CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Language is very important for someone to communicate with others.
Communities need to communicate to understand each other. Therefore, languageis
essential for life. Without language, it is impossible to communicate within society.On
the other hand, languageas a system of communicationenables humans to cooperate.
At the same time language is a part of the culture of a community. Humans use
language as a way of signaling identity with one cultural group and difference from
others.
As the foreign language, English is an important language in the world. English has
become a tool for international communication in transportation, commerce, banking,
tourism, process of technology, diplomacy, and scientific research (Nunan in Cahyono,
2010: 91). It is formally thought students of elementary school, junior and senior high
school, and even to university . English is just learnt in the school with limit of time.
So, an English teacher has to know about strategies in order to get better result in
learning. Besides, she or he has to know about strategy or model which must be used
to guide the students. The teacher who has important role must guide the students to
have creativity in classroom. If strategy is not suitable with situation of the class, the
teaching and learning will not be successful.
In junior high school students are young learner. According to Harmer in Cahyono
(2011: 13), The students in this ages have several characteristics which are different
from adults in learning a language. In this case, they have to learn some texts such as
narrative, descriptive, recount, report and procedure texts. Unfortunately, many
students of junior high schools are not good enought at writing. The students consider
that writing is one of the most difficult language skill because they are demended to
express their ideas in written English appropriately. It means that in teaching junior
high school students, teachers need to be creative in correlating the main topic to the
real situation and students can learn the linguistic features automatically.

1.2 Identification of the problem

The identification of the problem is comprehending the result of the use pictures in order to
improve the ability in writing descriptive text of the eight grade students of SMP PABAKU
Stabat in Academic Year of 2016/2017.

1.3 Formulation of the problem

Writing skill is one of english skill that must be mastered. Aspecially for students,
using great understanding about knowledge of writing text, they take a chance for
being a great writer. The problem is in writing text “Descriptive text” students of
junior high school. This research implements in matery of junior high school PABAKU
Stabat. Having an awareness of it, we feel aware for measuring the students’ skill in
writing descriptive text. It’s hoped, students can improve their skill in writing and
increase their knowledge about comprehending of steps in writing a great descriptive
text.

1.4 Objectives of the Research

Based on the formulation above, the objectives of this research are describing the efforts of
using picture media to improve writing skill of the students of Grade VIIISMP PABAKU
Stabat Tempel and to investigate whether the students’ writing skill improves significantly
through picture media.

1.5 Limitation of the study

To simplify this study, the writer gives limitation as follows:
a)The study is focused on the use of pictures as media to improve and measure students’
proficiency in writing descriptive text.
b)The study will be done only with students of the eight grade students of SMP PABAKU Stabat
academic year of 2016/2017.

1.6 The Significance of Study

The researcher hopes this research will give some significance for:
a) English Teacher
This technique can help the teacher to understand the way to handle the students in teaching
writing using Picture and picture, and it will give contribution to successful teaching learning
English especially in Junior High School.
b) Students
This technique is able to make the students enjoy when they are writing and they do not feel
bored. So the students can have creativity to write.
c) Researcher
The researcher will improve her knowledge in teaching method and have experience in
conducting classroom action research.
d) Institution
It becomes a source of consideration for the official institutional policy as effort to produce
better outcomes especially in improving students’ English writing ability.