CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
As an International language, English is very important in our daily life. Most electronic tools use English in their instructions, such as computer, rice cooker, washing machine, et cetera. It is very dangerous if those tools are used without its instruction being read. If someone wants to communicate with people from other countries, he should master English well. It is because English is the language used in international communication. So, it is very important for people to learn English.
Nowadays, English is one of the subjects that is taught since in the elementary school until university and examined in the national examination to determine the students' graduation. The provision that English is examined in the final examination is stated in Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Tahun XXXX pasal 7 ayat 1, 2, dan 3 as follow:
(1) Mata pelajaran UN SMA/MA Program IP A, meliputi: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Inggris, Matematika, Fisika, Kimia, dan Biologi.
(2) Mata pelajaran UN SMA/MA Program IPS, meliputi: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Inggris, Matematika, Ekonomi, Sosiologi, dan Geografi
(3) Mata pelajaran UN SMA/MA Program Bahasa, meliputi: Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Inggris, Matematika, Bahasa Asing lain yang diambil, Sejarah Budaya/Antropologi, dan Sastra Indonesia.
There are four main skills in English: those are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Reading and listening are called receptive skill, in which people need the ability to receive written or spoken language when they do it.
While speaking and writing are called productive skill because when people do it, they need the ability to produce written or spoken language (Harmer, 1998: 44).
Reading, which belongs to receptive skill, can be defined as a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written (Williams, 1999: 2). It means that, when someone reads, he looks at something written and tries to get the meaning to understand it. Reading can also be described as a mental or cognitive process which involves a reader in trying to follow and respond to a message from a writer, who is in distant space and time (Davies, 1995: 1). It means that reading activity connects the reader and the writer although they are in different time and place; for example reading an ancient book, reading personal letter, et cetera.
The reason for teaching reading to the students is because it belongs to the basic language skills in English, just as important as speaking, listening, and writing. Besides, reading is closely related with other subjects. Most of the materials given by the teacher (in English or other subjects) are presented in written form, for example in handbook, handout, et cetera. It means that to understand the materials, the students must have the ability to look at and get the meaning of written text, that is called reading skill. Because of that, reading is very important to be taught to the students.
According to the researcher's observation, the students' reading skill of SMAN X was still low. They still had difficulties in understanding the text. The texts which were taught in the first grade of Senior High School were descriptive, news item, and narrative. Based on the observation in the classroom and the interview with the teacher and the students, the researcher found that they had difficulties in narrative text. They had difficulties in understanding the characteristics of the text including the social function, generic structure, and language feature. The generic structure includes finding detail information and determining the parts of the text. While, the language feature includes vocabulary, finding references, and understanding the tenses.
The students' difficulties in reading were caused by some factors that might come from the students and the teacher. Most of the students admitted that they often felt bored when they had to read a text, especially a long and uninteresting topic text. In the class, some students were sometimes seemed to lean over their head on the table and talk each other. They just paid attention to the teacher when they did exercises but if the time given to do it was too long, they began to be noisy again. When they read a long text, they were not so interested because they often did not understand the meaning of the words used in the text. It was difficult for them to understand the content of the text. However, they were reluctant to bring the dictionary. They just waited until the teacher explained it for them or asked them about the difficult words. Besides, there were some problems that came from the teacher. Actually, the teacher's way in explaining the materials was clear enough but she was too rivet on the textbook. She usually taught using conventional way by staying in class and doing the exercises on the handbook. She used various techniques and media in teaching rarely. So, the students felt that English lesson was boring. All of those factors made the students to have low motivation in learning English, especially reading.
To improve the students' motivation in learning, the teacher must use interesting teaching strategy. Sudiardjo and Siregar, in their article entitled "Media Pembelajaran Sebagai Pilihan dalam Strategi Pembelajaran" define learning strategy as:
"...suatu kondisi yang diciptakan oleh instruktur dengan sengaja (seperti metode, sarana, prasarana, materi, media dan sebagainya), agar siswa difasilitasi (dipermudah) dalam mencapai tujuan pembelajaran yang ditetapkan" (Prawiradilaga and Siregar 2004: 4). If the teacher can make the condition that stimulates the students to learn, it will make easier for them to receive the material, so the goal of the teaching will be achieved. As stated in the teaching strategy's definition above, media is one of the ways to facilitate the students to learn. Related to the use of media in teaching, Arsyad states that "Media pembelajaran secara umum adalah komponen sumber belajar atau wahana fisik yang mengandung materi instruksional di lingkungan siswa yang dapat merangsang siswa untuk belajar " (2005: 4). Teaching media is a concrete thing that can be used by the teacher to convey the material, for example picture, cassette, video, tape recorder, television, computer, internet, et cetera. Media can be used as AVA (Audio Visual Aids) to give concrete experiences to the students, so the teacher's explanation will not be abstract. It can also be used as communication tools to connect the students with the material, so they can receive the material easier (Prawiradilaga and Siregar, 2004: 6).
Related to video, Sadiman states that the message presented in the video can be a fact or fictitious, can be informative, educative, or instructive (1993: 76). Video can catch the students' attention easily. It is informative, it means that much information from many experts in this world can be recorded in video tape, so it can be received by the students everywhere they are. Video is also educative and instructive; it means that the message of the video can give concrete experiences to the students, so they can apply it in their daily life. By video, the teacher can prepare the difficult demonstrations before, so she/he is able to concern on his presentation. The teacher can also present the dangerous object that cannot be brought into the class (Sadiman, dkk, 1993: 76-77).
Based on the benefits of video in learning, it is expected that through video, the students can be interested and motivated in learning English, especially reading. In this case, the researcher intends to use narrative video because this research is focused on reading narrative text. The writer hopes that by using narrative video, it will give the visualization to the students about the contents of the narrative text, so they can understand it easier.
Based on the problems and the proposed solution above, the writer is interested in conducting an action research entitled "Improving Students' Reading Comprehension on Narrative Text Using Narrative Video (An Action Research at Tenth-Year of SMAN X in Academic Year XXXX/XXXX)".
B. Problem Formulation
Considering the background of the study above, the writer can formulate the problems as follows:
1. Can the use of narrative video improve the students' comprehension on narrative texts of tenth year students of SMAN X?
2. What happens when narrative video is applied in teaching narrative for reading?
C. Objective of the Study
Based on the problem formulations above, the objectives of this research are:
1. To know whether the use of narrative video can improve the students' narrative text mastery of the tenth year of SMAN X.
2. To describe what happen when narrative video is applied in teaching narrative reading.
D. Benefit of the Study
If this research gives positive result, it is expected that the result is able to give some benefits for students, teachers, and other researchers.
1. For the students, it is expected that this technique will help them improve their reading skill. The students will be able to:
- Understand the vocabularies used in the text by looking at its context
- Understand the main idea of the text by skimming
- Understand the detail information of the text by scanning
- Understand the goal, the parts, and the language features of narrative text
2. For the teachers, it is expected that the result of this research will give them a reference in their teaching so they can apply video in improving the students' reading skill.
3. For other researcher, it is expected that the result of this research will help them in finding references or resources for further research.