PENINGKATAN KETERAMPILAN MENULIS TEKS DESKRIPSI MELALUI PENDEKATAN PEMBELAJARAN CONTEXTUAL TEACHING AND LEARNING (CTL) PADA SISWA KELAS V SDN 11 AMPANG KOTA PADANG

Abstract

This research is motivated by the low descriptive text writing skills of fifth grade students of SDN 11 Ampang, Padang City. This is caused by (1) students having difficulty in determining ideas and writing concepts, (2) students have not been able to write texts according to the correct descriptive text structure, (3) the use of descriptive vocabulary is still less varied, (4) students have not been able to describe objects in detail and coherently, and (5) the use of spelling, punctuation, and capital letters is not yet appropriate. This study was conducted to examine how the implementation of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach could enhance the descriptive writing abilities of fifth-grade students at SDN 11 Ampang in Padang City. Employing a Classroom Action Research (CAR) design, the research integrated both qualitative and quantitative methods to capture changes in the learning process and student performance. The participants included one classroom teacher and 15 fifth-grade students. The findings demonstrated a consistent improvement in students’ descriptive writing competence throughout each research cycle. In the first meeting of Cycle I, the average writing achievement reached 73.37%, which then increased to 81.15% during the second meeting of the same cycle. A more substantial improvement was observed in Cycle II, where the average score rose to 90.07%. These results indicate that the CTL approach not only supported a more effective learning process but also significantly strengthened students’ ability to produce descriptive texts. Therefore, the study confirms that Contextual Teaching and Learning is an effective instructional strategy for improving descriptive writing skills among fifth-grade students at SDN 11 Ampang, Padang City.