CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of The Research

Writing is one of four skills that should be mastered by students, besides

speaking, listening, and reading skills in order to communicate in English well.

Writing is usually regarded as the most difficult skill to learn. It is difficult not only

the needs to master other skills, but also because of the difference between the

learners’ native language rules.

Based on Junior High School KTSP curriculum (BSNP, 2006:120), the students

are expected to be able to communicate in English both in oral and written form. In

junior high school in Indonesia, the skill of writing is taught by genre based approach.

Students are introduced by teachers to some genres and taught about the social

function, the generic structures, and the language features of the genres. They should

to know and understand the difference between one genre to another in English, so

that they are able to write the genres by themselves with the right order of generic

structures and the correct of use the language features of genres.

The researcher focused on descriptive text. Descriptive text is taught by

introducing the students to the model text with a hope they will be able to write genre

well. However, the students often found some difficulties although they have been

guided by their teachers to write it. As Rass (2001:30) states, writing is a difficult

skill for native speakers and non-native speakers; because writers must be able to

write it in some elements in writing such as content, organization, purpose, audience,

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vocabularies and mechanics such as punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. Since

there are some elements that should be mastered, it makes students acknowledge

writing as a complex skill.

Based on the observation in SMP N 5 Jambi city, the researcher found that some

problems as stated above in this school, especially when they learnt about descriptive

text. According to Oshima and Hogue (2007:61), “descriptive writing draws the

sense, so it tells about how something looks, feels, smell, tastes, and sounds.”

Students taught that it was the difficult to do writing when they should evolve those

elements to be written form.

Besides that, there were some problems that they faced during writing the

descriptive text. First, the problem in developing in the ideas. Some students wrote

many main ideas in one paragraph. The idea of the paragraph was still ambiguous and

not clear. Second, the problem in organizing the ideas to write a descriptive text. The

students have to organize their ideas into good paragraphs.

The next peroblem, the students found difficulties in grammar. Grammar

difficulties will influence certain patterns of how words are put together to form the

correct sentences. Fourth, some students are lack of vocabularies and they also have

difficulties in developing their ideas related to their topic. The fifth difficulty is

related with spelling, punctuation, and mechanic. So, teachers tried to use media in

teaching and learning process in order to solve those problems.

Media can be as a tool for teacher to motivate and attract students in teaching and

learning process. According to Sudjana and Rivai (2007:2) there are some advantages

of using media in teaching and learning process such as attracting the students’

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attention which in turn raise students’ motivation in learning, making the material

more clearly and meaningful so that students will understand it clearly. In SMPN 5

Jambi City, teachers had already used pictures and textbook as their media in

teaching and learning process. However, it was still not good enough to be media in

that process. The reason for this situation is the number of textbook which provided

by school is not enough for students. Student must share the textbook with two or

three students. Then, although teachers sometimes add some pictures to prevent

monotonous learning activity, students feel enthusiastic just at the beginning of

lesson. So, teachers need an alternative media to make learning and teaching process

run smoothly.

As technology enters the classroom, there are always new innovations in making

of altenative media which can help teachers to get their points better and help

students more efficiently. One of the tools that has been utilized in the classroom is

Microsoft office PowerPoint program. It is a program that allows teachers to present

their lessons in a more dynamic way rather than simple lecturing and writing on the

whiteboard. According to Hammer (2007:187), PowerPoint can present all of visual

materials such as pictures, videos, words, and graphics in interesting way. This

software has been an alternative way in teaching and learning process in the

classroom. PowerPoint can integrate multisensory in one place. It means that teachers

can give better stimulation and lesson that can be understood by students.

In this study, the researcher uses PowerPoint presentation as the media in the

learning and teaching process which will be contain contextual and situational

material, like picture, video, or animation that related with topic, so that can give a

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real impression of a real object, person, place and situation outside the classroom and

bring it up into the class to give students an interesting and meaning full experience.

In turn, the use of PowerPoint as media is expected to provide students with more

attractive multimedia, so that in producing descriptive text, students will write in a

clearer and more detailed text.

Based on the discussion above, the researcher is interested to conduct an

experimental research entitled “The Effect of Using PowerPoint in Teaching

Descriptive Text on Students’ Achievement at Eight Grade of SMPN 5 Jambi City”

to know whether PowerPoint is effective in teaching writing descriptive text or not.

1.2 The Question of Research

Based on the background of research, the research question is formulated as

follows:

“Is there any significance difference in the achievement of descriptive text writing

between the students who are taught by using PowerPoint and those who did not

use it as the media for the descriptive text writing?

1.3 The Objective of Research

The Objective of research is to find out whether PowerPoint has significant

difference on students’ achievement in descriptive text of the eighth grades of SMPN

5 Jambi City.

1.4 The Limitation of Research

This study focuses on students’ achievement in learning descriptive text by using

PowerPoint. The sample is class VIII H and I of SMPN 5 Jambi City. The researcher

will do experiment there to get the result.

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1.5 Significance of Research

By conducting this research, the researcher hopes that the result of the study will

give some beneficial contribution in English teaching, especially for teachers and

students in Junior High School:

1. The researcher hopes that this study provides an alternative media in

teaching writing descriptive text. It can be a new strategy for teachers to

teach students about descriptive text.

2. The researcher hopes that this research can be useful for students to solve

their problems in writing descriptive text such as grammar, vocabulary,

mechanics, and so on, when teachers apply this media in the classroom. It

can also make students more motivated and enthusiastic learn writing. It

will give a good effect to their achievement too.

1.6 Hypothesis

In this study, there are two hypotheses to be tested. They are null hypothesis (H0)

and alternative hypothesis (H1).

H0 = There is no significant effect in students’ writing achievement in teaching

descriptive text taught by PowerPoint at eighth grades of SMPN 5 Jambi city

H1 = There is a significant effect in students’ writing achievement in teaching

descriptive text taught by PowerPoint at eighth grades of SMPN 5 Jambi city

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1.7 The Definition of Terms

1. Media: A medium, the singular form of media is any person, material or event

that establishes condition, which enables learners to acquire knowledge, skills,

and attitudes. (Gerlach and Elly in Asmiyatun.2014:9)

2. Multimedia: Multimedia is about combining sights, sounds, and interactive

elements to create an experience unlike that which comes from simply reading

text or idly viewing video. (Robinnete in Marcovitz,2012:2)

3. PowerPoint: presentation graphic package (Moria, 2006:2)

4. Descriptive Text: Descriptive writing appeals to the senses, so it tells how

something looks, feels, smells, tastes, and/or sounds (Oshima and

Hogue.2007:61)