THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING INSTAGRAM IN DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ DESCRIPTIVE TEXT WRITING ARI HILMAN

This study investigates the effects of Instagram on students‟ descriptive text writing of Islamic Senior High School students as well as to find out their perceptions of using Instagram for learning descriptive text writing. In doing so, the subjects consisted of 48 students who were in tenth grade. Then they were divided into two equal experimental and control groups (N=24).Their age ranged between 16 and 17 years old. Gender of participants was not considered as a variable in the study. This study used convergent parallel mixed-method whereas pre-test and post-test were administrated to collect quantitative data and questionnaire was given to collect qualitative data. The experimental group was taught descriptive text writing via Instagram application, whereas the control group followed Facebook application. Analyzing the data through the independent sample t-test revealed that with the help of Instagram application, the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of writing descriptive text. Furthermore, Islamic Senior High School students had a positive attitude toward utilization of Instagram application.


INTRODUCTION
Social media is a new term for some people that nobody heard or used it since almost 10 until 15 years ago. At this time, social media has been a natural part of everyday life (Terttunen, 2017). Students can interact each other without any conventional classroom and distance among them is not problem. By social media, students can learn English in exciting way and they interactively communicate each other. Researchers also have found that social media play an important role to increase students" motivation, enhancing student learning environment with innovative way of education that altering the nature of learning boundaries that cause in developing student learning (Ilknur, Celik, 2014). Now, Instagram has a significant increasing users. According to Statista (2017), Instagram reached 800 million active users monthly. Besides, Instagram users have shared over 40 billion photos to date and share an average of 95 million photos and videos per day (Parker, 2016). The user profile is quite young as 90 percent of the Instagram users are under the age 35 (Bagadiya, 2017).
Writing descriptive text is one of the materials that are taught in school especially in Indonesian senior high school. However, many students face some problems in writing descriptive text. Husna et al. (2013) found that one of students" difficulties in writing descriptive text is that they are still unable to transfer and develop their idea into a written form well in composing a text. Then, students fail to show well-organized writing. They do not write a list of their ideas; they just directly wrote what they thought without planning. By this fact, the writer tries to use Instagram as a media to teach writing descriptive text.
While those researches noted the varying topics of social media Instagram in English language teaching, unfortunately, it did not focus on students" descriptive text writing ability. Thus, the purpose of this study is, therefore, to investigate how social media Instagram can be effective to improve students" descriptive text writing skill.
Social media is basically the web-based services that time by the time it transforms to mobile application that allows people to easily access. Miller (2016) stated that the colonization of the space between traditional broadcast and private dyadic communication, providing people with a scale of group size and degrees of privacy that we have termed scalable sociality. Social media has a Web 2.0 foundation. The term Web 2.0, first used in 2004 by O"Reilly Media, is meant to describe a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services that let people collaborate and hare information online in perceived new ways, such as social networking sites, wikis, and other communication tools. Paily (2013) stated that the concept of Web 2.0 application developed out of the idea that online users and consumers desired to be active participants who contributed to the creation of content on the Web, therefore cultivating a more socially driven and connected environment.
Furthermore, social media sites give many possible activities that can be done by users. These sites are used to interact with friends, peers and others that are found in groups on these sites. The sharing of information ranges from news, debates, gossips, feelings or statement of mind, opinions, research (Musah and Jeffrey, 2015). The term social media is usually used to describe social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and etc. There are many different types of social media that are provided at this time. The example types of these are such as Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, and rating (Ariana et al., 2014). Mayfield (2014) created a classification scheme for different social media types by applying a set of theories in the field of media researchsocial presence, media richness and social processes -self-presentation, selfdisclosure.
Since the first era of Internet, it provides wide international resources of language learning. It enables second language learners to communicate directly with native English speakers (Derakhshan & Hasanabbasi, 2015). By using Internet, students can interact with native speaker although they are in a distant area of communication. In the twenty-first century"s world of global citizenship, the adoption of web tools can boost participation in global citizenship; web-based technology lends itself to facilitating both teachers and learners taking advantage of learning opportunities (Kavaliauskienė, 2014).
Language learners can keep in touch with people specially, with their family, friends and even their teachers whenever they want to (Derakhshan & Hasanabbasi, 2015). Students are not required to meet teacher and their peers to learn, in other ways, they can learn language by online and they ask to their friends or teachers whenever they want. All media can be communicated by students in social media, audio, visual, audio visual, documents and many more. Prichard (2013) states that SNSs can be used to develop the four key kills of reading, writing, listening and speaking, in addition to the development of vocabulary, grammar and socio pragmatic awareness skills.
It is important to implement social media in classroom activities as media or learning sources. Dhanya (2016) gave the suggestion that the integration of social media into classroom practice entails a reconfiguration of roles: the teacher is no longer the sole source of content, and the students are able to shape their learning in ways which align closely with the needs of their daily lives. In addition, Mansor (2016) also gave more examples of Social media such as Facebook, Blogs, Instagram, e-mail and Twitter that can be used in language learning. They provide a platform where users can dialogue, exchange ideas, and find answers to questions, thus further are able to foster collaboration and discussion.
Nowadays, one of the most popular social media that used by many people is Instagram. Instagram is one of the newest social media tools available to brands (Lavoie, 2015). Instagram is a social media tool introduced in 2010. Instagram was first introduced as application software for iPhones in October 2010. Time by the time, in April 2012 the Android market was welcomed into the Instagram community (ASPCL, 2013). In process of Instagram growth, in September 2012, Facebook purchased the Instagram for one billion dollars. It also has a significant increasing starting from the first launching.
In process of Instagram growth, in September 2012, Facebook purchased the Instagram for one billion dollars. It also has a significant increasing starting from the first launching. Instagram is growing more rapidly than other platforms.
According to Al-Ali (2014), as shared on Instagram"s website, in two months after its launch, Instagram reached a million users, and in less than a year, 150 million photographs were uploaded to Instagram. Its community has grown to more than 700 million Instagrammers and in November 2017, Instagram reached its global community of 800 million users (Instagram press, 2017).
Instagram members also have the ability to message each other privately using "Direct message". These facilities allow users to engage in synchronous and asynchronous communication, both publicly and privately. Now, users of Instagram can combine up to 10 photos and videos in one post and swipe through to see them all (Instagram press, 2017). These posts have a single caption and are square-only for now. Users form connections by "following" each other"s profiles which enables them to view the content posted on these profiles and respond in the form of comments or "likes". Instagram members also have the ability to message each other privately using "Direct message". These facilities allow users to engage in synchronous and asynchronous communication, both publicly and privately.
Instagram is useful to help students in writing English subject especially in writing descriptive text. Handayani (2016) explained some activities that can be reflected in writing. First is "caption it". Instagram can be an inspiration fairy that can serve as prompt fir students" writing. In this activity, teacher and students can post an interesting photo and they write a descriptive caption in the comments.
The powerful thing of this activity is that the picture or photo can help students in giving ideas about what to write. It will be challenging by asking students to write their caption using specific sentence types, different parts of speech, clauses, prepositional phrase, and their current vocabulary words.
Instagram also can be implemented to EFL students as media in teaching descriptive text writing. Broughton et al. (1980) stated that English is a foreign language which is taught in schools, often widely, but it does not play an essential role in national or social life. It means that EFL students only use English in school or other situations which are not extremely important. It be concluded that EFL students as individuals which only use English in the English classroom.
Furthermore, EFL students can use Instagram as media in descriptive writing process. Richards and Renandya (2002) stated that writing is the most difficult skill for second language learners to master. The difficulty is not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating idea into readable text. Therefore, writing needs a complex skills than other skills such as speaking, listening and reading. Writing is a very important capability for being owned by students, writing is also an excellent communication tool (Siburian, 2013). Through writing, each person is able to convey feelings, ideas, and announcements to others. Writing is an effective communicative way to share ideas and thought among people especially students.
Writing is not only a means of communication where students can share their views and thoughts, it is actually a pre request to master other language skills. Definition about writing comes from Nunan (2003). He says that writing can be defined by a series of contrast: it is both a physical and a mental act, its purpose is both to express and impress and it is both a process and a product writing is a media to communicate between writers and readers, writing has to be understandable so the readers will know what the researcher means clearly.
Descriptive text is a text which is intended to describe a particular person, place or thing. According to Oshima and Hogue (2007), descriptive writing appeals to the senses, so it tells how something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and or sounds. In addition, a good description is like a "word picture"; the reader can imagine the object, place, or person in his or her mind. A writer of a good description is like an artist who paints a picture that can be "seen" clearly in the mind of the reader.

METHOD
Dealing with research questions that had been proposed by the writer, in this study, the writer used Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Design as the main design of this study (Creswell, 2014). By using Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Design, the qualitative method was used to obtain data or information from the results of experimental application of Using Instagram in Improving Students" descriptive text writing. While qualitative method was used to understand the relation between results obtained by student after treatment. The selection of Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Design was based on the opinion of Creswell (2014) which convey that in this approach, the writer collected both quantitative and qualitative data during the experimental study, the two data analyzed separately, and the two data was used to answer different research questions. In the research of the explanatory design, the writer gave priority to the collection of quantitative data and collection of qualitative data. In addition, the writer used quasi-experimental design to experimental design.
Population is an entire group of people of subject or event which all have at least one characteristic in common, and must be define specifically and unambiguously (Burns, 2000). Based on that term, the population that will use in this research is all students in one of Islamic Senior High School ( English text, especially in writing descriptive text. Thus, the writer intended to overcome those difficulties by using Instagram in learning process. In collecting quantitative data, the writer used pre-test and post-test as research instruments to collect the data. In addition, Brown (2001) stated that a test is method of measuring person"s ability or knowledge in a given domain.
Based on the statement above, the writer used written test to measure the ability of students" descriptive text writing. The students made a descriptive text by following its generic structure. Those are identification and description. They also used the language features of descriptive text such as using simple present tense, action verbs, passive voice, noun phrase, adverbial phrase, technical terms, general and abstract noun, and conjunction of time and cause-effect. Moreover, in collecting data for qualitative, the writer used questionnaire to students. The close-ended questionnaire was used in this research. For the form of questionnaire, the writer gave some statements.
In the process of data gathering, the writer used the students" score pre-test and post-test. To analyze the data, the writer used the following computation of statistics which is adapted from (Burns, 2000) as follows: In analyzing the data from qualitative result, the writer used descriptive statistic which was adapted from Fraenkel and Wallen (2007). The writer choose questionnaire because by using questionnaire students were able to freely write down the things they really felt. A questionnaire is a written collection of selfreport questions to be answered by a selected group of research participants (Gay, Mills, and Airasian, 2012).

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This regard attempted to analyze the use of Instagram in developing students" descriptive text writing at tenth grade in one of Islamic Senior High School (MA) in Tasikmalaya. The first purpose of this research to find out the effectiveness of using Instagram in improving students" descriptive text writing.
The design of the research that was used by the writer was quasi-experimental design because it was conducted to test hypothesis. Furthermore, writing descriptive test was used as a research instrument in this research. Students were asked to write descriptive text minimally two paragraphs as material in Oshima and Hogue (2007). In scoring the test, the writer analyzed their work by using form of Brown (2007). In addition, the data that had been obtained from writing test was analyzed and evaluated by using t-observed formula taken from Burns (2000). The findings are as follows: Based on the findings of statistical computation, the t-observed value was 3 and t-critical value was 2,021. It means that -observed value was higher than tcritical value. So, the null hypothesis (H 0 ) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (H 1 ) was accepted. In conclusion, there is a significant difference of students" descriptive text writing between students who are taught by Instagram media and those who are not. In relating to this study, students" thinking skills were increasing especially in students" descriptive text writing skills. It can be seen from the quantitative findings of this study. In addition, Prichard (2013) argued that SNSs can be used to develop the four key kills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. By this point, it was proved that Instagram as one of SNSs (social networking sites) could develop students" writing skills.

Students' perception on the use of Instagram in improving their descriptive text writing
In this section, to answer the second research question concerning "How do students perceive the use of Instagram in improving their descriptive text writing?" the writer conducted questionnaire to collect the data to 24 students by using a brief rating scales questionnaire such as strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. In collecting the data, the writer adapted questionnaire from Martin (2005). The presentation of data used Fraenkel and Wallen (2007)"s form.
The result of the first statement showed that most students responded agree that they become interested in writing descriptive text by using Instagram media. It can be shown that the frequency of students who agreed with the statement was 18 of 24 students and percentage was 75% from total response. The next statement is Instagram is comfortable for me in learning processed. The result showed that the most students responded neutral with this statement whether they felt comfortable or not while writing descriptive text by using Instagram. It can be seen that the frequency was 10 of 24 students and the percentage was 41,7% from the total response. Concerning on students' attention,, it can be understood that the most students responded agree with the statement.
After learning descriptive text by using Instagram application, they were able to give more attention in learning process. It also happened to their motivation. The result showed that they were more motivated in learning process.
Besides, students responded that Instagram was easy for them to and learning process became more organized in classroom. From this data, it can be concluded that Instagram made the learning become easy and became more organized in classroom activity. In addition, Instagram gained them more material about writing descriptive text. However, most students agreed that Instagram gained more material about writing descriptive text. Furthermore, they also became more focus on their learning process.
In contrary, the students showed that the use of Instagram was ineffective during the learning process because of some reasons; 1). lack of interaction between instructor and students, 2). unstable internet connection, and 3). need affordable cost to install it.
To obtained findings from each questionnaire response, the writer concluded that students" perception of the use of Instagram in developing students" descriptive text writing had influence in their descriptive text writing ability. Therefore, students responded that they had positive perception of using studies, this study also was in line with the study from Mansor (2016).

CONCLUSIONS
After completing this research, the writer concludes that Instagram can give contribution in students" descriptive text writing mastery in tenth grade of one of Islamic Senior High School (MA) in Tasikmalaya. From the statistical computation, it can be concluded that the value of t-test (3) is higher than the value of t-table (2,021). Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference in students" descriptive text writing ability between those who are taught by social media Instagram and those who are not. In answering the second research questions, the writer concluded that students" perception of the use of Instagram in developing students" descriptive text writing had influence in their descriptive text writing ability. Therefore, students responded that they had positive perception of using Instagram in their descriptive text writing.