CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
English is a language
spoken
by
people
in
English
speaking
countries
or
in
international events
among countries around the world. Ramelan (1992:2-3) stated that “English as an international language is used to communicate, to strengthen and to fasten relationship among all countries in the world
in all fields, for example: in
tourism, business, science
and
technology,
etc.
Considering
the
importance
of
English, people from various non-English speaking
countries including Indonesia
learn English.” Having proficiency in English, people will be able to face this over-
changing world easily.
So, it is not surprising if the number
of people who are interested
in learning English is getting increased
from time to time.
In Indonesia,
English
has
been
taught
as
a
foreign
language.
Ramelan
(1992; 1) stated that “English
has been taught
in our country as the first foreign language since the proclamation in Indonesia on the 17th of August
1945.” It is taught
as a
compulsory subject
in
junior
high
school
and
senior
high
school
and
in
universities or institutes for several terms. Even, it has been tried to be taught to the
students of some elementary schools.
In the 2004 Competency-Based Curriculum, English teaching in junior high school covers four
competences; they are listening, speaking, reading,
and writing. Those basic
competences are integratedly taught because
the main goal of teaching English is that students
are able to develop their communicative skills in both written
and spoken English. In addition, the language components
– structure, vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation – are not separately
taught.
They
are
to
support
the
development of those basic competences.
The students are expected to be able
to communicate in English using correct structure. Structure or grammar is one of the basic
components of language
which must be learnt by students. It is very useful and important as Raja T. Nasr
(1988:52) writes that grammar is a part of any language.
Just as there is no language
without sounds (at least no live or oral language) so, there is no language
without grammar. Having knowledge of grammar will help people to comprehend what other people say or write. On the other hand, it is difficult for Indonesian students
to use correct structure in English. This is mostly because
the students are influenced by
their mother tongue on the acquisition of the new structures. Smith and Kellerman (1986:1) called that as a cross linguistic influence because “it is about the interplay between earlier and later
acquired languages.”
“It is now established beyond doubt that the first language can have
a constraining
role
in
the
second
language
in
the
production
of
learners – that is to say that the perception of differences between first language and second
language
by
learners
may effectively
prevent transfer of first language’s
structures as Kean calls ‘short-
sighted transfer’.”(Smith and Kellerman, 1986:2).
From the statement above, we may conclude
that one of the Indonesian students’ problems in mastering
English
is
that
their
mother
tongue rules
still influence them in using it.
Since having
differences
between
their
mother
tongue
from
English
languages, the students often find problems with grammar,
vocabulary,
spelling,
pronunciation, and the like.
Nevertheless,
the
students
usually
face
difficulty
in
English grammar that is in arranging
words into correct utterances or sentences. It means that grammar is one of the most important parts
of English to communicate with others. When we communicate, both in written
and spoken ways with other people, we should not only
have
a
good
vocabulary
but
also
correct
grammar.
Therefore, without grammar,
it is hard for people to understand what we say or write
because grammar makes a string of words or utterances meaningful.
There are many rules in grammar that cannot be ignored. They are articles, parts of speech, sentence pattern, tense, etc. Part of the grammar that is considered to
be most difficult
to learn for Indonesian students
is tenses. Simple present tense is the example. Frank (1972:66) states that
“Simple present tense is used to express
a habitual action with adverbs like usually, always, or often.” The use of simple present
tense often makes students
confused with its complexity, especially for the eight year
students of junior high school.
They usually have some problems in finding
out the verb form of simple present
tense. They often write “He walk to school everyday,” instead of “He walks to school everyday.”
The third singular persons
such as he, she, and it need
suffix –s or –es for the
verb. It shows that Indonesian students
do not consider that in English
there are verbs
formed in singular
or plural. In Indonesian
language, singular or plural forms do
not affect the verb form.
In this final project, I discuss students’ English
skill in writing
descriptive text using simple present tense. Writing a descriptive text should be clear, vivid, and
concrete. If a student has made a mistake in using simple present tense, it means that
he/she is not competent yet in making his/her text. It makes the reader confused
and difficult to understand what the writer
means. Therefore, through descriptive text, I would like to find out the students’
learning problems,
to
know
the
students’
achievement and difficulties in learning the simple present tense. Wishon and Burks (1980:379) stated that “descriptive writing is used to create a visual image of people, places, even units of time days, times of day or seasons.” Hopefully, it will help students in using the simple present
tense.
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