THE ANALYSIS ON STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN MASTERING REPORTED SPEECH AT GRADE X IN SMA NEGERI 3 PADANGSIDIMPUAN
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background
of the Problems
Language
plays so important role in human life. Language is considered to be a system of
communicating with other people using sounds, symbols and words in expressing
meanings, ideas or thoughts. Language has been used by humans as a tool of
communication since he was born. As we see, babies use the language by crying.
It is characterized by a crying when the baby was hungry, sleepy or over heat.
Crying is used as a tool of communication with people around him to convey the
desires and his thoughts. Along with the development and growth of the child’s
language will also be developed into a well structured language.
Language is necessity to human life and
civilization is certainty not possible without it. All sciences depend upon it
and also all education in human life is conducted through it. There are many
languages in this world. One of them is English.
Nowadays,
English language has become the popular language which is learnt by most people
in many areas of the world. English is an international language. It is the
world’s most widely used language by society for communication and
international contact.
In
this globalization era, everyone is demanded to prepare a great resources for
their life particularly in science and technology. Of course, to compete against
a global demanding, the people should have an adequate knowledge and good
skills. Therefore, mastering English language both oral and written English
actively is necessity for academic and global media communication requirement
because it has become compulsory for everyone who wants to compete against the
globalization era.
In
Indonesia, English is acknowledged as a foreign language. It became an
obligated subject that must be learnt by students from elementary school level
up to university level. In studying English, students will learn language
skills, such as listening,
speaking, reading and
writing skills,
which include by language component, such as grammar.
Grammar
is one of English language component that it must be learnt and understood by students.
David Nunan says that grammar is generally thought to be set of rules
specifying the correct ordering of words at the sentence level.[1]
By learning grammar the students will know about system of language so they
will be able to combine and build words into meaningful sentence. There are
many grammatical categories that must be learnt by students. For example, part
of speech, tenses, gerunds, degree of comparisons, and reported speech.
Reported
speech is used to report what other people said or thought without reporting
the exact word. By learning reported speech definitely students will able to
quote somebody’s words.
Therefore,
government has attached reported speech in syllabus since grade X in senior
high school as a subject matter that must be learnt by students. Students in
grade X have been learning English since they were in grade IV in elementary
school, so they have known English for 6 years. Theoretically, they have
comprehended about the using tenses, adverbs, pronouns, and sentences. So, learning
reported speech is easy for them. But reality in the field, there were many
students still have difficulties in learning reported speech. They notice that
they often do mistakes when they quote the direct into indirect form. Some
students still confuse with certain grammatical changes that have to be made by
them. Sometimes they feel so hard to decide what kind of tenses, pronoun or
adverbs that should be used when they change direct into indirect speech. Many students said that learning reported speech is most difficult
one in learning grammar and structure.
Based
on the explanation above and
problems existed in SMA Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan about students’ ability in mastering reported speech, the writer was interesting in conduct the research entitled
The
Analysis on Students’ Ability in Mastering Reported Speech at Grade X in SMA
Negeri 3 Padangsidimpuan.