CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
There are six parts in this chapter. 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
Basically, English as a language has three main functions. They are ideational function, interpersonal function, and textual function. Halliday 1978
says that language is a means for communication. In order to be able to communicate, people need to learn “grammar” and “lexico- grammar”. Grammar
is the basic aspect that influences four English skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Richards, Platt and Weber 1985 says that “Gammar is a description
of the structure of a language and the way in which units such as words and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language”.
Traditionally, the aim of linguistics is describing the rules of English usage, that is, grammar. Widdowson 1978 says that the attention has shifted
away from defining the formal fe ature of language to find the ways in which the language is actually used in real communication. Since grammar is not taught
separately and specifically as a single subject, a lot of students are having difficulty in mastering grammar. Many cases show that students are not
1 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
accustomed to applying language rules in the real communication. Nunan 2003:157-161 also states his idea as quoted below:
Many learners could state rules, but then violated those very rules in communication, led to the notion that grammar
instruction was of limited value.
He also said that many students remember to put an s at the end of a verb while making third person singular declarative statement. In the real
communication with others, they often forget to apply this rule. Nunan 2003: 160 states that the students have declarative knowledge
they can state or declare the rule, but not procedural knowledge they can’t or don’t use the rule when using the language to communicate. Another researcher,
Lado 1964:95 says that: Many teachers make the mistake of trying to explain everything
at length while the class listens passively. Long explanations without active practice are a waste of time, and even with
practice they are inefficient. Most of the class should be devoted to practice.
Broughton 1978:42 also states his idea that: If the course designer, through lack of knowledge, introduces
high, medium, and low frequency items in random order it will make their learning effort gives the pupils a smaller coverage
than it could have given.
Broughton 1978:43 also comments that “It appears to be ‘law’ that high frequency items are simple in form, low frequency items complex in form”. It
means that high frequency items should be introduced first to the learners, and it turns out that the most frequent verbs used in English are Simple Past. The same
thing also happened to the researcher when she became the English private teacher and she met the students who learnt English as a foreign language. Most
of the students confessed that they faced the difficulty when they were asked to be able to write a paragraph consisting of at least 300 words using Simple Past Tense
and also to be able to speak or to tell a story that happened in the past, for their English Practical Exam Ujian Praktek Bahasa Inggris. They told the researcher
that their teacher at school only distributed the handouts and asked the students to answer some questions related to the topic, without any further explanations.
Based on that phenomenon, the writer intends to propose Dictogloss as a technique to enhance the mastery of simple past, since the simple past tense is the
most frequent used in English. The researcher chooses this technique because it is highly learner-centered, in which the students are the leading role in the teaching
–learning process instead of the teacher. Dictogloss also gives the opportunity to the students to apply the language rules in the real communication. Furthermore,
this technique is related to the second principle and the third principle in teaching grammar. Nunan 2003:159-160 states that:
The second principle is using tasks that make clear the relationship between grammatical form and communicative
function, and the third principle is focusing on the development of procedural rather than declarative knowledge.
This technique, “Dictogloss”, as stated by Nunan 2003:161, can be applied in a classroom by involving learners collaborating in small groups,
actively using their language, and reflecting on the way grammar works in context thus reinforcing form function relationships. Further explanation about the
procedures of applying this technique in the classroom can be found in Chapter II. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
B. Problem Formulation
Kategori