CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

English globalizes around the world. Now, it has become an international

language used in almost all countries over the world including Indonesia. In
Indonesia, it is one of important subjects to be learned. It is taught from primary
until universities. It is one of final examination subjects in primary and secondary
schools besides Mathematics, bahasa Indonesia, and science. Now, it can be said
that English is very important to be learned.
Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are the four English basic skills
that should be mastered by the students. Writing has an important role in language
because it is one of the most powerful communication tools that can be used to
communicate with each other. Carroll, Wilson, and Forlini say (2003: 3): “Writing
is one of the most powerful communication tools you will use today and for the
rest of your life. You will use it to share your thoughts and ideas with others and
even to communicate with yourself.”
In junior high school, writing skill is one of skills learned by students in
English lesson. Writing skill contains indicators which are important to learn;
content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. In writing,
students should be able to find the ideas of writing, make a logical order of ideas,
use the appropriate words, master the grammatical rules, and understand
mechanics. Those five elements of writing should be mastered by the students.
Based on the pre-research of the students of VIII SMP N 1 Jaten, their
skill to write is still under-performing. The students are often confused when they
start writing. They have difficulty to find ideas. They also have a lack of
vocabulary, difficulty to understand tenses, and make good organization. At last,
when the students submit their works, most of them only write a few words.
From their attitude, it also shows that they are not interested in the lesson.
They don’t have motivation in learning English. When the teacher explained the

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material, the students were having conversation with the other students. They
were still talking without listening to the teacher.
The problems faced by both the students and teacher are caused by some
factors. It may come from the students, the teacher, media, or method used in
teaching learning process. The students have thought that English is difficult to
learn. They get bored when teacher explains the material. In addition, the students
think that English is only learned for school and it do not be used after they
graduate from it. Those are the factors that make the students have low motivation
in learning English.
From the teacher’s side, there are also some factors that cause the
problems. The teacher is still unfamiliar with curriculum 2013 because before
teaching the eighth grades, the teacher taught the ninth grades by using KTSP
curriculum. Almost all of the meetings are spent for discussing. So in the eighth
grade, the teacher uses the same way in presenting the materials, so students feel
bored. The teacher doesn’t use any media or creative technique, so it is difficult to
explore their skill. The media like video, movie, song, pictures, etc are so
important in teaching writing. The teacher should be able to make conducive class
by creating strategy and technique to present the material, and give motivation and
reinforcement to the students.
To overcome the problems above, the teacher proposes a media to improve
the students’ writing skill by using Romantic Material that is related with their life.
It can be defined as a media for expressing feelings and imaginations to be shared
to others through written words. The content of Romantic Material is beautiful,
because it deals with good and positive feeling which is described by the writer.
Romantic describes nature, real thing, or someone. It describes entitled the
physical appearance or their characteristics. According to Guth (1981: 91) in his
book titled Living Literature: the Literary Heritage, “A central theme of the
romantic and artist is the discovery of the self-of the individual’s own sincere
feelings and imaginations.”
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Romantic material deals with literature that is still new for the students,
but the literary subject can also provide a range of texts and has introduction to the
many different varieties of English.
Romantic Material has some advantages and disadvantages for both
students and teacher. From teacher’s side, Romantic Material can provide wide
material so teacher easily finds what should be taught. Teacher uses real thing to
teach so it can be more understandable. From students’ side, they are still
unfamiliar with Romantic Material so students have high enthusiasm to learn. In
addition, this material is related with students’ real life so they can be highly
motivated. By using the real things, feelings, senses, and imagination, they can
identify all the parts of things which are described. They can start from the content,
make the logical order by using their senses, find new vocabulary by using
imagination, and understand the language use and mechanics by learning.
The disadvantages from the teacher are that not all material can be taught
because the learners are still young. Teacher should be careful in determining
which is appropriate and which is inappropriate. For the students, they all have
different characteristics so for understanding Romantic Material, not all students
can accept it easily. Some of them still have to adapt with the material.
The roles of Romantic Material above can become the consideration for
teacher to use that material to improve the students’ writing skill. It is expected
that using Romantic Material, students can be highly motivated in learning
English. They can also express their ideas easily into a paragraph.
Based on the problems and the solutions above, the writer plans to conduct
an action research entitled “Improving the Students’ Skill in Writing Descriptive
Text by Using Romantic Material (A Classroom Action Research in the Eighth
Grade of SMP N 1 Jaten in the Academic year 2016/2017)”.
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B. Problem Formulation

Based on the background of the study above, the problems are formulated
as follows:
1. Can Romantic Material improve the students’ skill to write a descriptive text?
2. What happens when Romantic Material is implemented in teaching descriptive
writing?

C. Objective of the Study

Based on the problem formulation above, the objectives of this research

are:
1. To describe how Romantic Material can improve students’ skill to write a
descriptive text.
2. To describe what happens when Romantic Material is implemented in
teaching descriptive writing.

D. Benefit of the Study

There are some benefits for students, teachers, schools, and other
researchers if the researcher gives the positive result. These are the benefits:
1. For students, this research can help them to improve their skill in writing
descriptive text. The students are able to :
a. Explore and express their ideas into words easily.
b. Make a sentence in a good grammar and structure.
c. Choose the appropriate word in certain context.
d. Make a simple text with good organization.
e. Use the right spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
2. For teachers, this research result can be used as resources and apply it for
teaching writing, of course for improving students’ skill in writing descriptive
text.
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3. For schools, this research result can be used as resources in developing

teaching material in teaching writing.
4. For other researchers, this research result can help them in their research in the
future.