CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background of the Study
By the time a human does the
communication with others by means of speaking or writing, they will use a
language. Language is an important communication tool that people can use it to
express their feelings, thoughts and also share ideas so they can interact and
get in contact with others easily. It is necessity to human life and
civilization is certainty not possible without it. All sciences depend upon it
and also all education in human life are conducted through it.
Nowadays, the existences of English
language are not odd anymore in the world. It has become the popular language
which is learnt by most people in many areas of the globe. English is an
international language. It is the world’s most widely used language by society
for communication and international contact.
English has become the most popular
language in the world, through the long road of its historical background. The
predominance of English is mainly the result of two periods of world domination
by English speaking countries: British imperialism in the nineteenth century
and the economic influence of the United States in the twentieth century.
In another word, it may be shortly
concluded that these are two dominant reasons for popularity of English as a
world language and the factors which have influenced and sustained the spread
of the language.
In this globalization era, everyone is
demanded to prepare a great resources for his/her life particularly in science
and technology. Of course, to compete against a global demanding, the people
should have an adequate knowledge and good skills. Therefore, mastering English
language both oral and written English actively is necessity for academic and
global media communication requirement because it has become compulsory for
everyone who wants to compete against the globalization era.
In Indonesia, it is acknowledged that
English is the first foreign language that must be learnt by students from
elementary school level up to senior high school level because the government
considers that mastering English is one way to absorb the sciences and
technology in order to create great human resources. And, it is no doubt that
great human resources are very important for national development and
existences toward other nations. Besides that, English has become a medium
instruction in teaching-learning activity especially for particular lesson in
certain school.
When students are learning English, they
will learn language skills and language component. Grammar is one of English
language component that it must be learnt and understood by students. It is a
very basic knowledge and an important tool for students to master English. It
is a science that teaches students how the way to speak, to read, and to write
English correctly. Besides, by learning grammar the students will know about
system of language so they will be able to combine and build words into
meaningful sentence.
It is as
Penny Ur stated in A Course in Language Teaching Practice and
Theory, “Grammar is defined as words are put together to make correct
sentences;s it does not only affect how the units of words are combined in
order to make correct sentences but also affects their meaning.”
It can be concluded from the statements
above, it is no doubt that by mastering grammar, the students will have a way
to be able to speak, to read, and to write English correctly and
understandable, so finally the students can create a good communication and
interaction in English language actively both in oral or written English between each other in their lives.
In English grammar, reported speech is
one of many grammatical categories which is important to be learnt by students.
It is needed to be learnt because it is one of three ways for students to
report or share their statements or thoughts to other people especially when
they communicate between each other. It is as Marianne Celce
Murcia and Diane Larsen Freeman stated in The Grammar Book An ESL/EFL
Teacher’s Course, “Grammar and rhetoric books generally recognize three
ways for a speaker and writer to attribute statements or thoughts to other
people: direct quotation, indirect reported speech, and paraphrase.”
Reported speech is commonly used to
report what other people have said or thought without reporting the exact word.
With indirect reported speech, one wishes to report the content of the original
source without necessarily repeating sentences exactly as they were originally
uttered.
To report people word’s, thoughts, and
beliefs there are two main ways: direct and indirect speech. Reported speech is
also used when people are interested not in the words that someone has chosen,
but in the essential information they conveyed.
Reported speech is found in newspaper
reports, fiction, talking or writing about conversation, reports, articles or
speeches peoples have heard or read. By learning reported speech definitely
students will able to quote somebody’s words or thoughts, whether in direct or
indirect speech and also the students will learn and understand the way to
report speeches such as statements, questions and commands.
Besides, It is an essential for students
to learn reported speech because reported speech is one of the linguistic
features which is should be mastered by students when they try to write the
text of news item or report text and also it can be denied that it has important
role because it is often used by people to communicate in their daily
conversation.
It is as Marianne Celce Murcia and
Diane Larsen Freeman stated in The Grammar Book an ESL/EFL Teacher’s
Course, “Indirect reported speech plays an important role in everyday
conversations.”
Therefore, the school has attached
reported speech in syllabus as a subject matter that must be learnt by students
considering to these importance that has been explained above.
Learning grammar is not easy for many
Indonesian students as it has already known that English and Indonesian have
many different aspects in grammatical form. Of course, by this differentiation,
there are many difficulties will be faced by students when they learn grammar.
As the writer found in her research, there
are many students still have difficulties in learning reported speech. They
notice that they often do mistake when they quote the direct into indirect
form. Some students still confuse with certain grammatical changes that have to
be made by them. Sometimes they feel so hard to decide what kind of tenses and
pronoun that should be used when they quote the word. It can be known that
Indonesian language has not a grammatical form like tenses and pronoun.
It is as Martin Parrott stated in
Grammar for English Language Teachers, “Learners are sometimes confused
by the tense and pronoun changes that can occur in reported speech,
particularly if their first language doesn’t involve making similar changes.”
In fact, there is a little different
process happened when the students want to report somebody’s word from direct
into indirect form in English language, that the students should have made
grammatical changes in their effort to reproduce the words. They should change
its tense and pronoun to make it acceptable and meaningful within a language.
It is as Llewelyn and Menezes in Matriculation English stated “When
turning the direct into indirect form certain grammatical changes have to be
made.”
On the contrary, when the students want
to report somebody’s word, thoughts and ideas in Indonesia language, then, the
grammatical changes won’t be happened or they do not need to change the tense
or pronoun like in English language. That is why students often do mistake and
find difficulty when they quote direct into indirect/reported speech in
English.
It can be concluded from statement
above, that the grammatical changes which happened when the direct form
transformed into indirect form has become one of difficulties that occur when
the students learn reported speech. Therefore, it is important for learner to
have a good understanding on it and memorize the rule or form very well.
Based on the description above, the
writer would like to conduct the research on the students’ difficulties in
learning reported speech of question sentence. The study is done in first year
students of MA Pembangunan UIN Jakarta.
So, the writer would like to discuss it in her “skripsi” under
the title:
“An
Analysis on Students’ Difficulties in Learning Reported Speech of Question
Sentence at the First Year Students of MA Pembangunan UIN
Jakarta”
B. Identification
of the Problem
Based on the background of the study
above, there are many problems that can be identified in this research such as:
(1) The students’ difficulties in learning reported speech of question
sentence. (2) The causes of the difficulties in learning reported speech of
question sentence which is faced by the first year students of MA Pembangunan
UIN Jakarta.
C. Limitation and Formulation of the Problem
1. Limitation
of the Problem
Based
on the identification of problem above, it can be seen that the study is still
general and abroad. There are many difficulties happened when turning direct
speech into reported speech such as difficult in the change of tenses, pronoun,
word order and adverb. Beside that, reported speech is divided into three
kinds: statements, questions, and commands.
Therefore, to make it better and more specific, of course, it is effective
and efficient to limit the problem. Then, the writer is interested in the
difficulties of reported question in the change of tenses and pronoun, where
the object of this research is the first year students of MA Pembangunan UIN
Jakarta.
2. Formulation
of the Problem
In
line with limitation of problem above, the writer formulates the problem of the
study as follows: (1)What are the difficulties faced by the first year students
in learning reported speech of question sentence?(2)Why do the students face
difficulties in learning reported speech of question sentence?
D. Use of the Study
The use of this study is expected to
provide a contribution of knowledge for students who still find problem and
confuse when learning a reported speech of question sentence, so they can
overcome their difficulties in their learning activity. Then, for the teacher
of English language, it is also expected to be useful information, so they will
know how far the students comprehend about reported speech of question
sentence, the difficulties which are faced by students when they learn this
subject matter, and the causes of those difficulties. Besides, the result of
this study will direct the English teacher to do some evaluation and revision
in their teaching-learning activity so it is expected that both teacher and
students will have a good collaboration to overcome all problems that happen
especially in learning reported speech of question sentence. Next, for further
researchers: it can be as a reference in conducting similar study in the next
time. Finally, for the writer particularly and readers broadly who are
concerned with this paper, it is as one of resource which can enhance their
perception and knowledge in learning reported speech of question sentence.
E.
Organization of the Study
This “skripsi” systematically
consists of five chapters. Here are the short description of its contain:
Chapter one
is introduction. It contains of background of the study, identification of the
problem, limitation and formulation of the problem, use of the study and
organization of the study.
Chapter two
is theoretical framework. It discusses about concept of grammar (definition and
types of grammar), reported speech (meaning, kinds and transformational rules
from direct question into reported speech of question sentence), and student’s
common difficulties in learning reported speech of question sentence
(definition of learning, learning difficulty, and difficulty in the change of
tense and pronoun).
Chapter three is
research methodology. Research methodology consists of the purpose of research,
time and place of study, population and sample of the study, Method of the
study, instrument of the research, technique of collecting data, and technique
of data analysis.
Chapter four
is research findings. They consist of data description, data analysis, and
interpretation data.
Last chapter
is conclusion and suggestion.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar