CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Research English is the most widespread language in the world which plays an important role in every aspects of life; it is the language that is commonly used as a medium of transferring science, technologies, culture and art. Due to the important role of English in global era, several technique of teaching English which has been compulsory subject in high and junior school Curriculum for many years are developed. The aim of using technique is to enable students to learn and practice English easily. According to the school level curriculum the goal of teaching English is that teaching learning process should indicate life skill integration since the skill cannot be separated one to another, this goal could be achieved if the four English skill, namely speaking, listening, reading, and writing are used as the basic of teaching English itself. Writing is one of the language skills that must be mastered by the students, but writing is considered as one of the difficult skills to master. Farbain and Whinch (1996: 61) state that writing is difficult and very few people have the ability to write an essay at one sitting in a form that is adequate.

In fact, the ability to write in English is very important and useful; it has

become the students immediate need since the students are expected to master the four language skills. The mastery of language skills is intended to support the ability to communicate both in oral and in written forms. In addition, Harmer (1998:79) states that the reasons for teaching writing to students of English as a foreign language are for reinforcement, language development, learning style, and most importantly, writing is as a basic skill. Based on the preliminary study, after observation and interviewed with the English teacher of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember, it found that students of VIII A had the lowest mean score of writing since the mean score was 53.31 as stated in students previous score in writing achievement administered by the English teacher. while the passing grade score for English subject in that school was 65 or more. Further the English teacher said that students had problem in composing paragraph, they had difficulties improving the ideas and they had trouble coming up with interesting and relevant sentence that they can use to support the topic. The technique which was used to teach writing by English teacher, it was free writing technique, where the students were only given the topic to write a paragraph and no others clues. In this research the researcher also measures the active students participation during teaching and learning process. While recount in this research was chosen because it was the text genre at the second semester of the eighth grade of Junior High School and it had never been taught yet in the previous semester in this class. To overcome the unsatisfactory condition state above, the researcher proposes one of the teaching techniques in teaching writing using questioning technique. According to Nurhadi (2003: 45) questioning is a strategy that actively

used by students to analyze and explore ideas. Questioning is given spontaneously to stimulate students to think, discuss, and speculate. Questioning is also one of seven components of Contextual Teaching and Learning since the school level curriculum concern on applying Contextual Teaching and Learning, as according to Trianto (2008: 25) mentions that CTL approach has seven major components: Constructivism, Inquiry, Questioning, Learning Community, Modeling, Reflection, and Authentic Assessment. The researcher here, using questioning technique in the form of WH and Yes-No Question because it is appropriate with the knowledge and experiences of the eight grade students of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember. In teaching recount paragraph writing by using questioning technique, the teacher arranges details as many questions as she or he can think of about the subject to stimulate and generate the students ideas. The students are not given the actual text that they will write, rather they are given a series of questions, and the answers are the students guidance in structuring paragraphs. By using this technique, the students use the answers of questions given as a draft to develop their paragraph easily. In accordance with the above opinions, the researcher believes that questioning technique may be applied in teaching of writing since it can be used as a guide to help students write recount paragraphs. The students will be able to write paragraphs based on the questions given. As result, students recount paragraph writing achievement can be improved. Finally, the research entitled: Using Questioning Technique to Improve Recount Paragraph Writing Achievement at the VIII A Class Students of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember in 2009/2010 Academic Year

1.2 Research Problems Based on the background of the study, the problem of the research could be formulated as follows: 1. How can the use of questioning technique improve the students writing achievement at the VIII A class of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember on recount paragraph? 2. How can the use of questioning technique improve the students participation at the VIII A class of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember on recount paragraph? 1.3 Objective of the Research 1. To know how using questioning technique can improve the students achievement on recount paragraph writing at the VIII A class of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas in 2009/2010 Academic Year. 2. To know how using questioning technique can improve the students participation on recount paragraph writing at the VIII A class of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas in 2009/2010 Academic Year.

1.4 Operational Definition Terms In this research, the writer needs to formulate operational definition that is related directly to the term and variables of this research. The function of

operational definition is to make the same perspective between the writer and the reader about the variables of the research. 1.4.1 Questioning Technique Questioning technique is a technique in teaching of writing in which students are given a series of question related to the topic that build a coherent paragraph. After answering the question given, they can combine their answers into a simple paragraph. Morgan and Saxton (in Brualdi, 1998: 1). 1.4.2 Recount Paragraph A recount is a text that tells about past experiences or events. They can be based on the authors experience, on historical events or it can be imaginative, whereby the author has no direct link to recalled events. RIC (2003, 2) 1.5 Significance of The Research There are two kinds of advantages, namely theoretical and practical benefit. The expected result of the study both theoretical and practical are as follows: 1.5.1 Theoretical Benefit The result can be used as the reference for those who want to conduct a research and it can be used as alternative technique in teaching learning especially in teaching writing recount paragraph.

1.5.2

Practical Benefit The writer hopes that the result of this research will be useful for teachers and readers, in order that they can use it in teaching learning process, to make the

students more interested in studying English. 1.6 Scope of the Research The research only focuses on using questioning technique to improve recount paragraph writing achievement. The subject of the research is the VIII A Class students of MTs Al Mujahidi Gumukmas Jember.