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A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON STUDENTS’ READING COMPETENCE BETWEEN STUDENTS WHO GOT WEEKLY VOCABULARY TASK AND THOSE WHO DID NOT - repository perpustakaan

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1. Definition of Reading

There are many definitions of reading. Reading is a process done by reader to get message or information from the writer through printed media. It is very complex process which recognize and comprehend written symbols are influenced by perceptual skill, decoding, experiences, language background, mind set and reasoning of reader (Tarigan, 2008). Reading is a process of constructing meaning can be achieved through dynamic instruction among the following aspects: the reader‟s prior knowledge, the information suggested by the text, and the context of the reading situation (Klingner, Vaughn and Boardman, 2007).

Based on explanations above, reading is an active process in comprehending and understanding what have been read. Therefore, reading is an activity to get information from the written language and by reading people are able to comprehend the text.

2. Major Components of Reading

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a. Decoding knowledge

Knowledge used to determine the oral equivalent of a written word. Decoding knowledge is important for comprehension when determining the oral equivalent of a word helps a reader to identify meaning.

b. Vocabulary knowledge

Knowledge about word meanings used to determine the appropiate meaning for a word in part text.

c. Syntactic knowledge

Knowledge of sentence syntax, or word order, is also crucial for the comprehension process. Knowledge of the word order that determine grammatical function and sometimes the meaning and pronunciation of word.

d. Discourse knowledge

It refers to knowledge of language organization of units beyond the single sentence level including knowledge of the structural organization of different types of writing.

e. Reading aspect

It refers to the students‟ ability to benefit from initial reading instruction. Also refers to the students‟ ability to read and understand a particular

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f. Affective aspect

It refers to on reading comprehension, include both interest and attitude. These increase motivation and facilitate reading comprehension. All readers comprehend better when they are interested in reading.

3. The purposes of reading

The good reading is reading for purpose. There are some purposes of reading (Tarigan, 2008: 9-11), as follows:

a. Reading for Details or Facts

Finding out and knowing the discoveries which the figure has done and made, as well as happened to the special character or to solve problems made by the figure.

b. Reading for Main Ideas

Finding out why topic is good and interesting, problems in the story, everything is learned and happened, and summarizes the things done by the figure to get the purpose. Example: the students find out the main idea of each paragraf after reading.

c. Reading for Sequence or Organization

Discovering the events happened in the story one by one, starting from the first part, the second part, the third part and so on. Example: the readers are able to tell the sequence of events happened in a text. d. Reading for Inferences

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change, the qualities that the figure has which make them succeed or fail.

e. Reading to classify

Discovering and find out anything unusual, unnatural about the character, whether there is a funny part or not, and whether the story is true or not.

f. Reading to evaluate

Finding out whether the figure succeed or live with certain sizes, whether we want to do like what is done, or work like the figure done in the story.

g. Reading to compare and contrast

Discovering the changing of the figure‟s life, his different life from

us, how the two stories have in common. 4. Aspect of Reading

There are two important aspects of reading skill (Tarigan, 2008: 12-13), they are:

1. Mechanical skill

Mechanical skill as the lower order. This aspect involves: a. Introduction of characters‟ form

b. Introduction of linguistic element (phone, word, phrase, clause, sentence, etc)

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2. Comprehension skill

Comprehension skill is considered as a higher order. This aspect involves:

a. Understanding simple meaning (lexical, grammatical) b. Understanding of the meaning of the goal of the author c. Evaluating

d. The speed of reading which is flexible. 5. Types of Reading

In understanding any type of resources, people are able to do some reading activities. There are two types of reading according to Harmer (2001: 210). They are:

a. Extensive Reading

Students are encouraged to read whatever they want to read. The purpose of extensive reading is to develop students‟ word

recognition and for their improvement as readers overall. b. Intensive Reading

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6. Types of Evaluation

After comprehending of what we read, there should be an assessment to know how far we really comprehend the reading materials. There are some evaluations in reading (Brown, 2001: 308):

a) Doing : the reader responds physically to a command. b) Choosing : the reader selects from alternatives posed orally or

writing.

c) Transfering : the reader summarizes orally what is read.

d) Answering : the reader answers the questions about the passage. e) Condesing : the reader outlines or takes note on passage.

f) Extending : the reader provides an ending to a story.

g) Duplicating : the reader translates the message into the native language or copies it.

h) Modeling : the reader puts together a toy, for example, after reading directions for assembly.

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B. Vocabulary

1. Definition of Vocabulary

Vocabulary is one of the most obvious components of language and one of the first things applied linguists turned their attention. Besides that, vocabulary can be defined as a list of word to expess a wide range of meaning (Richards, 2001: 16). Vocabulary is the basic point to master language and of critical importance to typical language learners (Fauziati, 2005: 155). The other experts said that vocabulary is a list of target language words for particular language or a list of word that the individual speaker might be (Nunan, 1999: 101 and Hatch and Brown, 1995: 1). It can be concluded that the vocabulary is a word or list of words with meaning and which is known by the speakers and which is used to communicate and can be used by a group or individual.

2. The Importance of Vocabulary

In language, vocabulary is very important to express the idea, thought, and feeling. The function of vocabulary also as language components to communicate with others. In order to communicate well in language, students should have a sufficient number of words and know how to use them correctly. Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed (Thornbury, 2002: 13). It means that vocabulary is the main element in communication.

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English foreign language. In reading, vocabulary helps learners in comprehending the text. In writing, it helps learners to expand their ideas based on the topic sentence that they want. In listening, it helps the learners in comprehending and understanding what other person speaks. In speaking, vocabulary facilitates the learners to explain their ideas orally. In short, without mastering the vocabulary, it will be difficult to master English well.

Based on the previous description, the development of a rich vocabulary is an important element in learning a language. There will be miss communication if the students do not have enough vocabulary. In addition, the students are able to master four language skills such as reading, listening, writing, and speaking depending on the quality of their vocabulary.

3. Kinds of Vocabulary

Relating to the definition of vocabulary, it is important for us to know the kinds of vocabulary. There are two kinds of vocabulary namely receptive vocabulary and productive vocabulary (Hatch & Brown, 1995).

a. Receptive vocabulary

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vocabulary is larger than speaking vocabulary similarly to reading vocabulary which is larger than writing vocabulary.

b. Productive vocabulary

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particular item (such as a prefix, root, and suffix). There are some kinds of formation words are as follows:

1) Inflectional Affixes

Inflectional affixes indicate grammatical function with the type of root. In English there are six inflectional affixes:

Inflectional

Affixes Root Example

Plural Noun Girls

Possessive Noun Girl’s

Comparative Adjective Taller

Superlative Adjective Tallest

Present Verb Writes

Past Verb Listened

2) Derivational Affixes

Derivational affixes are endings that indicate the parts of speech. The following forms are the examples:

A noun can be made by adding –ment, -ion or tion to the verb; -ness to adjective; -cy or –an to the noun.

An adjective can be made by adding –n, -an or –ian to noun. An adverb can be made by adding –ly to adjective.

3) Compound Words

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For examples:

Examples

N + N Classroom

Adj + N Greenhouse

Prep + prep Into

V + prep Put on

N + V Earthquake

Two separated words Swimming pool Hyphenated words Follow-up

2. Meaning

Meaning involves the way that form and meaning work together, in other words, the concept and what items it refers to, and the associations that come to mind when people think about a specific word or expression. Another aspect that cannot be ignored in aspect of meaning is relationship. It shows how the meaning of one item relates to the meaning of others. There are various such relationships:

a) Synonyms: items that mean the same or almost the same, for example: „bright‟, „clever‟, „smart‟ served as synonyms of „intelligent‟.

b) Antonyms: items that mean the opposite; „rich‟ is an antonym of „poor‟.

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d) Homonyms: words that usually have the same form but indicates unrelated meaning or they are the same in the sound but different in spelling. For example, meat-meet, tail-tale, aloud-allowed.

e) Co-hyponyms: other items that are the same kind thing such as red, blue, green, and brown are coordinates.

f) Super ordinates: general concepts that cover specific items; „animal‟ is the super ordinates of „lion‟, „dog‟, „mouse‟, etc.

3. Use

Use involves the grammatical functions of the word or phrase, collocations that normally go with it, and finally any constraints on its use, in terms of frequency, level, and so forth.

5. The Problems of Learning Vocabulary

These are some problems indirectly faced by the students in learning vocabulary items such as in pronunciation, spelling, memorizing and also in using word in sentences or in oral communication. Those briefly described below:

a. Pronounciation Problem

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b. Spelling Problem

Learning spelling is important because it can improve the learners‟ ability of the language skills especially writing and reading. The following are some of spelling problems:

1. Misundertanding between the speaker and the hearer. For example, when the teacher said “to” and then the students wrote “two”, and so on.

2. The students do not know how to spell the word correctly. For example, the students do not know how to spell “make” and then they spell it “mek”.

c. Memorizing Problem

There are some problems in memorizing, such as:

1. The students have low motivation to learn vocabulary. 2. The students have difficulties to memorize the new words. 3. The student do not always use the words they have known to

communicate in daily activities. The longer they meet the words, the faster they forget them.

4. Some English teacher do not find and use suitable technique to teach vocabulary in which the suitable technique can develop the students‟ ability of memorizing the words.

d. Meaning Problem

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Indonesian in learning English. Sometimes the Indonesian are difficult to know and understand the meaning of English word because there are some meanings in one English word and also there is a changing of its function in sentences, whether it is noun, verb or adjective.

6. Learning Vocabulary

Learning vocabulary is an important part of learning a language. The more words one know, the more one will be able to understand what is heard and read, and the better one will be able to say what he or she delivers when speaking or writing. In learning vocabulary, the learners need a strategy.

Abdul Majid (2013: 3) gathered some terminologies from some experts, they are as follows:

a. Mintzberg and Waters (1983) stated that strategies are realized as pattern in stream of decisions or actions.

b. Hardy, Langley, and Rose in Sudjana (1986) explained that strategy is perceived as a plan or a set of explicit intention preceeding and controlling actions.

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the first time, and the ones to consolidate meaning when learners encounter words again. They are as follows:

1. Determination strategies

Determination strategy is used when “learners are faced with discovering a new word‟s meaning without recourse to another person‟s

experience.

2. Social strategies

Cooperative group learning through which learners study and practice the meaning of new words in a group is an instance of social strategies for consolidating a word.

3. Cognitive strategies

Cognitive strategies in this taxonomy are similar to memory strategies but are not focused on manipulative mental processing. They include repetition and using mechanical means such as word lists, flash cards, and vocabulary notebooks to study words.

4. Metacognitive strategies

Metacognitive strategies in Schmitt‟s taxonomy are defined as

strategies used by learners to control and evaluate their own learning, by having an overview of the learning process in general.

5. Memory strategies

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C. Weekly Vocabulary Task

1. The Nature of Weekly Vocabulary Task

In learning vocabulary, there are many ways like the writer has explained above. There is a learning vocabulary strategy which the learners have to practise and recall the new vocabulary. It is weekly vocabulary task. Weekly vocabulary task is an activity conducted by an English teacher in one of Junior High Schools in Purwokerto.

In this activity, the teacher provides a list of vocabulary followed by the meaning in Indonesian (see appendix 1). In making list of vocabulary, the teacher sorts and chooses the words which are often used for junior high level. The list of vocabulary start from letter A until Z. Then the teacher gives a task. The task which is given to the students is they have to memorize 50 words starting from letter A. In doing the task, the students use memory strategy/mnemonics.

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The task is done at home as a homework. After that, once a week, they do test about the vocabulary that they have learned or memorized before. The test was conducted because based on the teacher‟s experience before applying

this activity, there were many students who ignored the task since they were only given a task to memorize without doing test. The teacher gives matching test for evaluation (see appendix 1). Before doing the test, the teacher gives brainstorming. The teacher says the word in a correct pronounciation. While the teacher is doing this activity, the students can also recall the vocabulary. This activity is done continually every week.

2. Advantages and Limitation of Weekly Vocabulary Task a) Advantages

Weekly vocabulary task as one of vocabulary learning strategies helps the learners in enriching their vocabulary. In every week, the students get 50 new words. Therefore, there will be additional words in every week. The students who get weekly vocabulary task also have more words than the students who do not get weekly vocabulary task because in every week they should learn 50 words and in one month they will master 200 words.

b) Limitation

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not learn or read the words anymore. There are also some words which are low frequency words. For example the words aerial, afar, adolescence. Those words are not often used. The list of vocabulary task also do not based on the topic that they are learning.

D. Basic Assumption

Reading comprehension is not easy for some students, so the students need something which is useful to help them comprehending the text well. Weekly vocabulary task can help the students in comprehending the text. Because vocabulary is the important thing in mastering some language skills such as reading, listening, writing, and speaking, by mastering the vocabulary as well as having a large number of vocabulary, comprehending the text will be easy. Bromley (2004), in a comprehensive review of research on vocabulary development, concludes that vocabulary knowledge promotes reading fluency, boosts reading comprehension, improves academic achievement, and enhances thinking and communication.

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week. By getting weekly vocabulary task it is expected to have good reading competence.

E. Hyphothesis

Based on the previous explanation, the hypothesis of this research was there is significant difference on students‟ reading competence between students who got weekly vocabulary task and those who did not.

Gambar

Figure 2.1 Vocabularies

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