CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Communication is needed in human life. Language is important to communicate. Language consists of four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Speaking is one of language skills that are very important in the language competence and in building a good communication. Language is an instrument of
control as well as of communication Hodge and Kress, 1993:6. People can transfer information or message and express their ideas with language. Language
is also used to realize every person’s hopes, aspiration, and thinking. Language can serve the human needs in their communication in any situation. One of the
functions of English as an international language is English has an important role in all sectors, especially in education. In education English language is learned by
the students to increase higher level in learning English. To communicate well, students must have good capabilities in speaking.
Some strategies should be made to enhance the student’s success. The learning
strategies of English in senior high school should be supported by qualified the learning strategies used by the students, the readiness of the students, and suitable
teaching equipment. In fact, not all teaching is always supported by qualified teachers, not all students are ready to learn the materials, and not all schools have
complete equipment or not appropriate with the materials. Nowadays, several senior high of school English students might have good learning strategies.
1
However, they can get successful result if the language they used good strategies or learning techniques, and the knowledge of classroom management that support
them. Speaking practice is probably the most reliable route to true
communication in developing the learner’s proficiency. The speaking ability at the students of Senior High School can be considered still poor because they do
not know how to express their feeling and ideas in speaking, conversation, and discussion. They feel that speaking is the hardest skill in English learning. English
learning strategies are an intentional behavior and thought used by the learner during learning English to help them understand, learn and remember new
information. Learning strategies are procedures undertaken by the learner, in order to make their own language learning as effective as possible. O’Malley and
Chamot 1998:89-90 state focusing in selected aspects of new information, analyzing, and monitoring information during the encoding process, evaluating,
the learning when it is completed, or assuring oneself that the learning will be successful as a way to allay anxiety.
In learning English, the students have various strategies. They will apply their own strategies to master it. The differences of the learning strategy show that
there are many different levels of learning difficulties of each personal. Learning strategies are the mental process which learner’s employ to learn and use the
target language Nunan I99I in Azies and Wasilah 2000:33. The final test of students’ English speaking skill that was held in
20072008 academic year in SMA N 1 Colomadu shows that S1 gets the highest
mark in speaking English. S2 has a middle mark and S3 has the lowest mark.
Most of the mistakes are on the pronunciations. The mistakes of S2 speaking skill a
re on the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. The mistakes of S3 speaking
skill are on the pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and intonation.
Based on the background above, the writer is interested in writing a research paper concerning the learning strategies used by the three students in
speaking. The title of this research is “THE STUDENTS’ LEARNING STRATEGIES IN DEVELOPING THEIR SPEAKING SKILL: A CASE
STUDY ON THE FIRST YEAR STUDENT’S OF SMA N 1 COLOMADU”.
B. Limitation of the Study
Kategori