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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEXT WALK STRATEGY IN TEACHING READING COMPREHESION FOR EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 4 LINTAU BUO,
TANAH DATAR
Oleh:
Dian Lili Merta*)
**) Yelfiza ***) M.Khairi Ikhsan Staf Pengajar Program Studi Bahasa Inggris STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat
ABSTRAK
Penelitian ini menggunakan metode experimental, dengan one group pre-test-posttest design. Pada kelas experiment diberikan perlakuan oleh peneliti dengan menggunkan strategi Text Walk. Populasi dari penelitian ini adalah siswa kelas VIII SMPN 4 Lintau Buo tahun ajaran 2013/2014 yang berjumlah 152 orang yang terdiri dari 5 kelas yaitu VIII A, VIII B, VIII C, VIII D and VIII E. Kelas sample ditentukan oleh uji normality. Yang terpilih sebagai kelas experiment adalah VIII C dan VIII E sebagai kelas try out. Peneliti memberikan pretest untuk mengetahui pemahaman awal siswa terhadap teks sebelum melakukan perlakuan atau treatment. Instrument penelitian ini adalah reading test berbentuk narrative text dan recount text. Setelah melakukan percobaan, peneliti mengadakan posttest untuk mengetahui hasil dari pengaruh strategy yang telah dicobakan. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian yang diperoleh menunjukkan bahwa terdapat pengaruh yang positif dari strategi Text Walk dalam meningkatkan reading comprehesion siswa kelas VIII C SMPN 4 Lintau Buo. Hal ini ditunjukkan oleh analisis t-test diperoleh t-hitung 2.67 dan t-table 2.04 berarti t-hitung>t-table. Dengan demikian hipotesis dalam penelitian ini diterima dan dapat disimpulkan bahwa ada pengaruh yang significant dari penggunaan strategy Text Walk terhadap pemahaman membaca siswa ada kelas VIII di SMPN 4 Lintau Buo tahun jaran 2013/2014.
Kata kunci: Text Walk, Strategy, Teaching, Reading, SMPN
*)Penulis
**) Pembimbing I
***) Pembimbing II A. INTRODUCTION
Reading is one of the important English skills that must be acquired well by all of students. In reading, it needs full concentration and accuracy, so that the reader gets the message and be able to comprehend the text. The students still have many problems in comprehending the text. The students should have high ability to comprehend the text well.
In this case, Teachers’ roles were important and the teachers should apply appropriate strategy to guide the students in comprehending the text. If the students were able to comprehend the text well, the students would get a lot of information, new idea, and improve their knowledge.
In the researcher’s pre-observation at Junior high school 4 Lintau Buo, Tanah Datar, the teacher
was use CTL Strategy. CTL was a good strategy that could guide students to comprehend about the text, but in teacher’s application was less appropriate with the procedure of that strategy. For example, First, In teaching reading, the teacher started the lesson by review the previous lesson. For example, the teacher asked the students about the topic last week (descriptive text). Second, the teacher mentioned about the topic “genre”, like “our topic today is Recount Text”. Third, the teacher told the definition of the genre, for example “Recount Text is a text that retell about experience in the past”. Fourth, the teacher asked to the students to open their book. For example,”now open your book page 47”. Fifth, teacher read the text and the students listen it, for example “I will read the text firstly and you listen to me”. Sixth, the teacher asked some students to read aloud the text and search the meaning of the text, like
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“Rina, please read the sentence and searching it meaning”. Last, the teacher gave exercise for the students that related to the text such as “after read the text, now answer the questions based on the text above”.
The strategy that was applied by the teacher, in the classroom might be one of cause the students’
reading achievement to be low. It could be seen from the students’ score in reading. Most of the students got the score under Minimum Score Achievement of English that is 76. Meanwhile students’ test mark were between the lower (20) and the higher (73). In fact, In teaching learning process the students could not comprehend the text well. They got difficulties to answer the questions or tasks that given by the teacher. It could be seen when the teacher gave some questions that related to the text, they could not answer it correctly. For example, when the teacher asked “What view did the writer enjoy in Parangtritis beach?.” The students answers “There were many kind places in Parangtritis beach.”, the true answered is: “There were a lot of people, many birds in the sky and then many sellers who sell kinds of souvenir”. In addition, the students had lack of vocabularies so that when the teacher asked them to find information from the text, they could not do it well. For example, when the teacher asked students to comprehend the text, the students could not convey the content of the text. Based on the researcher’s interview to the students, she got that they do not know the meaning of the words. As the effect, the students had low motivation in learning process. Indirectly, these condition made the students unmotivated to read the text. Therefore, the researcher was interested in doing research about strategy that could be effetive in teaching reading.
B. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 1. Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension is an essential skill for readers of English as foreign language. Guthrie, Wigfield and Perencevich (2009:193) state that reading comprehension consist of the processes of constructing knowledge from a text through cognitive interaction and motivational involvement with the text. Constructing is the concept meaning of the text.
In comprehending the text, the reader should be able to get information in the text. This activity, reader needs process in constructing meaning of the text and reader has interaction with their background knowledge. So, reader should have constructing meaning of the text and relation it with their background knowledge.
In reading comprehension, the teacher should pay attention to several indicators which must be achieved by the students when they read the text.
Brown (2004:188) explains that there are some indicators which determine whether the reader comprehend the text or not. For the first, recognize rhetorical forms of written discourse and significance for interpretation. Second, recognize the communication function of written text, according to form and purpose. Third, infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge. Fourth, infer link and connection between events, deduce cause and effects and detect such as relation as main idea, supporting idea, new information, generalization and exemplification. Fifth, distinguis between literal and implied meaning. It shows that indicators of reading comprehension can help the teacher to see how well students in comprehending the text. The teacher needs to be focus on the indicators of reading comprehension, because the indicator has important points in students’ reading comprehension.
2. Teaching Reading Comprehension
There are some defenitions and explanation about teaching reading comprehension from some experts. Accoding to Klingner, Vaughn, and Boardman (2007:1) state that teaching reading comprehension is an instruction that involves three steps procedure: mentioning, practicing, and assesing. That is, teacher would mentions the skill that they wanted students to use, then they would give them opportunities to practice that skill through workbooks or skill sheets, and finally assess whether or not they used the skill successfully.
So, the researcher concludes that teaching reading comprehension is the activity that will be done by teacher to give instruction for the students to understanding content of the text. The teacher will guide the students to derive meaning from what have the read. As mentioned before, there are three important steps in teaching reading comprehension.
First, the teacher will mention the skill. Second, the teacher will give them opportunities to practice that skill. Last, the teacher assess whether or not they used the skill successfully.
a. Narrative Text
There are several explanations about narrative text according to some experts. It supported by Knapp (2005:221) asserts that narrative text is a powerful medium for changing social opinions and attitudes. It shows that narrative text is an
3 imaginative story to entertain readers by telling connected events. Then, this text also has moral and social value, especially if the story raises a social issue that happens in society and it gives ethical message to the readers.
Furthermore, Widayanti (2011:30) adds that the characteristic of narrative text, which orientation is about the opening paragraph where the characters of the story are introduced. Who the characters and where the story happen. Complication is where the problems in the story develop. What the problem and why the problem happen in the story. Reorientation is where the problems solving in this story. What ethical messages from the story. The generic structures above are very crucial to be understood by readers.
b. Recount Text
There are several explanations about recount text according to some experts. According to Wardiman, Jahur and Djusma (2008:60), recount is a text that telling the reader about one story, action, or activity. It is important for students understand that recount tell pass events in the order in which they occured. It means that, recount text is the text for tell about experiences, past story or tell about pass history and to report event, incident or activity that occured in the past to inform or to entertain.
Recount generally follows a similar structure, but students should be guide by the purpose and audience of their text in their use of the following structure: orientation, series of events, re-orientation.
There are some generic structures that should be written in the recount text. According to Anderson (2002:4), recount focuses on a sequence of event as follows; orientation, sequence of events with personal or evaluative comments and re-orientation. The orientation supplies the background information needed to fully understand the retealling. It establishes the time, setting and who or what is participating. The audience needs to know when the event occured, who was involved, what happened, where the activity or event took place and something what the reason was for the event. Sequence event is important that students are given adequate guidelines and scaffold to assist with the structure of their writing. Students should focus on detailing who, what, where, and when. At this stage students should be experimenting with altering the order of events, perhaps using flashbacks. Re-orientation is the final stage of the recount. It refers to the conclusion of the event or personal comment from the writer.
3. Text Walk Strategy
To make reading learning process for junior high school students runs effectively. The teacher should consider about an effective and appropriate teaching strategy. One of teaching strategies in reading is Text Walk Strategy. Text Walk Strategy is a strategy to develop students’ ability in mastering reading skill. It can motivate students and improve their ability. Some experts have several definitions about Text Walk Stategy.
Cooper, Kiger, Robinson and Slansky (2009:89) state that Text Walk Strategy is a teaching reading strategy which is the students work with small group and make prediction about the text by using the picture, illustration or graphics the big idea of what the text is about. It explain that, this strategy sets the reader up to succeed with the text by developing key concepts, vocabulary,and general picture of the text.
In appying the Text Walk strategy, the teacher should know the steps of the strategy by some experts. There are some expert who explain the procedures of text walk strategy. Buehl (2001:57) explains steps of Text Walk Strategy. The steps are : First, the teacher asks students to look at the pictures;
Second, the teacher asks students to read the picture captions; Third, the teacher asks students to look at map or chart. Fourth, the teacher asks students to look for indications of big ideas: words or headings in bold type, colored words or words with their pronunciation given; Fifth, the teacher asks students to read the first and last paragraph. What seems to be the major focus of the text according to the introduction and summary; Sixth, the teacher tells students that any questions that appear at the end of a text; Seventh, the teacher asks students to look at the questions; Eighth, the teacher gives several times with the entire class and discusses the questions.
Text Walk Strategy has some characteristic that can be seen based on experts explanation.
Cooper et al (2009:89) state that Text Walk Strategy is a teaching reading strategy which is the students work with small group and make prediction about the text. In small group discussion, the students will work with friends.
Briefly, the researcher concludes that there are some characteristics of text walk strategy. First, students center strategy. Second, in this strategy give an opportinity to students to make prediction about the text. Third, small group discussion, where the
4 students work with friends. The last, this strategy also using picture, chart or map.
Previously, it has been stated that there are some concepts and procedures of Text Walk strategy.
From all of the theories, the writer finds some advantages of Text Walk strategy. There are three experts that state and explain about advantages Text Walk strategy. Firstly, Cunningham and Allington in Schumm (2003:238) states that advantages of Text Walk strategy are encourage students to use predict and support to reading. Then, the students can identify more easily with experiences presented in pictures than with those presented in the text because students are more familiar with pictures. More importantly, pictures provide mental images for students, so they can more easily understand text and remember it longer.
C. METHOD OF THE RESEARCH 1. Research Design
In this research, researcher classified the research design as a kind of pre- experimental design.
The researcher wanted to figure out the effectiveness of Text Walk Preview strategy in students’ reading comprehension. According to Gay and Airasian (2000:387), pre-experimental design does a very good job of controlling extraneous variables that jeopardize validity. In pre-experimental design, the researcher used the one-group pretest-posttest design.
According to Gay and Airasian (2000:389), the one- group pretest-posttest design involves a single group that is pretest (O), exposed to a treatment (X), and posttest (O). Pre-test was a test that given before the treatment. Treatment was applying Text Walk Strategy in this research. Post-test was a test that given after the treatment. In this design, the researcher found any changes that have occured between result of pretest and posttest. Furthermore, according to Gay and Airasian (2000:418), some periods of time were required for the treatment.
According to Gay and Airasian (2000:389), The one-group pretest-posttest design does not need a control class. So, there was no control class in this research. This design had three process, they are pretest, treatment and posttest. It meant that the researcher focuses on differences of pretest and posttest that have occured.
2. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
The data analysis of this research was the results of students’ score in pretest and posttest at the eighth grade of the SMPN 4 Lintau Buo by using. In this
research, the researcher collected the data based on students’ reading test score in academic 2013/ 2014.
The using of students’ score on reading test was used as the starting point on the students reading ability in understanding text before giving treatment during eight meetings. There were 30 students in experimental class. In this research had no class control and the researcher used cluster sampling.
The research taught eighth grade for eight meetings. The researcher did the research since February 21th 2014 until Maret 29th 2014. The researcher taught by using Text Walk Strategy. In chapter III, the data from this research was taken from pretest and posttest. Pretest was taken before doing treatment and posttest after giving the treatment. Before the researcher gave pretest, the researcher gave try out at SMPN 4 Lintau Buo. In this research, the researcher had chosen the sample class by selecting the classes based on the students’
score on reading test at second semester in academic year 2013/2014, in selecting the sample the researcher did normality test by using software Liliefors. After the researcher gave try out, the researcher analyzed the data to know reability of the item test. And also, the researcher found out the item difficulties and item descrimination of the test. After that, the researcher selected the item which one the revised item and accepted item.
In this research, the researcher also found out normality of pretest and posttest. After the researcher checked the normality of pretest and posttest, the researcher got the value were normal. Lo(0.0975 and 0.0729) smaller than Lt(0.1610). The researcher found out mean score of pretest. The mean score of pretest was 15.3. Then, the researcher also found the mean score of posttest. The mean score of posttest was 17.73.
After the researcher got mean score of pretest and posttest, the researcher would compare the score by using statistical formula by Gay and Airasian(2000:489). D was the difference between the matched pairs of score (pretest and posttest).
Thus, D equals X2 – X1. After that, the researcher would find out ∑D (73) and ∑D2 (917).
After getting the result of ∑D and ∑D2, the researcher found out the sum of difference score both of the tests, it is used formula of Gay and Airasian (2000:489) . To find out needed and N. was the total of differences (73) and N was the total of students (30), and the result of was 2.43. After the researcher got , so the researcher would find out was Text Walk strategy effective or
5 not to improve students reading comprehension. To find out The Text Walk strategy effective or not to improve students reading comprehension. The researcher used formula by Gay and Airasian (2000:489)
Conclusions
The result of this research was analyzed by using t-test formula which suggested by Gay and Airasian. As stated in the findings, The researcher got the value of t-test was 2.67 and the value of t-table was 2,04 at the degree of freedom 29 and the level significant 0.05. It means t-test was higher than t- table, so hypothesis one was accepted. Finally, the researcher concluded that there was significant effect of Text Walk Strategy toward students’ reading comprehension in SMPN 4 Lintau Buo, Tanah Datar.
Therefore, this strategy could link students’
background knowledge with new information about the text that would be read and it also made students more easy understand text and remember it longer.
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