8

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED TO LITERATURE

This chapter presents four points which are related to this study based on

the title. They are: writing skill, mechanic of writing, difficulties in learning

writing, strategy in learning writing, and teaching writing in senior high school.

All of those points are explained by the researcher to make them clearly.

2.1 Writing skill

English has four skills which are learnt by the students, such as; listening,

speaking, reading and writing. Writing includes productive skill in learning

English, because writing produces some ideas in it. According to Fareed et al.,

(2016), writing is language productive skill which is very important. In learning

English, writing should be learnt by the students in order to become master of

English. Writing is one of English language skills which helps in English writing

also can improve the other skills (Huy, 2015). Such as when students write

something, they will remember what they have read or listened, so they can speak

fluently based on what they write.

Besides, Kellog (2001) argues that writing is cognitive process which

requires a strong memory, thinking more and commend verbal in order to express

the ideas optimally (as cited in Fareed et al., 2016). In addition, writing is

cognitive activity which is very difficult and necessity to control by the students

in various factors (Nunan, 1989 as cited in Fareed et al., 2016). Cognitive theory

is focused to gain insight into the writing process trough the writer’s thought

9

processes (Alfaki, 2015). Students need thinking more when they write

something. They do not only write what they think, but also should pay attention

to the composing. Sometimes, students have ideas in their mind but they cannot

express it in writing, then they forgot what they will write. Students should write

continuously in order to become a good writer. Moreover, students should make a

repetition when they write.

Thus, the researcher makes a conclusion that writing is one of the main

productive skills which is very important to learn by the student. Writing is also

cognitive process which should be sharpened by repetition in order to make a

good composing, so the readers get the point what the writers mean in their

writing. That is why, the students should write frequently even in school or

outside of the school.

2.2 Recount Taxt

According to Dirgeyasa (2016, p. 2) recount text is a type of text which

retells or recounts an event or an experience in the past. The purpose of recount

text is to inform and describe to the readers about past experiences by retelling

events in the sequence in which they occurred (Dirgeyasa, 2016, p. 3). In addition,

he states that event means something real and factual. It can be concluded that

recount text is a text which retell or recount something real in the past

sequentially.

2.3 Mechanic of Writing

To make a good composition, students should pay attention to the

mechanic of writing. “Mechanic of writing is sub skill of writing” (Naeem, 2007,

10

p. 43). It means something that includes part of writing skill to make a good

composition. Danielson (2000 as cited in Naeem, 2007, p. 13) regards that

mechanic of writing is the rule of standard writing consists of punctuation,

capitalization, spelling, and the sentence structure skills. Norman et al., (2005

cited in Naeem, 2007, p. 43) state that spelling, punctuation, acronyms,

abbreviations, numbers, etc. are included sub skills of writing. Similarly, Mandell

and Mandell (1989) argue that capitalization and punctuation usage are the most

important points which are covered by mechanics of writing (as cited in Naeem,

2007, p. 43). However, Warriner (1982, cited in Naeem, 2007, p. 43) claims that

manuscript form includes mechanic of writing, not only punctuation and

capitalization. Thus, there are a lot of mechanic of writing, such as capitalization,

punctuation, spelling, acronyms, abbreviations, numbers, and so on.

In this research, the researcher focused on three categories of mechanic of

writing. There are grammar, punctuation, and spelling error which follows:

2.3.1 Grammar

According to Woods (2010, p. 9), grammar is a set of standards that

should be followed in order to be able to write and speak better. In this part, there

are three parts of grammar, as follows:

1. Tenses

“Tenses are form of the verb which changes based on the time and event”

(Akhlis, 2007, p. 1). English language and Indonesia language are different in

making sentence. Djauhari (1996, p. 44) states that the difference of both

languages is change of time which affects the sentence. Indonesia language only

11

needs subject and predicate to make a sentence in which there is no change

based on the time or condition. In contrast, English language does not only need

subject and predicate, but also pay attention to the time or condition. Besides,

Indonesia language just adding the adverb of time in the first sentence or in the

last sentence in which the predicate does not change. On the other hand, the

predicate will change based on the time or condition in English language. Such

as simple present tense, present continuous tense, present perfect tense, present

perfect continuous tense, simple past tense, past continuous tense, past perfect

tense, past perfect continuous tense, simple future tense, future continuous tense,

future perfect tense, future perfect continuous tense, simple past future tense,

past future continuous tense, past future perfect tense, and past future perfect

continuous tense.

2. Part of speech

Akhlis (2007, p. 26) argues that in compiling the words to make correct

sentences, students should understand the way to put the words in order to make

the sentence can be understood easily. Those words are usually called part of

speech which is divided into eight types. There are noun, pronoun, verb,

adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.

3. Articles

According to Akhlis (2007, p. 109), article is a word that is used in front of

the noun, in which it is divided in two types indefinite article (a and an) and

definite article (the).

12

2.3.2 Punctuation

According to Naeem (2007), one of the components of writing is

punctuation marks. Harmer (2004) states “Using punctuation correctly is an

important skill” (p. 49). It means that punctuation is an important thing especially

in writing skill and it cannot be abandoned. Besides, Michigan (2004, cited in

Naeem, 2007) claims that punctuation is important because it can affect the

meaning, for example; "I hate liars, like you" and "I hate liars like you”.

Therefore, punctuation is very useful for the students who write in order to make

the writing understood by the readers.

According to Irawati (2013, p. 1-3), there are thirteen punctuation symbols

based on the usability and the examples of each, in which must be known by the

students:

1. Full stop/period (.)

a. It is used at the end of the sentence. For example; Rani and her friends

go to school by bus.

b. It can be used after abbreviation and initials. For example; etc. B.J

Habibi

c. It is also used after an indirect question (Straus, 2008, p. 53). For

example; Fala asked me where her book was.

2. Comma (,)

According to Zemac and Ghulldu (2011, p. 101), this punctuation has three

usages:

13

a. It is used to separate a series of more than two items or more. For

example; my hobbies are reading novel, listening music, and watching

movies.

b. It is used to separate the clause which come before words; and, like,

but, so, or, and yet. For example; the classroom is dark, so Alvino

turns on the lamp.

c. It is used after expression and introductory word. For example; Thus,

However, In sum up, etc.

In addition, if there is something or someone which is identified,

while the following description is not very important, it can be

separated by commas (Straus, 2008, p. 55). For example; Lucky, who

has a new car, got an accident. The description of “who has a new

car” is unimportant.

3. Brackets (( ))

a. This punctuation shows an additional information or explanation

which is not too important (Harmer, 2004, p. 50). For example; Raka

and Riki have been playing a game (for) four hours.

4. Apostrophe (‘)

b. This punctuation used in contraction (Straus, 2008, p. 63). For

example; doesn’t, he’s, that’s why.

c. It is used to show the possession. For example; Kevan’s book

(singular possession), students’ uniform (plural possession).

14

5. Hyphen (-)

a. This punctuation is used to separate part of compound words, it is

used in certain numbers, and used in two words which creates one

description as well (Woods, 2010, p. 188). For example; brother-in-

law, forty-three, well-done.

6. Exclamation mark (!)

a. This punctuation is used to show surprise or emphasize (Straus, 2008,

p. 61). For example; Oh my Goodness! Don’t be noisy!

7. Question mark (?)

a. It is used in request. For example; Could you pick me up?

b. It is used to show the direct question which is located in the last

sentence (Harmer, 2004, p. 50). For example; Where have you been?

8. Colon (:)

a. This punctuation is used to show something coming next. For

example; To make the delicious omelet, you need to prepare the

ingredients as follows: (1) noodle, (2) egg, (3) salt, and (4) lettuce.

9. Semicolon (;)

a. It is used to separate two sentences in which the conjunction is

omitted (Straus, 2008, p. 58). For example; Call me back tomorrow; I

will attend to your party.

15

10. Capital letter (A, B, C)

a. Capital letter is used in the first letter of name, days of week, months,

country, nationality or language (Harmer, 2004, p. 50). For example;

Shareen goes to Singapore with her friends by plane.

11. Dash (–)

a. It is used to emphasize and clarify the additional detail in order to

make the previous information more clear. For example; She is my

friend – the only friend – who is always available for me.

12. Stroke (/)

a. Stroke is used to show the alternative word. For example; Do you

still remember the boy who/that is singing in Michel’s party?

13. Omission marks (…)

a. Omission marks are used to quote a certain part of somebody’s

writing or saying. For example; “…Practice in writing is the

important point to success in good composing,” teacher concluded (as

cited in Irawati, 2008, p. 3).

2.3.3 Spelling Error

Spelling is one of component of writing especially in English. Naeem

(2007) defines that spelling is the writing of a word or multiple words in the

presence of diacritic which is required in an acceptable conventional order. In

addition, Spelling can help readers to read easily, especially in written English

(Harmer, 2004, p. 46). It shows that spelling is included the important rules in

writing.

16

Cook (1999, as cited in Al-Oudat, 2017) argues that there four types of

spelling errors as follows:

- Insertion, adding one letter in a word. For example; the word “impolite” is

written “impholite”. It is happened because the lack of knowledge in which

English is not included the phonetic language, so they tend to write a word

based on the pronunciation (Al-Oudat, 2017).

- Omission, means eliminating a letter or more letter in a word (Al Jayousi

2011, as cited in Younes and Zuhour). For example; the word “raspberry” is

written “rasbery”. “p” and “r” letters are relieved.

- Substitution, changing a letter in the word. For example; the word “national”

is written “nasional”.

- Transposition, moving two words which adjoins. For example; the word

“upload” is written “uplaod”.

2.4 Writing problems

In learning activity, every student has different ability especially in writing

skill. Not all students can write easily and get a good score in writing. Many

students face writing problems. It means that there is a problem faced by the

students, so they did not get a good score especially in writing. Younes and

Albalawi (2015) state that the most difficult skills to acquire by the students is

writing. Many researchers found students’ problem in learning writing skill, either

English as a foreign language or English as a second language.

Based on the study of Alfaki (2015), he found some of various types of

writing problems which faced by the students. Those are: (1) mechanical

17

problems, (2) linguistic problems, (3) cognitive problems, and (4) psychomotor

problems. Grammatical problem, problems of sentence structure, problem of word

choice, punctuation problem, capitalization problem, spelling problem, content

problem, problem organization, these are included in various types of writing

problems.

Other researcher, Younes and Albalawi (2015) explore that there are three

kinds of problem faced by the students in writing skill. The first one is

grammatical problem. Many students faced the difficulty in grammatical error

commonly such as; error in the using of tenses, the using of preposition,

syntactical, subject-verb agreement errors and article. The second one is

punctuation error. Based on the data in students’ module writing, when the

students wrote, they could not put the correct punctuation. The third one is

spelling mistake. Al Jayousi (2011 as cited in Younes and Albalawi, 2015)

categories some spelling mistakes which are made by the students such as;

substitution, omission, addition, disordering, segmentation, and unrecognizable.

Huy (2015) found that students having the writing problems. There were

(1) lack of vocabulary because of lack of effective learning process, (2) the

difficulties of grammar structure because they did not spend much time to learn

grammar, (3) unattractive topics, (4) limited correction teachers in students' work,

(5) the source of students material does not vary, and (6) the limit of time to

practice writing in high senior school.

In sum up, based on the study was conducted by many researchers previously,

there are many writing problems faced by the students. Therefore, the researcher

18

is excited to explore the writing problems in grammar, punctuation, and spelling

error. It is because the researcher wants to know the basic mistake which is made

by the students especially in second grade of MA Yayasan Taman Pengetahuan

(YTP) Kertosono. However, Younes and Albalawi (2015) state that if the students

fail to extend certain basic skills, they will not be able to write with the speed and

fluency needed to excel because the demand increase. It means that grammar,

punctuation, and spelling error are important to understand.

2.5 Strategy in Learning Writing

When the problem facing in teaching learning, there are some suggestions

to overcome those problems and become a good English learner. According to

Alfaki (2015), there are some recommendations to solve the problems. The first,

English learners should read more. The seconds, a good way to improve writing

ability is practice to write anything. The third, the way the writers generate ideas,

making a note can help them to improve it. The forth, students should not be panic

when they have obstacle. Therefore, they should attempt to pass it.

Younes and Albalawi (2015) suggest, to do some suggestions as follows:

The first is the amount writing assignment should be increased by the teacher for

the students whether in class or outside the class. The second is the rules of

writing should be given by the teacher to the students clearly. The third is the

teacher should transkip and distribute the the students’ work in order to they know

their mistake, so they learn from their mistake. The forth is the teacher informs

that students will be not punished when they do a mistake in writing in order to

reduce the students’ fear and increase their motivation to succeed. The fifth is the

19

teachers and students should create a conducive classroom atmosphere in order to

think easily and reduce their anxiety in writing. The sixth is teacher should give

the instructions and guidance about the way write clearly to the students. The

seventh is a simple and interesting topic should be given to the students to make

them easier to write, for example; write something which is appropriate with them

or condition in daily life. The eighth is teacher should give task about writing to

the students based on their ability and necessity. The last is the teacher should

give motivation to the students in order to become a good writers.

Furthermore, Huy (2015) suggested that there were some solutions to

solve the problems. Reading books, playing the games, creating the vocabulary

themes etc. can increase vocabulary. However, make a group in learning can help

the students to correct their errors in writing and practice grammar. While learning

to write, changing some parts of writing lesson can help students to reduce a bit of

pressure in their feeling. In addition, the sources of the writing material should be

given to the students in order to become better than before

2.6 Teaching Writing in Senior High School

Writing is one of subject matters which is thought in senior high school.

Sometimes, the teacher asked the students to make descriptive text, narrative text,

and the other text in order to know how to write something based on types and

function. Students should familiarize themselves to write something especially in

English. It is because the importance of writing skill needs students’ investment in

learning English (Huy, 2015).

20

Huy (2015) argues that the way to convey the ideas to the other people is

writing. He also claims that many students spend a few times to write because

they do not know that writing is very important. They assume that writing is not

too important to learn, especially in learning English. Even though, the other

English skill will be more effective if the students are good at writing (Huy,

2015). Students taught writing in English gradually, start from writing a sentence,

making paragraph until creating an essay. They are taught English based on their

need, their ability and their level. Likewise in MA Yayasan Taman Pengetahuan

(YTP) at the first grade, second grade, and third grade, writing English is taught

based on the material in course book.