CHAPTER II
THEORITICAL REVIEW
A. Reading
1. Definition of Reading
Reading is one of the language skills which is important in
language acquisition. Due to the importance, many researchers develop
their study on reading and make the definition of reading more varied.
The terms of reading are defined differently based on the experts’ own
thoughts of reading. There are some definitions and explanations of the
term which have been proposed. Alyousef (2005: 144) explained that
reading is an “interactive” process between a reader and a text which
leads to automaticity or (reading fluency). In this process, the reader
interacts dynamically with the text as he or she tries to elicit the
meaning and where various kinds of knowledge are being used.
Another definition of reading comes from Mikulecky.
Mikulecky (2008: 1) stated that reading is a conscious and unconscious
thinking process. The reader applies many strategies to reconstruct the
meaning that the author is assumed to have intended. The reader does
this by comparing information in the text to his or her background
knowledge and prior experience. Moreover, Alfassi (in Zare et al.,
crucial for adequate functioning and for obtaining information in
current society and requires an integration of memory and meaning
construction.
From the explanations above, it can be concluded that reading is
a process in which readers interact with written or printed texts using
their background knowledge and prior experience to gain the
information of the text. In the other words, it can be said that reading is
not just dealing with decoding words, but also constructing the meaning
of the texts.
2. Reading Comprehension
It is necessary for the students of Vocational High School to
master reading comprehension. Cooper (1986:11) states that
Comprehension is a process in which the reader may construct meaning
by interacting with the text. In reading comprehension, a reader should
have knowledge about understanding the reading passage. The common
questions on the passages are primarily about the main ideas, details,
and an inference that can be drawn from the passages.
According to Singer (1985) reading comprehension has been
defined as an interpretation of written symbols, the apprehending of
meaning, the assimilation of ideas presented by the written, and the
process of thinking while deciphering symbols. Further, the process of
and involvement with written language is called reading comprehension
(Snow, 2002:11). Reading comprehension is related closely to the
cognitive competence of the readers, because this will produce
comprehension.
Dealing with gallery walk, in comprehending a topic, there are
some techniques that can be use by reader. Skimming and scanning are
two very useful techniques that will help the reader become a better
reader.
a. Skimming
Harmer states that skimming as reading for general
understanding or gist (2006: 283). This reading technique is used if one
wants to get a general impression of a book, essay, article, and
determine whether or not to read it more carefully. Moreover, Yorkey
(1982: 134) defines that there are two purposes of skimming: to locate a
specific word, fact, or idea quickly, and to get a rapid general
impression of the material. Azies & Alwasilah (1996:114) said
“Skimming activity involve reading process, although the speed of
reading is faster than usually”.
Thus, in skimming the text, a reader needs to practice in order
he or she can learn the key words and phrases which can cover all the
through a passage quickly, jumping over parts of it, in order to get a
general idea of what it is about.
b. Scanning
Scanning is quickly reading to find the specific information.
Brown (2001:308) stated that, scanning is quickly searching for some
particular piece or pieces of information in a text.
“Students need to be able to scan the text for particular bits of
information they are searching for (as, for example, when we look for
telephone number, what’s on television at a certain time or search
quickly through an article looking for a name or other detail). This skill
means that they do not have to read every word and line.” Harmer
(2007: 100). When scanning the reader lets his or her eyes wander over
the text until he or she is looking for, whether it is a place, a kind of
food, a kind of verb, or a specific information. To enable the student to
scan effectively, he or she should know what kinds of information he or
she needs, also, he or she should have the strong belief where he or she
will find such information needed from the text.
B. Teaching Reading
1. The Principle of Teaching Reading
Teaching reading is not only asking the students to read a lot.
There are some principles that should be considered in planning reading
a. Reading is not a passive skill
b. Student need to be engaged with what they are reading.
c. Student should be encouraged to respond to the content of a
reading text, not just language.
d. Prediction is a major factor in reading.
e. Match the task to the topic.
f. Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.
In addition, in teaching reading a teacher also has to know the
aspects and components of reading that should be involved in reading
instructions.
Leu and Kinzer (1987) propose two aspects and four
components of reading comprehension process which should be
involved in reading instruction. The two aspects and four components
will be defined as follows.
a. Reading aspects
1) Affective aspects; it refers to students’ attitude and interest.
2) Reading aspects; it refers to students’ ability to read and
understand a particular selection.
b. Reading components
1) Discourse knowledge; it refers to knowledge of structural
2) Syntactic knowledge; it refers to knowledge of the word-order
rules that determine grammatical function and sometimes the
meaning and pronunciation of words.
3) Vocabulary knowledge; it refers to knowledge of word
meanings used to the appropriate meaning for a word in
particular context.
4) Decoding knowledge; it refers to knowledge used to determine
the oral equivalent of a written word.
By knowing the principles, aspects and components of reading,
it will help teacher in planning reading lesson to make the students
develop their reading ability properly.
2. Step in Teaching Reading
Teaching reading is not like teaching other skills where there
must be at least three steps of teaching: pre, whilst, and post reading.
Rohim (2009: 4-10) in the Ministry of Educational Book of Teaching
Reading, proposes some steps in teaching reading started from teaching
before-reading to after-reading.
a. Before-Reading
1) Preview the text by looking at the title, the pictures, and the
print in order to evoke relevant thoughts and memories
2) Build background by activating appropriate prior knowledge
the topic (or story), the vocabulary, and the from in which the
topic (or story) is presented
3) Set purposes for reading by asking questions about what they
want to learn during the reading process.
b. During-Reading
1) Check understanding of the text by paraphrasing the author’s
words.
2) Monitor comprehension and use fix-up strategies; use the
cueing systems to figure out unknown words an imaging,
imagining, inferencing, and predicting.
3) Integrate new concepts with existing knowledge; continually
revise purposes for reading.
c. After-Reading
1) Summarize what they have read by retelling the plot of the
story or the main idea of the text.
2) Interpret and evaluate the ideas contained in the text.
3) Make applications of the ideas in the text to unique situations,
extending the ideas to broader perspectives.
4) Use study strategies for note taking, locating, and remembering
to improve content- area learning.
It is important for teacher to consider the steps in teaching
reading. With the right kind of those steps, students’ comprehension
3. Macro And Micro Skills of Reading
There are four basic skills (macro skills) of language. Harmer
(1992: 16) states that the four basic skills are listening, reading, writing
and speaking. In order to use language skills, language users need
number of sub-skills (micro skills) for processing the language they
used. As this research is dealing with reading skill, language user needs
to know that reading builds on several micro skills as mentioned by
Brown (2001: 307).
a. Discriminates among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic
patterns of English.
b. Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short-term
memory.
c. Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
d. Recognize a core words, an interpret word order patterns and their
significance.
e. Recognize grammatical word classes (noun, verbs, exc.) systems
(e.g. tense, agreement, pluralization ), patterns ,rules, and elliptical
forms.
f. Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different
grammatical forms.
g. Recognize cohesive device in written discourse and their
h. Recognize the communicative functions of written and their
significance from and purpose.
i. Infer context that is not explicitly by using background knowledge.
j. Infer links and connections between as main idea, supporting idea,
new information, given information, generalization, and
exemplification.
k. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
l. Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context
of the cultural schemata.
m. Develop and use battery of reading strategies such as scanning and
skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of
words from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation
of texts.
These micro-skills are as vehicle to get the intended information
in the process of reading. The language users are able to select at least
one of these micro skills appropriate to their purposes on their reading.
In this case, the research chooses three micro skills in reading as a
vehicle to arrange lesson plan and assessment to be applied for the
learners as they are the language users. Therefore, the micro skills that
will be used in this research are discriminating among the distinctive
graphemes and orthographic patterns of English, recognizing that a
particular meaning may be expressed in different grammatical from,
main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information,
generalization, and exemplification.
4. Genre-Based in Teaching Reading
Nowadays, the English curriculum uses genre-based in teaching
reading in Indonesia. Rohim (2009:17) states that genre study aims to
group texts according to type, and to identify and describe features
which texts of a particular genre have in common. There are at least 16
types of text in genre.
Based on the syllabus in first semester in tenth grade of
vocational school, the genre types that will be taught are descriptive
text. Thus, this research focused on descriptive text. Then, the
understanding of descriptive text will be explained.
There are some definitions and explanations of the descriptive
text which have been proposed. Wardiman et al. (2008: 115) explained
that a descriptive text is a text that describes the features of someone,
something, or a certain place. It is divided in two parts, Introduction
which is the part of the paragraph that introduces the character, and
Description which is the part of the paragraph that describes the
character. According to Priyana et al. (2008: 130-140), Descriptive text
is a text which is telling about the characteristics of a particular thing,
such as person’s characteristics or description. A descriptive text is
features of a thing, person, or animal. Descriptive texts often use neutral
and objective language. The present tense is mostly used in descriptive
texts. The past tense is also used to describe an object that does not
exist anymore.
Another definition of descriptive text comes from Kane. Kane in
Yuli Hermita and Triana (2014: 31) stated that descriptive text is
description about sensory experience -how something looks, sounds,
tastes. Mostly it is about visual experience, but description also deals
with other kinds of perception. The purpose of descriptive text is to
describe and reveal a particular person, place, or thing in details or
specific to make the reader be able to visualize the description.
Further, The language features usually found in descriptive text
are stated by Hammond in Mursyid PW (2014: 4-5), language features
of descriptive often uses 'be' and 'have'. Tense which is often used is
Simple Present Tense. However, sometimes it uses Past tense if the
thing to be described doesn't exist anymore. And the Significant
Grammatical Features they are :
a. Focus on specific participants ;
b. Use of Simple Present Tense
c. Use of Simple Past Tense if Extinct;
d. Verbs of being and having;
f. Use of detailed Noun Phrase to give information about the
subject;
g. Use of action verbs;
h. Use of adverbials to give additional information about behavior
i. And Use of Figurative language
Moreover, The generic structures of descriptive text are stated
by Wardiman (2008: 122) The generic structures of a description are as
follows:
a. Identification : identifies the phenomenon to be described
b. Description of features : describes features in order of
importance:
1) Parts/things (physical appearance)
2) Qualities (degree of beauty, excellence, or worth/value)
3) Other characteristics (prominent aspects that are unique).
The descriptive text also has some purposes as mentined by
Barbara in Fauzi (2011: 21) the purposes of description text are:
a. To entertain the reader
b. To express feelings
c. To relate experience
d. To inform (for a reader unfamiliar with the subject)
e. To inform (to create a fresh appreciation for the familiar)
From the description above It can be concluded that descriptive
text is used to describe everything like describing people, describing
place and describing things, which is seen by writer in detail. It also
uses the present tense and the past tense if the object does not exist
anymore. And the purposes of descriptive text are to entertain, express
feelings, relate experience, inform, and persuade the reader.
5. Problem in Teaching Reading
There are some problems commonly faced by the teacher which
are usually caused by the students’ difficulties in comprehending
reading. Westwood (2008) finds the common difficulties as follows.
a. Inappropriate method in teaching
b. Difficulties in word recognition and decoding
c. Difficulties with fluency
d. Poor short-term and/ work memory
e. Lack of reading engagement
Thus, gallery walk are expected to be an effective tool in
teaching reading. It is because the Gallery walk promotes high order
thinking, monitoring, analyzing, long-term memory, and reading
6. Reading Assessment
In finding out the effectiveness of Gallery Walk in teaching
reading the research should know the progress and the development of
teaching-learning process. Therefore, the development of students’
achievement in reading should be evaluated before and after they have
done the teaching-learning process which uses Gallery Walk. As
mention by Purwanto (2010: 12-15), evaluation can be functioned to
identify the students’ achievement, intelligence, attitude, and etc. He
also adds that it can also be used to identify the problem in
teaching-learning process that the teacher and students are able to improve their
teaching-learning strategies, measure the effectiveness of teaching
methods, find out the correlation between students’ various ability,
attitude, achievement, and etc.
In conducting an evaluation, there are some instruments used by
the evaluator appropriate to the purpose of the evaluation. The
examples of the instruments are observation, anecdotal records,
achievement test, and personality test (Purwanto, 2010: 20). As this
research is intended to find out the effectiveness of Gallery Walk in
reading focusing on descriptive text, this research evaluated the
development of students’ achievement in reading descriptive text after
being treated by Gallery Walk. The evaluation result was compared
with the one of the students taught by conventional method. Thus, the
Achievement test, usually conducted by the teacher, is divided
into two; oral test and written test, and in written test there are essay
and objective test (Sudjana, 2001: 25-55). This research chose objective
test as a tool to measure the development of students’ achievement in
reading procedure. It is because reading mostly deals with
comprehension and an objective test is an appropriate tool to measure
students’ achievement result in comprehension. Purwanto (2010:36)
states that an objective test is considered to be a good tool in measuring
the instructional result in the level of knowledge, comprehension,
application and analysis, but it is not appropriate in the level of
synthetic and evaluation.
There are various types of objective test proposed by Purwanto
(2010: 35-36) as follows:
1. Completion type test
a. Completion test
b. Fill-in the blank
2. Selection type test
a. True-false
b. Multiple choice
c. Matching
From the various types of objective test above, this research
order to measure the students’ achievement progress in comprehending
reading procedure.
As this research evaluated students’ comprehension in reading,
the assessment should contain the micro skills of reading chosen as the
objectives to test. The micro skills of reading chosen in this research are
discriminating among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic
patterns of English, recognizing that a particular meaning may be
expressed in different grammatical form, inferring links and
connections between events, ideas, cause and effects, main idea,
supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization,
and exemplification. Therefore, the test items should be able to assess
those micro skills.
C. Gallery Walk
1. Definition of Gallery Walk
Many techniques can be implemented for teaching reading. One
of them is Gallery Walk. According to Silberman (2006:274), Gallery
Walk is a way to judge and remember what students have learned.
Gallery Walk is also a method that can be used in learning process in
order to increase skills to discover new knowledge and make students
easier to recall, especially the materials to be memorized. Francek
“Gallery walk is a discussion technique that gets students out of their chair and actively involved in synthesizing important science concepts, writing, and public speaking. The technique also cultivates listening and team building skill”.
Moreover, Donnette Fernandez & Karen Streich-Rodgers (2010:
10) state that Gallery Walk “is a cooperative learning strategy in which
the instructor devises several questions/problems and posts each
question/problem at a different table or at a different place on the walls
(hence the name "gallery"). Students form as many groups as there are
questions, and each group moves from question to question (hence the
name "walk"). After writing the group’s response to the first question,
the group rotates to the next position, adding to what is already there.
At the last question, it is the group's responsibility to summarize and
report to the class”.
In the implementation of teaching learning process, gallery walk
also has purposes, they are:
a. Interest the student on the topic which will be learned.
b. Give opportunity to students to show their knowledge and
conviction about the topic they will be learned (the true or
wrong concept/view).
c. Stimulus the students to discover knowledge they have got
d. Encourage students to expand their knowledge and skill
(thinking, monitoring, communicating, and cooperating) in
collecting new information.
e. Give opportunity to the students to classify, process, and
present new information and comprehension they get.
f. Give opportunity to the students to determine their own way to
demonstrate what they have learned, including comprehension,
skill, attitude, and value. (Marini, 2012: 4)
From the definition of gallery walk which is explained by some
experts above, the researcher concludes that Gallery Walk is a model
which is designed to be used in various needs in learning process to
make students active and interest which can help student to discover
new knowledge and recall the material they have learned.
2. The Step of Gallery Walk
Silberman (2006: 274-275) also explains the procedure of
self-judgment approach using gallery walk, there are:
a. Arrange students into teams of two to four.
b. Post several discussion questions on different places on classroom
walls.
c. Ask each team to discuss what they have got in their gallery with
their members.
e. Hang the answers or the list on the wall below their questions.
f. Ask the student teams to walk through each list to review what
previous groups have written and give check mark near the result
which they get on the list or add new content. The groups rotate to
the next list continuously until all posted questions are addressed.
g. Survey the result, inspect the result that commonly get. Explain the
part of result that not appropriate.
h. The team which gets response has an opportunity to defend their
work.
3. The Advantages And The Disadvantages of Gallery Walk
a. The Advantages of Gallery Walk
In the implementation of teaching learning process using
Gallery Walk there are many advantages will be got. The strengths
of gallery walk are:
1) Dedicate time for students to practice discussing, debating, and
organizing.
2) Promote the use of higher order thinking skills like, analysis,
evaluation, and synthesis
3) emphasize the collaborative, constructed nature of knowledge
because students work in teams to synthesize information
4) encourage alternative approaches to problems, because students
are exposed to a variety of perspectives posted at different
discussion "stations" (Taylor, P. 2001)
5) reassure students that their voices, ideas, and experiences are
valued because students are more likely to share ideas among a
non threatening group of peers (Taylor, P. 2001)
6) promote team building, fosters debate, and encourages
consensus as students work together to accurately represent
group member's ideas at different Gallery Walk "stations.
With this strength, the researcher expects it can make
students active and acquire reading properly.
b. The Disadvantages of Gallery Walk
Using gallery walk in teaching learning process also has
some weaknesses. Marini (2012: 4) mentions the weaknesses of
gallery walk, there are:
1) If the team has a lot of members, it is possible to some
members do not work and just follow the other member work.
2) Teacher needs extra power to monitor and check student
activity both in an individual or collective.
3) Class setting arrangement will be more complicated.
These weaknesses can be minimized by doing student
some instrument tools which have arranged appropriate with the
needed which can support the effectiveness and the successful of
Gallery Walk.
D. Basic Assumption
Based on the explanation above that gallery walk is believed to be
an appropriate technique to improve students’ reading comprehension. It
dedicates time for students to practice discussing, debating, organizing,
and writing the language of what they see in the gallery display. It will
make students active to share their ideas rather than just hearing ideas
presented by the teacher. It also promotes the use of higher order thinking
skills like analysis, evaluation, and synthesis when the teachers choose the
proper level of abstraction when designing questions. Through this skill
the students will get more information, knowledge, comprehension and
experiences which can help student to remember easily about what they
have learned.
E. Hypothesis
Based on the explanation above, the researcher claims hypothesis
that “there is an impact of gallery walk on students’ reading
