CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
of the Problems
In Indonesian education curriculum, the purpose
of learning English for students is, to provide them the creativity of using
English language as a tool of communication even if it is for talking or writing.
Curriculum of English Senior High School, English has four basic language
skills. They are listening, reading, speaking and writing. Listening and
reading are receptive skills because learners do not need to produce language
to do these, they receive and understand it. On the other hand, speaking and
writing are productive skills because learners need to do these to produce
language.
To develop students’ ability in dispensing the
information in English, writing could be used as a media. Furthermore, the act
of writing is an essential activity for them in their future academic life.
Talking about learning English, students use both speaking and writing in order
to communicate to another. In writing a sentence or a text, the students have
to focus on the rules of writing such as topic of paragraph, body of paragraph,
and conclusion of paragraph.
Writing is a process how to generate the
letter, words and sentences. Therefore, students must be able to combine the
words that easier to understand by human. Writing disabilities are caused by
problems in vocabulary and grammar. However, an understandable and acceptable
writing not only depends on vocabulary and grammar but also has to be well
sequenced, cohesive, coherent, and appropriate with its purpose.
In conveying and sharing ideas or opinions, it
is good to understand the types of texts used by the writer. There are many
kinds of text such as recount, procedure, report, explanation, narrative,
descriptive, news item. Narrative is one of the texts that must be learned by
students in Senior High School. Narrative is a kind of text which s frequently
use in the daily life to tell the past event. In addition, narrative pattern is
use to convey someone’s experience in his or her life.
A narrative text is a piece of text which tells
a story used time order to organize the sentences in the text. In other words,
narration is story writing, write about events in order that happen. In other
hand, writer use time order to organize his/ her sentence. In the narrative
text, writer use time to tell what happen first, what happen next and what
happen after that. The text consists of orientation, complication or problems,
resolution and coda.
A story mapping is a visual graphic map in which is provided
the elements of story such as setting, characters, problems, and resolution. This technique enables students to relate story events and
to perceive structure in literary selection in composing narrative text. To
apply this technique, the teacher has to give the students the concepts of
story mapping, including the steps of writing story mapping. By using story
mapping technique, the students have to focus on composing a good narrative
text because in writing narrative text, they will write their own story or
retell a story based on what they have been read also the students have to pay
attention to the rules of writing and all components of writing especially
grammar, structure and the sentence use on writing narrative text.
Based on the explanation above, writing is very
important in the education field. Therefore, students need to be exercised and
trained in order to have a good writing skill. However, in teaching writing
skill is still have some problems, especially when the teacher giving writing
text materials to the students at grade XI IPA 3 SMA N 7 Padangsidimpuan.
The problems are; students are expected to
delivering idea in their written, but many students still get difficulties in
delivering their idea, they sometimes confuse how to start their writing, they
are confuse how to organize their ideas because they have not motivation to
write due to their limited range of vocabulary, and they are unable to build a
sentence or paragraph correctly.[1]
First, students are expected to delivering idea
in their written, but many students still get difficulties in delivering their
idea. In teaching writing the teacher use traditional technique to teach
writing. In fact, learning English with the same teaching technique makes the
students bored, because the technique is monotonous. That is why teachers need
various methods which can increase students’ creativity and sense of writing.
The teacher should use available resources to develop students’ creativity in
learning English, especially in writing.
Second, they sometimes confuse how to start
their writing, they are confuse how to organize their ideas because they have
not motivation to write due to their limited range of vocabulary. On the other
hand, their teacher do not create and think of effective way to motivate and
stimulate them in order they can be more excited in following learning process
in the classroom.
Third, they are unable to build a sentence or
paragraph correctly. Some of them have not understand such as grammar and words
structure and they don’t have a background knowledge about English. So, they
cannot recognize and improve a sentence or paragraph correctly. As a result,
students need to spend so much time to finish their writing and may not be able
to continue their writing.
According to the problems above, the researcher
expects that it needs to be solved. There are many techniques used to English
learning especially writing ability, such as listing, outlining, story mapping,
sketch and label, that is to develop the knowledge and skill to deal with
spoken and written in social context and the researcher choose story mapping.
There are reasons why the researcher chooses story mapping technique. First,
Story mapping is a graphic or semantic visual representation of a story.
Second, the map illustrates ways to show an overview of a story. The last, It
also tell the information about its generic structure, such as characters,
setting, goal, event and resolution.
In this research, the researcher proposes story
mapping as the teaching technique. Mapping is a part of visual aids. Based on
the references that the researcher found about story map, it has been proved to
be a beneficial as a teaching technique. It regards as one of effective tools
which supposed to be a good way to turn a broad idea into a limited and more manageable
story which actually gives the words closely related to the theme provided.
Moreover, story mapping can help students to motivate them in writing. This
technique could be effective as prewriting stage of writing process. As
Boulliane states that story map is a tool to create a connection of story
components using a visual graphic. Those story components are setting,
character, problem, and resolution.[2]
From the explanation above, the researcher
interested to conducting a Classroom Action Research (CAR) through the title “
Improving Student’s Writing Ability in Narrative Text Through Story Mapping
Technique at Grade XI SMA N 7 Padangsidimpuan”.
B. Identification
of the Problem
Based on the background of the problem above,
the writer finds some problem as
follows:
1. Most of
students still get some difficulties in delivering their idea. Therefore,
students should be given a suitable technique which can overcome their problem
in writing.
2. Students
are confused to start their writing.
3. Students
are unable to continue a sentence or paragraph correctly.
C. The
Formulation of the Problem
Based on the statement above, the researcher
formulates the problem as follows: “can story mapping technique improve
students’ writing ability in narrative text at grade XI SMA N 7
Padangsidimpuan?”
D. The Aim
of the Research
The aim of this research is to know the result
of using story mapping as an attempt to improve teaching technique in learning
writing of narrative text.
E. The
Significances of the Research
The significances of the research are :
1. To the
headmaster, as an information. The headmaster can motivate and give suggestion
the teachers to be a professional so they can improve their students’ writing
ability.
2. To the
English teacher, to provide information about teaching technique which may
improve their students’ writing of narrative text in classroom.
3. To other
researcher, as a tool to make a comparison of other similar research
particularly to compare some technique which are used to improve the students’
ability of English especially to improve the writing ability of narrative text.
F. Definition
of Terminologies
1. Improving
Improving
is “to make or become better”.[3]
Improving is to increase the productivity become better. In this research,
improving used to students’ writing ability through story mapping technique at
grade XI SMA N 7 Padangsidimpuan.
2. Writing
Ability
Knefel
stated people who speak or write must have had some purposes and needs in what
they say or write.[4]
Writing is one of the elements of skill in language. Then, writing is the
mental work of inventing ideas, thinking how to express and organizing into
statements and texts that will be clear to a reader. Writing is producing or
reproducing written massage. It is an active process to organize and formulate
the ideas on the paper. Writing makes a product in the form of written texts
which are used to deliver the writer ideas and meanings to the reader.
3. Narrative
Text
There
are two main categories of texts; literary and factual. Within these, there are
various text types. Each type has a common and usual way of using language. In
this paper, the writer will only discuss one of the texts that is being used
for research, that is narrative text. Narrative is a text that tells a story
and, in doing so, entertains the audience. Also, its narrative purpose is
mainly to inform often contains large passage arranging the events in a story
strictly in chronological order.
Masiello
stated that narrative considers as a good text which is useful for students to
describe specifically about a picture of critical elements that build a story
such as setting, character, sequence of events, resolution and coda.[5]
4. Story
Mapping Technique
Story
mapping are templates that provide students a concrete framework for
identifying the elements of narrative stories.[6]
Story mapping is a procedure which trains young students to recognize the basic
framework of narrative stories in order to enhance their comprehension of text.
[1]Arnisah,
S.Pd as English Teacher at Grade XI IPA 2 of SMA Negeri 7 Padangsidimpuan, Private
Interview at October 31th, 2016.
[2] Tori Boulliane,
et.al., Use Story Mapping to increase Students Grammar Text
Comprehension in Elementary with Learning
Disabilities, Learning Disability Quarterly Journal, vol.27, 2004, p.
3.accessed at http//www.ukessay.com/../April5th 2017, 11:15 a.m.
[3]A.S.
Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary of Current English. (New
York: Oxford University Press.19.74), p. 427
[4] Don
Knefel, Writing and Life, (New York: College Publishing, 1986), p. 4.
[5] Lea Masiello, Writing in Action: A
Collaborative Rhetoric for Collage Writers, (New York: Mcmillan Publishing
Company, 1986), p. 108.
[6]Zygouris, Coe V and Glass, C, Story Mapping, Florida Department
of Education: Writing Strategy of the Month Journal, vol. 2, 2004, accessed
at http:// forpd.ucf.edu/ strategies/ strat Story M.html/
October 11th 2016, 10:20 a.m.
