The aim of this research was to find out the effectiveness of diary writing as the
technique for teaching writing recount text. This research used quasi experiment
method in which the population of the research was the students at the eighth
grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Purbalingga. The purposive sampling was used to
take the sample of the research. There were two classes as research participants
which total sample was 72 students. VIII A was the experimental class students
and VIII B was the control class. There was treatment in the experimental class
that was taught by using diary writing as the technique, while the control class
was taught without using diary writing as the technique. Both classes were given
pre-test and post-test. The type of the test was subjective in the form of paragraph
test. The result of t-test calculation was 1.996 while the t-table value at the level
of significance α = 0.05 for degree of freedom (df) = 70 was 1.667. It meant that ttest
result was higher than t-table (1.996 >1.667). Based on the previous
description, it could be concluded that writing diary as the technique is effective
for teaching writing recount text for eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 2
Purbalingga in academic year 2015/2016.