Ira Irianti, 2015 A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents a brief introduction of the study including background, statement of problems, purpose of the study, scope of the study, significance of
the study, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper.
1.1. Background of the Study
Writing is perceived as the most difficult language-skill to acquire for some reasons Alwasilah 2001, p.15. It is in line with Kongpetch 2003 who argues
that “one of the reasons that foreign language students experience difficulties in writing English texts is because they have inadequate understanding of how texts
are organized”. That is why students considered writing, especially in English a difficult task. It is supported by Alwasilah 2007, p.24
who asserts that writing is complicated language skill for students and even for teacher. Emilia 2005, p.15
also finds majority of her students consider writing is one of the most difficult subjects in learning English. This happens because when students learn writing,
they also learn new knowledge about language linguistic features which is important to make text communicative and informative.
In addition, students also faced the difficulties in brainstorming idea, building knowledge, having less confidence in writing and lack of knowledge
about language and genre of text. The problems in writing can be solved by implementing some approaches to teaching writing.One of the approaches that
teacher can use to help students write a good text is Genre-Based Approach as adapted from Rothery, 1996. Furthermore, this approach can become a solution
to help students to develop their ideas, arrange the word and elaborate it into a good sentence paragraph, and develop confidence in writing and knowledge about
language and genre of text. This approach has been claimed to be effective particularly in improving students writing. see for example Martin and Rothery,
in Couture, 1986; Gibbons, 2002; Derewianka. 2004; Butt et.al., 2001. However,
Ira Irianti, 2015 A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING WRITING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
the Genre-Based Approach does not only focuses on writing, but also other language skills, such as listening, reading and speaking.
In Indonesia Genre-Based Approach has been implemented since 2004 in junior and senior high school. However, studies that have focused on the
investigation of the implementation of genre-based approach in junior high school is still limited. Thus, this study specifically aims to fill the gap by investigating
the benefits of the implementation of genre-based approach to
help the students to write a Descriptive text in one junior high school in Lembang, West Java.
Furthermore, this study attempted to find out
students’ responses toward the implementation of genre-based approach to teaching writing a Descriptive text.
1.2. Statement of Problems
