Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the general account of the present study. It covers background of the study, formulation of the problem, objective of the study, method of the study and significance of the study.

A. Background of the Study

People use language for doing things with each other, and their use of language itself a join action. 1 By language, they understand each other, and interest as part of a society. There are many languages used in this world, such as Indonesia, English, Arabic, French, Chinese, Japanese, and many others. One of languages used in this world is English language, and now English becomes an international language. Every human being who speaks a language knows its grammar. When linguists wish to describe a language, they attempt to describe a language. 2 Grammar is one of the important aspects in teaching and learning English. Every student has to understand English grammar, because grammar has the core position in learning English language, without learning grammar, the student cannot use English well. Obviously, for example the students need to know about tenses, they may have difficulty to differ between present tense, past tense, and future tense, and any other grammar materials. And one of tenses which make student confused is present continuous tense, because when they are demanded to speak based on the tenses, they have to be aware about the time and the verb forms, and also they have to differ between the activity that is in progress or not, unlike the Indonesian language patterns 1 Clark H. Clark, using language, New York: - Cambridge university press, 2008, p. 387. 2 Victoria Fromkin and Robert Rodman, an introduction to language, London: - HBC publishers 1998 P. 14 2 where the time and the verb forms are regardless. Beside of that present continuous tense is stated in curriculum for the first grade of SMA. Generally, the student felt confused to change an active voice of present continuous tense into a passive voice of present continuous tense, because in the passive voice, the object of an active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb. 3 Passive voice is generally difficult to be understood because of its rule and formula which are dissimilar with active voice. So they felt confused, and sometime they made many mistakes in placing an object and a subject. One of the important aspects in learning foreign language is the method of teaching. The method of teaching can help the teacher to solve the student‟s learning problem. Teaching methods can best be defined as the types of principles and methods used for instruction. There are many types of teaching methods, depending on what information or skill the teacher is trying to convey. For effective teaching to take place, a good method must be adopted by a teacher. A teacher has many options when choosing a style by which to teach. The teacher may write lesson plans of their own, borrow plans from other teachers, or search online or within books for lesson plans. When deciding what teaching method to use, a teacher needs to consider students background knowledge, environment, and learning goals. Teachers are aware that students learn in different ways, but almost all children will respond well to praise. Students have different ways of absorbing information and of demonstrating their knowledge. Teachers often use techniques which cater to multiple learning styles to help students retain information and strengthen understanding. 4 Many methods are used in teaching English language, such as grammar translation method, direct method, oral approach, situational language teaching, audio-lingual method, total physical response, the silent way, communicative 3 Betty Schrampfer Azhar, Understanding and Using English Grammar, New York: Longman, 2002, p.208 4 Wikipedia, Teaching Method. This article is accessed on March, 2009 from http:en.wikipedia.orgwikiTeaching_method 3 language teaching, natural approach, cooperative language teaching, competency- based language teaching, games method, collaboration method and any others method. According to Asser, an important condition for successful language learning is the absence of stress. First language acquisition takes place in stress- free environment, whereas the adult language learning environment often causes considerable stress and anxiety. 5 And many methods can be used for reducing the stress, one of them is game technique, because game is suitable for all levels and students will fell fun and happy. The teacher can make his own game to make his students understand the lesson and also they fell very fun and happy. SMAI Al – Azhar 1 Jakarta is one of the schools which are conducting games in teaching learning process. According to the English teacher, games are the way to eliminate students‟ saturation and it makes them interested to learn 6 . One of the games that the writer has made is “arrange word game”. Arrange word game is the game which the words are jumbles, and the teacher asks the students to arrange the jumble word into a complete sentence as much as possible. The writer thinks this game will be very useful for making easy student understanding in learning tenses. The writer has used this game in two schools that the writer has taught in it. And the writer thinks this game will make first grade student of SMAI Al-Azhar 1 Jakarta easy to understand passive voice of present continuous tense. According to the writer‟s experience the most benefit of this game enables the students to have strong memory in remembering the form of passive voice present continuous tense, and they will not forget the form of passive voice present continuous tense. The writer thinks that it is necessary to find out an alternative way to create suitable and interesting techniques related to students‟ condition. They need to be delivered any practices to assist them in increasing grammar comprehension. 5 Jack C Richard and Theodore Rodgers, Approaches and methods in language teaching, New York: Cambridge university press, 2007, p.75. 6 Taken from the interview result with the English teacher on Wednesday, March 2 nd 2011. 4 For the need of research, the writer chooses the first grade class because, according to the curriculum this class has to learn passive voice. Therefore, the students‟ grammar comprehension needs to be developed. In this research, the writer focuses on passive voice of present continuous tense. It is based on the recommendation from the teacher. Then, the writer realizes that all of those problems are impossible to be solved in a time. That is why the writer tries to find out an appropriate strategy to increase students‟ grammar understanding better that is through arrange word game which considered as one way of grammar comprehension techniques toward passive voice of present continuous tense. Her e, the writer‟s basic assumption is students need to learn how to make a sentence of passive voice of present continuous tense by finding jumble words and arrange them intro many sentences of passive voice present continuous tense to make easy their understanding. In other words, through the ability to make a good sentence, to arrange any words into a good sentence, to increase their creativity, and it enables them to have a strong memory of remembering the form of passive voice present continuous tense.

B. Formulation of the Problem