The Background to the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background to the Study

In the Indonesian education system, English is a compulsory subject in Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools and is a non-compulsory subject in Elementary Schools since the implementation of the 1994 curriculum. At the same level as Senior High Schools, there is also Vocational Education which focuses on vocational competencies. Vocational education prepares learners for careers that are based on practical activities or occupation. In Indonesia, vocational education is known as a secondary program of education, i.e. Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan SMK. English is important to be taught in SMK. The curriculum requires SMK students to master English skills in order to prepare themselves to face the professional situation. As stated in Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Republik Indonesia Permendiknas 22, in SMK, English is an adaptive subject which is designed to prepare the students with English spoken and written communication skills in a certain program. Furthermore, English mastery helps the students to compete in the globalization era in the future. There are two main goals of English learning in SMK proposed by BSNP 2006. The first is that the students master the basic knowledge and skills of English to sustain the program competence achievement. The second goal is for the students to apply the English knowledge and skills to maintain both spoken and written communication in the intermediate level. Accordingly the vocational English 2 course should offer students communication skills closely related to their profession experience. In the new curriculum —2013 curriculum, as stated in Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan no 70 tahun 2013 about curriculum structure of SMKMAK, English is taught with a specific purpose to be used in a particular occupational setting. This means that the teaching and learning activities are supposed to provide a more specific register related to their major rather than general language features. The content of this new curriculum is similar to the previous curriculum —2006 curriculum. The improvement is on the mechanism of how to apply the system. There are three levels of English skills taught in SMK, i.e. novice level, elementary level, and intermediate level. These levels are supposed to be taught as follows: the Novice level for tenth grade students, the Elementary level for eleventh grade students, and the Intermediate level for twelfth grade students. Those levels are set in the standard of competence of SMK which are then formulated in the form of basic competences. In teaching English, English teachers should teach all four skills listening, speaking, reading, and writing in balance. However, the speaking skill has often been put aside in English lesson since it is not present in the National Examination. The teachers find it hard to teach speaking because it will need much more time to practice while the time provided is very limited. Moreover, the students do not have chances to practice their speaking skills outside the class. 3 The observation and interviews conducted on September 11 th – 14 th 2013 confirmed that grade XI Accounting Program 1 students at SMKN 1 Depok had some difficulties in learning English speaking skills. The main cause is that the students were not motivated to practice speaking in English. This could be seen from the students’ involvement in the class activities. The students used Javanese and Indonesian the most instead of English in the classroom. It was because they were not confident enough to speak in English. The students were also afraid of making mistakes while speaking in English. They had difficulties in pronouncing English words. Although they always could find the meaning of words using dictionary, they rarely brought dictionaries with them. They also preferred working in groups to working individually, but from the class observation, they did not really work in groups. Most students only chatted with friends. The teacher did not try to manage the students to work properly in groups. These problems are found by analysing the vignette of the teaching and learning process and the interview with the teacher. Considering these existing problems, there should be an action to be conducted to help the students in learning English especially the speaking skill. The teacher agreed to the idea that the teaching and learning process should be changed to meet the students’ needs. After a long discussion, the teacher and I decided to conduct an action research study focusing on improving the students’ speaking skills using STAD Student Teams-Achievement Division. The teacher would help me in observing the teaching and learning process and would give comments and suggestions to the teaching during the research. 4

B. The Identification of the Problems