CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of the Study
Language plays an important role in human
life. People use it as a means to communicate with other people. As stated by
Finocchiaro (1973:12), language is a system of arbitrary, vocal symbol, which
permits all people in a given culture or other people who have studied that
culture, to communicate or to interact with one another. Carol (in Ramelan,
1992:10) also states: Language is an arbitrary system of speech sounds or
sequences of sounds, which is used or can be used in interpersonal
communication by an aggregation of human beings, and which rather exhaustively
catalog things, processes, and events in the human environment.
Since the proclamation of Indonesia on
the 17th of August 1945, English has been taught in this country as the first
foreign language. It is taught continuously for six years at the high school,
three years at the Junior High School, and three years at the Senior
High School as a compulsory subject, even at the University level. In some
areas, English has also been taught in primary schools as local contents to
meet the needs of local community. If the Indonesian government has chosen
English as the first foreign language to be taught in schools, this is simply
for the reason that we recognize the important role it plays in the international
world. As an independent country which needs to strengthen relationships with
all the countries in the world, we need a means of communication to foster
cooperation among different countries that is English.
In addition, because English is an international
language, learning to master English would be a must so that people are able to
follow the continuously changing world. Although English is not the language
with the largest number of native or first language speakers, it has become a
lingua franca. A lingua franca can be defined as a language widely adopted for
communication between two speakers whose native languages are different from
each other’s and where one or both speakers are using it as a second language
(Harmer, 2001:1). English language teaching as outlined in the 1994 English
Curriculum for SLTP focuses on four language skills: listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. Teachers should develop these four skills so that their
students could use these skills to communicate with each other and express
their thoughts, feelings and opinions in English. For many students, reading is
by far the most important of these four skills, particularly in English as a
second or foreign language. Grabe&Stoller (2002:9) state that reading is
the ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret this
information appropriately. For the beginner, reading is concerned mainly with
learning to recognize the printed symbols that represent language and to
respond intellectually and emotionally when being asked about the content of
the text he has read.
Based on the 1994 English Curriculum of
Junior High School Level, some of the objectives of the teaching reading in
Junior High School are to get certain pieces of information, to identify
general idea about the text and to get the main idea both???????
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