i ABSTRACT
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BETWEEN THOSE TAUGHT
THROUGH RECIPROCAL TEACHING TECHNIQUE AND THOSE TAUGHT THROUGH CONTEXTUAL TEACHING AND LEARNING
AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMP NEGERI 5 METRO
By Arie Handayani
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols for the intention of deriving meaning (reading comprehension) and or constructing meaning. The problems of the study are the students have difficulty in comprehending in reading text. Some factors that cause students difficulties in comprehending the text are interest in the material (the text), schemata, and ignoring reading technique. The objectives of this research are to find out whether there is a significant difference in reading comprehension achievement between those taught through Reciprocal Teaching Technique and those taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning and to investigate which strategy is more effective to improve students’ reading comprehension achievement. The research applied pretest posttest control group design. This experimental method deals with two groups: an experimental class and a control class. The samples of the research were the second grade of SMPN 5 Metro.
The results show that the mean of students’ posttest scores in the experimental class is higher than the mean of students’ posttest scores in the control class, that is 83.20 is higher than 70.83, with the mean difference is 12.37. The value of two tail significant is 0.000. it means that H0 was rejected and H1 was accepted since 0.000 < 0.05. The conclusion of this research is that there is a significant
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF STUDENTS’ READING
COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BETWEEN THOSE TAUGHT
THROUGH RECIPROCAL TEACHING TECHNIQUE AND THOSE
TAUGHT THROUGH CONTEXTUAL TEACHING AND LEARNING
AT THE SECOND GRADE OF SMP NEGERI 5 METRO
By
ARIE HANDAYANI
A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for S-1 Degree
in
The Language and Arts Departement of Teacher Training and Education Faculty
LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY
BANDAR LAMPUNG
I. INTRODUCTION
This chapter describes the background of the study, identification of the problems, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problems, objectives of the research, significances of the research and the scope of the research.
1.1 Background of the Problems
Language is one of the most important things in communication and it is used as a tool of communication among the nations all over the world. As an international language, English is very important and has many interrelationships with various aspects of life of human being. In Indonesia, English is considered as the first foreign language and taught formally from elementary school through the university level.
program which must be covered in teaching learning process, and the aim of teaching reading skill in teaching English is to enable students to comprehend the text and to get implicit and explicit information from the text.
In reality most of students at junior high school level still have problems in comprehending a text. The achievement of student’s of junior high school in comprehending a reading text still far from the objectives state in the curriculum that many SMP students have difficulties in comprehending the English text.
In the newest curriculum, School Based Curriculum (KTSP) (Depdiknas 2006:278), the goal of reading skill teaching process for the eighth grade is to enable the students to construct meaning from the text. It is the same as reading comprehension goal. Without understanding the text, student will get nothing even confusing. In summary, comprehension is the necessary basic ability for learning to read; that is, the ability to acquire meaning from print.
According to the writer’s experience when she took the field practice program at SMPN 1 Natar 2009-2010, she found that one of the problems faced by the students was that they often found difficulty in comprehending the text. As the result their average score of reading was low. The writer assumes that this happens because they are unable to identify the main ideas, specific information, reference and inference of each paragraph of the text. They also found many unknown words on the text. This problem leads them to spend much time to open their dictionary and to find the meaning of the difficult words.
knowledge that the reader brings to the text, the complexity of the concept expressed, and vocabulary knowledge. Besides that, the teaching reading technique is also the substantial factor that affects students’ problem in reading. As a matter of fact, the conventional reading technique cannot give satisfied results.
Considering this issue, the researcher tried to compare the two techniques; those are Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL). Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) is the best one because it is an effective way to improve the students’ reading comprehension. This technique is used to develop comprehension of expository texts in which teacher and students take turns leading a dialogue concerning the sections of a text. The systematic sections are incorporated into the technique: predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing. At the beginning, teacher leads the students the steps or sections correctly. Thus, students gradually learn to assume the role of teacher in helping their peers construct meaning from text by doing the steps. The structure of the dialogue and interactions of the group members require that all students participate and foster new relationships between students of different ability levels.
From the problems above, the researcher tried to solve the problems by having a comparative study between two techniques that is Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) in reading comprehension. The researcher used these technique to find out whether one or both of them effective or not for increasing students’ reading comprehension achievement. These techniques were chosen the Junior High School students have
monologue/essay e.g. recount text, narrative text, descriptive text, procedure text, as their reading material stated in curriculum 2006.
Considering these, the researcher decided to conduct these two techniques and compare which one is better. This research administered in SMP Negeri 5 Metro as the school that never been held this research before. The result finally could become a consideration for teachers nowadays to make the teaching reading comprehension better and increase the reading comprehension ability. Therefore, the researcher tried to find out whether there is any significant difference of students’ reading comprehension between students who are taught through Reciprocal Teaching Technique and those who are taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the second grade of SMP Negeri 5 Metro.
1.2 Identification of the Problems
In relation to the background above, the following problem can be identified: 1. The students tend to be passive (teacher-centered)
3. The student’s lack of reading motivation, lack of vocabulary and reading strategy are some factors which cause problem in comprehending a text. 4. The teacher still applies the same old teaching strategy and had not tried
other various strategies.
5. The students get bored while learning. It may be because the teachers do not use the authentic materials and only adopt the course book. It cause the students do not realize and understand the emphasis of reading in a real knowledge.
6. The students have no good self confidence in learning English. So it is difficult for them to learn English well because they regard that English is difficult to be learnt well.
7. The students are lazy to memorize the words and practice English in their daily life. So they cannot use English well.
8. The teacher uses inappropriate technique in teaching English. So it is difficult in helping student understanding reading comprehension easier.
1.3 Limitation of the problems
1.4 Formulation of the problems
To deal with the limitation of the problem above, the problem of the research is formulated as follow:
1. Is there any significant difference in students’ reading comprehension achievement between those taught through Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and those taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL)?
2. Which strategy is more effective to improve students’ reading comprehension achievement?
1.5 Objectives of the Research
In relation to the formulation of the problem above, the objectives of this research are:
1. To find out whether there is a significant difference in students’ reading comprehension achievement between those taught through Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and those taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL).
1.6 Uses of the Research
Based on the objective above, the uses of the research are:
1. Theoretically, the results of this research are expected to confirm and clarify the previous theories about the effectiveness of teaching reading through Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL)
2. Practically, the result gives information to the English teachers, especially of SMPN 5 Metro whether Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) can increase students’ reading comprehension.
1.7 Scope of the Research
This quantitative research is focused on the utilizing of Reciprocal Teaching Technique (RTT) and its influence in increasing of students’ reading
II. REVIEW OF THEORIES
2.1 Review of Previous Research
The previous research proved that Reciprocal Teaching Technique was an effective technique for reading comprehension. Palincsar and Brown (1984) conducted a series of studies to determine the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching technique. In their experiment, the improvements were reflected in the regular classroom as the experimental students' percentile rankings.
Miller and Rose (1998) study found out that students taught using Reciprocal Teaching Technique score significantly higher on a multiply-choice reading comprehension test.
Considering the previous research above, it can be stated that if it was compared with the other technique, the use of Reciprocal Teaching Technique and CTL in learning process can increase the students’ reading comprehension achievement significantly. So the researcher was interested in comparing the two of techniques to investigate whether there was a difference of reading comprehension
achievement between students who are taught through the two of the techniques and which one was more effective to help students improve their reading comprehension.
2.2 Review of Related Literature
2.2.1 Concept of Reading Comprehension
There are two kinds of reading activity, namely reading aloud and silent reading. Reading aloud is to change the written sign (form) into oral sign giving meaning. The most important characteristics of reading aloud (oral reading) are
pronunciation, tone, speed and pause. What we are doing in silent reading is to use our eyes and our ability to understand the meaning of the written sign, thus comprehending the text will be given more emphasizes in silent reading.
they reply that they have been reading the book for two hours and scarcely understood a word. Smith also states that comprehension can be regarded as a condition where no uncertainty exists. Then, he also says that Comprehension in reading as a matter of “making sense” of text, of relating written language to what we know already and to what we want to know.
Clark and Silberstein (1987:21) define reading as an active cognitive process of interacting with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning. While Finochioro and Bonomo (1973:119) state that reading is bringing and getting meaning from the printed or the written materials. Moreover, Nuttal (1985) states that reading as the meaningful interpretation of printed or written verbal symbols. These concepts basically, state that reading always deals with printed materials, which stress on the grasping meaning from the printed language. It seems that reading activity is the interaction between the perception of graphic symbols that represent the language and the readers’ language skill, cognitive skills and the knowledge of the world. In this process, the reader tries to create the meaning intended by the writer.
At the same time, Richard (1986) in Ellyana (1999:8) defines comprehension as the process by which the person understands the meaning of the written or spoken language. Furthermore, Williams (1981) in Ellyana (1998:8) says that
According to these views, it is clear that reading and comprehension are regarded as one activity which cannot separated, and each program is depend 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.
In relation to this, Eskey (1986:9) says that schemata play a major in reading comprehension. Comprehension means relating to what we do not know or new information, to what we already know. To make any sense of information thus acquired the good reader must relate it to what he already knows about the subject at hand and in combining two. Therefore, in comprehending a text, the reader relates new information from the text being read to his previous knowledge that he has stored in his mind.
Reading the words of a composition is one thing, but comprehending is the vital point for the reader. Reading the words has no benefit if the reader does not comprehend what is being read. In reading process a reader utilizes vision, perception, comprehension and reaction (Brown, 1982:6). Rubin (1993:94) states that reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities. The two major abilities involve word meaning and verbal reasoning. Without words meaning and verbal reasoning, there could be no reading
comprehension. Without reading comprehension, there would be no reading.
Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from text. The goal of all reading instruction is ultimately targeted at helping a reader
words and then using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the writer's message.
Here the researcher sees that in reading comprehension, it is important that the reader should be able to interpret what they read and associate with their experience, not only see and identify the symbol in front of them. This is
necessary because when a reader reads a text, the communication process between the reader and writer has happened. The reader tries to interact with print, his/her prior knowledge combined with the visual (written) information result in his comprehending the text. In short, we can say that reading comprehension is a combination of recognition intellect and emotion interrelated with prior knowledge to understand the massage communicated.
2.2.2 Concept of Reciprocal Teaching Technique
Reciprocal teaching is a technique used to develop comprehension of expository
text in which teacher and students take turns leading a dialogue concerning sections of a text. Four activities are incorporated into the technique: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing. It is based on Palinscar and Brown (1984) who developed a technique called reciprocal teaching that taught students to predict, summarize, clarify, and ask questions for sections of a text.
reading comprehension skills on their own if the teacher gives them explicit mental tools for unpacking text.
According to Alverman and Phelps (1998), reciprocal teaching has two major features: (1) instruction and practice of the four comprehension strategies predicting, question generating, clarifying, and summarizing and (2) a special kind of cognitive apprenticeship where students gradually learn to assume the role of teacher in helping their peers construct meaning from text.
According to Rosenshine and Meister (1994), there are four important instructional practices embedded in reciprocal teaching:
o Direct teaching strategies, rather than reliance solely on teacher questioning
o Student practice of reading strategies with real reading, not with worksheets or contrived exercises
o Scaffolding of instruction; student as cognitive apprentices
o Peer support for learning
Reciprocal teaching involves a high degree of social interaction and collaboration, as students gradually learn to assume the role of teacher in helping their peers construct meaning from text. In essence, reciprocal teaching is an authentic
activity because learning, both inside and outside of school, advances through collaborative social interaction and the social construction of knowledge (Alverman and Phelps, 1998).
reads. Klinger and Vaughn (1996) has been used reciprocal teaching to improve the comprehension of students who are able to decode, but display difficulties with the comprehension of text.
According to Palinscar and Brown (1984), the purpose of reciprocal teaching is to facilitate a group effort between teacher and students as well as among students in the task of bringing meaning to the text. Each strategy was selected as follows:
Predicting occurs when students hypothesize what the author will discuss next in the text. In order to do this successfully, students must activate the relevant background knowledge that they already possess regarding the topic. The students have a purpose for reading: to confirm or disprove their hypotheses. Furthermore, the opportunity has been created for the students to link the new knowledge they will encounter in the text with the knowledge they already possess. The predicting strategy also facilitates use of text structure as students learn that headings, subheadings, and questions imbedded in the text are useful means of anticipating what might occur next.
Question generating reinforces the summarizing strategy and carries the
learner one more step along in the comprehension activity. When students generate questions, they first identify the kind of information that is significant enough to provide the substance for a question. They then pose this
supporting detail information; others require that the students be able to infer or apply new information from text.
Clarifying is an activity that is particularly important when working with students who have a history of comprehension difficulty. These students may believe that the purpose of reading is saying the words correctly; they may not be particularly uncomfortable that the words, and in fact the passage, are not making sense. When the students are asked to clarify, their attention is called to the fact that there may be many reasons why text is difficult to understand (e.g., new vocabulary, unclear reference words, and unfamiliar and perhaps difficult concepts). They are taught to be alert to the effects of such
impediments to comprehension and to take the necessary measures to restore meaning (e.g., reread, ask for help).
Summarizing provides the opportunity to identify and integrate the most important information in the text. Text can be summarized across sentences, across paragraphs, and across the passage as a whole. When the students first begin the reciprocal teaching procedure, their efforts are generally focused at the sentence and paragraph levels. As they become more proficient, they are able to integrate at the paragraph and passage levels.
According to the explanation above, the researcher resumes the strengths and the weaknesses of Reciprocal Teaching Technique. The strengths of Reciprocal Teaching Technique are as follows:
a. Students get greater knowledge of the theme of text.
b. Students can gain an improved understanding of complex text in content areas. c. Students can improve language skills.
Students will improve their language skills in the activities, such as reading skill by reading the text, speaking skill by leading the group activities in English, writing skill by writing the answers in learning logs, and listening skill by listening to leader instruction in guiding the activities.
d. Students enjoy working together and being "teacher/leader" of groups. e. Students improve leadership skill by being the leader of group. f. Students can increase cooperation between students in group.
g. Students are actively engaged in process of learning. Dialogue happens during the activities between leader and groups.
The weaknesses of Reciprocal Teaching Technique are as follow;
a. It can be time consuming because of the complex steps of activities. b. The class might be noisy because dialogue or discussion happens during
learning for all groups in class.
c. The class needs more control because the teacher does not teach directly or just monitor. Actually, the teacher position is changed by leader of each group.
2.2.3 Concept of Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL)
Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) helps us relate subject matter content to
and Learning (CTL) is combination between school-based teaching and learning and community-based teaching and learning.” Students learn in the field of their interest, often providing a service to the community during the learning
experience. It promotes the development of the knowledge and skills for success in the real world. In this process, CTL is connecting educational theoretical knowledge to community practical applications.
According to Department of National Education, there are seven elements of CTL:
1. Constructivism
Constructivism is the philosophical base of contextual approach that means that learners increase knowledge little by little since the knowledge is not a set of fact, concepts or rules that come accidentally. In this approach, the students
are actively involved in learning process based on the previous knowledge (entry behavior). They will try to predict the rhetorical of the text by previewing and constructing the provisional map. In other words, students preview the title and predict what they believe the text will be cover. The students should construct the knowledge by themselves through the direct involvement of the students in teaching-learning activity. The students become the main center of the activity, not the teacher.
2. Inquiry
during reading activity students will realize whether their prediction and locating the schemata are correct or not.
3. Learning Community
Learning Community is a group of people who share them knowledge in learning. The principle of learning community is that learning in-group will give better result than learning alone. In doing the tasks students will interact with one another in sharing the information/ideas that they get from the text so the could help each other in order to increase their achievement in reading comprehension.
4. Questioning
In CTL, questioning should not be dominated by the teacher. The teacher should provide or create situation that make his students to have curiosity. If the students are curios in something, automatically they will ask more about it to the teacher or his classmates. If this situation happens, the teaching learning process will be alive and the students will be motivated in learning (Flora 2004).
5. Modeling
In the Contextual Teaching and Learning, the model is not only the teacher. Model can be organized by involving the students. In short, the teacher can ask the students to give the model to his/her friends about how to spell and
pronounce a difficult word that they find in reading text. 6. Reflection
appeared. For example, the students pronounce the word ‘sick’ incorrectly, and the teacher corrects it by demonstrating. From the model is given by teacher , the students realize that what they have done is wrong and try to pronounce it correctly by imitating like what the teacher has done.
7. Authentic assessment
Teacher who wants to know the students’ development in learning should collect the data from the real activity while the students learn. The data are taken from the students’ activity when they are listening whether it happens in the class or not, and the data of this model is called Authentic data.
Authentic assessment is a process of gathering the data that can give
information about the students’ development. It aims at evaluating students’ abilities in real world context. It is used to describe students’ real competence to the subject matter. In other words, the aim of authentic assessment is to provide valid and accurate information about students’ progress and what they know and are able to do.
For the CTL approaches to be effective in students learning, teacher must plan, implement reflect upon and revise lessons. Such plans are based on CTL principles and approaches that require teacher to serve in the following roles: facilitator, organizer of the teaching/learning/assessment process, role model, learning mentor, content specialist and knowledge dispenser.
According to the explanation above, the researcher resumes the strengths and the weaknesses of CTL. The strengths of CTL are as follows:
2. CTL gives the real examples of structure to the students by relating to the real world of them so they will organize around real world experiences 3. Self-discovery of the rules keeps retention longer than when accepted
passively from the teacher
4. CTL teaches students to monitor and direct their own learning so they become self-regulated learners.
5. It encourages students to learn from each other and together
The weaknesses of CTL:
1. Self-discovery will not occur if the whole students in one group consist of weak students
2. It spends much time during the teaching learning process.
2.2.4 Concept of Recount Text
conflict or psychological conflict. In some ways narrative text combines all these conflicts. In the contrary, we do not find these conflicts inside recount text. Recount applies series of event as the basic structure
Recount is a text which retells a series of events or experiences in the past. Its
purpose is to inform or retell something that happened in the past or a series of past event.
To achieve the purpose of recount text, the students should move through a different set of stages:
a. Orientation : Introducing the participants, place and time.
b. Events : Describing series of event that happened in the past. c. Reorientation : It is optional, stating personal comment or personal note
of the writer.
Beside generic structure, recount text also has language features (lexico grammatical features). The following ate the language features of recount text: a. Introducing personal participant: I, my group, we, etc
b. Using chronological connection: then, first, suddenly, etc
c. Using action verb or material process: looked, went, changed, etc d. Using simple past tense pattern
The following is the example of recount text.
Going to Sanur Beach
hotel because we didn’t have any relatives there. We stayed in Bali Beach Hotel near Sanur Beach.
Event 1 : When we came to the hotel, we didn’t come to our room directly, but we have to check in first. We were received by the
receptionists who were friendly and kind, and then we were helped by a room boy who took us to our rooms.
Event 2 : On the second day we visited Sanur Beach. We just took a walk, because the beach is in front of the hotel. We walked along the seashore, played water and sand. Actually we also wanted to swim in the beach but the lifeguard didn’t allow us.
Event 3 : Besides doing many activities we also watched some foreign tourist’s activities. They were lying on the beach, while others were having message or surfing.
Reorientation : When we felt tired, we took a rest to have some meals and drinks. And at 2 p.m. we went to the hotel. It was tiring but we were happy.
2.2.5 Procedure of Teaching Reading Comprehension through Reciprocal Teaching Technique
Based on Palinscar and Brown (1984), the procedures of teaching reading comprehension through Reciprocal Teaching Technique are as follow:
1. Pre activities
Pre-reading activities used to prepare students for reading. During pre-reading: a. The teacher greets the students
b. The teacher checks the students’ attendance list.
c. Firstly, the teacher introduces about technique that they will apply. d. The teacher asks the students to make some groups.
e. The teacher delivers visual clues, cue card and learning logs.
1st step: Predicting (determining main idea)
The students are encouraged to predict what the author will discuss next in the text by looking at the visual clues. In order to do this successfully, students must activate the relevant background knowledge that they already possess regarding the topic.
The leading questions can be:
“From the title and visual illustration, can you predict the topic of the text?” “What do you think may happen next in first paragraph?”
During prediction:
- Use the prediction languages: I predict ….
I think….. I imagine…. I suppose….
- Use clues or illustrations from the text to support prediction:
I predict … because…
g. The teacher asks the students to write their prediction in learning logs. h. The teacher checks the predictions to see whether it makes sense or no. i. The teacher delivers the first paragraph text.
2. While activities
a. The teacher asks the students to do the second step instruction by guiding with cue card:
2nd step: Questioning (finding specific information and part of text)
The students are encouraged to generate appropriate questions from the passage to monitor how deep their comprehension is. The leading questions can be:
Make some questions based on the text! (such as main idea, detailed-oriented questions and inferential questions)
During questioning:
- Use the wh-questions, such as who, what, where, when, why and how. - Ask some questions that can be inferred.
b. The teacher asks the students to do the third step instruction by loking at cue card:
3rd step: Clarifying (finding reference, inference and understanding
vocabulary)
The students are encouraged to identify what makes a given text difficult and seek an understanding of new vocabulary, unclear reference words, and unfamiliar and perhaps difficult concepts.
The leading questions might be: - What parts were hard to understand?
During clarifying:
- Reread, reread and reread the sentence and look for the key ideas to help you understand the word.
- Look for prefix or suffix in the word or break the word apart into smaller words.
- Read on for clues / illustration. - Check the part of the word you know. - Try another word.
- Use the clarifying language:
I don’t understand the part about …so that I need to … (reread, slow down, look at the pictures, try out to figure out this word, etc.)
- Identify words that are difficult to pronounce.
c. The teacher asks the students to do the fourth step instruction:
4th step: Summarizing
The students are encouraged by the teacher to identify and integrate the most important information in the text. The leading questions can be:
- What is the message of the text?
- What does the author want us to remember or learn from this passage? - What is the most important information in this passage/ paragraph?
During summarizing:
- Use the language for summarizing:
- The most important ideas in this text are….
- Include only main events or important ideas. - Tell main events or important ideas in order. - Use some vocabularies from the text.
d. The teacher asks the students to do predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing again, with all the paragraph or sections in the passage.
3. Post activities
a. Reviewing what students have learnt
b. The teacher asks the students to discuss whether they have some difficulties on lesson or not.
c. Giving the students exercise for their homework.
2.2.6 Procedure of Teaching Reading Comprehension through Contextual Teaching Learning
Based on Alyousef, H.S: (2005) the steps of this activity are divided into three
phases, included Pre Reading, While Reading and Post Reading
The procedures in conducting the treatments in this research are as follow: 1. Pre Reading
a. Teacher asks the students about their daily activities and about the event or experience story (e.g. “Have you ever gone to Sanur beach?”)
2. While Reading
a. Teacher arranges the students’ answers on the whiteboard based on the generic structure and grammatical features of recount text (Modeling). b. Teacher explains about the generic structure, grammatical features
(Inquiry).
c. Teacher gives a chance for the students to ask question (Questioning) d. Teacher gives the text to the students.
e. Teacher breaks the class into some groups and asks them to read and discuss a recount text given by the teacher. (Text 1), (Learning community, authentic assessment).
f. Teacher moves among the students to control their activities and help them if necessary.
g. Teacher asks the students to do the reading comprehension test (Text1). h. Teacher and the students discuss the answer of reading comprehension test
together.
i. Teacher asks the students to read recount text (text 2) individually and answer the reading comprehension test given.
j. Teacher collects the students, answer sheet and discusses the reading comprehension test.
3. Post Reading
a. Reviewing what students have learnt.
b. Teacher asks the students the difficulty in understanding the lesson. c. Teacher gives the summary of the lesson. (Reflection)
2.2.7 Theoretical Assumption
Based on the frame of theories above, it can be assumed that reading is extremely complex in learning language. Dallman (1982: 23) said that reading is more than knowing what each letter of alphabet stands for; reading involves more than word recognition; that comprehension is an essential of reading; that without
comprehension no reading takes place.
At least, appropriate teaching technique is needed to improve reading
comprehension ability. Researcher assumes that reciprocal teaching technique is more suitable technique for teaching reading comprehension. It has been found highly successful in helping first language poor readers improve their level of reading comprehension (Palinscar & Brown, 1984). Moreover, reciprocal teaching has systematic steps that help students to comprehend the reading text deeper. It is also an active process and collaborative because dialogue/ discussion between students are required during learning process. It provides opportunities for
2.2.8 Hypothesis
Based on the theoretical assumption above, the writer formulates the hypotheses as follow:
Ho
H1
:
:
There is no significant difference of students’ reading comprehension achievement between those taught through RTT and those taught through CTL.
There is a significant difference of students’ reading comprehension achievement between those taught through RTT and those taught through CTL.
III. RESEARCH METHOD
This part discusses the design of this research and how to collect the data from
those samples. The researcher encloses the data collecting technique and the
procedures of this research. The researcher also gives the scoring system and how
the data were analyzed.
3.1 Research Design
The researcher conducted quantitative research with pretest posttest control group
design in her research that belongs to the true experimental design. The researcher
used the design because she wanted to compare students’ reading comprehension
achievement between those taught trough Reciprocal Teaching Technique and
those taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning and which one of them is
more effective in increasing it. According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 22) define
the basic the characteristics of true experimental designs into three:
a. a control group is present,
b. the students are randomly select and assigned to the groups, and
c. a pretest is administered to capture the initial differences between the
groups.
Those three basic characteristics allowed the researcher to avoid almost all the
The researcher used two classes – that was an experimental class and a control
class. The researcher gave three treatments to the experimental class and control
class. Each treatment was teaching reading comprehension (related to aspects –
that is: main ideas, details, inferences, references, and vocabularies) through RTT.
The control class received the treatment but they studied through CTL as
regularly. Both classes received the some pretest and posttest. Pretest was
administered to see the students’ basic ability within both groups in order to
ensure that their ability was equal before treatments. Then, after giving the
treatments the researcher administered the posttest to the both groups. The posttest
was administered in order to prove that RTT can increase students’ reading
comprehension between both classes.
According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 22), the research design is presented as
follows:
G1 : T1 X1 T2
G2 : T1 X2 T2
Where:
G1 : Experimental Class
G2 : Control Class
T1 : Pre Test
T2 : Post Test
X1 : Treatment 1 (Teaching reading through RTT)
3.2 Population and Sample
3.2.1 Population
The population of the research was the second grades students of SMPN 5 Metro.
There were 21 classes in this school and each grade has 7 classes. The total
number of the population was 630 students, consisting of 304 female students and
326 male students. In this research, the researcher chose the second grade in the
first semester of academic year 2010/2011 were investigated. There were seven
classes of the second grade students, they are 8.A, 8.B, 8.C, 8.D, 8.E, 8.F, 8.G and
each class consists of 30 students. Their ages range from 13-14 years old.
3.2.2 Sample
The researcher took two classes as the sample of the research, class 8.F as
experimental class that was given the treatment by the researcher (teaching
reading of recount text using Reciprocal Teaching Technique) and class 8.G as
control class that was given the treatment by the researcher (teaching reading of
recount text using CTL). In addition, class 8.B was assigned as try-out class. The
classes were chosen randomly by lottery.
3.3 Data Collecting Technique
The instrument of this research was reading test. There were three kinds of test
They are as follow:
1. Try out Test
This test had aim to know the validity and reliability of the test. The test was
administered before the pretest. The total items were 50 and it was allocated
within 80 minutes.
2. Pretest
The pretest was administered to measure the students’ basic reading
comprehension ability before they are given the treatments. The pretest consisted
of 30 items of multiple choices. The pretest was conducted within 60 minutes.
3. Posttest
The posttest was administered to the students after treatments. The aim was to
know the result of students’ reading comprehension after applying Reciprocal
Teaching Technique and CTL in their reading. There were 30 items of multiple
choices and it takes 60 minutes.
3.4 Variables
There were three variables in this research. They were:
1. Reciprocal Teaching Technique as independent variable 1(X1)
2. Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) as independent variable 2 (X2)
3.5 The Criteria of Good Test
The testes were said to have good quality if it has a good validity, reliability, and
level of difficulty and discrimination power.
3.5.1 Validity of the Test
Validity refers to the extent to which an instrument really measures the objective
to be measured and suitable with the criteria (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 250). A
test can be considered to be valid if it can precisely measure the quality of the test.
There are four types of validity: (1) face validity, (2) content validity, (3)
construct validity, and (4) criterion-related validity. In this research, the writer use
content validity and construct validity.
To measure whether the test had a good validity, the researcher used content and
construct validity since the other two were considered to be less needed. Face
validity only concerns with the layout of the test. Criterion-related validity is
concerned with measuring the success in the future, as in replacement test (Hatch
and Farhady, 1982: 251)
a. Content Validity
According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 251), content validity is the extent to
which the test measures a representative sample of the subject matter content.
Good test is the test which is appropriate with the material has been taught and the
material is developed from the educational goal. The test instrument was designed
on syllabus for second grade of junior high school students and (2) represent the
materials taught in the class.
The validity of the instrument is referred to the content and constructs validity in
which the question represents five sort reading skills, i.e. determining main idea,
finding the detail information, reference, inference, and vocabulary (Nuttal, 1985).
In this research, the content of the test items was presented in the table of
specification below.
Table1. Specification of Data Collecting Instrument (Try-Out Test)
No. Reading Skills Item Number % of
Items
1. Determining Main Idea 2., 11., 14., 23., 28., 37., 43., 50. 16%
2. Finding Specific Information 3., 6., 13., 18., 21., 24., 31., 40. 16%
3. Determining concept of text (generic structure / language features)
4., 8., 15., 20., 27., 33., 35., 41., 45. 18 %
4. Finding Reference 5., 7., 16., 25., 32., 36., 49., 46. 16%
5. Finding Inference 1., 10., 12., 19., 26., 30., 38., 42., 48. 18%
6. Understanding Vocabulary 9., 17., 22., 29., 34., 39., 44., 47. 16%
TOTAL 100%
b. Construct Validity
Regarding the construct validity, it measures whether the construction had already
referred to the theory, meaning that the test construction had already in line with
3.5.2 Reliability of the Test
Reliability refers to the extent to which a test produces consistent result when
administered under similar condition (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 244). In addition,
Hatch and Farhady (1982: 246) also state that, there are three basic methods of
estimating reliability: (1) test-retest, (2) parallel test, and (3) internal consistency
methods.
The first, test-retest is administered in order to determine the stability of the test
results. Reliability is obtained by administering a form test to the same students
twice and computing the correlation between the two administrations. The second,
parallel test is administered in order to determine the correlation between two
alternate or parallel forms of tests, and called as a coefficient of equivalence. The
tests has equivalent in length, difficulty, time limits, format and all other such
aspects. The third, internal consistency method is administered in order to
estimate reliability from a single administration of a single test. There are three
basic methods for calculating reliability from an examination of internal
consistency of the test: split-half method, Kuder-Richardson Formula 20, and
Kuder-Richardson Formula 21 (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 246).
Split-half method was used by the researcher to estimate the reliability of the test
since this formula is simple to use. Besides that it avoids troublesome correlations
and in addition to the number of item in the test, it involves only the test, mean
and standard deviation, both of which are normally calculated (Heaton, 1991:
164). To use the split-half method, the researcher classified the test items into two
parts, it was made as if the whole tests had been taken twice. The correlation
between those two parts encounters the reliability of half test by using Pearson
Product Moment (Henning, 1987: 60). After researcher has obtained the reliability
of half test, the researcher then uses Spearmen Brown’s Prophecy Formula (Hatch
and Farhady, 1982: 246) to determine the reliability of the whole test. To measure
the correlation coefficient of the reliability between odd and even number
(reliability of half test), the researcher used Pearson Product Moment (Henning,
1987: 60) in the following formula:
2 2 22
x
N
y
y
x
N
y
x
xy
N
xy
r
Where:rxy : the correlation coefficient of reliability between odd and even
N : the number of students who take part in the test
x : the total numbers of odd number items
y : the total numbers of even number items
x2 : the square of x
y2 : the square of y
∑x : the total score of odd number items
∑y : the total score of even number items
Then the researcher used Spearman Browns Prophecy formula (Hatch and
Farhady, 1982; 246) to determine the reliability of test as follow:
xy xy k
r
r
r
1
2
Where:
rk : the reliability of the whole test
rxy : the reliability of half test
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982:247)
The criteria of reliability are:
0.90 – 1.00 = high
0.50 – 0.89 = moderate
0.0 - 0.49 = low
3.5.3 Level of Difficulty
To see the level of difficulty, the writer used the following formula:
R LD =
N
Where:
LD : Level of difficulty
R : the number of the students who answer correctly
The criteria are:
< 0.30 = difficult
0.030 – 0.70 = average
> 0.70 = easy
(Shohamy, 1985:79)
3.5.4 Discrimination Power
The discrimination power is used to discriminate between weak and strong
examines in the ability being tested. The students of try out class were divided
into two groups, upper and lower students. The upper students meant the students
who answer the question correctly were more than the lower student who answer
the question correctly (upper students’ > lower students’ score).
To see the discrimination power, the writer used the following formula:
The proportion of upper SS – the proportion of lower SS DP =
½ total number students
(Shohamy, 1985:81)
The criteria are:
1. If the value is positive, it has discrimination because a larger number or
more knowledgeable students than poor students get the item correct. If
the value is zero, it means no discrimination.
2. If the value is negative, it has negative discrimination because more low –
level students than high level students get the item correct.
3. In general, the higher discrimination index, the better, in classroom
3.6 Scoring System
The researcher in scoring the students work, the researcher uses Arikunto’s
formula. The ideal highest score will be 100. The score of pretest and posttest are
calculated by using the following formula:
100
N
R
S
Where:
S : the score of the test
R : the total of the right answer
N : the total items
(Arikunto, 2005: 236)
3.7 Research Procedure
The procedures in administering the research were as follow:
1. Determining the sample of the research
The sample was chosen by simple random probability sampling, using lottery
since the students’ ability were parallel and all students had the same chance. The
researcher took two classes of the second grade students of SMP Negeri 5 Metro.
They were 8.F as experimental class and 8.G as control class. One class, 8.B was
2. Determining the research instrument
The instrument of this research was objective reading test. This is supported by
Henning (1975), who states that to measure reading comprehension, requesting
students to write short-sentence answers to written questions is less valid
procedure than multiple-choice selection (as cited in Henning, 1987:48).
Objective test was used for pretest and posttest. Each test consisted of 30 items of
multiple choices of comprehension question and some reading texts. The question
had four alternative answers for each (A, B, C and D), one was correct answer and
the rest were the disasters. The scoring system was that the load of each correct
answer had five points. For both reading test, most of the materials were taken
from students’ English textbook and students’ task sheet. In this research, the
researcher used one type of reading text that is recount text.
3. Administering the try-out test
It was conducted to measure the reliability of pretest and posttest and to make sure
whether the test was good or bad for students. The test was tried out to the
students whose level was equal to the sample of the research. It was administered
to find out the quality of the test before it is used, whether the items were good or
not in validity, reliability, level of difficulty, and the discrimination power. This
exam used reading text with 50 items of multiple choices in 80 minutes. The
4. Administering the pretest
This test had aim to know the students’ basic reading comprehension ability
before they were given the treatments. It consisted of 30 items of multiple choices
and was conducted within 60 minutes. At least, if a student could answer all items
correctly, s/he got 100 points.
5. Conducting treatments
The researcher taught the students reading comprehension in reading text using
Reciprocal Teaching Technique for the experimental class and Contextual
Teaching and learning (CTL) for the control class. The researcher gave three
times of treatments in three meetings, which took 2X40 minutes in every meeting.
The texts were taken from the students’ English textbook that are Let’s Talk and
English on Sky for Grade VIII of Junior High School and internet for second
grades.
6. Administering the posttest
The researcher conducted the posttest to measure the students’ ability in reading
comprehension after giving treatment. It consisted 30 items of multiple choices
and reading texts which took 60 minutes.
7. Analyzing the data (pretest and posttest)
In his step, the pretest and posttest results in experimental and control class were
analyzed by using independent group T-Test to compare the data of the two
3.8 Instrument
The two reading tests were given to students to check reading comprehension
ability. They were pretest and posttest. The purpose of the pretest was to know the
students’ basic reading comprehension ability before treatments. Then, posttest
had purpose to know the students’ increase after treatments.
3.9 Data Analysis
Analyzing data had aim to determine whether the students’ reading
comprehension achievement increase or not. The data of the research was
examined by using independent-group T-Test. Independent t-test was used in this
research. Two means of two different groups (experimental group and control
group) were compared. The data was statistically computed through the Statistical
Package for Social Science (SPSS).
3.10 Data Treatment
According to Hatch and Farhady is quoted by Setiyadi (2006: 168-169), using
t-test for the hypothesis t-testing has three underlying assumptions, namely:
1. The data is interval ratio.
2. The data is taken from random sample in a population.
3. The data is distributed normally.
Therefore, the researcher used the following procedures to treat the data
3.10.1 Normality Test
Normality test is used to measure whether the data in experimental group and
control group are normally distributed or not (Hatch and Farhady is quoted by
Setiyadi, 2006: 168-169). The students’ scores of pretests and posttests both group
are analyzed to gain the normality test. The hypotheses for the normality test are
as follow:
H0 : the data is not distributed normally
H1 : the data is distributed normally
In this research, H1 is accepted if p > α, and the researcher uses level of
significance 0.05.
Based on the Appendix 15, the normality value of pretest and posttest in
experimental class were 0.78>0.05, 0.51>0.05. The normality value of pretest and
posttest in control class were 0.23>0.05, 0.21>0.05. It meant that H1 was
accepted, and H0 was rejected. In short, the distribution of the data in this research
was normal.
3.10.2 Homogeneity Test
This kind of test is used to know the data in experimental class and control class
are homogenous or not. In this research, the researcher used Independent Samples
Test in SPSS 17.0 to know the homogeneity of the test. The hypothesis for
homogeneity of variance test was:
H0 : there is no significant difference (equal)
In this case, H0 was accepted if p > α (p = the significant score of students, α =
the significant level). Here, the researcher used the significant level (α) 0.05.
Look at the Table 4 below to know the result of results of homogeneity test and
[image:47.612.133.509.218.419.2]the comparison of the pretest scores in both classes.
Table 2.The Analysis of the Homogeneity Test
Independent Samples Test
Pre-test Equal variances
assumed
Equal variances not
assumed Levene's Test for Equality
of Variances F Sig. .115 .736
t-test for Equality of
Means T Df .297 58 .297 57.979
Sig. (2-tailed) .767 .767
Mean Difference .63333 .63333
Std. Error Difference 2.13191 2.13191
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower -3.63414 -3.63417
Upper 4.90080 4.90084
The result showed that the value of two-tailed significance (p) was 0.77. It meant
that p > α (0.77> 0.05). It can be said that H0 was accepted and H1 was rejected. In
other word, the both classes had the same level of reading comprehension ability
before treatments.
3.10.3 Hypothesis Test
The hypothesis analyzed at the significant level of 0.05 in which the hypothesis
would approve if sign < α. It meant that the probability of error in the hypothesis
The hypotheses were:
Ho: There is no significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
achievement between those taught through RTT and those taught through
CTL.
H1: There is a significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
achievement between those taught through RTT and those taught through
CTL.
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 111)
Look at the Table 7 below to know the result of results of hypothesis test and the
[image:48.612.135.506.360.571.2]comparison of the posttest scores in both classes.
Table 3.The Analysis of the Hypothesis Test
Independent Samples Test
post-test Equal variances assumed Equal variances not assumed Levene's Test for
Equality of Variances F Sig. 1.075 .304
t-test for Equality of
Means T Df 9.168 58 9.168 57.112
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
Mean Difference 12.36667 12.36667
Std. Error
Difference 1.34889 1.34889
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower 9.66657 9.66568
Upper 15.06676 15.06766
Based on the table above, it can be assumed that the significant score of students
was 0.000. It meant that p < α (0.000<0.05). It can be determined that H0 was
rejected and H1 was accepted. In other word, the experimental class and control
class had a significant difference of reading comprehension ability after
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1Conclusions
In line with the result of the data analysis and discussions, the researcher draws
the following conclusions:
a. There is a significant difference of students’ reading comprehension
achievement between those taught through Reciprocal Teaching
Technique and those taught through Contextual Teaching and Learning, as
seen from the result of the hypothesis testing which shows that the value
of two-tail significance is smaller than 0.05. It also can be seen from the
data of student’s pre-test and post-test scores of both classes.
b. RTT is more effective than CTL to help students improve their reading
comprehension. In experimental class, the students followed the reading
class enthusiastically. They enjoyed working in group and the media
attracted and helped them much. Discussion happened during the class
since the teacher monitored them. The four step of RTT, predicting,
questioning, clarifying and summarizing made them understand the
reading text deeper. On the other hand, CTL can also challenge them but
not as effective as RTT. In control class, the students sometimes felt that
5.1Suggestions
Referring to the conclusion above, the researcher suggests that the teacher should
apply RTT in teaching reading because the technique has advantages; (1) Makes
the teaching learning process more effective. (2) Improves language skills,
especially reading. (3) Makes students enjoy studying and working in group. (4)
Increases cooperation between students. (5) Makes students actively engaged in
process of learning. (6) Increases students’ reading comprehension achievement.
It proved from the result of the research in SMP Negeri 5 Metro in experimental
class. The mean or average score of posttest is higher than the mean score of
pretest 83.20 > 48.90. The gain score between the mean of pretest and posttest is
34.30. The significant value of the posttest in both classes was 0.000 (p=0.000)
that was lower than 0.05 (0.000<0.05). value is 9.168 which is higher than
