CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
Chart 2. The Factors that Influence RSE According to Harjasujana, (1997:67) The factors that
2. Teaching Reading
RSE =
:
So, to measure someone’s reading speed effectiveness score based on the formulas above, there are several things need to prepare, they are: (1) reading text with a certain word length, (2) watch or stopwatch, (3) comprehension test, and (4) time keeper.
Since this research is done on Senior High School, so the standard of students’ reading speed would also based on senior highs school students’ reading speed of English as foreign language. According to Nuttall (1996:56) secondary school pupils in countries where English is a foreign language may read at 120- 150 words per minutes (wpm) before training”. It is a basic standard of reading speed for students of English as foreign language.
The objective of teaching reading is to develop students’ reading skill so that he/she can read English texts effectively and efficiently. To become an effective reader a student should know much about the purposes or type of reading. According to Anderson (cited in Tarigan, 2008: 9-11), there are seven reading purposes, they are: 1) reading for details or facts; 2) reading for main ideas; 3) reading for sequence or organization; 4) reading for inference; 5) reading to classify; 6) reading to evaluate; 7) reading to compare or contrast. Later, the purpose of reading will be derived on the teaching and learning indicators and specific purpose of the reading activities in the classroom which already stated in syllabus.
While, Bining (1952:79 cited in Susanti, 2009:56) there are several types of reading objectives, they are: 1) reading for understanding, 2) reading for the purpose of memorization, 3) reading for locating specific information, 4) rapid reading and 5) reading for enjoyment and pleasure. However, in any kind of reading materials, a good reader should determine their reading purpose first to apply an appropriate strategy in comprehending the text.
Effective reading comprehension can prove our command of language, which is important in language learning. It supported by Nuttall (1982:21) states that “reading extensively is a higher effective means of extending our command of language”, so it has an important place in the classroom where learning is the central purpose. However, someone’s reading ability in their first language will be much different with their foreign language. Thus, to be effective reader in English as foreign language the students need more practice and enrichment.
Actually, the aim of reading activities is to prevent failure and support readers’ interpretation of the text through interaction between the reader and the text, in that reading activity can promote strategic reading behaviors and thus can play a vital role in schema activation in order to comprehend and interpret the text better. It is necessary to point out here that although different types of activities can be suggested to be made use of with different types of texts, this study underlined only a small number of activities suggested particularly for short stories. Contemporary reading tasks involve a three-stage procedure: pre-, while-, and post reading activities (Ur, 1996:33).
Furthermore, there are some principles in teaching reading, as suggested by Nunan (2003:74) that:
“There are eight aspects to teach reading for the students, they are: (1) exploit the reader’s background knowledge, (2) build a strong vocabulary base, (3) teach for comprehension, (4) work on increasing reading rate, (5) teach reading strategy, (6) encourage readers to transform strategies into skills, (7) build assessment and evaluation into your teaching, and (8) strive for continuous improvement as a reading teacher.”
Based on the opinions above, it is known that there are many aspects influence in successful teaching reading. The first is the teacher should choose appropriate material that related to the students background knowledge and teach them effective strategies on reading. Then, the teacher also should inform and explain the strategy of reading efficiently and effectively. So the students will have a good reading skill, with effective and efficient ways. Finally, the teacher also should build appropriate assessment and evaluation toward the students’ ability.
This research applied the aspects needed to teach reading in the classroom.
So, in the strategy which is used in teaching reading, it is not only focus on
comprehension, but also work on improving the effectiveness of students reading speed skill which can support the students learning process in reading text that lead them to have a good lifetime reading skill.
b. Teaching reading in High School
In Indonesia, students who are studying English at Senior High School would deal with texts. So, reading is one of the language skills that mostly taught in senior high school. The texts are various based on the level of students. As stated by Depdiknas (2006), “teaching and learning English in Senior High School is focused on comprehending and producing several kinds of text”. However, in order to comprehend those texts, the students need to understand the purpose, generic structure ad language features of the text.
According to the school-based curriculum for Senior High School, the students are expected to understand the texts, not only about the factual information, main idea, the meaning of vocabulary in context, reference, and inference of the text, but also about social function ad generic structure of the texts. It means that the students should comprehend the texts well in order to improve their comprehension on reading English.
As general, the standard competency that should be achieved by the students through reading activity is “be able to comprehend and respond the meaning of short functional texts and written text/ short essay in form of expected text for the interaction and communicates with environment and/ or in academics’
context” (Depdiknas:2006). While, specifically the basic competence that need to
be covered that the students are expected to be able to comprehend and respond the meaning and the rhetorical steps on short simple essay as accurate, fluent and appropriate to interact with the environment in form of certain text. In addition, they also have to be able to comprehend the meaning of written text appropriately and efficiently, not only explicitly but also implicitly that is related with the environment and/ or in academics’ context.
So, teaching and learning reading in Senior High School is much more complex than the previous Junior High School. The students are challenged to be a good reader who can comprehend English written text accurately and fluently which involves their logical thinking of related environment or academics’
context. As National Reading Panel (2000:35) defines fluency as “the ability to read a text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression”. Fluent readers can recognize words and comprehend at the same time because they can recognize the words automatically and accurately so they can have more attention on comprehension. So, the students of High School are expected to be able to read effectively and efficiently, comprehend as many as accurate information on the text but still consider to use less time to read.
The common ways of increasing reading speed is to give students’
passages to read and ask them to time themselves. Reading should also be followed by comprehension questions or activities since reading speed should not be developed at the expense of comprehension. The students should consider their time needed for each reading materials they read. Because students who read too
slowly will easily get discouraged and they will also tend to stumble on unfamiliar words and fail to grasp the general meaning of the passage (Grellet, 1990:63).
As this research would be done on XI grade, so the reading material is also chosen related to the syllabus. For the students who are at grade XI in the second semester, they study three types of texts, namely Narrative, Spoof, & Hortatory Exposition. Those kinds of texts have different function, generic structures and their lexico-grammatical (language) features. Since this research focuses on reading speed, which means that focus on reading for information not reading for pleasure (Grellet, 1990:57), so narrative and spoof text are not be used in this research. This research only focuses on the hortatory exposition text as the reading material for the XI grade students.
c. Hortatory Exposition Text
Exposition is a type of text that has the purpose to persuade, to inform, describe, explain, or define the author’s subject to the reader. As Fitzgerald and Smith (1991:115) states that exposition text is “an essay which purpose is to inform the reader of writer’s opinion about topic and developed by logical sequences of related ideas”. The writers use various methods to develop their subjects and present their ideas. The most common approaches include illustration example, definition, comparison, cause-effect, classification, and process (Handayani, 2013:24). Most exposition texts contain many facts and details, which have the social purpose is to persuade the reader that something is the case (analytical exposition) or something should be the case (hortatory exposition). As
there are two type of exposition text, this research will focus on hortatory exposition text.
According to Butt, et.al (2001:241) the purpose or social function of hortatory exposition text is “to persuade the readers that something should or should not be the case”. It means that the text emphasizes something to the reader and gives several supporting statement to convince it. Hortatory exposition text is also a factual text that elaborates the writer’s idea about the phenomenon surrounding. It social function is also to persuade the reader that something should or should not happen or be done.
Derewianka (1992:71) also states that the main purpose of hortatory exposition text is “to persuade the reader or listener related to the case given”.
Moreover, she argues that hortatory exposition text is categorized as argumentative text, since it comprises several arguments. In line with this point, Hartono (2005:6) mentions that hortatory exposition text is “a piece of writing which persuades the readers to accept the writer’s point of view by showing the information logically”.
In addition, as others texts, hortatory exposition text has its own schematic organization. According to Derewianka (1992:72), hortatory exposition text has well-organized structure which covers on three main points, they are: thesis, arguments, and recommendation. Furthermore, Setiadi (2008:47) describes the generic structure of hortatory texts as follow: (1) Thesis as the first part of hortatory exposition text which is commonly written in the beginning of paragraph. In this part, the writer introduces the topic and shows the writer’s
position. The writer’s thought is presented as thesis which is proven with several arguments. Moreover, it attempts to build up an introduction of the issue concerned in opening statement. (2) Arguments are the second stage of hortatory exposition text. The main purpose of this part is to provide a series of arguments to convince and lead the readers believe the writer’s point of view. The arguments are developed to support the thesis. Arguments are actually the core of hortatory exposition text. And (3) Recommendation is the last part of hortatory exposition text, the writer gives solution or suggestion to the reader or listener. This is to strengthen the writer’s point of view by stirring up the reader’s feeling and directs them follow or agree to the writer’s recommendation.
Besides, Derewianka (1992:76) also proposes some language features that commonly used in hortatory exposition such as emotive words (alarmed, worried), words that qualify statements (usual, probably), words that link arguments (firstly, however, therefore), usually in the present tense, compound and complex sentence, modals verbs/ adverbs, and subjective opinion using pronoun. Hortatory exposition text also focuses on generic human and non-human participation, mental process, and material process.
Based on the explanation above, the teachers can help students to understand how exposition texts work and read them more effectively by teach them how to identify the elements of a paragraph and read them. The teacher can direct the students to recognize the transitional words that signal important information or a shift in focus, establish the genre, organize the information within an hortatory exposition text into an outline for subsequent analysis,
annotate such texts for a specified purpose, summarized paragraphs or section of the text as they read along, use available information such as subheadings to orient and focus their reading, identify the main ideas throughout the text, develop their own questions and apply them to the text, take effective notes for subsequent discussion.
As in this research, the researcher focuses on hortatory exposition text, so the reading comprehension that is considered here is on hortatory exposition text too. Based on the school based curriculum, the indicators of reading comprehension of hortatory exposition text are to identify the topic, determining the specific information of the text, the meaning of vocabulary in context, the reference, making inference of the text or paragraph (Depdiknas, 2006). In addition, the components of reading comprehension of hortatory exposition text would be the combination of reading comprehension in general and the components of hortatory exposition text as well. Specifically, it covers students’
reading comprehension skills component, as mastering vocabulary, making inferences, locating references of the text, scanning for details information and determine the writers’ opinion. Moreover, the students would also be asked to determine the types of the text, communicative purpose, generic structure, and language features of the text. So, in comprehending the hortatory exposition text, the students not only should be able to understand the content of the reading material, but also need to know what are the purpose and the pattern of the text given.
In short, if the students want to get better comprehension of the text, they have to be able in analyzing all indicators of reading comprehension of hortatory exposition text that are finding the topic of the text, finding detail information, finding the meaning of the vocabulary, identifying reference and making inference. So, the topic can be found in the thesis, the details can be found in arguments and recommendation, while vocabularies, references, and inferences can be found in the whole passage of hortatory exposition text.
d. KWL (Know – Want – Learned) Strategy
In teaching and learning process, learner strategies is “a specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self- directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situation” (Rebecca Oxford, 1990:8). Long and Richard (1987:73) state that strategy is “an important component in education and instruction process”. Westwood (2008:4) believes strategy as a most powerful way to solve students’ difficulties to read, write, and spell. It means that a good strategy can increase the students’ achievement in reading, writing, and speaking. In addition, a good teaching strategy can motivate students to learn and make them focus in the process of learning (Wang, 2007:2).
One of the instructional reading strategy that widely used in reading classes in the USA is Know-Want-Learned (KWL) strategy (Fengjuan, 2010:1).
Know-Want-Learned (KWL) strategy which was developed by Donna M.
Ogle in 1986, is “an instructional activity for assisting students in developing a framework and actively engaging students in constructing meaning from text”.
Through KWL strategy, the students are led to involve in ‘reading to learn’
process, so the students learn how to learn from texts (Ogle, 1986:564). This process involves students in three cognitive steps: accessing what they know, determining what they want to learn and recalling what did they learned as a result of reading (Ogle, 1986:565).
According to Conner (2006), KWL is one of the strategies that endeavor to improve the reading comprehension in different ways. It (1) activates the students previous knowledge about the topic, (2) helps students monitor their comprehension of the text, (3) lets students evaluate their comprehension of the text, and (4) provides students with opportunity to expand the textual knowledge and exceed that as to read beyond the lines.
KWL strategy is set up in the form of a chart or table. Students begin by brainstorming everything they Know about the topic. Then, the relevant information is recorded in K column of the KWL chart. Students then generate a list of questions about what they Want to know about the topic. These questions are listed in the W column. After reading, the students answer these questions.
And what they have Learned is recorded in the L column. These activities help them set a definite purpose for reading and record what they learned (Conner, 2006)
As a reading strategy, KWL helps teachers engage students from the beginning of reading lesson by activating prior knowledge. KWL also helps teachers keep students interested as they think about what they want to know and what they have learned (Sasson, 2008). “Accessing prior knowledge and engaging
students’ interest before beginning a reading activity can improve students’ ability to make associations, enhance understanding, and increase comprehension”
(Fengjuan, 2010:79). Their proficiency is enhanced in setting purposes for reading, searching information from texts, organizing that information into graphic outlines, and writing summaries based on those graphic outlines (Bader, 2007). This strategy offers a framework that students can use to monitor their decoding of text through listing, mapping and summarizing what was learned through KWL chart.
In this regard, Tsai and You (Ibid:832) believe that when the students present their cognition strategy into visual form, they are practicing metacognition in which they categorize knowledge contents and the thinking for solving problems. More specifically, as one of graphic organizer strategy, KWL strategy motivates students to be strategic readers. As Ellis (2004:2) explains that to put the word/information into boxes, students have to engage in powerful information processing and higher order thinking skills. So, when completing a reading chart, they are creating a visual product based on their reading, engaging in understanding information in the text, seeing relationships among words, facts and ideas, and gaining a sense of purpose and monitoring their reading. It can be seen that when using KWL strategy, students actively engage in their reading by using several reading strategies as good readers.
In short, KWL strategy in teaching reading is a reading strategy that can activate the students prior knowledge about a text, encourage the students to predict about what will discussed in the text so that it can lead them to set their
purpose to read and the last the students are expected to report their understanding through write or discuss what they have learned with specific attention to their original questions about the text.
e. The Procedure of KWL Strategy in teaching reading
KWL is a literacy strategy that teachers can easily modify to meet students’ learning needs at any level and in any content area (Ogle, 1992:5). KWL can involve students acting individually or as a group. Through KWL strategy, students actively participate in their learning construction as they make connection between what they know and will come to know. It also provides an opportunity for students to set their own learning objectives. The teacher will serves as a guide and facilitator in the process. KWL strategy is often set up in the form of a chart, and it is also suggested to consider the use of different colors for each column (McKnight, 2010:16):
Table 1. Example of KWL Chart