CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

English language as a foreign language has been taught in Indonesia

education system. In this system, English is the important subject in all grades of

Senior High School. Brown said language is used for communication and a tool

communicates to each other that used to express our ideas. 1 It has four skills that

should be acquired. Those skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Students should master writing after mastering listening, speaking, and reading

skills in English. Writing is the developing steps that are generally parallel to skill

of oral language in English. Students write the continuous sentences to arrange

paragraphs then students arrange them to a text. They show their ideas within a

written text.

Writing is the last skill of four skills in English language. Writing skill is not

only a simple skill to write own ideas in a text. Writer should pay a lot of

attention to the components of writing. They are content, language structure,

punctuation, and vocabulary. Every sentence should have the continuous of

meaning, so that the readers could understand the written texts easily.

1
Brown, Language assessment: Principles and Classroom Practices.( New York: Pearson
Education. 2004), P.32.

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Writing is a skill in English language that should be trained continually.

This skill should be done through processes. The processes of writing are going to

determine the quality of writing. Therefore, students should be trained to write for

showing ideas.

According to some students, writing is the difficult skill especially in

writing English text. In fact, many students can write but they are still confused in

understanding vocabulary they have used in their writing. In using vocabulary in

writing, the students should choose them appropriately to avoid

misunderstanding.

The researcher found a problem faced by the students in writing when the

researcher taught the students. When the researcher had the free time, the

researcher tried to discuss with the students what their difficulties in learning

English. Most of them said that their difficulties are to write texts. The students

have the problem in writing texts. They are hard to find vocabulary because they

do not want to search for words in dictionaries.

When the researcher observed the problem of the students in one of Senior

high school in Panton Labu, the researcher found students’ problem in writing

texts. The researcher asked their teacher to tell what problem they have. The

teacher said that they are confused in using tenses in writing. The teacher told that

they sometimes still use the old teaching technique to motivate the students in

learning English. The teacher still asked the students only note several important
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materials without explanation that makes the students congfused in understanding

the material.

The researcher found another problem from the private student of tenth

grade of Senior High School. When the researcher taught her, the researcher

asked to write simple sentences. The student confused in using “is” and “are”. She

wrote “is” for plural subject, whereas “are” for singular subject. Referring to the

findings, the researcher initiated to help them through teaching strategy when the

students write English texts in the classroom. What makes it worse, English is the

subject of National Exam they have to take.

For the present curriculum, the government has applied Curriculum 2013.

In this curriculum, it is expected that the students are able to discuss and learn

together in the classroom. There are five activities in Curriculum 2013. They are

observing, questioning, experimenting, associating, and communicating that

should be done by the teacher in the classroom. The teacher should observe the

students’ progress of learning. Teacher would assess the students on three aspects.

They are cognitive, affective, and skill. These three aspects are going to be

accumulated to obtain the scores.

Many ways can be applied to encourage students’ ability in learning

English. One of them is teaching English using strategy in learning process. A

strategy of teaching English could give a better condition for students. This is one

of the attractiveness of a strategy to improve students’ motivation in learning

English. If students’ motivation improve, students’ achievement will be better

too.

Considering the assumption, the researcher would like to try using a

strategy of teaching and learning namely Think-Talk-Write. In general, Think-

Talk-Write is a group work. This strategy trains the students to work together in

group. The students make group consisting of four or five students and then the

researcher gives some pictures and ask the students to write the story in the

pictures by their own language. Applying the strategy in classroom it is expected

to make the students more interested in writing narrative text.

Based on the explanation above, the researcher conduct a research entitled

“The Implementation of Think-Talk-Write Strategy in Teaching Writing” (An

Experimental Research at SMA 1 Tanah Jambo Aye)

B. Identification of the Research Problem

Based on the background of the research, the identification of the research

problem are:

1. Most of the students confused in using be and tenses pattern,

2. The students are weak in vocabulary

3. The teacher not use suitable technique for teaching writing in classroom.
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C. Problems of the Research

After the researcher learned the topic, the researcher formulated the problem

as follows: Is there any significant difference in achievement between the students

who are taught writing through Think-Talk-write strategy from those who are

taught through conventional method?

D. Purpose of the Research

Based on the research problem, the researcher formulated the purposed to

find there is any significant difference in achievement between the students who

are taught writing through Think-Talk-write strategy from those who are taught

through conventional method.

E. Scope of the Research

To have a specific research, the researcher has limited this study in order to

make it easier to be understand. In this research, the researcher only focus on

apply the Think-Talk-Write strategy in teaching writing.

F. Significances of the Research

The significances of the research are:

1. Theoretically, the researcher believes that the result of this research will give a

good contribution to the students and the teacher in teaching writing. It also
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can be a reference for the next researcher who wants to conduct a research

which same with this research.

2. Practically, the researcher believes that the result of this research will give

information to the researcher about education in each experience that he got

yet before when he made this research.

G. Operational Definition

This part discusses the definition of Think-Talk-Write, definition of writing,

and definition of narrative text. It is used to avoid misunderstanding about the

main problems.

a. Think-Talk-Write strategy

Think-Talk-Write strategy builds in time for thought and reflection and for

the organization of ideas and the testing of those ideas before students are

expected to write. The flow of communication progresses from students engaging

in thought or reflective dialogue with themselves, to talking and sharing ideas

with one another to writing.2

b. Writing

Writing is “When teaching writing, therefore, there are special

considerations to be taken into account which include the organising of sentences

into paragraphs, how paragraphs are joined together, and the general organization

of ideas into a coherent piece of discourse.3

c. Conventional Method
2
Huinker, D dan Laughlin, Talk Way into Writing. (USA: NCTM, 1996) ,p.82.
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Conventional methods are traditional learning methods or also called old

methods, because these methods have always used as an oral communication tool

between teachers and students in the learning process. In learning process, the

conventional method is marked by lectures accompanied by explanations, as well

as provides of tasks and exercises.4

3
Harmer, Jeremy. How to Teach Writing. (New York: Pearson Education Limited, 2004),
p.53.
4
Syaiful Bahri, Djamarah,. Strategi Belajar Mengajar. (Jakarta: PT Rineka Cipta, 2006),
p.21.