressing our ideas that involve some interconnected aspects of
language such as vocabulary, grammar, paragraphs, organization, punctuation, spellings,
capitalizations, etc. According to Setiawan, et al (2020) writing is a process of putting
through ideas in word then combine into sentences in a form of paragraph in which every
sentence is related one to another.
Saputro (2013) also states that writing is one way to deliver something that is on
our minds. Before writing, we must have something in mind about what we are going to
write. Writing means that we convey our ideas put them into a paper or other and also
revise them
b. Narrative Text
According to Pratama (2012), narrative text is about what is happening or what
has happened. Narration is usually written in chronological sequence. The purpose of
narrative text is to tell what happened or retell the events. There are some language
features of narrative text such as defined characters, descriptive language, dialogue, and
use of simple past tense.
c. Storybird Web
Storybird was created by Mark Ury and was launched in 2010. Storybird was
renewed several times. In 2013, it was added by poetry application. Then in 2014, it was
provided with the Longform Book to write a long story with several chapters like the
novel, and the appearance was also improved (Arianti, 2018).
 According to Andriani and Wahyuni (2018) storybird is one of the free writing-
related tools and resources available on the web. Anita (2016) states that Storybird is one
of the website 2.0 tools that enable students to be more creative and imaginative in their
narrative writing. Storybird, as one of the online writing sites, offers its users to gain
more literacy skills, as the site has a lot of reading materials, tutorials, and writing
challenges through visual storytelling (Setyowati, et al, 2019).
Storybird can be accessed by everyone, also with a fictional ID. One can use it either
for writing a story collaboratively or for sharing personal stories with others. Each story
called “Storybird” is presented as a digital booklet with separate pages. The author can
create a cover and publish his stories on his account. Once shared, the stories can be read
and commented on by others. The author can also invite other users to collaborate on his
story or to revise it.
Furthermore, Nizhamuddin (2019) states that there are four advantages of Storybird
namely storybird could increase creativity, trained students writing skill, storybird
features are understandable and storybird can be done in groups simultaneously in the
classroom or outside the classroom with the condition of Wi-Fi access. Based on the
explanations above, the researcher can conclude that there are some advantages of
storybird such as students can develop their ideas easily because of the artwork, storybird
provides discussion boxes for students so that they can discuss each other, students can
collaborate with other students or writers to write stories, and students more creative in
writing narrative text.
Nurdi (2017) states that there are some disadvantages of storybird. First, storybird
requires stable and fast internet connection. Secondly, an e-mail address is required for a
new user who signs up for the first time. Thirdly, the numerous artwork provided by the
artists are limited in numbers, students are allowed to choose pictures for a single
illustrator for a book which limits the illustration of their story.

2. Relevant Studies
The first journal that is relevant to this research is a research conducted by Refika
Andriani and Devi Wahyuni (2018) entitles “Improving Students’ Writing Skill in
Narrative Text by Using Storybird at Grade X Teknik Komputer Jaringan 1 of SMK
Yayasan Pendidikan Persada Indah (YPPI) Tualang.” The research conducted was
classroom action research.
There were two kinds of collected data, which are quantitative and qualitative.
The technique for collecting the quantitative data was a writing test and qualitative data
were gathered through observation and field notes. This research was conducted by using
two cycles. Based on the test results, there was an improvement after the storybird
treatment. The students’ improvement was found in their writing narrative text average
score that 71.70 in the based score, 72.30 in cycle 1, and 85.30 in cycle 2.
The second journal that is relevant to this research is a research conducted by
Christianti Tri Hapsari, Femy Seniwegiasari and Nur Alviyanti Fauzi (2016) entitles “The
Effectiveness of Storybird Platform for Improving Students’ Writing Skill in Recount.”
Research conducted was experimental research. There was a significant difference in
writing skills between the students of the experimental group and those of the control
group. It can be seen from the final scores of the experimental group and the control
group. The mean of pre-test of the experimental got 67.40 and the control group got
70.40. After two treatments that gave by the researchers in the experimental group, the
post-test score of the experimental group becomes higher than the control group, where
the experimental group got 79.00 and the control group got 74.00
The third journal that is relevant to this research is a research conducted by Fuad
Abdullah, Soni TantanTandiana and Risma Amelia (2020) entitles “Storybird-Based
Narrative Writing Activities among Indonesian EFL Learners: Focusing on
Contributions.” The present study utilized a descriptive case study to depict the
contributions of exerting storybird to the Indonesian EFL learners’ narrative writing
activities. This research was carried out in one of the junior high schools in Tasikmalaya,
West Java, Indonesia. The study unitized a semi-structured interview to gain the data.
The question was performed in Bahasa Indonesia. The co-instrument was a smartphone.
Thus, the interview practices were audio-recorded with this smartphone. This study puts a
heavy emphasis on delineating the contributions of storybird to learning writing English
narrative texts. Five major findings are thematically outlined. (1) storybird generates the
learners’ ideas for writing a story, (2) it facilitates them to construct the generic structure
of English narrative texts, (3) it allows them to consider the lexicogrammatical features of
English narrative texts, (4) it encourages them to produce English narrative texts joyfully
and (5) it stimulates them to write English narrative texts actively.
C. METHODS

1. Research Type and Design

This is an experimental research. According to Creswell (2012) experiment is testing an
idea to determine whether it influenced an outcome or dependent variable. In this research, the
researcher used a quasi-experimental design. Quasi-experiments are experimental situations in
which the researcher assigns, but not randomly, participants to groups because the experimenter
cannot artificially create groups for the experiment (Creswell, 2012).
Quasi experimental design is also an experimental research design that does not provide
for full control of potential confounding variables primarily to compare groups (Johnson, 2014).
The researcher used a quasi-experimental because the researcher just compares groups based on
the variables in this research. For this research, the writer collected quantitative data from pre-
test and post-test that used two groups as a sample, they were experimental class and control
class that was compared in order to determine the effect of using storybird web on students’
ability in writing narrative text. In the experimental class, the researcher applied the treatment of
Storybird web.

2. Population and Sampling

a. Population
A population is a group of individuals who comprise the same characteristics. For
example, all teachers would make up the population of teachers, and all high school
administrators in a school district would make up the population of administrators (Creswell,
2012). The population of this research will be the students of the 5 th semester in English
Department at UIN MAHMUD YUNUS BATUSANGKAR with total of 74 studentss

b. Sample
The population of this research is 74 students. In order to take the sample, the researcher
will use simple random sampling. Simple random sampling is extensively used sampling method
in scientific research. Simple random sampling is selected for populations which are highly
homogenous where the members of the research are randomly selected to participate in the
research (Bhardwaj, 2019).

3. Technique of Data Analysis

To analyze the data, the researcher used an independent sample t-test. The researcher
used independent sample T-test because want to know the significant effect of storybird web on
students’ ability in writing narrative text at UIN MAHMUD YUNUS BATUSANGKAR. There
was any significant difference between the experimental class and control class, it was necessary
to calculate the difference size by using the eta squared formula. The formula of eta square is
expressed as follows:
2
t
Eta Squared= 2
t + ( N 1+ N 2−2 ) ¿
¿
Where:
t2 : the value of the table
N1 : number of students of the first group
N2 : number of the students of the second group
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