CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the researcher discusses the background of the study,

formulation research problem, the purpose of the study, formulation of

hypothesis, significance of the study, scope and limitation, and definition of key

terms.

A. Background of the study

The most basic part of our lives is language. One of the functions of

language is used as a communication tool in every nation in the world.

According to Richards and Schmidt (2010: 311) language is the method of

human communication in which sounds (or their written representation) are

organized into larger units in a structured manner. With communication, we

can express our feeling, idea, and everything that we mind. In other words, as

a system of arbitrary signals such as sounds, gestures, or written symbols,

language helps us in all of our activities.

English is an international language, realizing it permits us to speak

with individuals from different societies and nations. English has effectively

been educated as an unknown dialect in our country. According to Richards

and Schmidt (2010: 590), The term TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign

Language) is used to describe the process of teaching English to those who do

not learn it natively. From kindergarten to college, English was taught to

students in school. The students can improve their abilities in various fields

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through English learning. In English learning, there are three components,

including pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and four abilities, they are

writing, speaking, listening, reading. The components and skills in English

have a relationship or connection with one another like grammar and writing.

According to Fatemi (2008:7), writing and grammar are intimately connected,

as effective writing relates much of its quality to flawless grammar. There is

an assumption that "good writing requires good grammar". In other words,

grammar is a necessity of composition for individuals who need to deliver

sentences, paragraphs, essays, and stories.

According to Puspitasari and Kurniawan (2017:83), grammar is an

assortment of decisions that direct how words are consolidated or assembled

to frame rational sentences that can be spoken and written accurately and

viably. The next definition, the highlights of a language, like sounds,

sentences, development, and arrangement words, grammar is the construction

and which means the arrangement of language (Etfita, 2019:59). From the

definition above, the components of a language and the principles for

organizing these elements into a meaningful unit have often been referred to

as grammar. In the case of grammar, teaching that focuses solely on the

definition yields more productive results.

According to Ellis (2009: 144), the issues of contemplating grammar

can be isolated into three classifications: the troubles related to ecological of

language, phonetic components, and mental challenges. The frequency at

which the information is received from the environment is one factor relevant
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to the language environment. The linguistic factor is the essence of a

language's grammar, while the psychological factor is the capacity to

understand. In comparison, students in Indonesia need more grammar

instruction because English is not their native language and they rarely use

the English language in their life. As a result, when students learn grammar,

they struggle with linguistic and psychological factors as well as

environmental factors.

In English learning, there are four skills of English language (reading,

speaking, listening, and writing). Writing is one of the principal abilities in

the English language that have complicated than other skills. According to

Puspitasari and Kurniawan (2017:83), writing is a unique intellectual cycle

where the writer takes ideas and communicates them graphically. The most

important ability in a language is writing. In other words, writing is the most

difficult skill from others because it involves many segments like the structure

of language, words, and expressions to be mastered. So, if the students want

to write, they should pay attention about the segments of writing (Etfita, 2019:

60).

Nowadays, the students are difficult to writing because of many

problems. Byrne (1993:4) identified three problems that make writing

difficult: linguistic, cognitive, and material difficulties. The first problem is

linguistic in fact. This is due to our ability to compose proper structures, which

helps the sentences to fit in with one another. The text's final result is

something that readers can use effectively. The second problem is a cognitive
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one that has to do with our mastery of the various types of language, structure,

and grammar that we need to communicate effectively in writing. The third

problem concerns the definition. It was linked to our ability to formulate a

concept in writing. As a consequence, we sometimes lose ideas while writing.

Therefore, learning is basic for creating writing, especially English

learning in Indonesia, because writing is the change of ideas and thoughts into

clear composed structures. Moreover, many individuals favor writing as the

method for conveying data in various ways, including postal letters, business

letters, and important data in an organization's items. The kinds of the genre

in writing are descriptive, narrative, report, recount, explanation, procedure,

anecdote, spoof, and news items, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition,

discussion, reviews.

There are different approaches to sort out sentences in a piece of

writing. One of them is descriptive text. According to Oshima et al (2007: 61),

descriptive writing uses sensory information to clarify how something shows

up, looks, scents, tastes, and sounds. A proper of description is a picture,

readers can imagine the picture of the object, location, or individual. While

the definition focuses on visual perception, it also includes other forms of

perception. Based on the definition above, descriptive text is composed to

describe someone, location, or thing. Overall, descriptive text is used to

describe an individual, location, or thing through visual experience. It's used

to make a visual image of individuals, locations, and even time, days, or

seasons. It can be used to describe the outwards appearance of individuals. It

can show data about the character. Not all students can write clear content

appropriately and fittingly with the current components in the descriptive text.

Many students can’t write because of some cases. Most of the students lacked

the vocabulary and failed to apply English grammar.

Grammar and writing are two components and abilities that are

identified with each other. There is an assumption that "good writing requires

good grammar". The dominating of language structure is a necessity for

writing for individuals who need to create sentences, articles, stories, and

essays. Swan (2002: 23) states, "grammar is the guidelines that say how words

are combined, arranged, and changed to show various implications". In other

words, grammar controls the formation of different definitions that are utilized

to make a sentence in writing.

Another statements about the correlation between grammar and

writing in descriptive text, the research also connected her research

discoveries to previous studies that relate to Nadrun (2015). The research was

to check whether there was a correlation between students’ ability to grammar

mastery and their writing ability. The samples of research are fourth-semester

students at STIKES Pembina Palembang's midwifery study program. The

other research was from Wahyuni and Wati (2018). The purpose of research

was to (1) decide the capability level of grammar mastery at English

department students, (2) decide the capability level of writing thesis at English

department students, and (3) research the relationship between grammar

mastery and writing a thesis at STKIP YDB Lubuk Alung during the sixth
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semester. The research utilized a correlational study, and the participants were

sixth-semester students in academic year 2017/2018. The total sampling

technique was used to choose 32 students for this study. Moreover, the

following research was from Etfita (2019). The focus of this research was to

see if there was a correlation between students' grammar mastery and their

ability to write news for the fourth semester English department students at

Universitas Islam Riau's faculty of teacher and training. The correlation

research design was utilized in this research. The sample contained 26

students from the 4C class, who were chosen utilizing the cluster sampling

technique. Grammar and news writing tests were utilized to collect data. Also,

research about grammar and writing was finished by Pamuji (2020). The

reason for this research was to check whether there was a correlation between

students' capacity to master grammar and their writing ability. The

participants in the research are fourth-semester students at STIKES Pembina

Palembang's midwifery study program.

The statement above showed that the differences between previous

research and this research are four previous studies took the object of research

in different places (SMA Negeri 1 Pasangkayu, STKIP YDB Lubuk Alung,

Universitas Islam Riau, STIKES Pembina Palembang), sample (X IPA 1, 32

sixth semester students chosen by using total sampling technique, 4C, 22 of

fourth-semester students of the midwifery study program), instrument

(questionnaires and tests), (2015, 2018, 2019, 2020) year in academic. These

are the statements from four previous studies. In this research, the researcher
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wants to make new something and not the same as other previous studies. This

research is held in the academic year 2020/2021. The sample of this research

is X-TKRO 4 (Mechanical Engineering Student) from Vocational High

School Bandung, Tulungagung. It used two kinds of tests, they are multiple-

choice (the material based on the basic competence in the syllabus of

curriculum 2013 for first-grade students of vocational high School) for

grammar test and writing descriptive text about the individual, things, the

location for writing test. The following are the differences between previous

studies and this research: in the academic year, sample, and the way to collect

data from two tests of the independent and dependent variable. It showed that

new research is needed to cover the weaknesses of previous studies and the

new research is the research in this thesis.

When the researcher was doing an observation at Vocational High

School One Bandung from 21st September to 13th November 2020. At the time

the researcher taught the first semester of the 10th grade in mechanical

engineering students (X-TKRO 4). The researcher got material about

descriptive text chapter. In the process of teaching and writing English, the

researcher explained about definition of descriptive text, generic structure, the

purpose of descriptive text, and language features of descriptive text. To

improve understanding students, the researcher gave some examples of

descriptive text. From the explanation above, the students were taught English

lesson about descriptive text chapter maximally, and commonly the student

could write descriptive text. However, the students were still difficult to write
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descriptive text. Based on the researcher’s experience was doing an

observation at Vocational High School One Bandung. The researcher found

some problems that were found based on the phenomenon. They are some of

the students had problems writing descriptive text based on generic structure,

language features in descriptive text, mechanics (spelling, punctuation, and

capitalization).

From the description above, the researcher assumes that grammar is

one of the language parts which take a role in writing ability, especially in

descriptive text. Having strong grammar mastery, allowed writers to deliver

their message to the reader clearly and understandably. On the other hand,

writing in a grammatically incorrect manner simply makes it more difficult

for readers to understand. It's crucial to utilize the right words to get the idea

through, as well as to practice good basic grammar when writing descriptive

text. Based on school reality in nowadays they get the English lesson in the

school only once a time a week (online and offline learning) because of a

pandemic. It's different from four previous studies at senior high school,

university, STKIP, STIKES that got the English lesson more than once time

a week, and at the time all previous studies used offline learning in their school

(before pandemic). So, the researcher wants to know how the competence of

the students with the less get the theory in this pandemic.

Based on the problem above, the researcher was interested in

investigating the problems above into research entitled: “The Correlation

Between Students’ Grammar Mastery and Their Competence in Writing

Descriptive Text at The Tenth Grade SMKN 1 Bandung in Academic Year

2020/2021”.

B. Formulation Research Problem

Is there any correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their

competence in writing descriptive text at the tenth grade SMKN 1 Bandung

in academic year 2020/2021?

C. Purpose of The Study

To find out whether there is correlation between students’ grammar

mastery and competence in writing descriptive text at the tenth grade SMKN

1 Bandung in academic year 2020/2021.

D. Formulation of Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a statement concerning the relationship between two

or more variables for research. Based on the research problem and the

research objective, there are two hypotheses in the research as follows:

1. H0 (null hypothesis)

H0: ρ = 0
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There is no correlation between students’ grammar mastery and their

competence in writing descriptive text at the tenth grade SMKN 1

Bandung academic year 2020/2021.

2. H1 (alternative hypothesis)

H1: ρ ≠0

There is a significant correlation between students’ grammar mastery

and their competence in writing descriptive text at the tenth grade

SMKN 1 Bandung academic year 2020/2021.

E. Significance of the Study

Theoretically, it is used to practice the researcher's knowledge in test

the theory. Practically, the finding of the present research is expected to give

some scientific contribution for the English teachers, and future researchers.

1. English Teachers

The result of this research can inform them about the relations

between to improve the result of this study will become the input to

English teachers in teaching-learning processes, especially in writing.

2. Future researchers

The researcher hopes that the research will be useful for future

researchers as the reference to make further research. It is expected

for future researchers to conduct the same research in a wider area.

So, it will be more advantageous and beneficial to the development

of English education.

F. Scope and Limitation

1. Scope of the research

In this research, what is involved in the discussion is related

to students’ grammar mastery and its relation with students’

competence in writing descriptive text. This research area focuses on

using grammar to write descriptive text which is suitable with the

instructional syllabus design for the first semester of first-grade

students.

2. Limitation of the research

This research is only conducted for class TKRO 4 of first-grade

students at SMKN 1 Bandung who registered in the academic year

2020/2021 and it consists of 35 students.

G. Definition of Key Terms

1. Correlation

Correlation is a connection between two or more variables. In

this research, the object or something that correlated is students’

grammar mastery and their competence in writing descriptive text.

The number shows the strength and the direction of correlation. It is

from -1 to + 1. If getting closer to 1, means the stronger correlation,

and getting closer to 0, means the weaker correlation. So, the positive

or negative score of their mastery in grammar will give a result

significant correlation or no correlation to their writing descriptive text

is finding out after the data, as well as the result, are obtained. The

SPSS program will be used to determine the correlation.

2. Grammar Mastery

According to Richards and Schmidt (2010: 251-252), Grammar

is the structure of language and how components of linguistic such as

words, phrases that combined to make a sentence. Mastery is a

condition about understanding and knowledge completely to certain

activities (Oxford). Grammar mastery in this research is as knowledge

and understanding of students about how to use grammar mastery

when writing descriptive text. According to Tronbury (2000:141)

commonly, grammar is tested by using the discrete-item test. It is

about the individual component of learning knowledge. According to

Heaton (1975:34), there are some ways to measure grammar mastery

such as multiple-choice, rearrangement items, completion items. The

type of multiple choice is liked by many constructors of grammar test.

From the statement above, the researcher does a grammar test to

measure grammar mastery.

3. Descriptive Text

Descriptive text describes the characteristic of someone or the

object. The purpose of descriptive text is to describe people, places,

and things. Gerot and Wignell (1995:208) defined descriptive text as

written to describe a specific person, location, or object. From the

statements above, the researcher concludes that descriptive text is a

text that is used to describe someone, place, or thing through visual

experience.