THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT
THE SECOND GRADE OF SMAN 9 BANDAR LAMPUNG IN 2014/2015 ACADEMIC YEAR
By
LIA ANNISA MAHDALENA
This research was intended to find out whether there was a difference on the students’ morphological analysis achievement and reading comprehension achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching and whether there was a positive effect of teaching morphological analysis on the students’ reading comprehension achievement and also what the problems faced by the students were in analyzing words through morphological analysis. This research was conducted at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung to 26 students in class XI Lintas Minat 5 as the sample. To collect the data, the researcher administered two objective tests, morphological analysis test and reading comprehension test; observation; and interview. Then, the data were analyzed both quantitavely and qualitatively.
THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMAN 9 BANDAR LAMPUNG IN 2014/2015
ACADEMIC YEAR
By
LIA ANNISA MAHDALENA
A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirement for S-1 Degree
in
The Language and Arts Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY
The writer’s name is Lia Annisa Mahdalena. She was born in Sungailiat, Bangka, on April 23rd, 1993. She is the last child of a harmonious and wonderful couple Rabu Zainuddin and Hatidjah.
She started her study at TK Aisyiyah Bustanul Athfal Bandar Lampung in 1998. Then, she entered SDN 4 Sukajawa Bandar Lampung and graduated in 2005. In the same year, she continued studying at SMPN 2 Bandar Lampung and completed the three-year study program in 2008. She then decided to continue her study at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung and finished three years later.
This script is sincerely dedicated to:
My beloved parents, Rabu Zainuddin and Hatidjah (For their endless love, pray, and support)
My beloved siblings
My beloved brother and sisters-in-law My beloved nieces and nephews
“So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief. Verily with every difficulty there is relief.”
vi
Alhamdulillahirobbil’alamiin, Praise is merely to the Mightiest Allah SWT for the gracious mercy and tremendous blessing that enables me to accomplish this script entitled “The Effect of Teaching Morphological Analysis on the Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement at the Second Grade of SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung in 2014/2015 Academic Year.” Shalawat and Salaam is for Prophet Muhammad SAW, his family, his followers, and all Moslems. This script is submitted as a compulsary partial fulfillment of the requirements for S-1 degree of English Education Study Program at Teacher Training and Education Faculty, Lampung University.
It is important to be known that this script would never have come into existence without any supports, encouragements, and assistance by several gorgeous people. Here are the writer would like to address her gratitude and respect to:
1. Dr. Ari Nurweni, M.A. as the writer’s first advisor, for her willingness to give assistance, ideas, and encouragements within her time during the script writing process.
2. H.M. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D. as the writer’s second advisor, for his kindness, invaluable evaluations, comments, and suggestions in guiding the writer finishing the script.
3. Prof. Dr. Cucu Sutarsyah, M.A. as the writer’s examiner, for his encouragements, contributions, and suggestions during the seminar until the script examination.
4. Drs. Sudirman, M.Pd. as the writer’s academic advisor along the writer’s college years.
5. Dr. Mulyanto Widodo, M.Pd. as the Chairperson of Language and Art Education Department.
vi
9. My beloved siblings, Nurmaita Hamsyiah S.Pd., Dwi Andri Yusuf S.T., and Ahmad Tri Oktora, S.T., who have supported me all the time.
10.My beloved brother and sisters-in-law. 11.My beloved nieces and nephews.
12.My teachers and lecturers for sharing knowledge, experience, and spirit. 13.My beloved Indah Surya Pertiwi, Khairun Nisa, M. Rizki Al Amin,
Nurmalia Pajrin, and Realita Siwi JN. for always accompanying me. 14.My beloved KKN Family, Agnes Desti Rs, Andi Zulkarnain, Ani Marlena,
Anwar Sidik, Heru Setiawan, Leo Iskandar, Novinta Nurulsari, Ria Dwi Yunita, Rifany Maulidya, Robbin Yama Shita, and Syahda Aulia Fatmaningrum.
15.My English teammates at Hafara (Gilang Santoso, Hesti Prasetianingtias, Melati Dwi Anda Syaputri, Mirwan Saputra, Ria S. Effendi, Rizki Mitra Amalia, Sofyan Hadi, and Wirathama Hazera Putra). Thank you for assistances, supports, and suggestions.
16.My beloved friends of English Department 2011. Thank you for assistances, support, and suggestions.
17.Anyone who cannot be mentioned directly and has contributed in completing this script.
Hopefully, this script would give a positive contribution for educational development and for those who want to carry out further research.
Bandar Lampung, April 2015 The writer
viii 2.2.3. Concept of Hortatory Exposition Text... 2.2.4. Concept of Morphological Analysis... 2.2.5. Morphological Analysis in Reading Comprehension... 2.2.6. Procedure of Teaching Reading through Morphological Analysis... 2.2.7. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Morphological
viii 3.5. Try Out of the Research Instruments... 3.6. Results of the Try-out Test... IV. RESULTS OF THE DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. Results of the Data Analysis... 4.1.1. Results of Morphological Analysis Test... 4.1.2. Results of Reading Comprehension Test... 4.1.3. Results of the Observation... 4.1.4. Results of the Interview... 4.2. Discussions...
4.2.1.The Finding of the Significant Difference on the Students’
Morphological Analysis Achievement... 4.2.2. The Finding of the Significant Difference on the Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement...
4.2.3. The Finding of the Positive Effect of Teaching Morphological Analysis on the Students’ Reading
x
Table Page
2.1 Hortatory Exposition Text... 20
2.2 Inflectional Categories... 21
2.3 Most Common Prefixes and Suffixes in Order of Frequency... 23
2.4 How Words Get Transformed... 26
3.1 Table Specification of Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 43
3.2 Table Specification of Reading Comprehension Try-out Test... 44
4.1 The Statistics Table of Morphological Analysis Pretest Score... 77
4.2 Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Pretest Score... 79
4.3 The Statistics Table of Morphological Analysis Posttest Score... 80
4.4 Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Posttest Score ... 82
4.5 Inflectional Achievement... 83
4.6 Prefix Derivational Achievement... 83
4.7 Circumfix Derivational Achievement... 84
4.8 Suffix Derivational Achievement... 84
4.9 Compound Words Achievement... 85
4.10 The Students’ Achievement of Morphological Analysis Aspects... 85
4.11 The Difference on the Students’ Morphological Analysis Pretest and Posttest Mean Score... 87
4.12 The Analysis of the Hypothesis... 88
4.13 The Statistics Table of Reading Comprehension Pretest Score... 90
4.14 Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Pretest Score... 92
4.15 The Statistics Table of Reading Comprehension Posttest Score... 93
4.16 Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Posttest Score... 95
4.17 Identifying Main Idea Achievement... 96
4.18 Making Predictions Achievement... 96
4.19 Interpreting Problems/Solutions Achievement... 97
4.20 Understanding Vocabulary Achievement... 97
4.21 Making a Generalization Achievement... 98
4.22 The Students’ Achievement of Reading Comprehension Aspects... 98
LIST OF GRAPHS
Page 4.1
4.2 4.3 4.4
The Achievement of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Aspects.... The Difference on the Students’ Morphological Analysis Pretest and Posttest Mean Score... The Achievement of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Aspects... The Difference on the Students’ Reading Comprehension Pretest and Posttest Mean Score...
86 87 99 100
xiii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendices Page
1. Research Schedule... 141
2. Reliability Analysis of Upper Group Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 142
3. Reliability Analysis of Lower Group Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 143
4. Reliability Analysis of Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 144
5. Difficulty Level and Discrimination Power of Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 145
6. Reliability Computation of Morphological Analysis Try-out Test... 146
7. Result of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Pretest Score... 147
8. Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Pretest Score... 148
9. Result of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Posttest Score... 149
10. Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Morphological Analysis Posttest Score... 150
11. The Students’ Pretest and Posttest Score of Morphological Analysis... 151
12. The Analysis of the Hypothesis... 152
13. Difficulty Level and Discrimination Power of Reading Comprehension Try-out Test... 153
14. Reliability Computation of Reading Comprehension Try-out Test... 155
15. Result of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Pretest Score... 156
16. Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Pretest Score... 157
17. Result of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Posttest Score... 158
18. Distribution Frequency of the Students’ Reading Comprehension Posttest Score... 159
19. The Students’ Pretest and Posttest Score of Reading Comprehension.. 160
20. The Analysis of the Hypothesis... 161
xiii
I. INTRODUCTION
This chapter is concerned with the background of the problems, identification of the problems, limitation of the problems, formulation of the research questions, objectives of the research, uses of the research, scope of the research, and definition of terms.
1.1. Background of the Problems
Reading is one of essential language skills that must be learnt and developed by all language learners. This is because most of beneficial information for them in the world, such as news, article, letter, advertisement, and journal are published in a written form. In addition, many education sources come up in a piece of writing. For instance, books and internet, which may provide big contribution of knowledge, are also mostly in a written one that requires every person who wants to get something from it reads it first. Seeing that, many students starting from the very base of education level are taught how to read.
high school. This is because there are some factors affecting comprehension, such as background knowledge, the ability to analyze the language as a means to convey ideas of the writer, the ability of the reader to think, the purpose of reading, clarity of the text, and physical condition, that is, the place or situation where reading takes place (Harris and Smith, 1986: 228). Among those factors, there are some which are in line with what the researcher found in the pre-observation to one of senior high schools in Bandar Lampung, that is, SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung. It was found that comprehending a reading text had become a problem faced by most of the students there. That might be caused by many factors; (1) the students did not have much motivation to read the text, (2) the teachers used uninteresting method/strategy in teaching reading, and (3) there were too many unknown words on the text.
Concerning with the first and second factor, the researcher interviewed some second grade students there relating to their interest in reading and the problems faced by them, the strategies used to tackle the problems, and also the way how the teachers there conducted reading class activity. From their responses, it was known that their interest in reading, especially in the essay form, was mostly low that they were usually lazy to face a reading text. It occured because they had a tendency to predict there would be many unknown words’ meaning. Then they were lack of strategies in tackling that problem. They usually tended to look up dictionary directly or just let the meaning of difficult words gone that would result in losing their reading comprehension.
monotonous that those teachers just asked the students to read certain text and then they did the task following the text without any attempt to discuss the unknown difficult words encountered in a reading text. In addition, concerning with the third factor, the researcher interviewed one of English teachers in that school. The teacher told that most of the students had the same obstacle in reading comprehension, that is, they could understand only little part of the written text or sentence due to the fact that they did not know the meanings of almost all the words.
Thus, from those three factors, the problem of encountering unknown difficult words becomes the basic problem for the students. In addition, they did not have any strategy to tackle that problem. Actually encountering some unfamiliar words might not distract the overall understanding of the text, but if there are too many words which are unknown, the comprehension will lost. One way in which vocabulary knowledge can be enhanced so that they are able to comprehend a reading text is through the use of morphological analysis to learn or predict the meaning of novel vocabularies. That analysis is defined as breaking complex words into its constituent meaning elements called morpheme (bases, prefixes, and suffixes). When they have already known the meaning of its base form, they can predict the meaning of another word that shares the same form of its base. Then the next step is just adjusting the meaning of prefix or suffix that is attached to that base form to predict the whole meaning of that word.
down morphologically complex word and determine which one its base, prefix, and suffix. Take an example, the researcher gave the word primary, immortalize, and disadvantageous. 5 out of 10 students could successfully break them down and defined its meaning. But they just could determine the root form of the word without knowing prefix or suffix as its term as follows. prime + -ary, im- + mortal + -ize, and dis- + advantage + -ous referred those words had a meaning that related to the word prime, mortal, and advantage. The researcher then asked their reading comprehension achievement. Some admitted that they belonged to average category while the rest thought that they had lower achievement in it. Moreover, the researcher asked the meaning of differ instead of difference or
different and fury instead of furious. 5 out of 10 students were able to define its meaning directly while for the rest, the researcher asked the other familiar forms of the same base form so that they could define its meaning.
The result showed those who had better achievement in reading also performed better in defining the meaning of the first word uttered by the researcher. Conversely, those who were not able to break down the morphologically complex words and define its meaning had lower achievement in reading. That indicated most of the students there seemingly did not know the words with the same base form but with various affixes shared related meaning. They also did not know the meaning of unknown words could be predicted from the meaning of its base form or the meaning from other familiar words which shared the same base form.
words was potential. Therefore, the researcher proposed to teach morphological analysis to help the students be able to predict the meaning of difficult words. That analysis could possibly help them to predict the meanings of the words found in the text and that might have helped them to comprehend such a reading text better.
1.2.Identification of the Problems
Based on the pre-observation done by the researcher in the background stated before, it seemed that there were ten identification of the problems and they were formulated as follows:
1. Most of the students got difficulties in comprehending a reading text, especially in the essay form.
2. Most of the students had low interest in reading−essay. They tended to be lazy to face that kind of reading text.
3. Most of the students faced problem toward difficult words. They could not understand the meaning of those words found in a reading text.
4. Most of the students were lack of strategies in reading comprehension activity.
5. Most of the students did not want to predict and guess the meaning of unknown words encountered in a reading text.
6. Most of the students tended to look up dictionary directly to find the meaning of unknown words.
certain text and they were asked to do the task following the text.
8. Most of the students had not known that the words with the same base form but with various affixes shared related meaning.
9. Most of the students had not known that the meaning of unknown words might have been predicted from the meaning of its base form.
10. Most of the students had not known that the meaning of unknown words might have been predicted from the meaning of other words which shared the same base form.
1.3. Limitation of the Problems
In line with the identification of the problems above, the focus of this research was on number 4, 8, 9, and 10 concerning with introducing a strategy to tackle the meaning of difficult words found in a reading text. Moreover, the students should have been introduced that the words with the same base form but with various affixes shared related meaning. In addition, the meaning of unknown words might have been predicted from the meaning of its base form or the meaning of other words which shared the same base form. Then the main concern of this research was finding out the effect of teaching morphological analysis as one of reading strategies in reading comprehension whether this strategy would result in the
students’ better comprehension achievement or not.
1.4.Formulation of the Research Questions
1. Is there any difference on the students’ morphological analysis achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching? 2. Is there any difference on the students’ reading comprehension achievement
before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching? 3. Is there any effect of teaching morphological analysis on the students’ reading
comprehension achievement?
4. What are the problems faced by the students in analysing words through morphological analysis?
1.5.Objectives of the Research
In accordance with the formulation of the research questions, the objectives of this research were as follows:
1. To find out whether there is a difference on the students’ morphological analysis achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching.
2. To find out whether there is a difference on the students’ reading comprehension achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching.
3. To find out whether there is an effect of teaching morphological analysis on
the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
1.6. Uses of the Research
The findings of this research might have been useful both theoretically and practically.
1. Theoretically, the finding of this research might be useful for supporting the theory of morphological analysis in helping the readers assign meaning to new or difficult words they encounter on the text and in helping them to comprehend a reading text better.
2. Practically, the result of this research is expected to provide teachers with a new insight that might be taken as a guideline in teaching reading so that the students are able to comprehend English texts better.
1.7.Scope of the Research
because it was one of the examples of essay text that comprised of unknown complex difficult words that its difficult words could be analysed by using morphological analysis to predict and find its meaning. Then, the materials were taken from English Books for the second grade of senior high school.
1.8.Definition of Terms
Several terms used in this research were defined as follows:
1. Reading Comprehension is the ability to read text, process it, and understand its meaning.
2. Morphological Analysis refers to the ability to use knowledge of root words and affixes to determine the meanings of unfamiliar morphologically complex words.
3. Hortatory Exposition Text refers to a text that elaborates the writer‘s idea
about the surrounding phenomenon. It is also a kind of text that presents one side of an issue in a form of arguments. Its purpose is to argue/persuade the reader that something should be or should not be done or supported. Its generic structures consist of thesis, arguments, and recommendation.
4. Effect is a change as a result or consequence of an action or other cause. In this case, it is the difference in the result of teaching morphological analysis on the students’ reading comprehension achievement before and after the treatments. That means the posttest score is better than the pretest one.
II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter deals with two major points: review of previous research and review of related literature.
2.1. Review of Previous Research
Many researchers have conducted studies about morphological analysis and reading
comprehension. The outcomes are presented as follows.
The first study that revealed the positive effect of morphological analysis on reading comprehension was done done by Ku and Anderson (2003). They conducted a study to investigate whether morphological awareness, which is conscious awareness of the morphemic structure of words and the ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure, played a significant role in vocabulary acquisition and reading proficiency among second, fourth, and sixth American and Chinese graders of English and Chinese languages. The researchers administered a reading comprehension test along with a morpheme recognition test, a morpheme interpretation test, and a pseudoword judgment test. The results demonstrated that morphological awareness was developed gradually throughout the students’ language experience and that morphological awareness was
The second study about morphological analysis and reading comprehension was done by Timyam (2008). He conducted needs analysis of knowledge in linguistics for English-major students. The subjects were 123 English-major students at the undergraduate and graduate levels in Thailand. The results revealed that the students considered morphology as significantly needed. That study suggested that morphological elements should be taught in order to help students know the meaning of unfamiliar words.
The third study about morphological analysis and reading ability was done by Kirby (2011). He investigated the effect of morphological awareness on reading in 103 children from grades 1 to 3. Morphological awareness was assessed with a word analogy task that included a wide range of morphological transformations. The results indicated that morphological awareness was a significant predictor of word reading accuracy and speed, pseudoword reading accuracy, text reading speed, and reading comprehension. Morphological awareness also explained variance in reading comprehension after further controlling word reading. He concluded that morphological awareness had important roles in word reading and reading comprehension and he suggested that it should be included more frequently in assessment and instruction.
First of all, the students in both groups took pretest. Then, the treatments of the researcher started and all the students in both groups received a six-sessions reading comprehension training but the experimental group also received explicit morphological practice during reading comprehension classes. After finishing the treatments, all the participants took a posttest.
The results indicated that the students in the experimental group showed a progress in their reading comprehension ability from pretest to posttest. That demonstrated that explicit morphological practice was effective in improving reading comprehension skills of Iranian intermediate level EFL students.
The last study was done by Varatharajoo (2013). The aim of his study was to investigate morphemic analysis awareness among low proficiency Malaysian secondary school students in ESL context. Learners’ morphemic analysis awareness in this study was assessed based on analytic and synthetic aspects of morphemic analysis tasks. The results indicated that the students had limited awareness in both analytic and synthetic aspects of morphemic analysis tasks. This finding implicated that there was a need for explicit teaching of morphology units to create morphemic analysis awareness among Malaysian secondary school students. That was because it could help them to unlock the meaning of new and complex words by analyzing the meaningful parts within the words.
Based on the previous studies elaborated above, the following things had been found:
English and Chinese vocabulary acquisition and reading proficiency (Ku and Anderson, 2003).
2. The students at the undergraduate and graduate levels in Thailand considered morphology as significantly needed in order to help students know the meaning of unfamiliar words (Timyam, 2008).
3. Morphological awareness was a significant predictor of word reading accuracy and speed, pseudoword reading accuracy, text reading speed, and reading comprehension. It has important roles in word reading and reading comprehension, and it is suggested that it should be included more frequently in assessment and instruction (Kirby, 2011).
4. The Iranian intermediate level EFL students in the experimental group showed a progress in their reading comprehension ability from the pretest to the posttest after explicit morphological instruction. That demonstrated explicit morphological practice was effective in improving reading comprehension skills of Iranian intermediate level EFL students (Asgharzade, 2012).
5. The students of Malaysian secondary school had limited awareness in both analytic and synthetic aspects of morphemic analysis tasks. There was a need for explicit teaching of morphology units to create morphemic analysis awareness because it could help them to unlock the meaning of new and complex words by analyzing the meaningful parts within the words. (Varatharajoo, 2013).
morphological analysis because it can help them to unlock the meaning of new and complex words. Therefore, this research would be carried out to deal with that issue.
2.2. Review of Related Literature
This part consists of some terms reviewing the explanation of literature that relates to this research. The explanations are as follows:
2.2.1.Concept of Reading Comprehension
It is better to know what reading is before going to the concept of reading comprehension. Reading is one of language skills in learning English that deals with written form. For many years, there has been three basic definitions of reading (Foertsch, 1998). According to the first definition, learning to read means learning to pronounce words. The second definition states that learning to read means learning to identify words and get their meaning. For the third definition, learning to read means learning to bring meaning to a text in order to get meaning from it.
and improve every information and knowledge have to read. Moreover, the U.S. National Reading Panel (Armbruster, Bonnie B., and Jean Osborn, 2001) defines reading comprehension as a complex system of deriving meaning from prints that requires all of the following:
1. The skill and knowledge to understand how phonemes or speech sound are connected to print.
2. The ability to decode unfamiliar words. 3. The ability to read fluently.
4. Sufficient background information and vocabulary to foster reading comprehension.
5. The development of appropriate active strategies to construct meaning from print.
6. The development and maintenance of a motivation to read.
Thus, there is no reading without comprehension and background knowledge (schemata) is involved in the process of building up the comprehension.
Generally, there has been five sort reading skills that should be mastered by the readers to comprehend the text deeply. They are identifying main idea, identifying details, determining inference, understanding vocabulary, and reference (Nuttall, 1985). Among them, there are two basic reading skills that have to master as follows.
1. Identifying main idea
In accordance with Segretto (2002: 12), main idea is what the passage is mostly about. The author often states the main idea in the first or last few sentences of the first paragraph. However, the author may state the main idea anywhere in the passage. Sometimes, the author only suggests the main idea by leaving clues within the passage.
2. Understanding vocabulary
Linan et al (2007: 87) states that the role of vocabulary in reading is clearly understood: vocabulary knowledge, the understanding of word meanings and their use, contributes to reading comprehension and knowledge building.
In addition to those things, there are still many skills the readers should develop. This is because reading comprehension test items will vary and do not cover those five reading skills only. Therefore, the readers can develop their reading skills by using the following reading comprehension strategies (Suparman, 2012).
1. Making/confirming/revising predictions
readers are asked to always reread and ask themselves questions until they have enough information to predict an outcome.
2. Interpreting problems/solutions
Problem and solution is a pattern of organization where information in a passage is expressed as a dilemma or concerning issue (a problem) and something that can be or should be done to remedy this issue (solution or attempted solution).
3. Making a generalization
A generalization is a simplification of a large topic. The readers should think carefully what one true thing is they can say about all the information. To be valid, a generalization must be true for all things and in all cases.
From the previous statements, it is clear that reading and comprehension is regarded as one activity which can not be separated and depends on the progress of activity of mind. In other words, reading comprehension is an activity to grasp the meaning of written materials with fully understanding and the information from the readers’ own background knowledge to build up comprehension.
2.2.2.Concept of Teaching Reading
understand the information effectively. This simultaneously assumes that teaching reading can not be separated from teaching vocabulary.
Reading comprehension and vocabulary are inextricably linked. The ability to decode or identify and pronounce words is self-evidently important, but knowing what the words mean has a major and direct effect on knowing what any specific passage means. Students with a smaller vocabulary than other students comprehend less of what they read and it has been suggested that the most impactful way to improve comprehension is to improve vocabulary. In order to develop the needed vocabulary knowledge, learners should be exposed to various extensive readings, be taught individual words explicitly, and taught strategies to unlock word meaning, and have their word consciousness raised (Graves, 2004).
Alyousef (2005: 143) states that in teaching reading, contemporary reading task involves three-phase procedures: , while-, and post-reading stages. The pre-reading stage helps to activate the relevant schema. Then the aim of while-pre-reading stage is to develop the students’ ability in tackling texts by developing their
linguistic and schematic knowledge. Post-reading includes activities which enhance learning comprehension using matching exercise, cloze exercise, cut-up sentences, and comprehension questions.
In brief, teaching reading truly cannot be separated from teaching vocabulary. This is because words are the components in reading text that readers should understand the meaning of the words so that they can comprehend such a reading text. It is assumed that as reader’s vocabulary mastery is better, their reading comprehension also turns better. It also can be stated that in teaching reading, appropriate and possible strategy should be applied based on the purpose of reading in order to get the comprehension.
2.2.3.Concept ofHortatory Exposition Text
In teaching to increase morphological knowledge, the texts used should be
considered. Expository texts provide exposure to a wider variety of members of
morphological families than another type of text, such as narrative text (Kirby and
Bowers, 2012). Thus, an increased attention to expository texts may facilitate the
development of morphological and vocabulary knowledge. For that reason,
hortatory exposition text as one of the examples of expository texts was chosen in this research.
Hortatory exposition text is a kind of text that elaborates the writer‘s idea about the surrounding phenomenon. It is also a kind of text that presents one side of an issue in a form of arguments. Its purpose is to argue/persuade the reader that something should be or should not be done or supported. To make the persuasion stronger, the speakers or writers give recommendation of what should be or should not be done. That text consists of the following generic structures:
3. Recommendation : It persuades the the reader that something should be or should not be done or supported.
The example of hortatory exposition text is as follows. Table 2.1 Hortatory Exposition Text
Generic Structure Hortatory Exposition Text
Thesis Organic food is really beneficial, especially for its consumers, and for several reasons, organic food is advisable to consume.
Arguments
The nutritional value of food is largely a function of its vitamin and mineral content. In this regard, organically grown food is dramatically superior in mineral content to that grown by modern conventional methods. Healthy plants mean healthy people and better nourished plants provide better nourishment to people.
A major benefit to consumers of organic food is that it is free of contamination with health harming chemicals such as pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. As you would expect of populations fed on chemically grown food, there has been a profound upward trend in the incidence of diseases associated with exposure to toxic chemicals in industrialized societies.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that organically grown food tastes better than that conventionally grown. The tastiness of fruit and vegetables is directly related to its sugar content, which in turn is a function of the quality of nutrition that the plant itself has enjoyed.
Organically grown plants are nourished naturally, rendering the structural and metabolic integrity of their cellular structure superior to those conventionally grown. As a result, organically grown food can be stored longer and do not show the latter’s suspectibility to rapid mold and rotting. Recommendation Considering the advantages mentioned above, we have to consume
organic food because it is really beneficial.
Adapted from <http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainable-living.com.html>
To sum up, hortatory exposition text belongs to a text persuading the readers to do or not to do something. It consists of thesis, arguments, and recommendation.
2.2.4. Concept of Morphological Analysis
meaning in a word. It may consist of a word, such as hand, or a meaningful piece of a word, such as the –ed of looked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. According to Oiry (2009), morphemes can be classified based on various properties like where they show up in words. All morphemes are either free or bound. Simply, free morphemes are those that can exist in their own (e.g.
book in notebooks), whereas bound morphemes cannot (e.g. –s in notebooks) (Coates, 1999).
On the other hand, a derivational morpheme is a type of bound morpheme which generates new words by changing the class of the word or forming new words. For instance, entertain (verb) becomes entertainment (noun), danger (noun) becomes dangerous (adjective), diligent (adjective) becomes diligently (adverb), and many more.
According to Oiry (2009), there are three word formation processes in English; inflection, derivation, and compound words. Inflection is the process by which affixes are combined with roots to indicate basic grammatical categories, such as tense or plurality (e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' and '-ed' are inflectional suffixes). It is viewed as the process of adding very general meanings to existing words, not as the creation of new words. On the other hand, derivation is the process by which affixes are combined with roots to create new words (e.g. in 'modern-ize', 'read-er', '-ize' and '-er' are derivational suffixes). It is viewed as using existing words to make new words. In addition to inflection and derivation, compound word is a word that is formed from two or more simple or complex words. Thus, compounding is a process whereby two or more individual words are combined to form a new word with a new meaning. Here are a few examples: credit card, video games, underground, and underwater.
+ free morpheme). Each free morpheme has its own meaning and to determine the meaning of that word, the reader just needs to combine the meaning of every free morpheme.
The other way of morphological analysis is by analyzing free morpheme + bound morpheme. Nation (1990) states that morphological analysis involves deriving the meaning of a word by combining the meaning of the parts of the word (morphemes). The word parts with meaning include (a) prefixes, (b) suffixes, and (c) roots. The root is the core of a word to which other morphological units are attached. The difference between root and stem is that a stem is a base morpheme to which another morphological piece is attached. For example, disagree is the stem of disagreement because it is the base to which –ment attaches, but agree is the root.
Then, prefixes and suffixes belong to the term affixes. Prefixes (e.g. re-, un-) are bound morphemes that are attached in front of a stem, while suffixes (e.g. -s, -able) are bound morphemes that are attached at the end of a stem. Table 2.3 below displays the most common prefixes and suffixes adapted from Blevins (2001).
Table 2.3 Most Common Prefixes and Suffixes in Order of Frequency
According to Nation (1990), morphological analysis involves three skills: (a) breaking a new word into its morphological parts, (b) connecting a meaning to each of those parts, and (c) combining the meaning of the parts to determine the word’s definition. For instance, the word worker is comprised of two meaning
units, the base work, and the suffix –er, which conveys the meaning of an agent (person or thing) that does whatever is implied in the base. Thus, the worker is one who works.
There are two approaches of morphological analysis (Arnoff and Fudeman, 2005). Those approaches reflect two dimensions of learners’ morphological knowledge of word formation. The analytic approach is concerned with morpheme identification or breaking words down into its meaningful components. For example, notebooks can be recognized as note-book-s. The other example is
childhoods: child: little human being, -hood: the state of being, -s: to indicate plural. The synthetic approach, on the other hand, is concerned with productivity of morphological structure or bringing the smallest pieces (morphemes) together to form words. It is assumed that learners know what the pieces are in order to be able to construct new meaning into words. For instance, Ahmed lived longer than Ali. Ahmed outlived Ali.
Wakefield, 1993; Carlisle, 1995). As a result, a reader with a better grasp of word formation processes may be better to infer the meanings of these words and will therefore be able to comprehend the text better (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, and Vaughan, 2003). Therefore, morphological analysis turns to be possible and potential way to help readers to understand reading text and as a result teaching this kind of analysis is recommended.
According to Kieffer and Lesaux (2007), to break a word down into morphemes, a student must complete the following four steps:
1. Recognize that he or she does not know the word or does not have a deep understanding of the meaning of the word.
2. Analyze the word for morphemes she or he recognizes (roots and affixes). 3. Hypothesize a meaning for the word based on the word parts.
4. Check the hypothesis based on the context.
Kieffer and Lesaux (2007) also state to complete those steps, there are three types of language knowledge that students need to know to use morphological analysis effectively:
1. Knowledge of Prefixes and Suffixes
encouraging them to seek out and analyze new examples of word parts to add to the wall. Like other vocabulary items, learning prefixes and suffixes will require practice and reinforcement.
2. Knowledge of Roots
Students’ abilities to extract roots from derived words can be a powerful
strategy for acquiring new vocabulary. However, like other vocabulary words, these roots should not be presented as a list to be memorized, but rather they should be taught in meaningful contexts when they are most useful for students to comprehend particular texts.
3. Knowledge of How Words Get Transformed
Teachers can group words by root to show how a single word can take many forms. This can expand students’ written vocabulary by providing them with several forms for a known word.
Table 2.4 How Words Get Transformed In brief, morphological analysis is the practice of disassembling complex words into meaningful parts (e.g.childhoods = child + -hood + -s), learning the meanings of roots, affixes (child= baby, -hood= the state of being, -s= to indicate plural nouns), and reassembling the meaningful parts into new meanings (motherhood,
2.2.5. Morphological Analysis in Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a complex undertaking that involves many levels of
processing. One of the most fundamental aspects of comprehension is the ability to
deal with unfamiliar words encountered in text. Those unfamiliar words relate to
one’s vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary and reading comprehension have a
reciprocal relationship, that is, as greater vocabulary leads to greater comprehension, better comprehension also leads to learn more vocabulary words (McBride-Chang, 2005).
Stahl (1999) suggests that knowing a word means not only knowing its literal definition but also knowing its relationship to other words, its connotations in different contexts, and its power of transformation into various other forms. Students who can master these different aspects of knowing a word have strong depth of vocabulary knowledge, and students who are familiar with many words have breadth of vocabulary knowledge. Absolutely that rich of vocabulary knowledge will result in their better understanding of a passage.
particularly useful for the learners when attempting to tackle the meanings of new words.
According to McBride-Chang (2005), the larger the student's reading vocabulary, the better his or her comprehension, and the more one comprehends, the more one can learn new words. Kuo and Anderson (2006) also state that learners who are provided with morphological knowledge including the knowledge of how words are formed, by combining prefixes, suffixes, and roots have larger vocabulary repertoire and better reading comprehension. In addition, a reader with a better grasp of word formation processes will be better to infer the meanings of these words and will therefore be able to comprehend the text better (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, and Vaughan, 2003).
A number of studies have investigated the relationship between morphological awareness as a threshold of morphological analysis and reading comprehension in general and vocabulary knowledge in particular. Deacon and Kirby (2004) conducted four-year longitudinal study and the result indicated that there was a positive relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension for the second, forth, and sixth graders. The study indicated that morphological awareness contributed to reading development even after three years of the study and after controlling for phonological awareness.
morphological awareness was developed gradually throughout the students’ language experience and that morphological awareness was indispensable for English and Chinese vocabulary acquisition and reading proficiency.
Those explanations and previous researches above concerning with morphological analysis in reading comprehension show this kind of analysis may turn to be fruitful as one of the strategies to uncover the meaning of new words for promoting learners’ vocabulary knowledge and reading abilities. When the
readers have the ability to break down the word parts into its base, they simultaneously have a chance to infer the meaning of the words and will be able to comprehend the text better.
2.2.6. Procedure of Teaching Reading through Morphological Analysis In doing this research, the researcher gives treatments to the students by teaching reading comprehension of hortatory exposition text through morphological analysis teaching. The teaching procedures are adapted from Kieffer and Lesaux (2007). The procedures have been modified by the researcher into the following steps:
1. Pre Activity
a. The students’ schemata are activated by the teacher who asks affixes the students have learned in Bahasa.
b. The students are shown a video relating to some transformations of the same word forms containing affixes in English.
d. The students are directed to the topic under discussion by being asked some questions relating to the topic of the reading text presented.
2. While activitiy
a. The students read the text given by the teacher.
b. The students together with the teacher discuss the main idea of that text. c. The students observes some words consisting of prefixes and suffixes
from that text.
d. The students together with the teacher analyze those morphologically complex words consisting of prefixes and suffixes to find their meanings in a process of morphological analysis.
e. In pair, the students are asked to find out and break down the other words consisting of prefixes and suffixes from that text so that they are able to define their meanings. Later they will discuss it guided by the teacher. f. The students observe some roots from that text. The students together
with the teacher add some prefixes and suffixes to those roots to show that a word can be tranformed into another word with both prefixes and suffixes and still with the same related meaning.
g. The students are asked to analyze the other words.
h. The students are informed that morphological analysis may not only consist of prefix and suffix but also consist of free morpheme and free morpheme (compund words).
j. The students do the task following that reading comprehension text and discuss it by peer-to-peer correction.
3. Post Activity
a. The students together with the teacher summarize the day’s material. b. The students take part in the follow-up acitivities. They have to find out 5
morphologically complex words and break them down into roots, prefixes, and suffixes and transform other 5 roots into other words consisting of prefixes and suffixes from another hortatory exposition text provided by the teacher.
2.2.7. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Morphological Analysis
As a strategy in tackling the meaning of morphologically complex words encountered in a text, the researcher assumes that morphological analysis comes in both its strength and weakness. Those strength and weakness are considered from some previous studies done by Ku and Anderson (2003) and Varatharajoo (2013). Here are the advantages and disadvantages or morphological analysis:
1. The advantages of morphological analysis
two things result in their independency as a reader who can predict the meaning of the words and comprehend the text better.
2. The disadvantages of morphological analysis
It seems that morphological analysis is an effective strategy for helping students’ reading comprehension. However, it has several weaknesess as
well. There are two weaknesess when performing morphological analysis in the class. First, morphological analysis needs longer time because there are many components of prefixes and suffixes that can be attched to the stem of the word with different form and meaning to be introduced to the students. Second, it is quite difficult to introduce and teach this kind of analysis to the students who do not know the meaning of many common base forms.
To overcome the first disadvantage above, the researcher tried to select the most common and frequent prefixes and suffixes usually used in hortatory exposition text for the second grade of senior high school students. That was done because not all components of suffixes and prefixes were used in hortatory exposition text and the available time for reading comprehension activity was limited. Moreover, to overcome the second disadvantage, the researcher would frequently introduce the meaning of base forms found in a reading text so that they would know the meaning of many common base forms.
2.2.8. Theoretical Assumption
morphological analysis teaching and at the end teaching morphological analysis would have a positive effect on increasing the students’ reading comprehension achievement. That was because morphological analysis enabled them to break down words parts to find the meaning of each part especially its base. When they had known the meaning of its base, they could predict the meaning of the word which shared the same base form. Then they just continued to find the meaning of prefix or suffix that was attached to its base form. They could also predict the meaning of a particular word by finding the other words that they had known, which shared the same base form, because the word with the mutual base form
had a related meaning. When the meaning of the words could be understood, they
were also able to comprehend a reading text better. Therefore, it could be assumed that the students’ reading comprehension achievement could increase as the result of teaching morphological analysis.
2.2.9.Hypotheses
The following hypotheses were proposed in order to answer the mentioned research questions. For the first research question, the hypothesis was:
There was a significant difference on the students’ morphological analysis achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching.
For the second research question, the hypothesis was:
In accordance with the hypothesis of the first and second research question, the hypothesis for the third research question was:
There was a positive effect of teaching morphological analysis on the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
Concerning with the fourth research question stated in the first chapter, there was no hypothesis because it refered to a qualitative study.
III. RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter deals with the research design, population and sample, variables, data collecting techniques, try out of the instruments, results of the try-out test, research procedures, scoring system, data analysis, and hypothesis testing.
3.1. Research Design
The present study used quantitative and qualitative approaches. That was because both approaches were appropriate to answer the stated research questions in the first chapter. To answer the first, second, and third research question, this study was the quantitative one because its aim was to investigate and support or reject a theory (Setiyadi: 2006). That theory was about morphological analysis that having an awareness of morphological structure and the ability to break down morphologically complex words into their constituent parts may help readers assign meaning to new words they encounter in a text (Anglin, Miller and Wakefield, 1993; Carlisle, 1995).
In attempt to answer the first, second, and third research question, the researcher applied One Group Pretest-Posttest Design, a research design in which one group of participants is pretested and then posttested after the treatments have been administered (Hatch and Farhady, 1982). The pretest was given to the students in
and the posttest was given to measure how far the students‟ achievement was after
they got the treatments. The research design was presented as follows: T1 X T2
Notes: T1 : pretest T2 : posttest
X : treatments (teaching morphological analysis)
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 24)
Then, to answer the fourth research question, this research was the qualitative one because its aim was to find out the problems faced by the students in analysing words through morphological analysis. To find out those problems, the researcher conducted an observation and interview to the students.
3.2. Population and Sample
The population of this research was the second grade of senior high school students at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung in 2014/2015 academic year. There were 11 classes consisting of 26 to 31 students in each class at the second grade. The sample of this research was one class taken by the researcher as the experimental class, that is, XI LM (Lintas Minat) 5. That class consisted of 26 students from some students in class Social I to IV who gathered in one class to learn English. In addition, the researcher took another class as the try-out class, that is, XI LM (Lintas Minat) 3 consisting of 26 students as well. Both of the classes were chosen by using random sampling so that all the second year classes got the same chance to be the sample to avoid subjectivity.
3.3. Variables
Hatch and Farhady (1982: 12) define a variable as an attribute of a person or of an object which varies from person to person or from object to object. Besides, in order to assess the influence of the treatments in the research, variables can be defined as dependent and independent variables. They state that independent variable is the major variable that a researcher hopes to investigate and dependent variable is variable that the researcher observes and measures to determine the effect of the independent variable. This research consisted of the following variables:
2. Students‟ reading comprehension was as dependent variable (Y) because this variable was observed and measured to determine the effect of the independent variable.
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982)
3.4. Data Collecting Techniques
To collect the data, the researcher used test and non-test data collecting techniques. The first data collecting technique was used in order to answer the first, second, and third research question whether there was a difference on the
students‟ morphological analysis achievement and reading comprehension
achievement before and after being taught through morphological analysis teaching and whether morphological analysis teaching affected the students‟ reading comprehension achievement positively or not. For the test, there were morphological analysis test and reading comprehension test as follows:
3.4.1. Morphological Analysis Test
The Morphemes Identification Test measured the students‟ ability to analyze and break down complex words into smaller meaningful chunks. The participants were given a set of complex words and were asked to segment them into as many smaller chunks as they could identify in each word.Below were the instruction and one sample item of this test.
Please segment the following words into meaningful chunks.
The second type was Morphological Structure Test (Synthetic Aspect). That test measured the students‟ morphological productivity, which was the ability to synthesize morphemes to create new meanings. The participants were presented with a frame sentence that contained the usage of the target morpheme and then asked to complete another sentence. The instruction and one sample item were as follows.
Using only one word, come up with names for the objects or actions that are described below. See the example.
Those two tests had been done in 20 minutes and divided into two sections, that is, pretest and posttest. The pretest was administered in order to find out the student‟s entry point of morphological analysis ability before the treatments in the experimental class. Then, the posttest was administered to measure the students‟ morphological analysis ability after the treatments.
e.g. Childhoods: child, -hood, -s.
Ahmed lived longer than Ali. Ahmed outlived Ali.
3.4.2. Reading Comprehension Test
This test was also divided into two sections as follows. a. Pretest
The pretest was administered in order to find out the student‟s reading comprehension entry point before the treatments in the experimental class. In this test, the students were given multiple choice test from hortatory exposition texts in 60 minutes. The test items in the pretest were identical with the posttest but the number of the items and arrangement of the texts had been changed randomly for the posttest.
b. Posttest
The aim of this test was to measure the students‟ reading comprehension achievement after the treatments. In this test, the students were also given multiple choice test from hortatory exposition texts in 60 minutes.
Meanwhile, non-test data collecting technique was used in order to answer the fourth research question, that is, what the problems faced by the students were in analysing words through morphological analysis. It consisted of observation and interview as follows:
3.4.3. Observation
participation, and obstacle during the treatments to find out the possible problems while implementing morphological analysis teaching.
In addition, she also involved another observer to validate the data collected, that is, an English teacher at SMAN 9 Bandar Lampung. Most
of that teacher‟s time was as non-participant observer (75% : 25%). That
was because she did not join the class activities and observe the whole activities of the treatments conducted by the researcher.
3.4.4. Interview
The interview was also used in this research to find out the problems faced by students in analysing words through morphological analysis. The researcher employed the interview to some of the students in the experimental class as the representatives. In conducting the interview, the researcher used structured interview (Setiyadi, 2006). In structured interview, the researcher had set a list of the same questions to the students to find out what the problems faced by the students were in analysing words through morphological analysis. The researcher recorded and noted
down the students‟ responses and it was done informally to get the
authentic answers. Within that time, the students did not know they were being interviewed.
Furthermore, that interview was aimed at getting an accurate data not only
from the researcher‟s and teacher‟s own observation but also from the
analysis teaching. By analyzing the students‟ response and considering the
observation result, the researcher was be able to answer the fourth research question.
Given the data collecting techniques mentioned, consequently, there were four research instruments as follows.
- Test items of morphological analysis test - Test items of reading comprehension test - Observation Guide
- Interview Guide
Each research instrument could be seen in Appendices.
3.5. Try Out of the Research Instruments
The try-out was done to prove whether the test had good quality or not. There were four criteria of good test, that is, validity, reliability, level of difficulty, and discrimination power. That try-out of the instrument was divided into two, that is, try-out of morphological analysis test and try-out of reading comprehension test. Theoretically, to determine the quality of those tests, the researcher analyzed four criteria of good test as follows.
a. Validity
-Face validity, concerns with the lay out of the test;
-Content validity, depends on a careful analysis of the language being stated; -Construct validity, measures certain specific characteristic in accordance with
a theory of language learning;
-Criterion-related validity, concerns with measuring the success in the future as in replacement test.
In this study, the researcher used content validity and construct validity. Content validity emphasizes on the equivalent between the material that has been given and the items tested. Simply, the items in the test must represent the material that has been taught. To get the content validity of morphological analysis test, the researcher made a table of specification in order to judge whether the content validity was good or not.
Table 3.1 Table Specification of Morphological Analysis Try-out Test
No. Morpological aspect Items Number Percentage 1. Inflectional 8A, 14A, 2B, 5B, 11B, 12B 20% 2. Prefix Derivational 2A, 6A, 9A, 10B, 13B 16.7% 3. Circumfix Derivational 1A, 4A, 12A 10% 4. Suffix Derivational 3A, 5A, 7A, 11A, 15A, 1B, 3B, 6B, 8B,
14B
33.3%
5. Compound words 10A, 13A, 4B, 7B, 9B, 15B 20%
Total 30 items 100%
table of specification in order to judge whether the content validity was good or not.
Table 3.2 Table Specification of Reading Comprehension Try-out Test
No. Reading Skills Items Number Percentage 1. Identifying main idea 1, 7, 11, 16, 23, 28, 31, 36 20% 2. Making predictions 2, 6, 8, 12, 13, 21, 26, 33, 38 22.5% 3. Interpreting problems/solutions 5, 15, 19, 25, 29, 34, 40 17.5% 4. Understanding vocabulary 4, 9, 14, 17, 20, 24, 30, 32, 35, 39 25% 5. Making a generalization 3, 10, 18, 22, 27, 37 15%
Total 40 items 100%
(Suparman, 2012)
Furthermore, construct validity is concerned with whether the test is actually in line with the theory of what it means to know the language (Shohamy, 1985: 74). To make sure the test reflected the theory in reading comprehension, the researcher examined whether the test questions actually reflected the means of reading comprehension or not.
b. Reliability
Reliability refers to the extent to which the test is consistent in its score and gives us an indication of how accurate the test score are (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 244). To know the reliability of the test, the researcher used Pearson Product Moment formula which measures the correlation coefficient of the reliability between odd and even number (reliability of half test) as follows:
∑
√[∑ ][∑ ]
where:
: coefficient of reliability between odd and even numbers items
: even number
∑ : total score of odd number items
∑ : total score of even number items
∑ : total score of odd and even number
After getting the reliability of half test, the researcher used Spearmen Brown’s
Prophecy Formula (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 247) to determine the reliability of the whole tests as follows:
where:
rk : the reliability of the whole tests : the reliability of half test
The criteria of reliability are as follows: 0.90 – 1.00 : high
0.50 – 0.89 : moderate 0.0 - 0.49 : low
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 247)
c. Level of Difficulty
two groups that were upper and lower group. The students‟ scores were listed from the highest score to the lowest score. The level of difficulty was calculated by the following formula:
LD =
where:
LD : level of difficulty
U : the number of upper group who answers correctly
L : the number of lower group who answers correctly
N : the total number of students in upper and lower groups
The criteria are as follows:
< 0.30 : difficult/needs revising
0.30 – 0.70 : average/good
> 0.70 : easy/needs revising
(Shohamy, 1985: 79)
d. Discrimination Power
Discrimination power refers to the extent to which the items are able to differentiate between high and low level students on that test. A good item according to this criterion is the one in which good students do well and bad students fail (Shohamy, 1985: 81). The discrimination power was calculated by this following formula:
DP =
⁄
