CHAPTER 1.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents some aspects related to the research topic. They are
Research Background, Research Problem, and Research Contributions.

1.1 Research Background

Writing is one of the most important aspects in English language learning,
however it is quite difficult to master writing, especially for EFL students in
Indonesia, because there are some differences between Indonesian and English
such as grammatical, structural terms and styles. Furthermore, in the process of
writing, the EFL students have to struggle in order to put ideas or arguments on a
piece of a paper. They have to spend too much time in finding out the ideas about
the topic given because they do not have enough basic knowledge and interest in
writing. As Elbow (1998:3) states that writing is a difficult activity that needs a lot
of time in its process. It is related to one of fundamental problems in terms of
interest in the activity of learning writing since the teacher does not use any
media. Therefore, the English teachers have to determine the effective media to
improve the students’ interest and ability in writing.
There are some factors which make students not interested in the writing
lesson. One of them is lack of media. In fact, the use of media in writing class is
something rare to be done. Many teachers think that teaching writing by giving a
clear instruction in written form is enough. The other factor is the monotonous
EFL class activities which are held by the English teachers in the classroom. The
lack of media in the classroom activity will affect the students’ participation in the
learning process. As the interactive and interesting media is not used, the students
become monotonous and bored in joining the lesson, especially in the writing
class. Based on the preliminary study done by the researcher in SMPN 4 Jember,
those factors of writing problems happen. The teachers at this school do not use
any instructional media in teaching writing. The teacher only uses Power Point
Presentation as a media to explain the materials for the students. In such
condition, it makes the class monotonous and boring. Moreover, the students’
ideas cannot be captured and revealed because they feel bored in learning writing
without media. Therefore, the students need media to stimulate and activate their
ideas in order to produce a piece of writing more easily. Thus, media are expected
to create a more interesting writing class.
Media can also be used to transfer the learning material to reach the goal of
study and increase the students’ achievement. Actually, there are many kinds of
media that can be applied in teaching-learning activity. As stated by Djamarah
and Zain (2006:120) media are divided into three types, visual, audio, and audio-
visual. From the classification above, the researcher will consider to use Pop-Up
Books as visual media and appropriate media to develop the students’ skill in
writing a recount text. This kind of media is essential in developing the students’
writing skill. It is stated by Thonbury (2007:64) that teaching young learners is
ideal to use pictures. Pictures can be used to explain the meanings or concept in a
simple way. He adds that vizualizing is the best way to teach new words for all
subjects. By using Pop-Up Books, it can develop and motivate the students to
learn English especially in writing recount text easily. Moreover, Dyk (2004:5),
states that Pop-Up Book can build a dynamic interaction between students, words
and illustration. As Pop-Up books are more interactive, more tactile, and more
dynamic than the common picture, they will give direct access for the students to
learn the culture of the target language (Fitriyani, 2017:2). Thus, Pop-Up Books
will help students to illustrate about the characters, setting of the picture and the
activity inside the picture that will lead them to write a recount text easily.
Recently, there have been some relevant studies dealing with the use of Pop-
Up Books in teaching English. Wijayanti (2016) conducted research entitled
“Improving the VIII-C Grade students’ vocabulary Achievement by Using Pop-
Up Pictures At SMPN 1 Beji-Pasuruan” she reported that there was a significant
improvement on the eighth grade students’ vocabulary achievement after the
students were taught by using Pop-Up Pictures. It was proved by the students’
result of vocabulary test that the percentage of the students who got scores at least
75 from 65% in Cycle 1 to 77.5% in Cycle 2. Moreover, Pop-Up Pictures also
reported could improve the students’ participation during the teaching and
learning process. Hoiriya (2017) conducted research entitled “Using Pop-Up
Books as Media to Improve the Eighth Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension
Achievement at a Junior High School” found that using Pop-Up Book could
improve the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement. It is
proved by the result of the test that there was improvement of percentages of the
students who got scores at least 75 from 67% in Cycle 1 to 77% in Cycle 2.
Arisika & Refnaldi (2013) conducted a research entitled “Teaching Writing
Narrative Texts by Using the Pictures of Pop- up Book as Media to Junior High
School Students”. They found that Pop-Up could build up the students’
motivation in writing narrative text. It helped to improve the students’ ability in
teaching and learning process.
This classroom action research will focus on the use of Pop-Up Books as
media to solve the students’ problem dealing with writing recount text. A Pop-Up
Book is a form of books with three dimensional pictures inside. As Pop-Up Books
have several pages that will illustrate a sequence event in every page. Then it
deals with the concept of writing recount text that tells about a sequence event
(Adawiyah, 2014:9). Moreover, Pop-Up Books also provide some attractive
pictures, bright colors, and some beautiful scenes. Glaister & Holmes (2012:3)
also state that using Pop-Up Books will help to bridge the gap between the
abstract world of literature, and concrete world of real objects. Such media have
several features that are expected to be helpful as a teaching aids to guide students
in writing recount text.
Considering the facts related to the students’ condition, the reseracher is
interested in conductiong the classroom action research entitled “Improving The
Eighth Grade Students’ Achievement in Writing Recount Text through Pop-
Up Books at SMPN 4 JEMBER”

1.2 Research Problem

The following problem is formulated based on the research background
above:
How can the use of Pop-Up Books improve the eighth grade students’
achievement in writing recount text at SMPN 4 JEMBER?
1.3 Research Contribution
1.3.1 Empirical Contribution
The result of this research is expected to be a reference for future
researchers who have similar problem dealing with improving students’
achievement in writing recount text by using Pop-Up Books with different level or
text genres, such as: Descriptive Text, Narrative Text, Report Text, Etc.

1.3.2 Practical Contriburion

The result of this research can be used as a new tool for the English
teachers to use interesting media such as Pop-Up Books as an alternative way to
teach writing to improve the students’ achievement in writing recount texts.
The action of this research is also expected to motivate and help students
in learning English, especially writing recount text interestingly. So that students
can improve their ability in writing a recount text.