Background of the Research

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

English is one of the compulsory subjects in Indonesian education. As a compulsory subject, English becomes one of the tested subjects in Ujian Nasional or National Examination for both junior and senior high schools. Therefore, students have to master all of the four basic skills in English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In junior high schools, teachers mostly teach the basic skills of English in the written forms. Thus, students mostly focus on learning reading and writing skills instead of listening and speaking skills. The latter skills are rarely taught by teachers in school. Listening and reading are categorized as receptive processes or skills in taking information. On the other hand, speaking and writing are the productive processes or skills in giving out information. Specifically, Johnson 2008: 7 states that reading is not an isolated process and it needs all four language processes work together to enhance the development of each other. Reading skills are essential skills before students are able to write an English text. It is also stated further by Johnson 2008: 7 that reading helps students to become better writers. They need reading skills to know the content of certain texts, to analyse texts structure, to learn the rules of grammar, and to learn new vocabulary. Reading texts have many kinds in the form of descriptive, narrative, recount, news report, procedure and functional texts. In junior high schools, students learn various types of reading texts. One of them is functional texts or 2 precisely short functional texts. Short functional text is a kind of text which we encounter on a daily basis. This text helps us, the readers, function and perform in daily life. For example, when we bought a new TV, we read the manual and learn how to operate the TV. Another example is when we travel using plane or train, we look at the flight schedule or train schedule to make sure we are not late or end in the wrong plane or train. Those texts are few examples of short functional texts that we can find around us in daily life. Short functional texts are different from other types of reading texts. It still has a purpose or a goal, but mostly, short functional texts do not have a structure. Most of these texts depend on text features such as headings, bold or italicized text, numbered lists, captions, a variety of graphics, pictures or illustrations. Every day, students may come across with this type of text whether they are aware or not. For instance, at the morning they look at the lesson schedule. Then, on their way to the school, they might see a billboard which advertise an event, a concert or a product. After they arrived at the school, they might look at the announcement on the information board. Even text message they sent to their parents or friends is an example of short functional texts. Thus are a few examples which students often encounter but they may not well aware that those are short functional texts. Based on the researcher’s personal observation in SMP Negeri 4 Yogyakarta, it was found out that students did not fully comprehend what short functional text is. The exposure of this text was not as much as other types of reading texts such as descriptive or narrative. There were several factors which made the students got less knowledge about short functional texts. The teacher 3 mostly taught the materials based on the textbook and rarely connected the examples from the textbook with real life examples. The learning process tended to be monotonous with the teacher explaining the text, asking questions to some students, and then the students doing the exercises. The time for learning process in the classroom was also limited. English was taught at most twice a week and each meeting only lasted for 90 minutes. In addition, the teacher had to deliver all the materials for one academic year and divided the time allocation evenly. The class was also a big and crowded classroom with at least 32 up to 34 students in each class. The teacher was busier controlling the class rather than teaching the materials. Short functional texts, in fact, were important for students. Besides for daily needs, the students will also face short functional texts in the National Examination. Short functional texts are often included in the questions. Usually, the questions will ask the students about the content or the purpose of the text. However, with the monotonous learning process, the students tended to get bored and did not pay attention to what their teacher taught in the class. Furthermore, the students usually rely on learning materials from their teacher, for example from the textbook or Lembar Kerja Siswa LKS given by their teacher. The students were rarely looking for additional materials by themselves that was resulted from their low motivation of learning. Teacher actually can help students in guiding them to be more independent if they think the materials given in the classroom are not sufficient for them. For example, the learning process can utilize the existing technology or adapt new 4 technology. The researcher did an observation related to teaching learning process and school facilities. Based on the observation, the teacher could operate laptop and was able to connect it to the available media in the classroom such as projector. The students also could operate laptop as well as the latest technology such as smartphone. In addition, the school had a language and computer laboratory which could be used in the learning process though in fact it was rarely used in English learning process. As we know, the learning process which utilizes technology is commonly not popular to be used in classroom learning. However, adapting technology into the learning process, such as utilizing computer and smartphone to create an autonomous learning application for students, will benefit the learning process in the future. Hence, based on the elaborated background, the researcher concluded that the students of Grade VIII of SMP Negeri 4 Yogyakarta needed supplementary materials, aside from the materials given in the classroom learning. The researcher developed learning materials needed by the students which could be opened anywhere and anytime through their smartphone. The consideration for combining the development of technology with the supplementary learning materials was that the students are more likely to bring and always in touch with their smartphone every time and everywhere, unlike textbook or other printed materials.

B. Identification of the Problems