Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Learning English is not regardless to master the skills within; those are speaking, writing, reading, and listening. Students should have the competency to master those skills, because English skills are learned as an integrated skill. Hence, students need practice to develop their English skills. One of the skills which need practice continuously, for instance, is writing skill. According to Phelps-Gunn and Phelps-Terasaki, writing skill needs other proficiencies; listening comprehension, speaking, and reading. 1 In other words, writing is an active skill because it combines the three other skills and students have to effort in combining them. Additionally, as stated in the Curriculum of Educational Unit or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan KTSP, students of secondary schools are expected to develop their English in all language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. It is said in the curriculum of English that the teaching of English should focus on the development of four language skills. It becomes clear that English cannot be separated from each skill, thus, the writing skill is learned as the integrated skill, it becomes the very important thing and students have to fully master those skills. Moreover, the objective of teaching writing of secondary school also stated in the Curriculum of Educational Unit or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan KTSP of English subject, “ Mengungkapkan makna dalam bentuk teks tulis fungsional pendek sederhana dengan menggunakan ragam bahasa tulis secara akurat, lancar dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar expressing meaning of short functional text using written language accurately, fluently, and acceptable to interact in daily life context ”. To reach the objective of teaching writing of students’ secondary school, teachers also should focus on the development of writing skill. 1 Trisha Phelps-Gunn and Diana Phelps-Terasaki, Written Language Instruction, Theory and Remediation, London: Aspen Systems Corporation, 1982, p. 4. Writing is important to be taught because it has some benefits; writing encourages students to explore their ability in English in which they have learned with their teachers . “First, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary. Second, when the students write they also have a chance to explore the language, to beyond with what they have just learned. Third, when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language, the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand and brain is a unique way to reinforce learning. ” 2 Put simply, through writing students can apply their knowledge that they have learned and experienced and discover their ideas to deliver something of what they want to say into their written form. Nevertheless, most of students do not show the eagerness to write because writing is considered to be difficult; students have to be aware of the structure of the written itself. Students fear of making mistakes in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. 3 They are also lack of vocabulary so that their abilities in writing are limited by producing the right sentences and vocabularies. Students have to pay attention to the aspects in writing, such as the accuracy, coherent, clarity so that there is no ambiguity of meaning; grammatical pattern, a careful choice of vocabularies, sentence structure, and punctuation. Hence, students need practice every day to avoid of making mistakes in writing. In addition, students also face the difficulty to generate and organize their ideas; they are confused how to start their writing. Reid assumed that writing is often considered as the time-consuming activity because writers have to develop and explain the ideas as detail as possible. 4 Finally, students are frequently confused and get frustrated about the topic that actually they are going to write on a piece of paper because they do not know how to get start it. Whereas, in writing students have to construct the clarity ideas into a paragraph or essay coherently. 2 Ann Raimes, Techniques in Teaching Writing, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p. 3. 3 Audrey L. Reynolds, Exploring Written English, A Guide for Basic Writers, Boston: Little, Brown Company, 1983, p. 3. 4 Joy M. Reid, The Process of Composition, Second Edition., New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1988, p. 17. Students have the opportunity to organize their ideas to make their written is vividly presented. In the Curriculum of Educational Unit or Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan KTSP, students are able to express meaning in simple transactional and interpersonal written texts, for instance, narrative, descriptive, recount, report, and procedure, in daily life context. In the case of this research, the writer focused her study on the teaching descriptive writing of second grade students in secondary school. They have to be fluent in writing descriptive text because based on the syllabus of English subject; students are able to express the meaning of short functional text in descriptive and recount to interact in daily life context. T he writer found that there is a problem with students’ descriptive writing. They are confused to where they should start describing something from. Moreover, teacher does not use any technique to help students constructing a descriptive paragraph. As usual, teacher explains about the definition of a descriptive, the linguistic features and generic structure then the teacher asks students to compose a descriptive paragraph, finally, they could take the longer time to start writing because they do not know how to say it even the ideas have existed in their minds. In writing a descriptive text, students have to describe a person, place, and thing. To help students in composing a descriptive writing, there is a technique that can be introduced by teachers to students in prewriting stage, a technique called clustering. Langan defined that “Clustering, also known as diagramming or mapping, is another strategy that can be used to generate material for a paper. This method is helpful for people who like to do their thinking in a visual way. In clustering, students can use lines, boxes, arrows to make the relations among the ideas from the students ’ mind based on the topic”. 5 Clustering is a technique in the early stage to help students finding their various ideas. To make clearly, students can use a clustering technique by making a circle with a big idea in it, 5 John Langan, College Writing Skills with Readings, Fifth Edition, New York: McGraw- Hill Company, 2001, p. 29. then connect it by the line as the other ideas and also circle it as the ideas flow in students’ mind, they can do it continuously as many as possible. Clustering technique is used in the prewriting stage of the writing process; because in prewriting stage students develop their ideas first before they apply the whole paragraph in written. “Pre-” means before; pre-writing means the work done by the writer before the paragraph is actually written. 6 Pre writing is the first stage in the writing process to find out the various ideas to write therefore; clustering technique is used to avoid students to leave a blank page of paper because of their limitation to develop the ideas in writing. Clustering technique can be used for any kinds of writing; it means that in composing any kinds of text, clustering is useful including for a descriptive text. In descriptive text, a description shows the writer’s way how to hear and see towards the readers so that a vivid image can be created. Moreover, descriptive text add s the readers’ interest and the importance of writing. 7 Descriptive text needs an explanation of the writer as clear as possible to make the reader feels what the writer pictures in describing a person, place, and thing. To sum up, in this study the writer is interested in using clustering technique to help teachers using another technique in teaching writing. Moreover, clustering technique also helps students to find and generate their ideas that come into their mind to be implemented in descriptive writing for students in the Second Grade at MTs. Nurul Hidayah. Through this study, clustering technique is expected to facilitate and make a writing activity is easier for students, besides, enable students to keep and add their motivation in writing. 6 Joy M. Reid, The Process of Composition, Second Edition, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1988, p. 30. 7 Barbara Fine Clouse, 265 Troubleshooting Strategies for Writing Nonfiction, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2005, p. 43.

B. Identification of the Problems