ABSTRACT
INCREASING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH TASK BASED APPROACH AT THE FIRST GRADE OF SMKN 2
BANDAR LAMPUNG
By
Dwi Astiti Nugraheni
The objective of this research is to find out whether there is significant increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement after being taught using task-based approach. The population of this research is the first year students of SMKN 2 Bandar Lampung consisting of 15 classes and one class is taken as the sample class. The sample is selected by using the random sampling technique.
This is a quantitative research and one group pretest- posttest design was employed. The mean score of pretest is 51,43 and mean score of posttest is 78,43, so the increase is 27,00. The significant (2-tailed) value was p= 0.000, where p<0.05, it showed that the hypothesis was accepted. From five reading aspects being observed, identifying main idea was the highest increase and students had positive respond after being taught using task-based approach. It was therefore concluded that task-based approach could significantly increase students’ reading comprehension achievement.
DEDICATION
By offering my praise and gratitude to Alloh SWT for His abundant blessing to me,
I’d proudly dedicate this piece of work to: My beloved parents, Susetyo Budi and Asmawati.
My beloved heart, Sugiyanto
My beloved brothers: Edi Purwo Budi Asmo and Muhammad Hanif. My beloved family at the second home G24: Tria, Galuh, Nisa and Dian.
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendices Page
1. Upper Group of Try Out Test... 53
2. Lower Group of Try Out Test ... 54
3. The Calculation of Realibility of Try Out Test ... 55
4. Level Difficulty and Discrimination Power of Try Out Test ... 56
5. Students’ Score of Pretest and Posttest ... 57
6. Table of Frequencies (Pretest) ... 58
7. Table of Frequencies (Posttest) ... 59
8. Normality Test... 60
9. The Increase of Students’ Reading Comprehension... ... 61
10. Lesson Plan 1 ... 62
11. Lesson Plan 2 ... 68
12. Lesson Plan 3 ... 76
13. Pretest/ Posttest ... 81
14. Student’s Try out Score ( the highest score) ... 87
15. Student’s Try out Score ( the lowest score) ... 94
16. Student’s Pretest Score ( the highest score) ... 101
17. Student’s Pretest Score ( the lowest score) ... 102
18. Student’s Posttest Score ( the highest score) ... 103
19. Student’s Posttest Score ( the lowest score) ... 104
I. INTRODUCTION
This first chapter explains the background of why the writer chose Task-based Approach for her reseach. Then, it is followed by further explanation about identification of the problem, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, objective of the research, the uses of the research, and definition of terms.
1.1 Background of the Problem
Reading is one of language skill that students should master. It is a process to get the idea from reading text. In the classroom activity, writer found that teacher taught reading by giving explanation and definition of the text, then gave excercises to the students.
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Furthermore, students, who sometimes do not pay attention to the teacher’s explanation, do the excercises without clear understanding of meaning and lack of action to solve that problem. Moreover, they are more reluctant caused by the excercises that can not stimulate their curiousity at all. Finally, they do the excercise by their own way and finish the class with some confusion.
In order to measure students’ level of comprehension ability, writer asked ten students of SMK Negeri 2 Bandar Lampung that were choosen randomly to do reading exercise and answer some questions. Furthermore, she analyzed their answers as follows:
Table 1.1 Result of the Pre Observation
No Things to be observed ≥ 80% true ≤ 80% true Explanation
It is reading with comprehension and responding the functional text and essay. It means students must be able to read with comprehension and answer the questions by comprehension then get score that passing through standard score. If students can not pass the standard minimum score, they must study over again.
Beside that, the guideline of School Based Curriculum, KTSP (Depdiknas, 2006:297), states that there are several objectives of teaching reading for the first grade of Senior High School, they are:
1. The students are able to identify the main idea of the whole texts or in each paragraph of reading texts.
2. The students are able to identify the vocabularies of reading texts 3. The students are able to identify some specific information of reading
texts.
Based on the objectives above, teacher needs something better that can be taught, can be taken home to be applied in students’ real life and can measure how far students comprehend the text, at once which is better than “excercise”. It is “task” which may be a solution.
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By this task based approach the students will be brought into a real life situation and interesting situation. Moreover, it sees that learning process as one of learning through doing; it is by primarily engaging in meaning that students need to develop. In this way the students are expected to have a good comprehension in reading.
Based on the descriptions above, learning task has a role in the classroom activity toward students’ comprehension in reading. Then, the writer was interested in conducting research entitled Increasing Students’ Reading Comprehension through Task Based Approach.
1.2 Identification of the Problems
Based on the background above, the writer identifies the problems on SMK Negeri 2 Bandar Lampung as follows:
1. The students get difficulties in comprehending the reading text. They get difficulties in getting information from the text and finding the details, in answering the questions based on the text.
2. The students faces problem toward vocabularies. So they can not understand the meaning on the written text well.
3. The students’ motivations in learning English are still low. So it is difficult to improve their English ability well.
5. The teachers usually use excercise in teaching reading. So, perhaps task-based can help students to comprehend reading text better than excercise.
1.3 Limitation of the Problem
In line with the identification of the problems, the writer limited the problems. Therefore, she focused her study only on the students’ achievement in reading comprehension using task-based approach.
1.4 Formulation of the Problem
Based on the limitation of the problem above, the writer formulated the problem as follows:
Is there any significant increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement after being taught using Task-Based Approach?
1.5 Objective of the Research
In relation to the research problem above, the objectives of this research was to investigate whether there is any significant increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement after being taught using Task-Based Approach.
1.6 Uses of the Research
The results of this study were expected to be beneficial both theoretically and practically as follows:
1. Theoretically
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2. Practically
The results of this research were expected to provide information to the English teachers in order to select the most suitable approach in teaching reading comprehension. Futhermore, hopefully it could be useful for other researcher in doing research.
1.7 Definition of Terms
There are some terms used by the writer and to make them clear, the writer gives some definitions as follow:
1. Reading Comprehension
It is defined as a process of interacting readers’ mind toward printed text and comprehending the text by establishing the meaning.
2. Task
Task is defined as an activity which required learners to comprehend, manipulate, produce, or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form. It demands learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process.
3. Task-based
4. Increase
Increase can be defined as become greater in size, amount, or degree. In this research, it means students’ reading comprehension scores become greater from pretest to posttest after three times treatment by using task-based approach.
5. Achievement
II. FRAME OF THEORIES
In this chapter, there are two main topics which need to be elaborated here: review of the previous research and review of related literature. Furthermore, review of related literature consists of: concept of reading, concept of teaching reading, task-based approach, concept of task, the importance of task, types of task, features criteria of learning task, task-based framework, the application of task-based approach in teaching reading, theoretical assumption and the hypotheses.
2.1 Review of the Previous Research
There are several studies that had been done by the experts and researchers to prove the effectiveness of Task-based Approach, some classroom observations about the approach and the practice with the approach proved that the task-based approach was effective in English language teaching and learning classroom.
the learning process. Two of the major findings of the investigation are the task-based approach to teaching and learning is effective in developing communicative competence in “false beginner” students in Korea and Formative evaluation is an effective method of program development.
Zhou (2006) applied the Task-based Approach in the language teaching and learning classroom activity. He conducted the research from the beginning of September, 2004 to the middle of January, 2006, at Nanjing University. In this experiment, he took 78 students from two different classes, then paid more attention to 10 students who got low scores. This research proved around 92% students especially the 10 “special” students admitted that with the help of this approach is effective by seeing the increasing score.
Years later, Hourdequin (2009) did his research in Japan. His research dealt with the last grade students who were preparing for University entrance exams. He used this task-based framework to briefly explore the short essay section of Japanese university entrance exams as a target task, and considered pedagogical tasks (classroom activities) which could help EFL students succeeded in doing the examination.
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The next research, Huang and Wang (2008) applied the Task-based Approach due to the use of authentic materials in task-based communicative activities. They outlined the approach and procedure that they employed in designing a special activity corresponding to the Dragon Boat Festival-wrapping rice dumplings. In their research, they expected student to acquire new vocabulary words and communicate (practice listening and speaking skills) using English throughout the task. The result showed there was enhancement of the students’ acquisition of new vocabulary words. Furthermore, students actively interacted in English with both teachers and partners throughout the whole that attractive process.
While Huang and Wang paid attention to vocabulary and oral communicative skill (listening and speaking), Rahman (2010) focused in oral communication. He did the research dealing with the applications of the Task-based Approach to oral communication skill. Based on his research, students found the experience to be rewarding, intrinsically interesting, and educationally beneficial. They got involved in the task, because the tasks were giving the feeling of real life situation. Their final performances were impressively polished and much improved, that is, the final product was of high level. 70 percent students scored grade ‘A’.
Based on the review of previous researches above, the following had been found: 1. The aplication task-based approach in teaching and learning is effective in
2. The Task-based Approach was applied in the teaching and learning in the classroom at university. After almost two years research, by this task- based approach can improve students’ scores (Zhou, 2006).
3. The application of the Task-based Approach due to the use of authentic materials in task-based communicative activities showed the enhancement of vocabularies and communication in English (Huang and Wang, 2008). 4. Task-based framework is used to help the students of Japanese in
practicing university entrance exams. It resulted the rising of students’ conciousness about common errors, especially in writing (Hourdequin, 2009).
5. The applications of the Task-based Approach to oral communication skill showed the increasing of students’ achievement at university (Rahman, 2010).
However, there is other issue that the writer want to find curiously. It is the use of task based approach in reading comprehension at senior high school. Therefore, this research would be conducted to deal with the use of task based approach in reading comprehension at senior high school.
2.2 Review of Related Literature
This part consist of some terms reviewing the explanation of literature that related to this research. The explanation as follow;
a. Concept of Reading Comprehension
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(Bernhardt, Kamil, and Pang, 2003). It is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought and demands at finding the idea of the text.
In line with the statement above, some experts mentioned that reading is an active process in which people to attempt to extracts ideas, concepts, thoughts, or images from the pattern of words set forth on the printed page (Callahan and Clark, 1988:295). The words “extracts ideas, concept thoughts, or images” can be defined as comprehension or understanding something that is being read.
Other linguist, Finocchiaro and Bonomo (1973: 199) state that reading is bringing and getting meaning from the printed or written materials. Again, it is about “bringing and getting meaning” or comprehending something that reader’s read. From those statements above, they imply that the reader’s major goal is always to understand and enlarge contexts
Comprehension means relating to what we do not know or new information, to what we already know (Eskey, 1986:15 in Slamet, 1999:14). Therefore, in comprehending reading material, the reader relates new information from the text being read to his previous knowledge that he has stored in his mind. Reading does not have much benefit if the reader does not comprehend what is being read.
According to Doyle (2004), comprehension is a progressive skill in attaching meaning beginning at the same level and proceeding to attaching meaning to an entire reading selection. All comprehension revolves around the reader’s ability in finding and determining main idea and topic sentence from the text.
From all the theories that have been mentioned above, it can be concluded that reading is an active process of getting meaning or information from printed or written language transferred by the writer whereas reading comprehension is the level of passage or text understanding while reading. Comprehension occurs when readers are able to understand, remember, retell and discuss with others about what they have read.
b. Teaching Reading
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techniques: scanning, skimming, and mapping. These can be real when the students read and interact with various types of texts.
Hedge (2003) states that any reading component of an English language teaching may include a set of learning goals, they are:
The ability to read a wide range of text in English. This is the long-range goal most of teachers seek to develop through independent readers outside EFL/ESL classroom.
Building a knowledge of language which will facilitate reading ability.
Building schematic knowledge.
The ability to adapt the reading technique according to reading purpose (i.e. skimming, scanning)
Developing an awarness of stucture of written texts in English.
Taking a critical stance to contents of the texts.
c. Aspects of Reading Comprehension
In teaching reading, there are five reading aspects (Nuttal: 1985) which help the students to comprehend the English text well, they are:
1. Main Idea
Main idea is called the topic sentence. It tells what the rest paragraph is about. In some paragraphs, the main idea is not explicitly stated in any one sentence. It is left to the reader to infer or reason out. So, main idea is the very important idea that the author develops throughout the paragraph.
2. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is the stock of word used by people or even person. Concern-ing with those statements indeed vocabulary is fundamental for everyone who wants to speak or to produce utterances for reading.
3. Specific Information
Specific information or supporting sentence develops the topic sentence by giving definitions, examples, facts, an incidents, comparison, analogy, cause and effect statistics and quotation.
4. Inference
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5. References
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. So, such words are used, they are signals to the reader find the meaning elsewhere in the text.
d. Task-based Approach
Interactive tasks are sometimes considered particularly beneficial, especially the information-gap type, in which learners have to transfer information to a partner who does not have it (Pica et al. 1993). Willis (1996) offers five principles for the implementation of a task-based approach as follow:
1. There should be exposure to worthwhile and authentic language. 2. There should be use of language.
3. Tasks should motivate learners to engage in language use.
4. There should be a focus on language at some points in a task cycle.
5. The focus on language should be more and less prominent at different times.
e. Concept of Task
According to Nunan (1989), task is a piece of classroom work which involves learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing, or interacting in the target language while their attention is principally focused on meaning rather than form. The task should also have a sense of completeness, being able to stand alone as a communicative act in its own right. While, in the same tone, Prabhu (1987) defines task as an activity which required learners to arrive at an outcome from given information through some process of thought, and which allowed teachers to control and regulate that process.
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From this view, tasks definition can be narrowed as the activities that call for primarily meaning-focused language use. In contrast, exercises are activities that call for primarily form-focused language use. However, we need to recognize that the overall purpose of task is the same as exercises—learning a language—the difference lying in the means by which this purpose is to be achieved.
The distinction between meaning-focused and form-focused is also intended to capture another key difference between an exercise and a task relating to the role of the participants. Thus, a task requires the participants to function primarily as language users in the sense that they must employ the same kinds of communicative processes as those involved in real-world activities. Thus, any learning that takes place is incidental. In contrast, an exercise requires the participant to function primarily as learners; here learning is intentional.
In short, as Widdowson (1998) notes, there is a fundamental difference between task and exercise according to whether linguistic skills are viewed as developing through communicative activity or as a prerequisite for engaging in it. However, when learners engage in tasks they do not always focus on meaning and act as language users.
f. Types of Task
Task activities in the classroom can be divided into three types (Prabhu: 1987). 1. Information gap activity
One example is pair work in which each member of the pair has a part of the total information (for example an incomplete picture) and attempts to convey it to the other. Another example is completing a tabular representation with information available in a given piece of text. The activity often involves selection of relevant information as well, and learners may have to meet criteria of completenes and correctness in making the transfer.
2. Reasoning-gap activity
Reasoning-gap activity involves deriving some new information from given information through processes of inference, deduction, practical reasoning, or a perception of relationship or patterns. One example is working out a teacher’s timetable on the basis of given class timetables. Another is deciding what course of action is best (for example cheapest or quickest) for a given purpose and within given constraints. The activity necessarily involves comprehending and conveying information, as in information-gap activity, but the information to be conveyed is not identical with that initially comprehended. There is a piece of reasoning which connects the two.
3. Opinion-gap activity
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reason to expect the same outcome from different individuals or on different occasion.
In this research, writer demanded on using the first type, it was information gap activity, because the writer assumed that it was the most suitable and easier to be applied in the experimental class. The consideration of this assumption was based on the result of observation that the writer had mentioned in background of the problem.
g. Features Criteria of Task
Task should include some criteria and fulfill the features of that. The followings are some theories derived from experts.
1. Presence of a “work-plan,” i.e., specific steps or a procedure that the students are instructed to follow (Ellis, 2003). Teacher should make the procedure or instruction as clear as possible. By this clear work plan, teacher will bring students in a directed learning situation.
2. Interaction between learners (Pica, Kanagy & Falodun, 1993). Hypothetically, tasks that are completed by one learner are also possible, e.g., a student is asked to read to a passage describing someone’s travel route and trace it on a map. However, in line with the institutional guideline of promoting learner-centered instruction, it appears important to give primary attention to tasks that require students’ interaction which each other.
plausible prediction rather than being asked to create sentences using a particular grammatical structure, they use language for real life purposes rather than for language display, i.e., demonstrating that they can use the assigned structures correctlywithout creating and passing to others of any new meaning.
4. Manipulation of information and not merely of language form (Nunan, 1989). This characteristic of tasks is related to the one previously stated that learners process, compare, analyze, and evaluate information, or derive/ create new information from the given information. For example, an activity that would require students to rewrite a paragraph written in the present tense using past tense will only require them to manipulate form, not information, and, therefore, cannot be considered a task.
5. Involvement of cognitive, i.e., thinking processes that humans generally use in life outside of language-learning (Willis, 2004). Examples of cogni-tive processes are problem-solving, decision-making, justification, etc. 6. Connection to real-world functions (Ellis, 2003). Activities that require the
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7. Presence of a so-called observable product or, for role play scenarios, a communicative outcome (Ellis, 2003). The concept of observable product or outcome is one of the most misunderstood notions related to task-based instruction. Examples of observable products are: solution to a problem, joint decision, reached consensus, list of identified discrepancies between two sources, identified suspect, a drawn map, floor plan or chart, etc. Once again, these are products of human activities that exist in the real world outside the language classroom. For this reason, correctly filled in grammatical forms do not qualify to be an observable product of a task, and the related activity is, therefore, not a task but rather an excercise. 8. Possibility of multiple outcomes (in most tasks) (Ellis, 2003). Since the
outcome represents a product co-created by students in the process of their interaction with each other, typically there will be more than one “right” product. Certain tasks, however, may conceivably, be designed to have only one possible answer, e.g., if the students are asked to jointly complete an activity which is akin to a logical puzzle or a mathematical problem such as figuring out the most cost-efficient way of doing something.
In this research, writer applied those eight features criteria of task in teaching learning process in order to have good tasks by fulilling those eight features criteria.
h. Task-based Framework
1. Pre-task Phase
The lesson begins with the pre-task phase where the teacher outlines the task and then has the students brainstorm some ideas of what types of things they may use for the task. This stage is meant to get students thinking about the topic but a few absolutely necessary lexical items could be taught here.
2. The Task Cycle 2.1 Task
The task phase is meant to be completely communicative and student-centred, where the students use whatever language they have at their disposal for doing the task. The focus is on doing the task successfully and the teacher should not be concerned with lexical or grammatical accuracy at all at this point. The task should be real-world related in order to give them practice with language or skills they would need in the real world.
2.2Planning
The planning stage has the students working in their groups to prepare a report for the rest of the class on what they did in the task phase. The report could be spoken or written.
2.3 Report
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3. Language Focus 3.1Analysis
Typically the Language Focus stage will have students listening to (or reading) a sample of native speakers doing the same task as they did. They are instructed to listen for language (usually expressions) that they could have used when they did the task. Because they did the task relying on only the language they had at their disposal, they should be more receptive to noticing useful expressions in the native speaker sample. If the students are listening for expressions, get them to write them down as they hear them and then have them compare lists with a partner. If you are using a recording, you can play it twice. You can also have students underlining expressions in a text or tape script. After the students have picked out some expressions the teacher should get them up on the board and deal with form, meaning, and, where necessary, pronunciation.
3.2practice
The Language Focus stage ends with controlled practice, which can be any typical practice activity where the students are required to use the target language correctly. A common controlled activity is a substitution drill, where students have to substitute words in a structure.
i. The Application of Task Based Approach in Teaching
Teaching and learning concepts inherent in the ‘task-based’ approach have been summarised by Williams & Burden (1997) in terms of basic principles of education:
3. Learners learn in ways that are meaningful to them
4. Learners learn better if they feel in control of what they are learning 5. Learning is closely linked to how people feel about themselves
6. Learning takes place in a social context through interactions with other people 7. What teachers do in the classroom will reflect their own beliefs and attitudes 8. There is a significant role for the teacher as mediator in the language classroom 9. Learning tasks represent an interface between teachers and learners
10. Learning is influenced by the situation in which it occurs
In English teaching classrooms, the teachers’ concern for meaning-based activities and the researchers’ investigation of patterns of interaction suggest a task-based approach to foreign language instruction. Task-based instruction takes a fairly strong view of communicative language teaching. It is the task which drives the learner’s system forward by engaging acquisitional processes (Long & Crookes, 1993). It is the task which is the unit of syllabus design (Long & Crookes, 1991). A task-based approach sees the learning process as one of learning through doing; it is by primarily engaging in meaning that the learner’s system is encouraged to develop.
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j. Theoretical Assumption
Based on the previous explanation, the researcher comes to the assumption that teaching reading through Task-Based Approach is more very likely to have an effective and relevant impact to increase students’ reading comprehension achievement. Task-Based approach can encourage students actively to be engaged in constructing meaning from text. Moreover, it seems to be able to make meaningful encounters with text resulting from the text that is based on real life, in other words we called it as authentic text, reader’s prior knowledge and experience, information found in the text and broader social context of learning.
It is because Task-based Approach emphasizes in making the students have the skill to comprehend the text clearly by its few steps in the framework. Judging from the previous explanation, the researcher will assert that the students will have more practice and try to say the idea what they will be acquired in the text.
k. Hypotheses
Concerning with the theories and assumptions above, the researcher formulated the hypotheses as follows:
H0: There is not significant increase of students’ reading comprehension
achievement after being taught using Task-based Approach.
H1: There is significant increase of students’ reading comprehension achievement
III. RESEARCH METHOD
This part discusses the research design, the population and sample, data collecting technique, instrument, try out, result of try out, research procedures, data analysis, and hypothesis testing.
3.1 Research Design
In conducting this research, the writer applied one group pretest- posttest, a pra-experimental design. In this design, the pretest and posttest were administered to investigate whether task-based approach can be used to increase students’ reading comprehension achievement. Then, the means (average scores) of both pretest and posttest were compared to find out the progress before and after three times treatment.
There was one class as a subject of the research. This class had both pretest and posttest and three times treatment. The design could be illustrated as follows:
T1 X T2 Which:
X : Treatment, three times (using task-based approach) T1 : Pretest (before treatment)
T2 : Posttest (after treatment)
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The pretest was administered to find out students’ reading comprehension achievement before the treatments. Subsequently, the students got treatments by using task-based approach. Eventually, a posttest was administered to find out the students reading comprehension after three times treatment.
3.2 Population and Sample
Population of this research was the first year students of SMK Negeri 2 Bandar Lampung. The consideration of chosing this school was based on the writer’s assumption that SMKN 2 Bandar Lampung as one of good and favourite school in Bandar Lampung, it should have good students with appropriate language skill to make the research run well. The researcher considered if the students were beginners, it would be hard to apply it on them because in their level they just do what is told (Sevda, 20011). They can not give an output seperately. More over, the students should be accustomed to experiment or do the lessons that they learn (task).
3.3 Data Collecting Technique
In collecting the data, the writer used the following steps: 1. Administering the Pretest
Pretest was administered in order to find out the students’ reading comprehension achievement before treatment. The test was in form of multiple choices that consist of 25 items.
2. Administering the Posttest
Posttest was given after the treatment in order to find out whether there is any improvement of students’ reading comprehension achievement. The test was multiple choices consisted of 25 items and all the items were the same as the pretest.
3.4 Research Instrument
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3.5 Try Out
Whenever a test or other measuring device is used as part of the data collection process, there are four criteria of a good test should be met: validity, reliability, reliability, level of difficulty, and discrimination power. The purpose of doing this try out is to determine the quality of the test as instrument of the research, because a good instrument only would produce quite consistent result when administered under similar condition to the same participant and in different time (Hatch and Farhady, 1982).
1. Validity of the Instrument
A test can be said valid if the test measures the object to be measured and suitable with the criteria (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 250). According to Hatch and Farhady (1982: 251), there are four basic types of validity: face validity, content validity, construct validity and empirical or criterion-related validity. To measure whether the test has good validity, the researcher used content and construct validity since the other two were considered be less needed. Criterion-related validity concerns with measuring the success in the future, as in replacement test (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:251). The two types used in this research were:
a. Content validity
of the knowledge which the teacher wants the students to know, the researcher compared this test with table of specification. A table of specification was an instrument that helps the test constructor plans the test.
Table 3.1 Table specification of the instrument
No Objectives Item Numbers Total
Items Percentage
Construct validity is concerned with whether the test is actually in line with the theory of what reading comprehension means. To know the test is true reflection of the theory in reading comprehension, the researcher examines whether the test questions actually reflect the means of reading comprehension or not.
2. Reliability of the Instrument
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(first half and second half); it was made as if the whole tests have been taken in twice. The first half contained odd numbered and the second half contained even numbered. The correlation between those two parts encountered the realibility of half test by using Pearson Product Moment ( Henning, 1987:60), which is formulated as follows:
Where,
n = number of students
r = coefficient reliability between first and second half = total number of first half
= total number of second half = square of
= square of
= total score of first half items = total score of second half items
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 222)
Then to know the coefficient correlation of the whole items, Spearman Brown’s Pharophecy Formula was used. The formula is as follows:
Where:
rk = the reliability of full test rl =the reliability of half test The criteria of reliability are: 0.90- 1.00 = high
3. Level of Difficulty
Henning (1987: 49) states that themost important characteristic of an item to be accurately determined is its difficulty. To see the level of difficulty, the writer uses the following formula:
Where,
LD = level of difficulty
R = the number of the students who answer correctly N = the total number of the students
The criteria are: < 0.30 = Difficult 0.30- 0.70 = Average > 0.70 = Easy
(Heaton, 1975: 182)
4. Discrimination Power
The discrimination power (DP) is the proportion of the high group students getting the items correct minus the proportion of the low-level students who getting the items correct. In calculating the discrimination power of each item, the following formula is used:
Where,
DP = Discrimination Power
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The criteria are:
DP: 0.00-0.19 = Poor
DP: 0.20-0.39 = Satisfactory DP: 0.40-0.69 = Good DP: 0.70-1.00 = Excellent
DP: - (negative) = Bad items, should be omitted
(Heaton, 1975: 182) 3.6 Results of Try out Test
Before conducting the pretest and posttest, a try out test was carried out. This test was administered in order to determine the quality of the test as instrument of the research. The try out test was administered in the class which did not belong to the experimental class, it was class X TKJ 2. It was conducted on February 15th , 2013 in 60 minutes. The writer prepared multiple choices test that consisted of 40 items. After analyzing the data, the writer got that 26 items were good and 14 items were poor and should be dropped, but the researcher took 25 items only. To find out the reliability of the test, the writer used statistical formula namely Spearmen Brown’s Prophecy Formula. If the reliability tests reach 0.50 the
researcher will consider that it has been reliable. The result of the reliability found through this research was 0,80 (see Appendix 3). By referring to the criteria of the reliability proposed by Hatch and Farhady (1982:268), the test had moderate reliability in the range 0,50-0,89 it indicated that this instrument would produce quite consistent result when administered under similar condition to the same participant and in different time (Hatch and Farhady, 1982).
were easy and ten item was below 0.30 which meant difficult. Meanwhile the rest were between the ranges 0.30-0.70 or belonged to average.
Meanwhile from the computation of discrimination power (see Appendix 4) the writer got fourteen poor items (having less than 2.00 index), 25 items were satisfactory (having higher than 2.00 index) and one good item (has higher than 4.00 index). In general, it can be stated that all items tested had good discrimination power and positive value. In this research, the writer omitted 15 items and administered 25 items that were satisfactory to be used in pretest and posttest.
3.7 Research Procedures
There were some procedures that were applied for taking the data: 1. Selecting the instrument materials
The instrument materials (reading test) were taken from English text book, internet and other sources. The selecting process was considered the materials that would be taught to the students and the students' interest.
2. Determining research instrument
The materials in this research were based on the school based curiculum 2006. The materials were taken from the students’ text book, and internet.
3. Determining the population and the sample
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4. Administering the pretest
The test aim was to know the input or the state of students’ ability in reading comprehension before they were given the treatment. The test was in form of multiple choice questions with five alternative answers for each question. One was the key answer and the rest were distracters.
5. Giving the treatment
There were three times treatments in this research. The Descriptive and procedure text were used as the media in teaching reading to the students by using task based approach.
6. Administering the posttest
The next step was administered the posttest. The type of the test was similar to the pretest. The urgency of giving the test was to find out whether there is any increase of the students’ reading comprehension achievement.
7. Analyzing the result of both pretest and posttest
The next step of the research was analyzing the data. In this step, the researcher drew conclusion from the tabulated results of the pretest and posttest administered.
3.8 Data Treatment
In order to determine whether the data were good or not, the researcher analyzed the data by:
2. Tabulating the scores and calculating the mean of the pretest and posttest. The researcher used a very simple statistic formula to compute the average score or mean of the pretest and posttest. The formula was as follows:
=
Σ
Where:
: mean (average score)
∑x: total number of the student’s score
N : total number of the students (Hatch and Farhady, 1982:5) 3. Administering the Normality Test
This test was used to measure whether the distribution of the data normally distributed or not. The data were tested by One-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Formula (SPSS 15).
The criteria of normal distribution is:
the hypothesis is accepted if the result of the normality test is higher than 0.05
(sign > α). In this case, the researcher used level of significance of 0.05. 4. Calculating from the tabulated scores of the pretest and posttest administered.
Statistically, researcher analyzed the data using repeated measure T-test to test whether the difference between pretest and posttest is significant or not. It was used as the data comes from the same sample (Setiyadi, 2006: 170). The researcher used SPSS version 17.0 to calculate the data.
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3.9 Hypotheses Testing
The hypotheses testing was used to prove which one of the two hypotheses in this research was accepted or not. The hypothesis was statistically analyzed using repeated measures T-test that is used to draw conclusion in significant level of 0.05 (P<0.005).
The formulation was:
= X 1−X 2
With: = ∑ (∑ )
Where:
X = Mean from pretest X = Mean from posttest
SD = Standard error of differences between means
n = Subjects on sample
(Hatch and Farhady, 1982:114) The criteria are:
1. If the t-ratio is higher than t-table: H1 is accepted
2. If the t-ratio is lower than t-table: H0 is accepted
V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter present conclusion based on the research result and some suggestions for teachers and further researchers.
5.1Conclusion
49 5.2 Suggestions
By considering the conclusion above, the researcher proposes some suggestions as follows:
1. Suggestions to the teacher
a. English teachers are recommended to apply task- based approach as one of the ways in teaching especially reading because it can help the students to comprehend the text by applying it in the real life situation.
b. To overcome difficulty in finding inference, it will be better for the teacher to make student to have more practice in finding inference and equip the students with some vocabularries that might be used.
c. Referring to these two criteria of task, presence of a work plan and connection ro real-world (Ellis, 2003), teacher should make highly good preparation before applying it in order to make the process works well. In addition, within a good work plan there will be good time alocation management.
d. Teachers are suggested to be more creative and innovative in making various kinds of interesting task, in order to make the students more active and encouraged to learn. Then, in making a good task teacher should consider students’ ability, so that they can do the task well.
2. Suggestions to further researchers
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