Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

In this chapter the researcher discusses about backgroud of the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the research, hypothesis, significance of the research ,scope and limitation, and also the definition of the key terms.

1.1 Background of the Study

English is the essential language in the world. Most countries use English as the communication tools. In Indonesia although English is not the first language, it is learnt from kindergarten until university. According to Tarigan 1950, in Novia 2012: 1, ‘English language skill has four components, i.e.; listening, speaking, reading, and writing skill ’. Writing is one of the four language skills that are very important to learn. Writing as one of the language skills, has given an important contribution to human work. There are so many records of recent activities that can be read. Recently, there are many new information that is transferred by using discourse or article from newspaper, magazine, and internet. It means that writing plays very important in the role in the modern society. According to Harmer 2004: 31, writing is a way to produce language and express idea, feeling, and opinion. It means writing is very important in our life. Walters 1983 in Yatimah, 2014: 1, ‘writing is the last and perhaps most difficult’. It means that writing is the most difficult of other English skills, because it needs ideas about how to write a paragraph well with good writing. However, Handayani 2013: 1, in her research said that writing is more complex and difficult to teach. It is because writing is not only about grammatical mastery, but also about how the content connects each other. Many students are unconfident in writing. Harmer 2007: 329 claims that, students are extremely unconfident and enthusiastic in writing. There may be many reasons for this, one of them is because students never use their second language in writing. Moreover, students cannot find ideas and they do not know what they want to write. So it can be said that students are less of motivation, and they practice rarely. Therefore, students often face difficulties to show their ideas in writing, and finally they are not interested in writing. Writing is an ability that needs creation from our mind. Using creative narration will make the readers enjoy in reading the writing. Such as according to Wishon 1980: 378, knowing the pattern of creative narration will help a person to read the stories easier and enjoyable. The term knowing the pattern in Wishon’ statement means that a writer has to know how to write correctly. From the explanation above, the researcher concludes that writing has an important role in human life. People must know how to write by using pen. Because writing is important, human being needs to learn how to write correctly. They can learn writing in school or other educational institution. Teachers need to help the students build their writing habit. So, they can recognize writing as a normal part of classroom practice and they can come to write task with much enthusiasm as they do in other activities. One way t o build students’ writing habit is of course, to give them interesting and enjoyable task to do in the teaching and learning process. Considering this explanation, teachers must resolve the students’ interest in writing. One of ways to solve such problem in developing writing skill is practice. In addition, the teachers need to motivate the students and also create an interesting method such as visual aids in order to make students become interested in writing class. So, they will have big enthusiasm in teaching and learning process of writing class. According to Kreidler 1965:1 visual aid can be useful to the language teacher because it: a creates situation which are outside the classroom walls b introduces the students to unfamiliar culture aspects c gives reality to what might be misunderstood verbally by the students d changes situations quickly and easily in a drill e provides decoration for the classroom Basically, teachers can use all kinds of visual aid but they must pay attention to the importance of the visual aid and which one is appropriate to the teaching and learning process. Any kinds of visual aid used by teachers have to make the students feel comfortable. Therefore, visual aid used has to be appropriate with the material taught, so the students can easily understand the lesson. According to Novia 2010 in her thesis, “The use of short video to improve the ability of second year students in writing descriptive text at SMPN 01 Kromen gan Malang”. The result of her research showed that using short video as a teaching media in teaching writing descriptive text, made students more easily to understand the material in teaching and learning process. They also felt happy in the class and interested in the material given by a teacher using that short video. Also, Handayani 2014 in her research about, “Improving writing skill of narrative text of the eleventh graders of SMA Negri 7 Malang trough animation movie”. The result of her research showed that using movie as a teaching media in writing narrative text, made students easy to understand the material well. Because, students not only heard but also saw. Her research design used a classroom action research. The differences of both two previous studies and this research are in the text, students’ grade, and also the research design. This research is conducted at narrative text at eight grade of junior high school and uses the experimental research. Based on the situation at SMPN 11 Malang, the researcher can conclude that visual aid has an important function that the teacher can use in teaching and learning process. It also gives the students an opportunity to extend their ability and explore their talent. For example, by using English songs, films, comics, and other mediums makes learning English is more fun. One of medias that can be used in teaching and learning is film especially animation film. So, the researcher chooses the title “The Effectiveness of Animation Film on Students’ Writing Ability of Narrative Text of the Eighth grade of SMPN 11 Malang”.

1.2 Statement of the Problem