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AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ COGNITIVE STRATEGY IN UNDERSTANDING READING
Oleh:
WIRA LESTARI*)
**) Mayuasti and **) Belinda AnalidoStaf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat.
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui bagaimana siswa mengaplikasikan kognitif strategi dalam memahami teks bacaan. Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti menganalisa kognitif strategi siswa dalam memahami teks bacaan berdasarkan teori Nunan, Rico, dan Reiss. Ada tiga belas kategori kognitif strategi yang bisa diaplikasikan oleh siswa dalam memahami teks bacaan yaitu; Summarizing, Induction, Imagery, Auditory Representation, Making Inferences, Using Resources, Grouping, Note-taking, Elaboration of prior knowledge, Scaffolding, Alternative information representation and graphic organizers, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif. Peneliti menggunakan purposive sampling sebagai teknik pengambilan sample. Jumlah sample yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini 100 siswa kelas XI di SMA N 1 Lubuk Basung. Peneliti menggunakan angket sebagai instrument untuk mengumpulkan data. Dalam pengambilan data, peneliti memberikan angket kepada setiap siswa kelas XI.Dari data yang didapatkan pada saat penelitian, peneliti mengetahui bahwa siswa kelas XI di SMA N 1 Lubuk Basung mengaplikasikan semua kategori kognitif strategi dalam memahami teks bacaan. Kognitif strategi diaplikasikan berdasarkan kebutuhan siswa agar bisa memahami teks bacaan. Kognitif strategi yang sering diaplikasikan oleh siswa kelas XI dalam memahami teks bacaan yaitu scaffolding karena siswa bisa membangun pengetahuan berdasarkan teks yang dibaca.
Key words: Cognitive Strategy, Reading.
*) Peneliti
**) Pembimbing
2 Introduction
Reading is a basic skill for English language students which must be mastered because the skill can be used to comprehend about reading content. It is also important to be applied to ensure success not only in learning English but also any content classes where reading is required. It means that the students can use their reading ability to make good change for their thinking because they can create new information with their own language based on reading content. Thus, reading is benefit for English language students to understand key information to add knowledge and increase their critical thinking. Reading is also a subject which is learnt to know about topic by analyzing content so that the students can communicate with writer because they understand about writer’s ideas. In education, reading is taught not only for university students but also for Junior High School and Senior High School. Senior High School 1 Lubuk Basung is one of senior high school that gives material about English subject where the students can study how understand reading content in order to comprehend and get important information. When the researcher did practice teaching in Senior High School 1 Lubuk Basung one year ago and interview with English teachers, the researcher knew that the students used a variety reading strategies in understanding reading such as metacognitive, cognitive and socio- affective strategy. There are students use metacognitive strategy in which they preview main ideas, pay attention and connect each of important information in creating new information with their own language, do self-checking their own comprehension, evaluate their learning. The students also use cognitive strategy in understanding reading by knowing and writing main idea, sharing their understanding with their friends, making underline important information, writing and finding meaning of difficult words by connecting words with content. On the other hand, the students work in peers to complete a task and solve their problem by answering and finishing the task. It means that the students have applied socio-affective strategy to understand reading.
Nature of Reading Definition of Reading
Reading is one of four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) which is important to be learned and mastered by language learners in English subject. Nunan (2003:68) defines that reading is a fluent process to combine information from the text and background knowledge to build meaning. It means that the students have to make connection between content and background knowledge to understand and produce new meaning. Furthermore, Seyler (2004:3) adds that reading is the process of obtaining or constructing meaning from a word or cluster of words.
It means that constructing words can make students to become good readers because they must understand what the words mean to build new meaning and add
more information from the content. In addition, Carroll in Ferris and Hedgcock (1998:70) explain that reading is constructing the reasonable spoken message from a printed text and making meaning responses to the reconstructed message that response to the spoken massage. It means that the students have to know main idea to build new meaning so that they can create correct information based on the content.
Teaching Reading
Teaching reading is activity which is conducted by teachers in teaching learning process to change their students becoming good readers in understanding and comprehending the content. Fry (1995:9) explains that teaching reading is done by teachers, such as determine the students’ reading ability, select the right material for the student to read, have the students read aloud and silently with comprehension, teach vocabulary, develop phonics skills. Moreover, Harmer (1998:70) informs that teaching reading is conducted, such as reading is not a passive skill, students need to be engaged what they are reading, the students should be encouraged to respond content of a reading text, not just to language, prediction is a major factor in reading. match the task to the topic.
Cognitive Strategy
Definition of Cognitive Strategy
As English language students, they may recognize to learn differently and apply cognitive strategy in understanding and comprehending reading.
Oxford in Nunan (2003:268) defines that cognitive strategy is strategy which is used by students to think and act deep understanding in creating information. It means that the students have more attention to the content and focus to find main information.
Furthermore, Amato (2003:83) explains that cognitive strategy or task-appropriate strategy help students to actively manipulate content of reading which they are learning. With cognitive strategy, the students can know and understand key ideas and answer teacher’s questions about reading content. Moreover, Reiss (2005:33) adds that cognitive strategy involves any types of practice activity to promote deeper understanding, better retention and increase ability in applying new knowledge in reading. It means that the students can be creative in reading because they can make specific connections among new learning, old and prior knowledge to improve their understanding and comprehending in reading because prior knowledge can help students’ understanding.
Catagories of Cognitive Strategy
There are some catagories of cognitive strategy which help students to understand and comprehend content of reading. According to Oxford in Nunan (2003:271), there are catagories of cognitive strategy such as summarizing, induction, imagery, auditory representation, making inferences, using
3 resources, grouping, note-taking, elaboration of prior knowledge. Furthermore, Rico (2004:114) adds that cognitive strategy is divided into scheme building, scaffolding, use of alternative information representations and graphic organizers, and critical and creative thinking. On the other hand, Reiss (2005:33) explains that there are some categories of cognitive strategy that can be applied by students in understanding reading such as making specific connections between background knowledge and reading content, making connections between English and student’s native language. highlighting important information while reading, dividing a large body of information into smaller units, note taking, condensing notes to study for a test, making and using cards to test them, making visual associations to aid in retention, creating graphic organizers, maps, charts, diagrams, time lines, and flow charts to organize information, making categories and classifications.
Research Methodology
The researcher used descriptive research design to find out and analyze about students’
cognitive strategy in understanding reading. The researcher also used purposive sampling technique to take respondent of this research. Pope and Mays (2000:5) inform that purposive sampling technique can be done based on characteristics which include age, place of residence, gender, class, profession. The researcher used criteria based on class that study English subject with same teacher and program was XI IIS 3 until XI IIS 5. It meant that respondents of this research were students in XI IIS 3, XI IIS 4 and XI IIS 5 which were 100 students at Senior High School 1 Lubuk Basung in the academic year 2014-2015.
Moreover, the instrument of this research was questionnaire which consists of 38 items with 5 alternative score (never, seldom, sometime, often, always). In collecting the data, the researcher prepared, distributed questionnaire to respondents and asked them to answer it based on instruction and their application in understanding reading. After collecting questionnaire, the researcher analyzed the data by counting frequency of students’ response about questionnaire and analyzing the data about students’
cognitive strategy in understanding reading after organizing the data from questionnaire. Gay and Airaisan (2000: 239) explain that there are four steps to analyze the data in descriptive research such as reading, description, classifying and interpretation.
Research Findings
The purpose of this research was to analyze students’ cognitive strategy categories in understanding reading that were used by second class students of SMA N 1 Lubuk Basung in the academic year 2014- 2015. Besides, this research was also conducted to find out the implementation of each cognitive strategy category in understanding reading and cognitive strategy category was mostly used by second class
students in understanding reading. There were thirteen categories of cognitive strategy which had been explained by some experts such as summarizing, induction, imagery, auditory representation, making inferences, using resources, grouping, note-taking, elaboration of prior knowledge, scaffolding, alternative information representation and graphic organizers, critical thinking and creative thinking. After doing investigation phase, there were some findings of this research that were found by researcher. The first finding was the researcher explained that second class students of SMAN 1 Lubuk Basung used cognitive strategy in understanding reading based on their desire which helped their comprehend about important information. Majority of students used some cognitive strategy such as summarizing, induction, imagery, auditory, making inferences, using resources, grouping, elaboration of prior knowledge, scaffolding, alternative information representation and graphic organizers, creative and critical thinking in strong criterion, but note-taking was moderate to be used by students in understanding reading. Moreover, the researcher got finding of this research that implementation of each category was different based on its theory and indicator that had been explained by some experts that they had simple way to understand and comprehend main information because strategy was helpful to students which guided students to do some ways in getting idea.
In addition, the researcher added cognitive strategy category was mostly used by students in understanding reading was scaffolding because they could construct their knowledge based on information in the content to add information and ability.
Conclusion
Cognitive strategy is one of strategy that can be used by students to understand reading because they can be easy to analyze and know knowledge in the content. Cognitive strategy has categories such as summarizing, induction, imagery, auditory representation, making inferences, using resources, grouping, note-taking, elaboration of prior knowledge, scaffolding, alternative information representation and graphic organizers, critical thinking and creative thinking that must be understood and known by students in applying in understanding reading. Based on the research finding from data in previous chapter, the researcher explains that second class students of SMA N 1 Lubuk Basung in the academic year 2014- 2015 use cognitive strategy in understanding reading.
The students also applied each category of cognitive strategy had understood and knew by them. In addition, scaffolding was mostly used by second class students as category of cognitive strategy.
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