CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter will discuss about background of the study, problem of the
research, operational definition, objective of the research, and significance of the
research.

1.1 Background of the Research

English is an international language, it plays an important role in many
aspects, such as: in education, science, technology, and many others. It is used by
many people in the world to communicate with other people from different
nations either orally or written form.
Although English has been considered to be the first foreign language
from elementary up to university level. The objective of learning English in
schools is to make the students able to communicate and understand in English, so
the students are able to get some information from newspaper, television, and
radio that use English as the basic language.
In language learning, there are four language skills that have to be learnt.
They are: listening, speaking, reading and writing, as well as three components:
grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. As one of the four language skills,
writing is considered to be a very difficult skill, because when they are asked to
write they have many mistakes, either in grammatical or in spelling. Somantri
(2005) says that writing is the most difficult skill to develop among his students. It
is likely the most difficult skill among the four basic language skills. In addition,
Wishon and Burks (1980: V) state that although the students are able to speak
English well, they are not able to write it well without systematic training. From
the statements we know that writing is not easy work.
The students’ English writing spelling mistakes are still serious. The poor
quality of English writing skill generally can be seen from the failure of students
to get a good job in which English writing becomes a measure of ability. Some
students are afraid of making mistakes as they're learning. A lot of learners during
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the writing task were sometimes stuck and could not continue to complete their
writing task with simple reasons such as, lack of vocabularies, cannot make any
longer sentences. As a result, they can only write down rough paragraphs without
including the details of the topic assigned.
In an English learning, technique plays a very important role. Partial
dictation as one branch of the dictation techniques in teaching writing is an
essential factor because this technique can support the skill of writing. Sometimes,
when the dictation is applied in the class, the students are often confused. They
ask the teacher to stop it because it is too difficult for them. The problem indicates
the students have many problems with their ears. They hear the words dictated
even though the words are meaningless. As a result, they don’t get anything from
the activity because they are too confused to choose which words they should
write down on their paper that is appropriate to the dictated words.
In dictation activity, many students make a number of errors which may
seem to be trivial mistakes. For example, words with a silent letter
(thumb/comb/science), confused homophones (their/there), and missing
punctuation. The student’s notes have an abundance of misspellings. The teacher
may ask the students to be more careful.
These phenomena indicate that the students have many troubles with their
hearing. They heard the words dictated although they are meaningless. As a result,
they catch nothing from the activity. They are too confused to choose which
words they should write down on their own paper.
All those problems really should not happen in the teaching learning
process. To avoid it, dictation practice could be given to the students regularly, as
it is one of essential teaching devices. It can fix the students’ attention on
reproduction of words they have seen or read. By giving partial dictation, it will
enable the students to reproduce words accurately they have seen in a book,
whether it is in Indonesian or foreign language.
A good teacher, of course, does not want his students to fail to write
something from listening, reading, or speaking. Dealing with it, he must be wise
and creative to run teaching learning process excitingly and smoothly. There are
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many factors which influence why English teaching does not fulfill the students’
need or brings unsatisfied interest, motivation, learning activities, teaching aids,
and others.
From the case, it can be assumed that someone must be able to write a
written text given, and also write it if the people write for him. It seems that there
is an influence of the partial dictation on writing ability. Consequently, there is a
possibility that the students who get good marks on partial dictation will get good
grade on writing as well. The reason is that when they take partial dictation; they
must comprehend the meaning of the sentence first before writing down on their
paper. Having a good comprehension, they may be able to write the materials
dictated well. On the other hand, if they can’t comprehend well, they must fail to
write the proper words.
The previous research, “The Influence of Dictation Technique on
Improving Writing Ability of the Second Year Student of SMK Trunojoyo” by
Jainuri(1999), found that the students looked interested in dictation activity. The
result was that, several of them had difficulties in the next meeting when the
writer gave dictation to the experimental class. From the result of the previous
research, it proves that there is influence of dictation technique on improving
students’ writing ability.
The English teachers at SMAN 1 Prajekan said that the students often
worse in grammatical and in spelling words especially. It means, the eleventh
students had difficulties on spelling. The English teachers in the school never
applied the technique of dictation. The function of partial dictation for writing
skill is to motivate the students to create a context within which his writing will
have meaning. Besides, the English teachers never applied partial dictation
technique in teaching learning process. By considering the strength of using
partial dictation, the researcher is interested in conducting this research to
motivate the students to create a context within which his writing will have
meaning.
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1.2 Problems of the Research

Based on the research background above, the problem in this study is:
“Is there any effect of using partial dictation technique with narrative text on the
eleventh year students’ writing achievement at SMAN 1 Prajekan?”

1.3 Operational Definition

In this section, the researcher would like to define the title to avoid
misunderstanding of the key concepts.
1.3.1 Partial Dictation
Partial dictation is a kind of the dictation techniques. Some words of this
passage are deleted. Learners hear the complete passage and try to fill in the
missing parts. This technique combines dictation with cloze. In this study, the
teacher reads a text which single words and punctuations have been deleted, and
students are required to listen and write down the missing words and the missing
punctuation.
1.3.2 Writing Achievement
Writing is a kind of activities that the writer expresses all the ideas in his
mind through some roles of writing. In this study writing ability means students’
ability to express ideas in written language after the partial dictation technique is
given by the teacher. It is shown by their ability in using correct spelling,
punctuation and capitalization

1.4 Objective of the Research

The objective of this research is to know whether there is any effect or not
of using partial dictation technique with narrative text on the eleventh year
students’ writing achievement at SMAN 1 Prajekan-Bondowoso.”
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1.5 Significances of the Research

a. For the English teacher
This study can be used by the English teacher to create and develop
any kinds of dictation technique that will make the teaching and learning
process more effective.
b. For the students
This study can help and serve the students to follow the lesson
effectively without feeling bored. Thus, the students can improve their
ability in English learning, because this technique is able to develop their
language skills, especially in writing.
c. For the future researcher
The result of this research is expected to be useful for the future
researchers as a reference to conduct the same topic with different research
design to know the students’ achievement in writing.