CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the researcher will present about background of the research,
research problem, objective of the research, research hypothesis, research
significance, research scope and limitation, and definition of key term.
A. Background of the Research
Today, the students learn the four skills namely, listening, speaking, reading
and writing. All of these skills must be practiced by students and cannot be
separated from one to another if one expects to be able to communicate freely in
English. However, it cannot be denied that English is still a crucial problem for
Indonesian students. As a matter of fact, until today most students from Junior
High School up to University level have difficulties in all of these skills.
Reading is one of the four English language skills. Being able to read English
is very important. Reading is a good way to develop and understand English. The
acquisition of the reading skill in the second language learning is considered as a
priority. This idea is supported by the fact that reading has become a part of our
daily activities, we read many texts, ranging from holiday brochures to academic
books. Therefore, the ability to read English texts in any form will give a great
number of advantages to our lives.
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Reading skill is essential both in the target and the native language. Students
may not find any difficulties when reading a text in the source language, but what
happens to the students is the other way when they read texts in the target
language. In my experience as a teacher candidate, many of the students become
frustrated when they have difficulties in reading the target language. There is no
specific teaching technique that focuses on the teaching of reading
comprehension. When it comes to reading, the teacher only asks the students to
read the text and answer the comprehension questions provided in the book. As
the result, the students tend to have poor reading skill and habits. The matter
arises because of some factors: (1) Students do not have good motivation to read
because the text is not interesting, the teaching technique is boring or the text is
too hard, (2) they believe that when comprehending the text, they must
comprehend every word in the text, so they keep on looking up the words in a
dictionary to find out the meaning of the words, (3) they have very limited
techniques and strategies in reading, (4) they read aloud which slows them down
and which may inhibit comprehension.
Reading , which is one of four language skills, can be classified into two
types: initial reading and reading comprehension. Initial reading is an effort made
by those who have not been able to read to learn reading. Reading comprehension
is an activity aimed to understand the messages of a particular text (Cahyono, et
al. 2011:49). Meanwhile, comprehension is the process of making sense of word,
sentences and connected text (Agustina, 2011:75). The teaching of reading as a
foreign language in Indonesia can be generally included in the teaching reading
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comprehension. This is because it aims to improve the skills of learners, who have
been able to read in their first language and in English foreign language,in
understanding the meaning of a written text (Cahyono, et al. 2011: 49). Besides,
when comprehension breaks down, especially in a foregn and second language,
the students need to improve their comprehension. This is a condition where the
importance of reading strategies comes in so as to facilitate the reading process
and give students a cleare sense of what they are reading. However, when reading
strategies are not readily available, the students become easily frustrated and
bored because they do not understand what they are reading and as a result. The
students have no motivation to read any longer.
The above factors, which are actually the students’ problems, need to be
overcome. Therefore, the writer proposes one technique that can be used to
improve students’ comprehension. The technique proposed is Reciprocal
Teaching. Reciprocal Teaching, which was developed by Pallinscar and Brown in
Trianto 2007: 96), is an instructional procedure to enhance students’ reading
comprehension of a text. Pallinscar describes the concept of reciprocal teaching as
follows: “Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity that takes place
in the form of a dialogue between teachers and students regarding segments of
text. The dialogue is structured by the use of four strategies: Summarizing,
questioning, clarifying, and predicting.”
Based on the theories , it can be assumed that Reciprocal teaching which
covers the strategy of summarizing (this strategy is to enable the students to
check their understanding of the text by summarizing it), questioning (in this
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strategy is to identify the kind of information that is significant enough, so that it
could provide the substance for a question), clarifying (This strategy makes the
students aware and alert to things that do not make sense in the text and to do
many necessary actions to solve problem), and predicting (in this strategy the
students are anticipating what will come next in the text) is introduced as a
technique to improve students’ reading comprehension of a text while involving
them in a verbal exchange of ideas (Pallinscar, et al., 1986: 120).
It is characterized by a structured-dialogue between the students and the
teacher, where each takes turns in the role of dialogue leader. The purpose of this
technique is to provide opportunities for students to practice all the English skills,
mainly reading, with or without the teacher. This technique also gives a chance to
the students to monitor their own reading as well as their comprehension. This
technique has several benefits, i.e, it can help improve students’ reading ability
and increase their cooperation. Give the students bigger opportunity to practice
the four language skills, and give the students more self confidence and
motivation.
The advantage of reciprocal teaching are students are actively engaged in
learning; reading strategies are used in an integrated, coordinated way in a
meaningful context;
students enjoy working together and
being "teacher";
students are able to learn with the benefit of repeated tutor modeling and learn to
take responsibility for their own and each other's learning.( Buehl, 2001: 117)
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With using of reciprocal teacing in reading comprehension, the students are
reported to be succes to apply the strategy learned during a think-aloud so that
they can understand the author’s message (Vacca, 1998: 56).
Therefore, the researcher thinks that it is quite good if we try to use
technique, that is reciprocal teaching in learning English, especially in improving
reading skill that is supposed to be good in improving language acquisition.
Based on the background, the writer wants to do the research about English
teaching and learning the students of MTs N Pulosari Tulungagung. Finally the
writer takes the title “Effectiveness of using Reciprocal Teaching technique on the
Reading Comprehension Achievement of the Second grade Students at MTs N
Pulosari Tulungagung in the Academic Year 2012/2013”.
B. Research Problem
Based on the research background, the research problem is formulated as the
following:
1. How are student’s reading comprehension before being taught using
reciprocal teaching?
2. How is the student’s reading comprehension after being taught using
reciprocal teaching?
3. Is there any significant different achievement between the students reading
comprehension before and after being taught using reciprocal teaching?
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B. Objectives of the Research
1. To investigate the students’ reading comprehension before being taught using
reciprocal teaching.
2. To investigate the students’ reading comprehension after being taught using
reciprocal teaching.
3. To investigate significant different achievement between the students reading
comprehension before and after being taught using reciprocal teaching
D. The hyphothesis of the study
Hypothesis is tentative answer of variable in which the truth must be tested,
based on the previous statement, the writer has two hypothesis, namely:
1. Ha(The alternative hypothesis): there is significant influence of using
Reciprocal teaching as technique of teaching reading on student’s
achievement in mastering reading comprehension to the second grade
of MTs N Pulosari Tulungagung.
2. Ho (null hypothesis): there is no significant influence of using
Reciprocal teaching as technique of teaching reading on student’s
achievement in mastering reading comprehension to the second grade
of MTs N Pulosari Tulungagung.
E.
Significant of the Research
The result of this study is expected to give contribution for the teacher as
feed back to improve their technique and system in teaching English especially in
reading comprehension on narrative text.
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The researcher hopes that the result of this study is expected to give feed
back to motivate the student’s selves to get a good result especially in reading
comprehension on narrative text.
This research is expected to be used as a reference in conducting further
research in the same field.
F. Scope and Limitation of the Research
The study is conducted at MTs N Pulosari Tulungagung and focus of the
study is to know the significant influence on the student’s reading comprehension
achievement by using Reciprocal teaching technique, especially the reading
comprehension which is related to the second years of MTs N Pulosari
Tulungagung.The topic is narrative text.
The limitation in this study, the researcher chose the students of class VII-B
in the second grade at MTs N Pulosari Tulungagung, because the researcher only
had a limited time, beside that, the teacher not gave advice to choose A and C
class that consist of heterogonous but the teacher only gave advice B class that
consist of homogeneous students
G. Definition of Key Terms
To avoid the misunderstanding and misinterpretation, the researcher gives
some definition of the key terms.
1.
Students achievement is progression toward the instructional objective of
specific study or training program. In this study, the students achievement
means the test score of the students in a reading test.
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2.
Reading is a compex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention
of deriving meaning ( reading comprehension) and constructing meaning.
3.
Reading comprehension is defined as the level of the understanding of
writing. It measure the understanding of a passage of text.
4.
Reciprocal teaching is a technique of teaching reading to facilitate a group
effort between teacher and students as well as among students in the task of
bringing meaning to the text. the purpose of reciprocal teaching is to help
students with or without a teacher, actively to bring meaning to the written
word. Meanwhile, reciprocal teaching is a strategy which enables the students
to improve their reading comprehension by having a structured dialogue
between the students and the teacher using the four strategies: summarizing,
questioning, clarifying, and predicting. This technique requires the interaction
among the students to enable them to gain the feedback of the activity by
making a text to be discussed.