Learning English Is Very Important for Studying Abroad

 Background of the Study

Language is a tool of humans’ communication. That is why it is very important in human is daily life. Every nation has its own language that is different one from another because the language is influenced by human culture, history, environment, etc. It is clearly pictured by Finocchiarro.

“Language is a system of arbitrary, vocal symbol which permits all people in a given culture, or other people who have learned the system of that culture, to communicate or interact”.

English is the first foreign language taught at every school in Indonesia. English is considered as one of the major subjects for the students, from kindergarten to senior high school. Students learn English in formal and non-formal setting. They realize how important English in their life, so they intend to master it in such a way that they can use that language to communicate with other people. In order to be good in mastering English, students must master the four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.

In mastering English, students meet many problems dealt with language skills and language components. Most students in Indonesia consider English as a difficult subject which makes them frustrated. That is why the Indonesian government does effort to find the solution of that problem. For example, it changes the curriculum and introduces new approaches (methods) of teaching to English. They also consider some factors such as quality of the teacher, students’ interest, motivation, teaching techniques, and teaching media that play important roles to achieve the objectives of school learning.

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As we know English have four language skills they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Here the writer took one of language skills to be the focused of this research, which is writing, because writing is considered difficult to learn.

Writing is the act or art of forming letters and characters on paper, wood, stone, or other material, for the purpose of recording the ideas which characters and words express, or of communicating them to others by visible signs. On the other hand, we can say that writing used to express felling and thoughts. This argument is a line with Eric Gould, et:

“Writing is a creative act, the act of writing is creative because its requires to interpret or make sense something; an experience, a text and an event “.

Writing is the most difficult skill to be mastered because it is a complex skill to be learned, based on the writer experience. The students have to master not only vocabulary but also grammar. This argument is line with Fowler that consider, “Writing is as we have seen, a complex process and it is the last of the language skills to receive attention in school”.

We cannot deny that writing is the most difficult subject of four language skills. It issupported by thesample of students’ homeworkwhen writer’s do observation at SMK Anugrah Tondano, students cannot process their writing, they do not have good ability to arrange the words to be meaningful sentence, and they feel bored so they need stimulus in writing. Consequently, the students make many mistakes in writing English sentence. Students’ difficulties in learning writing can be caused by several factors such as the limitation of time, so the teachers do not give them the materials effectively. The other factor that they are lack of ideas. Sometimes students, when they are asked to write, they do not know what they are going to write or they cannot organize their ideas in the form of paragraph. Futhermore students rarely do writing activities at school. As a result, the students assume that writing is boring to be learned so it makes them dislike joining the writing subject. Therefore, the teacher must create a good approach and varied methods or strategies in order to improve students’ ability to write based on condition of the students.

The writer is interested to experiment one of the media to see whether it is effective or not to improve students’ writing ability. Heaton says,

“An excellent device for providing both a purpose and content for writing is the use of pictures. A picture or series of pictures not only provides the taste with the basic material for his composition but stimulate his imaginative power”.

As we know that English, especially writing is boring and most difficult lessons among other skills, so the writer does research in SMK Anugrah Tondano aims to make students feel interesting with English especially in writing skill, and make sure that picture can help students to improve their English. There are some things that make teacher become easier to teach goal of teaching and learning process. Then, it is called the strength of pictures. The possibilities of using picture in teaching a foreign language are practically unlimited, and success comes to teacher with foreign, and imagination. Many of the advantages are obvious. Picture provide necessary variety, are popular. Like Tang Li Shing sais as cited in Zahara:

Teaching English Throught pictures is not only effective and interesting, but also practical and economical.

Specifically, picture contribute to :

1. Interest and motivation
2. A sense the context of the language
3. A specific reference point or stimulus.

Previous related study for this research conducted by Irwan That study is purposed to describe the use of pictures and guided question in teaching descriptive writing at the odd semester of VIII grade students in SMPN 111 Jakarta. The students’ achievement average before learning descriptive writing through picture and guided questions was 62 or it classified into “enough standard”. Meanwhile, for their outcome average after using pictures and guided question in learning descriptive writing was 84 or it can be said in “good standard”. Based on the finding previously, it can be concluded that using pictures is a good media to improve students’ ability in writing.

In this research, the writer focuses to write descriptive text just about using pictures of public figures. Becauseprovide picture a shared experience for students in the class, some picture of famous people will activate their memories and their background knowledge about what they can tell about the characters in writing descriptive paragraph.

Statement of the Problem

The writer conducts this research to make students interest in English writing and ask the students to communicate their ideas in writing. So, the writer wants to apply pictures of public figures as media in teaching writing. The writer hopes after apply pictures of public figures, students more interest in writing and students can improve their ideas in writing. In this case, the writer wants to choose the media of teaching writing descriptive paragraph using pictures of public figures to improve the students’ writing skill in SMK Anugrah Tondano.

Reason for Choosing the Topic

Writing is needed in school environment not only as tool for transferring the knowledge, but also as one of English skills that should be learned by students, besides others skill like reading, speaking and listening. As one skill of English, writing can help students to learn and develop their English by expressing their knowledge and experience.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to improve students’ content and organizationin descriptive text and make students interest in writing skill. In the other side, to shows that in improving students’ ability to write descriptive text using pictures of public figures is an effective strategy.

Research Question

Based on the problem of the research the writer formulates the following research questions:

1. How does use of public figures pictures improve the content and organization in descriptive text in the students’ at the second year students of SMK ANUGRAH TONDANO ?

Scope of the Study

To specify, this research is focused on using Pictures of Public Figures to improve the students’ content and organization to write a good descriptive text, accordance with the syllabus in the second year students at SMK Anugrah Tondano. In that syllabus basic competencies 1.3 “Describe objects, people, characteristics, time, day, month, and year”, and in Indicators “Words are strung together precisely to describe people related the profession, nationality, physical characteristics, qualities, and activities. It is limited the development of contents and organization in students’ descriptive text by using Pictures of Public Figures primarily only by the artist or singer.

Significance of the Study

The result of the research is expected giving contribution to the students in increasing their own writing as basic of English. The outcome of this research is expected to be a piece of useful references toward learning and teaching process in improving the students’ writing skill especially on descriptive text.

Definition of Terms Used

In this present study :

1.  Improving is giving moral or intellectual benefit. Improving is a process of treatment in order to get better condition or capacity.
2.  Writing is a creative act, the act of writing is creative because it’s requires to interpret or make sense something; an experience, a text and an event”. Eric Gould, Robert Diyanni, and William Smith
3.  “Descriptive text is a part of factual genres. Its social function is to describe a particular person, place or thing”. Artono wardiman, at all.
4.  Using public figure technique. Munandi photo is an image of the photo shoot or photography. Public figure photo is one of visual media can be to serve the data about public figure. Public figure is a figure that is known by many people. The public figure photo is included singer, actress and politician.

Chapter II

This chapter presents review of literature that used in this study. The points to be discussed are writing, descriptive text, picture, teaching descriptive text using picture of public figures and procedure of teaching descriptive text using picture of public figures.

Writing

Writing is one component of English language skills. In teaching English there are four skills. There are listening, speaking, reading and writing. According to Cohen and Riel, define, “Writing as a communicative act, a way of sharing observation, information, thoughts, or ideas with ourselves and others”.

Raimes states “Writing is a skill in which we express the ideas, feelings, and thoughts arranged in words, sentences and paragraphs using eyes, brain, and hand.” In addition, Tarigan states “Writing is a language skill that is used for indirect communication. The students can communicate their ideas and thoughts to other though written form such as letter, message, or invitation for communication”.

Based on those statements, it is concluded that writing refers to a process in which its activities are not produced immediately. You must think about the topic, try to know the topic and find some information about the topic what will you write. Well, in writing you can express your felling or your ideas on the paper.

Descriptive Text

“Descriptive text is a part of factual genres. Its social function is to describe a particular person, place or thing”. Artono wardiman, at all.

George and Julia “Description recreates sense impression by translating into words, the feel, sound, taste, smell, and look of things. Emotion may be describing too, feelings such as happiness, fear, loneliness, gloom, and joy. Description helps the reader, through his or her imagination, to visualize a scene or a person, or to understand a sensation or an emotion”.

So, the researcher concludes that descriptive text has social function which is to describe a particular person, place, or thing. Descriptive gives sense impression like the feel, sound, taste, and look of things through words.

Pictures

“Pictures help people to comprehend and remember the text. When the text. When the text were presented alone or with pictures the order in which the steps were described in the text, subjects tended to mentally represent the text. We argue that these results disconfirm motivational, repetition, and some duel code explanations of the facilitative effect of pictures. The results are consistent with a version of mental model theory that proposes that pictures help to build mental models of what the text is about” Arthur and William.

Marianne and Sharon said that “Pictures are kind of visual instruction materials that might be used more effectively to develop and sustain motivation in producing positive attitudes toward English and to teach or reinforce language skills. Picture can also be used in various configurations to enhance learning and practice”.

Finocchiaro mentions that “Media can help the learning process simpler and make it perfect. The media will allow students to understand better the content of being taught. Media can also help to shape the learning process as well as interest in the language program and thus provide motivational impulse”.

Based on these statements, it is concluded that picture can make learning writing easy. Because with pictures students can build their knowledge based on that pictures in the form of descriptive text, and the students feel interesting in writing.

Teaching Descriptive Text Using Pictures of Public Figures

The teaching and learning process is viewed as an integrated part. It means that the result of the teaching-learning process will be determined by the roles of all components involved. It also implies for the teacher, that decinding what visual aids to be employed is one of the essential decisions that must be made in making an instructional design.

In writing process, writing is an activity that produces something from mind become meaningful a text of the sentence. Make a good writing by arranged sequence sentence. Shortly, writing skills are specific abilities which help writer put their thoughts into words in a meaningful form and mentally interact with the massage.

Tarigan stated the writing can be interpreted as ideas for activities of ideas by using written language as a medium conveys.

Urquhart and Mciver stated “Teaching writing is unique. It benefits both teacher and the students, serving as communication vehicle, assessment tool, and intellectual exercise”.

To teach writing description text needs something that can make students feel fun and have a good impression, so the students will always remember what they have got from their teacher’s explanation. In accordance to the importance and complexity in the teaching writing, the teachers have to able to encourage and facilitate students to write as well as to decrease their barriers in writing. To overcome this problem, teachers can vary their teaching by using various techniques that are able to attract, motivate, and help the students in the writing activity. Teachers can teach by using media like pictures, comic strips, songs, computer software and overhead projector (OHP). The use of the media should be suited with the writing material given.

For writing a descriptive text, for instance, teachers can utilize media like pictures through which the students can see what to describe. Picture can also activate prior knowledge about the objects or people shown in the pictures. As Raimes states, some resources of pictures are worth learning in teaching EFL writing. The pictures maybe drawings, photographs, posters, slides, cartoon strips, magazine advertisements, diagrams, graphs, tables, charts, and maps. Pictures provide a shared experience for students in the class and lead to a variety of language activities. Besides arising many language activities of what the students are seeing about the people, like sharing experience and discussing about the people, some pictures of famous people will activate their memories and their background knowledge about what they can tell about the characters.