CHAPTER I INTODUCTION
A. Background of Problem
In English, there are four language skills which are to be learnt, such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. In Indonesia many people think that English is difficult eventhough, teaching and learning English from elementary school until university level. Besides, it also thought in the field of informal education. English has become one of the subject matter that must be mastered by students to improve the quality of human resources. The main purpose of teaching English is to enable students to communicate and write forms, and to understand English texts. It means that everyone is expected to master and speak English well.
Among the language skills, writing is the complicated skill to learn, one in the sense that it needs a long process starting from brainstorming up to final product. This opinion is supported by Richards and Willy states that writing is the most laborious skill for foreign language learners to master.1 The trouble is not only in generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating ideas into readable text. Moreover, writing is consider as the most difficult skill because in writing they have to combine the correct grammatical and also coherence of the text.2 It can be
1 Richards, Jack C. and Willy, Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press,2002),p.303
concluded that in English, writing is not something easy to be learned by the students.
Writing belongs to productive skill that should be managed by the students in order to communicate their notions and expressions with others write form. Writing refers to a process in which activities are not produce immediately. The writer must think first about the topic, try to know the main ideas, and find some information about the text. In line with this statements Raimes states that writing is a skill in which we express the ideas, feelings, and despite writing is difficult for students and thinking arrange in word, sentences, and paragraphs using eyes, brain, and hand.”3 In addition, Tarigan states that “Writing is a language skill that uses for indirect communication. It means that the students can communicate their cerebrations, and thinking to others through writing form such us letter, message, or invitation for communication.
There are lots of English texts that have to learned by students in Senior High School level such as, report, recount, narrative, procedure, spoof, descriptive, etc. the important of teaching these texts is one of the basic competency and basic competency standards for English subjects in Senior high school is the competence that must be possessed by learners as a result of learning English is writing expressing meaning in short functional text and simple essay in the form of: recount, narrative, procedure, descriptive , news item, spoof, report, analytical
exposition, hortatory exposition, explanation, discussion, and review in the context of everyday life.4 This quotation explains that one of competences which students
should have in learning English in writing. In this level the students are require to master several types of text in English, one of them is report text.
Report text is a kind of text which is describes the way things are, with a reference to a range of natural, manmade and social phenomenon in our surrounding. It belongs to genre which is called “report text” or “information” on about something in our environment. In other word, report text is a one of the genre which is provides factual information a topic, clarifying and describing a natural and non natural phenomenon of our world. The function of report text is a text which is present information about something, as it is. Language features in report text is focus on generic participants, use relational processes to states what is and which it is, uses simple present tense, no temporal sequence. 5 It shows that report text is a text that has a structural order of language.
Gerot and Wignell who states that a report text has generic structure of report text divided two, there are classification and description.6 In addition, general classification in report text is a part tells about what phenomenon under discuss and description part tells about what phenomenon under discuss, is like term of
4 Depdiknas, Petunjuk Teknis Pengembangan Sialbus dan Contoh Model Silabus SMA/MA (Jakarta:Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan,2007)p.2
5 Sunaryo. “Teaching Writing Report Text Through Students Field Experience at Junior High School”. Journal of English Language Teaching,Vol.1 No.2 (Maret 2013),p.501.
parts, qualities, habit and behavior for living and non living things. It can be conclude, report text is to describe something more general, using in simple present tense, and consist two generic structure there are general classification and description.
Based on the preliminary research was conducted at SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung in January 2018. The researcher found that most of the students at the eleventh grade of the school had difficulty in writing ability as one of the English component especially writing report text. It can be seen from the result score of the writing report text. The students of eleventh grade of SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung were still lack authorization. Besides, the researcher interviewed the English teacher, she said the most aspect was complicated in teaching writing report text, there were generic structure, vocabulary and grammar mastery.
Furthermore, the teacher told that she did not have the media or technique to teach them. She only used dictation technique. She also said the students did not have ideas on their mind. In the other words, the students do not know what they want to write. Subsequently, the teacher just explained any material from textbooks7. It means that the students’ report text writing was still need to be fixed.
In addition, the researcher asked the teacher about the criteria of the score in writing skill. Based on criteria of Brown, the writing score of the students is poor
if the students get 45-67. Based on the data obtained by writing test from the students of eleventh grade at SMA Pangudi Luhur, as from 71 students of eleventh grade only 28 students (39.4%) got score above criteria and 43 students (60.6%) got under criteria. It indicated that most of students still faced trouble in master writing ability. It can be seen in appendix 12.
Based on an interviewed with the students at SMA Pangudi Luhur, the researcher found that most of the students were very complicated to learn English writing. The students felt confused, because the students felt difficult for getting out their ideas. Moreover, that the students told that the teacher always used one technique in every meeting. The first student said that learning English was intricate and confused. The second student stated that learning English was very bored and hard to understand, because the teacher always explained any material from textbooks, and other students had the same problems. Consequently, the students felt bored in learning English.
After interviewed the students, the researcher tried to give motivation to the students. The researcher also found some factor of students problems in teaching and learning English writing report text. The students got problem in getting ideas, the class condition less interested, the teacher’s teaching technique was less interesting and only used one technique.8 Concerning to the problems mentioned,
the researcher would like to proposed scaffolding as an alternative technique for teaching writing, especially for teaching report text.
Laksmi states that scaffolding is a technique to provide a great deal of help to the students during the early stages of learning and then the students takes over an increasingly bigger responsibility as soon as if the students can do it. 9 It means that by giving students scaffolding techniques, students can be motivated, stronger and more independent.
Scaffolding technique helps the students to engage in social interaction are the students are able to involve in the activities in which they share their knowledge and ideas to their peers. In addition scaffolding technique is an excellent technique to make students self-sufficient and can develop their thinking particularly in terms of writing. The function of scaffolding techniques is to enable teachers or lecturers to create a positive environment by providing continuous assistance to students in the form of motivation, guidance, until support is gradually reduce and students are able to take over the role. The purpose of scaffolding technique is to improved students' ability and make students confident and to develop their creativity.10
Scaffolding technique have some advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of scaffolding technique are challenging, reasonable tasks that stimulate thinking
9 Laksmi. E.D, “Scaffolding Student Writing in EFL Class”, TEFLIN Journal 17 (2)1-13 (August 2006),p.145.
and motivate efforts to learn, meaningful instruction and feedback that helps drive further development, learning environment where they are valued as individuals, a collaborative group, and a class, learning environment where their creativity and thought processes are acknowledge and accepted, engage students in social interactions to enable learning, discover unique thought processes that different students may use to solve problem, minimizes the learner's frustrations, all learners are actively involved in learning process and quality in teaching and more productivity and easy to students understand.
The disadvantages of scaffolding technique are time-consuming because requires a fairly long time, depending on an individual motivation and interest on a particular subject that are determine how well they would learn, arduous for the teacher to be sure that the groups are discussing the academic content rather than something else, and more concentration towards concluding the topics.11 It can be conclude, scaffolding technique is a good technique because it has many advantages over shortcomings.
There were several previous research that relevant to this research as follow: Yulis Yasinta about The Effectiveness of Using Scaffolding Technique towards Students’ Skill in Writing Descriptive Text of the Eight Graders of SMP Al-Zahra Jakarta in
The Academic Year of 2014/2015. The result of the research showed that there was
significant progress for the students writing descriptive by using scaffolding
technique.12 It can be proved by the difference of mean score of post test in experimental group and control group. From the data showed that the writing ability using scaffolding technique is categorized as excellent.
Ali Saukah discussed about Using Scaffolding Technique to Improve the Writing Ability of the Eleventh Graders of SMAN 5 Mataram in The Academic Year of
2012/2013. The result of the research showed by using scaffolding technique was
effective and needed in delivering material. From this technique students can explore their skill and knowledge to help each other solve the problem of the task.. This technique made students had positive and not depress during in the class. The
improvement in developing arranging paragraph, and connecting ideas of text had allowed the students to write interesting stories correctly.13
Murali Khrisna Murthi was Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Director of Faculty Development and
Instructional Design Center at Northern Illinois University discussed
about Scaffolding Technique for Improving Engineering Students’ Writing Skill. It can concluded that scaffolding gradually approach to implementing scaffold from easy to difficult concept was successful and it
12 Yulis Yasinta, The Effectivenees of Using Scaffolding Technique towards Students’ Skill in Writing Descriptive Text of the Eight Grade of SMP Al-Zahra Jakarta, 2014 (thesis) Available on Internet http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/.../1/YULIS%20%20YASINTA-FAH.pdf
(Acces On April 2018), p.42.
helped students to gain confidence in their writing skills and
increased their awareness of issues related to writing. The
scaffolding activity on citation resulted in immediate
improvement in students’ ability.14
Referring to the previous research above, there are some
differences and similarities, the differences are the purpose of the
research and kind of the text, in the previous research uses
descriptive text and this research discusses about report text.
The similarities like on technique, uses scaffolding technique.
From the explanation above, the researcher used scaffolding as an alternative technique in teaching writing especially the report text. Hopefully, by using scaffolding technique, the students’ report text would be better. The researcher interesting to conducted a research entitled: The influence of using scaffolding toward students’ report text writing ability at the first semester of the eleventh grade of SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung in the academic year of 2018/2019.
B. Identification of Problem
From the background of the problem mentioned, the researcher found the specific problems in this study were:
1. The students were very difficult to get ideas and they were still confused how to write it.
2. The teacher always explained every material from textbooks and asked the students to do exercise.
3. The teachers always used one technique in teaching learning and make the students bored.
C. Limitation of the Problem
In this research, the researcher focused on the influence scaffolding technique toward students’ report text writing ability at the first semester of the eleventh grade of SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung in academic year of 2018/2019.
D. Formulation of the Problem
Referring to the background of the problem above, the researcher formulated the research problem as follows:
E. Objective of the Research
The objective of this research was to know whether there was a significant influence of using scaffolding technique towards students’ report text writing ability at the eleventh grade of SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung.
F. The Significance of the Research
The research is intending to give some uses in English teaching field. The uses of the research are:
1. Theoretically
The researcher provided information for English teacher, that scaffolding is an alternative technique to teach writing particularly in report text. Furthermore, scaffolding technique is to motivate and enable students to practice writing regularly, intensively, and communicatively, additional information for further research. Scaffolding technique is a technique of writing skills that are very effective because it makes students to develop creativity and their ideas. The researcher experts of this research that scaffolding techniques can make students develop their thinking power, especially in report text writing ability and make the teachers be able to motivate their students.
The practical a significant that the researcher experts from this research are as follow:
Scaffolding is a technique for giving a lot of help to the students in the early stages of learning and then the students takes on increasing responsibility as soon as after the students can do it especially in report text. In addition the technique of scaffolding is a technique where teachers provide direction, motivation, and passion to the students.
G. The scope of the Research
The researcher determined the scope of the research as follow: 1. The Research Subject
The subject of the research was the students at first semester of the eleventh grade of SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung.
2. The object of the Research
The object of this research was to use of scaffolding technique and students’ report text writing ability.
3. The place of the Research
The research was conducted in SMA Pangudi Luhur Bandar Lampung. 4. The time of the Research
