Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the writer would like to discuss the background of the study, problem formulation, problem limitation, objectives of the study, benefits of the study, and definition of terms that are employed in this study.

A. Background of the Study

In this globalization era, people are demanded to communicate with other people throughout the world using international languages. English is the most widespread language among other international languages and it makes learning English very important. There are four skills that must be acquired in learning English as a second or foreign language; they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Writing is considered as an important skill in language learning since writing skill is needed in many fields. People need to write invitation letters, application letters, work contracts, papers, essays, and many others. Moreover, communication nowadays is often done in written form, such as fax and e-mail. Based on the details above, writing needs to be mastered well in order to communicate successfully. Dealing with the need for successful communication, Indonesian government now applies KTSP Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan, in which it gives autonomy to every school in every level of education to construct its own curriculum, including vocational schools. In fact, almost every school puts an emphasis on communicative competence as the main point of learning English at 2 school. In vocational schools, the students are expected to be able to communicate in English on novice level for the first grade students, on elementary level for the second grade students, and on intermediate level for the third grade students Syam, 2006: 2-3. Unfortunately, the students’ performance in communication using the target language, especially in written, is still far from the expectation. Many students say that writing is a difficult subject to learn. Tribble 1996: 3 agrees that “…writing is a language skill which is difficult to acquire.” Moreover, Nunan 1999: 271 states similar opinion, “in terms of skills, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in language.” Many students find it difficult to express their ideas in written language. They do not know how to write what they want to say and even they have no idea about what they will write. Furthermore, they have to deal with some elements to be covered in writing such as grammar, diction, spelling, and punctuation. Those problems make writing become a difficult skill. From the writer’s experience in her teaching practice PPL II in SMK BOPKRI I Yogyakarta, the students especially in the second grade also faced those problems. Moreover, they did not have any handbook to study and many of the existing books were too difficult for them. Because of that, they had no chance to develop their writing ability. As a consequence, they needed tasks to develop their writing skill. It was believed that the tasks given will also motivate them to learn. It is also said by Richards and Rodgers 2001: 229 that “tasks are also said to improve learner motivation and therefore promote learning.” Some tasks with guided writing were good for them with the topics related to their daily life or PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 3 experiences. The model given by the teacher would help them to express their thought and ideas. Richards and Renandya 2002: 319 agree that “teachers should model the writing process at every stage and teach specific writing strategies to students through meaningful classroom activities.” Based on the facts that writing is an important but difficult skill and that the students, unfortunately, did not have any handbook, the writer thinks that it is necessary to design materials to teach writing. In this study, the writer intends to design instructional writing materials using Task-Based Language Teaching for SMK BOPKRI I Yogyakarta. Those materials, hopefully, enable the students to develop their writing ability through many tasks given so that they can communicate through written language well.

B. Problem Formulation