Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 The Background of The Study

Communication is very important in human life. It is used by human in order to know and

understand between each other and basic of all human communication is language. Jack and

Richard (2010) Language is the system of human communication which consists of the

structured arrangement of sounds (or their written representation) into larger units, e.g.

morphemes, words, sentences, utterances. It tells that spoken and written as a language

communication.

There are many languages which is used in the world. But English is one of the international

languages to communicate between each country at around world. In Indonesian government,

English is a must as the first foreign language which is taught to the students from elementary

school up to university. In Junior High School and Senior High School, English is one of foreign

language which is demanded to graduate in standard of national exam. In order to be good

mastering English, students must master the four language skills are listening, speaking, reading,

and writing.

Manser (2006:7) stated that writing as a means of communication. It tells that speaking

is not only one way to communicate to the others people. It also will give us time to consider

carefully what are we going to communicate. So, it is the important skill that has to be mastered

by people who want to be able to communicate perfectly.

 Writing is the most difficult skill to learn and to master, because writing is an active or

productive skill so that students who are learning writing have to learn how to find ideas, and

express them into writing. Richards and Renandya (2002: 303) stated : There is no doubt that

writing is the most difficult skill for L2 learners to master. The difficulty lies not only in

generating and organizing ideas, but also in translating these ideas into readable texts.

There are many kind of English text that the students should have the competence to

develop and produce short functional text. They are procedure, anecdote , descriptive, recount,

narrative, report, news item, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition, spoof, explanation,

discussion, review and commentary.

In school, students are required to learn to write different text types. There are some types

of text that should be learned by grade eleventh, they are: Recount, Narrative, Procedural, and

Descriptive. The students are expected to comprehend and create the various functional text,

monologue, and essay. In another word, the students are expected to be able to write any kind of

texts that can be beneficial for their future.

Writing is one of the language skills among the four skills in learning English. Writing

involves all aspects of language such as: grammar, vocabulary, word order spelling and

logical arrangement of ideas. Heaton (1988:135) states: Writing is complex sometimes

difficult to teach requiring mastery not only grammatical and rhetoric devices but also of

conceptual and judge mental elements.

In fact, based on my experience I found that the students problems that were commonly

faced in writing. Many students were not interested in writing and regard it as the most difficult

skill to learn. They often faced some problems to organize their ideas they did some mistakes

with the lack of knowledge in vocabularies and grammatical rules and tenses. And also the
students have difficulties in making a paragraph become coherence based on their grammatical

that are related to the text.

In teaching learning process it is important for the teacher and the students to have a basic

understanding of how English operates and function as writing and the ways in which writing is

substantially different from speech. Teaching and Learning how to be become an effective

writing to construct meaningful message for various audiences and purpose. The teachers should

be able to improve students competence in writing all genre of writing, especially in writing

recount text as the simple text type recount as a factual text can be said because it even can be

about familiar and everyday things or event.

However based on writers experience at Teacher Training Program (PPL) in Senior

High School, the writer found that the students were not interested in writing that they felt bored

to write a paragraph or a text. In fact, the students always find many difficulties in writing a

paragraph.

Most of their difficulties are in recognizing the vocabularies, grammar, spelling and

punctuations that are related to the paragraph. In teaching learning process, it is impossible for

the teacher to write the ideas in his / her head on a paper or on the board to give a big

contribution for the students in class.

In addition, the teacher should show the students that writing is not difficult subject.

Because writing is one of interesting skill where we can express and develop our idea and

opinion through writing. So, the teacher should teach and guide the students to able to express

their idea, opinion through writing form of language.

Lado (1998:249) argues writing is the ability to use the structures, the lexical items and
their conventional representation, in ordinary matter of fact writing. It means that the teachers

should be able to improve students competence in writing all genre of writing, especially in

writing recount.

Knapp and Watkins (2005) said that Recounts are sequential texts that do little more

than sequence a series of events. The students can write their events in everyday and it can

useful for their ability for studying writing recount text and it more demanding if it used on

formal, so it has to be maintained in making the cohesion of the text. They also must plan the

tenses which are aimed to develop and explain the event, so that they can produce a good recount

text.

Since writing is important for the students, the teacher should continue in developing

some techniques for teaching writing that can help students to improve and master their writing

competence. Many efforts have been done in improving writing competence of the students, one

of them is teaching writing by using grammatical cohesion in their writing.

Halliday and Hasan (1976:6) state that grammatical cohesion refers to the semantic

relation and it is realized through the grammar by the using of reference, substitution, ellipsis,

and conjunction. It is pointed out that grammatical cohesion has the important aspect in writing

recount text.

In this case, the writer is interested in using grammatical cohesion in teaching recount

text in Sahata Paramedical High School Pematangsiantar because writer interest to analysis their

recount text especially what the events when they do in their program work in hospital and also

as a place when I did teaching learning program. To increase the students competence in writing
recount text, it is important to use grammatical cohesion to help the students to write their idea

and opinion through writing form of language.

Grammatical cohesion is a popular form of guidance. Providing the students with rules

about composition writing (Paragraph, the ordering of ideas and so on). In this case, grammatical

cohesion is needed to guide the students in improving their writing paragraph.

From the explanation above, it is clear that the using of grammatical cohesion is an

alternative to overcome the students problem in writing competence. Students feel helping to

develop their idea or opinion by using grammatical cohesion, so they can be easy to write

recount text. Considering the ideas stated above the writer wishes to know how to improve

students writing competence in recount text by using grammatical cohesion.

Based on the explanation above, the writer writes this research by presenting a title

Grammar Cohesion on Students Writing of Recount Text.

1.2 The Problem of The Study

In relation to the background, the problem of the study is formulated in the following

questions:

1. What are the grammatical cohesion are used by students in writing Recount text ?

2. What grammatical cohesion are significant used by students in writing Recount text ?

1.3 The Purpose of the Study

Dealing with the problems, the writers purposes are:

1. To find out the used of grammatical cohesion in writing recount text.

2. To find out the significant grammatical cohesion are used in writing recount text.
1.4 The Scope of the Study

In order to conduct the study appropriately, it is necessary to make limitation. The

limitation of this research is the writer focuses on the grammatical cohesion (reference,

substitution, ellipsis, conjunction) on students in writing recount text at grade XI of Sahata

Paramedical High School Pematangsiantar.

1.5 The Significance of the Study

The result of this study is expected to give the advantages in two significance: They are

theoretically significance and practically significance.

1. Theoretically significance is expected to contribute some adequate issues for the next

researchers who are interested in investigating the used of grammatical cohesion in

writing recount text to the students not only in Sahata Paramedical High School

Pematangsiantar, but also the students in the other institutions.

2. Practically significance is expected to contribute the teacher to use the theory of

improving writing competence in writing recount text by using grammatical cohesion in

process of teaching learning. It is not only to the teachers but also for the students, to

improve their writing competence which is important for building the good skills in

writing recount text.

1.6 The Definition of the Key Terms

1. Writing is the activity of the writer to tell about something on paper by using

grammatically correct sentence.

2. Paragraph is a group of sentences which are composed of three main parts namely:

Topic Sentences, Supporting Sentences and Concluding Sentences that have relation

one and other.

3. Recount is to describe the way things or events with accurate and demanding it used

on formal in our environment.

4. Text is a unit of language in usage. A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse,

dialogue or mono.

5. Grammatical cohesion is the relation of meaning which occurs within a text through

grammar.

1.7 The Theoretical Framework

This research contains many theories derived from library observation. They are taken to

confirm the writer's ideas on the research. The theories are selective and relevant to the object of

the variable and the object which is analyzed. This study is written based on some theories such:

Jack and Richard (2010), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Heaton (1988), Lado (1964), Manser

(2006), Richard and Renandya (2002), Knapp and Watkins (2005).