The Background of Research

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of Research

English is, of course, only one of the many languages, perhaps as many as three thousand, which are spoken today. 1 As an international language, it has an important role in the world. English is spoken almost by all people around the world as their mother tongue or second language. In Indonesia, English is studied and becomes one of the subject matters taught at school. Since 1994, English has been decided as one of the local-content subject at the elementary school in the fourth, fifth and sixth year. 2 It is considered as the first foreign language and becomes a compulsory subject learned by students from the elementary school up to the university. 3 Learning English is mastering the four basic skills of English, namely: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The last basic skill writing is considered as the most difficult one, because it needs hard thinking and takes many years of extensive study to write correctly. Writing is not such a simple process, even professional writers write, rewrite, review and revise because it takes 1 W. Nelson Francis, The English Language An Introduction, New York: W.W Norton Company. NC, 1965, p.1 2 Anonymous, Kurikulum Muatan Lokal untuk Sekolah Dasar, Jakarta: Depdikbud, 1994, p.30 3 Anonymous, Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris Perlu Diperbarui, Kedaulatan Rakyat , http:222.124.164.132webdetail.php?sid=159835actmenu=38. Accessed on June 13, 2008. many attempts to produce the perfect, finished copy that clearly communicates their ideas. 4 Most of schools emphasize grammar and speaking skill in teaching English but it was rarely to teach the class writing skill. Generally, the students are demanded to understand and memorize the formulas of structure or grammar but they cannot apply them in writing. This becomes one of problems in writing. Some students may have high score in grammar but they cannot use it in writing. In fact, writing is also important in the process of language learning. Through writing, the students learn how to think and use their imaginations, they can write their ideas, opinions and whatever they want without interfering with others. Writing skill is very complex and difficult to teach. In writing, students often find some difficulties. Many of them have no idea to write. Even tough most of students commonly make mistakes, but they are logically acceptable. In this research, writer tries to analyze the use of grammar by learners of English as foreign language. Specifically, this is to identify the errors in the use of verb ‘be’ and ‘have’ made by students of “MTs. Nurul Amal”, Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. The verb ‘be’ and ‘have’ usually come up to the students from the very beginning of the lesson. Students in the beginning level have usually got used to make use of this material since the verb ‘be’ and ‘have’ is quite dominant in the early stage of sentence constructions. 4 Alice Oshima and Ann Hogue, Introduction to Academic Writing, New York: Addison - Wesley Publishing Company. Inc, 1988, p.88 The students of MTs Nurul Amal have difficulties in producing a grammatically correct sentence, especially in verb be and have, because the verb be and have are not found in the students mother tongue Indonesian, and it is different from Indonesian verb in which tenses are not found. The most common problem of using verb ‘be’ is that students sometimes confused with the multiplicity of verb be forms and they use the wrong form of the verb ‘be’ in their writing. On the other hand, the most common problem in the use of verb ‘have’ is that students have a tendency to use verb ‘have’ for both ‘has’ and ‘have’. Considering the benefit of errors recognition as a mean of improving students’ comprehension to the language, the writer intends to carry out a discussion on error analysis in the use of the verb ‘be’ and ‘have’.

B. The Limitation of Problem