This chapter presents some aspects related to the research topic. They are Research Background, Research Problem, and Research Contributions.
1.1 Research Background
Writing is one of the most important aspects in English language learning, however it is quite difficult to master writing, especially for EFL students in Indonesia, because there are some differences between Indonesian and English such as grammatical, structural terms and styles. Furthermore, in the process of writing, the EFL students have to struggle in order to put ideas or arguments on a piece of a paper. They have to spend too much time in finding out the ideas about the topic given because they do not have enough basic knowledge and interest in writing. As Elbow (1998:3) states that writing is a difficult activity that needs a lot of time in its process. It is related to one of fundamental problems in terms of interest in the activity of learning writing since the teacher does not use any media. Therefore, the English teachers have to determine the effective media to improve the students’ interest and ability in writing. There are some factors which make students not interested in the writing lesson. One of them is lack of media. In fact, the use of media in writing class is something rare to be done. Many teachers think that teaching writing by giving a clear instruction in written form is enough. The other factor is the monotonous EFL class activities which are held by the English teachers in the classroom. The lack of media in the classroom activity will affect the students’ participation in the learning process. As the interactive and interesting media is not used, the students become monotonous and bored in joining the lesson, especially in the writing class. Based on the preliminary study done by the researcher in SMPN 4 Jember, those factors of writing problems happen. The teachers at this school do not use any instructional media in teaching writing. The teacher only uses Power Point Presentation as a media to explain the materials for the students. In such condition, it makes the class monotonous and boring. Moreover, the students’ ideas cannot be captured and revealed because they feel bored in learning writing without media. Therefore, the students need media to stimulate and activate their ideas in order to produce a piece of writing more easily. Thus, media are expected to create a more interesting writing class. Media can also be used to transfer the learning material to reach the goal of study and increase the students’ achievement. Actually, there are many kinds of media that can be applied in teaching-learning activity. As stated by Djamarah and Zain (2006:120) media are divided into three types, visual, audio, and audio- visual. From the classification above, the researcher will consider to use Pop-Up Books as visual media and appropriate media to develop the students’ skill in writing a recount text. This kind of media is essential in developing the students’ writing skill. It is stated by Thonbury (2007:64) that teaching young learners is ideal to use pictures. Pictures can be used to explain the meanings or concept in a simple way. He adds that vizualizing is the best way to teach new words for all subjects. By using Pop-Up Books, it can develop and motivate the students to learn English especially in writing recount text easily. Moreover, Dyk (2004:5), states that Pop-Up Book can build a dynamic interaction between students, words and illustration. As Pop-Up books are more interactive, more tactile, and more dynamic than the common picture, they will give direct access for the students to learn the culture of the target language (Fitriyani, 2017:2). Thus, Pop-Up Books will help students to illustrate about the characters, setting of the picture and the activity inside the picture that will lead them to write a recount text easily. Recently, there have been some relevant studies dealing with the use of Pop- Up Books in teaching English. Wijayanti (2016) conducted research entitled “Improving the VIII-C Grade students’ vocabulary Achievement by Using Pop- Up Pictures At SMPN 1 Beji-Pasuruan” she reported that there was a significant improvement on the eighth grade students’ vocabulary achievement after the students were taught by using Pop-Up Pictures. It was proved by the students’ result of vocabulary test that the percentage of the students who got scores at least 75 from 65% in Cycle 1 to 77.5% in Cycle 2. Moreover, Pop-Up Pictures also reported could improve the students’ participation during the teaching and learning process. Hoiriya (2017) conducted research entitled “Using Pop-Up Books as Media to Improve the Eighth Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement at a Junior High School” found that using Pop-Up Book could improve the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement. It is proved by the result of the test that there was improvement of percentages of the students who got scores at least 75 from 67% in Cycle 1 to 77% in Cycle 2. Arisika & Refnaldi (2013) conducted a research entitled “Teaching Writing Narrative Texts by Using the Pictures of Pop- up Book as Media to Junior High School Students”. They found that Pop-Up could build up the students’ motivation in writing narrative text. It helped to improve the students’ ability in teaching and learning process. This classroom action research will focus on the use of Pop-Up Books as media to solve the students’ problem dealing with writing recount text. A Pop-Up Book is a form of books with three dimensional pictures inside. As Pop-Up Books have several pages that will illustrate a sequence event in every page. Then it deals with the concept of writing recount text that tells about a sequence event (Adawiyah, 2014:9). Moreover, Pop-Up Books also provide some attractive pictures, bright colors, and some beautiful scenes. Glaister & Holmes (2012:3) also state that using Pop-Up Books will help to bridge the gap between the abstract world of literature, and concrete world of real objects. Such media have several features that are expected to be helpful as a teaching aids to guide students in writing recount text. Considering the facts related to the students’ condition, the reseracher is interested in conductiong the classroom action research entitled “Improving The Eighth Grade Students’ Achievement in Writing Recount Text through Pop- Up Books at SMPN 4 JEMBER”
1.2 Research Problem
The following problem is formulated based on the research background above: How can the use of Pop-Up Books improve the eighth grade students’ achievement in writing recount text at SMPN 4 JEMBER? 1.3 Research Contribution 1.3.1 Empirical Contribution The result of this research is expected to be a reference for future researchers who have similar problem dealing with improving students’ achievement in writing recount text by using Pop-Up Books with different level or text genres, such as: Descriptive Text, Narrative Text, Report Text, Etc.
1.3.2 Practical Contriburion
The result of this research can be used as a new tool for the English teachers to use interesting media such as Pop-Up Books as an alternative way to teach writing to improve the students’ achievement in writing recount texts. The action of this research is also expected to motivate and help students in learning English, especially writing recount text interestingly. So that students can improve their ability in writing a recount text.