CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with background, problem statements, objective of the research, significance of the research, the scope of the research, and the operational definition of the term.
A. Background
Reading is a basic language skill that any learner needs. Unfortunately, reading has not been taught properly due to the context in schools. In the past, according to the traditional view, reading began with the child's mastering the names of the letters, mastering the letter sound relationship, then, learning some easy words in isolation, and, finally, reading simple stories with highly controlled vocabularies. (Harp and Brewer, 1996).
According to writer observation during doing Praktek Pengalaman Lapangan (PPL) in MTs Syekh Yusuf Sungguminasa Gowa, most of students there are not able and not understood what they have read. They only read the material without knowing what they have read. So, reading activities in the classroom is not useful for them if they did’nt know and understand what information they have read.
In the interview with some students, they said that they obtained difficulties in identifying the implicit and explicit information of the text. Besides, many students had low motivation in reading class. These problems is mainly caused by an inappropriate teaching technique used when the teachers attempted to explain reading materials. The teacher only had been using one technique namely, conventional technique. In the reading class, the teacher presented a subject in the text book and asked students to read whether silently or loudly, and then students had to answer the questions that follow. Consequently, the reading lesson becomes monotonous and boring, students lack motivation to read, even if they read, they show negative attitudes. As a result, the students are not able to get good scores in their reading achievement.
Reading is a basic language skill that any learner needs. Unfortunately, reading has not been taught properly due to the context in schools. In the past, according to the traditional view, reading began with the child's mastering the names of the letters, mastering the letter sound relationship, then, learning some easy words in isolation, and, finally, reading simple stories with highly controlled vocabularies. (Harp and Brewer, 1996).
According to writer observation during doing Praktek Pengalaman Lapangan (PPL) in MTs Syekh Yusuf Sungguminasa Gowa, most of students there are not able and not understood what they have read. They only read the material without knowing what they have read. So, reading activities in the classroom is not useful for them if they did’nt know and understand what information they have read.
In the interview with some students, they said that they obtained difficulties in identifying the implicit and explicit information of the text. Besides, many students had low motivation in reading class. These problems is mainly caused by an inappropriate teaching technique used when the teachers attempted to explain reading materials. The teacher only had been using one technique namely, conventional technique. In the reading class, the teacher presented a subject in the text book and asked students to read whether silently or loudly, and then students had to answer the questions that follow. Consequently, the reading lesson becomes monotonous and boring, students lack motivation to read, even if they read, they show negative attitudes. As a result, the students are not able to get good scores in their reading achievement.
Reading cannot be separated from comprehension. That is why there appear a lot of problems dealing with reading comprehension. Many English learners find it difficult to understand the English text. Very often, they get stuck because of some problems, such as unfamiliar words, their inability in understanding the context, being reluctant, and so forth. Reading is not an easy skill to master. It is a complex process that requires specialized skill of the reader (Dechant, 1977). Besides, it is also comprehension process as well as writing.
According to Nunan (1998), reading needs identification and also interpretation processes which require the reader’s knowledge about the language structure used in the text and his knowledge about a given topic. It is the complexity that makes some students less interested in this kind of activity. They find it difficult to understand what is on the reading passage since they do not know the technique which can help them to read more effectively and efficiently. This phenomenon happens in almost every language class.
Reading comprehension skills separate the "passive" unskilled readers from the "active" readers. Skilled readers do not just read, they interact with the text. Skilled readers, for instance, predict what will happen next in a story using clues presented in text, create questions about the main idea, message, or plot of the text, and monitor understanding of the sequence, context, or characters (Sanders, 2001). To be able to achieve the purposes of reading comprehension, one should have some basic reading skills as follows; (1) literal skills (getting the central thought and main idea, recalling and recognizing of facts and information, finding answer to specific questions); (2) interpretive skills (drawing conclusions, generalizing, deriving meaning from context); (3) critical skill (determining the writer’s purpose); and (4) creative skills (applying information into daily life).
The technique of finding the meaning of an unknown word through its use in a sentence and then guessing how it is pronounced is known as contextual guessing or context identification, or the use of context clues. Contextual guessing is the most important skill used by most readers in attacking new words. It is closely related to comprehension and this is one of the most practical skills student learn. Contextual clues have several uses in reading. The procedures for developing abilities in contextual guessing can be incorporated class reading presentations or special exercises. Before we go further analyzing contextual guessing, we must consider a few preliminary questions concerning this skill. These questions pertain to the usefulness and to the trainability of the guessing skill.
Based on the case above, the writer is inspired to conduct a research under the title “The Effectiveness of Using Contextual Guessing Technique in Improving the Reading Comprehension at the Second Grade Students’of MTsN. Bangkala, Kabupaten Jeneponto”.
B. Problem Statements
According to Nunan (1998), reading needs identification and also interpretation processes which require the reader’s knowledge about the language structure used in the text and his knowledge about a given topic. It is the complexity that makes some students less interested in this kind of activity. They find it difficult to understand what is on the reading passage since they do not know the technique which can help them to read more effectively and efficiently. This phenomenon happens in almost every language class.
Reading comprehension skills separate the "passive" unskilled readers from the "active" readers. Skilled readers do not just read, they interact with the text. Skilled readers, for instance, predict what will happen next in a story using clues presented in text, create questions about the main idea, message, or plot of the text, and monitor understanding of the sequence, context, or characters (Sanders, 2001). To be able to achieve the purposes of reading comprehension, one should have some basic reading skills as follows; (1) literal skills (getting the central thought and main idea, recalling and recognizing of facts and information, finding answer to specific questions); (2) interpretive skills (drawing conclusions, generalizing, deriving meaning from context); (3) critical skill (determining the writer’s purpose); and (4) creative skills (applying information into daily life).
The technique of finding the meaning of an unknown word through its use in a sentence and then guessing how it is pronounced is known as contextual guessing or context identification, or the use of context clues. Contextual guessing is the most important skill used by most readers in attacking new words. It is closely related to comprehension and this is one of the most practical skills student learn. Contextual clues have several uses in reading. The procedures for developing abilities in contextual guessing can be incorporated class reading presentations or special exercises. Before we go further analyzing contextual guessing, we must consider a few preliminary questions concerning this skill. These questions pertain to the usefulness and to the trainability of the guessing skill.
Based on the case above, the writer is inspired to conduct a research under the title “The Effectiveness of Using Contextual Guessing Technique in Improving the Reading Comprehension at the Second Grade Students’of MTsN. Bangkala, Kabupaten Jeneponto”.
B. Problem Statements
The effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension at the Second Grade students' of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto is the main focus of this research. In order to clarify the purpose of this research, researchers formulated questions that would be the reference of the research, as follows: To what extent is the effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension of the Second Grade Students of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto?
C. Objective of the Research
This research aimed to determine the extent to which the effectiveness of using contextual guessing technique of the Second Grade Students of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto. Through the exploration of the problems, this research was specifically carried out to investigate to what extent the effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension of the Second Grade students of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto.
D. Significance of the Research
Significances or the expected benefits of research is to improve the reading comprehension of the Second Grade students'of MTsN Bangkala using Contextual Guessing that aims to enable students not only can read the text but they can guess the contents of the text content of the reading. Besides, the preparation of this thesis also have the power to as a reference for prospective English teachers are no exception to the author.
This research aimed to determine the extent to which the effectiveness of using contextual guessing technique of the Second Grade Students of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto. Through the exploration of the problems, this research was specifically carried out to investigate to what extent the effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension of the Second Grade students of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto.
D. Significance of the Research
Significances or the expected benefits of research is to improve the reading comprehension of the Second Grade students'of MTsN Bangkala using Contextual Guessing that aims to enable students not only can read the text but they can guess the contents of the text content of the reading. Besides, the preparation of this thesis also have the power to as a reference for prospective English teachers are no exception to the author.
E. Scope of the Research
This research focused on the effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension of the Second Grade Students’ of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto
F. The Operational Definition of Terms
To avoid misinterpretation of the reader in response to this research, the researcher will explaining the propositions based on some key concepts about the variables used in the research. Because the operational definitions are complementary to the writing of this thesis to clarify the intent of this research direction. Thus, the operational variables that need to be defined are:
This research focused on the effectiveness of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension of the Second Grade Students’ of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto
F. The Operational Definition of Terms
To avoid misinterpretation of the reader in response to this research, the researcher will explaining the propositions based on some key concepts about the variables used in the research. Because the operational definitions are complementary to the writing of this thesis to clarify the intent of this research direction. Thus, the operational variables that need to be defined are:
1. Effectiveness, is to illustrate or describe the extent to which the results obtained from of using contextual guessing techniques in improving the reading comprehension at the second grade students' of MTsN Bangkala, Kab. Jeneponto.
2. Use of the technique, is the manner or method in use to improve students' reading comprehension through contextual guessing.
3. Contextual guessing, is to guess the contextual or find meaning of words that are unknown to comprehend a reading text. Aspatore (1984) showed that contextual guessing is to ask students to underline words that are not known, without looking up the dictionary meaning, using context clues to guess the general meaning; to skip an unknown word, and to focus on relatives, roots, prefixes, and ending when reading a text (Chastain, 1988).
4. Improve Reading Comprehension is to improve students' skills in reading to understand the contextual guessing strategy and do more activities associated with this strategy. Reading comprehension strategies help teachers promote their students and the most important thing is to help students improve performance in understanding the content of reading text.
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