i ABSTRACT
THE INFLUENCE OF CONTEXTUAL CLUES STRATEGY ON THE STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT THE
THIRD GRADE OF SMP TAMAN SISWA TANJUNG KARANG
By
Mirna Oktaviana
In reading process, the students are required to be a good reader and they are hoped to have the substantial skills to comprehend the text. Besides that they should be able to get the information, find the main idea and identify new vocabularies by reading the text. However, the students still have some problems in comprehending the texts. Some of Junior High School students still have difficulties to identify the reading aspects required to deal with the text.
Therefore, the objective of the research was to investigate whether or not the contextual clues strategy can give the influence on the students’ reading comprehension achievement. The researcher applied one group pre-test post-test design. The sample of the research was the third grade of SMP Taman Siswa, Tanjung Karang.
The finding revealed that contextual clues strategy gave influence to the students’ reading comprehension achievement. It can be seen from the progress of students’ reading comprehension achievement after being taught through contextual clues strategy. The result of the research showed that the mean score of students’ post -test in the experimental class was 78.63 higher than the mean score of students’ pre-test was 58.63, with the mean difference was 20.0. The value of two significant was 0.000. It means that H0 was rejected and H1 was accepted since 0.000 < 0.05.
THE INFLUENCE OF CONTEXTUAL CLUES STRATEGY ON THE STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT THE
THIRD GRADE OF SMP TAMAN SISWA TANJUNG KARANG
MIRNA OKTAVIANA
A Script
Submitted in a Partial Fulfilment of
the Requirements for obtaining Bachelor of Education In
The Language and Art Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty
ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ART EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
Research title : THE INFLUENCE OF CONTEXTUAL CLUES STRATEGY ON THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT THE THIRD GRADE OF SMP TAMAN SISWA, TANJUNG KARANG
Student’s name : MIRNA OKTAVIANA Students’ Number : 0853042022
Study program : English Education
Department : Language and Art Education Faculty : Teacher Training and Education
APPROVED BY Advisory Committee
1st Supervisor 2nd Supervisor
Drs. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D. Dr. Muhammad Sukirlan, M.A. NIP 19570608 1986031 001 NIP 19641212 1990031 003
The Chairperson of
Language and Art Education Department
ADMITTED BY
1. Examination Committee
Chairperson : Drs. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D.
Examiner : Drs. Sudirman, M. Pd.
Secretary : Dr. Muhammad Sukirlan, M. A.
2. The Dean of Teacher Training and Education Faculty
Dr. H. Bujang Rahman, M.Si. NIP 19600315 198503 1 003
vii
ACKNOWLEDMENTS
All praises are rendered only to Allah SWT, the Almighty God, for His gracious mercy and blessing that enables the writer to finish her script. Greeting is never forgotten, praise upon Prophet Muhammad SAW and his family, followers and all Muslims. This script entitled “The Influence of Contextual Clues Strategy on the Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement at Third Grade of SMP Taman
Siswa Tanjung Karang” is submitted as a compulsory fulfilment of the requirement for S-1 Degree at the Language and Arts Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Lampung University.
Gratitude and honour are addressed to all persons who have helped and supported the writer in completing this research. It is necessary to be known that this research will never have come into its existence without any supports, encouragements and assistances from several outstanding people and institutions. Therefore, the writer would like to acknowledge her respect and best gratitude to: 1. Drs. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D., as the first advisor, for his criticism,
motivation and encouragement in encouraging the writer.
viii
4. Prof. Dr. Cucu Sutarsyah, M.A., as the Chief of English Education Study Program and the writer’s academic advisor and all lecturers of English Education Study Program who have contributed their guidance during the completion process until accomplishing this research, for advices and supports to finish the writer’s study soon.
5. Drs. Suyanto, as the headmaster of SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung Karang for giving the writer permission to conduct the research.
6. Joko Sumara, S.Pd., as the English teacher of SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung Karang who has helped much and given the full supports for this research. For all of the students of classes IX A and IX B year of 2012/2013, for their participation were as the subject of this research.
7. The writer’s beloved parents (Muslim, S.Sos. and Nurmalina, S.Ip.), my sister (Veronica Seftiani, S.Ip.) and my brothers (Yudha, and Jefry) thanks for the love, spirits, pray and never ending sincerity.
8. For my beloved brothers (Bang Bayu and Bang Rendi) thanks for the kindness supports and pray.
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always opened for better research. Somehow, the writer hopes that this research would give a positive contribution to the educational development, the readers and to those who want to accomplish further research.
Bandar Lampung, 2013 The writer,
iv
CURRICULUM VITAE
The writer’s name is Mirna Oktaviana. She was born in Purbolinggo, East
Lampung on October 2nd, 1990. She is the second child of Muslim, S.Sos. and Nurmalina, S.Ip. She has one sister and two brothers, Veronica Seftiani, S.Ip., Fernanda Yudha Sanjaya, and Muhammad Jefry Ramadhan.
vi MOTTO
“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
v
DEDICATION
In the name of Allah, the most Beneficent and Merciful
This paper is proudly dedicated to:
My beloved parents (Papah and Mamah) with full of love, spirits and never ending sincerity
My lovely sister and brothers (Ica, Yudha, and Jefry) My beloved friends for being true friendship
I. INTRODUCTION
In this introduction chapter, the researcher explains the background of the problems that is the reasons for conducting the research. It includes the identification of the problems, the limitation of problems, formulation of the problems, the objective, uses and scope of the research and the last part of this chapter is the definition of terms related to the topic of this research.
1.1.Background of the Problems
In learning English, there are four kinds of language skills to be mastered, i.e. listening, speaking, reading and writing. For the students who learn English as foreign language, they need to develop their language skills. Based on the 2006 curriculum, in junior high schools that apply the school-based-curriculum (KTSP), the students are expected to learn English from various types of text. It means that the students are dealing with many texts which are mostly discussed in reading activity. Reading plays an important role in teaching and learning process. By reading the text, the learners are involved in bringing the information, knowledge, emotion, experience, and culture.
helped the students to comprehend the English text, they are identify the main idea, getting the specific information, making inferences, reference and identify the vocabularies. Meanwhile, based on the information from the teacher when the researcher conducted the pre research in SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung karang, in comprehending the descriptive text some of Junior High School students still have difficulties to identify the main of those five reading aspects from the text. They also tended to be passive because of the students have no good self confidence in learning English. So, it was difficult for them to learn English well because they regarded that English was difficult to be learn. In addition, when the students had some problems to get the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary from the text, they would spent much time looking up their dictionary to see the meaning of that unfamiliar vocabulary then they were able to understand the meaning and answered the questions.
reading passage. As the result the students could not answer the questions from the text, identify the main idea, get the specific information, make inferences, find reference and identify the vocabularies from the text, so that those factors give the influence to the students’ achievement in comprehending of descriptive text.
There are many reading strategies that can be used to teach reading, one of them was contextual clues strategy. Contextual clues strategy is the strategy how the readers use some clues of word based on the reading passage. The clues are sometimes placed in the same sentence as an unfamiliar word, or in nearby sentences. It proposed to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words and clues which are related to the content of the text. Moreover, it can also be used to overcome the students’ problems identify the main idea, get the specific information, making inferences, reference and identify the vocabularies from the text given by the teacher.
1.2. Identification of the Problems
Based on the background of the problem there are five main problems that could be identified:
1. The students got difficulties in comprehending the reading text, especially identifying the main idea, get the specific information, making inferences, reference and identify the vocabularies from the text.
2. The students’ problems of getting the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary from the text, they would spend much time looking up their dictionary to see the meaning of that unfamiliar vocabulary
3. The students’ difficulties in transferring the information from the text and answering the questions were caused by the lack information about the reading strategy.
4. The students tend to be passive (Teacher-centred).
5. 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 learn.
1.3. Limitation of the Problems
the students’ difficulties, the researcher was interested to investigate the influence of contextual clues strategy on the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
1.4. Formulation of the Problem
Based on the limitation of the problems, the researcher formulated the research problem as follow:
Can contextual clues strategy give the influence on the students’ reading comprehension achievement?
1.5. Objective of the Research
In line with the formulation of the problem, the researcher determined the objective of the research is to investigate whether or not contextual clues strategy can give influence on the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
1.6. Uses of the Research
The findings of the research may be beneficial both theoretically and practically: Theoretically, the findings of this research are expected:
1. to support the existing theory on the reading comprehension and the contextual clues strategy in teaching learning of reading,
2. to be a reference for the future research.
1.7. Scope of the Research
This research was quantitative by nature. It was conducted to the third grade of SMP Taman siswa, Tanjung Karang. The design of this research was one group pre-test post-test design (Hatch and Farhady, 1982). There were four classes of third grade on SMP Taman Siswa which consists of 22 until 24 students each class. One class was taken as the experimental class. For the experimental class, the researcher used the reading text concerning several reading aspects (main idea, specific information, inference, and vocabulary) and focused on the training of four types of contextual clues strategy suggested by Joffe (1997), namely synonym, antonym, explanation and example. The materials were taken from English handbook and internet that were relevant to junior high school curriculum (KTSP).
1.8. Definition of Terms
There are some terms that the researcher used to make them clearer, as will be defined in the following sections:
Reading Comprehension
Contextual Clues
Contextual clues are word clues that can help you figure out the meaning of an unknown word and the clues related to the text. They may be in the same sentence as an unfamiliar word, or in nearby sentences.
Contextual Clues Training Strategy
The strategy that used some clues of word based on the reading passage. The clues are sometimes placed in the same sentence as an unfamiliar word, or in nearby sentences. It proposes to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Descriptive Text
II. THE FRAME OF THEORIES
This chapter discusses the frame of theories that are used to support the research. It includes several points, i.e. the review of previous research, the related literature, theoretical assumption, and the hypothesis of the research.
2.1. Review of the Previous Research
In relation to this research, there are several previous studies which have been conducted by some researchers (see, e.g. Ahmad and Asraf, 2004; Wilingham, 2006;
and Alfarini, 2008).
Wilingham (2006) conducted the research for primary students New York Primary School. The result of his study found that students are encouraged to use background knowledge to make educated guesses about the meaning of unfamiliar words by the clues, so that they were able to comprehend the text. In addition, by prior knowledge, students are encouraged to apply what they know from their own lives to the text, or to consider the theme of the text before read the whole text.
Based on the explanation above, it can be assumedthat the students’ understanding of contextual clues may help the students to make educated guesses about the meaning of unfamiliar words. It would become one solution for the students’ problem in comprehending the text especially for getting main idea, getting specific information from the text.
Another research related to contextual clues has been done by Alfarini (2008) at SMUN 3 Kotabumi. The aim of her research was to find out the difference of students’ reading comprehension achievement with the students’ understanding
about contextual clues. She found that the students’ mean scores within the experimental class were higher than the control class. She found that students’ understanding of contextual clues increased the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
short, based on the explanation above, the researcher proposed her research by implementing contextual clues strategy in order to know whether or not contextual clues strategy can give the influence on the students’ reading comprehension achievement. Moreover, it was also hoped to overcome the students’ problems comprehending the descriptive text which was explained in the background of the problems.
2.2. Review of Related Literature
For further explanation about the implementing of reading strategy for successful reading, the researcher explains some related literature about the reading comprehension and the strategies towards the students’ achievement in reading comprehension.
2.2.1. Concept of Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from the text. The goal of all reading instruction is ultimately targeted at helping a reader comprehend the text. Reading comprehension involves at least two parties: the reader and the writer. The process of comprehending what was written in the text by the author and then using background knowledge to construct an approximate understanding of the author’s message.
and ability to understand the meaning of the written sign, thus comprehending the text will be given more emphasizes in silent reading which will be conducted in this research.
As Downey (2006) defines reading as an active process of getting the information by using prior knowledge because in this activity the students are encouraged to apply what they know from their own lives to the text, or to consider the theme of the text. In reading, the students are encouraged to use background knowledge to make educated guesses about the information from the text in order to comprehend the text.
Meanwhile, reading as one of the language skills to be taught is a process of constructing or developing meaning for printed text (Cooper et al, 1988:3). This definition implies that the reading process includes an interaction between the reader and the prints. The reader tries to understand the ideas presented by the writer in the text.
According to Doyle (2004), comprehension is a progressive skill in attaching meaning beginning at the same level and proceeding to attaching meaning to entire reading selection. All comprehension revolves around the reader’s ability in finding and determining main idea and topic sentence from the text.
fewest, most productive cues necessary to confirm or reject that expectation. Reading involves an interaction between thought and language. It means that the reader brings to the task a formidable amount of information and ideas, attitude and beliefs.
Meanwhile, comprehension can be said as a crucial aspect of reading, in fact, it has been emphasized that true reading is reading with understanding, that is, comprehension. Simanjuntak (1988:4) states that the first point to be made about reading process is comprehension and the meaning is the basic element for comprehension. She also adds that comprehending a text is as interactive process between the readers’ background knowledge and the text itself.
From the statement above, it can be said that in comprehending the texts the students have to know their understanding about the learning strategy in reading. It means to make them easy to identify the specific information in the texts. One aspect that becomes essential in students’ reading in the reading strategy. It has a connection in comprehension and strategy or technique. The researcher assumed that reading comprehension was students’ competence in comprehending the specific information, word and surface meaning in texts is described by students’ score with an appropriate strategy.
2.2.2. Teaching of Reading
post- reading stages helps in activating the relevant schema. For example,
teachers are able to ask the students questions that arouse their interest while previewing the text. The aim of while- reading stage (or interactive process) is to develop students’ ability in tackling tests by developing their linguistic and
schematic knowledge. Post-reading includes activities, which enhance learning comprehension using matching exercises, cloze exercises, cut-up sentences, and comprehension questions.
Suparman (2005:1) states reading is a construct process of guessing. There are two major reasons for reading: (1) reading for pleasure, (2) Reading for information (in order to find out something or in order to do something with the information readers get).
Harmer (1987:70) states the principles behind the teaching reading: 1. Reading is not a passive skill.
2. Students need to be engaged with what they are reading.
3. Students should be encouraged to respond to the content of a reading text, not just to the language.
4. Prediction is a major factor in reading. 5. Match the task to the topic.
6. Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.
order to get the comprehension better. There are many kinds of reading techniques and strategies that can be applied in teaching reading.
In this research, the researcher proposed contextual clues strategy as the solution to overcome the problems in identifying the main idea, get the specific information, making inferences, reference and the vocabularies from the text given by the teacher and including the unfamiliar vocabulary. This strategy also developed students’ understanding and stimulates the students to be engaged with the text.
2.2.3. Aspects of Reading
In reading there are five aspects which help the students to comprehend the English text, they are:
1. Identifying Main Idea
2. Specific Information
Supporting sentence or specific information develops the topic sentence by giving definitions, examples, facts, an incidents, comparison, analogy, cause and effect and quotation.
3. References
According to Latulippe (1986:20) references are words or phrase used either before or after the reference in the reading material. They are used to avoid unnecessary repletion of words or phrases. It means that, such words are used, they are signals to the reader find the meaning elsewhere in the text.
4. Inference
In relation to inferences, Kathleen (1983:31) states that an inference is an educational guess or prediction about something unknown based on available facts and information. It is the logical connection that the reader draw between his observes or unknown and what he does not know.
5. Vocabulary
2.2.4. Concept of Descriptive Text
Based on English curriculum 2006 that was applied in most of senior high school namely KTSP, the students are expected to comprehend the meaning of materials from various texts. One of them is descriptive text. Why it was important because the students had to have the ability to look at and get the meaning of written text, that was called reading comprehension. Because of that, reading was very important to be taught to the students.
A descriptive text is used to create a vivid image of a person, place, or thing. It draws on all of the senses, not merely the visual. Its purpose is to enable the reader to share the writer’s sensory experience of the subject (Salem, 2001: 325).
Descriptive writing portrays people, places, things, moment and theories with enough vivid detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what is being written about.
Moreover, Crimon (1983: 163) stated that descriptive is a kind of text for presenting a verbal portrait of a person, a place, or a thing. It can be used as a technique to enrich other forms of writing or as a dominant strategy for developing a picture of “what it looks like”. It means that when we describe something, we need to capture both details so that the reader can understand what we mean.
abstract quality of a person, a place, an event, an idea or an object. It means that when we describe our subject, we must be able to make the reader understands what the writer means. Coffey (1973: 38) says that when the writers describe the subject have to use two kinds of details: objective details and subjective details. It means that when the writer want to describe something, writer must describe our subject in a variety of ways.
Furthermore, Mckay (1985: 4) says that when writer want to describe something we must be able to make the reader understand what writer mean. She also mentions several common types of descriptive text, i.e. describing as process, describing an object, describing a place, describing a personality and describing an event. In this research, the researcher emphasized one kind of describing a famous person and interesting place.
According to Gerot and Wignell (1994: 208), the generic structure of descriptive text as follows:
1. Identification : identifies phenomenon to be described. 2. Description : describes parts, qualities, characteristics.
The stages above are the generic structure/ text organization of the descriptive text. It also has language features:
2. Use of attributive and identifying process: additional adverbs of the subject mentioned (e.g. adjective clause, adjective phrase, and linking verbs such as taste, smell, appear, look, is, am, are, and so on).
3. Use of simple present tense.
4. Frequent use of classifier in nominal group (e.g. one of...., many of...., so on).
It can be concluded that by reading and understanding descriptive text enables students share what they have seen from someone, something or one information how it looked, felt, smelled, and so on.
2.2.5. Concept of Contextual Clues Strategy
Contextual clues are word clues that can help the readers figure out the meaning of an unknown word and the clues related to the text. They may be in the same sentence as an unfamiliar word, or in nearby sentences. Furthermore, Joffe (1997) suggested that the clues might be appeared within the same sentence as the word which refers to the meaning or it might be in the preceding or subsequent sentence.
identify important words and their relationship to one another words to find out the meaning.
According to Ahmad and Asraf (2004), contextual clues are divided into 7 categories:
(1) definition: it is explain what the definition or explanation about the topic in reading text, (2) experimental background: it will be helpful for the reader use their background knowledge understanding the text, (3) comparison or contrast (4) synonym, (5) familiar expressions or language experience, (6) summary, and (7) reflection of mood or situation. The learners made an effort to comprehend the texts by selecting the information from the context by comprehending the unfamiliar words in the text and drawing the inferences from it. They found that the use of understanding the unfamiliar words are able to help the students comprehending the text.
By using contextual clues strategy, it was hoped that the students enable to overcome their problems in reading process. According to Joffe (1997) There were four categories of contextual clues:
1. Synonym is the word with the same meaning in the sentence.
For example: Most castles had high walls and were surrounded by water -filled ditch called a moat
The synonym of the water-filled ditch is a moat. The writer can guess the synonym from the clue word of “called” that means the same or nearly the same as the word before the next word.
For example: Jerry is very clumsy, but his sister Jenny is adroit.
The antonym of clumsy is adroit. The writer can guess the antonym by the clue of but, that means the contrary or nearly the opposite as the word before the next word or phrases.
3. Explanation or definition: The unknown word is explained within the sentence or in a sentence immediately preceding.
For example: The patient is so somnolent that she requires medication to help her stay awake for more than a short time.
In order to explain something or definition, usually the writer uses the words such as, is, that, which etc.
4. Example is the specific examples are used to define the term.
For example: Celestial bodies, such as the sun, moon, and stars, are governed by predictable laws.
In order to explain something or give the example, usually the writer uses these words (such as, for example, for instance) that readers may indicate as the example.
clues were related to the text. Based on the researcher’s opinion, these categories are easy to understand by the students, so that they can get the meaning and understand about the text. Moreover, it was hoped as the solution to overcome the students’ problems comprehending the main idea, the specific information, making inferences, reference and identifies the vocabularies from the text.
2.2.5.1. Procedures of Teaching Reading by Using Contextual Clues Strategy a. The materials are selected by the teacher based on the students’ level of
background knowledge and a suitable material based on the curriculum.
b. In the classroom activity, the students are divided into several group consist of 3 until 4 students in one group.
c. The students are explained the procedural of contextual clues strategy during the learning process.
d. The students are explained what are the categories of contextual clues and they are given the example of each category.
e. The students are asked by to answer the questions that given by the teacher directly, it purposed to measure the students’ understanding about contextual clues strategy and the categories.
f. The students are given the exercises and they have to answer based on what clues are in the text.
The illustration:
Adaptation
to mate have babies and pass on their genetic characteristics. Adaptation does not occur during one animal’s lifetime. It is a long, slow process that happens over many generations. However, results of adaptation can be seen in individual animals. For example, the toucan’s colorful and lightweight beak is specially adapted for grasping fruit from the branches of rainforest trees.
Direction: The word in bold is indicate as the clue. After you read the text, then tick the box to name the type of context clue based on the sample text!
Sample Text Type of Clues
“………An adaptation is a feature or way of behaving that makes a plant or an animal more likely to survive.
Synonym specially adapted for grasping fruit ………”
Synonym Antonym
Explanation/ definition Example
g. The students are asked to guess the type of clues based on the sample text given by the teacher.
h. The students are asked to discuss the content of text, the unfamiliar words and also to find out the antonym or synonym of unfamiliar words.
i. The students are asked to review the different types of contextual clues, such as examples, synonyms, antonyms, definitions.
j. The students are asked to make a guess; they should re-read the sentence, inserting their definition in place of the vocabulary word to see if it makes sense.
l. After the students have finished the exercises, they are asked to do the other exercises with another text by using contextual clues to help them answering the questions.
2.2.5.2. Advantages and Disadvantages of Contextual Clues Strategy
There are some advantages and disadvantages of using contextual clues in teaching reading comprehension:
1. Advantages of Contextual Clues Strategy:
a. Contextual clues strategy can be used to increase the students’ motivation and their awareness in reading process.
b. By using the word clues the students are able to overcome their problems answering the questions by themselves.
c. Contextual clues strategy helps the students to define difficult or unfamiliar words and develop their background knowledge in understanding content of the text.
d. The use of contextual clues can also increase their existing vocabulary base because of this strategy, the students to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words without having to look them up in a dictionary.
e. Teaching learning process can be more interesting for the students activate their awareness of the subject.
2. Disadvantage of Contextual Clues Strategy:
a. The teacher is rather difficult to select the reading materials, which are accompanied with suitable words level based on the students’ background knowledge.
b. The students imitate what the teacher does. If the teacher makes mistakes help the students in defining the unknown words, the students will do too. In this case, the teacher should pay more attention for students in making decision about the definition of unfamiliar words.
2.3. Theoretical Assumption
The researcher assumed that contextual clues can give the influence to the students’ reading achievement. It also can be used to overcome the students’ problems which were explained in the background of the problems by using all clues related to the text. Realizing the use of contextual clues strategy, the researcher assumed that it might be one way to increase the students’ reading comprehension achievement, so that they are able to understand the content of the text. In addition, contextual clues strategy also can be the solution to overcome
2.4. Hypothesis
III. RESEARCH METHODS
This chapter discusses the design of this research and how to collect the data from the sample. In this chapter, the researcher also encloses the data collecting technique, the procedures of this research, the scoring system and how to analyze the data.
3.1. Research Design
This research was quantitative by nature. Hatch and Farhady (1982: 22) state that quantitative is a kind of research in which the data were used to tend to use statistics as measurement in deciding the conclusion.
class as the experimental class where the students were given a pre-test before a treatment and post-test after the treatment. The design of this research can be described as follow:
T1 X T2 Where :
T1 = Pre-test X = Treatment T2 = Post-test
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 20)
The first activity was administering the try out test in order to determine the validity and reliability of the instruments. Then the researcher administered the pretest to the experimental class in order to find out the entry points of the students before they got the treatments. After that, the researcher conducted the treatment. The treatments were carried out three times assuming that three times treatments were enough. The next step was administering the post test to experimental class to identify the results of the treatment.
3.2. Setting of the Research
1. Time
three times meetings. The last was administering the post test to see the result after conducting the treatments.
2. Place
This research was conducted for the third grade of SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung Karang. There are four classes of third grade on SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung Karang. One class was taken as the sample of this research. The reason why the third grade students of SMP Taman Siswa Tanjung Karang are chosen as the sample was because the students in this school still have difficulties in reading comprehension of descriptive text especially identifying the main idea, get the specific information, making inferences, reference and identify the vocabularies from the text.
3.3. Variables
This research consists of the following variables:
1. Students’ reading comprehension achievement of descriptive text as dependent variables (Y).
2. Contextual clues training strategy as independent variables (X).
3.4. Population and Samples
applied based on the consideration that every class in the population has the same opportunity to be selected as samples.
3.5. Data Collecting Technique
In collecting the data, the researcher used the reading tests which consist of pre-test and post-pre-test. The pre-tests was administered. The results will be discussed in detail in the following sections:
3.5.1. Types of Data Collecting Technique
a. Pre-Test
Pretest was administered in order to find out the students’ reading comprehension achievement before the treatments. It required 60 minutes for the test. The test was multiple choices that consist of thirty items with the option A, B, C, D. The materials were descriptive text. In order to see the complete elaboration of the result of pre-test can be found in chapter 4 (p.40).
b. Post-Test
In order to see the complete elaboration of the result of pre-test can be found in chapter 4 (p.41).
3.5.2. Try Out of Data Collecting Technique
Before the data collecting techniques were used, they were tried out to measure the quality of the instrument. A try out of the test was conducted before having the pre-test and the post-test to investigate the quality of the test items. It was carried out to make sure the quality of the instruments before the test was used to gather the data. It was administered to IX A that is consisting of 22 students.
3.5.2.1. Criteria of a Good Try Out Test
A test was said to have a good quality if it has a good validity, reliability, level of difficulty, and discrimination power. Therefore, the try out of the test was carried to achieve the objectives. The results of which are elaborated in the following sections:
3.5.2.1.1. Validity
and construct validity for this research. It was considered that the test should be valid and in line with reading theory and material.
a. Content Validity
Content validity was extent to which a test measures a representative sample of the subject matter content, the focus of content validity is adequacy of the sample and simply on the appearance of the test (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:251). The researcher used content validity because she wanted to know whether or not the content of the test was sufficiently representative and comprehensive for the test to be a valid measure of what it was supposed to measure. To know whether the test was good reflection of what was taught and the knowledge which the teacher wants the students to know, the researcher compared this test with table of specification. If the table represented the material that the researcher wants to test, then it is valid from that point of view. A table of specification is an instrument that help the test constructor plan the test.
Table 1. Table of specification of Try Out Test
No Aspects of Reading Item Numbers Total
Items Percentage 1 Identify the main idea 1, 6, 9, 17, 22, 28, 31, 37 8 20% 2 Specific information 2, 5, 7, 10, 21, 23, 27, 33,
38,39 10 25%
3 Inference 4, 14, 19, 24, 26, 29, 34, 36 8 20%
4 Reference 8, 12, 15, 16, 18, 25, 32, 40 8 20%
5 Vocabulary 3, 11, 13, 20, 30, 35 6 15%
Table 2. Table of specification of Pre-Test
No Aspects of Reading Item Numbers Total
Items Percentage
Table 3. Table of specification of Post-Test
No Aspects of Reading Item Numbers Total
Items Percentage
Construct validity concerned whether the test was actually in line with the theory of reading comprehension or not (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:251). The test was aimed to know whether the test was true reflection of the theory in reading comprehension, the researcher examined whether the test questions actually reflect the means of reading comprehension or not.
3.5.2.1.2. Reliability
order to estimate the reliability of the test. To measure the coefficient of the
rl : the coefficient of reliability between first half and second half group.
X : the total numbers of first half group. Y : the total numbers of second half group. X2 : the square of X.
Y2 : the square of Y.
(Lado in Hughes, 1991:3) Then the researcher uses “Spearman Brown’s Prophecy Formula” (Hatch and
Farhady, 1982: 256) to determine the reliability of the test as follow:
rl
The result of the reliability test was 0.75 (See Appendix 5). It was based on the criteria of reliability that was proposed by Hatch and Farhady (1982:247), the test had moderate or satisfactory reliability in the range 0,50 – 0,89. It indicated that this instrument would produce consistent result when administered in the similar condition to the same participants and in different time (Hatch and Farhady, 1982).
3.5.2.1.3. Level of Difficulty
Level of difficulty of an item simply showed how easy or difficult the particular item proved in the test (Heaton, 1975: 182). Level of difficulty was generally
Based on the computation of level difficulty (see Appendix 6.), the researcher found that there were 6 items which were more than 0.70 which means that the items were easy and 4 items were below 0.30 which means difficult. Meanwhile there were 30 items which were between the ranges 0.30 – 0.70 or belonged to average.
3.5.2.1.4. Discrimination Power
The discrimination power (DP) was the proportion of the high group students getting the items correct minus the proportion of the low-level students who getting the items correct. To see the discrimination power, the researcher used the following formula:
(Heaton, 1975: 182) Where :
DP = Discrimination power.
U = number of upper group who answer correctly. L = number of lower group who answer correctly. N = total number of the students.
From the computation of discrimination of power (see Appendix 6) the researcher got 7 items were poor (having less than 2.00 index), 11 items were satisfactory (having more than 2.00 index), and 19 items were good (having more than 4.00 index) and 3 items were excellent (having more than 0.70 index). In general, it can be stated that all items tested had good discrimination power and positive value. In this research, the researcher omitted 10 items that were unsatisfactory to be used. Eventually, the items that were administered were 30 items for pre-test and post-test. After analyzing the data, the researcher got 30 items were good and 10 items were poor and should be dropped.
3.6. Research Procedures
The procedures in administering the research are as follow: 1. Determining the problem
The first step of this research was determining the problems. The researcher determined what kind of problems appear in the class.
2. Determining the sample of the research
The sample was chosen by simple random technique, using lottery since the students’ ability was parallel and all students had the same chance. The researcher took one class as the experimental class which was given the treatments by using contextual clues strategy.
3. Determining the research instrument
4. Administering try-out of the test
The try out test was conducted before the pre test and the post test to investigate the quality of the test items, whether the test was appropriate for the students or not. The test consists of 40 items of multiple choices test. 5. Administering the pre-test
Pre-test was aimed to identify the ability of the students before they get the treatment. The researcher used the objective test with four options of each item. One of the options was correct answer and the rests were as distracters. 6. Conducting the treatment
The treatments were classroom activities which applied contextual clues strategy during the classroom activity. The researcher gave three-time treatments in 2 x 40 minutes for each treatment. The topic was about the descriptive texts.
7. Administering the post-test
Post-test was aimed to evaluate the students’ reading comprehension after being given the treatments. After the treatment, it was hoped that the students are able to practice the technique independently.
8. Analyzing the data
3.7. Data Analysis
The data had been analyzed in order to see whether the students’ reading comprehension achievement was increase or not. The researcher examined the students’ scores using the following steps:
1. Scoring the pre-test and post-test.
2. Tabulating the result of the test and calculating the scores of the pretest and posttest.
3. Drawing conclusion from the tabulated-result of the pretest and posttest by statistically analyzing the data using statistical computerization. i.e. Repeat Measure T-Test of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 17.0 It is used as the data come from the two samples (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 111).
3.7.1. Scoring System
In scoring the result of students’ scores in pre-test and post-test, the researcher used percentage correct system (Lyman, 1971:95). The percentage correct score was used to report the result of classroom achievement tests. The researcher calculated the average of pre-test and post-test by using this formula:
3.7.2. Calculating the Mean Score
Mean told about how difficult or easy the test was. According to Heaton (1991, p.175), the mean score of one test was arithmetical average i.e. the sum of separate score which is divided by the total number of students. It was efficient to measure the central tendency, even it was not always appropriate. To calculate the mean, the researcher used the formula as follow:
X2 : Mean from post-test
SD : Standard error of differences between means
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 114)
The criteria are:
V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This final chapter presents the conclusion of the research findings and suggestions for English teacher who want to try to use contextual clues strategy as the alternative strategy to teach reading and for further researchers who want to conduct similar research.
5.1. Conclusions
In line with the results of the data analysis and discussion, the following conclusions are drawn:
answer independently by using all of clues based on the text. It also provides a chance to the students to focus on their reading, control and monitor their reading hence this leads to better comprehension.
5.2. Suggestions
Referring to the conclusion above, the researcher gave some suggestions as follows:
1. Since contextual clues strategy gives the influence on the students’ reading comprehension achievement, the researcher suggests to the teachers to apply contextual clues strategy as the solution to overcome the students’ problems comprehending the text.
2. By using contextual clues strategy, the students are able to answer the question by using the clues based on the text and determine what kind of clues that they found to help them answering the questions.
3. For the further researchers can apply contextual clues strategy used to increase the students’ reading comprehension in comprehending the descriptive text.
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