INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NEWS ITEM TEXT THROUGH JIGSAW TECHNIQUE AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 1 PUNGGUR

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ABSTRACT

INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NEWS ITEM TEXT THROUGH JIGSAW TECHNIQUE AT THE FIRST

YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 1 PUNGGUR

By

LINDA SEPTIYANA

This research was conducted from the considerations that the students still got low scores in reading comprehension test. There were many factors that influenced students’ problems in comprehending the reading text. One of the strategies which is considered applicable and useful in increasing students’ reading comprehension is jigsaw technique. Therefore, this research was intended to find out whether there was a significant increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement of news item text after being taught through jigsaw technique.

▸ Baca selengkapnya: contoh news item text dan soalnya

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INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NEWS ITEM TEXT THROUGH JIGSAW

TECHNIQUE AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 1 PUNGGUR

By

LINDA SEPTIYANA

A Script

Submitted in a Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for S-1 Degree

in

The Language and Arts Department of The Faculty of Teacher Training and Education

TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY

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INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NEWS ITEM TEXT THROUGH JIGSAW

TECHNIQUE AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 1 PUNGGUR

(A Script)

By

LINDA SEPTIYANA

TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY LAMPUNG UNIVERSITY

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CURRICULUM VITAE

The writer’s name is Linda Septiyana. She was born in Nunggal Rejo, September 16th_{, 1990. She is the oldest child of the happy couple, Agus Rahman and} Yusminar. She has two younger brothers.

She joined pre-elementary school at TK Pertiwi Punggur in 1995 before continuing her study to SD Negeri 1 Totokaton, Punggur in 1996. Having graduated from elementary school in 2002, she went to SMP Negeri 6 Metro and graduated in 2005. Three years later, she completed her study at SMA Negeri 1 Metro. Through SMPTN in 2008, she was accepted at the Teacher Training and Education Faculty majoring in English Department in Lampung University.

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MOTTO

“ No matter how good you are, you can not do everything alone. You need God to

guide you, and people to help you ”

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ADMITTED BY

1. Examination Committee

Chairperson : Prof. Dr. Cucu Sutarsyah, M.A. ………

Examiner : Drs. Ujang Suparman, M.A., Ph.D. ………

Secretary : Dra. Edhita Gloria Simanjuntak ………

2. The Dean of Teacher Training and Education Faculty

Dr. Bujang Rahman, M.Si. NIP 19600315 198503 1 003

Graduated on: April 23th_{, 2012}

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DEDICATION

This piece of paper is proudly dedicated to:

 The greatest inspiration of my life “My beloved parents”

Drs. Agus Rahman and Yusminar, S.Pd.

 My beloved younger brothers

Tommy Suganda and Riyan Suganda

 My lovely friends and all English Department 2008

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Research Title : INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NEWS ITEM TEXT THROUGH JIGSAW TECHNIQUE AT THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAN 1

PUNGGUR

Student’s Name : Linda Septiyana

Student’s Number : 0813042035

Department : Language and Arts Department

Study Program : English Education

Faculty : Teacher Training and Education Faculty

APPROVED BY

Advisory Committee

Advisor Co- Advisor

Prof. Dr. Cucu Sutarsyah, M.A. Dra. Edhita Gloria Simanjuntak NIP 19570406 198603 1 002 NIP 19480123 197703 2 003

The Head of Language and Arts Department

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillahirobbil ‘alamin, Praise is merely to The Mightiest Allah SWT for the gracious mercy and tremendous blessing that enable me to accomplish this script entitled: Increasing Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement of News ItemText through Jigsaw Technique at the First year Students of SMAN1 Punggur. This script is presented to fulfill one of the requirements in accomplishing the S-1 Degree at the Department of Language and Arts of Teachers Training and Education faculty Lampung University.

It is important to be known that the script would never have come into existence without any supports, encouragements, and assistances by several generous people.

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The writer also wants to give her appreciation to Drs. Sutarman as the headmaster of SMAN 1 Punggur, for providing the opportunity to conduct the research, and Umi Latifah, S.Pd, as the English teacher in SMAN1 Punggur, for being helpful during the research process and for giving chance to conduct this research in her class and the students of class X.4 and X.6 for their willingness to cooperate and particapate in this research.

The greatest honor and appreciation would finally be dedicated to her beloved parents, Drs. Agus Rahman and Yusminar, S.Pd. It is truly undoubted that loves, cares, and timeless prayers during days and nights, are everything for her. Thanks for their spirit, motivation, patience and willingness to wait for the writer’s graduation. Her sincere thanks are also dedicated to her beloved younger brothers, Tomy Suganda and Riyan Suganda and her lovely cousins, Yuni Rahmawati, Fenny Hasitasari, Rica Desta Amalia and Irma Lizza. Thank you for praying and supports given to keep her spirit alive.

Last but not least, the writer would also address her appreciation to her dear comrades EDIGHT (English Department 2008), thanks for the friendship and keep on struggle, and especially my splendid fellows, Ledy Mailiza, Virnes Karina, Tacca Prita Yudistira, Ratih Septiana Putri, Elvira Rosyida MR, Yusi Indah Putri and Desy Restiana who always give me support and laugh.

Finally, the writer realizes that this script still has some weaknesses. Therefore, critics and suggestions are invited for its improvement. Hopefully, this script can give benefit to the readers or those who want to carry out further research.

Bandar Lampung, Maret 2012 The Writer

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I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Problem

Generally, the purpose of teaching language at school is to develop the students’

language skill. There are four skills of language to be mastered in learning

English. They are listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of the skills that

very important to be developed is reading skill. Reading should be mastered well

by the students because reading is essential factor that influence one’s activity in

communication. People consider reading as an important activity, so people

usually say that reading is the window of the world. By reading, people can get

the information widely without going anywhere.

Based on the researcher’s pre-observation at the first year students in SMAN 1

Punggur, it was found that almost 70% students of SMAN 1 Punggur had low

ability in reading. It was proved by the statement of Umi Latifah, English teacher

of SMAN 1 Punggur. She said that generally, the students had difficulty in

comprehending an English reading text. The students have difficulty in finding the

main idea of passage with long sentences, specific information, inference,

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comprehension test scores which were mostly stated lower than the minimal

mastery criterion (KKM) of that school which requires the students getting 72.

The cause of the problem comes from students’ reading style and also students’

reading skill. First, the students have the same style in reading activity. They

prefer to read alone with consideration that they feel convenient and can

concentrate better. They do not try to discuss the text and it makes them face their

own difficulties.Second, the students’ reading skill, there are some causes such as

the limited vocabularies, sentence construction within paragraph, difficulties in

finding the main idea, supporting details, reference and inference of the text.

It was also find out that, the cause of the problem might be from the teacher. The

teacher’s way of teaching reading affects the student’s reading comprehension.

Speaking too fast, unclear explanation and monotonous technique used by the

teacher discourage students to learn reading. After asking to the some students, it

was found that the teacher still uses conventional technique in almost everyday

teaching and learning process. She just asks the students to read certain text in the

book or students’ exercise book, and then the teacher asks them to do the task

following the text. The monotonous process of learning make the students

discourage to learn.

In this case, the researcher focuses on how to create situation where the students

can engage in reading process. As far as it is known that the students feel bored

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text loudly, then they should answer or discuss a number of comprehension

questions following the text.

To overcome the problems above, the researcher assumes that there should be

some suitable techniques in teaching reading in order to motivate the students to

read all text so they can get the information fully. For this, the teacher should be

able to apply a certain technique to increase students’ reading comprehension and

to make them enjoy in teaching learning process.

Based on the statement above, the researcher applied cooperative learning in

teaching reading comprehension. Cooperative learning is one of learning

strategies which is considered applicable and useful in increasing students’

reading comprehension and make the students active during the learning process.

Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively. Unlike individual

learning, cooperative learning capitalizes on one another’s resources and skills

(asking one another for information, evaluating one another’s ideas, monitoring

one another’s work, etc.).Furthermore, the teacher’s role changes from giving

information to facilitating students' learning. Everyone succeeds when the group

succeeds.

One of the cooperative learning’s technique supposed to be useful in teaching

reading is jigsaw technique (Aronson, 1978). Jigsaw gives all students the

opportunity to increase their reading comprehension because this technique is not

only encourages students on learning the group's tasks and activities but also helps

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By using jigsaw technique, the researcher hopes that it can motivate the students

in reading because it may be an interesting activity in which the students have to

read the text. The text is divided into sections, and one section is for each student

to take care of. The students who are responsible from the same section get

together and form a new group in which the goal is for the students to master the

section of the material and to enable them to teach the other members in their

original learning group. By having the responsibility, the students may be

motivated to read the text.

It is assumed that if the students have been already motivated in reading activity,

they may like reading and may enjoy the reading activity. Therefore, if the

students enjoy reading activity, it may be easy for them to comprehend the text.

In addition, Dedi Indra Kusuma (2007) has done a research to compare between

Jigsaw technique and SQ3R technique in increasing students’ reading

comprehension achievement at SMAN 5 Bandar Lampung. He found that the

students’ scores within experimental class which used Jigsaw increased

significantly from 50.35 to 85.50 point while the increasing of students’ scores

within control class were only from 47.76 to 65.68 point. He fully convinces that

jigsaw technique carries benefits toward students’ reading comprehension

achievement. Seeing the results Dedi Indra Kusuma’s study, the researcher

intended to investigate the implementation of jigsaw technique in increasing

students’ reading comprehension achievement of news item text at SMAN 1

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Senior High School students read various types of texts in their daily lives. The

types of text that Senior High School students find as reading include monologue/

essay and functional texts. The monologue/ essay (e.g. recount, report, discussion,

explanation, exposition (analitycal), exposition (hortatory), news item, anecdote,

narrative, procedure, description, and review texts) and functional texts (e.g.

advertisement, brochure, schedule, message, notice, personal letters, invitation

(Depdiknas,2006). The researcher used news item text, because it is taught in the

first grade of senior high school and most of students feel hard to comprehend this

type of text compared to the other texts while this text is very useful to inform the

reader, listener or the day which are considered news worthy or important.

Considering the problem above, the researcher proposed cooperative learning and

its certain technique by conducting a research entitled “Increasing students’

reading comprehension achievement of news item text through jigsaw technique

at the first year students of SMAN 1 Punggur”.

1.2 Identification of the Problems

Based on the background above, the following problems can be identified:

1. The students tend to be passive (teacher- centered).

The teachers are not aware of the appropriate strategy of teaching reading

especially which deals with active learning which is needed to be applied

in various types of text. During learning process, the teachers only apply

same technique for all types of reading texts. The result is that the students

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2. The students get difficulties in comprehending the reading text, finding the

main ideas, finding the details, answer the question from the text and

making inference from the text. As the results, the students got difficulties

in retelling and transferring the information from the text.

3. 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.

4. The teacher still applies the conventional technique in teaching and has not

tried other various techniques. So, it makes the students feel bored and not

interested.

1.3 Limitation of the Problem

The focus of the research is students’ reading comprehension achievement as a

result of implementing jigsaw technique. The decision was taken by

considering the importance of jigsaw technique as one of cooperative

learning’sstrategies that is useful to increase students’ reading comprehension

achievement, and knowing the fact that most of first grade students at SMAN

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1.4 Formulation of the Problem

According to the background of the research above, the researcher formulates the

research problem as follows:

“Is there any increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement of news

item text after being taught throughjigsaw technique?”

1.5 Objective of the Research

Based on the research problem, the objective of the research is stated as follows:

“To find out whether there is an increase of students’ reading comprehension

achievement of news item text after being taught throughjigsaw technique.”

1.6 Uses of the Research

The uses of the research are as follows:

1. Theoretically

The results of this research are expected to confirm and clarify the

previous theories about teaching reading through jigsaw technique.

2. Practically

This research can be useful for the students, English teacher, and also

school.

a. The students

The implementation of jigsaw technique hopefully can motivate

students in reading news item text so that it can help poor students or

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b. The teacher

The results of this research are expected to give useful information to

English teachers whether or not jigsaw technique is an effective

techniqueto increase students’ reading comprehension achievement.

c. The school

The results of this research are expected to give consideration whether

the school will implement jigsaw technique for students to increase

their reading comprehension achievement and make the students

interested in reading.

1.7 Scope of the Research

This research was quantitative research. The research was conducted to the first

grade of SMAN 1 Punggur. The research was focused on activities of reading

comprehension of news item text taught by jigsaw technique. The students were

expected to be able to comprehend the following reading aspects: main idea,

vocabulary, specific information, reference, inference and features of the text. The

text used was news item text because it is stated in the first grade of senior high

school syllabus and it tells the students about the events of the day which is

considered newsworthy or important. While, in order to add students’ knowledge;

the texts were being taken from newspaper (Jakarta post) and internet. The

researcher chose two classes as a sample, one class as a try out class and another

one as an experimental class which are selected by using simple random sampling.

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SMAN 1 Punggur is not stratified class. The treatments were three times

treatments.

1.8 Definition of Terms

There are some terms that are used in this research and to make it more clearly,

some definitions of term are presented as follow:

1. Reading comprehension

Reading is more than knowing what each alphabet stands for; reading

involves more than word recognition; that comprehension is an essential of

reading, without comprehension no reading takes place

(Dallman, 1982: 23)

2. News item text

News item text is a text which informs readers about events of the day, the

events are considered newsworthy or important.

(Sudarwati and Grace, 2007:98)

3. Technique

Technique is a particular trick, stratagem or contrivance used to

accomplish an immediate objective.

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4. Jigsaw technique

jigsaw technique is meant to provide students with the chance to learn a

material from their peers. A material is divided into section is for each

student to take care of. The students who are responsible for the same

section get together and form a new group of which the goal is for the

students to master the section of the material and to enable them to teach

the other members in their original learning group later.

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II. FRAME OF THEORIES

This chapter will discuss about the concept of reading comprehension, aspects of

reading, the concept of teaching reading, the concept of news item text, the

concept of jigsaw technique, procedures of teaching reading comprehension of

news item text through jigsaw technique, advantages and disadvantages of jigsaw

technique, theoretical assumption and hypothesis.

2.1 Concept of Reading Comprehension

Before going to the concept of reading comprehension, it is better for us to

understand about the definition of reading. Reading can be said as the window of

knowledge in which people are able to get much information. Through reading,

the reader will find the reason, example, explanation, comment, note and

summary about the information.

Nuttal (1982: 14) defines reading as the meaningful interpretation of printed or

written verbal symbol. It means that reading is as a result of the interaction

between the perception of graphic symbol that represent language and the readers’

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Clark and Silberstain (1987: 21) define that reading as an active cognitive process

of interacting with printed material and monitoring comprehension to establish

meaning. Reading is the instant recognition of various written symbols,

simultaneous association of these symbols with existing knowledge and

comprehension of the information and ideas communicated.

Grabe (1986) also states that reading is the ability to recognize vocabulary and

syntax automatically. Reading is the ability to read at reasonable rapid rate, the

ability to grasp the main idea and scan for piece of information and the ability to

adjust rate and adapt strategies for careful analytical reading and critical

evaluation. The researcher agrees that someone has purpose when he is reading.

The purpose of reading passage commonly is to find idea/ information from

reading passage and to enhance knowledge of the language being read.

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. As 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. Similarly,

Dallman, (1982:23) states that reading is more than knowing what each alphabet

stands for; reading involves more than word recognition; that comprehension is an

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In addition, Howart (2006: 1) cites that reading is of course, just as

communicative as any other form of language. It means that in reading there is an

interaction between the writer and the readers through the texts. The writer tries to

encode the messages to the readers. Then the readers try to decode the messages

that sent by the writer.

Based on the statement above, it can be stated that comprehension is important in

reading process. Reading with comprehension signifies not only understand the

surfaces meaning of the text but also understand the purposes of the main idea of

the reading text.

Grellet (1985) divides comprehension into three levels of comprehension. They

are:

1. Literal Comprehension

Literal comprehension is the process of understanding the ideas and

information explicitly stated in the passages. In this level the abilities

needed by the readers at the knowledge of word meaning, recall of the

details directly stated or paraphrase in own words. Understanding of

grammatical clues subject, pronouns, verbs, conjunctions, and others. In

this level the readers are also required to recall the main idea explicitly

stated at the knowledge of the sequence of information presented in the

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2. Interpretative Comprehension

Interpretative comprehension understands the ideas and information not

explicitly stated in the passage. The abilities needed by the readers are

reason with information presented to understand the authors’ tone,

purpose, attitude, inter factual information, main ideas, comparison cause

effect relationship that not explicitly stated in the passage, and

summarization of story content.

3. Critical Comprehension

Critical comprehension is analyzing and personally reacting to information

presented in a passage. The abilities needed by the readers are personally

reaction to information in a passage indicating meaning to the reader,

analyzing the quality of written not information in the term of some

students.

In this research, the researcher used literal comprehension, interpretative

comprehension and critical comprehension, but the use of literal comprehension

was the most than the others because the students have to be required to recall the

main ideas explicitly stated at the knowledge of the sequence of information

presented in the passage.

Reading with comprehension one will recognize the purpose and the important

point of the text besides understanding the surface meaning of the text. According

to Patricia in Simajuntak (1988: 6), understanding a text is an interactive process

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Referring to the statement above, it is inferred that reading comprehension means

the students must read the text and interact the printed on written symbols with

their cognitive skill and their knowledge of the world. In the process of

comprehension, the students need skills related to the purpose of reading and

consider the questions to concentrate on the important points.

2.2 Aspects of reading

Referring to the concept above, in order to know the students’ reading

comprehension ability, the teacher must involve some aspects that really essential

in reading comprehension. The reading aspects should not only understand the

surfaces meaning of the text but also understand the purposes of the main idea of

the reading text.

There are six aspects in reading, they are:

1. Main idea

Main idea is called the topic sentence. Topic sentence tells what the rest of

the paragraph is about. In some paragraphs, the main idea is not explicitly

stated in any one sentence. Instead, it is left to reader to infer or reason out.

The main idea is the most important idea that the author develops

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2. Specific information

Supporting sentence or specific information develops the topic sentence by

giving definition, examples, facts, an incidents, comparison, analogy,

cause and effect statistics and quotation. (Mc. Whother, 1986:36)

3. Reference

References are words or phrases 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. (Latulippe, 1986: 20)

4. Inference

Inference is an educational guess or prediction about something unknown

based on available facts and information. It is the logical connection that

the reader draws between they observe or know and what they do not

know. ( Kathleen, 1986:31)

5. Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the stock of word used by the people or even person.

Concerning with that statement indeed vocabulary is fundamental for

everyone to master the words in order to be able to speak.

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6. Features of the Text

Features of the text are parts of your text that have been created to help

you locate and learn information_.Features of text will help you know what

is most important in a lesson and help you locate information quickly.

Features of the text consist of three items, they are Social Function,

Generic Structure and Language Feature of the text.

In this research, the researcher will use those six reading aspects because all

reading aspects above are very essential for the students to improve their reading

comprehension ability.

2.3 Concept of Teaching Reading

Hedge (2003) states that any reading component of an English language teaching

may include a set of learning goals for:

 The ability to read a wide range of texts in English. This is the long- range

goal most teachers seek to develop through independent readers outside

EFL/ ESL classroom.

 Building knowledge of language that will facilitate reading ability.

 Building schematic knowledge.

 The ability to adapt the reading technique according to reading purpose

(i.e. jigsaw, STAD, etc.).

 Developing an awareness of the structure of written texts in English.

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It is important to build up students’ ability to adapt the reading technique

according to reading purpose as goal in teaching reading.

Alyousef (2005:143) says that in teaching reading, contemporary reading tasks,

unlike the traditional materials, involve three-phase procedures: pre-, while-, and

last- reading stages. The pre-reading stage helps in activating the relevant schema.

For example, the teacher can 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 text by developing their linguistic and

schematic knowledge. The last-reading includes activities, which enhance

learning comprehension using exercises, close exercises, cut-up sentences, and

comprehension questions.

The aim of teaching reading is to develop students’ skill that they can read

English text effectively and efficiently. To be able to do so the readers should

have particular purposes in their mind before they interact with the texts. Effective

and efficient reading is always purposeful and tends to focus mainly on the

purpose of the activity. Then the purpose of reading is implemented into the

development of different reading techniques: scanning, skimming, mapping,

jigsaw etc. These can be real when the students read and interact with various

types of texts, i.e. functional and monologue texts.

In short, in teaching reading the teacher should provide technique to the students

with purpose for reading to anticipate different type of reading texts. Therefore,

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effectively. A Suparman (2005:1) states that 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).

The researcher assumes that in teaching reading, appropriate and possible

technique should be applied based on the purpose of reading in order to get the

comprehension. They use reading technique to make their reading efficient and

effective. Jigsaw as reading technique is possible to be applied by the Senior High

School students in their reading, e.g. students are able to identify and look for the

specific information (date, time, etc.) in monologue and functional texts,

especially news item text.

2.4 Concept of Authentic Material

Before we are going to the concept of news item text, it is necessary to define

what authentic text or material is because news item text belongs to the authentic

texts. Authentic materials are sometimes called “authentic” or “contextualized”,

real-life materials are those that a student encounters in everyday life. They

include newspapers, magazines, and web sites, as well as driver’s manuals, utility

bills, pill bottles, and clothing labels.

Authentic text or material is a text that is attractive for readers and well-organized.

As Nuttal (1996: 177) states that authentic text not only motivate students but also

exhibit the characteristics of true discourse: having something to say, being

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Gilmore (2007) cites that authentic text is a stretch of real language, produced by

a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message

of some sort. This assumption is always supported by Day and Bamford (1998:54)

who state that an authentic text is one written to say something, to convey a

message. Then, they note that authentic language is considered, unabridged text

that is written for native speaker.

It can be said that authentic text or material is important to learn, because it is full

of language insights and related to the culture. Most of them contain a large

variety of structures and vocabularies that has never been found in the school

textbook. And, although authentic text uses the original language (language in

which its sentence’s structure and the use of vocabulary is not simplified) that is

hard for the students to comprehend, it can improve students’ reading

comprehension better than other reading materials that use simplified language,

such as school English text book.

There are several ways in which authentic materials are motivating and useful to

second language learners. For example, one way authentic texts increase student

motivation is by giving the learner the feeling that he or she is learning the ‘real’

language; that they are in touch with the living entity, the target language as it is

used by the community, which speaks it (Guariento & Morely, 2001). Some of

these authentic materials include newspapers, magazines, books, films,

advertisements, and the like. In addition, authentic texts are often regarded as

more interesting than textbook materials because they can be more up-to-date, and

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There are some advantages that can be obtained from using authentic texts or

materials in teaching reading comprehension.

1. Authentic text can provide many chances for teacher and students to

understand about how to use the target language (in this case English) in

the real life. As Homolova (2004: 1) explains that authentic materials can

provide resources for ESL/ EFL teacher and offer them the opportunity to

expose learners to materials produced for real life and for- out classroom

context by authentic material, we understand materials with “real”

language, produced by real speaker for a real audience.

2. Authentic texts or materials contain a lot of information from all aspects of

life. This advantage is very important for students to increase their

knowledge. As Martinez (2002: 1) views that authentic materials keep

students informed about what is happening in the world, so they have an

intrinsic educational value. It means that authentic texts have value for

students. Besides containing a lot of information needed by students to

increase their language knowledge, these reading texts also help students

in increasing their background knowledge.

3. Authentic materials provide a lot of happiness for students. These reading

texts offer many infotainments for them; news about artists and movies.

As Martinez (2002:2) notes that they can encourage reading for pleasure,

because they are likely to contain topics of interest to learners, especially if

students are given the chance to have a say about the topics or kinds of

materials to be used in the class. It means that authentic materials have a

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important for teacher to give a chance to the students in determining the

topic of authentic reading materials that will be read by them.

The disadvantages of authentic texts mentioned by several writers are:

1. Often too culturally biased, difficult to understand outside the language

community.

2. The vocabulary might not be relevant to the student's immediate needs.

3. Too many structures are mixed so lower levels have a hard time decoding

the texts.

2.5 Concept of News Item Text

Thisresearch deals with improving students’ reading comprehensionachievement

of news item text through jigsaw technique. Thus, it is necessary to define what

news item text is. According to Sudarwati and Grace (2007:197), new item text

means the text which is used to inform readers, listeners, viewers about events of

the day which are considered newsworthy or important. The author has his/ her

way in conveying his/ her messages into the text. It can be read in the books,

magazines or newspapers as a headline or heard in the radio or television in a

news program. In this case, the text that is printed in the newspapers or books will

be used in improving student’sreading comprehension through jigsaw technique.

The news item text usually begins with the main or news worthy event (s), where

the author attempts to recount the event in summary from. The reader is

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item text is elaboration or background event (s). It can be a background,

participant, time, and place relating to the accident. It is the detail information for

the accident which informs on how the accident happen and who are the victims.

The last part of news item text is sources. In the sources the reader can read the

comments by participants, witnesses, authorities, and experts involved in the

event. Language Feature of News item:

• Information on the use of headlines

• Use action verb

• Use saying verb

• Use passive sentences

• Use adverbs

Here is the example of news item text:

15 writers chosen for Ubud Writers festival

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 06/03/2011 11:21 AM | Archipelago

The committee of the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF) has chosen 15 writers to appear the annual literary event, held in Ubud, Bali from Oct. 5-9 this year.

The festival, which was first held in 2004, is one of the most prominent literary festivals in the world. Fatimah Bhutto, a poet who is the granddaughter of former Pakistani prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, praised the festival as one of the best literary festivals of its kind.

They [writers] come from various areas across the archipelago. Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali and West Nusa Tenggara are all represented in the chosen lineup of writers,” the festival’s community development manager, Kadek Purnami, said Friday.

The writers are Alan Malingi from West Nusa Tenggara, Arafat Nur from Aceh, Aulia Nurul Adzkia from Ciamis, Budy Utamy from Riau, Fitri Yani from Bandar Lampung, Ida Ahdiah from Tangerang, Irianto Ibrahim from Kendari, Pinto Anugrah and Ragdi F Daye from Padang, Rida Fitria from Lumajang, Sandy Firly from Banjarmasin, Sanie B Kuncoro from Solo, Saut Poltak Tambunan from Jakarta, Satmoko Budi Santoso from Yogyakarta, and Wahyudin from Banten. Newsworthy

event

Background

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The writers were chosen during the 2011 UWRF Board of Curators meeting in Sanur in May. The curators involved in the selections were senior writers Kurnia Effendi from Jakarta, Dorothea Rosa Herliany from Magelang, Iyut Fitra from Payakumbuh and Made Adnyana Ole from Bali.

“The [15] chosen writers are a reflection [of Indonesia] being an archipelago because they come from various areas and cultural backgrounds. Their works of art are also in various forms: some write poems while others write novels, essays, short stories and drama scripts,” Kurnia Effendi said as quoted from tempointeraktif.com.

The Jakarta Post, June 4, 2011 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/06/03/15-writers-chosen-ubud-writers-festival.html

Beside the part of news item text above, the text has some characteristics. Firstly,

the text uses a short language that is telegraphic information about story captured

in headline. Secondly, this kind of text uses the material processes to report the

event. Thirdly, it uses verbal processes in source stage such as said, told, etc. In

the last, the news item text focuses on circumstances.

Since news item text is very interesting and useful that is text which informs

readers about events of the day; the events are considered newsworthy or

important and it is stated in School Based Curriculum (KTSP), so the text is

needed to be understanding. So, the researcher focuses in implementing jigsaw

technique that hopefully, the technique will help the students to comprehend the

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2.6 Concept of Jigsaw Technique

Initially introduced by Aronson et al (1978) states that this jigsaw structure is

meant to provide students with the chance to learn a material from their groups. A

material is divided into sections, and one section is for each student to take care

of. The students who are responsible from the same section get together and form

a new group in which the goal is for the students to master the section of the

material and to enable them to teach the other members in their original learning

group later.

He also develops jigsaw technique as Cooperative Learning Strategies. Jigsaw is

excellent for task that has several distinct aspects or components. Home teams are

formed, with each team member is taking responsibility for one aspect of the

problem question. Then, expert team is formed of all students who responsible for

and plan how to teach it to their home groups. After adequate time has been given,

the students return to the home teams and bring their expertise to bear on the

assigned task. Positive interdependence is fostered because each student has

different information needed to complete the task.

Long and Porter (1985: 207) point out that jigsaw is more feedback activity

includes checking, understanding, seeking clarification and making sure the

message get across. According to them jigsaw gives more chance for the teacher

knows his or her students response as a feedback in teaching learning process. In

this way, the students get language input containing news items that they

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Aronson (1978: 43) says that Jigsaw Technique is a technique which has a strong

effect on students’ attitude to learning, social relationship among students in the

group. This also means that Jigsaw Technique can help the students to rely on

each other for information in a way which puts on students above others. Finally,

each student will be valuable in the group.

Nation (1991: 29) argues that jigsaw technique ensures the participants in need of

getting other information. By applying the technique, each learner has essential

information. No one has the same information. In this case, the students share the

information to bridge the gap. So, if each student's part is essential, then each

student is essential; and that is precisely what makes this strategy so effective.

Based on the statement above, it is understood that jigsaw is a technique of the

learning method which demands the students to learn on groups of students who

have heterogeneous ability. Each home group members meet in expert group to

study the material assigned to each group member. After discussion, they go back

into their group members and explain their discussion to his or her group

members. In fact the students like to interact with the others, so jigsaw is the right

technique to increase their language ability. Through jigsaw technique the

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2.7 Procedures of Teaching Reading Comprehension of News Item Text through Jigsaw Technique

Based on the procedures of teaching reading comprehension through jigsaw

technique (Aronson, 1978), the researcher modify the activities of teaching

learning process by using news item text.

The procedures are as follow:

Pre Activities

- Greeting

- The students are given brainstorming the material based on their

background knowledge. It is used to build the students’ thought before

they learn further about news item text. “Do you know the meaning of

news? From what media, do you usually get news? What kind of news do

you like?”

- The students are informed the material they are going to learn, the goals of

learning to be achieved and reading technique the students will use.

While Activities

- The students are divided into eight jigsaw groups, each group consists of 5

students.

- One of the students is pointed as the group leader. Initially, this person

should be the most mature student in the group.

- The students are given the reading text in form news item text. The

students are divided into 5 information (one for each member)

- The students are asked to form a temporary expert group in which one

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same information. Students in this expert group will be given time to

discuss the main points of their information and specific information,

reference, inference, and difficult vocabulary of their text.

- The students are asked to come back to their jigsaw group and share his or

her information to the group. Other members are encouraged to ask

question for clarification.

- The students are given explanation of the lesson today such as the generic

structures, language features and the purpose of news item text.

- The students are given a quiz on the materials at the end of the session, so

the students realize that these sessions are not only for fun and games, but

that they really count.

Post Activities

- The students are reviewed about what students have learnt

- The students are asked about the difficulty in understanding the lesson.

- The students are given the summary of the lesson.

- Closes the meeting.

2.8 Advantages and Disadvantages of Jigsaw Technique

1. Advantages of Jigsaw Technique

According to Aronson (1978), the advantages of Jigsaw technique are:

• Teacher is not the sole provider of knowledge.

• Efficient way to learn.

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• Students are held accountable among their group.

• Learning revolves around interaction with group.

• Students are active participants in the learning process.

• Build interpersonal and interactive skills.

2. Disadvantages of Jigsaw Technique

There are some disadvantages of using Jigsaw technique (Johnson & Johnson,

1981). They are as follows:

• Require some time to prepare students to learn how to work in groups.

• Require some time to make groups that each group has heterogeneity in

their member ability.

• It forces teacher to make a special preparation before teaching in the class

because teacher needs to prepare kinds of media.

2.9 Theoretical Assumption

In teaching reading comprehension, the teacher should find the way that can

motivate the students in teaching learning process. There are some techniques that

can help the teacher to reach the aim of teaching learning process. For this, jigsaw

is chosen as a technique in teaching reading comprehension.

Jigsaw technique may be used in teaching reading comprehension because it

makes the students involved and active. Since, the students, in this case have a

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understood easily, then it will motivate them to pay more attention and more

active in teaching learning process. It seems that jigsaw technique can be used to

increasestudents’reading comprehension achievement.

2.10 Hypothesis

Based on the theories and the assumptions above, the researcher proposes the

hypothesis as follows:

H0 :There is no increase of students’ reading comprehension

achievement of news item text after being taught through jigsaw

technique.

H1 : There isincrease of students’ reading comprehension

achievement of news item text after being taught through jigsaw

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1. Specific information