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STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE TOWARD SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION ON ACADEMIC READING AT ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF KALIMANTAN MAB BANJARMASIN
Zulfah Rahmasari Islamic University Of Kalimantan
real@asia.com
Angga Taufan Dayu Islamic University Of Kalimantan
Neneng Islamiah
Islamic University Of Kalimantan
ABSTRACT
Small group discussion is a way to implement cooperative learning, which is more students – centered than teacher – centered, where student interact and cooperate with each other to achieve individual and group goals. Some research studies have shown the benefits of small group discussion based on students’ point of view. This study aimed to know whether the students’ attitudes toward small group discussion in this context is similar or different to the previous findings and to assess the students attitude toward small group discussion in the academic reading class of students majoring in English Language Education of the faculty UNISKA, Banjarmasin. The method of this research study was quantitative descriptive by using Likert - scale.
The result of this study found that 23 participants had positive attitude toward small group discussion. Their positive attitude regarding how they learned, how much the learned, and how much they enjoyed learning in the small group discussion. Therefore, small group discussion was suitable to be implemented in this course to enhance the learning process. What needs to keep in mind is that each group member should be willing to do his/her responsibilities in order to achieve the group’ goal.
Keyword : students attitudes, small group discussion, technique.
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent times, one of the problems in our educational world is about the weakness in the learning process. Students are less motivated to develop their reading, listening, speaking and writing. Commonly, the learning process in the classroom makes the students force their brain and energy to memorize the knowledge without developing or relating them to their life situation. In other words, the lecturers dominate the activities in the classroom and the teaching process is merely passing the knowledge from the teacher to the students. As a factor to determine students’ successful learning teaching, learning technique itself has a board meaning and variety.
In reading skills affect students’ is important to get information. It is a skill that works as a communication way of written text between a writer and a reader. By using this skill, the readers try to understand what the idea or the
information of a text wanted to deliver by the writer.
Mastering reading skill is also becomes a must for all of the students which are studying English as a foreign language. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the significance of group work in the classroom, because of its real influence the students’ language learning. The popularity of group work in the teaching has been beyond the reasonable doubt for many years (Harmer, 2011). Petty (2001) states that a good understanding between students and an encouraging students – centered confidential atmosphere can be created inside the class with the existence of group work.
The researcher sees many students at the sixth semester of English Department FKIP UNISKA get difficulties in academic reading so the researcher interested to know students’ attitude by using small group discussion in their reading comprehending. That is the reason why the researcher did this study.
2. METHOD
Research Design and Setting
Quantitative was chosen as the design to do this research. The type of research was used survey descriptive because the researcher only focuses to describe the students’
attitude by using small group discussion on academic reading.
This research was conducted at UNISKA. This campus is located at Jl. Adhyaksa No. 2 Kayu Tangi, Banjarmasin 70123
Population and Sample
The population of this research was all of students at the sixth semester of English Department FKIP UNISKA which comprises 23 students. They were only one class, class A regular morning Banjarmasin consists of 23 students. Class A regular morning Banjarmasin was chosen as sample using cluster random sampling.
Instrument
In this research, the researcher used a google form is Likert-Scale. The students were asked to answer 10 items by multiple choice
Data Analysis
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The researcher analyzed the data using SPSS application to find mean score, the standard deviation, the median, the mode and percentage.
3. FINDING AND DISCUSSION
4. CLOSING
Conclusion
It can be seen from the table above, most of the students are agree when learning process used small group discussion. The researcher found that in this case, small group discussion gives a good impact toward the process of learning in foreign language.
The findings on this study, small group discussion was suitable to be implemented in this course. Lecture could use small group discussion to enhance the students’ learning quality by learning with other students in order to discussed on academic text and assignments. It will be helpful if they could share the ideas from each other, so that they also get more information about the text itself. Each member in the group could demonstrate their opinion, ideas, information to get more knowledge of the texts. It makes the works easier to be done.
Suggestion
Lecuturer could use small group discussion to enhance the students’ learning quality by learning with other students in order to discuss on learning process and assignment. It will be helpful if they could share the ideas from each other, so that they also could get could get more information about the material. Each member in the group could demonstrate their opinion, ideas, information to get more knowledge of the texts. It makes the works easier to be done. However, to ensure that the small group discussion enhances the learning process, each group member should be committed to their responsibilities in order to achieve the group goal’s.
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