Background of the study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

Language is important thing in life. Language is used by people as means of communication. Because without language, people cannot express their feeling and showing their purposes, thoughts and minds to other people. As stated by Brown 2000: 5 Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously, without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently. Communication is very crucial among human beings in social life. People cannot avoid involving themselves in the society. They will naturally contact with others when they want to convey their feelings, ideas and wants. It happens almost every day and complex communication activities exist among countries. Each country has to make a good relationship or to cooperate with others. Certainly, language has an important role especially English as an international language. This is in line with what Harris states that: The word becomes more and more interconnected by trade, medical, political, and cultural demand. Consequently, there is a strong movement throughout the world toward greater communication across cultures, and the English language cannot avoid having a major role to play in this process Harris, 1975: 6 English is one of several languages that are considered as important language. Learning English is important because it is an international language for 1 2 most people in the world. Indonesia as developing country has been gipving English to children starting from play group or kindergarten. Students as learners have different ability in learning and mastering English. To measure learners’ achievement, it is useful for teacher to conduct a test or examination. According to Tinambunan 1988:2 Measurement is process of assigning number to individual or their characteristic according to their specific rules. Test is a set of question, each of which has a correct answer that examines usually answer orally or writing. Evaluation is the systematic process of collecting, analyzing and interpreting are achieving instructional objectives. The important part of every teaching and learning experience is testing. A good test of English can help students in creating positive attitudes toward instruction by giving students a sense of a accomplishment a feeling that the material given and taught by the teacher is matching with the evaluation that the teacher give. English also help the student learn the language by requiring them to study hard, emphasizing course objectives, and showing them where they need to improve Madsen, 1983:3-5. Cognitive Bloom’s Taxonomy has been accepted since the 1950s as a valuable tool for classifying skills in education. Benjamin Bloom created this taxonomy for settings. The taxonomy provides a useful structure in which to categorize test questions, since professors will characteristically ask questions within particular levels. By using this, it can help the student to determine the levels of questions that will appear on the exams, so the student will be able to study using appropriate strategies. 3

1.2 Reasons for choosing the topic