istiadah

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study
A science and technology are increasing today, therefore the government suggests the quality of their education, because education is very important for young generation, they should study different kinds of sciences which can support them in forming themselves become a beneficial human being of their nation, country, and religion.
The result of education can be called as the high quality, if the ability, knowledge, and attitude which are possessed by many graduates for the next improvement and knowledge have they got, can be applied.
In the world of education of Indonesia, English is one of the important lessons, it is international language and has become means of communication interaction of many countries, and also become interaction language of many sciences.
For that purposes, the effort to introduce English should be applied earlier. Started from the elementary school and continued to the junior high school until to university. Naturally children are curious and interest in learning something new, e.g. English, and it will continuo to the next studying in the junior high school.
There are for language skills that must be mustered by learners, if they want to acquire English language well, there are reading, speaking, listening, and writing. These four language skills have a relationship each other, farther more writing has relation with three others, reading, listening and speaking. A writer is a reader when he read his writing during writing process, and also a speaker when his writing is read by readers.
In its relation with listening, the writer needs some ideas, inspirations and information during writing process, to complete his writing from text sources such as text books, magazines, news papers, etc, and also from non text sources like radio, television, discussion, conversation, etc
Among these four skills, writing is considered the most difficult activities by most English learners, they have difficulties whenever they start to write. In Lutfi Mubarok’s skripsi explained that Nunan (1983) stated that learning to write fluently and express safely is the most difficult of the skill for all language users. In addition Bell and Burnsby as citied by Nunan (1983,35) point out that writing is extremely complex cognitive activity in which the writer is required to demonstrate control of variable simultaneously, it needs language components, such as vocabulary, grammar or structure, and spelling to contract a good paragraph.
Vocabulary is the total number of words, which make up a language with rules for combining them. According to Harris j Albert, “the mastery of vocabulary of most students are lower than what is required, as a result when they continue their study, they have some difficulties, because the majority of text book are written in English”.
Learning vocabulary is an important part of all content learning as well as a significant part of any literacy program. Therefore, language learners and teachers should be creative, explorative, and innovative in their vocabulary learning and teaching. Various available strategies need to be scrutinized and implemented based on human vocabulary development and settings.
It has been the common practice in the primary classrooms that teachers are a dominant figure. In the writing class this dominance has been proved unfavorable for the children learning to write. Creative writing which enhances children to write on their own interest may avoid children from becoming idle in a writing class. However, it should be remembered that the children are not to be completely left to work on their own.
One way of varying the instructional material in teaching writing is by means of adopting some of the literary elements in a novel, for instance is short story. The short story is the perfect medium, while writing a novel is a herculean task, just about anybody has a craft of it. That does not mean that short stories are easy to write, though, and it certainly does not mean that they are not as artistic and valuable as novels. With practice, patience, and a passion for writing, they can be every bit as moving and memorable as their much longer cousins.
In presenting English, especially in teaching writing by using short stories, the teacher should be creative in choosing the material of the short stories and able to stimulate the students’ interest, in order the students will more enjoy learning English, so the lesson will be able to run well.
According to the explanation above, the writer gives the title of his skripsi “IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN WRITING BY SHORT STORY AT THE EIGHTH YEAR OF MTs. NAHJATUSSHOLIHIN PLAWANGAN KRAGAN REMBANG.

1.2 Statement of the Problem
Based on the background of the study above, the writer states the problems as follows:
1. Is short story effective to improve the students’ ability in writing?
2. What factors hinder in improving the students’ ability in writing by using short story?

1.3 Objective of the Study
In accordance with the statements of the problems above, the objective of the study are:
1. To know the effectiveness of short story in improving the students’ ability in writing.
2. To know the factors which hinders in improving the students’ ability in writing by using short story.

1.4 Significant of the Study
The writer expects that this study/research will be useful for:
1. Teacher
a. The result of observation will useful for teacher as an attempt to improve them to do their duty, especially teaching writing to junior high school.
b. The teacher is able to choose the method and media effectively in teaching writing.
c. The teacher knows how far the students’ ability and their problems faced especially in writing by using short story.
2. Students
a. The students will enjoy learning English especially in writing
b. The students have insight that the more they know and master in vocabulary they will get easier in writing composition.
c. The students will be able to make a short story based on the title of story.
3. Other researcher
The result of observation will useful too for next researcher in using reference and making comparison.

1.5 Limitation of the Study
In this research, the writer wants to limit the study about improving the students’ ability in writing by short story at the eighth year students in A class of MTs. NAHJATUSSHOLIHIN PLAWANGAN KRAGAN REMBANG
1.6 Definition of the Key Terms
There are some key terms used in this skripsi, so to make understand to the readers, the writer tries to give definition of key terms:
1. Improve
It is become or makes something better (Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary 1991: 209).
2. Students
Students are children age about six to twelve (Oxford Hornby AS, ET. All learning pocket dictionary, 1995: 135).
3. Ability
It is capable of doing physical activity or mortality before or after getting training in writing short story.
4. Writing
The state of being of letters which related to the sounds we make when we speak (Byrne, 1981: 1).
Furthermore Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols (known as a writing system).
5. Short story
It is fiction and non fiction story and usually written in narrative prose (Wikipedia).
A short story focuses on one incident in time and it is not as a complex and length as a novel.