Background of the study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the study

It is unvoidable that English —an international language—is widely used in many kinds of different needs. People often use English for daily communication, study, company negotiation, jobs application and many others. Job seekers need to master English competences because of the demand in many companies. That is why communicating in English is important, at least to pass the interview session when they are applying for jobs. Vocational high school —SMK—students are prepared to face the workfield after graduation in a particular field Acts of Republic of Indonesia, number 20, 15 article, 2003. As it is stated previously, that English is needed for job applications, SMK students should master English competences needed to work in companies. One of the competences is speaking skill. In mastering the English competences of SMK students, many ways have already done by the schools. They have professional teachers, learning media, learning facilities, materials and so on. Unfortunately, there are still problems related to the learning materials. Based on the preliminary observation, the material used in the teaching-learning process is the same as the material for senior high school students which is the English book of Curriculum 2013. Further, the English book for SMK students cannot be find in the official website of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The website only provides the English book for senior high school students which is Curriculum 2013 textbook. This statement is also supported by the article of the performance of the Corporation of National Education Standard —Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan, 2014. It explains that BSNP team do the book evaluation of English for Curriculum 2013 only in the level of senior high school — SMAMA. It means that SMK students do not have specific books of English whereas they have different needs with senior high school students in general. Related to the English materials above, there are English books that are specifically made by the team of regional teachers for vocational high school students but the topics are still general. They do not cover the needs of each study program in SMK. Each study program of course has different needs of English. As the main focus of this research is in Office Administration Study Program, this study program needs English primary in communication skill. This is supported by the statement of the Ministry of Education and Culture 2014 about Indonesian Qualification Framework for Office Administration. It is stated that one of the standards of graduate competence in Office Administration is to be able to communicate in English for daily conversation related to the office context. In contrast, the students of vocational high schools, especially in the Office Administration Study Program, are only prepared to face the national exam. The language skills tested in the national exam are listening skill and reading skill. It clearly shows that speaking skill is not tested in the national exam. As the result, the students‘ speaking skill does not reach the expectation. It is because teachers do not really pay attention to teach the speaking skill in the learning process.

B. Identification of the problem