CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I. Background to the Study

Students learn in different ways. Some students like to see main points
written down in order to remember them. Others learn better by listening.
They may like to hear information repeated a few times in different ways.
Others rely on all their senses. They may need to touch and feel something
before they can fully learn it. Students have varied motivation in learning
English. Sometimes, most of them do not have motivation at all in learning
English. They are not attracted with the lesson. To deal with various learning
styles and motivation, a teacher should use appropriate techniques. In
addition, the teacher has to apply certain technique to make them focus in
learning English.
Learning English includes learning writing skill. From the four skills
(listening, speaking, reading, and writing), writing is the most difficult skill
that should be mastered by students. Writing is complex for English learners,
particularly for students at junior high school. Writing skill requires students
to have ideas and linguistics competence such as grammar and vocabulary. It
is applied in many kinds of text that are appropriate with the literacy level of
junior high school students, which is functional level. They have to learn and
master some functional texts like procedure, descriptive, recount, narrative,
and report. However, students’ writing skills are low. Beside the skill itself is
complicated, the students are not required to write. They have many barriers
that make them stag to write. In addition, teaching writing seems boring for
the students because it’s merely talking about text that unfamiliar with them.
The problems related to writing skill appear from two aspects. They are
students and teacher.
Teaching writing, whatever the text types are, can be done through
many techniques, such as dialogues, picture, games, etc. The teacher should
choose a suitable ways such as: using games. If the teacher uses it, the
 students will have a lot of opportunity to practice writing in other words it
means that the students will get knowledge or input from games. Besides, it is
aimed to make the students are attracted to write.

II. Identification of the Problem

According to Byrne (1990:3), there are some difficulties related to
writing. Firstly, there is psychological difficulty in which the writer has to
decide what information the reader needs and how best to express this. It
means that there is no immediate interaction between the writer and the reader.
Secondly, there is linguistic difficulty in that the language used in written
language is different from that used in speech. In this case, the writer has to
know the conventions of written language. Thirdly, there is cognitive
difficulty in which that the students have to organize their thought on paper.
Sometimes, they lose ideas when they are obliged to write and they do not
know what to say.
The reality shows that the majority of students dislike writing. When faced
with a writing task, most students will react with negative comments. A
teacher who does not try to see the real message behind these comments could
easily become discouraged. Eventually, both the teacher and the students will
hate writing. To prevent this from happening, the teacher should consider
what students actually mean boring, and the possibility that students are
actually expressing their insecurity and lack of confidence in completing the
task.
From the preliminarily observation then, the researcher concluded that there
were two main causes: from teacher and students. Firstly, the teacher still used
traditional strategy in which she only demanded the students’ writing language
rules. The students were seldom trained to make a better writing by using
varied technique. The techniques used are monotonous. The teacher asked the
students to write in a certain topic. The time given was limited. They
sometimes lost their ideas, so they could not continue their writing. They also
thought that time for writing was limited. Because of these they got
 difficulties in writing and the result of their writing were still far from what
were expected.
This problem appeared at the students of SMP Negeri 2 Sentolo where the
writing skill of the students was still low especially in writing descriptive.
Some techniques and approaches have been employed in teaching writing,
nevertheless it was still less to give interest to the students in teaching writing.

III.Limitation of the Problem

To avoid misunderstanding to estimate what the writer has explained,
the writer will give object; ones will arrange the thesis organize each problem
more easily. The focuses are more intensively on the problems that have been
in this research. The writer will discuss:
1. Among the four skills, the writer teaches writing only, especially writing
descriptive.
2. The writer uses games in teaching writing
3. Games which introduction are

IV. Formulation of the Problem

After analyzing what the writer discussed in the problems, the
following step is to make of the study problems. The writer tries to formulate
what she wants, in order to achieve the target. Based on the problem above
can be formulated as follow:
1. Is there any relationship between games activities and improving the
writing ability especially writing descriptive to the second year of the
students SMPN 2 Sentolo?
2. How is reaction of students after given the material using games?
3. What kind of games activities should be used?

V. Research Objectives
Each research must have objectives, it depends on the topic, which
carries out, consist of:
 1. The writer wants to describe and analyze whether games are suitable to
improve the speaking ability at the second year of the students at SMPN 2
Sentolo.
2. The writer wants to describe and analyze whether games can give students
encourage to learn writing.

VI. Research Significance

The research is used for:
1. The writer: to fulfill the participle program of the studying at Yogyakarta
State University, one of requirement of which is to write a thesis in order
to get Strata one Degree in English studies.
2. The students: this research can be used to increase the student English
achievement.
3. The teacher: this research can be used as an item to enrich the inventory of
English library.
4. Other researchers: this research can be used as a reference to other
researchers who want to explore games to improve writing.