Background of Study INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Today, the focus in conventional modern language teaching has been on the language itself, it is proposed that the first priority has to be given to the purposes that language serves, that is to say, communication. 1 Furthermore, today communication becomes base of social interaction, which people use it not only to understand another but also to survive in largely modern society. To do so, language is the only thing they need. Coming from the importance o f language for human’s life, it appears a question, what kind of language should people use when they meet people from different countries in some occasion?. Toward this question, most people ’s answer is English. English language has acknowledged as one of widely-used languages for people in order to be able to communicate with others from different countries. As an international language, it is also considered as an importance language to be learned. Therefore, at present most people around the world in all ages learning to speak English with several reasons, someone learn it because they have to pass their examination and go abroad, while the others learn it for proficiency. Whatever their reason for learning, sometimes it is tempted to see all as being the same, to be able to speak in English solely. 1 Keith Jonhson Keith Morrow, Ed. Functional Materials and the Classroom Teacher; Some Background Issues, London: Modern English Publication, 1983, p.7 Dealing with cases mentioned above, linguists through their researches for centuries have sought many ways of how to teach English effectively. Such approaches and methods are implemented to obtain the goal of language teaching itself. It refers to what Hymes reveals about the goal of language teaching is to develop „communicative competence’. Communicative competence here is defined as what “speaker needs to know in order to be communicatively competent in a speech community ” 2 . By all means, knowing words and sentences are not enough for students, but so all other languages ’ element of linguistics appropriately spoken language. Furthermore, recent trends in English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language ESLEFL curriculum design and pedagogy have stressed on the importance of teaching communicative strategies and of teaching the functional use of language 3 that the goal of teaching and learning English is to be well in communication. Therefore, of all the four skills listening, speaking, reading, and writing, speaking seems intuitively the most important: people who know a language are referred to as „speakers’ of that language 4 . Because of this reason, often parents undoubtedly spend amount of their money only to ensure that their children have gotten a good English program. In teaching and learning process basically, English teachers have begun attempting to teach foreign languages in a way that was more similar to first language acquisition. However, in fact their endeavor seems completely difficult to encourage students to speak English. Feeling awkward to always say things in English sometimes attack students that it becomes problem toward English teaching. In addition, “when attempting to speak, learners must muster their thoughts and encode those ideas in the vocabulary and syntactic structures of the 2 Jack C. Richards and Theodore S. Rodgers, Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching A Description and Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 p. 69. 3 Bruce Tillit and Mary Newton Bruder, Speaking Naturally; Communication Skills in American English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985 p. vii 4 Penny Ur, A Course in language Teaching Practice and theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 p.120 target language ” 5 . Therefore, it brings about uncomfortable to use the target language toward students eventually. To deal with this case, the teacher is challenged to be as creative as possible to provide opportunities for students to expose and to reinforce students’ speaking skill. To encourage students to practice their English, some English teachers sometimes utilize games, role plays, dramas and other activities, by which students learn English with pleasant without any frustration. Such those activities may help students to always expose their ability to produce sentences and to use appropriate expressions based on the situation created by the teacher in the classroom. It usually makes students enthusiast, moreover when the teacher gets them to participate the activity that it challenges them to compete with other students. It not only makes students attempt to be the best from others, but also be a chance for them to attaint scores through given feedback. Unfortunately, such those activities are rarely conducted at first grade of MTs. Manaratul Islam, Cilandak. The English teacher teaches English by using traditional and monotonous strategy in which she reads loudly a dialogue that has been written on the students’ textbook in the front of the class as well as writes the meaning of the dialogue. After reading it, she instructs students to repeat after her till the overall dialogue is read. To measure students understanding of the lesson, the teacher asks student to practice the dialogue in pairs by using the textbook. The teacher seldom asks students whether they are really understand the use of those expressions. On the other hand, students ’ activities in the classroom only reading a dialogue, write its meaning based on what teacher is saying, and then practicing it in the front of the class with their friend without knowing when they have to use the expression in real situation. Hence, when they are asked by someone else about things by using expression they have never read or memorized before, they will be speechless. For example; when they are asked about their identity, what is your name, where are you from, how old are you. They will say “my name is …, I come from …, I am a 5 Kathleen M. Bailey and Lance Savage, Ed. New Ways in Teaching Speaking, Bloomington: Pantagraph, 1994, p. vii student”. Both question and answer are not coherent how old are you = I am a student, this is because what students know in their lesson is “I am a student” always comes after “I come from …”, the other examples are when students are asked by using the word “Hi, how are you this morning”, they will say “good morning miss…”. This strategy textbook based-learning completely cannot help student expand their knowledge in spoken language. And it is possibly become an ongoing problem for students when they come into the higher level. This strategy also causes other problems such as; firstly, in Indonesia English is as a foreign language, which it brings about students feeling better to use their first language that is IndonesianBahasa. Moreover, limited vocabulary makes students difficult to say anything in the classroom. Therefore, the only thing they do is keeping silent. Secondly, students’ feel bored because the teacher always uses the same strategy. Finally, student’s unable to speak English correctly. Based on the problem above, as for the writer, it is very important to seek the way to overcome students’ problem and figure out the difficulty they face in speaking skill. Therefore, a research is carried out to analyze and to find the overcom ing of students’ problem. In this case, the students’ of VII.B are chosen as the subject of the study, because they are considered as the lowest in speaking skill than the other classes based on the interview toward the English teacher as well as the students. Here, the writer tries to propose a strategy in teaching English especially teaching speaking namely “communication game”. Communication game is a set of games which it is designed to provoke students’ communication in the classroom. On these games also includes information gaps that demands students to talk with others to find the similarities or differences among different pictures and etc. These games not only encourage student to be actively participated in the activities occur in the classroom, but also enhance their confidence to talk with their friends. As it is stated by Henner- Stanchina and Riley 1978 that in Communicative Language Teaching CLT “…students are expected to interact primarily with each other rather than with the teacher” 6 , and “it is very important for learners to feel comfortable with each other and confident in themselves ….” 7 From those statements above, the writer would like to conduct a research to improve students’ speaking ability by using games that provoke them to be as communicative as possible under the title “Improving Students Speaking Ability through Communication Games A Classroom Action Research at First Grade of MTs. Manaratul Islam Cilandak ”

B. Limitation and Formulation of Study