SKRIPSI PTK ENHANCING STUDENTS PARTICIPATION AND COMPREHENSION IN READING COURSE USING JIGSAW STRATEGY

(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".

SKRIPSI STUDENT'S READING STRATEGIES AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION

(KODE : PENDBING-0049) : SKRIPSI STUDENT'S READING STRATEGIES AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION

This research is intended to investigate the students' reading strategies and their reading comprehension in a junior high school. This chapter illustrates the background of the study, the research problems, and the purposes of the study. This chapter also includes the significance of the study, and the hypothesis. Moreover, this chapter also presents the research method and organization of the thesis.

A. Background of the Study

Reading is an essential skill for English as second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) learners; and for many, reading is the most important skill to master (Anderson, 1999). Anderson also states that with good reading skills, ESL/EFL readers will make great progress and attain great development in all academic areas (1999 : 21).

In a junior high school in Indonesia, reading skill is a first priority. The goal of reading in Indonesia English curriculum is to make the students comprehend what they read, and enhance students' oral and written communication ability (SMP-SBI curriculum 2007 the third grade of a junior high school). Further, SMP-SBI curriculum 2007 the third grade of a junior high school clarifies that the communication in this case is the ability to understand and to express the feeling, thought and information, to develop science, culture and technology (Depdiknas, 2007). It is also stated that standard competence of reading is to understand a meaning of procedural, report, explanatory written text or short essay, narrative, and news items, in order that students are able to communicate in daily and academic context.

In the last decade, many reading experts have investigated English reading strategies in order to solve the reading problems. Reading strategies are considered one of the fundamental factors that promote students' comprehension improvement in reading. Furthermore, reading strategy "is the foundation of students' self-regulated reading" (Syafrizal, 2000 : 4). A motivated and self-regulated reader will encourage himself to set his own planning in determining his reading strategies which contribute a great deal of success to his reading comprehension (Wenden, 1987 : 11).

Based on the description above, it can be said that reading strategies play an important role in reading English texts, especially in a junior high school. In line with this, the present study focuses on the investigation of students' reading strategies and their reading comprehension, a case study at a junior high school.

B. Research Problems

The study is aimed at investigating the junior high school students' reading strategies and their reading comprehension. Specifically, this study investigates the following questions : 

1. What reading strategies are used by the third grade students of the junior high school ?

2. Is there any correlation between the students' reading strategies and their reading comprehensions ?

C. Purposes of the Study

The study was conducted in order to : 

1. discover the reading strategies used by third grade students of the junior high school.

2. find the correlation between the students' reading strategies and their reading comprehensions

D. Significance of the Study

This study is intended to find the correlation between the junior high school students' reading strategies and their reading comprehension. Hopefully, the study will be valuable for teachers and students, for improving the teaching learning process. By knowing the students' reading strategies and their reading comprehension, the teachers could also select and design the appropriate teaching materials and techniques. Besides, by identifying reading and its strategies, it could be expected that some valuable findings could be implemented in the process of reading in order to make reading course better. Moreover, this study could also become an empirical study over viewing classroom learning activities in Competence-Based Curriculum. It could be an insight to teaching and learning activities in KTSP context. Furthermore, it can be a bridge for the students to encourage them to improve their reading comprehension by using reading strategies.

In addition, this study can be valuable for researcher because the result of the study provides some informative input to conduct another investigation in the same field in different contexts.

SKRIPSI THE USE OF MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING RECOUNT TEXT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY

(KODE : PENDBING-0048) : SKRIPSI THE USE OF MIND MAPPING TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING RECOUNT TEXT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION

This chapter contains a brief explanation of the introduction. It consists of background, research questions, the scope of the research, aims of the research, hypothesis, research methodology, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper. 

A. Background

In the structure of curriculum program in Junior high school, English is one of the most important subjects for students in the seventh grade until nine grades by having about four hours lesson every week. English has been identified as the most important parameter in the curriculum development that should be mastered by Indonesian students. It means that students in the junior high school have three years opportunity to learn English and they are expected to master it.

There are four skills in English teaching that the students should master it. The four skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Standard competence of Junior High School states that the seventh grade students in the second semester should be able to express spoken text and short monologue in descriptive and procedure text to interact with surrounding. It means that, the seventh grade students should be able to express meaning in simple short monologue and dialogue used in oral language variety accurately, fluently, and understandably to interact with surrounding.

Speaking is the productive skill in the oral mode. It consists of producing systematic verbal utterance to convey meaning. Speaking also is an important skills to communicate because in speaking students convey ideas, opinion, etc. According to Brown (2001) speaking is one of the important skills in language learning in the classroom. It is used twice as often as listening and the most used skill, it means that students should be good in speaking because speaking is used more than listening.

However in reality, since English is introduced to students, they cannot talk fluently it can be seen when they make small conversations they cannot talk as the teacher want and they get some difficulties to speak English. They feel uneasy and they are afraid to speak with each other to share about their opinion. It can be drawn from their negative attitude toward speaking activity, one of the reason is the teaching method which is used is boring.

In teaching and learning process, the effective and interesting method is one of the ways to motivate students to be involved in the activity. It can make the students feel more comfortable with the materials. As Dewey states, cited in Mooney (2000; p. 15), that enjoyable teaching learning process will occur when students are interested in the materials because the beginner students are interested in many new things such as foreign language. According to Brown (2001 : 100) the characteristic of novice level is the students' ability to communicate using learned material and oral production consists of isolated words.

Unfortunately many teachers still apply traditional method in teaching. For example, teachers make the students keep learning English through teachers' explanation of new words or grammar. In fact, this method is not effective because students will easily forget the words and the material if they learn different topic. Especially for students, those who are seven to twelve years old, this method is uninteresting. Keskil and Cephe note that students who are 10 and 11 years old like game, puzzles and song most, those who are 12 and 13 years old like activities built around dialogues, question-answer activities and matching exercises most. (Harmer, 2001 : 61).

There are many methods that can be used in teaching or learning speaking. But the applied methods which are used need to be not only interesting but also effective in teaching speaking. Clearly, students will not be able to speak foreign language well just by memorizing lists of words, repeating mechanically some useful expressions, and so on. Cameron's (2001) state that speaking is the active use of language to express meanings. To speak in the foreign language in order to share understandings with other, people require attention to precise details of the language. Thus, if students do not understand the spoken language, they cannot learn it effectively.

As Dawson (1975) state that speaking is truly basic skill in language learning. Students need to get themselves involved in the classroom to get more practice in speaking foreign language. For the purpose of getting students involved in the classroom, enjoyable activities are recommended to be used by the teachers to make the students focus on teaching learning process.

The teachers have to use different kinds of teaching approach in order not to make the students feel bored. Klancar (2006 : 53) states that the teacher will get some advantages when they teach student by various types of activities such as reading aloud and describing pictures.

Speaking activity can be modified by using media to help students in organizing their idea, for example by using pictures. Based on the basic competence designed for seventh grade in the junior high school, students are expected to be able to describe something such as objects, things people or procedure. It means that teachers have to help them to be able to describe it. There are many ways to make students more involved in the activity one of them is by using pictures. Besides using pictures and posters teacher can also use the real media such as desks, chairs, and the other things to help them to describe people, things or object. Pictures, as the media, are expected to give explanation and description, without having the students to memorize the text.

Pictures can be a media to stimulate students in describing an object or person in the pictures. Students can acquire the meaning by seeing the things in the pictures without explanation. It also helps them to communicate or explain the events in the picture. As Thornbury (2005; p. 75) explains that the script of conversation can be illustrated in picture form to make it memorized easily. So that teachers can create joyful learning through pictures that can affect students to participate and also motivate them to be active in the class. Providing tools especially pictures could encourage students to focus on the materials. They are interested in the pictures and become actively participate in the class. Furthermore, through pictures, fun learning can be created and speaking activity will not be seen as difficult as students might have thought.

In relation to the teaching and learning, pictures are potential source in the transferring information. In the other words, picture can become a bridge to transfer knowledge from the teacher to the student. As Goodman (2006 : 75) states, that picture can act as a bridge between students who have different learning style. According to Canning-Wilson (2001 : 91) pictures are important since they facilitate students understanding. Furthermore, she explains that for most people, the mental image of what they see has greater impact than auditory input.

Based on the explanation above, this research aimed is to find out the effectiveness of using pictures in teaching speaking English. Thus, the entitled "TEACHING SPEAKING ENGLISH THROUGH PICTURE IN IMPROVING STUDENTS SPEAKING ABILITY".

B. Research Questions

According to the previous explanations, this research was intended to answer the following questions : 

1. Is the use of Pictures effective in improving students speaking ability ?

2. What are the students' responses of teaching speaking English through pictures ?

C. The Scope of the Research

Based on the aforementioned problems, the scope of this study was to find out the effectiveness of picture in teaching speaking English. The context of the study was limited on teaching speaking English, especially to the seventh grades of SMP X.

D. Aims of the Research

The aims of this research are : 

1. To investigate the effectiveness of picture in teaching speaking English through picture.

2. To analyzed students' responses towards the implementation teaching speaking English through picture.