chapter i katanya (2)

7/28/2019 Chapter i Katanya (2)

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter consists of background, problem statement, objective,

significance, and scope of the research.

A. Background

Writing is one of the productive skills. It is a language skill that is

essential to academic success. Pincas (1987) says that writing could not be

separated from human life. It is an instrument of both communication and self

expression. There are several reasons why people learn writing. It is used to

communicate with other people in society and also to express feeling, ideas,

opinion, and knowledge.

Writing well is not just an option for English learners. It is a predictor of

academic succes and basic requirements for participation in civic life and in the

global economy (Silvernail, 2002). Writing improves a persons ability to think

concisely and clearly. Students learn to organize their ideas in a cohesive and

flowing manner.

Unfortunately, writing is not an easy skill. Writing is admitted as the most

complete skill that learners over do either in foreign language or in their native

language. This is supported by Nuraida (1992:1). She stated that in learning

English, the foreign language learners often find it difficult in writing a text. They

often make errors in the choice of tense, errors in the verb form, errors in noun or

pronoun form, and sometimes they realize these errors but they cannot correct


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them. Furthermore, Sarathon (1997) also stated that whether we speak or write,

we must arrange our words in certain pattern if we want to be understood. By

analyzing the structure of word and sentence, linguistics can begin to discuss the

speakers or writers who are trying to communicate and how they do so.

The result of the research done by Basiru (2008) shows that in learning

English, most of the students find difficulties in applying grammar, especially in

speaking and writing. It describes that the students ability in applying grammar is

still poor and they need to be taught more effectively. The learners often make

mistakes in learning English, especially when they try to arrange sentence or to

use English tense especially in written English form.

There are various ways to organize the sentences in a piece of writing. One

of them is recount text. Recount text is the form of text that aims at retelling

events for the purpose of informing or entertaining. In the recount text, the

sentences are usually organized according to time order or chronological order.

One thing happens and then another thing happens, and the events are told in the

same order. The lexicogrammatical features of recount are focus on specific

participants, use of past tense, use of material processes, circumstances of time

and place, and focus on temporal sequence.

In composing a good writing, it is not only for grammar in general but also

tenses as well. Tenses play a very important role and one of the important things

in constructing English sentence. Without using good tenses, our speech and

writing will not be understood by the people. In English, a sentence always

contains a tense. Without knowing English tenses, we will never master English


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language correctly. According to Badulu (1997:7), tense is a verb form or a verb

phrase used to express a time relationship. Peck (1984:55) found that tenses are

basically past, present, and future.

According to the definition above, the writer concludes that tense has a

very important role in English language. It is difficult for the students if they have

not known it in making English sentence, especially in making a recount text. In

this research, the writer chose past tense form because recount text uses the past

tense on its structure.

Based on the explanation above, the researcher puts interest on conducting

a research under the title The Correlation between Students Mastery of Past

Tense Form and Their Achievement in Writing Recount Text.

B. Problem Statement

The problem statement of this research is based on the researchers

experience in writing class. Most of the students in the classroom failed to make a

correct recount text. The problem was that they were using simple present tense

instead of using past tense on their writing. Furthermore, when given a task on

composing a recount text, they seem to compose a text in a wrong grammatical

order. Based on this, the researcher formulates one research question which is:

Is there any significant correlation between the students mastery of past

tense form and their achievement in writing recount text?


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C. Objective of the Research

Based on the problem statement that has been stated above, this research

aims to find out the significant correlation between students mastery of past tense

and their achievement in writing recount text.

D. The Significance of the Research

The results of the research are expected to have practical and theoretical

contributions. In term of practical significance, the result of this research is

expected to provide a helpful contribution as references for teaching and learning

process in order to increase students achievement, especially in writing recount

text. The result of this research is expected to be a contribution and

recommendation for English teacher in order to achieve the objective of teaching

writing recount text itself. It is also expected to provide useful information for the

students in order to consider the importance of the mastery of past tense that can

influence their achievement in writing a recount text.

As for theoretical significance, the result of this research is expected to be

an additional guide or reference for the later researchers who want to conduct a

research about the same issue in the future.

E. The Scope of the Research

This research is under discipline of Applied Linguistic. By content, this

research concerns on the students mastery of past tense and their achievement in

writing recount text in term to examine the correlation between those two


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variables. The writing achievement in this research is limited to one of five

components in writing by Jacobs (1981), which is language use. The reason of

this limitation is itsbased on the element of language uses itself which involves

correct language and point of grammar. By activities, the students will be asked to

work on the past tense test in form of multiple choices and to compose a writing

recount text. Essentially, the research is limited to the correlation between the

students mastery of past tense and their achievement in writing recount text.

chapter i katanya (2)

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