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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses the introduction of the research which can be elaborated into six main parts. They are background of the study, problem
formulation, problem limitation, objectives of the study, benefits of the study, and definition of terms.
A. Background of the Study
English has taken a crucial role among other languages throughout the world. Therefore, English has been learned in almost all of the countries. Some
countries have been able to place English as their second language, but some countries have not. Indonesia is one of those countries which have not placed
English as the second language. In other words, English has a role only as a foreign language in Indonesia.
Due to the development of globalization era, Indonesia has realized the importance of English as the international language. Indonesia has been trying to
pay more attention to the improvement of the English teaching and learning. One of the efforts is apparently seen in the renewal of the curriculum. English has been
acquainted with learners since early age. It can be inferred that the higher the grade, the more the demand of the English mastery. Students in the lower grade
such as elementary school and junior high school focus more on the mastery of English itself, whereas senior high school students are required to be able to attain
new knowledge through the process of learning English. It is obviously stated in the current curriculum, School-Based Curriculum, that senior high school students
should comprehend not only “functional communication” but also “informational communication” considering that they are preparing themselves to go to
university BNSP, 2006: 307. Functional communication is achieved when students are able to apply what they have learned in daily conversation.
Informational communication is accomplished when students can figure out some new knowledge through the enhancement process of their language competence.
In other words, mastering English will be more meaningful if it is supported by precious knowledge acquired through the learning process.
In this respect, students need materials which enable them to achieve those objectives stated previously. A set of materials is definable as a meaningful design
if the materials are relevant to students’ life, highly motivating, and thereby able to make students fully engaged with the learning process. Thus, the use of stories
in teaching-learning process is considered beneficial for the students. Various stories are obviously able to expand their knowledge about any particular topics.
Slattery and Willis 2001: 96 identify the benefits of stories. They highlight that “stories offer children a world of supported meaning that they can relate to.”
Stories, which normally deal with narrative texts, enable students to communicate with others by sharing knowledge and experience. Students can expand their
knowledge deeper if the stories given are quite various, such as folktales, historical stories, cultural stories, and creative stories from numerous countries.
Those unlimited stories allow students to walk around the world and know
everything around them. As a result, they can react openly to any cases provided in the stories. They can also start to develop their problem solving abilities when
they face some problems which encourage them to find the solutions. Thus, stories are able to fulfill the demand of the School-Based Curriculum, which is to
access knowledge through the texts. In accordance with this, storytelling technique could be applicable for the
teaching-learning process using stories. Beneficially, storytelling demands the students to be able to express what is in their mind in such a way that others can
understand them. Storytelling technique is considered a student-centered learning process since it is “semi controlled technique” in which students can participate
actively in each learning process with the teacher’s guidance Brown, 2001: 135. Brown identifies further that semi controlled technique enables the teacher to
adjust the materials to students’ needs and characteristics in which the teacher takes roles as a facilitator and a monitor. For this reason, it enables the material
designers to provide any topics which are relevant to the students’ needs and interests.
For the students of senior high school who are going to continue the study to the higher education level, mastering English both in spoken and written is
demanded higher than those from the lower education levels. Mallan 1991: 5 affirms that learning language covers not only learning the language elements but
also comprehending the language competence which includes the communicative ability as well. Learners are demanded to be able to produce meaningful
utterances both in speaking and writing, so that the listeners and the readers will
be able to understand the utterances. In line with this, Larsen-Freeman 2000: 120 proposes that “learning language is not merely learning the linguistic
competence but also learning the communicative competence.” In summary, it can be said that it will be valuable if students not only comprehend the theory of the
language itself but also have the ability to apply it through daily conversation. On account of the demand that each learner has to be able to master all of
four language skills, the material designers should adjust technique to a particular approach. Material designers nowadays are challenged to work hard to help the
students improve their language competence. It is the material designers’ high responsibility to construct the materials which are more appropriate with the
learners’ needs and characteristics. Materials could be constructed based on particular approach which facilitates them to develop all the language skills
communicatively without ignoring the atmosphere of teaching-learning activities. Therefore, material designers should be more creative in assembling the materials
and more cautious in deciding the approach as the basis so that interesting and meaningful teaching-learning activities can be built.
Integrated language-learning approach could be the best basis to develop the materials by facilitating the students to learn and at the same time improving
all of their language competence. Brown 2001: 234 proposes that integrated learning has some principles of effective teaching speaking, listening, reading,
and writing. This approach facilitates students to have the opportunity to perform and develop the-four-language competence in more meaningful tasks. Students
will not carry out one mode of performance, but they can expand at least two
skills in each meeting. The students are required to be active and cooperative since they will study both individually and in groups. Therefore, integrated
learning builds learner-centered classroom and broadens both independent and interdependent learning.
Furthermore, storytelling can be the best alternative to be applied in integrated language-learning classroom since this technique gives more spaces to
the students to explore some or all of their language competence once at a time. Students are able to develop their speaking and listening abilities when they are in
front of the class and perform their stories. Speaking and listening have major parts in storytelling technique. However, reading and writing are not neglected.
Students can improve their reading proficiencies when they are demanded to find and read some articles dealing with particular stories. When they make summary
of those articles, they will improve their writing proficiencies as well. The implementation of the approach should be adjusted to the learners’
needs and characteristics. Besides adjusting to the curriculum, there are some considerations of choosing the students of senior high school grade eleven. First,
it deals with their characteristics. According to Pikunas 1976: 240, senior high school students are classified into adolescence stage. Senior high school students
tend to like interesting and challenging things. They like any kinds of competitions which aim to achieve popularity in any field. They are eager to learn
much by various activities, participation, and experiment. They have a good self- control. Besides, they are also able to establish a better self-regulation in purpose
to develop interpersonal communication and gain popularity and leadership.
Therefore, senior high school students will compete in fair ways. Second, the students of senior high school grade eleven have enough basic grammar seeing
that they have learned English since they were in elementary school. Storytelling demands the students to be braver to speak up in front of a lot of people without
disregarding the grammar. Therefore, students who have enough basic grammar can be more confident than those who do not. Third, considering that the senior
high school students are going to enter a real world which will demand them to have all the English communication competence and language elements, they
should be well prepared. Fourth, especially for the students of SMA Negeri 11 Yogyakarta grade eleven, to whom the materials dedicated, they have big interest
in the use of narrative stories in learning English. The application of narrative stories is able to motivate them in learning English. In this respect, the use of
narrative stories helps the teacher to build interesting teaching-learning activities. Based on all of the considerations above, the writer decided to develop the
use of stories as integrated instructional materials for the students of senior high school grade eleven. The materials are for one year and focus on narrative text.
Accordingly, the study focuses on the designing a set of integrated instructional materials using stories for SMA Negeri 11 Yogyakarta grade eleven. The selection
of the participant considers the participant’s needs as stated in the preceding paragraph.
B. Problem Formulation
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