CHAPTER I (THE INFLUENCE OF CLAUSE MASTERY TOWARD THE WRITING ABILITY)

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION   

A.    Background of Study

English as a foreign language plays a very important role. It is understandable because almost all countries in the world use it as international language. Moreover, most books of science and technology are written in English. It seem that English has become a science and technology language. Consequently, to absorb science and technology we must be able to understand in English language.

In Indonesian, English is the first foreign language. It means that English is a compulsory learning subject where must be taught for the students in the school from the elementary school until university. Mastering English as a foreign language of course is not as simple as learning English as a national language. Teacher and students have to master and understand what the strategy that suitable to be used in English teaching and learning process. Learning English with suitable strategies can help the students to understand English material well.

The purpose of teaching English as a foreign language is make the students mastered four skills in English, they are speaking, reading, listening and writing. Especially is writing, the students should be able to write in english whether a sentence, a paragraph, or a text with the rigt structure and grammar and suitable with the writing rules, like the punctuation and capitalisem.

Grammar is one of subject that is learned in each level in elementary school, junior high school, or university. Every language has their own rule of grammatical not exception with English. In getting the meaning of the English language as foreign language, the people must know how to arrange  the words, pharases, clause and sentences  in the language. Unfortunately, English with its grammatical is not easy to be learned.

Clause is one of the topic which is discussed in grammar subject. However It has also the correlation to the writing. Starting from the clause the students can make a complex sentence, then a paragraph, untill a text. the keyword to learn and make a complex sentence are: the ability to make a dependent clause and combining an independent and dependent clause, so that it can form a right complex sentence which is grammatically right. Contrary, the students feel difficult to do it because they consider that the clause is the most difficult than the other topic in grammar.

In writing subject, structure and grammar is very needed so that everything that are written become easy to be understood. Sometimes the students are able to interprete something in writing but they couldn’t make it grammatically right. It is because the students have low motivation, such as the level of interest to learn english skill totally. When the students have the adequate interest they will be motivated to learning well and doing writing. However, when they have no interest they could not do the writing well.

The presurvay that was done on October, 26 2011 proved that the researcher find the students’ difficulties in gramatical especially in clauses. Firstly, the students appropriately could not choose the subordinating conjunction of adverb clause. Secondly, the students could not combining the two sentences become a complex sentence. It was because they confused to identify which one should be independent or dependent clause. The last, the students got difficulties in differentiating the using of relative pronoun like who, whom and whose, that and which, in the adjective clause. From the statement above the researcher conclude that the understanding clause is very important for the students particularly in writing subject.

The result of the presurvay data can be learn from the table bellow.

Tabel 1.1 Prasurvey Result

NO	NAME	SCORE	CATEGORY
1	A	75	middle
2	B	46	low
3	C	46	low
4	D	49	low
5	E	46	low
6	F	38	low
7	G	50	low
8	H	49	low
9	I	77	middle
10	J	78	middle
11	K	78	middle
12	L	55	low
13	M	46	low
14	N	42	low
15	O	81	high
16	P	46	low
17	Q	46	low
18	R	46	low
19	S	61	low
20	T	52	low
21	U	81	high
22	V	34	low
23	W	34	low
24	X	84	high
25	Y	26	low
26	Z	13	low
27	AA	38	low
28	BB	38	low
29	CC	77	middle
30	DD	61	low
31	EE	75	middle
32	FF	55	low
33	GG	50	low
34	HH	61	low
35	II	52	low
36	JJ	75	middle
37	KK	46	low
38	LL	38	low
39	MM	49	low
40	NN	50	low
TOTAL SCORE		2144
AVERAGE		53,6

Here is a chart that can describe the presentage of the students’ clause mastery:

After analyzing the data and include it in a chart, the data can be elaborated that there are 75% of the students have low score in clause mastery test. Then, there are only 18% of the students who have middle score and only  8% who have high score. It improves that many students still have low motivation in studying english grammar especially the clauses. So that it can influence the students writing ability.

B.     Problem Identification

Seeing the background explained above, the writer can identify some problems that are discovered as follow:

1.                  The students are confused in combining two sentences become a complex sentence.

2.                  The students have difficulties in identifying conjunction in adjective-clause.

3.                  The students are confused  in differentiating between adjective clause and noun clause.

4.                  The students have difficulties in choosing the suitable subordinative conjunction in adverb clause.

C.    Problem Limitation

Since there is a great number of grammatical, it is impossible to discuss all about it, therefore the writer will only elaborate about the influence of the studets’ clause mastery toward the students’ writing ability especially in description text. The subject of this research will be the students at the third semester of English education program of State Islamic College Jurai Siwo Metro in the academic year of 2011/2012.

D.    Problem Formulation

Based on the problem above, the researcher formulates the problem in this research as follows:

        1.      How far does the influence of the studets’ clause mastery toward the students’ writing ability?