CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background of the problem
People can use many kinds of
languages to communicate with other people in the world different area will
have own language and the language has different characteristic. One of the
popular language in the world is English. English is an international language
the most widely spoken in entire world include in Indonesia. English more
important in Indonesia since it taught in every single school from elementary
school until university and become one of the popular subject because it talk
about foreign language. Students will able to understand about a lot of
information and knowledge in case they understand English well.
Understanding about English as a
foreign language is important to know every skill and part of the English . It
is very important for students to mastering English in all skill, such as
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In this case, the researcher is
going to focus on writing skill. Writing is one of the English skills that must
be mastered by the English language learners.
Writing is a social skill, not a
biological attribute: every normally developed person in a society that uses
writing learns to speak, but not all learn to read and write.[1]
This preparation can make it possible for words that have been used receptively
to come into productive use. Writing is also considered as the indicator toward
the student success in learning English. Since writing is productive skill, it
also helps the students to develop their ability in expressing what they feel
and think. Speaking, and listening are receptive skill or communication skills
that are important in all subject areas in the curriculum.[2]
This is because the students should be able to communicate in the target
language in spoken and written language. At the same time when students talk
about writing, students talk about how to write such as a phrase, sentence,
paragraph, and also text.
Students have learned how to write phrases,
sentences and paragraph before going to write a text. A set of visible or tactile signs used to
represent units of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of recording
messages which can be retrieved by everyone who knows the language in question
and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing system.[3] It
mean that writing have many rules and have to follow the rules.
Text is the main body of a book or
other piece of writing, as distinct from other material such as notes,
appendices, and illustrations. It consist of pieces of paragraph, and a piece
of paragraph consist of three or more sentences. Based on the Indonesian
curriculum, students introduced many kinds of the text. Students will learn the
text base on the purpose and needed.
There are some types of the text such as recount, procedure, news item,
descriptive and also report text. Each genre has differences including in
generic structure, language features, function and characteristic of every
single genre. When students have mastered the aspect of genre its mean that students
able to write text well.
From the information above the
researcher is interested in discussing about descriptive text because this
genre can make the student express their idea in describing something and make
the reader feel the atmosphere that the writer write. Furthermore, descriptive
text make student’s minds travelling without spend money when students read
descriptive text in case the topic is about tourist destination. The reader
minds include the stories topic talk about. Talking about topic of descriptive
text students have to know definition of descriptive text before going to write
it.
Descriptive text is a text that explains or
describes people animals or a good object of its shape, its nature, number and
others. The purpose of the descriptive text is to explain, describe, or reveal
someone, or an object. Descriptive text is a text which a writer tries to
picture what he is describing. Description is used to describe a particular
thing/object, place, or person. The descriptive text is really different from
the other kinds of text. Descriptive text is the text that describes something.
Wyrick stated in Yenni, “The writer of description creates a word-picture of
persons, places, objects, and emotions using a careful selection of detail to
make an impression on the reader.” From the explanation above, it can be
concluded that descriptive writing is a kind of writing that consists of
description, characteristics, definition of something, object or person.[4]
Then, the descriptive text is usually in simple present tense.
Based on the explanation above, the
researcher conclude that descriptive text is a types of the text talk about
describing something detail how the things look like and what is the characteristic
of it. Descriptive text explain the specific from something. This genre so
funny, because it can make the reader mind travelling base on the topic of
text. It is as though the reader see and feel what the writer told.
Learning is one of the process knowing something which is
someone did not know before. They will learn all about it and try to make a new
product. For instance, students learn about how to write, students will write
something start from alphabets, words, phrases, sentences, paragraph and
sentences. After students master how to write with a good form that would
called ability in writing text. Ability is when someone master something
well. In this case students have to
master all of topic that mention in curriculum every single semester.
Based on student’s writing
document, There are 35 of students in writing class, but some of students did
not have plenty requirement in writing, there are at least 6 get A, 20 students
for score B, and there are 9 students that get C. the researcher would analyze the students
ability in writing class especially in writing descriptive text.
Based on the set of problems above,
the researcher concluded that the students has many problems in writing
descriptive text. Writing is one of the English skill more difficult than
another skill. Some students less attract in writing because they just prepare
for speaking, listening and some of them attract in reading.
Therefore,
the researcher would like to see whether there are problems the students in
writing descriptive text. Base on the explanation above the researcher is
attractive in doing this research to know the problems that made by students in
writing descriptive text. The researcher conduct this research under the title
is “An Analysis On Students’
Ability In Writing Descriptive Text At Fifth Semester Students Of English
Department IAIN Padangsidimpuan ”
B.
Focus of the Problems
Based
on the researcher explanation above, this research focus on students ability in
writing descriptive text. The researcher will analyze the students ability
especially in writing descriptive text of the students at fifth semester
English Department IAIN Padangsidimpuan.
C.
Formulation of the Problem
Base
on the background of the problem, the researcher would like to sought the answer
by the following problem as “How are the students’ ability in writing descriptive text at fifth semester students of
English Department IAIN Padangsidimpuan
D.
Purpose of the Problem
Base
on the formulation of the problem above, the aim of this research is to know
the students’ ability in writing
descriptive text at fifth semester students of english department iain
padangsidimpuan.
E.
The Terminologies
To
avoid misunderstanding in assuming the title of the research, then it was
clarified the definition of terminologies in title “an analysis on the
student’s ability in writing descriptive text at fifth semester students of
English department IAIN Padangsidimpua, by following bellow:
1. Analysis
A careful study of something to learn
about its parts, what they do, and how they are related to each other.
2. Students Ability
Ability is skill or power to
do something.[5] This research meant ability is potential,
skill, or power of students at the fifth semester students of English
department IAIN Padangsidimpuan in writing descriptive text.
3. Writing Descriptive text
Descriptive text is a genre of the text
that described an object, person, animal etc. According to Abisamra adds that “descriptive is
the text picturing the person, place and thing with clear detail to help the
readers visualize an object which is described”. Writing
descriptive text is an activity when students write a text by using descriptive
text rules like generic structure, language features and all about descriptive
text. Besides that, writing descriptive text make students get more ideas
because the writer try to make the reader see the situation on story.
F.
Significances of study
The result of
this study will benefit for:
1. Theoretically
The researcher hopes this research can
give better in writing text especially in descriptive text. This researcher
will enrich our knowledge about writing descriptive text. Moreover, we can know
how to develop our idea that related to the topic and make the reader more
attract to read our stories.
2. Practically
a. Lecturers.
This research can be useful for
lectures. This result will help the lecturers to get successful in learn
descriptive text.
b. The researcher.
For the researcher, this study can
help the other researcher to enhancing knowledge about the students’ ability in
writing descriptive text. The result of this research hopes get more
information about analysis of students
problems in writing descriptive text.
c. The students.
Students are someone study at
school and get more knowledge from the teacher. This research can add knowledge
and understanding of language features especially in writing descriptive text.
Students will get more information and know their lack in writing descriptive
text and how to solve it.
G.
Outline of the Thesis
1.
Chapter I is an introduction
that consist of background of the problem, focus of the problem, formulation of
problem, purpose of the problem, the terminologies, significances of study and
also the outline of the thesis.
2.
Chapter II consist of
theoretically review such as students ability that is the nature of students
ability. Next, writing descriptive text consist of the nature of writing,
elements of writing, minimum writing requirement, writing process, the purpose
of writing, text, types of text, descriptive text, writing descriptive text and
assessing writing. Then, chapter III also
consist of review of related findings and hypothesis.
3.
Chapter III consist of
research methodology like place and time of the research, research design,
population and sample, instrument of collecting data, technique of collecting
data, and technique of data analysis.
4.
Chapter IV, this chapter consist
of data description like, mean score, median, modus, range and hypothesis
testing. The last point of chapter IV are consist of discussion and the threat
of research
5.
Chapter V, this last chapter
consist of conclusion and suggestion.
[1] Ralph
W. and Fasold, Dialect Variation, ed.
Jeff Connor-Linton, The Cambridge
Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics, the first (New york: Cambridge
University Press., 2015), 402, https://doi.org/10.1007/9781139764377.021.
[2] Harits
Masduqi, “Integrating Receptive Skills and Productive Skills into a Reading
Lesson,” The 2nd International Conference
on Teacher Training and Education 2, no. 1 (2016): 1,
https://jurnal.uns.ac.id/ictte/article/view/7476.
[3] W.
and Fasold, Dialect Variation, 403.
[4] Yenni
Rozimela Lailatul Husna, Zainil, “An Analysis Of Writing Skill In Descriptive
Text At Grade Xii Ipa 1 Of Man 2 Padang” 1 (2019): 2,
http://ejournal.unp.ac.id/index.php/elt/article/viewFile/4555/3600.
[5] Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary (oxford university press, n.d.), p.1.
