Kamis, 31 Mei 2012
Thesis
17.25 | 
Diposting oleh
Zaen Aligator
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter will explain some points related with the topic under the study. There are background of the study, research problem, research objective, definition of key terms, significance of the research, scope, and limitation of the research.
1.1 Background of the Problem
For many students, reading is by far the most important of the four skills in a second language, particularly in English as second or foreign language (Carrel, 1988: 1). Reading plays a particular important role in education (Bridley, 1994: 81). Not only does our education system demand alot of reading in the process of learning, it also tends to use the capacity to read fluently as an indicator of more general intelectual ability. For that reason, the role of reading in language teaching should be emphasized because it is an important factor to get success in the target language.
Harmer (1998: 68) states that there are some reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher’s job. First, many students want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes, or simply for pleasure. Second, reading is useful for other purposes too. A exposure to English (provided students understand it more or less) is a good thing for language students. Third, some of the languages stick in their minds as a part of the process of language acquisition, and, if the reading text is especially interesting and engaging, acquisition is likely to be even more successful. Based on the above statements, it is clear that reading skill is important to be acquired because it affects our life. Therefore, the teacher should choose appropriate techniques that can improve the students’ reading comprehension of texts based on their needs. In addition, the teacher has to select interesting reading materials in order to attract the students to be actively engaged in a reading comprehension class.
One of the objectives of learning English at junior high school is to enable the students to communicate in English both in writing and orally. These communication abilities are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. ( Depdiknas, 2004:7 ) Carrel et. Al. (1988:1) state that many students think that reading is one of the four important language skills as a second language particularly when English is learned as second or foreign language. In other words, reading is one of the important skills being taught by the teacher to the students when they are learning English as a foreign language.
Reading comprehension in this study deals with the students’ ability to comprehend reading texts, According to Grellet (1996:3) reading is the process of understanding a reading text. It means that when students read reading materials, they have to get the message from the materials. In other words, students should comprehend the sentences, paragraphs, to get the message of the text.
Before conducting the research, a preliminary study was done at SMP AL-FURQON of Jember. It was done through an interview with the English teacher of the eighth year students. From the result of the interview with the English teacher of the eight year students of SMP AL FURQON, it was found that from all classes in the eighth grades, the VIII A was having more difficulties in reading rather than other classes. It was also proven from the test that the researcher did to the students of VIII A before selecting them as the research subject. From the test, there were only 22 of 46 students who got ≥ 60. This means there were only 47,83 % of the whole students who scored ≥ 60. It was used by the teacher as a consideration to give suggestion to the researcher to have this class as the research subjects.
Most of the students were not successful in getting ideas presented in a reading text. Even, they failed in grasping the message from the text. The difficulties were caused by the lack of the vocabulary, it happened because the teacher did not really give attention to the effectiveness of their student’s skills in comprehending the words. They just read the text without understanding it. Sometimes it was difficult for the students to see what the main ideas of the text were or distinguish between important and unimportant information. The students were also lacked of motivation and concentration in reading English texts. As a result, comprehending failure happened. Actually there were some factors causing failure mapping by the students. The students did not have adequate background knowledge of English which has different system of structure and vocabulary to the mother tongue. The teacher didn’t use an appropriate method for reading comprehension which can support the students to have greater efforts to understand the word’s meaning, decide the main ideas and other aspects of comprehending text. And also the teacher didn’t make the class more effective, the students just listen to the teacher’s explanation and filling the answer for the questions given by the teacher.
The way to solve the problems above is the teacher should have good method in teaching reading. In this research, the writer uses the story mapping strategy to increase the students’ reading comprehension achievement. Beck and McKeon in Buehl (2009:166) state that story mapping helps students track their knowledge of narrative structure to analyze stories. Story maps feature graphic representations of key story elements to help students build a coherent framework for understanding and remembering a story. Story maps can be created for both short stories and longer stories. Paris and Stahl (2005:246) state that the use of story mapping strategy may help students remember the important parts of a story and that they could use the strategy when they were reading on their own.
Based on the fact described above, and in order to improve the reading comprehension achievement of the VIII A students of SMP AL-FURQON, it was essential to conduct a classroom action research under the title of ”The use of story mapping strategy to improve the reading comprehension achievement of the VIII A students of SMP AL-FURQON Jember in the academic year of 2010-2011”.
1.2 The Research Problem
Based on the background of the study, the problem of the research was formulated as follow:
1. Can the use of story mapping strategy improve the reading comprehension achievement of the VIII A students of SMP AL-FURQON in the academic year of 2010-2011?
2. Can the use of story mapping strategy improve the activeness of the VIII A students of SMP AL-FURQON in the academic year of 2010-2011?
Label:
Skripsi
Langganan:
Posting Komentar (Atom)
Profil On Facebook
My Count
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar