Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

The latest policy issued by the government in Indonesia, in this case The Department of Education and Culture on the 2013 curriculum, states that English language subject should be taught only as an extracurricular at Primary School in Indonesia. For meantime, in Blora, the government is still dong a trial on the new curriculum in some Elementary Schools. The omission of English subject is aimed at giving more opportunities for children to master Indonesian language before they are ready to learn English as a foreign language. In fact, the mastery of English language is a great demand these days due to the development of science and technology. English is also extensively used as a lingua franca among people across the world. It is a mean of communication who do not share the common language. Thus English is an important subject that has to be taught in school. With the new curriculum, it is worried that children will only get a little opportunity to learn English. On the other hand, there is a strong belief that the younger children the better they learn English as a foreign language. The belief is enhanced by some theories such as CPH theory proposed by Lenneberg in Brewster, Ellis, and Girard 2004: 17 who says that language acquisition is considered to be good between the ages of three and the early teens. During these periods, the children seems to be most sensitive to stimuli and to preserve innate flexibility for the organization of brain functions to carry out the complex integration of sub-processes necessary for the smooth elaboration of speech and language. Another theory is stated by Steinberg 1993: 203-216 that motor skills are also necessary in learning a foreign language. Considering the importance of English and the theories saying the effectiveness of learning English at early years, some Elementary schools in Blora are still teaching English as a local content subject. One of the schools is SD Negeri Tempurejo 3 Blora that had been teaching English as a local content subject started from grade three to six. However, it should be taken into account that teaching English for primary school is not meant to give as much language knowledge as possible but to make children communicate although they only have limited knowledge about the language. The learning process should be focused on oral communication in limited context through fun and enjoyable ways. Additionally, the teacher should select materials that are most appr opriate and related to children’s daily life and deliver them with interesting activities Based on the observation that the researcher conducted for the 4 th grade students in SD Negeri Tempurejo 3 Blora, the researcher saw that the teacher introduced and gave all the materials from the students ’ worksheet and most of the materials are reading and writing. The teacher said that it was rather difficult to teach listening and speaking to the students because she had not enough resources. There are so many typical schools like this and they have similar problems in teaching – learning English. As young learners, Elementary School students should start learning a foreign language by listening then speaking. It is stated by Pinter 2006: 45 that just as in mother tongue learning, English should start with an emphasis in listening and speaking. These are the two main skills and students need to start with plenty of listening practices, and opportunities to listen to rich input will naturally lead to speaking tasks. Unfortunately, listening – speaking materials for this kind of school are hard to find. The existing facilities are not supported by modern technology and it becomes a barrier when the teacher wants to play songs or videos as media in the classroom. It is added by the situation that English is taught once a week. The students need more time to learn it, especially for listening and speaking skills. From the explanation above, the researcher is challenged to develop appropriate listening – speaking materials for an extracurricular English program for the 4 th grade students in SD Negeri Tempurejo 3. The students in SD Negeri Tempurejo 3 need a good English exposure. That is why it is important to hold this Chit-Chat program for them. Their willingness to have better abilities of English makes all will be worth it. The materials of this program should contain fun and interesting tasks which are expected that students enjoy learning English.

B. Identification of the Problem