The background of the study in this research was based on the students’ difficulties in comprehending recount texts writing. Some of the reasons were the method of the English teaching process was not interesting, and there were teachers that still used conventional way. So, it will difficult for students to achieve the teaching and learning target. In order to solve this problem the teacher should have creative activity, and the using of a personal letter can be an alternative way as a learning media that will make students enjoy and easy to write.
This study is aimed at responding the following questions: (1) how is the implementation of a personal letter in improving students’ skill in writing recount text to the tenth graders of MASS Proto Pekalongan in the Academic Year of 2011/2012?, (2) how can a personal letter improve students’ skill in writing recount text?. Then the objective of this study was to describe the improvement of students’ writing skill after being taught by using a personal letter.
In this study, the researcher conducted a classroom action research as the methodology of this research. There were three meetings during the research, they were pre-cycle test, cycle test I and cycle test II. The researcher used written test and observation in collecting the data. The using of written test was to measure the students’ skill in writing recount text after giving the treatment, and the using of observation was to monitor students` activities during teaching learning process.
The result of the test showed that the students’ score in the pre-cycle test was 55.5, the students’ score in the cycle I test was 65.7 and the students’ score in the cycle II test was 72.2. The achievement of the test showed that the treatment was successful because the result of the cycle II test was higher than the cycle I test. In line with this result, the researcher concluded that the research improved students’ skill in writing recount text.
From the result of this study, it can be stated that the using of a personal letter was effective and very useful. It can be seen from the improvement of students test result during pre-cycle, cycle I and cycle II. However, it will be better if the future related studies the treatment gave more than two times, not only cycle I and cycle II. Furthermore the personal letter was also in good design and good theme, so the students more motivated and enjoyed in the learning process.