CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A.

Background of the problem English has been taught as a foreign language and this is one of the essential lessons that are taught at schools or educational institutions in Indonesia. It has been taught in elementary schools, junior high schools, senior high schools, and vocational high schools. The teaching and learning of English is aimed at the mastery of the language components and language skills. The language components are spelling, pronunciation, and structure. In addition, the language skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The English teaching emphasizes the four language skills taught while the language components are taught to support the language skills. The objective of English teaching and learning is to enable students to do English communication in both oral and written forms. The students should learn and master English in a good pattern to understand many materials that are written in English to face the globalization and information era. Therefore, English teaching and learning processes in junior high schools is to make the students have a high interest to study English. They are also expected to learn and develop the four aspects of language skills. According to Harmer (2004: 34), teaching writing for writing is entirely different, however, since our. It requires mastery not only of grammatical and

rhetorical devices but also conceptual and judgment elements. It is for those reasons that there is no guarantee that people who can speak actively and fluently are capable to write. In those four skills, there is no doubt that writing is the most difficult skill than the others. If we want to be a good writer, we should have high cognitive capability, broader knowledge, and the writers sensitivity. Writing is an important skill. In todays society, the act of writing is embedded in every aspect of our lives. The ability to write regularly gives one the power and opportunity to share and influence thoughts, ideas, and opinions with others, not only in day-to-day situations, but across time and space. Writing is also a lifelong skill that every student needs to communicate effectively. Writing is not just a product; it is a process as well. There must be some processes to make a good product. The students need to able to produce a text in regard to content, organization, vocabulary, grammatical, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation. Based on the observation of SMP N 1 Kalasan and the interview with English teacher, there are many problems in English learning processes. The students motivation in learning English is low. Then, they find difficulties when they arrange the words to become sentences and have difficulties to find the idea what they should do when they write. There are still many grammatical errors and mechanical errors when they write. They also find difficulties to communicate in the English written form. Besides those problems, the teachers do not use the media variously; they only use the lecturing method with the

blackboard as the conventional media. Whereas, the use of media is needed in the teaching and learning of English to the junior high school students. Teaching media are instructional media which support and make interesting in the teaching and learning process in the class. In addition, the use of the media can help teachers in teaching the materials and accelerating the achievement of learning objectives. Picture series is a number of pictures that contain the sequences of events and interrelated with each other. The use of picture series to teach writing could help the students to create a good writing composition, since the pictures can stimulate them to produce and expand their ideas. Giving picture series as one of techniques of in the writing teaching and learning is defined as two-dimensional visual representation of persons, places, and things. This writing technique of writing had a great advantage in teaching and learning processes. By using picture series, the teacher will not waste the time. Picture series also encourage and motivate the students to write and they will get meaningful interpretation easily. It can also plant knowledge in the students mind, retain idea longer, and draw the students interest. Moreover, this technique is relatively cheap and easy to manage. Based on the explanation above, the researcher chooses The Effect of Picture Series on the Writing Ability of Grade Eight Students of SMP N 1 Kalasan, Yogyakarta of Academic Year 2010/2011 as the title of the thesis.

B. Identification of Problem The process of teaching and learning English writing is not a simple thing. There are many factors which influence the success of the teaching and learning process. Those factors can come from the English teacher, the students, and the media used in the teaching and learning process. Particularly in teaching and learning English writing, it needs special attention from the teachers. A creative and innovative teacher is really needed to make the writing teaching and learning process interesting. Like other language skills in the teaching and learning process, there are some factors which also influence the success of writing teaching and learning. If those factors are neglected, the goals of writing teaching and learning cannot be reached. Factors which are related to writing teaching and learning are the English teacher, the students, the media and resources, and the technique. Here are some factors related to the problems of writing teaching and learning process in the eighth grade of SMP N 1 Kalasan, Yogyakarta. 1. The teacher Based on Harmer (2001: 57), one of the teachers roles is as an organizer. It means that the teacher has to organize students to do various writing learning activities. The English teacher of the eighth grade students always advised the students to learn English writing and asks them to try to find the difficult words in an English dictionary. Unfortunately, the efforts that the teacher does make the students do not enjoy learning writing.

Besides that, the traditional method of teaching that the teacher used made the students unmotivated to learn English writing seriously. In teaching writing the teacher did not use interesting media. She said that several years ago she used to use game and media to teach English in the classroom, but she did not do that anymore because that made her tired as she taught six classes every day. The activities made the students bored because they always did the same things when they did learning English writing. 2. The students The second factors come from the students. The students already had opinion that English writing was so difficult to do and it was not easy to arrange the words to become good sentences. They find difficulties to get the idea. Moreover English words are different from those of Indonesian. This usually makes them not interested to learn writing. The students did not have high motivation to learn either that the students did not have any effort to enrich their writing ability. In writing, they still get difficulties in finding and expressing idea, grammar and vocabulary. As a result, their writing abilities are in poor condition. 3. The media and source The next factor is related to the media used in the teaching and learning process, particularly in teaching and learning writing process. In the teaching and learning process, the teacher used uninteresting media to help her explain the lesson to the students. It also happened in the writing

teaching. The uninteresting media that is used in teaching and learning writing process is uncoloured and unclear pictures. These made the students less interest to imagine their idea. Then, as the sources to teach writing the teacher only used a course book provided by the school and the students only used the course book lent by the school. It means that the sources of teaching and learning writing are limited. 4. Methods A good method is a method which provides the students a lot of opportunities to be involved actively in the teaching and learning process. The teacher used the traditional method of teaching. In teaching writing the teacher used the uninteresting and uncoloured picture as media. The teacher also did not give a lot of opportunity to the students to involve the teaching and learning process actively. The teachers method that used makes the students unmotivated to learn English writing seriously. These made the students felt bored because they always did the same things when they were learning English writing. 5. Motivation Motivation is one important element in doing activities. Of doing things can be used as a motivational incentive. Motivation is needed in understanding the lessons in teaching and learning activities, so the achievement will be optimized. The more appropriate motivation given by

teachers will make teaching and learning activities more successful. Motivation will always determine the intensity of learning to the students. However, there were many students who still have low enthusiasm to learn English, especially in the teaching and learning writing process, so it gave impact to the students writing abilities. As a result, their writing abilities are in poor conditions.

C. Delimitation of Problem In reference to the identification of the problem above, it is impossible for the researcher to do the research on all factors influencing the teaching and learning process of writing. In this study, the researcher limits the problem which focuses on using picture series as media in English teaching and learning processes to increase their English writing abilities. In addition, because of the writers limitation of time and ability, the writer took only the eighth grade students of SMP N 1 Kalasan as the subject of the study with the consideration that they are subjects of the new method that is teaching writing using picture series. Picture series could help the students to create a good composition, since the pictures can stimulate them to produce and expand their ideas. Giving picture series as one of writing teaching and learning was defined as two dimensional visual representation of persons, places, and things.

D. Formulation of Problem The problems can be formulated into the following questions: 1. What are the achievement scores of the students of SMP N I Kalasan who are taught by using picture series in English learning like? 2. What are the achievement scores of the students of SMP N I Kalasan who are taught without picture series in English learning like? 3. Is there a significant difference in the writing ability between students who are taught by using picture series and those who are taught without using picture series as media?

E. Objectives of the Research In line with the formulation of the problem above, the objectives of the study can be described as follows: 1. To describe the achievement scores of the students of SMP N I Kalasan who are taught by using picture series in English learning. 2. To describe the achievement scores of the students of SMP N I Kalasan who are taught without picture series in English learning. 3. To predict the difference in the writing ability between students who are taught by using picture series and those who are taught without using picture series as media.

F. Significance of the Research

The results of the study are expected to be useful for interested people from different points of view as follows: 1. Theoretical Significance For the science, the findings of the research are expected to add knowledge about the use of picture series as developing media in English teaching and learning. 2. Practical Significance a. For the teachers, the findings of the research are expected to give information about the use of picture series as media to increase students writing ability. b. For the students, the findings of the research are expected to motivate, interest, and increase the students in learning English writing. 3. Research and development program a. For the researcher herself, the findings of the research are expected to find, plan, implement, and evaluate problems related to the process of teaching and learning. b. For other researchers, the findings of the research are expected to motivate the researchers to conduct further research in order to improve the quality of English teaching and learning. c. For the development program, the findings of the research are expected to be useful for developing various media in English

teaching and learning.