The Background of Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of Study

Language is one of the important things for human being used as a means of communication both written and spoken as Harold Palmer states: Language is the medium by which thought are conveyed from one person to another . 1 In this case, language can function as an interaction and transaction. To use as an interaction, language is used to make a contact with other people. As a transaction, language is used to do for doing business and communicating in education. Education in Indonesia regards English as one of the compulsory subjects from Junior High School up to University including in Vocational High Schools. In Vocational High Schools, English is compulsory for all students in any department such as Secretarial and Audio Video class. For Secretarial class and Audio Video class, students are expected to master their English orally and in written. 2 One of the indicators of the students’ mastery can be seen from the National Exam. However the result of the students’ National Exam is still not satisfied. It can be proven by the fact that the average scores of the National Exam is 5,07. There are many factors that can cause the low level of the students’ achievement 1 Harold Palmer, The Scientific of Teaching of Language, London: Oxford Univ: Press, 1968, p. 8 2 Diknas, Kurikulum SMK 2004, Jakarta: Binatama Raya, 2005, p. 23 above including motivation, interest, learning styles, method of teaching, and try- out exam among others. Try-Out Exam is one of the factors which influence the result of the National Exam. Students who have already followed the Try-Out Exam usually pass in the National Exam because they have experience to do the test. So they will be more familiar with variety of the test items such as direction, content, and the language component to be tested. They are also able to predict what kind of items will be tested. It makes students more comfortable to face the National Exam. In this condition, students’ tension reduced, finally, they can get better scores in the National Exam. Khazanah Kebajikan Vocational High School is one of some Vocational High Schools that provided the Try-Out Exam for its third grade students. The Principal believes students must have experience to do this kind of test before they cope with the real one, National Exam. Perhaps the students are able to face up to it then they can get the good score and graduate successfully. Based on the information above, the researcher would like to study the Correlation between the Students’ English Achievement in The Try-Out Exam and in The National Exam.

B. Identification of Problem