Muhammad Abdu Sabur Wicaksono Bab I

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of Study Communication is an important thing in human society. It involves

  oral and written activity. Communication in human society is primarily considered as an oral activity. Meanwhile, written activity is regarded as merely a means of recording something that has been spoken or that has been said. Nunan (1991:6) points out that writing can be stated as an extremely complex cognitive activity that requires the writer to control several variables at one. It implies that writing includes several elements such as grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, cohesion, and so on. In the teaching learning process, writing is the one of main skills that is taught as the centre of learning language. Allyn (2001:1) states that writing helps kids develop critical thinking skills. It helps them understand and communicate complicated ideas. Writing also leads to guaranteed improvement in academic achievement. It means that the mastery of writing is very useful for enhancing students’ achievement.

  In the classroom writing activity, one of the goals of learning is to make the students able to write in a good way. One of the factors that influences students

  ’ writing ability is reading. Reading is a dynamic, complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning. It involves the bringing of meaning to and the getting of meaning from the printed page. According to Yalle (2011: 1), reading

  1 affects writing and writing affects reading. Meanwhile, According to recommendations from the major English/Language Arts professional organizations, reading instruction is most effective when intertwined with writing instruction and vice versa. Research has found that when children read extensively they become better writers. Reading a variety of genres helps children learn text structures and language that they can then transfer to their own writing. In addition, reading provides young people with prior knowledge that they can use in their stories.

  In order to reach a goal of learning objective, the teacher should make the students interested in reading. Then, reading interest can be said that as a arising situation as a result of students in themselves a strong desire to perform reading activities. Furthermore, to make a good writing and understandable, the writer should have knowledge about what they want to write. It means that students must know deeply the knowledge of their idea when they want to write. Kartono (1985: 3) says that if the students have strong interest in learning a subject, they will of course pay close to attention to that subject. In addition, Suharyati (2004: 2) states that interest can influence learning process. When a people are learning something with their interest feeling, the result is better than people who are learning without feeling interest. When they want to write in English language, interested in reading English book will make them have more knowledge about their writing idea.

  For strengthening the arguments that there is a deep relationship between reading interest and writing ability, the writer present some researches that have resemble topic of research. Koons (2008: 88) has done a research about reading and writing connection entitled The Reading

• – Writing Connection: an investigation of the relationship between reading ability and writing ability discourse modes. The research concluded that there is a strong relationship between reading ability and writing quality. It can be said that reading ability will affect the students writing ability. Besides, Culp and Spann (1990: 3) conclude based on their research about reading and writing correlation that the relationship of writing and reading does exist. Furthermore, Ito (2011: 27) in her research about reading- writing correlation of L2 Students in Japanese EFL high school students concluded that reading skill cause the improvements of writing quality. From those reasons and research findings, it can be seen clearly that there is a correlation between reading and writing ability.

  Based on the pre observation toward subject of study, it was found, the most of students have low ability in writing. The indicator can be seen from the result of students’ score in writing subject. They still lack competence in organizing language, expanding the idea, arranging good sentences and use of academic vocabulary. The low ability can be indentified from the results in doing tasks of writing in the third semester subject. From the result of the task, scores of their writing are still far from the objective goals. The most problem of the weakness is in generating idea. Presumptive that indication, the writer conducted an interview with some of students subject their reading interest. As a result, some of the students are not interested in reading. Some of them admitted that they like reading novel but in Indonesian language. Only few of them feel interested in reading English book.

  From those arguments and reality fact of students conditions about their writing ability and reading interest, the writer tend to do the research related to the correlation between students reading interest of English book and their writing skill. In addition, there is no research dealing correlation between reading and writing ability in English Departement of Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto especially that took the third semester students.

B. Reason For Choosing The Topic

  There are some reasons why the writer chooses the topic:

  1. It was said that learning of writing and reading is influenced by an interest

  2. There was finding that the students’ writing ability correlates with their reading interest. It needed more proof

  3. From the pre observation to the subject of research, it was indicated that the interest in reading was low. Based on the fact, it could be predicted that their writing ability would also be low. This assumption needed a proved to know the real fact of their ability using scientific research.

  4. The prediction required to be proved C.

   Problem of Research

  The problem of research is: ―Is there any correlation between students’ reading interest of English book and writing ability of third semester students of Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto academic year 2012/2013?‖

  D. Aim of Study

  The aim of the research is: To find out a significant correlation between students reading interest of English book and writing ability of third semester students of Muhammadiyah University of Purwokerto academic year 2012/2013.

  E. Clarification of Term 1. Writing ability

  Writing can be defined by a series of contrast, it is both physical and a mental act, the purpose is both to express and impress, and it is both a process and a product, (Nunan, 2003: 88).

2. Reading Interest

  "The interest is a preferred taste and interest in a matter or activity, without being told". Interest is essentially the acceptance of a relationship between person with something outside themselves. The stronger or closer the relationship the greater of the interest will be, Slamento (2003: 180). In addition, students’ reading interest can be defined as a situation arising as a result of students in themselves a strong desire to perform reading activities.

F. Contribution of Study

  1. Pedagogy The information of the correlation between students’ reading interest of English book and writing ability is important as an input for the teacher of writing to design writing practices better by taking into account the topic and content of English book they read. It is also useful for reading teacher when they decide the exercise following the passage to be read.

  2. Curriculum For the curriculum designer, it is also important to know the correlation, in order that they can decide what content of material to be developed and what source of learning that are relevant and used in both subject.

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