CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background
of the Study
English as an international language is
used and learned mostly in the world. It has an important role either for
communicative purposes or for academic purposes. These purposes are important
to adopt science, technology, education, politics, culture, and economics. It
is relevant to what is said by Hutchinson
(1987:6),
English becomes the accepted international
language of technology and commerce, it created a new generation of learners
who knew specifically why they were learning a language-businessmen and –women,
who wanted to sell their products, mechanics who had to read instruction
manuals, doctors who needed to keep up with developments in their field and a
whole range of students who course of study included text books and journals
only available in English.
In global era, mastering
English as a means to communicate and transfer information becomes significant
reason for teaching and learning English. It has important role in developing
students` intelligence, society, and emotion. English in Indonesia is
positioned as a foreign language, it is taught and learned in most of school
including pre-school, for example; kindergarten or play- group.
Wilkins as quoted by
Adenan (1982: 1) affirms that anywhere, a second or a first foreign language
will always assume very important position in everyday life. Usually it is used
as a medium in getting and transferring many sources knowledge, for example,
books. It is not surprising that English
must be learned and taught early.
In
teaching English process, the four language skills, namely reading, speaking,
listening, and writing must be developed integrately. Besides developing those
skills, teaching English is supporting by four language elements, namely,
structure, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. Learning the language
elements is aimed at supporting the mastery and the development of the skills
above.
The
aim of learning and teaching English in Junior High School is to increase
students` ability to communicate either spoken or written form. The students
should have competences that enable them to communicate. These competences are
often called communicative competences. One of the competences is discourse
competence. This competence emphasize on the students` understanding in
interaction texts, namely, descriptive,
narrative, spoof/recount, procedure, report and anecdote. There are two
elements to be mastered by the students in this competence namely, vocabulary
and lexico-grammar or grammar.
Unfortunately, the fact shows that most of
students still face difficulty in using English grammar (structure). For
examples, they still confuse in using Tenses, Countable or Uncountable nouns.
In this case, they use is for Past
Tense, and use many for Uncountable
Nouns. Moreover, this year, most of students do not success in the Ujian Akhir
Sekolah (final examination) because of their English score. They face
difficulty to understand the English text in the task because their English
grammar mastery still low. Therefore, they have to take remedial examination to
get better score. They will pass this
examination if only they got score at least 4.26 for each subject matter. Those
facts are some reason why teaching grammar must be developed and increased.
It is not easy to teach English grammar in
Junior High School. The success of teaching process involves some elements. The
main elements are learners, teachers, and methods. Macky (1985: 138) states the
important role of learners, teachers, and methods in instruction:
Firstly, the method used in the cause of
success of failure in language learning; for it is ultimately the method that
determines the what and the how of language instruction. Secondly, methods are
of the little important; the quality of learners is what counts. Thirdly, the
teacher is the only important elements: methods are only as good as their
teachers. They are simply instruments in the hands of teacher.
In
order to get good result in teaching process, the teacher should know the
students` need and students` characters, so that the appropriate technique can
be used. A good teacher always tries to use the most effective teaching methods
and use the best tool or media. As mentioned by Sri Utari Subiyakto Nababan,
“guru yang baik , pada umumnya selalu berusaha untuk menggunakan metode yang
paling efektive dan memakai alat
/media yang terbaik (1993:5)
There are many techniques in teaching
grammar. One of them is using games. Games are helpful because they can make
both students or teacher enjoy and fun in teaching learning process. Hadfield
(1990:v) states some techniques or activities of games such as information gap,
guessing, search, matching exchanging, collecting, combining, arranging, and
card games board games, problem and puzzles, role plays and simulation
techniques. Certain technique, however, tends to be more suitable than the
other techniques. In Indonesia,
puzzles are considered as new ways in teaching grammar. According to Lewis and
Hill (2000: 86) state that many students enjoy puzzles- crossword and search
word puzzle. By puzzles, the process of learning grammar can be fun.
Puzzles can be involved as activities in
Communicative Language Teaching. The Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can
be used as an approach in teaching language. According to Brown (1994: 226)
defines CLT as teaching second languages for the ultimate goal of communication
with other speakers of the second language. Such a focus has centered on
speaking and listening skills, on writing for specific communicative purposes,
and on “authentic” reading texts. It is suitable with the aim of learning and
teaching English in Junior High School that is mentioned by the Junior High
School Curriculum 2004.
Based on the background above, the
researcher has opinion that teaching grammar need to be developed. Therefore,
she is interested to improve students` grammar mastery by puzzles. Furthermore,
she wants to conduct this research by an action research. This research can
offer an alternative solution in improving students` grammar.
B.
The
Identification of the Problems
Based on the background, there are many
problems may occur such as; (1) how well the students` grammar mastery is, (2)
how important of mastering English grammar, (3), what difficulties that the
students face in mastering language elements including grammar, (4) what should
the teachers do to improve their students` grammar mastery, (5) what kind of
techniques in teaching English grammar, (6) do puzzles as teaching technique
improve students` grammar mastery?
C.
Limitation
of the Problem
It is impossible for researcher to study all that stated problems because of the limited time.
Therefore, this study is limited only on the use of puzzles in teaching
grammar.
D.
The
Formulation of the Problem
To make the
study clearer, the problem of the research can be formulated as follows; “Do
puzzles improve students` grammar mastery?”
E.
The Objective
and the Benefits of the Study
The objective of this study is to improve
the students` grammar mastery in the eighth year students of SMP N 2 Srandakan. The result of this action
research is expected to give some advantages for both teachers and students.
First, students will get a new instructional media namely, puzzles in learning
grammar. Therefore, there are hoped to improve their grammar mastery. Second,
this study is hoped for the teachers to get information about the students`
grammar mastery. This information can be used as a starting point in choosing
appropriate technique or method in teaching English grammar. Then, the teacher
can improve their ability to make effective media by them selves in teaching
language. Of course, it is cheaper rather than if they have to buy it.
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