(KODE : PTK-0577) : SKRIPSI PTK ENHANCING STUDENTS PARTICIPATION AND COMPREHENSION IN READING COURSE USING JIGSAW STRATEGY (BAHASA INGGRIS KELAS IX)-L
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of The Study
English is an international language used for oral and written communication. English becomes the popular language in the world, so mastering of English language for wider communication is needed to elevate to the quality of human resources to international level. To encourage Indonesian citizens to learn English, the Indonesian government declares that English has to be taught as a compulsory subject. It implies that English can be used to help students to master science, technology and culture.
In Indonesia, English is considered to be the first foreign language. It is taught at school from Elementary School, Junior High School, Senior High School, and University. Nevertheless, people believe that teaching language is not easy for an English teacher because he or she has the role to give perception and function in language skills such as listening, speaking, writing and reading.
Reading occupies special place among the four language skills. It is a basic tool of learning and one of the most important skills in the world. Reading is a tool which foreign language learners could get more specific knowledge. Reading knowledge of a foreign language is often important to academic, studies, professional success and personal development.
Reading is one of the linguistic skills that people should have in order to communicate in English fluently. As stated by Finnochiaro (1974 : 78), reading is bringing meaning and getting meaning from printed written material. As a skill, reading is one of the most important that must be developed by student remembering that the good reading skills is very needed by them to get or to look for new information from written text. In this problem, the researcher notices that many students read without any particular strategies for remembering new words or making use of clues in the text. So, they do not comprehend the main of what they are reading, and consequently they get little information.
Much of the current thinking on reading tends to focus primarily on the purpose of the activity; even if reading is done for pleasure it is still purposeful. There are many purposes for reading, (Frederica, 2002 : 13-14) they are :
a. Reading to search for simple information is a common reading ability through a text either to search for a specific piece of information or to get an initial impression of whether the text is suitable for a given purposes.
b. Reading to skim quickly is combination of strategies for guessing where important information might be in the text, and then using basic reading comprehension skill on those segments of the text until a general idea is formed.
c. Reading to learn from texts is usually occurs in academic and professional context in which a person needs to learn a considerable amount of information from a text.
d. Reading to integrate information requires critical evaluation of the information being read so that the reader can decide what information to integrate and how to integrate it for reader's goal.
e. Reading for general comprehension is the process of understanding and constructing meaning from a piece of text connected text is any written material involving multiple words that forms coherent thoughts.
Making reading an enjoyable and useful activity is a very important part of the language experience. Teacher should be aware of the main approaches to the teaching of reading and strategies that underlie them. It is important to use new strategies of teaching comprehension which might improve this skill in particular and enhance the learning of English in general.
To use in teaching reading comprehension effectively, students need to be equipped with effective strategies to help them improve their reading competency. Cooperative learning strategy is one of strategy that teacher should use in his or her class. Cooperative learning is an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom.
To develop teaching reading comprehension, teacher needs strategy that innovative, creative and flexible. The teaching strategy is one of the important things in teaching learning process. Teacher should use some strategies that will make students enjoy and easy to read and understand the text. Students will have a good work when they study together or in group. Students will also feel more comfort when they work in group since many of students are shy even afraid to ask something they do not understand yet to their teacher. Cooperative learning is one of strategy that teacher should use in his or her class. In jigsaw, students can interact and communicate with another. This strategy forms a large part that used in teaching-learning process. (Melvin, 2004 : 192) The original method of jigsaw is group to group exchange. It can be an interesting alternative when the teacher finds the material which should be taught in order. In the jigsaw form of instruction, the target material is divided into 4 to 6 parts and distributed to small groups to learn. When these homogeneous groups have mastered their material, students regroup into heterogeneous group to present material and complete the task. Peer teaching and group problem solving is used to complete the jigsaw strategy. Both individual and group accountability are built into this methodology.
By looking at some of the purpose and reason for reading which is expected to develop student's activity in teaching-learning process, the traditional way must be changed with applied effective strategy to the teaching of English as a foreign language, especially for the teaching of reading comprehension. In fact, many students have low comprehension in reading and their score are not good enough, since they cannot understand in English reading text. Regarding to those phenomena which is usually found in teaching of English, especially in teaching reading comprehension, the researcher intends to conduct the research of applying a teaching strategy which is considered will be helpful and beneficial for both students and teacher side. In this point, the researcher is going to apply one of the cooperative learning strategies that are jigsaw. This strategy is viewed as a solver for the problem stated above. Adopting this strategy, teacher is expected to be able to apply the teaching-learning process effectively, especially teaching of reading. In addition the activity offered in jigsaw is interesting so that the students will feel the new atmosphere in classroom and are interested in teaching reading. The jigsaw strategy is designed to value the individual and emphasize each individual's essential role in the learning process. In this research will describe "ENHANCING STUDENTS' PARTICIPATION AND COMPREHENSION IN READING COURSE USING JIGSAW STRATEGY".