CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study. Language obviously plays a very important role in human life. People speak language to convey messages, to show their feeling or to ask questions (Finocchiaro, 1973:6). Not only is it a means of communicating thoughts and ideas, but it forges friendship, cultural ties, and economic relationships. Language, of course, is knowledge, and in our world today knowledge is one of the key factors in competitiveness. Brain and knowledge are what create the prosperity and growth we tend to take for granted. There are many languages spoken by people all over the world. One of them is English, which is spoken by people in most countries in the world. For the last few years, millions of people across the world, who share common interests, are able to communicate with each other and exchange ideas. Not only are they able to do this due to the various technological advances, but also because they share a common language. For that reason, it is important for people to master English either actively or passively in order to communicate and socialize in the world community. English, known as an international language, has been chosen by the Indonesian government as the first foreign language. English is taught at school and considered as a major subject for the students, mostly from the first grade of junior high school up to the third grade of senior high school and one semester at

university. Some elementary schools have been given English from the fourth grade as a local content. In English there are four language skills; they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. The students must master the four language skills so they can use English actively and also passively. Writing as a part of the language skills, besides listening, speaking, and reading, must be taught maximally by the teacher to the students. Writing has always been part of the syllabus in the teaching of English. Writing is one of the media of communication. It is a kind of skill that needs much practice. Harmer (2004:8) regards writing as being different from speaking. According to Byrne (1980:24) writing is a primary means of recording speech, even though it must be acknowledged as a secondary medium of communication. Based on Competence Based Curriculum, the eighth grade students of Junior High School get some of the genres such as narrative, recount, anecdote and descriptive genres both spoken and written cycle. The students often encounter problems in implementing the generic structure of the writing. According to Paul Writing is generally regarded as the most difficult of the four skills (2003:96). It requires mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also conceptual devices and judgments (Heaton, 1975:138). Because of these difficulties, some efforts have been done to solve the problems. The main objective is to make writing easier for the students to learn.

Writing skill is one of the ways to improve students ability in expressing their ideas, stories and memories into the written forms. Narrative can be described as a way of telling a story, since the process of recounting events and describing details of our life contributes to our conscious understanding of what happened in general.
Based on the explanation above, the writer limits the discussion on the title the use of chain pictures as a medium for developing students writing skill of narrative texts. Related to this title, the use of chain pictures as a medium for developing students writing skill will play an important role. They may help and make the students write the composition easily.

1.2 Identification of the Problem. In this research proposal, the writer will identify the problem as follows: 1. Do the students enjoy writing the English by chain pictures as a media? 2. Can teaching writing skill of narrative text by chain pictures motivate students to write? 3. Can teaching writing by chain pictures media developing students writing skill of narrative text? 1.3 Limitation of the Problem.
In order to get an obvious picture of this study about The Use of Chain Pictures as a Media for Developing Students Writing Skill of Narrative Text, the writer limits the scope of this study as follows:

1. Pictures In this study the writer applied chain pictures is a series of pictures which have connection between one and the other to perform a meaningful story chronologically. The pictures are in the form of drawing pictures.
2. Writing Writing here is the activity in teaching and learning process in which the students are able to express their ideas, thought, opinions and feelings and organize them in simple paragraphs based on the chain pictures given by the teacher. The form of the writing is guided writing since the students are instructed to write simple paragraphs based on certain clues .

1.4 Formulation of the Problem.

The problems that will be discussed in this study is: How effective is the use of chain pictures for developing students writing skill of narrative text?

1.5 Objective of the Research.

The objective of this study is to find out whether or not the use of chain pictures is effective for developing students writing skill of narrative text of the ......

1.6 Uses of the Research 1.6.1. Theoretical use

The result of the research may support the theories stating that by through chain pictures as media to the students, it can develop their writing skill of narrative text. 1.6.2. Practical use Students may develop their knowledge in writing, especially in narrative writing by using chained pictures as a media of learning. The result of this study can be used by English teachers in ........... to develop students writing skill of narrative texts through chain pictures and to obtain some information to develop English teaching learning process. Hopefully, the teachers can apply it in their teaching to achieve the objectives of teaching narrative as effective as possible.