CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of The Study
English
as an international language is spoken in most international events and is used
as the medium of information flow on science, technology and culture. As we
understand that learning a foreign
language is more difficult than learning a national language or learning a mother tongue. It is because
the foreign language has completely different aspects and systems, which should
be understood by the students or the learners, such as pronunciation, spelling,
and the cultural background of the language. Besides that we also remember that
there are some important factors in foreign language learning, which will
mostly influence students, or learners in mastering the language.
Bustami Subhan (1990: 18) in his paper
(entitled) “Some important factors in foreign language learning” explained that
learning a foreign language involved five factors. The first of all is
intelligence. It is a gate for knowledge. Secondly, motivation plays
influential role in encouraging students to learn the language. It covers both
intrinsic motivation which comes from the students themselves and extrinsic one
which comes from outside. The third and fourth ones have close relation with
each other that are students’ attitudes and strategy of language learning.
Facilities of language learning are the last factor which is not less important
than the others.
In
the Basic Course Outline (GBPP) of English curriculum 2004, it is stated that
English is considered as a tool or
instrument for expressing meanings. Based on the concept and the function of
English as stated in that BCO the teaching of English at secondary school aims
to develop the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing).
The Indonesian students start learning English at the Junior High School (SMP).
The process continues at Senior High School (SMA). In fact, now, English is
also taught in some elementary schools as the local content and even in some
kindergartens. The pupils are introduced to some English vocabularies. In
addition to learning the language in formal education as mentioned above,
people also learn it in non-formal education. English courses and private
lessons are the examples of non-formal education. This indicates the failure of
teaching English in this country; as
Ramelan (1992:4) stated that the teaching of English in Junior high School in
Indonesia is not successful. It can be seen from the quality of SMP
graduates’ mastery of English. Ramelan
(1992:3) also stated that most SMU graduates are still very poor in reading comprehension,
since they cannot usually read or understand articles in English dailies,
magazines which are now in circulation in this country, even though the Basic
Course Outline of English (BCOE) 2002 stated that among the four language
skills, (listening, speaking, reading and writing), reading is the most
emphasized in English teaching and learning process. Quite simply, without
solid reading second language readers cannot perform at levels they must
succeed in reading. Thus, reading is not
passive but rather an active process, involving the reader in on going interaction with the text.
Furthermore,
reading constantly involves guessing, predicting, checking, and comprehending. In
group reading, students may enjoy from time to time getting away from the usual
pattern of reading the story or article aloud at sight. This is particularly
true of better readers; what may be undesirable as routine procedure has real
value as an occasional variation. By seeing the problems, it is important that
a study of English especially
reading should be???????????????????????
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