The Background of The Study

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of The Study

Nowadays, English is well-known as the most widely used and studied foreign language on the earth. In their book “Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching” Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers said, “ Latin was the most widely studied foreign language five hundred years ago. However, English has become the most widely studied foreign language today”. 1 In this era of globalization, learning English seems to be an obligation for people who want to be able to compete with other people especially for those who want to study or work abroad. One of the most common problems which is faced by English learners is grammatical problem. Grammar is absolutely needed when people learn English. The 1 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p.1. bett er people’s grammar is the better they can use English. Therefore, having good ability in grammar is very important when people want to master English. There are many aspects discussed in grammar and irregular verb is one of them. Irregular verb is needed to master because it is used in some aspects of grammar such as: simple past tense, present and past perfect tense, passive voice, conditional sentence and many others. Those tenses use irregular verb instead of regular verb. Therefore, to be able to use those tenses well, students have to master both regular and irregular verb. Many students are difficult to transform the basic form of the verb to the form of irregular verb. They do not know whether they add the verb only with –ed or change the whole word. For example: Give Students are confused with the verb 2 of the word “give” above. Some students stated “gived” and the rest said they did not know the verb 2 of “give”. Another example is when the students were asked about the verb 3 of “cut”. Almost all students stated that the verb 3 of “cut” is “cutted”. It is not easy for students to retain their memory on irregular verb. They often forget the irregular verb which they have memorized. Thus, there should be a new way to help them in keeping the irregular verb on their mind. Students also often feel difficult when they learn irregular verb just by listening to explanation and memorizing the verbs as their teacher has been teaching them so. Both listening to the explanation and memorizing the verbs can be boring for students. If listening to the explanation and memorizing all the explained- irregular verbs are the only way which is used to learn and to retain the irregular verb, students can easily forget it. Therefore, there should be a more effective way to help them in learning and in retaining irregular verb on their memory. The language skills are taught in the order of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. 2 Listening takes the first place in language acquisition. It has the most important role in language acquisition. People listen before they speak and people speak what they have listened. As quoted by by Jack C. Richard and Theodore S. Rodgers from Henry Sweet and Wilhelm Victor, they stated that Learners should hear the language first, before seeing it in written form. 3 Therefore, listening is very important in language learning. Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learner. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. 4 In short, all classroom activities start from listening. Listening songs can be an alternative way to learn English. As teenagers, junior high school students tend to do any interesting ways of learning and listening to the songs is one of the good ways in learning. Through songs, students are supposed to retain their memory on irregular verb easier. As Dale T. Griffee stated in his book Songs in Action that Songs can be used for retaining memory and practicing language pattern. 5 Songs have become an important part of human ’s life. Everybody likes to listen to the songs because they are universal. Songs can be found anywhere, and people can listen them from television, radio, cassette, or handphone through its MP3 feature. Listening to songs makes body and mind feel fresh and relax. Furthermore, listening to songs makes learning fun. 6 Therefore, the more fun the learning process the easier students can retrieve the material. 2 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 53. 3 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods …, p. 8. 4 David Nunan and Lindsay Miller, New Ways in Teaching Listening, Virginia: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Language, 1995, p. v. 5 Dale T. Griffee, Songs in Action, New York: Prentince Hall, 1992, p. 6. 6 retrieved from http:www.englishclub.comteaching-tips on Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 11.00 A.M. Teacher should continue looking for more effective and interesting technique in teaching irregular verb to his or her students. It is done to make students feel more interested in learning it. If students are interested in learning irregular verb, they can memorize it easier. That is why there must be a more interesting way of learning irregular verb. Based on the explanation above, the writer would like to make a research on RETAINING STUDENTS’ MEMORY ON IRREGULAR VERB THROUGH SONGS.

B. Limitation and Formulation of the Problem