READING COMPREHENSION PROCESS BY STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT LEARNING STYLES.

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ABSTRACT

Masbe, Herina. Readi ng Comprehension Process by Stude nts with Different Learning Styles. A Thesis. Eng lis h A pplied Linguistcs S tudy Program Postgraduate School, State University of M edan. 201 L

The objecti ves of th is qualitative research were to: d isco ver the read ing comprehension processes of students with visual and auditory learning styles in understand ing exposition and narrative texts. The questionnaire consist of 30 items was gi ven to 70 students Semester VI students of State Institute for Islam ic Studies Medan, North Sumatera (1nstitut Agama Islam Negeri Sumatera Utara: lAIN- SU) The learning styles to be discovered were visual and auditory. The result of the analysis items, only six students were chosen as the sample. Because the learnin g styles in focused were only visual and auditory, without any combinations of visual and auditory or vice versa.

Based on the findings, the students with visual and auditory learning style applied interactive models, the combination of bottom- up and top- down models i.e visual learners applied interactive method in reading exposition text, especially bottom up and top down method and generalizing idea or statement while the auditory learners applied top- down process especially, sampling, predicting and testing. In reading narrative text, the visual learners applied bottom up and top down method while auditory learners applied recognizing word/ phrase meaning, pronouncing and predicting. Therefore, it can be concluded that the learning styles affect the students reading comprehension process.

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READING COMPREHENSION PROCESS

BY STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT

LEARNING STYLES

Adviser I

A

THESIS

HERINA MASBE

Registra tion Number:

0821 8833(1075

English Applied Linguistics Study Program

Postgraduate School State University of Medan

Approved By

Adviser Commision

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Approval of Board of Examiners

Thesis Examiners of Magister Humaniora

This thesis was examined on March 3rd, 20 II

by

the Board of Examiners

Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph. D.

NIP. 19550113 198203 I 002

Adviser I

Prof. Tina Mariany

A.

M.A., Ph. D.

NIP. 19440302 196902 2 001

Adviser II

Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M. Pd.

NIP. 196104251986012001

Examiner I

Dr. Syahron Lubis, M.A.

NIP. 19511013197603001

Examiner II

Dr. Eddy Setia, M.Ed. TESP.

NIP. 1957041 21984031001

Examiner

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-~---ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The writer has been very fortunate to have many excellent people to assists her in the completing this thesis_ She has to admit that all the hardships faced and solved are not without the Bl essings, Guidance, Health and luck from ALLAH SWT

She bows her for everything that has been po wered to her and ex press her deepest gratitude _

A special debt of thankfulness is extended to Prof Amrin Saragih, M_ A., Ph_ D_ her First Adviser, for being so generous in sharing this valuabl e knowledge, sound criticisms and suggestions during the process of completing this thesis_

A sincere appreciation goes to Prof Hj. Tina Mariany Arifin., M_ A. Ph_ D her Second Adviser for excellent ideas, great advise and valuable time spent in reading and correcting mistakes in this thesis_ She gave full attention to students during her time as Head English Applied Lingustics_'

In addition, a special gratitude is deliver to Prof Busmin Guming, M. Pd and Professor Lince Sihombing, M. Pd, As Head and Secretary English Applied Lin guistics Study Program for completing the administrative procedures.

She is also very grateful· to: Prof. Dr. Lince Sihombing, M. Pd., Dr. Syahron Lubis, M. A., and Dr. Eddy Setia, M. Ed., TESP as reviwers and examiners study program for their ideas tobe includeded in shaping up this thesis and all lectuyrers for theirs knowledge _

During the processes o f doing this academ ic work, She has collaborated with many colleagues for whom she has great regards, then she wishes to extend her warmest thanks to all those who has helped her with her research

in

lAIN- SU, YPI

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HF and her former colleagues from - B I and 8-2/ XJV especially K' Mirna, K' Norma, K' Rasima, K' Yati, and K' Nining for their extremely valuable comments and suggestions into tills writing_ Her warm thanks are due too all friends who supported her throughout this study and work K ' Pipit, !nun, Fiya, Melva, Bella, Eva, TW and all frien ds from PBI-1 IAIN-SU' 03 Good Luck _

Finally, it is diffic ult for express the harm ful word s, she has to converse the great care, full support, attention and prayer for, Sarndi ah, A Ma, Pd and Muharnrnadiyah, S. Pd. Her parents. lsraq Maharani, S.Pd.J and Dharcosyahputra_ Her sister and brother.

Aamiin

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Thank you so much for every thing and hope ALLAH will repay everyt hing.

Medan, February 2011 The writer,

Herina Masbe

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study_ .. · __ ___ ___ .. ... .. · ··_· -1.2 Research problems _________ ·--- --- -- -- 5 1.3 Objectives of the Study ______ ____ _____________ .___ __ ____ 5 1.4 Scope of the Study... . ... 6 I .5 Significance of the Study ... 7 1.6 Limitation of the Study... 7

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF. LITERATURE.

2.1 Reading and Comprehension ... . ... .. ... 9 2.1.1 Reading. __ ._ ... _. ____ . ________ . ____ .. _ .. _ ... _.___ l 0 2.1.2 Comprehension. _____ ... __ .. .. .. o o .. . . __ • • . . . . 12

2.1.3 Reading Comprehension ______________ o oo o - o o o o . 14

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II

2.3.1 V AK (Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic)

ModeL. ... ... . ... 31

2.3.1.2 Auditory Learners. .. ... . ... ... 34

2.3.1.3 Kinesthetic or Tactile Learners ... 35

2.3.2 Visual- Auditory- Kinesthetic (YAK) Learning Styles ... ... 36

2.4 Relevance ofStudies ... 38

2.5 Conceptual Framework ... 40

CHAPTER lll: RESEARCH METHOD

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3.1 Research Design ... 41

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3.2 Subject ofStudy ... 43

3.3 Instruments of Data Collection ... 42

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3.4 Procedure of Data Collection ... 43

3.5 Technique ofDataAnalysis ... 45

3.6 Trustworthiness ofData ... .. .. 46

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4.3 Findings .. .. . .. . . ... 72

4.4 Discussion . .. 72

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS, fMPLICATIONS , AND

SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions

5.2 Implications

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5.3 Suggestions . . . . . . . . . ... . . .. . . 75 REFERENCES ... .... ... . .. ... . .. . ... . ... . ... 76 APPENDICES ... ... ... ... ... . ... . ... 79- 102

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure _Page

2.'1_ Bottom-up Process... 18 2.2 Top- down Process··-···-···-···-··-···-- 20

2.3 Conceptual frai!_lework ... 41

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

4.1 The Indicators ofV AK Learning Style ... 37

4.2 Reading Compre]lensioo Processes of Narrative Text

by Visual Learners... ... . . . 50 4.3 Reading Comprehension Processes of Exposition Text

~ Reading Comprehension Processes of Narrative Text

Reading Comprehension Processes of Narrative Text

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LJST OF APPENDICES

Appendix

Page

A

79

B _{Expositioo Te xt}

83 Narrative Text__

85 D List of Interview: Visual Learners and

Narrative Text _______________ . .. _. __ -··-. ____ . E List of Interview: Visual Learners and

Exposition Text--··-·-··-·-···-·-·--·-·---···- · ___ · ·---··- 89

F _{List of Interview: Auditory Learners and}

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Narrative Text_---·-···--·-·-·---··- ... ____ _ ··---·· ... _. 94

G _{List of Interview: Auditory Learners and}

Exposition Text. ... . 97

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCilON

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1.1 Background of Study

The role of English as an international means of communication has

compelled Indonesian Ieamer to master English well. Furthermore, all of the advancement of science and technology are written in English, so are most of scientific and technnology books. Thus, English becomes the most important

l an~

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to be mastered. Consequently, without mastering English Indonesians would find it are difficult for themselves to be in the work force. It is expected that indonesians are proficiently in spoken and written English, by which they gain the requir fulfilling the job vacancies.

English itself, is a foreign language in Indonesia, but it has a special status or as a major foreign language. It is stated in State Board Guidelines (Garis-garis

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Besar Haluan Negara: GBf-IN) 1994- 2004 that English as the primary tool in

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improving the quality of human resources in the global economic and political

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activities. As consequence, students must Furthermore, National Education System regulation No 20, 2003 Article 37 be encouraged to master English. subsection I states that "bahasa asing terutama Bahasa lnggris merupakan

bahasa inlernasional yang sangat penting kegunaanya dalam pergaulan global"

(The foreign lan~e especially English is as an international language which is

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someone ability to master the advancement of science and tcx:hnology globally, as a result it 1s the mos1 important foreign language to master by learners in lndonesia

ln the process of mastering a language we ll , there are four skills that should be studied, th ey are I) listening, 2) speaking, 3) read ing and 4) writing_ Reading in this study is indicating reading as receptive skill, not only read and pronounce the printed but read the printed words afterward construct the meanillg. Reading is a very important ability to master the advance meant of science and technology, to gain the valuable and the competent of knowledge, science and technology, one must be able to read and comprehend welL Bcx:ause reading and comprehension which will guide one to understand the science and technology. Furthermore, to read and to comprehend a discourse will give many opportuillties to absorb the recent publication in science and tcx:hnology.

The importance of reading esPe<:ially in English, at present the Senior High School English curriculum has been concentrated on the use of genres. It's stated in the 2007/2008 Competency Standard for Senior High School that students are to be able to comprehend short functional text, dialogue, and

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Genres are types of text which have special characteristics of purpose. According to the 200712008 Compete:ncy Standard for Senwr High School, there are many genres that must be able to be comprehended by .students. A recent study by Purba (2009) foc uses on the genre which are tested in the National Examination ( Ujian Nas ional: UN) and the State Uni versi ty En trance Examinatio n (Ujian Naswna/ Masulr. PergurUfln Tinggi Negeri: UNSM PTN), di scovers that exposition 1s occurred about I 5% in the National Examination and

7 1.4% in the State University Entrance Examination along with narrative is arisen about I 0% in the National Examination. It can be concluded that, exposition and narrative genre are very important to maste:r by students of lllliversity level. Since the purpose of reading for university students is to learn or to understand the material and theories. Moreover, comprehending exposition text is very important for students at university level as they will be forced to create a thesis before graduating while the thesis consist of types exposition text, such as present the fact and followed by argument to support the idea.

Furthermore, comprehension IS as important as reading, smce comprehension is take the sense of text out. Comprehension is build during reading, through predicting, inferring and synthesizing. After reading, the deeper meaning is constructed through reviewin g, rereading portions of the text, discussion, and thoughtful re fl ection.

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comprehend effectively, 11 is such the researcher's experience in teaching and le<imi ng pl"ocesses.

In line with these facts, reading is included in subj ects that m~1 be taught to students at the university level in orde r to improve the reading quality of learners. Since the ~;t u de nt s at uni versity level will be sent to the society or sc h<X>I in order to produce new generation who are capability in compre hend English, so that this study conducted to university students.

Different person with different learning styles will apply different way either in learning or reading is connected to the studies of learning styles in foreign language

educatio~

which was done by Felder & Henriques (I 995 ) consistently place reading in the visual category, implying that instructors can meet the needs of visual learner solely by relying on written instructional materials. Certainly visual learners learn better if they see and hear words in the target language, but auditory learners do so. (Felder & Henriques,l995) That, to know whether Felder & Henriques study also happen in Indonesia especially Indonesian learners who are in university level.

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1.2 Resea~cb P~oblems

As presented in the background of study, r-eading is very import ant, especially exposition and narrative to studenl<> of Senior I Lgh School level as well as to students of university leveL lnerefore, to achieve the valuable mput of this study, th e researc h problems are posed below:

l. What processes do the visual learners apply to comprehend narrative te xt?

2. What processes do the visual learners apply to comprehend exposition text?

3. What processes do the auditory learners apply to comprehend narrative text?

4. What p~ses do the auditory learners apply to comprehend exposition text?

5_ Why do they apply the p~ses as the way they do?

l.3 Objectives of the Study

This research is aimed to describe the occurrence of reading processes by students of different learning styles. In order to clarify the intention of this study, it is necessary to assert the obj ectives of the study:

I. To ex plain the processes of visual Ieamer in comprehending narrative text,

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3 to describe the processes of auditory Ieamer in wmpreheoding narrative text,

4. to illustrate the processes of auditory Ieamer in comprehending ex position text,

5. to elabordte the processes of auditory and visual learners in comprehending narrative and exposition text.

1.4 Scope of tbe Study

A study in the reading proc= can wver many aspects of language such as vocabulary mastery, grammar aspect or the others language wmpetence. Whe n one read, one will have to space and concentrate on the punctuation mastery. lf it is read, one just read, then it can be said not too difficult but reading for comprehension is reading which requires the ability of the reader to wnstruct the author's intent, determine the implicit meaning, interaction or reading process between the reader and the text and the reader ability to response to the text. Nevertheless, this study focused on the interaction between the reader and exposition as well as narrative text since Purba (2009) states that exposition is the

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1 S Signifia~nce of the Study

The finding of this study are expcrted to be use ful either thtxH-c>ticaUy or practically_ Tbeoretically, the findings o f this study are useful to enhance the data about reading process of di fferent learners style Fw1hennore, it is expcrted that the results of this study are able to enrich the references or as the re levance of study for other researchers who want to conduct further research in read ing process_

Practically, the results of this study are expcrted to be useful for practitioners, specially, English Lecturers, as information in dttiding the appropriate lecturing strategies in reading matter by knowing the reading process of different students' learning style, and students, to evaluate process in reading, some aspect of learning styles will be able to reveal it

J .6 Limibtioo

or

tbe Study

.,...-While significance to the scope of study, here are some limitations as the mai n problem of this study_ The source of data in this study are restricted to the writer's documentation, the students of university level, English Educational Department (Pendidilcan Bahasa lnggris: PBT), Semester VI students of State

Institute for Islamic Studies Medan, N orth Sumatera (InstituJ Agama Islam Negeri Sumatera Utara: lAIN- SU) about reading processes of visual and auditory

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are restricted into narrative and expository text In conclusiorr, reading processes of the other leamcrs or combination of these two or another learmng styles are not explored as well as reading processes of other exposition and narrative genre.

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CHAPTERV

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions

After analyzing-the data, conclusions are drawn as the following:

I) The visual learners applied interactive process to comprehend narrative texts, 2) the visual learners applied interactive process to comprehend exposition texts,

3) the auditory learners applied rrecognizing word/ phrase meaning, pronouncing '

~and predicting to comprehend narrative texts,

4) the auditory learners applied top- down process to comprehend exposition text, and

5) the auditory and visual learners applied their own models or process in

comprehending either exposition or narrative text since their preference in

learning were different.

5.2 Implications

In connected to the theoretical review and the result of this study, some implications are presented as below:

I) The result of this study show that learning styles imply th€: comprehension

that, knowing learning styles of students are important for teachers or

lecturers in order to understand the way students apply in learning theh

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teachers or lecturers can choose the suitable method for teaching.

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2) The result of this study also LIDply the students to know the1r learning styles, that they can manage the way of study or know the weakness and strength of each style then they are able to solve the problem they face

53 Suggestions

In relation to the previous conclusiOns, suggestiOns are staged as the follow ing

l) It is advised to visual learners, imagine the story while reading may help to detennine the comprehension of narrative texts

2) It is worthwhile to visual learners need practicing reading a lot to carry out best comprehension of exposition texts

It is worthwhile, to auditory learners avoid to concern in a certain meaning of the word or phrase

It is suggested for the auditory learners are suggested not to worry to activate the prior knowledge in order to predict the comprehension of narrative text and keep relying on the conte~ even though it is the story. 5) It is suggested that teacher and lecturers need to introduce the students the

reading com prehension processes models.