Wednesday, September 7, 2011

traditional approaches


This chapter presents the background of the study, problem statements, identification of the problem, limitation of the problems, statement of the problems, and the benefits of the study. Each part will be discussed in different section orderly.

A. Background of the Study
English is still considered one of the most important school subjects and therefore, beginning teachers can find the responsibility of teaching it both exciting and challenging. Everyone agrees that the subject 'English' is vitally important and typically. It is described as the most important of all school subjects, principally because reading, writing, speaking and listening are needed to a greater or lesser degree in every school's subject.
English is also the most consistently controversial and debated subject. It might be argued that English is the subject that many interested parties would most like to control. The history of English is simply a history of constant change. Inevitably, this makes teaching it a special kind of challenge, but it also imbues the subject with energy and excitement. All subjects have their debates and passions but English seems to have the most, and they are very often unusually public and attract plenty of media attention. As media attention is almost inevitably negative, the public perception of English nationally can be that children cannot spell, produce a decent paragraph or even conduct a reasonable conversation; at the same time parents, i.e. members of that 'public', will tell people that their children have received an excellent English teaching at the local school.
Generally speaking, more reading does contribute to greater awareness of the use of language and this will have an impact on pupils' writing. However, this will probably be quite subtle and almost unconsciously achieved as the more sophisticated aspects of language use are adopted in much the same way as grammar is absorbed from birth. But what about those pupils who do not want to read, or do not have the same opportunities to read, or can read at only a decoding level? How do they develop their writing skills?
Writing is one of the most often used skills by the teachers in teaching English at all levels of education. The writing skills include compositions like writing reports, designing posters and invitations, drafting business letters and letters to the editors. Visual and verbal clues can be given to the students as inputs without any additional inputs from the teachers and the students can be asked to form stories, narratives, conclusions, reports and criticisms.
It is undeniable that writing is probably one of the most familiar things in our life. Every day people get written announcements, advertisements, letters, information, even warning in the form of writing. In school, they do a lot of writings such as taking note, making lists, completing laboratory reports and composing any kinds of texts and others. In short, people are consciously or unconsciously engaged in writing a lot. As it becomes crucial to enhance their life, they learn the skills from pre-elementary school to university level. Then, they master them by applying them into business of life.
However learning to write is not an easy task to do. Many students still make errors and mistakes and, then, they are fossilized. Their interest becomes less and less and students begin to create negative stimuli about learning to write. This condition drives the students to assume that writing is a very difficult task to do. Based on the writer's observation in SMK Negeri X in which he teaches English, the task of writing will become more difficult when they have to write in a foreign language like English. The problem emerges as students are not familiar yet with the types of written discourse in English due to lack of exposure. Consequently, they are not able or willing to think directly in English. They, therefore, tend to formulate their ideas in Indonesian language when they express ideas in writing. Afterward they try to translate them in English which is not an easy task and even dangerous.
In fact, the students get insufficient score in writing. They are not able to develop good paragraphs. Although they are able to write paragraphs, they make a lot of grammatical mistakes.
Besides, teachers should be aware of the importance of interest in facilitating and aware of the use of a variety of methods to induce students' interest. Teachers should be able to apply methods that can motivate students to learn English writing and make them actively involved during the instructional activity. In addition, the methods used are hoped can evolve the students' self-confidence and behavior that are creative and innovative.
A good method will have a great influence in teaching learning process. Conversely, if the teacher uses inappropriate method, it will make the students bored in joining the lesson. The learning output, undoubtedly, will not be satisfying. There are several methods that can be used to facilitate learning English writing like process approach and product approach.
Most of traditional approaches of teaching writing focus merely on the product. The production of the composition is structurally correct and well -looking. Unfortunately, this path does not reach the crux of teaching writing itself. In this case the students cannot show up their own ability in writing maximally. They cannot express their ideas. It seems that their ideas just stay put in their mind. This path emphasizes on grammatical correctness and adherence to given models or guidelines only. This method, however, is less effective and makes students having no confidence in expressing their ideas. There is little or no opportunity for the students to add any thoughts or ideas of their own. The inevitable consequence is that little attention is paid to the ideas and meaning of student's writing, what it communicates to the reader, the purpose and the audience (Raimes 1983 : 75). Most students do not know how to do free writing, and they do not possess the strategies for composing texts independently. Furthermore, most of them do not enjoy writing and lack of confidence in writing on their own.
Therefore, the teachers should select and apply an appropriate method and a learning technique in teaching writing that can make the students able to explore and discover their thoughts, construct meaning and asses it at the same time. These characteristics navigate to the process approach. The implementation of process approach is considered as the most appropriate method used to teach writing. In spite of the characteristics possessed by the process approach, this approach can lead the students compose free writing. What is meant by free writing here is a composition that gives freedom to the students to determine the ideas and thoughts about a certain topic given by the teacher. The teacher still determines the framework of the composition that is the genre of the text. By referring to the same genre, the students can freely make their own outline.
By implementing the process approach, the teacher gives opportunities to the students to generate their ideas and thoughts. Consequently, the grammar of the composition might not be totally correct. This condition navigates the teacher to play his role as a guide, a motivator, and also a facilitator. It is important because the ultimate thing that needs to be measured in process approach is the end of the process.
From this idea, the title of this thesis is formulated as follows : THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PROCESS APPROACH IN TEACHING WRITING VIEWED FROM STUDENTS' LEARNING INTEREST (An Experimental Study in SMKN X).

B. Identification of the Problems
The problems that can be identified from the background of the study above are :
1. Students' writing skill is influenced by traininng systematically.
2. Students' writing skill is influenced by the graphics system and spelling convention of language.
3. Students' writing skill is influenced by grammatical knowledge and vocabulary mastery.
4. Students' writing skill is influenced by learning strategies.
5. Students' writing skill is influenced by Process Approach and Product Approach.

C. Limitation of the Problems
Based on the problems that emerge on the identification of the problems above, the research problems are limited to the significant effect of Process Approach viewed from students' learning interest to improve students' English Writing Skill. In this case, the writer merely discusses several genres, i.e. narrative, report, and descriptive. The writer's choice of genre is based on the handout that has been determined by the school.

D. Statement of the Problems
Based on the limitation of the problem above, the problem that will be analyzed in this research is :
1. Is there any difference in English writing skill achievement between students who are taught by process approach and those who are taught by product approach?
2. Is there any difference in English writing skill achievement between students who have high learning interest and those who have low learning interest?
3. Is there the interaction effect between teaching methods and students' learning interest in teaching writing?

E. Objective of the Study
The objectives of the study can be elaborated as follows :
1. To find out whether there is any difference in English writing skill achievement between students who are taught by process approach and those who are taught by product approach.
2. To find out whether there is any difference in English writing skill achievement between students who have high learning interest and those who have low learning interest;
3. To find out whether there is the interaction effect between teaching methods and students' learning interest in teaching writing.

F. Benefits of the Study
The result of the study will be useful for both teachers and students. They might be essential in :
1. Giving information to the students to enrich their insight, and get better learning by which they will be able to improve their writing skill;
2. Giving information to the teachers about process approach and the importance of students' learning interest to improve the students' English writing skill. In addition, the teachers are also motivated to find an active, creative, and fun strategy as an effort to minmize the students' weaknesses and maximize the students' writing skill in vocational high school;
3. Giving reference to other researchers who want to conduct research in the same field or topic.

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