IMPROVING THE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH KARANGASEM THROUGH QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE IN ACADEMIC YEAR

Transcription

1 IMPROVING THE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH KARANGASEM THROUGH QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013 BY SARIMAN NPM: ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION MAHASARASWATI UNIVERSITY DENPASAR 2013

2 IMPROVING READING COMPREHENSION OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMADIYAH KARANGASEM IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2012/2013 THESIS As partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Department Faculty of Teacher Training and Education Mahasaraswati Denpasar University BY SARIMAN NPM: ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION MAHASARASWATI UNIVERSITY DENPASAR 2013 i

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6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, the researcher would like to express her gratitude to the Almighty God, ALLAH SWT, for His blessing so that this thesis finally is accomplished on time. Secondly she would like to say thank you for both advisors, Drs.I nengah Astawa M.Hum and I Ketut Wardana, S.Pd, M.hum. for their helping as guidance, corrector and motivator Thirdly, her deep thank and appreciation goes to Prof. Dr. I Wayan Maba the dean faculty of training and education of Maharaswati University Denpasar and all lectures and staff of the faculty of Teacher Training and Education for their valuable knowledge and help. Fourthly, she also expresses her thankfullness to I Wayan Merta, S.Pd, M.Pd, the headmaster of SMP Muhamadiyah Amlapura and I Wayan Wage, S.Pd, the English teacher of class. for the permission to do the research with the tenth grade students who were the subjects of this research. And then, the great thank to students of class eighth of SMP Muhamadiyah Amlapura for their cooperation during the research was conducted. Finally, she would say thank you for her family, her friends for their spirit, motivation and their support. Without them she couldn t accomplish a thesis. Denpasar, 10 February 2013 The researcher, sariman

7 ABSTRACT Sariman Teaching Reading Comprehension through questioning technique to the Tenth Grade Students of SMP muhammadiyah Karangasem. The first advisor: Drs. I Nengah Astawa M.Hum; the second advisor: I Ketut Wardana, S.Pd, M. Hum. Keyword: teaching reading comprehension, questioning technique, SMP muhammadiyah karangasem. The present classroom action study dealt with teaching reading comprehension through questioning technique to the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Karangasem in academic year 2012/2013. The purpose of this research study was to solve the problem which faced by the students especially in reading comprehension. This study tried to answer the research question which could be formulated as follow: can questioning technique improve the students reading comprehension of the tenth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Amlapura in academic year 2012/2013? The present study was concerned with teaching reading comprehension by administering pre-test, post-test and questionnaire as the research instrument. The data required for this study were collected by administering initial reflection in reading comprehension, reflection by the end of each session and administering questionnaire by the end of cycle 2. The IR score obtained by the subjects under study was 1.70 which was considered low. To solve this problem, the students reading comprehension needed to be improved through think pair share. The result data showed that the score in every session went up (2.25, 5.88, 7.55, and 8.25). The grand mean score of cycle 1 and cycle 2 was much higher than mean score of the initial refection (IR); the mean score in cycle 1 and cycle 2 showed the improvement of the students reading comprehension through think pair share. The result of the questionnaire s score showed the comparative percentages of 57.39%, 36.98%, 5.61% and 0 for items A, B, C and D respectively. The result data of questionnaire indicated that most of students liked this technique in learning English especially in reading comprehension. In conclusion the previously hypothesis, reading comprehension of the tenth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Amlapura could be improved through questioning technique, was proved.

8 TABLE OF CONTENT COVER... i COVER 2... ii APPROVAL SHEET 1... iii APPROVAL SHEET 2... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... v TABLE OF CONTENT... vi LIST OF TABLE... viii LIST OF GRAPH... ix ABSTRACT... x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study Statement of Research Question purpose of the Study Limitation of the Study Significance of the Study Assumptions Hypothesis Definition of Key Terms Theoretical Framework... 6 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Conception of Reading Comprehension Types of Reading Questioning Technique Narrative Reading Text Assessment of Reading Comprehension CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Subject of the Study Research Design Initial Reflection Planning... 23

9 3.2.3 Action Observation Reflection Research Instrument Data Collection Data Analysis CHAPTER IV THE PRESENTATION OF THE FINDINGS 4.1 Data Tabulation Data Analysis Discussion of the Findings CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion Suggestion REFERENCES APPENDICES

10 LIST OF TABLE Table 1: Tabulation of Data Showing the Subjects Progressing scores in Reading Comprehension through questioning technique Table 2: Tabulation of Data Showing the Subjects Changing Motivation and Attitude in Reading Comprehension through questioning Technique Table 3: Summary of the Research Findings Showing the Mean of each Session and the Grand Mean for Cycle 1 and Cycle

11 LIST OF GRAPH Graph 1 : Depicting the Subjects Progressing scores in Reading Comprehension through questioning Technique in Cycle Graph 2 : Depicting the Subjects Progressing scores in Reading Comprehension through questioning Technique in Cycle Graph 3 : Depicting the Subjects Progressing Grand Mean after Taught Reading Comprehension through questioning Technique Graph 4 : Depicting the Subjects Changing Motivation and Attitudes in Reading Comprehension through questioning Technique... 37

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13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the Study Language is one of the most important think in our life, especially for human being. By learning language people can communicate to others. Beside that, by learning language people can convey their idea and to get message from someone else. There are a lot of languages in this world; one of them is English. Mastering in English is a must because today English is an international language. Teaching English as a foreign language is a quite hard because in Indonesia English is not the first language but the foreign language. There are several reasons why people learning English language, first, the curriculum which is made by the government require the student to study English. Second, some people learn English because they want to know about the culture of another country. Third they continue their study in another country where English is used as a national language. Four, some people learn English because they want to get a better job in the future; some people think that know two languages is better than one. Because of the reasons above every country introduces English since they still young. Talking about English means talking about four language skills, they are, listening, speaking, reading and writing and other two components they are vocabulary and grammar. Reading is one of ways to study English language; furthermore, it has an important part in teaching learning process because by reading, students will enlarge their vocabulary directly. Teaching reading means

14 teach the all components of language such as listening, speaking and writing but if they teach reading, they must be focus on reading. Mostly, reading will be given after they master in listening and speaking. According to Bernhardt in Undiksa (2012:33) Reading is viewed as an interactive, sociocognitive process involving a text, a reader and social context within which the activity of reading takes place. Based on Bernhard statement, the researcher concludes that reading is a complex activity where all the body such as: eyes, hands, brain, foot and etc work together in the same time. Furthermore, by reading books the students not only get a lot of information or get message from it but also it will increase student s vocabulary and pronunciation. Hence, reading is very an important think in teaching learning process. To keep student motivation in reading comprehension is very hard because they are very quickly bored. Because of this reason, teachers need to use many different kinds of techniques and to continuously renew their efforts to have the students attain the highest achievements. Therefore, the learners will enjoy their class. There are many techniques can be applied for teaching reading comprehension. One of them is jigsaw technique. Questioning is operative discussion strategy developed by Lyman in Undiksa (2012:4). It gets its name from the three stages of students action with emphasis on what student will do at each of the stages; beside that, they will work together with their partner discussing everything that appear on the

15 text or another material. This strategy is a relatively low-risk and short collaborative learning structure. questioning technique is very simple to apply. It is observes that questioning technique effects increasing the academic success in addition to the social and Intellectual abilities of the students. Various research have shown that especially at the primary, secondary and university level that questioning technique is effective in learning process of theoretical course, in the development of critical thinking process of students, not only in their ability to express themselves, but also in their communication skill. Today, the teacher must be a facilitator and be a motivator for their students. It means that the students have more active in the class. In Think-Pair-Share, student may enjoy from time to time getting away from the usual pattern of reading the story or article aloud at sight. The purpose of implementing think pair share technique in teaching learning process is to give the students opportunity to express their knowledge and ability in reading comprehension without feel scare or embarrassment. The researcher expects that teaching reading comprehension through think pair share will give a good impact for the student; furthermore, students can optimize their reading ability and motivate their self in learning English. From the fact above, she realizes that making students keep focus and enjoy their study is a big problem, so in this present study she will use or apply a new technique in teaching learning process especially in teaching reading comprehension. She will use classroom action research and then the researcher is

16 highly motivated in investigating the technique in teaching reading comprehension through think pair share. 1.2 Statement of Research Question Based on the background of the research, the research question can be formulated as follows: can questioning technique improve the students reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Amlapura in the academic year 2012/2013? 1.3 Purpose of the Study In line with the problem formulated before, this study is intended to find out whether or not questioning technique can improve students reading comprehension of the tenth grade students of SMP Muhamadiyah Amlapura in academic year 2012/ Limitations of the Study Teaching reading comprehension using questioning technique is very complex process; On account of this fact, challenges related to reading comprehension faced by the subjects of this study are definitely too broad and complex to be dealt with in a single study. Accordingly, in the present class action study the researcher, while acknowledging that there are many other useful strategies, limits her investigation on teaching reading comprehension through think pair share technique using narrative text to the tenth grade student of SMP muhamadiyah Amlapura in academic year 2012/2013.

17 1.5 Significance of the Study This research is concerned with teaching reading comprehension, using questioning technique to improve the students reading comprehension. The results of this study are expected to be useful for students, teachers, and the researcher; It can be a contribution to improve their reading comprehension. 1. For students, they can improve their achievement of reading comprehension. Beside that, by using questioning technique the researcher expect that the student will enjoy the class. By enjoying their self in the class, they will be easier to build their motivation beside that they will be focus on their material. 2. For teachers, this present study is expected to become a valuable input in improving the effectiveness of teaching reading comprehension through think pair share technique. questioning technique is very easy to apply in teaching learning process. In addition, the students will be active because they can express their idea without feel shy. Beside that, this technique may be used as a technique to teach another material. 3. For the researcher, this study is expected to give benefit contribution to the teacher, in other words they can give suitable exercise which can improve the students achievement in reading comprehension; futhermore, it can be a contribution to improve the student reading comprehension

18 1.6 Assumption Because of the limitation of time, finance, and the researcher ability, not all variable can be controlled. Therefore, the fundamental assumptions are put toward on this study as follow: 1. All subjects under study are assumed to have learnt English for the same period of time. 2. All subjects under study are assumed to have similar language experience both teacher and student. 3. The instruments used for collecting the data are constructed in such a way that they are supposed to be valid and reliable. 1.7 Hypothesis According to the problem above, the researcher will formulate hypothesis as follows: the students reading comprehension can be improved through questioning technique. 1.8 Definition of the Key Terms In order not to make confuse and misunderstanding dealing with the topic, the key terms are operationally defined as follows: 1. Teaching reading comprehension Reading comprehension is a complex activities or process of getting the meaning from the text. It involves the way of thinking, getting knowledge from the text both of knowledge and pronunciation. Teaching reading comprehension is a whole process that consists of identifying the written word or the text,

19 understanding the text and interpreting it depend on the background and students knowledge. By doing these activities, the students are expected to open their mind and try to express their idea or opinion while teaching learning happen. 2. questioning technique questioning is a simple technique which is introduced by Lyman. giving the student to think alone or individually about the question that has been posed. : students are divided into pairs to discuss their thoughts. This step allows the students to share their idea with his/her partner, and then they will work together as a group to answer the question. : after getting the answer, student pairs share their ideas to the whole class. Mostly, students are more comfortable presenting ideas in the class with the support of a partner. In addition, the ` students more easily to create ideas using this technique. 3 SMP Muhammadiyah Amlapura SMP muhamadiyah Amlapura is a name of junior High School which is located on Jalan raya sudirman amlapura Karangasem; furthermore, it has 3 classrooms of the tenth grade students. The class eighth will be observed by the researcher because she thinks that they still have crucial problem in reading omprehension skill. Therefore, the researcher is deeply interested to cope this problem.

20 1.9 Theoretical Framework In this study the theoretical frameworks which will be discussed elaborately in Chapter 2, review of related literature are as follows: 1) conception of reading comprehension, 2) types of reading, (3) questioning technique, 4) narrative reading text, 5) assessment of reading comprehension

21 CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 Conception of Reading Comprehension Since English as an international language, most of people in the world learn it. Sometime people learn it because they want to expand their business or just learning about another culture. Because of this reason they have to know English as a basic language for communication. Reading comprehension can be used as an effective way to solve this problem; furthermore, it also can increase students vocabulary too. Thus, reading has an important part in teaching learning process especially in learning English. Klinger, Vaughn, & Boardman (2007:2) state that meaning, learning, and pleasure are the ultimate goals of learning to read. Knowing how to read words has ultimately little value if the students are unable to construct meaning from the text. Ultimately, reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a number of complex processes that include word reading, word and world knowledge, and fluency; furthermore, they state that reading comprehension involves much more than readers responses to the text. Reading comprehension is a multicomponent, highly complex process that involves many interactions between reader and what they bring to the text (previous knowledge, strategy use) as well as variables related to the text it self (interest in the text, understanding of the text type). According to Edward fry (2007:7) reading comprehension is you teach a student to read by helping him or her to learn the relationships between the printed

22 words and their meaning. Meanwhile, Bernhard in Undiksa (2012:33), reading is viewed as an interactive, sociocognitive process involving a text, a reader, and social context within which the activity of reading takes place. Meanwhile, Ediger further points that the reader constructs meaning through his transaction with the written text. The transaction involves interpretation which is influenced by his experience, language background, cultural framework, and purposes of reading. Beside that, he furthers mentions six components skill and knowledge which can be gained from the reading process such as: word identification, enlarge the vocabularies, formal discourse structure knowledge, content/world background knowledge, evaluation skills/strategies, compare information from different resources, there are mental process while reading. Hence, there are numbers of benefits for the reader that can be got during reading. Lapp and Flood in Developmental Reading (2008:1) write that all definitions of reading fall into two categories. First there are those who view reading primarily as a decoding process, a breaking of a visual code. In a second view, reading for meaning is emphasized from the very earliest stages of instruction; in this view reading as a comprehension process is stressed. In other hand, ESRC Seminar Series (2009:8) writes that Comprehension is the goal of both reading and listening. Successful comprehension enables readers (or listeners) to acquire information, to experience and be aware of other worlds (including fictional ones), to communicate successfully, and to achieve academic success. They also define that good reading comprehension involves reading the words on the page, accessing their meanings, computing the sense of

23 each sentence and much else as well. To understand text in a meaningful way, readers need to integrate the meanings of successive sentences and to establish local coherence. Readers also need to establish how the information fits together as a whole, that is, global coherence. For both local and global coherence, readers need to intercoporate background knowledge and ideas (retrieved from long-term memory) to make sense of details that are only implicit. Basically, all the linguists above have a same opinion about reading and reading comprehension. Thus, the researcher can conclude that reading comprehension is a complex activity where the reader can get knowledge from the text both of information or message and new vocabularies; furthermore, to understand text the reader need to find out the meaning or the correlation between the sentences that establish in the whole text. They can retell again the information that they have read depend on their knowledge, culture and background. Finally, there are a lot of benefits that the reader can get from reading. If we read a lot of books, magazines, articles, and many things you can get a lot of knowledge and information from it. 2.2 Types of Reading In the previous section, the researcher has introduced the definition of reading comprehension from the linguists. Now, she will discuss about types of reading. In this material, the researcher distributes the types of reading into two categories. The first is depend on reading assessment which is written by Brown and the second is depend on teaching reading which is introduced by Bambang Setiyadi.

24 The researcher only explains about the both of these topics. For further information about it, she shows the explanation below: As Brown states (2004:189) that reading can be defined into 4 types, they are: 1. Perceptive. Perceptive reading tasks involve attending to the components of larger stretches of discourse: letters, words, punctuation, and other graphitic symbols. In this case the learners are expected becoming literate in both of their native speaker or in language that they have learned. By doing this task they will get a lot benefits, one of it is they able to write and read. 2. Selective. This category is largely an artifact of assessment formats. In order to ascertain one s reading recognition of lexical, grammatical, or discourse features of language within a very short stretch of language, certain typical tasks are used: picture-cued task, matching, true/false, multiple-choice, etc. It means that the learners are expected to understand more detail about the language that they have learned. 3. Interactive. Included among interaction reading types are stretches of language of several paragraphs to one page or more in which the reader must in a psycholinguistic sense, interact with the text. That is, reading is a process of negotiating meaning: the reader brings to the text a set of schemata for understanding it, and intake is the product of that interaction. So the reader or listener have to make the text into graph or schemata in order to make simple and more easier in understanding it without reading

25 the whole text. Hence the reader can understand immediately by looking the schemata with a little note in the below of it. 4. Extensive. Extensive reading, applies to text of more than a page, up to and including professional articles, essay, technical reports, short stories, and books. The learners must understand the whole text that they have read and the last they can answer the question based on the text. Second, she discuss the types of reading depend on the method that is used in teaching learning process. Huebener in Bambang Setiyadi (2006:67) writes, there are different types of reading: 1. Choral reading. This type still important in improving learners pronunciation. Working in-groups will make language learners feel confident to pronounce words in foreign accent and practice is really recommended in this method. 2. Silent reading. After language learners learn the words and expressions and know how to pronounce them, the actual reading can begin. This can be done through silent reading. Silent reading can begin with reading aloud by the teacher. 3. Intensive reading. Intensive reading may proceed as follows. a. While the books are closed, the students listen to the teacher. They have to hear what their teacher said carefully. Occasionally, he or she will ask a question to make sure that everything is clear. b. The new words, phrases, and idiom are written on the board. They pronounced and used in original sentences.

26 c. The students open their books and the teachers read the first part of the selection aloud. Reference is made to words on the board. It means that after the teachers read aloud the first part of the text and then write down the difficult word that faced by the students on the board and will discuss it together. d. The selection is now read by the class, alternating silent and oral reading. It is suggested that narrative or expository passage be read silently, whereas conversation or dialogue is done orally. e. The selection may now be summarized in various types. Selected learners may be asked to give a summary in their mother tongue or in the foreign language. 4. Extensive reading. Basically extensive reading is a silent reading but done outside of class. In order for language learners to have less problems in intensive reading, the teacher should explain first difficult passages or new words. 5. Supplementary reading. It is also done out in class. Language learners are free to choose reading materials. Reading materials may consist of newspaper, bulletins, or magazines in the target language. The effect of doing this activity, the students will enjoy studying English. The researcher thinks that reading is very useful for increasing student ability both in speaking and listening because by reading they will know lots of vocabulary. In the other hand, reading is one of the best and a simple ways to learn foreign language in all levels of learners.

27 2.3 Questioning Technique There are a lot of technique can be applied in teaching learning activity. Using appropriate technique in convey the material is a must because it can influence the condition of students. It means that are the students enjoy while teaching learning process happen. As what has been previously mentioned, to get students attention is very hard, the teachers must use a various technique to make them keep focus on the material. There are a lot of techniques that can be used as a way to communicate the material in the classroom. Questioning technique can be a solution to solve the problems in teaching reading comprehension. Questioning technique developed by Professor Frank Lyman at the University of Maryland in 1981 and adopted by many writers in field of cooperative learning during that time. This technique can be used in all level of students; moreover, the technique is a low- risk strategy. Similar to what Lyman suggested, Bennett and Rolheiser (2001:94) state that this is a process that can be implemented quickly and can be incorporated into almost any form of instruction. It is a cooperative structure in which partners privately think about a question/idea/issue/situation etc. then discuss their responses with one another. A useful strategy to involve all students. They also give information how to use the technique: Step 1 : the teacher puts students into groups of two. The students sit face to face, knee to knee, maintaining eye contact. They then number themselves person A and person B. Step 2: the teacher tells the students he/she will ask a question, students are to

28 think to themselves, and then share with a partner. The teacher will then call on any student to share with the class or the other word the teacher will ask the students to share to the whole class. Step 3: the teacher ask a question, gives students time to think, and then ask A to start sharing. When A is finished B shares with A, usually 30 seconds for each person. Step 4: the teacher can then randomly call on individuals to share their group s thoughts with the class. Further, Dougles, Nancy (2007:30) writes that think pair share is a cooperative discussion strategy that allows students to discuss their responses with a pair before sharing with the whole class. They also argued that the teacher could listen in as pairs discuss their responses and can not the way in which pairs share their responses. According to James et al. (2010:264) writes how to use questioning technique in classroom. They further explain the procedures to apply this technique while teaching learning happen, it will discuss below: 1. Making plan where pausing for reflection took place. 2. Explain the concept think pair share to the student. 3. Form pairs by asking students to get partner. 4. Pose question and signal think begin. Giving students to think first to find the answer by thinking individually is necessary because it can increase their ability in understanding the text independently.

29 5. Signal share, it means that the students must share to their partner what their own answer. According to Persida and William (2011:32), questionig is a simple but powerful tool that should be used repeatedly and consistently throughout the day. They also explain how to apply the technique in classroom, here is the system: ask the student to imagine or describe the question which has be given before by their self. Giving the time to think around 30 minutes is very important for student. Then ask them to find their partner and share with her or his. Beside that, depend on Darryn (2009:32) questioning is a technique which is used to invite all students more active in the classroom. The question must be answered by the student. The teacher asks students to think the answer individually. After giving time to think, he or she will ask their student to make a group consist of two persons (pair). At last they will discuss their respond with their partner. After that, the teacher asks them to share to the whole class. Mostly teacher will use their hand or use a tool like bell as a signal indicate that the time is over or the cycle must move. In the other hand, Robert and John (2011:122) have same opinions. is a technique which is done through three simple steps. Further, they also state that this technique can be used to know the students respond about article or something happen today. It means, it can be used to improve students ability in speaking.

30 Similar with Steven et. Al. (2006:98) write questioning is a cooperative where it consist of three simple steps. By doing this technique, the student will be more comfortable share to the whole class after discussing their respond with their partner. Holcomb (2000:28) also writes that the technique doesn t need a special material. It can be used in many context during an improvement process to improve communication and manage conflicts; furthermore, it helps assess the readiness of a school to examine it self and begin to improve. Further, he argues that the purpose for the individually participant is to refine and clarify personal viewpoints. 2.4 Narrative Reading Text Based on PLPG which was made by Undiksa, Singaraja (2012: 56) writes that a narrative is used to tell a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener or in another word narrative text is aimed to amuse or to entertain the reader or listener by telling a story. The tenses that usually used in writing narrative are past tense. The generic structures of narrative text are: 1. An orientation: the writer tells about the members of story or who is in the story, the background of the story such as time and place (who, when, where). 2. A complication: problem that must be faced by the character. 3. A sequence of events where the characters react to the complication. At the beginning of the story we can use at first, one day, in the beginning,

31 once upon the time etc. Then in middle we can use next, then, after that. At the end of the story we can use at last, in conclusion, finally etc. 4. A resolution in which the character solve their problem. 5. A coda: a comment or moral based on the story but it is an optional step, we can make it or not. 2.5 Assessment of Reading Comprehension Assessment is really needed and can be done by giving a series of test. The purpose of the test is to measure the students reading comprehension. Beside that, it also used to enable a teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of the teaching program in the method delivery and resources. But the most important think is to know the information on student progress. According to Burke in Westwood (2008:73) states that observation of students at work allows teachers to carry out what has become known as authentic assessment. It means that teacher must observe their student first before giving a test. According to Brown (2004:188) writes that the assessment of reading can imply the assessment of a storehouse of reading strategies, develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such us skinning and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of woods from context, and activating schemata for the interpretation of texts. He also said that aside from simply testing the ultimate achievement of comprehension of written text, it may be important in some contexts to assess one or more of storehouse of classic reading strategies. Furthermore, Brown states that assessment, on the other hand, is on ongoing process that encompasses a much wider domain. Whenever a student

32 respond to a question, offer a comment or tries out a new word or structure, the teacher subconsciously makes an assessment of the students performance. Kauchak and Eggen in Peter Westwood (2008:71) confirm that: The relationship between learning and assessment is clear and consistent. Student learn more in classes where assessment is a regular part of classroom routines, particularly when assessment are frequent and provide feedback to learners. Assessment is a feedback from the learners about the lecture that the teacher taught. It means that they have understood the material or not. In this case assessment also used to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching program. According to Chambers and Gregory (2006: 162), a fucntion of any assessment regime is that it should act as a guide to reinforcing teacher s priorities and helping te students to identify what activities, knowledge and understanding are centrally important to their progress. In conclusion, both teaching and assessing are so closely interrelated in which the form of assessment is not just giving a test in the end of teaching process but also in every activity which appear in the class can become a test. In this research the researcher will give the student several question related to the written text which is discussed during teaching learning process. She expected that the students reading comprehension would be increased after giving the tests. She would give the students test or called post test in every sessions. She hoped that the students reading comprehension could improve after the four sessions were conducted. Every teaching session would be completed with the assessment in the form essay test. The student should be able to answer the question correctly where the right answer would get 1 point and the wrong answer get 0.

33 CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Subject of the Study The present classroom action research was conducted to the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah Amlapura. There were 27 students in class A consisted of 10 male students and 17 female students. I chose class A because they were still poor in reading comprehension. Beside that, they also felt bored when they learn English with the same technique. I got this fact after doing observation by asking the teacher who taught in that class especially English teacher. 3.2 Research Design This study used Classroom Action Research (CAR) as the research design. Schoollaert (2000:56) states that Classroom Action Research was firstly introduced by Stenhouse in 1975 and promoted by Elliot in This research consisted of four major phrases, namely Planning (theory formulation), Action (intervention is carried out), Observation (data collection of intervention) and Reflection (data analysis). Mills in Craig A. Mertler (2006:2) states that action research is defined as any systematic inquiry conducted by teachers, administrators, counselors or others with a vested interest in the teaching and learning process or environment for the purpose of gathering the information about how their students learn. According to Patricia (2008:5) action research is a research where the researcher use collect and analysis, plan and implement action, collect and

34 analysis data on effect, and identify remaining concerns. If the result good or depend on the researcher standard it should be enough but if it doesn t fulfill the researcher must do it again. In addition, Kemmis and Taggrat in Denzin and Y. Lincoln (2000:595) state that action research consists of two cycles and every cycle consists of four sessions and every session consists of four activities such as planning, action, obervation and reflection. In this study the teaching learning process were divided into two cycles where every cycle consisted of two seasons. Each season consisted of four interconnected namely: planning, action, observation and reflection. If the first cycle (cycle 1) didn t fulfill the researcher target, it would be continued by making the second cycle (cycle 2). It meant that the second cycle revised of the first cycle (cycle 1). In other to make it clear, the design can be explained below: Form : Cycle 1 : P1 A1 O1 R1 Cycle 2 : RP P2 A2 O2 R2 Where: P A O R RP : Planning : Action : Observation : Reflection : Revised Planning

35 3.2.1 Initial Reflection Initial reflection was the first step which was done by the researcher. In this stage, she might carry out the problems that appear in reading comprehension by giving some question to the English teacher. Before giving the treatment to solve the problems which were faced by the students, she had to give the pre test first. It was purposed to measure the students reading comprehension Planning To maximize the classroom action study worked, the researcher prepared the instructional planning for overall session such as: 1. Deciding the topic for the first and second cycle. 2. Designing the teaching lesson plan. 3. Preparing the teaching aid such as reading text that was used for the first and second cycle. 4. Making post tests in the form of question and answer test at the end of each session Action Action was implementing the previous planning. In this stage was very important because the researcher applied think pair share technique to solve the problem which was found in the beginning. Action means that the researcher really did in the classroom setting during the processes of teaching reading through Think Pair Share. What she did in every session was principally based on three phases, namely pre activities, while activities and post activities.

36 The teaching learning activities started with pre activities. In this phrase she greeted the students, checked their present list, gave motivation and tried to introduce the general view of the material. These pre activities were planed for about 5 minutes for each session. The second phrase was while activities. In this phrase the researcher used think pair share to teach reading comprehension. In this phrase she divided it into three categories; the first category was exploration, gained information from the students about the material which was discussed. In here, she taught narrative text. The second category was elaboration, consisted of giving explanation about the material. The last category was confirmation; in this step, she used think pair share technique in teaching reading comprehension by giving opportunity to the student to read the text. At first, she would ask the student to read randomly. It meant if the text consisted of ten paragraphs, she would point ten students to read and every student read only one paragraph. While a student read one paragraph, another student had to find the difficult word that appeared on the text individually. Then she gave direction to find a partner to discuss the text or story. After that the pairs had to share what their got after discussing the text. The time allocation for this while activities were about 30 minutes. The last phrase was post activity. The researcher concluded the material which had been taught and asked them to answer the question based on the text individually. The post activities in each session were planed for about 55 minutes.

37 3.2.4 Observation Observation was used to know the effectiveness of teaching learning process using questioning technique. Beside that, it also determined if there was any changed on the students behavior and activity in reading class and how extent the action reached the target. It was very important because by doing observation directly she knew about everything that happened in the class. The changing behavior here included higher motivation in reading comprehension, positive attitude, be more active and enjoyed during reading comprehension happened Reflection In this action research, reflection is purposed to know weather the students understood the material which were given on the basis of teaching reading through thing pair share. The present classroom action study was divided into two cycles where each cycle consists of two seasons and the total tests were four. The result of the entire reflection in cycle 1 were used a feedback and basis plan and carry out the action in cycle II in improved way. 3.3 Research Instrument This present study administered pre-test, post test and questionnaire as the research instrument and to collect the data which will be discussed briefly in the following: 1. There were two kinds of test to measure students reading comprehension namely pre test and post test. Pre-test or initial reflection was intended to assess the pre-existing reading comprehension of the subjects which was

38 administered in the first meeting before the researcher conducted the research by applying questioning technique in the classroom. The post tests were administered in the end of each season. The function of administering post test was to evaluate the effectiveness of questioning technique in teaching reading comprehension or to answer the research question, can questioning technique improve the students reading comprehension. It was in form of question and answer test, which consisted of 10 questions. The score was ranging 1-10 and for each correct answer got one point 2. Questionnaire Questionnaire was actually intended to measure the changing degrees of the subjects motivation after they had been taught reading comprehension through questioning technique. The subjects would be given ten questions related in teaching reading comprehension using questioning technique. Was it motivates them in learning reading comprehension or not. In order to avoid misunderstanding and confusion, the questionnaire was written in Bahasa Indonesia. The researcher constructed questionnaire in multiple choice in respective item of A,B,C and D and the results of questionnaire were qualitatively scored using the rating scale Data Collection The important data required to answer the research question under study was collected through administering IR (pre-test) and R (post test), some supporting additional data were gathered through administering questionnaire to

39 the subjects under study. The important data was shown by the students score collected in every post test. 3.5 Data Analysis The important data was collected through administering pre-test and post tests, some supporting additional data were gathered through administering questionnaire to the subjects under study, that was, class eighth students of SMP muhamadiyah Amlapura. Therefore, there are considerably three kinds of raw scores obtained for the present classroom action study, those are: 1. Scores indicating the subjects pre-existing reading comprehension ability. 2. Scores showing the subjects progress achievement in reading comprehension. 3. Scores showing the subjects changing learning behavior. The data obtained for the present class action study were analyzed descriptively so as to find the effectiveness questioning technique in teaching reading comprehension could improve students reading comprehension. The quantitative data in the forms of raw scores were analyzed by computing the average scores or the mean scores of IR (Xo), R for cycle 1 (XI and X2), R for cycle II (X3 and X4). The mean was obtained from counting up all the scores and then they were divided by the number of individuals. This was better known as the average figure. In statistic, was often called the arithmetic mean. Formula for getting the mean was:

40 M = N X Where : M = Mean X = Frequency distribution of score N = Sum of individuals In this way, the mean score obtained by the subjects in IR (Xo) was compared with its corresponding mean scores in post test for cycle I and cycle II was clearly shown by the difference between Xo, X1, X2.

41 CHAPTER IV THE PRESENTATION OF THE FINDING 4.1 Data Tabulation There were three kinds of instruments that were used in gathering the data; consisted of pre test, post test and questioner. The data would answer the research question that had been posed in previous chapter by administering pre test, post tests and questionnaire to the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah karangasem. The pre-test was administered to the subjects under study to get their preexisting ability of reading comprehension. Although she gave the test to the students without giving the lesson, the student had to answer the questions based on the text depended on their knowledge. The post-tests or reflections in this present study were administered of four sessions, which each cycle consisted of two sessions. This was due to the fact that each session was ended by reflection. Therefore, there were four sets of raw score showing the subjects improvement in reading comprehension through questioning technique. That was score of pre-test and each post test in S1, S2, S3 and S4. The four sets of scores which were collected in this present study could be tabulated as follows: Table 1 Tabulation of Data Showing the Subjects Progressing Scores in Reading Comprehension through Think Pair Share Technique. Subjects IR S1 S2 S3 S

42

43 Total The additional data required for the present classroom action study were collected through administering questionnaire to the subject under study. The result of questionnaire was qualitatively scored using the rating scale 0 3 (A:3, B:2, C:1, D:0). The scores were gathered by administering questionnaire showed the subjects changing attitude and motivation in reading comprehension through questioning technique. The obtained data showing the subjects total scores for the items of the questionnaire were tabulated as the following: Table 2 Tabulation of Data Showing the Subjects Changing Motivation and Attitudes in Reading Comprehension through Think Pair Share Technique QUESTIONNAIRE ITEMS Subject A B C D

44 Total

45 4.2 Data Analysis Based on tabulation of the data, in table 1 and table 2 there were five sets of raw scores which showed the student progress in reading comprehension through questioning technique. The data should be accurately analysis and the result of the analysis was discussed as the following: In table 1 there were five sets of raw the score which showed the students progress in reading comprehension through questioning technique. The score was got by giving the tests to the students in the end of lesson in every session. The mean of score in pre test and post test in four sessions would be discussed in the below: ΣX The X0 of IR score = = = 1.70 N 27 ΣX The X1of S1 score = = = 2.25 N 27 ΣX The X2of S2 score = = = 5.88 N 27 ΣX The X3of S3 score = = = 7.55 N 27 ΣX The X4 of S4 score = = = 8.25 N 27 The grand mean X1 of the post test scores in cycle 1 was: X1 + X = = 4.06

46 2 2 The grand mean X2 of the post test in cycle 2 was: X3 + X = = After finding the data from the present classroom action study, the result above could be summarized as the following: Table 3 Summary of the Research Findings Showing the Mean of each Session and the Grand Mean for Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 Pre Test SO XO = 1.70 Grand Mean Cycle I SI XI = 2.25 S2 X2 = Cycle 2 S3 X3 = 7.55 S4 X4 = In table no 2, showed the students score after answering the questionnaire which aimed to know the subjects changing motivation and attitudes in reading comprehension through questioning technique. Scores of the items of the questionnaires in which the subject s total answer for item A, B, C, and D were shown as follows: The percentage of item A = x 100% = 57.39% The percentage of item B = x 100% = 36.98%

47 The percentage of item C = x 100% = 5.61% The percentage of item D = x 100% = 0% 784 The score that was got by giving the students some question in the end of every session would be presented using graph. She made 4 graphs to show the score started from the pre test until the four post tests. The score of initial reflection would be compared with the score which was taken in cycle 1 and cycle 2, consisted of 4 sessions. And then she compared between the score that was got in pre test and the grand mean score in cycle 1, cycle2. To make it clear, the rising comparative mean figures of the pre test (IR) scores and post test (reflection) scores obtain by the tenth grade student of SMA Jagadhita Amlapura for cycle 1 and cycle 2 could be presented as follows: