CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is going to explain about the background of the study, research
questions, hypothesis of the study, the purpose of the study, the significance of the
study and scope and limitation.

1.1 Background of Study

As one of international languages, English has been used widely in almost
every country in the whole world. It has been used by many people from
different countries. Most of non-native speakers use English to establish
relationship with other people from many different countries. English is also
called as Lingua Franca. According to Samarin (1987) cited by Seidlhofer
(2004) says that lingua franca is a communication language that used by
people from different countries to communicate.
In Indonesia, English has a very important role, especially in technology
and scientific area. For example, in technology area, instruments like
computer and internet use English. Meanwhile, in scientific area, a lot of
books, newspapers and magazines are printed in English. That is why people
are demanded to learn English.
English as an International Language also plays an important role in our
educational system. It has been taught as a foreign language in every level of
schools in Indonesia. This makes English become one of several important
subjects in schools.

English has four basic skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing. In
order to master English better, those four skills need to achieve when learn
English. Besides, there are also language components that support those basic
skills which are also important in mastering English. One of them is grammar.
The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (Hornby, 2010) defines
grammar as the rules in a language for changing the form of words and
joining them into sentences. Meanwhile, James Delaney (2004) defines
grammar as the set of rules governing how the words in a language may be
joined to make sense. These definitions mean that grammar is the rules that
come from a language which is important for its native speakers. It enables
them to communicate with each other without creating misunderstanding and
misinterpretation.
Grammar is one of the language components that plays an important role
in mastering English. Grammar is important in both, spoken language or
written language. People are able to communicate because they know the
grammar system of the language, as with those who are able to write. In other
words, we can say that grammar has a very important role in learning English,
either spoken or written.
Nowadays, students who learn English are demanded to use English in real
life and within various context, both orally or written. They have to be able to
speak and also write in English. Learning English means that they are capable
in creating various types of text.

As we know that there are a lot of text types in English. They are
categorized into two kinds, namely literary text and factual text (also known
as fiction and non-fiction). There are three main text types in the literary text,
i.e. narrative, poetic, and dramatic. Meanwhile, such text types as recount,
procedure, explanation, discussion, exposition, information report as well as
description belong to factual text. Every text type has its own purpose and
they are structured in different ways in order to achieve their own purpose.
Recount text, for instance, is a kind of text which retells events or experiences
in the past. It can be said as the simple text type, because it can be about
familiar and every day things or events. It is built up firstly by presenting an
orientation as a starting point and by providing a sequence of events. Since its
purpose is to tell what happened in the past, past tense should be used.
Considering the importance of grammar in text construction, especially in
recount text, the researcher is interested to conduct a research about the
correlation between students knowledge of grammar, in this case, the past
tense and their product in writing recount text. This is due to the fact that
recount text uses past tense. He wants to find out if there is possible
relationship between them, and to do so, the researcher will use a correlational
study.

1.2 Research Questions

There are two main research questions in this study, they are:

(1) Is there any significantly positive correlation between students knowledge

of past tense and their product in writing recount text?
(2) To what extent does the students knowledge of past tense affect their
product in writing recount text?
1.3 Hypothesis
The hypothesis of this research will be stated in form of alternative
hypothesis (Ha), as follows:
There is a significantly positive correlation between students
knowledge of past tense and their product in writing recount text.
1.4 Purpose of the Study
The research will be conducted to discover:
(1) The relationship between students knowledge of past tense and their
product in writing Recount text.
(2) The extent to which students knowledge of past tense affects their product
in writing recount text

1.5 Significance of the Study

Hopefully, this study will be useful in English teaching and learning i.e.:
(1) For teachers, the finding of the study will inform them about grammatical
components that need to be taught to assist students to write a recount text
well.
(2) For students, they can be motivated to practice more and they are
encouraged to learn grammar seriously so that they can work with various
text types without much difficulty.
(3) For the readers, it can inform them about the correlation between students
knowledge of Past Tense and their product in writing Recount text.

1.6 Scope and Limitation

The study is intended to discover whether or not there is a relationship
between students knowledge of past tense and their product in writing recount
text. Therefore, it should be noted that this study does not imply causation. It
is done only to discover relationship between students knowledge of Past
Tense and their product in writing Recount text.