The Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study

Language is a means of communication of human beings. Language can be in written, spoken, or signal forms. According to Santrock, ―Language is a form of communication—whether spoken, written, or signed —that is based on a system of symbols.‖ 1 From those symbols, it is combined to be the words then those words become a language. According to Santrock, ―Language consists of the words used by a community vocabulary and the rules for varying and combining them grammar and syntax‖. 2 Language helps people communicate easily in their community. In each community, they have their own language. However, when one community would like to communicate with other communities from different language backgrounds, they need to use a language which each of them can speak with. English is a language widely used in the world. English has an important role in many aspects of life. English is used in technology, education, science, career, and also as a primary means in communication. English is one of foreign languages that it is taught in Indonesia. English in Indonesia is an important subject. English subject in Indonesia is taught from kindergarten until the university. This subject in kindergarten and elementary level is a local content. Meanwhile in junior and senior high school, English is a compulsory subject and also is examined in national Examination. In college level, English subject is a complementary subject in order to help students’ access references in English. The objective of teaching English in Indonesia schools is as follows: a develop communicative skills in oral and written form. The 1 John Santrock, Educational Psychology New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2011, 5 th edition, p. 58. 2 Ibid. skills are listening, reading, writing and speaking, b build the importance of learning English as one of foreign language to be main learning material, and c develop an understanding about interrelation between language and culture and expanded sight, so the students have cross- cultural sight and involve in. 3 According to the text above, it can be seen that the objective of English language learning and teaching in Indonesia is to develop communicative ability in the four of language skills, they are; listening, reading, writing, and speaking. So, if students can use English communicatively, they are likely to broaden their inter-lingual and cross cultural insight so that they can promote their culture to the world. These communicative objectives are contrary with the practical realities. The researcher has seen that students do not use English communicatively. From the researcher experiences, she had seen her friends in her school life seemed that they did not have a high motivation. In spite of the fact, her friends got the high scores in their learning. Another experience that the researcher has found recently is her students learning in an English course. Her students learn English because they love to learn. They love to learn with their own favorite activities like watching movies or playing games. The students who do it through this way have the high learning score. For other students in the same English course, they learn English just because they have to learn it or because of their parents want them to learn it. These students never feel excited to learn. It affects their score. They just have a standard score and might be too bad for some others. However, there are some other students who never spend their time to learn beyond the class, but they are good enough in their English learning score. 3 Departemen Pendidikan Nasional, Standar Kompetensi Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Sekolah Menengah Atas dan Madrasah Aliyah di Indonesia. Jakarta: Pusat Kurikulum, Balitbang Depdiknas, 2003, p.14 From those facts, the researcher concludes that something plays an important role inside that makes the objective of curriculum can be accomplished. In building a communicative language, the researcher sees that there is a motivation which makes the accomplishment of the instructional objectives possible. Harmer in How to Teach English points out; Whatever we think of the teaching methods used –or the reason for language learning – the teachers and the students in these cases had a number of things on their side: they were highly motivated, they really wanted to learn and they had powerful reasons for doing so –including, of course, a fear or failure 4 It means no matter what and how the methods are used, the result will be affected by the motivation of the students and the teachers. With motivation, people are eager to do more. In this education field, motivation makes the students want to learn their subject more from everything and the teachers also try to make the dynamic class. It can be summed up that high motivation will affect learning achievement. In fact, some teachers in schools don’t realize that they have to motivate their students to study. Teachers just give the learning process without direct the students to be interested in their learning or even don’t let their students to know what their learning purposes are. The researcher had interviewed some students whom took learning course after their school time and asked how the students got their great or low scores in the subject. Then the result of interview indicates that they are motivated because of how the teachers delivered the subject or because they know what their learning goals are. This condition is same as Dornyei states that one of main determinants of secondforeign language learning achievement is motivation. 5 4 Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English, Essex: Addision Wesley Longman Limited, 2001 p. 8 5 Zoltán Dōrnyei, Motivation and Motivating in the Foreign Language Classroom, The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 78 No. 3, 1994, p. 273-284. Nowadays the Ministry of Education has developed a good communicative learning especially in English learning. One of efforts that Ministry of Education has done is bilingual class. Literally, bilingual is ―of a person able to use two languages for communication, or of a thing using or involving two languages‖. 6 That means the students who learn in bilingual class always get chance to listen and use two languages to communicate and are expected to be able to use English communicatively. In Indonesia, bilingual class students use English and Indonesian as the medium of class interaction. To see how the role of motivation and native teacher has in a school, the researcher did observation. The researcher has come to the school nearby her house. The researcher chose this school because of the time efficiency. The school’s name is Al Syukro Islamic Universal Elementary School. From this school, the researcher gets the points that students are excited to have native teacher in their school. SMAN 3 TANGSEL is another school which have native English teacher. The native English teacher comes to teach this school because of the schools’ program. This program helps the students to improve their English skill. Through this school the researcher hopes that she can see how the objectives learning English and the influence of native teacher involve in. Based on the conditions above, the researcher is interested in studying the correlation between students’ motivation and their English learning achievement.

B. The Identification of the Study

Dokumen yang terkait

The Relationship Between Students' Reading Habit and Their Reading Comprehension (A Correlational Study at Second Grade Students of SMA Dua Mei Ciputat

6 57 80

The Correlation between students' motivation and their English listening achievement : (correlational study at eleventh grade of SMAN 3 Tegal)

0 7 53

The Correlation Between Students’ Motivation In Learning Speaking And Their Speaking Ability (A Correlational Study In The Second Grade Of Sma Darussalam Ciputat)

4 35 82

The Correlation between the students' learning motivation and their achievement in english: a correlational study in the eight class of MTs Al-Hamidiyyah

1 6 73

The relationship between students’ learning style and their achievement in listening skill (a correlational research at the first grade of the SMAN 01 Pamijahan Bogor)

0 16 86

The Relationship between Students’ Motivation and Their English Learning Achievement (A Correlational Study at the Second Grade of SMAN 3 TANGSEL)

4 42 71

The relationship between students’ anxiety and their english reading comprehension: a correlational study at the eighth grade students of SMP Islamiyah Ciputat

0 8 78

The Relationship between Students' Reading Motivation in English and Their Reading Achievement (A Correlational Study at Ninth Grade of SMP Islam Al-Hasanah)

1 12 86

The Correlation between Students' Motivation and Their English Learning Achievement

0 3 73

The Relationship between parents' involvement and student's English learning achievement

1 7 106