Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents and discusses the background of study, statement of the problems, the purposes of study, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study and operational definitions.

A. Background of the Study

English as the primary foreign language in Indonesia is taught as a compulsory subject from the lower secondary school to the beginning years in most universities. Although this main purpose has been explicitly stated in the Ministerial Decree No.096 196712 December 1967, it is widely acknowledged that the result of teaching English in Indonesia is unsatisfactorily achieved. Most secondary and high school graduates are still unable to sufficiently read scientific books or textbooks. Sadtono 1976, Djiwandono 1982. The main objective of teaching English in our country as mentioned in the latest curriculum that the teaching of English in SMA covers the four actional competences.; listening, speaking, reading, and writing which is integratedly taught and equally. Meanwhile, the linguistics aspects such as vocabulary, grammar, spelling, and pronunciation should also teach to the students to support the students’ mastery of the four actional competencies. There are many factors that seem to be taken into account in the teaching- learning process. Three of selected factors have among others are: the first is the teacher who will be responsible for the implementation of the program. The second is the syllabus which contains instructional objectives, the instructional materials, the methodology, and the evaluation. The third is dealing with the learners who are learning English. Curriculum always changes as the students’ need also always changes from time to time in accordance with the changing of the science and technology. Therefore, to meet the students’ need, the 2004 English curriculum has been replaced by the 2006 English curriculum based on the decree of the Minister of National Educational number 22PM2006 about content standard and for basic education and secondary one throughout Indonesia since the 2003-2004 academic year. 1 In line with the change of curriculum, the approach used in the new curriculum is called communicative approach. The new term of approach is used to avoid misinterpretation and misimplementation. English itself is a language that has been defined as “Being to communicate meaning and also stated that linguists are concerned with trying to understand the systematic ways in which such communication is achieved.” 2 . Language, for the linguist, is form; sounds, letters, their combinations into large units such as words, sentences and so forth 3 . Most linguists find it convenient to subdivide the system into three interrelated sub systems: 1 Syntax : the rules for listing elements and specifying their permitted combinations. 2 Semantics : the rules for assigning meaning to units permitted by the syntax. 3 Pragmatics : the rules for relating permitted units of language to social behavior 4 . Teaching may be defined as “showing or helping someone to learn how to do something, giving instructions, guiding in the study of something, providing with knowledge, causing to know or understand” Kimble and Garmezy 1963:133. According to Nathan Gage 1964:269 teaching is 1 Kurikulum KTSP 2006. 2 Ronald Wardhaugh, Introduction to Linguistics. University of Michigan. p.16. 3 Roger T. Bell, An Introduction to Applied Linguistic, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching , 1981, p.19. 4 Roger T. Bell, An Introduction…., p.19. guiding and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for learning 5 . Teaching English in Indonesia is now to be competitive with the other countries. Why? Because during this latest years, the government of Indonesia through Ministry of National Education Affairs has made one policy to all students throughout Indonesia from Junior High School degree till Senior High School in standardization of graduation. The government of Indonesia even has approved the policy from Ministry of National Education Affairs and it has been assured by the issuance of the decree of the Minister Regulation Peraturan Menteri no.45 year 2006 about National Test UN 20062007 6 . Standardization of graduation itself related to three subjects in the school those are English Language, Indonesian Language, and Math. By the reason to rise up the quality of Indonesian education also, the limitation of graduation’s score should be adjusted to the current development. In academic year 2004- 2005, the limit score was 3.25, in academic year 2005-2006, the limit score rose up to 4.00, and in academic year 2006-2007 the limit score rose about 4,25. According to Yunan Yusuf The chief of BSNP-Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan the limit score rose about 5 for average score of UN National Test and 4.25 for each subject in academic year 2006-2007. Meanwhile, Burhanuddin Tolla The chief of Puspendik-Pusat Penilaian Pendidikan said that by comparing to the last academic year, the graduation’s score of National Test UN in academic year 2006-2007 has been degraded at score 4 for one subject, in case, for other subject the limit score is 6 7 . Moreover, Minister of National Education Affairs Mendiknas Bambang Sudibyo said that as a consequence, no other test or remedial test for students failed in National Test 5 H. Douglas Brown, Principles of Language Learning and Teaching, 3 rd Edition. San Francisco State University, Prentice Hall Regents, p.7 6 www.puspendik.co.id . November 2007. 7 WARTA KOTA Newspaper, on Saturday, May 5 th 2007 UN in academic year 2006-2007, he also claimed that remedial test didn’t indicate the students to be more striving 8 . So, what should we do to help our students? The effective and the efficient method of teaching are needed. We know that so many methods in English teaching such as; Grammar-Translation Method GTM Audio-Lingual Method, Direct Method, Total Physical Response TPR, Community Language Learning, etc 9 . But now, there is one alternative of teaching method called SMART Solution Method. Despite the fact, there is no suitable method in teaching languages as experts have claimed. SMART Solution Method itself is related teaching method of PRIMAGAMA Education Tuition which is called SMART SOLUTION. According to Supriyanto, SE the Chief Academic of Center PRIMAGAMA Yogyakarta-2006, also see appendix the method itself has just been declared since the early year of 2000 by an agreement deal from all tutors in Yogyakarta that have a similarity both vision and mission. Basically, SMART Solution Method is the improvisation method from the “Practical Method ” Metode Rumus Praktis that has been improved by PRIMAGAMA since 1982 till the end of year 1999. In the application of SMART Solution method, it has become an alternative way as a problem solving on the complicated problems. In English lesson for example, SMART Solution can help the students’ problem including TENSES, MODAL and MODAL PERFECT, Subjunctive, Causative, Participle, Gerund and To Infinitive, Conditional Sentence, Reading Comprehension, etc. Based on the problems discussed previously, In this case, the writer is interested in researching and analyzing of using smart solution method in teaching gerund at the twelfth grade Senior High School students of PRIMAGAMA Pisangan-Ciputat although clarifying the differences between ‘gerund’ and ‘participle’ seems to be imperative too. 8 BIMBEL News, December Edition 2006 9 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching” . p. 3

B. Statement of the Problems