Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Nowadays, it is acknowledged that English is one of the well known languages in the world. It has become the most widely studied foreign language on the earth. 1 English language is an international language that is mostly utilized by the word society to get interracial interaction and communication. One of the importhant thing for prefaring in that comunication is mastering the internasional language, English, whether it is in written form or in spoken form. As an internasional language, English is spoken by most of the people all over the world. It is getting more important. Many countries use English to communicate and convey message or idea to others. One of the the language which is taught in the school of our country is English language. English is one of the internasional language that have an important role in the world. It is widely studied and used as a tool of communication among people all over the world. English becomes one of the important subject matter taught at school. In Indonesi,a English is considered at the first foreign language and becomes compulsary subject learned by all the student from the elemtery up to university level. 1 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in language Teaching, New York: Cambridge University press,1980 2 The students study English In the school or in the Course, they expect to learn some abilities, such as ability to listen of English sound, the ability to read and understand English Book, the ability to speak English, and ability to write English. Those are Abilities of “Language skills” Listening, Speaking, reading and Writing. Beside the four skills, the students have to master language components. One of the language components is grammar and its components are such as morphology, syntax and so on. Grammar is also needed even in the communication because it can avoid misunderstanding. By mastering grammar, it is hoped that heshe can share the information and be more confident to express the idea when heshe do the communication with other people. If heshe is good in saying the words heshe will understand about the things that heshe wants to share. The effective communication would be seriously impaired without the ability to use grammar in a variety situation. The more someone can master the grammar, the more he or she proves that he or she is capable in English. Grammar is an important element to be learned in learning a language because it is used to understand the language. Language without grammar can cause confusion in comprehending the ideas, opinions, feelings of the person who expresses oral or written. English person who is good at grammar can communicate with language better than person that is low at grammar. Grammar is one of the language aspects which is taught to every language learner. It is as the basic knowledge and as important role in understandi ng the English language. “Grammar is partly the study of what forms or structures are possible in a language. Traditionally, grammar is a description of the rules that govern how language’s sentences are formed”. 2 According to As Paul Robert: “grammar is a body of generalization about how people say things”. 3 Students who learn a foreign language encounter a number of problems, especially with the grammar of the language which are complicated 2 Scott Thornburry, How to teach grammar, England: Pearson Education Limited. 1999,p.1 3. Paul Robert, Understanding grammar, …,p.15 3 and which make confusing. When the students learn English, they try to avoid the grammar because it is confusing and difficult to understand. For some students who have a lack of knowledge in grammar, of course they will get confused how many diff erent meaning of the verb “in spoken or in writtent”, why the verb in sentence must change, etc. There for to make them not confused anymore, they have to master grammar. By mastering it they will understand the rules and how the sentences are constructed. There are many aspects discussed in English grammar one of them is “modal Auxiliaries”. or “modal verb” are: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, and must. These auxiliaries add to a special semantic component such as Ability, obligation, possibility. They have special grammatical features, have more than one meaning, and also complex. Some modal change meaning in the negative must be expressed with other auxiliaries. Eventhough the modals are used only with the simple form of the verb. And here the students still have difficulties to make the sentence using auxiliaries and to decide the meaning of the modal. There are two factors that make learning difficulty. The first one is the internal factors which include physiology factors and psychology factors. And the second one is the internal factors which includes non social factors and social factors. 4 Beside factors above, here the error of the students is for example: they have no infinitive and the third person singular no’s’. The modal verbs have not only a grammatical function, but also a dictionary meaning must and can mean „be obligate to’,for example in sentence : we must study hard for English test. But in reality some student still makes mistakes and finds difficulty in identifying modal. Here are examples of wrong sentence that are often made by the student in using the form of modal. - We must to study hard for English test - He can to speak English 4 Abu Ahmadi Widodo Supriyono, Psikologi Belajar, Jakarta: PT. Rineke Cipta.1991. p,75traslated by the writer 4 - She could spoke English well, and soon In this case, the writer is interested to analyze the student’s difficulty in learning some modal auxiliaries entitled “ Analysis on students’ difficulties in learning Modal Auxiliaries ‘CAN’ and ‘COULD’ “ A case Study At the Second Year Students of Mts Muhammadiyah 1 Ciputat. It is because there are many students who still face difficulty in understanding the meaning, theory cal and the form of modal Auxiliaries. By observing the student’s difficulties, the writer tries to identify and analyze them. The writer hopes it can help the teachers in teaching and learning process.

B. Limitation of the Study