improving reading comprehension through jumbled paragraph at Islamic Junior High School in MTsN Durian Tarung

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CHAPTER I

1.1 Background of the Problem

Nowadays, English has been an international language. There are four important skills in involved in learning English; listening, speaking, reading and writing. Kustaryo (1988) states that one of the most important skills and learning to the language besides listening, speaking and writing is reading. One of the four skills is reading skill. 

Since KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) is applied in Junior High School, the students have been taught with different kind of texts. They learn by using reading text where the students are introduced about social functions, language features, and generic structure of the text. It means that the teachers focuses on students’ comprehension in reading and arrange a text. Cohen (1994) says that reading as one of English language skills is still regarded as a difficult subject for Islamic Junior High School students.

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Teaching reading means the students mentally focus on their thought in the text that they read to get knowledge and information proposed by the authors. This process needs collaboration among creative teachers, active students, good technique and comfortable atmosphere. The goal of teaching reading is to enable learners to use English as a means of communications.

Teaching reading is one of teacher strategies to make them easily in getting information from the text. Brown (2004) defines teaching reading is the process of redesigning syllabus, choosing new books, and conducting the class differently by the emphasis on jumbled paragraph. In other words, by redesigning syllabus, choosing new books, and conducting the class, the teacher provides many opportunities to the students to practice their ability in reading.

To sump up, teaching reading is the teacher’s effort to encourage the students to study hard through supporting by the language strengths they already have, providing students with the feeling of success. Also the teacher should find materials and plan classroom atmosphere.

Based on, the writer observation at Islamic Junior High School Durian Tarung. Reading English text still seems difficult for them. Many of them face some problems in comprehending this text. Firstly, the students are not motivated in reading English text. Actually, in learning reading students should be motivated to make them interested and enjoy in reading the text. If they are motivated, they will get success in their objectives. Brown (2002) states that motivation could come from inside called intrinsic motivation and from outside called extrinsic motivation. The intrinsic motivation of students motivates themselves to do something incidentally to get the goal. For example, they read the text because they want to get the information not because of teacher asks them. On the other hand, the students who have extrinsic motivation do something because of punishment given by their teachers.

Secondly, the problems in reading English text occur because reading materials selected by the teacher are not suitable with their development. For example, the teacher teaches the text that is not familiar with the students in term of topic, content, and language. Consequently, the students are bored to read those materials. It cannot catch students’ interest. Because of this problem the teacher should select suitable text to be taught in the classroom that is familiar to them.

Thirdly, techniques used by the teacher do not catch students’ interest. Based on the writer’s informal interview with some Islamic junior High School students, in reading English text the teachers commonly use conventional technique. The teacher reads the text by her / him and asks the students to read the same text loudly. After that, the teacher finds difficult words and translates it into Indonesian. Next, the teacher asks the students some questions related to the text to be answered by them until the end of the class. Consequently, the students are bored in reading the text. 

Based on the curricula from BSNP (Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan), the indicators of reading are not only read and find the meaning, but also include:

(1)      Reading aloud the text and have meaning,(2) Identify the meaning of the text, (3)Identify social function of the text, (4) Identify the characteristics of the text, (5)Identify the main idea and topic of the text, (6) Identify the textual meaning from the text.

In factually, from the writer’s informal interview with some students, the writer found out that the reading subject is not interesting and extremely boring. Some teacher also said that the students are not motivated and interested in reading. It makes them passive and they felt difficult in comprehend the text and to answer the some question about the text. It is also can be seen while students having exercise, some of the students prefer to cheat each other.

It was indicate by the students get low mark in middle test. It can be seen in the Table of mean as follow:

Table 1.1 students’ mark in middle-test

Class	VIII.1	VIII.2	VIII.3	VIII.4
Listening	82,9	81,0	62,8	70
Speaking	85,0	83,5	63,2	68.2
Reading	61	60	64	58.8
Writing	83,0	81,1	63,0	64.6

Source: teacher’s book mark at Islamic Junior High School MTsN Durian Taruang

Based on the table above, we can conclude that most of the students get low mark in reading skill and it should be improved.

In this study, the researcher will implement jumbled paragraph technique in teaching to encourage students in order to complete their ability and reach the indicator of reading. The students are viewed as a receptive mode rather than being an active reader. The teacher is supposed to provide a good teaching reading in the class. Since it is important to motivate students to learn, teacher should create an enjoyable stage and can rise students’ interested and spirit up in reading.

In order to find ways to solve the problems above, the researcher is interested to conduct this research entitled improving reading comprehension through jumbled paragraph at Islamic Junior High School in MTsN Durian Tarung. 

1.2 Identification of the Study

Miller and lad (1976) states that reading comprehension is one’s ability to understand and to obtain information from written symbols. So, reading comprehension is the cognitive process of understanding a written linguistic message.

Based on the identification of the study above, there are some problems that are faced by the students in reading the texts. Firstly, the students are not motivated in reading the text. Secondly, the materials selected by the teacher are not suitable with the student’s development in term of topic, content, and language. Thirdly, some of students are not interested in reading English text because of technique used by the teacher is ineffective, it cannot catch the students’ interest.

Based on BSNP, the indicator of reading for Junior High School, especially for the second years include; (1) reading aloud, (2) identify the meaning of the text, (3) identify social function of the text, (4) identify the characteristics of the text, (5) identify main idea and topic of text, and (6) identify textual meaning of the text. 

In order to reach all indicators, teacher can apply jumbled paragraph in the reading activity. There are so many there kind activities will be used in jumbled paragraph technique such as: 1. reviewing a lesson from the previous day or week 2. Identify the main idea. 3. Asking the students to arrange the paragraph well based on the generic structure of the text given to the students

1.3 Limitation of the Problem

Based on the identification of the study above, the scope of the reading comprehension is so large, in the indicators of reading comprehension of the Islamic junior high school for the second grade as follow: reading aloud, identify the generic structure of the text that given to the students. In the jumbled paragraph for the second grade as follow: 1. Identify the main idea. 2.  Asking the students to arrange the paragraph well based on the generic structure provided. Because of the large, the writer limit this research only focuses on the teaching technique of the jumbled paragraph in asking the students to arrange the paragraph well based on the generic structure provided. The writer chooses because it will activate the students’ knowledge about the topic and main idea.

1.4 Formulation of the Problem

Related to the limitation above, the writer formulates the problem as follow:

1. Does jumbled paragraph technique improve students’ reading comprehension?
2.  What kinds of indicators can be improved through jumbled paragraph technique in teaching reading comprehension?

1.5 Purpose of the Study

The purposes of the research are:

1.    To prove whether jumbled paragraph improve students’ reading comprehension.

2.     To improve students’ reading comprehension especially toward the following indicators (finding the topic, main idea, word reference, location of information, synonym and antonym and inference.

1.6 The Significance of the Study

This research gives practical and theoretical significance. Practically, it is important to help the teacher to make their techniques interesting, so it improves their quality in teaching reading comprehension especially in the text. Theoretically, it gives information how to improve reading comprehension specifically who are interested in applying adapted jumbled paragraph. In addition, this research is also useful for the school where this research was done.

1.7 Definition of Key Terms

In this research, the researcher uses several terms. To avoid misinterpretation, it is necessary to define them:

Improve                              : Become or make better. (Oxford, 2003)

Students                             : Students are people who learn something in school or college or formal and informal place

Reading                              : Act of read and way to understand something

Comprehension                   : A process of recognizing words meaning vocabulary

Reading Comprehension    : Reading comprehension is one’s ability to understand and to obtain information from written symbols (Miller & Ladd, 1976)

Jumbled paragraph             : A process of thinking a question, challenging and criticizing the author’s ideas (Mc. Whorter 1992)