THE USE OF MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING RECOUNT TEXT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter contains a brief explanation of the introduction. It consists of background, research questions, the scope of the research, aims of the research, hypothesis, research methodology, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper.
A. Background
In the structure of curriculum program in Junior high school, English is one of the most important subjects for students in the seventh grade until nine grades by having about four hours lesson every week. English has been identified as the most important parameter in the curriculum development that should be mastered by Indonesian students. It means that students in the junior high school have three years opportunity to learn English and they are expected to master it.
There are four skills in English teaching that the students should master it. The four skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Standard competence of Junior High School states that the seventh grade students in the second semester should be able to express spoken text and short monologue in descriptive and procedure text to interact with surrounding. It means that, the seventh grade students should be able to express meaning in simple short monologue and dialogue used in oral language variety accurately, fluently, and understandably to interact with surrounding.
Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning. Speaking also is an important skills to communicate because in speaking students convey ideas, opinion, etc. According to Brown (2001) speaking is one of the important skills in language learning in the classroom. It is used twice as often as listening and the most used skill, it means that students should be good in speaking because speaking is used more than listening.
However in reality, since English is introduced to students, they cannot talk fluently it can be seen when they make small conversations they cannot talk as the teacher want and they get some difficulties to speak English. They feel uneasy and they are afraid to speak with each other to share about their opinion. It can be drawn from their negative attitude toward speaking activity, one of the reason is the teaching method which is used is boring.
In teaching and learning process, the effective and interesting method is one of the ways to motivate students to be involved in the activity. It can make the students feel more comfortable with the materials. As Dewey states, cited in Mooney (2000; p. 15), that enjoyable teaching learning process will occur when students are interested in the materials because the beginner students are interested in many new things such as foreign language. According to Brown (2001 : 100) the characteristic of novice level is the students' ability to communicate using learned material and oral production consists of isolated words.
Unfortunately many teachers still apply traditional method in teaching. For example, teachers make the students keep learning English through teachers' explanation of new words or grammar. In fact, this method is not effective because students will easily forget the words and the material if they learn different topic. Especially for students, those who are seven to twelve years old, this method is uninteresting. Keskil and Cephe note that students who are 10 and 11 years old like game, puzzles and song most, those who are 12 and 13 years old like activities built around dialogues, question-answer activities and matching exercises most. (Harmer, 2001 : 61).
There are many methods that can be used in teaching or learning speaking. But the applied methods which are used need to be not only interesting but also effective in teaching speaking. Clearly, students will not be able to speak foreign language well just by memorizing lists of words, repeating mechanically some useful expressions, and so on. Cameron's (2001) state that speaking is the active use of language to express meanings. To speak in the foreign language in order to share understandings with other, people require attention to precise details of the language. Thus, if students do not understand the spoken language, they cannot learn it effectively.
As Dawson (1975) state that speaking is truly basic skill in language learning. Students need to get themselves involved in the classroom to get more practice in speaking foreign language. For the purpose of getting students involved in the classroom, enjoyable activities are recommended to be used by the teachers to make the students focus on teaching learning process.
The teachers have to use different kinds of teaching approach in order not to make the students feel bored. Klancar (2006 : 53) states that the teacher will get some advantages when they teach student by various types of activities such as reading aloud and describing pictures.
Speaking activity can be modified by using media to help students in organizing their idea, for example by using pictures. Based on the basic competence designed for seventh grade in the junior high school, students are expected to be able to describe something such as objects, things people or procedure. It means that teachers have to help them to be able to describe it. There are many ways to make students more involved in the activity one of them is by using pictures. Besides using pictures and posters teacher can also use the real media such as desks, chairs, and the other things to help them to describe people, things or object. Pictures, as the media, are expected to give explanation and description, without having the students to memorize the text.
Pictures can be a media to stimulate students in describing an object or person in the pictures. Students can acquire the meaning by seeing the things in the pictures without explanation. It also helps them to communicate or explain the events in the picture. As Thornbury (2005; p. 75) explains that the script of conversation can be illustrated in picture form to make it memorized easily. So that teachers can create joyful learning through pictures that can affect students to participate and also motivate them to be active in the class. Providing tools especially pictures could encourage students to focus on the materials. They are interested in the pictures and become actively participate in the class. Furthermore, through pictures, fun learning can be created and speaking activity will not be seen as difficult as students might have thought.
In relation to the teaching and learning, pictures are potential source in the transferring information. In the other words, picture can become a bridge to transfer knowledge from the teacher to the student. As Goodman (2006 : 75) states, that picture can act as a bridge between students who have different learning style. According to Canning-Wilson (2001 : 91) pictures are important since they facilitate students understanding. Furthermore, she explains that for most people, the mental image of what they see has greater impact than auditory input.
Based on the explanation above, this research aimed is to find out the effectiveness of using pictures in teaching speaking English. Thus, the entitled "TEACHING SPEAKING ENGLISH THROUGH PICTURE IN IMPROVING STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY".
B. Research Questions
According to the previous explanations, this research was intended to answer the following questions :
1. Is the use of Pictures effective in improving students speaking ability ?
2. What are the students' responses of teaching speaking English through pictures ?
C. The Scope of the Research
Based on the aforementioned problems, the scope of this study was to find out the effectiveness of picture in teaching speaking English. The context of the study was limited on teaching speaking English, especially to the seventh grades of SMP X.
D. Aims of the Research
The aims of this research are :
1. To investigate the effectiveness of picture in teaching speaking English through picture.
2. To analyzed students' responses towards the implementation teaching speaking English through picture.
