Sunteți pe pagina 1din 7

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING

COMPREHENSION BY USING RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGY

FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN 3rd SEMESTER AT STATE

UNIVERSITY OF MALANG

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the writer tries to discuss the background of the study, purposes of

the study, statement of hypothesis, the significance of the study, scope and limitation,

and definition of the key terms.

1.1 Background of the Study

English is a language which is used to communicate with other people around the

world because now English is becoming an international language. In language

teaching, there are four skills that should be mastered by the students. There are

listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, Grabe and Stoller (2011: 18)

stated that reading is an interactive process based on two ways. First, the various

process involved in reading are carried out simultaneously, it means that while

readers are recognizing words very rapidly and keeping them active in their

memories, they are also analyzing the structure of the sentences to assemble the most

logical clause-level meanings, building a main-idea model of text comprehension,

1
monitoring comprehension and so on. Second, it is considered interactive in the sense

of linguistic information from the text that interacts with information the reader's

background knowledge. According to McNamara (2007:3) reading is an

extraordinary achievement when one considers the number of levels and components

that must be mastered. Consider what it takes to read a simple story. The words

contain graphemes, phonemes, and morphemes.

Plaut (2009) claimed that reading is believed to be a very complex activity. Too

many processes are involved in reading for meaning. It involves the rapid

coordination of visual, phonological, semantic, and linguistic processes. Furthermore,

Ghazo (2015) said that, in fact, many of them still have problems in understanding

reading texts due to their lack of vocabulary, lack of grammatical knowledge, and

lack of general knowledge. These problems happen because of poor strategies used

by the teacher for teaching reading and/or to the use of boring teaching materials

which fail to motivate the students or make them interested in reading

comprehension. There are many students have a lack of reading comprehension,

especially, the tenth-grade students. The students have difficulties to comprehend the

text. The students had difficulties in reading comprehension. The problems appeared

during the teacher was reading the text, the students just listened and repeated the

teacher's reading but they did not understand what the information in the reading text

that has been read by the teacher. After finish reading the text, the teacher asked the

students to translate the text, only a few students did the task. During reading activity in

the teaching and learning process, often students were not focused, busy with their

2
businesses, talked to their friends and disturbed their friends. This was being bothered the

teaching-learning activity and few students finished their task well. When the students

translated the text, only some students came to the teacher and asked the difficult parts,

like the new words or the words that they did not know the meaning. They have limited

vocabulary and background knowledge.

Reciprocal teaching strategies help the teacher to teach effectively in reading.

These strategies may be applied to all texts and are especially effective with

informational texts. Reciprocal teaching strategy is one of teaching reading strategy

that can solve the problems of the student. Reciprocal teaching strategy helps the

student with four steps, such as predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing

Ozckus (2013: 34). In line with Ahmadi & Gilakjani (2012) reciprocal teaching is as

an instructional strategy that directly teaches the students to apply meta-cognitive

thinking as they make meaning from a text. It is a process of reading comprehension

as an interactive one, in which readers interact with the text as their prior experience

is activated. Moreover, readers construct meaning from the text by relying on prior

experience to parallel, contrast or affirm what the author suggested in the text.

Reciprocal teaching strategy allows a teacher to model and gives the students enough

practice on those four main strategies (predicting, questioning, clarifying and

summarizing) to construct the meaning of a text. Foster and Rotoloni (2005) stated

that one of the challenges of reciprocal teaching strategy is that it was introduced for

learners who are sufficient decoders but are poor in reading comprehension and

3
cannot construct the meaning and recognize a text after reading a passage; therefore,

it would not be effective for students with poor decoding skills.

Related to this study, there are a number of studies that have been conducted by

Jaya (2013) regarding the use of reciprocal strategy in teaching reading

comprehension. Reciprocal teaching has been found as a successful teaching strategy

in improving students’ reading comprehension. Another study that was conducted by

Sarasty (2002) and Freahat and Al-Makhzoomi (2012) found that the use of RTP

(Reciprocal Teaching Procedure) can improve the students‟ reading comprehension

behavior after the training and demonstrate its effectiveness to the subjects‟ reading

comprehension behavior. Moreover, most participants found that reciprocal teaching

is a fun activity.

Although there have been a number researches in the literature regarding the use

of reciprocal teaching strategy in teaching reading comprehension, in Indonesia, it is

just a few of researchers that have directly compared the effectiveness of reciprocal

strategy, especially regarding teaching reading comprehension in university level

because most of them conducting the research in junior high school and senior high

school level. Besides, most of them using qualitative design as their research

methodology. Therefore, in this study, the researcher will conduct the research at the

university level and use quantitative design as the research methodology which is to

cover students’ achievement in reading comprehension by using reciprocal teaching

strategy.

4
1.2 Statements of the Problem

1. Does teaching by using reciprocal strategy can improve students’ achievement

in reading comprehension?

1.3 Purposes of the Study

1. To know the students’ improvement of using reciprocal strategy in teaching

reading comprehension for undergraduate students in 3rd semester at State

University of Malang.

1.4 Statement of Hypothesis

1. Ho: There is no significant difference in using reciprocal strategy towards

students’ improvement in teaching reading comprehension.

2. Hi: There is a significant difference in using reciprocal strategy towards

students’ improvement in teaching reading comprehension.

1.5 The significance of the Study

1. For the students, it may motivate the students to improve their interest in

reading skill and comprehension with pleasure and not only read one type of

text but also they can be enthusiastic for many other kinds of texts.

2. For the teachers, they will be motivated to use the reciprocal strategy for other

skills in teaching English besides reading skill. So many kinds of strategies

which are included in reciprocal teaching strategy can be applied in four skills

5
of English. The teacher will be more creative and active to get more

knowledge of good teaching.

3. For the future researcher, they can find out the new strategy which can be

supported and combined with reciprocal teaching strategy through reading a

text.

1.6 Scope and Limitations of the Study

1. Scope:

The strategy used in this study is a reciprocal strategy which is focused on reading

comprehension for undergraduate students in 3rd semester of State University of

Malang.

2. Limitation:

This research only conducted for undergraduate students in 3rd semester of State

University of Malang.

1.7 Definition of the Key Terms

1. Reading skill

Reading is the most important meaningful skill regarding the interpretation of

printed or written verbal symbols. Based on that statement above, reading is not

only read but also needs thinking and our language skills, moreover, reading

6
(especially for English text) without using that skill, someone will get

misunderstanding in comprehending what the author message on the reading.

2. Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand information

presented in written form. Reading comprehension skills also may affect one's

interpretation of direction on examination, homework, and completion of job

applications or questionnaires.

3. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy

The reciprocal teaching approach is one of the reading methods which cover

the necessary reading strategies: predicting, generating questions, clarifying, and

summarizing. It helps students improve their reading comprehension, and develop

self-regulatory and monitoring skills, and achieve an overall improvement in

motivation.

S-ar putea să vă placă și