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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of study

English language in indonesia is the first foreign language. It means

that English is a language compulsory learning subject where must be taught

for the students in the school from the elementary school untill university.

Mastering English as a foreign language of course is not as simple as learning

English as a national language. Teacher must master and understand what the

method and the technique that suitable to be used in English teaching and

learning process. Learning English with suitable method and technique can

help the students in understanding English material.

Reading is one of an important aspect in language learning. Reading

become a necessity in life activity. Based on Sanggam Siahaan states”

Reading is one of the four language skills. It categorized into the area of a

recepted skill. This category is a skill to comprehend a piece of information in

the written language”.1 It means that reading have purpose to get information.

How to get the information that relation with the written language. English

have many differences with Indonesian, most of students feel difficulties to

get information in their reading activities. Many problems that faced by reader

when they want to achieve a purpose of reading. Those problems are about

reading habit, reading technique, eyes work, motivation and reading interest.

1
Sanggam Siahaan, Issues in Linguistics, Yogyakarta,Graha Ilmu, ,2008,p.106

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Motivation is needed by reader to read texts or books. Unfortunately, most of

readers do not have motivation to read, they think that reading is something

bore. To read well, the students must have good reading capabilities too. In

teaching reading, there are kinds of paragraphs; one of them is about narrative

paragraph. Narrative paragraph describes an event, feeling or experience in

story form or in the order the details of the event happened.

In reading narrative paragraph, the student doesn’t know what the

paragraph tells about. To motivate them, the teacher should find out some

method that can attract the students’ interest. In teaching learning process,

method is very urgent to decide all plans in learning process. Method can help

the teacher in way to explain or to teach the material in order to their students

easier to understand what they learn in learning process. One of suitable

method is grammar translation method.

The grammar translation method was widely used in teaching the

classis, namely Latin, and it was transferred to the teaching of modern

language when they were introduced into school, first as an optional and then

as a compulsory subject. In teaching foreign language by means of the

grammar-translation method attention was paid to the assimilition of grammar

rules of the foreign language that pupils studied.2

The students are difficulties to read the narrative paragraph, the

students have difficulties to explain narrative paragraph tells about, The

students lack vocabularies and the method which are used in the learning

process are boring. The research was conducted in the SMA N 1 Sekampung.
2
G.V Rogova, Methods of Teaching English, 1975, p.11.

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That one education institutions in Sekampung then the research was conducted

in the class which has the students 35.

The students’ score can be shown on the table below:

Table I

The result of pre survey at the tenth grade of SMA N 1

Sekampung in the academic year of 2011/2012 Illustrates the levels of

narrative paragraph,

No Score Frequency percentage Category

Source : The English Teacher’ test at the tenth grade, on October 17 , 2011

From the explanation above, it can be inferred that the students’

narrative paragraph reading is categorized into low category because the

average is 60,6 %. Based on these conditions, the writer would like to

conduct a research “The Influence of Using Grammar Translation Method

toward the Students’ Narrative Reading Ability at The Tenth Grade of

SMA N 1 Sekampung in the Academic Year of 2012/2013.

B. Problem Identification

Based on the background above, the writer would like to identify the

problems as follow:

1. Students do not have much motivation to read the English text.

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2. The students are difficulties to explain the main idea and to find

specific information of the narrative paragraph.

3. The students do not know how to learn reading well.

4. Most of the students lack vocabulary

C. Problem Limitation

There are many problems relate to reading ability, but the researcher

will only focus on the low student’s narrative reading ability. Based on the

problem above, the writer limits this problem that is the influence of using

grammar translation method toward the students’ narrative reading ability at

the tenth grade of SMA N 1 Sekampung in the academic year of 2012/2013.

D. Problem Formulation

Based on the problem above, the writer would like to identify the

problems as follows:

Can grammar translation method influence the students’ narrative

reading ability at the tenth grade of SMA N 1 Sekampung in the academic

year of 2012/2013?

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E. The Objectives and Benefits of The Research

1. The Objective of the Resarch

The research is aimed at

Finding out influence of grammar translation method in reading narrative

ability .

2. The Benefits of the Research

a. For the students

1) The students get the knowledge about the way in reading

narrative.

2) The students are fluence in reading narrative.

3) The students can explain the main idea and to find specific

information of the narrative paragraph.

4) The students have the motivation in learning English.

5) The students can get the good score.

b. For the teacher

1) To give input to the teachers in order to teach English better.

2) To give information about the important of method in the

learning reading.

c. For the school

1) The headmaster can convey the teachers that they should know

the students’ problems in order to reach learning process

effectively.

2) It can give motivation to be better.

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d. For the writer

1) The writer can use the grammar translation method in teaching

learning process

2) The writer knows about the students’ narrative paragraph

reading ability by using grammar translation method

F. Benefit of Study

The result of this classroom action research are expected

a. For the Teacher

1. To give information to English teacher if grammar translation

method can be effective to increase the students’ narrative

reading ability.

b. For the Students

1. To improve the result of the students’ learning

2. The students will get easy way to read narrative text by using

grammar translation method

c. For the writer

1. The writer can use the grammar translation method in teaching

learning process.

2. The writer knows about the students’ narrative reading ability

by using grammar translation method.