“Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension Through Visualizing Technique on Reading Descriptive Text At Islamic Junior High School In Durian Tarung of Padang”

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Problem

Even though English is not Indonesian mother tongue, but teaching of English as a foreign language now is one of the most important subject in schools. As a result, Educational Department has decided to establish, as the main purpose of the English as Foreign Language (EFL) teaching, the development of the four skills: listening, writing, reading and speaking.

Among the four skill, reading is one way that people can do is in order to get knowledge n information. As we know, reading skill is required in learning English in comprehending a reading text. the language learners should have good reading skill. Having good reading skill will  enable the language learners to read and understand the text well because the fundamental goal of reading activity is to comprehend the contents and information of the text.

Based on the researcher’s observation in the second grade students of MTsN durian tarung, it is diffuct for student in learning reading English, including the descriptive text. It is proved by their score of reading English test that is under 6,50 for 74% of students. According to kustaryo (1988) a student does not know the topic of the text because she/he is unable to understand the text because they are lack of vocabulary; every reading teaching learning process all of them ask the teacher over the difficult words, they are lazy to check in dictionary. So, vocabulary is much needed in understanding the text. Another reason that causes them do not know the text is because the student do not have some awareness about the text givent, so they are not ready to read. Some times the students have no interest on the text given, because some of text given have not relationship whit the students.

Kustaryo (1988) statest reading in the students native language and reading in a foreign language learner is quite different matter, it means that reading in a foreign language is very difficult for students, because they are required to have language, including vocabulary and structure.

According to corria (1998) teachers of English should be able to find new technique in teaching in classroom. It means that the teachers have big responsibilities to take students’ attention to the subject, because it is easy for the students to be bored with the conventional technique, furthermore, the rule of the teacher is not to give knowledge. actually, it is supposed that the students must involve in learning process itself to grasp the learning experience. As stated by zaim (2009) to achive learning experience totally, the students need to involve in verbal aspect (reading and listening), visual aspect (seeing), and involvement (telling and doing).

It is also found in the field, at the second grade students of Islamic junior high school Durian Tarung of Padang many students look bored in reading learning process, including in reading descriptive text because they cannot interest in it; some of them keep cheating with their friends, some of them are sleepy, and some of them are doing other task. Many teachers still conduct convensional technique in teaching reading, for example: student just listen to the teacher’s explanation, after that write in the notebook then the teacher ask the students to memorize some pattern or some words.  Related to that case, in order to make reading more interesting, it is important that pupils do not labor over every word, whether they are skimming the text for general meaning or scanning it to pick out specific information. The teachers are supposed to be more creative to create the good atmosphere in reading learning process, so the students are supposed to love reading English. Technique used really affects the degree of comprehending the text.

Thornbury (2002) states that the success in learning language, including reading skills will depend on some factors, such as, the technique used the teacher, materials, learning program design and motivation. Among those factors, the technique plays an important role to the students in reading. Brown (2004) states that the technique to comprehend English text efficiently and effectively include ideas for practicing conversation, ways to learn vocabulary, suggestion for reading English, technique for listening to English and quidelines for writing English.  

Related to the problems above, the writer chose visualizing technique to solve that problem. According to Cambridge dictionary, visualizing is a noun which the verb of this is visualize, it means to form a picture of someone or something in your mind, in order to imagine or remember them. Moreover, visualization is the ability to build mental pictures while reading.