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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION USING EXPERIENCE-TEXT-RELATIONSHIP (ETR) METHOD (A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban in the Academic Year of 2011/2012) By: Jarmianik K2208037 Thesis Written and Submitted to Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret University as a Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for Achieving an Undergraduate Degree of Education in English ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY SURAKARTA 2012 perpustakaan.uns.ac.id digilib.uns.ac.id commit to user

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Page 1: IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION/Improvin… · IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ... the Eighth Grade Students of Junior High School ... Procedure of Teaching

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

USING EXPERIENCE-TEXT-RELATIONSHIP (ETR)

METHOD

(A Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri

3 Mojolaban in the Academic Year of 2011/2012)

By:

Jarmianik

K2208037

Thesis

Written and Submitted to Teacher Training and Education Faculty of

Sebelas Maret University as a Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for

Achieving an Undergraduate Degree of Education in English

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY

SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY

SURAKARTA

2012

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PRONOUNCEMENT

I would like to certify that the thesis entitled “IMPROVING

STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION USING EXPERIENCE-

TEXT-RELATIONSHIP (ETR) METHOD (A Classroom Action Research at

the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban in the Academic

Year of 2011/2012)” is really my own work. It is not plagiarism or made by

others. Everything related to other’s works are written quotation, the sources of

which are listed on the bibliography.

If then, this pronouncement proves wrong, I am ready to receive any

academic punishment.

Surakarta, July 2012

Jarmianik

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ABSTRACT

Jarmianik. IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

USING EXPERIENCE-TEXT-RELATIONSHIP (ETR) METHOD (A

Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Negeri 3

Mojolaban in the Academic Year of 2011/2012). Thesis. Surakarta. Teacher

Training and Education Faculty, Sebelas Maret University, 2012.

This research focuses on the implementation of Experience-Text-

Relationship (ETR) method to improve students’ reading comprehension of the

eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban in the academic year of

2011/2012. It is aimed at (1) finding whether and to what extent the use of ETR

improves students’ reading comprehension and (2) describing what happens when

ETR method is implemented in teaching reading at the eighth grade students of

SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban.

This study used classroom action research method. The research was

conducted in two cycles. In the first cycle, the research was done within four

meetings and the second cycle was conducted in three meetings. Each cycle

consisted of four steps namely planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting

the action. The data were collected by means of test, observation, interview, and

questionnaire. The test consisted of pre-test and post test. The scores got from the

tests were quantitatively analyzed by using the formula of descriptive statistics. In

order to know the improvement of students’ reading comprehension, the mean

score before action was compared with the ones got after the action. On the other

hand, the result of interview, questionnaire, and other documents were analyzed

by using qualitative method proposed by Burns. The method included data

gathering, codification, comparison, interpretation, and data reporting.

The results of the research show that ETR method is able to improve both

students’ reading comprehension and class situation. The students always got

improvement in reading scores from pre-test to post test 2. Students’ ability in

finding out all reading indicators including main idea, purpose of text, reference,

explicit information, implicit information, reference, and word meaning improved.

The students’ mean score of pre-test was 39.3. The score increased to 63.8 in post

test 1 and it finally rose to 73 in post test 2. In addition, using ETR method, the

students did not comprehend a text through translating word by word.

Consequently, they did not spend much time for doing any exercises following

certain narrative text. Moreover, the students were interested in reading class

activities. Since the students were interested in the class, they were active in

joining the class. The students’ interest also made the students able to focus on the

lesson. They paid attention during reading class. The students’ full attention made

the class atmosphere conducive for teaching and learning process.

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MOTTO

“Thank God for what you have and trust God for what you need”

-Anonymous-

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DEDICATION

This thesis is obligingly dedicated for my beloved mother and father who always

give me endless love and great support.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the World for pouring the blessing to the

researcher and giving her mercy, health, faith, and everything during working on

this thesis.

This thesis could not be finished without the support, assistance, and

encouragement from many individuals and institutions. Therefore, on this

occasion, the researcher would like to express her gratitude to:

1. The Dean of Teacher Training and Education Faculty for allowing the

researcher to write her thesis.

2. The Head of English Department for her permission to write this thesis.

3. Dr. Ngadiso M.Pd and Endang S, S.Pd, M.Hum for their guidance,

patience, and critical suggestion during the writing of this thesis.

4. All lecturers of English Department for meaningful knowledge and

experience.

5. The Headmaster of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban for her permission to

conduct research.

6. Kuswiyanti, S.Pd for her guidance during the research.

7. The students of class VIII G for the cooperation during the research.

8. Her beloved parents and sisters for their endless love, prayers, and care.

9. All her friends in English Department for the togetherness.

The researcher realizes that this thesis is still far for being perfect. She

gratefully accepts any comment and suggestion for the betterment of the thesis.

Hopefully, this thesis gives meaningful contribution for further research.

Surakarta, July 2012

Jarmianik

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TABLE OF CONTENT

TITLE ............................... .............................................................................. i

PRONOUNCEMENT ..................................................................................... ii

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. iii

APPROVAL .................................................................................................. iv

RATIFICATION ............................................................................................ v

MOTTO ........................................................................................................ vi

DEDICATION .............................................................................................. vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT .............................................................................. viii

TABLE OF CONTENT ................................................................................ ix

LIST OF TABLE ........................................................................................... xii

LIST OF FIGURE ........................................................................................ xiii

LIST OF ABBREVIATION ......................................................................... xiv

LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................... xv

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study ................................................... 1

B. Problem Statement ............................................................. 7

C. Objectives of the Study ...................................................... 7

D. Benefits of the Study .......................................................... 8

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. Review on Reading Comprehension .................................. 9

1. Definition of Reading .................................................... 9

2. Definition of Reading Comprehension ......................... 10

3. Purpose of Reading ....................................................... 11

4. Models of Reading ........................................................ 11

5. Micro and Macro Skills of Reading .............................. 12

6. Level of Reading Comprehension ................................. 13

7. Factors Interfering Reading Comprehension ................ 15

8. Strategies of Reading Comprehension .......................... 16

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B. Review on Experience-Text-Relationship (ETR) .............. 19

1. Definition of Experience-Text-Relationship ................. 19

2. Steps of Experience-Text-Relationship ........................ 19

3. The Advantages of Experience-Text-Relationship ....... 21

4. The Disadvantages of Experience-Text-Relationship ... 22

C. Teaching Reading Comprehension Using

Experience-Text-Relationship ........................................... 22

1. Principles of Teaching Reading ................................... 22

2. Teaching Reading Comprehension to

the Eighth Grade Students of Junior High School ........ 23

3. Procedure of Teaching Reading Using

Experience-Text-Relationship ...................................... 24

D. Review of Related Research .............................................. 26

E. Rationale ............................................................................ 28

F. Hypothesis ......................................................................... 31

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Context of the Research .................................................... 32

1. Research Setting ........................................................... 32

2. Subject of the Research ................................................ 33

B. Research Methodology ..................................................... 34

1. Definition of Action Research ..................................... 33

2. Models of Action Research .......................................... 35

3. Procedure of Action Research ...................................... 36

C. Data Collecting ................................................................. 40

D. Data Analysis .................................................................... 43

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Research Findings .............................................................. 46

1. Identifying Problem ...................................................... 46

2. Implementation ............................................................ 51

a. Cycle 1 ...................................................................... 51

1) Planning the Action ............................................. 54

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2) Implementing the Action ..................................... 54

3) Observing the Action ........................................... 62

4) Reflecting the Action ........................................... 67

5) Revising Plan ....................................................... 73

b. Cycle 2 ...................................................................... 74

1) Planning the Action ............................................. 75

2) Implementing the Action ..................................... 76

3) Observing the Action ........................................... 82

4) Reflecting the Action ........................................... 86

B. Discussion ......................................................................... 89

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion ......................................................................... 95

B. Implication ......................................................................... 96

C. Suggestion .......................................................................... 96

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 98

APPENDICES .............................................................................................. 101

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LIST OF TABLE

Table 3.1 Schedule of the Research ........................................................... 32

Table 4.1 Problems Found Before Action................................................... 46

Table 4.2 Students’ Reading Scores in Pre-Test ......................................... 48

Table 4.3 Summary of the Implementation of Cycle 1 ............................... 51

Table 4.4 Research Findings on Cycle 1 ..................................................... 68

Table 4.5 The Students’ Scores in each Indicator after Cycle 1 ................. 69

Table 4.6 Summary of Implementation of Cycle 2 ..................................... 74

Table 4.7 Research Findings on Cycle 2 ..................................................... 87

Table 4.8 The Students’ Scores in Each Indicator after Cycle 2 ................ 88

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LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 3.1 Action Research Model by Kemmis and McTaggart ................ 36

Chart 4.1 Students’ Score in Each Indicator after Cycle 1 ......................... 70

Chart 4.2 Students’ Score in Each Indicator after Cycle 2 ......................... 89

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION

SMP : Sekolah Menengah Pertama

ETR : Experience-Text-Relationship

LKS : Lembar Kerja Siswa

SKKD : Standar Kompetensi dan Kompetensi Dasar

KTSP : Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan

KKM : Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal

FS : Fitri Setiyowati

KC : Kurnia Cahyati

AT : Agustinus Tegar

RO : Ratri Oktaviani

WN : Wiwid Nugrahani

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 Research Schedule ............................................................... 102

Appendix 2 Field Notes (Before Action) .................................................. 103

Appendix 3 Questionnaire (Before Action) .............................................. 106

Appendix 4 Transcript of Interview (Before Action) ............................... 108

Appendix 5 Blueprint and Try Out .......................................................... 116

Appendix 6 Validity and Reliability of Try Out ...................................... 135

Appendix 7 Lesson Plan .......................................................................... 147

Appendix 8 Field Note (During Action) ................................................... 182

Appendix 9 Test Item ................................................................................ 197

Appendix 10 Students’ Scores ................................................................. 210

Appendix 11 Questionnaire (After Action) .............................................. 213

Appendix 12 Transcript of Interview (After Action) ................................ 214

Appendix 13 Photograph .......................................................................... 216

Appendix 14 Letters of Permission .......................................................... 217

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In many parts of the world, especially in those considering English as

foreign language, reading skill is often important. Pang, et al. (2003: 6) state that

the ability to read opens up new worlds and opportunities. It enables people to

gain new knowledge, enjoy literature, and do daily things that are part of modern

life, such as reading newspaper, job listings, instruction manuals, maps, and so on.

In educational realm, the ability of reading in English becomes a demand.

English learners need to have ability in reading since many professional,

technical, and scientific literatures are published in English. Learners will be able

to master any up-to-date knowledge if they are able to read in English (Alderson

in Alderson and Urquhart, 1984: 1).

The importance of reading ability is also stressed by Carrell. According

to Carrell in Carrell, et al. (1988: 1), for most students, reading is the main reason

why they learn language. Therefore, students are really required to have ability to

read in English. Such idea is also supported by Eskey in Carrell, et al. (1988: 1).

Eskey states that someone can be recognized as good language learner when he

has ability to read the written language at a reasonable rate and with good

comprehension. Without solid reading proficiency, second language learners

cannot be successful in learning. Besides, they cannot compete with native

speakers of English.

Reading is about understanding written text (Pang, et al., 2003: 6).

Similarly, Haison and Smith (1980: 23) define reading as the act of responding

with appropriate meaning to printed or written verbal symbols. It means that

reading requires the reader to be able to recreate or understand the meaning

intended by the writer.

In understanding written text, readers typically make use of background

knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience related to the text,

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and other strategies (Pang, et al., 2003: 6). Similarly, Kintsch and Kintsch in

Bringham, et al. (2007) state that readers integrate decoding ability, vocabulary

knowledge, prior knowledge of topic considered, and relevant strategies to make

sense of a text and understand it.

Reading also requires relationship among the readers, the texts, and the

interaction between reader and the text (Rumelhart in Aebersold & Field, 1997:

5). This view implies that someone can be successful reader when he or she

successfully involves and interacts with the text he reads. It means that he

understands the true meaning intended by the writer. He can feel what the writer

feels.

The syllabus of KTSP states that ones can be considered successful

readers when they can achieve some indicators in reading. Those indicators

include: (1) identifying main ideas; (2) identifying information, both explicit and

implicit one; (3) identifying the meaning of words; (4) understanding

communicative purpose; (5) determining reference; and (6) reading aloud with

acceptable pronunciation, stress, and intonation.

Reading is an important language skill; nevertheless it is difficult to

master. Most students fail in learning to read any passages in English. The

students seem to read with less understanding. Most of them think that the activity

of reading is just by loudly pronouncing words by words written in certain

literature (Alderson in Alderson and Urquhart, 1984: 1).

Researcher conducted pre-research toward English class of the eighth

grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban. Based on the data collected through

some techniques including observation, interview, questionnaire, and pre-test, it

can be concluded that most students had difficulty in reading comprehension. The

students had difficulty to understand and comprehend reading passage discussed

by the teacher.

The students’ problem in reading comprehension covered some

indicators: (1) the students had difficulty in identifying main idea of text; (2) the

students got difficulty in identifying communicative purpose of text; (3) the

students had difficulty to find out information, both explicit and implicit, from

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text; (4) the students had problems in identifying meaning of words within the

text; and (5) most of the students also had problem in determining reference.

Besides, the class condition indicated: (1) most students did not pay

attention to the teacher while the teacher was explaining in front of the class; (2)

there were only few students who gave response to the teacher whereas the other

students were only passive; (3) the students were bored in joining the class; and

(4) the students spent much times to do any questions and exercises following a

reading text.

Those problem indicators were caused by some factors. The factors

influencing the condition were from the students themselves, the teacher, and the

other factors including the teaching technique, material, and media. From the

students, the main cause was the students’ low vocabulary mastery. Most of the

students had quite limited vocabularies. Because the students had limited

vocabularies, they did not have willingness to read English text. When they found

that they did not know the meaning of words within a text, they immediately gave

up and thought that the text was difficult to understand. The students always kept

in their mind that English was not an interesting subject. Moreover, they

considered English was difficult to learn. Consequently, their learning motivation

in English also became low. They were always lazy for joining the class.

The causes for the students’ reading problems also came from the teacher

and other factors including technique, media, and material. From the teacher, the

cause was that the teacher never gave explanation on reading strategies. She did

not consider the importance of reading strategies to help the students easily

answer questions following reading text. Then, the teacher also did not firmly

reprimand the students who frequently gave less attention during the class and

disturbed the conduciveness of the class. She tended to give less care to the

students.

The other causes of students’ reading problem also came from the

technique, media, and material. The teaching technique used by the teacher was

monotonous and less appropriate. In teaching reading, the teacher always used

“lecturing” technique to deliver knowledge to the students. Guiding the students

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to comprehend the text, the teacher directly translated the content of the text. After

that, the teacher asked the students to do exercises in the worksheet. So far, this

conventional technique was always used by the teacher in teaching reading. Since

it was repeatedly and frequently used by the teacher, the teaching and learning

process became boring. Moreover, directly translating the content of text was not

helpful for the students. The students, then, tended to be extremely dependent on

the teacher. Comprehending the text, they just needed to wait for the teacher to

translate the content of the text for them. As a result, the students became passive.

The other cause was the absence of media for supporting the teaching and learning

process. Presenting the reading materials, the teacher never utilized any media to

raise students’ attention and motivation. Moreover, SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban

does not provide LCD projector and computer to support teaching and learning

process. Then, the last cause was the less attractive instructional materials

provided for the students. The students were only given material taken from

student worksheet (LKS) with dull and black-and-white colored paper. This factor

made the students bored and less interested in doing reading exercises.

Based on the indicators and causes of reading problems found in SMP

Negeri 3 Mojolaban above, the researcher wants to propose a solution that might

be helpful to overcome the problem. The solution she proposes is experience-text-

relationship (ETR) method. ETR is a reading method found by Kathryn Au in

1979. This method draws on the students’ background knowledge and experience

(Wood & Blanton, 2009: 135). By this method, the students are expected to be

able to activate and use their background knowledge to comprehend a text. The

key principle of this method is that students’ background knowledge is really

helpful for the students to comprehend the text they read. Simply, background

knowledge or experience plays great role in this method. Therefore, in

implementing this method, teacher is firstly required to help the students activate

their background knowledge or experience related to the text that will be

discussed later on.

ETR method basically consists of three steps, namely experience (E), text

(T), and relationship (R). In the first step (experience), the teacher starts a

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discussion to activate students' background knowledge about the topic of the

passage to be read. The teacher has the children discuss experiences they have had

or knowledge they have, which are related in some way to the story.

In the second step (text), the teacher asks the students to read short parts

of the story and answer questions about the content after each section is read. In

this phase, the teacher must directly correct any students’ misunderstanding.

These activities are done until the students finish reading the whole text

(Abisamra, 2001).

Finally, in the third step (relationship), the teacher asks students to draw

relationships between the content of the story discussed in the experience phase

and their outside experience and knowledge.

The researcher proposes ETR as method to improve reading

comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban because

of some reasons. Firstly, ETR makes the students not much dependent on the

teacher. An important requirement of the ETR method is that the teacher be adept

in leading the students to discover the correct answers for themselves, rather than

telling them the answers directly (Carrell, et al., 1989: 654). In preliminary

research, the researcher found that the students were much dependent on the

teacher. Comprehending a reading text, the just waited for the teacher translated

all words within the text. Hopefully, through ETR, the students become active and

independent since they are trained to discover any information within text and get

the correct answers by themselves.

Secondly, the focus on building background knowledge in experience

phase is helpful for students to have better comprehension. Saunders, et al. (1999:

10) state that building students’ background knowledge prior to reading helps

students contextualize story themes, content, and vocabulary. It means that the

students must have information or vocabularies related to the text before reading.

These clues are important since they can help the students have better

comprehension toward the story. Knowing some clue words related to the story is

beneficial for overcoming the students’ problem on low vocabulary mastery.

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Thirdly, in ETR, the teacher can systematically guide the reading process

and monitor students’ comprehension (Wood and Blanton, 2009: 135). Since the

reading process is done in sections, the teacher can directly check students’

understanding. When there is misunderstanding, the teacher can directly clarify it.

Because any students’ misunderstanding is directly corrected or clarified by the

teacher, it is easy for the students to have well comprehension toward the story.

Fourthly, background knowledge activation in experience step gives

opportunity for the students to explore dimensions of the story as many as

possible and to integrate features of it with their existing store of knowledge (Au,

1998: 104). It means that there must be some different versions of background

knowledge created or had by the students. Different students probably have

different background knowledge toward the story. This activity makes the

students creative. Moreover, various versions of story can make the teaching and

learning process interesting.

Fifthly, answering any questions related to the story gives the students

practice in formulating complex thoughts (Au, 1998: 104). After reading each

segment of the text, the students are given some comprehension questions related

to the segment. This activity provides the students reading practices. It

automatically makes the students accustomed to having comprehension questions.

Then, since the questions cover some indicators of reading (main idea, meaning of

words, explicit and implicit information, communicative purpose, and reference),

the activity of answering these questions can help students improve their reading

comprehension. Besides, the activity gives the teacher an idea of which questions

or reading indicators are still difficult for the students so that the teacher can think

of strategy for teaching the difficult indicators.

Sixthly, drawing upon, sharing, and discussing students’ relevant

personal experiences as required in ETR method sustain motivation and help

students make concrete and conceptual connections to the text, its content, and the

themes under study (Saunders et al., 1999: 10). Hopefully, through the

implementation of ETR, especially in the step of discussing personal experiences

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related to text, the students’ problem in class situation can be solved since their

learning motivation in reading can be improved.

Considering those benefits of ETR method, researcher is interested in

conducting an action research in improving reading comprehension by using

experience-text-relationship (ETR) method to the eighth grade students of SMP

Negeri 3 Mojolaban.

B. Problem Statement

The problems discussed in this study are as follows:

1. Does and to what extent ETR method improve students’ reading

comprehension of the eighth graders of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban?

2. What happens with class situation when ETR method is implemented

in teaching reading at the eighth grade students at SMP Negeri 3

Mojolaban?

C. Objectives of the Study

Based on the research problem statements above, the objectives of the

research are as follows:

1. To find whether and to what extent the use of ETR can improve

students’ reading comprehension.

2. To describe what happens with class situation when ETR method is

implemented in teaching reading at the eighth grade students of SMP

Negeri 3 Mojolaban.

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D. Benefits of the Study

By conducting this action research, the researcher expects the research

results to give following benefits:

1. For the teacher

It is expected that the result of this research can help English teachers

in SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban overcome the reading problem of their

students. The teachers can use ETR method as one of reading method

to teaching reading.

2. For the students

ETR method can ease the students to comprehend an English text. By

using this method, the researcher hopes that the students can increase

their achievement in reading. ETR method may be “something new”

for the students.

3. For the school

After the students succeed in improving their scores in reading, the

researcher really hopes that the result of this research can give

contribution to the school, SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban, to improve its

accreditation.

4. For teacher training and education faculty:

The result of this research can be used as a reference for the students

who want to conduct action research by using ETR method to improve

students’ reading comprehension in English teaching-learning process.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. Review on Reading Comprehension

1. Definition of Reading

Reading is one of the four skills in language learning. It is more than

the activity of pronouncing printed material or following each line of written

page. It involves various and complex activities.

Definitions of reading are given by some experts. Kintsch and Kintsch

in Bringham, et al. (2007: 1) state that reading is an active process involving

the integration of decoding ability, vocabulary knowledge, prior knowledge,

and relevant strategies to make sense of a text and understand it. In addition,

Block and Pressley in Bringham, et al. (2007: 1) define reading as an active

process involving clarifying meaning, summarizing, drawing inferences, and

predicting.

Aebersold and Field (1997: 15) state that reading is what happens

when people look at the text and assign meaning to the written symbols in that

text. It means that reading is the activity in which one not only watches words

written on the paper but also looks for the meanings of them. Simply, after

reading, readers are required to know the meaning intended by the writer of the

text they have just read. In line with Aebersold and Field, Grabe and Stoller

(2002: 9-10) propose reading as the ability to draw meaning from the printed

materials. They explain that reading highlights how to draw meaning from a

text and interpret this meaning which varies in line with the second language

(L2) proficiency of the reader.

Pang, et al. (2003: 6) define reading as a complex activity that

involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related

processes: word recognition and comprehension. Further, they explain that

word recognition means the process of perceiving how written symbols

correspond to one’s spoken language. Then, comprehension refers to the

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process of making sense of words, sentences, and connected text. They also

state that readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary,

grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them

understand written text.

Johnston in Mikulecky (1990: 2) defines reading as a complex

behavior which involves conscious and unconscious use of various strategies to

build a model of meaning which the writer is assumed to have intended.

Another definition of reading is given by Nuttal. Nuttal (1982: 5)

defines reading as the meaningful interpretation of printed or written verbal

symbols. This definition means that reading is a result of the interaction

between the perceptions of graphic symbols that represent language and the

reader’s language skills, cognitive skills, and the knowledge of the world. In

this process, the reader tries to recreate meaning intended by the writer.

2. Definition of Reading Comprehension

The fundamental goal of reading activity is reader’s comprehension.

Wren (2003) states that the ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend the

information conveyed in the text. When one can well comprehend a text, he

can be considered as successful reader since he can achieve the goal of reading.

Balsiger (2011: 1) says that reading comprehension is the ability to

derive meaning of written material. Readers can be considered successful ones

when they are able to understand the meaning intended by the writer.

According to Olson and Diller in Ria (2007: 9), what is meant by

reading comprehension is a term used to identify the skills needed to

understand and apply information contained in a written material. This

statement is supported by Harris and Sipay in Ria (2007: 9) who say that

reading comprehension ability is taught to be a set of generalized knowledge

acquisition skills that permits people to acquire and exhibit information gained

as a consequence of reading printed language.

In addition, Harris and Hodges in Torgesen (2006) state that reading

comprehension is the construction of meaning of a written text through a

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reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in

particular text.

3. Purpose of Reading

The activity of comprehending reading text has some specific

purposes. Wallace (1996: 6-7) classifies the purposes of reading based on the

personal reasons. The purposes include:

a. Reading for survival

Reading for survival involves an immediate response to a

situation. This kind of purpose is very crucial for life, for example a

warning signs, an admonition sign, an instruction sign, etc. Survival

reading serves immediate needs.

b. Reading for learning

Reading for learning is expected to be exclusively school-

related. This purpose of reading is intended to support learning. The

reader needs to ‘translate’ the text literally or metaphorically, to learn

vocabulary, to identify ‘useful’ structure or collocations, to use a text as a

model for writing and to practice pronunciation.

c. Reading for pleasure

Doing ‘reading for pleasure’ aims at getting happiness. The

reader wants to enjoy the sound, and rhythm or rhyme of the text. The

text being read is written originally to offer enjoyment. The important

by-product of reading for pleasure is fluency.

4. Models of Reading

According to Aebersold and Field (1997: 17-18) there are three main

models of how reading occurs. The three models are as follows:

a. Bottom up

This model argues that the reader constructs the text from the

smallest units (letters to words to phrases to sentences, etc) and that the

process of constructing the text from those small units becomes so

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automatic that readers are not aware of how it operates. Decoding is the

earlier term for this process.

b. Top Down

This model argues that the readers bring a great deal of

knowledge, expextations, assumptions, and questions to the text and give

the basic understanding of the vocabulary. They continue to read as long

as the text to confirm their expectations.

c. Interactive

This model argues that both top down and bottom up processes

are occuring, either alternately or at the same time. This model describes

a process that moves both bottom up and top down, depends on the type

of text as well as on the reader’s background knowledge, language

proficiency level, motivation, strategy use, and culturally shaped beliefs

about the reading.

5. Micro and Macro Skills of Reading

Brown (2004: 187-188) states that aside from attending to genres of

text, the skills and strategies for accomplishing reading emerge as a crucial

consideration in the assessment of reading ability. The micro and macro skills

below represent the spectrum of possibilities for objectives in the assessment of

reading.

a. Micro skills of Reading

1) Discriminate among distinctive graphemes and orthographic

patterns of English.

2) Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short term

memory.

3) Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.

4) Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and

their significance.

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5) Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verb etc.) systems

(e.g. tense, agreement, and pluralisation), patterns, rules, and

elliptical forms.

6) Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different

grammatical forms.

7) Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in

signaling the relationship between and among clauses

b. Macro skills of Reading

1) Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their

significance for interpretation.

2) Recognize the communicative functions of written texts, according

to form and purpose.

3) Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.

4) From described events, ideas, etc, infer links and connections

between events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such

relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given

information, generalization, and exemplification.

5) Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

6) Detect culturally specific references and interpret them in a context

of the appropriate cultural schemata.

7) Develop and use a battery of reading strategies such as scanning

and skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning

of words from context, and activating schemata for the

interpretation of texts.

6. Level of Reading Comprehesion

Some people say that the act of reading only consists of pronouncing

words. They consider that comprehension is not important. Concentrating on

pronuncing words rather than comprehending the meaning of the passage is a

waste of precious time. Based on the idea above, the teacher needs to

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emphasize the basic comprehension skills. According to Shepherd in

Simanjuntak (1988: 117) there are four levels of comprehension:

a. Literal level

This level is the simplest one. It means that what the readers

need to do is to reproduce the facts as that are clearly stated by the

author. The skills needed for this level are noting factual data, sequence,

chronology, and enumeration. To answer the questions of this level, the

students can state, in a parrot-like manner, what the author has written

with little or no understanding.

b. Interpretive level

This level requires the reader to go beyond the information

given by the author. The reader is now required to see the significance of

the data: to note various relationships such as cause and effect and

relation of the part to the whole, to make comparisons, to draw

conclusions and inferences, and to make generalizations. The teacher can

help the students see how facts are interrelated.

c. Critical reading

At this level, the students learn to evaluate and judge the

information and the author’s presentation of it. Skills at this level are

aimed at evaluating the author’s use of language for guiding the reader’s

interpretation: noting evidence of the author’s bias, qualifications, point

of view, intent, and truthfulness.

d. Creative reading

This level requires the students’ involvement with the

information presented as they use it to formulate or to re-think ideas of

their own. Obviously, the readers are best able to think creatively about

the information they have read when they know what the author has

written, to make interpretations basic to purpose, to evaluate the

pertinence of the information.

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7. Factors Interfering Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is difficult. Therefore, there are many

learners who still have low reading comprehension. Balsiger (2011: 1-2)

mentions six main factors interfering reading comprehension among students.

The six factors are as follows:

a. Weak decoding skill

Many students appear to have weak basic decoding skills. Their

decoding skills cannot keep pace with the written material they are

required to read. This poor reading accuracy results in misread and

omitted words, which can change the meaning of the sentences and

interfere with reading comprehension.

b. Poor reading prosody

Prosody means reading with intonation, inflection, and

appropriate phrasing (pausing at commas and “reading” period). When

the readers run the sentences together and read without appropriate

prosody, it is difficult for them to “chunk” the language for meaning.

c. Weak language processing skill

Some students have weak language skills for higher-level

language syntax. Students with weak language skills lose the meaning of

the sentence when the syntax becomes complex and have difficulty in

parsing and linking the different parts of the sentences.

d. Vocabulary

Weak readers typically have low vocabulary mastery. As the

vocabulary lags, more unknown words are encountered, reading becomes

progressively more difficult, and the vocabulary gap widens.

e. Memory

Reading for comprehension requires the ability to hold

information in memory across sentences, in order to derive overall

meaning from a paragraph or passages. For longer passages, concepts for

multiple paragraphs, must be retained in memory and linked together.

Students with memory weaknesses in holding information as they read.

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f. Lack of active processing

Some students are not actively processing the material they read.

They need to learn how to actively engage with written material, through

techniques such as wondering, predicting, clarifying, linking ideas,

relating material with their own life experiences, and visually picturing

scenes in the story.

8. Strategies for Reading Comprehension

In order to make reading comprehension easy, readers should have

strategies that may be helpful to understand the meaning intended by the writer

of the text they read. Brown (2004: 188) lists some principle strategies for

reading comprehension. These strategies can also be used for assessment

criteria. The strategies are:

a. identifying purpose of reading text

b. applying spelling rules and conventions for bottom up decoding

c. using lexical analysis (prefixes, roots, suffixes, etc) to determine

meaning.

d. guessing at meaning

e. skimming the text for the gist and for main idea

f. scanning the text for specific information

g. using silent reading techniques for rapid processing

h. using marginal notes, outlines, charts, or semantic maps for

understanding and retaining information

i. distinguishing between literal and implied meaning

j. capitalizing on discourse markers to process relationship

In this research, the researcher does not use all comprehension

strategies as mentioned above. Here, she only uses some strategies including:

a. identifying purpose of reading text

In order to identify the communicative purpose, readers can

firstly pay attention to the text itself. From any statements or sentences

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produced by the writer, the students can identify the type of the text.

After knowing the text type, the readers can understand the purpose of

it.

b. guessing at meaning

When we encounter an unfamiliar word, a good strategy is to

infer (or guess) its meaning from the context. We may not always be

able to infer an exact meaning, but we can often get the general

meaning—enough to continue reading with understanding. The

benefits of this strategy are (1) it allows us to continue reading and

stay focused on the ideas in the text; (2) it helps us develop a more

complete understanding of the word and the way it is used; and (3) it

helps us remember the word in the future.

There are some guidelines for inferring meaning from the

immediate context. They are:

1) analyzing the way a word is used in a sentence. What part of

speech is it (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.)?

2) looking at the words that are used with it. These often help

determine meaning. For example, if it is an adjective, what is the

noun? If it is a verb, what is the subject?

3) thinking about the topic and the meaning of the sentence. How

does the word fit in?

(Mikulecky and Jeffries, 2007: 36)

c. Skimming for the gist and main idea

Skimming is a form of rapid reading for finding the general

idea or gist of a passage or a book. When you skim, you have a

general question in mind, something you need or want to know about

the text (Mikulecky and Jeffries, 2007: 170)

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d. Scanning for specific information

Scanning is a strategy used by all readers to find relevant

information in a text (Brown, 2004: 209). The information found

through this strategy is the one usually explicitly stated in the text.

e. Distinguishing between literal and implied meaningPanduan Materi Ujian Akhir Nasional Tahun Pelajaran 2003/2004

Bahasa Inggris (Program Bahasa) gives clear explanation toward literal and

implied meaning. Literal meaning means the meaning explicitly stated

in the text. The readers can directly take certain information from text,

without analyzing it. In order to find explicit information, the readers

may firstly look at the keyword of questions. After getting the

keywords, the readers may allocate the answer in the text. Scanning is

preferable for finding such information.

Meanwhile, implied meaning refers to the ones which are not

explicitly stated in the text. From stated information, the readers still

need to think and make conclusion of the information. In order to find

out the implicit information, the students need to consider the whole

context of text. They can pay attention to the explicit information and

then take conclusion toward the explicit information.

Based on the theories of reading comprehension above, it can be

concluded that reading comprehension is the goal of reading. It is a process of

understanding written or printed text. In order to understand the meaning and

make sense of the text, reader needs to use decoding ability, vocabulary

knowledge, prior knowledge, and relevant strategies. Students can be considered

as good readers when they have ability or skill to find out important indicators of

reading including finding main idea, explicit information, implicit information,

communicative purpose of text, reference, and meaning of words based on the

context. Good readers also need to understand that different purposes of reading

require different reading strategies. The ability of using appropriate strategy in

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comprehending text makes the readers easy to catch the writer’s intended

meaning.

B. The Review on Experience-Text-Relationship Method

1. Definition of Experience-Text-Relationship

Experience-Text-Relationship (ETR) method is one of a variety of

methods developed as a total reading program that emphasizes comprehension

(reading for meaning) proposed by Kathryn Au. In 1979, Au applied the method

to the minority children in Hawaii. The students got better comprehension after

applying it.

Dowhower (2002: 145) simply defines ETR as a method of linking

background knowledge to narrative story. The result of the “link” is the

development of an insight and relationship between the students’ experiences

and the text.

The main point of ETR method is background knowledge building or

experience activation. Wood and Blanton (2009: 135) state that ETR method

draws on English language learners’ background knowledge and experience.

This method can run well when the students have adequate background

knowledge related to the story that will be read. This idea is in line with the

idea given by Lawrence (2007: 59). She states that, in ETR, building prior

knowledge needs to be the focus in the teaching and learning process. In order

to comprehend reading text, English learners are required to firstly activate

their background knowledge.

Besides, ETR mainly stresses on discussion activity. In guiding

students, the reading teacher must conduct discussion through questioning the

students. Discussion is conducted in all phases of ETR method.

2. Steps of Experience-Text-Relationship Method

ETR method has three basic steps. The three steps of ETR are as

follows:

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a. Experience (E) Phase

This initial phase is aimed at activating students’ personal

experience or background knowledge. In this phase, teacher has students

discuss their personal experience or prior knowledge related to the topic

of the text they are going to read. In this first activity, teacher

continuously adds question and answer sections into the discussion. The

discussion is used to activate students’ background knowledge about the

topic of the passage to be read and to motivate the students to read.

Experience phase is important not only because the students activate any

relevant prior background they may have and begin to relate it to the text

to be read, but also because the experience step provides a motivation for

reading the text.

b. Text (T) Phase

This phase requires students to read the text. The reading is done

in segments. After the students read certain segment of the text, the

teacher monitors students’ reading comprehension by questioning them

about the segment that is read by the students. In this step, teacher should

clarify any misconception and misunderstanding that may inhibit

students to understand the text. The reading alternated with discussion is

done until the students finish reading the whole text.

c. Relationship (R) Phase

This phase requires the teacher to guide the students in relating

the ideas from the text to their own experiences. It helps students

integrate the information from the text with their experiences to develop

understanding of the text. It connects the key ideas in the text to the

students’ experiences. A key goal in this step is to show students that

students can use their background knowledge to help them interpret and

understand stories.

In all three steps, the teacher attempts to model and to guide the

students systematically through the cognitive processes related to

understanding a written text. An important requirement of the ETR method is

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that the teacher be adept in leading the students to discover the correct answers

for themselves, rather than telling them the answers directly. The goal of the

method is to enable the students, who have had the processes modeled for them

by the teacher, to use these same cognitive processes on their own.

3. The Advantages of Experience-Text-Relationship

ETR method is really beneficial. It is appropriate to use this method to

teach reading because it has some strengths:

a. The activation and use of background knowledge in ETR is really helpful

for students to improve their comprehension. Saunders, et al. (1999: 10)

state that building students’ background knowledge prior to reading helps

students contextualize story themes, content and vocabulary.

b. ETR lessons provide opportunities for the students to explore many

dimensions of story and integrate features of it with their existing

knowledge (Au, 1998: 102).

c. Guiding questions given to build students’ prior knowledge can create

motivating reading environment (Lawrence, 2007: 60).

d. Answering any questions related to the story gives the students practice

in formulating and expressing complex thoughts (Au, 1998: 104).

e. ETR method provides opportunity for each student to make comparison

and contrast with what they already know and to accommodate new

information into their pre-existing schemata. Through this process,

students’ schemata become redefined and extended (Ajideh, 2003: 1).

f. Since reading materials are related to students’ experiences, the students’

motivation in learning will be increased (Heilman, 1961: 99).

g. In ETR, teacher can systematically guide the reading process and monitor

students’ reading comprehension (Wood and Blanton, 2009: 135)

h. Drawing upon, sharing, and discussing students’ relevant personal

experiences as required in ETR method sustain motivation and help

students make concrete and conceptual connections to the text, its

content, and the themes under study (Saunders, et al., 1999: 10)

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4. The Disadvantages of Experience-Text-Relationship

ETR has some weaknesses to apply. These are the disadvantages of

this method:

a. Since ETR is closely related to directed and guided reading, the teacher

needs to give assistance to help the students. The teacher’s guidance is

really needed. It means that the students tend to depend on the teacher

(Balajthy & Wade, 2003: 111)

b. Method focusing on experience building makes the teacher difficult to

control vocabulary because too many words may be introduced at one

time (Heilman, 1961: 100).

C. Teaching Reading Comprehension Using Experience-Text-Relationship

Method

1. Principles of Teaching Reading

Principles of teaching reading are basic rules which constitute the

theoretical framework out of which all practices are evolved. Heilman (1961:

3-12) proposes eleven principles of teaching reading:

a. Learning to read is a complicated process and is sensitive to a variety of

pressure. Too much pressure or the wrong kind of pressure may result in

non-learning.

b. Learning to read is an individual process.

c. Proper reading instruction depends on the diagnosis of each child’s

weaknesses and needs.

d. The best diagnosis is useless unless it is used as a blueprint for

instruction.

e. No child should be expected or forced to read material which at the

moment he is incapable of reading.

f. Reading is process of getting meaning from printed word symbols. It is

not merely a process of making conventionalized noises associated with

these symbols. This principle means that reading is more than a

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mechanical process, even though mechanics are an essential part of the

process.

g. Any given technique, practice, or procedure is likely to work better with

some children than with others. Hence, the teacher of reading must have

variety of approaches.

h. The concept of readiness should be extended upward to all grades.

i. Early in the learning process, the child must acquire ways of gaining

independence in identifying words whose meanings are known to him

but which are unknown to him as sight words.

j. Children should not be in the classroom if they have emotional problems

sufficiently serious to make them uneducable at the moment or if they

interfere with or disrupt the learning process.

k. Emphasis should be on prevention rather than cure. Reading problems

should be detected early and corrected before they deteriorate into

failure-frustration-reaction cases.

2. Teaching Reading Comprehension to the Eighth Grade Students of Junior

High School

Reading is one of language skills that must be mastered by the

students of junior high school. For reading skill, according to Standar Isi in

Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan Nasional nomor 14 tahun 2007, the eighth

graders of junior high school are expected to have ability in comprehending or

understanding meaning of a short written text in the form of narrative and

recount text.

The competence standard and basic competence (SKKD) states that

the eighth grade students of junior high school need to able to understand

meaning of simple short narrative and recount essay in order to interact with

surrounding environment. Furthermore, the syllabus for English mentions that

reading comprehension involves some indicators including identifying main

idea of text, finding explicit and implicit information in the text, determining

the writer’s purpose of making text, determining reference mentioned in the

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text, and guessing word meaning based on the context. Besides, the indicators

also include the ability of reading aloud text with appropriate pronunciation,

stress, and intonation.

For this research, the researcher considers narrative text type as the

focus of the teaching material. Simply, the researcher wants to improve

students’ reading comprehension of narrative text using ETR method.

3. Procedures of Teaching Reading Using Experience-Text-Relationship

Method

By still considering the three steps of ETR method to teach reading to

the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban, the researcher

implements ETR by the following procedure:

a. Experience Phase

1) Teacher divides the students into some groups.

2) Teacher tells the students about the topic or title of story that will

be discussed.

3) Teacher asks the students what they know about the story.

4) Teacher shows some pictures related to the text that will be

discussed later on.

5) Displaying the pictures, the teacher firstly asks the students to

make predictions of the story they will read based on the pictures

displayed. The students make predictions in group.

6) Teacher gives some guiding questions so that it is easy for the

students to activate their background knowledge.

7) Teacher asks each group to orally present their prediction toward

the story. Other groups of students need to listen to their friends’

predictions.

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8) Teacher writes down new vocabularies used by the students in the

presentation.

b. Text Phase

1) Teacher distributes a reading text.

2) Teacher asks some students to read aloud the text. The reading is

done in segments.

3) Teacher orally gives comprehension questions to the students.

4) After the students answer the questions, the teacher directly

explains the strategy of finding the answers (e.g. strategy for

finding main idea of text, guessing meaning, etc).

5) The reading alternated with discussion is repeatedly done until the

students finish reading the whole text.

c. Relationship Phase

1) The teacher invites the students to confirm their previous prediction

or background knowledge.

2) Teacher gives some questions relating the text to students’ life or

experience (i.e. the teacher asks the students whether they have

ever experienced such situation, whether they have a friend having

the similar experience, what they will do if they are the characters

mentioned in story, what they will do to solve the problem, and so

on).

The step of predicting the story is implemented when the story is

considered new for the students. By using some pictures, the researcher helps

the students create prediction before reading the text. When the story is quite

familiar for the students, the researcher only asks the students to activate their

own background knowledge by telling what they have already known about the

story. By giving some guiding questions to the students, the teacher helps the

students easily activate their prior knowledge and experience.

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D. Reviews on Related Research

The use of ETR method to teach reading comprehension to students has

ever been applied by some experts. The first research was done by Kathryn Au in

1979. At the time, Au found that children in Hawaii really got difficulty to

understand an English story. Most of them were not accustomed to using English

in their daily communication. Then, Au thought that, for such students, experience

approach should be preferable. Then, she decided to implement an experience-

based approach which was then called experience-text-relationship (ETR) method.

After implementing this method, she found that the Hawaiian children could

improve their scores in reading. Besides, she also found that the key success of

ETR is the teacher’s willingness to let the students’ experiences be integral part of

reading lesson.

The second related research was done by Carrell, Pharis, and Liberto in

1989. In the research, they tried to compare the effectiveness between ETR

method and semantic mapping to reading. In 1989, Carrell, et al. conducted a

study in the L2 context to examine the combined effects of cognitive and

metacognitive strategy instruction on reading comprehension. High-intermediate

level adult ESL students of varied native language backgrounds participated in the

study. The students were trained by using either in semantic mapping or the ETR

method to activate background knowledge. Each group of students also received

training in metacognitive awareness and regulation of the two strategies. Results

showed that the students exposed to the ETR approach improved their

comprehension of TOEFL passages the most and were able to create semantic

maps without scaffolding. ETR was effective in enhancing reading

comprehension.

The other research implementing the use of experience-text-relationship

to enhance reading comprehension was done by Saunders, O’Brien, McLenon,

and McLean. In the research, they adapted ETR method for studying literature. In

the result, they found that building students’ background knowledge prior to and

throughout the literature unit helps contextualize story themes, content and

vocabulary. Drawing upon, sharing, and discussing students’ relevant personal

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experiences sustains motivation and helps students make concrete and conceptual

connections to the text, its content, and the themes under study.

For this research, the researcher takes those related researches as

reference. By still considering the three basic steps of ETR, the researcher makes

her “own way” of implementing the method. The first difference is in the use of

group work activity. In this research, the students build their background

knowledge through working in group. It is for making the class interesting since

the students never have group work activity before.

The researcher helps students build background knowledge through

predicting activity. Actually, predicting was not the only activity required in ETR

for building background knowledge. Au, the founder of ETR, built her students

knowledge by conducting discussion through giving some questions, without

asking them to make prediction. Predicting is chosen for this research because the

researcher thinks that it is an interesting activity. Through predicting, students are

expected to produce various background knowledge or versions of story. These

various predictions can make the teaching and learning process interesting. Here,

the researcher also uses some guiding questions to help the students in experience

phase. Little bit different with Au’s research, the researcher uses pictures as the

supporting media in teaching and learning process. Since activating background

knowledge in pre-reading is “something new” for the students of SMP Negeri 3

Mojolaban, the researcher thinks that giving guiding questions is not enough. The

students may be difficult to get involved in the phase. Therefore, she decides to

use pictures because the pictures can help the students visualize the story. When

the story is unfamiliar for the students, the researcher conducts background

knowledge activation by asking the students to create prediction. But for familiar

story, the researcher only gives some questions asking about what the students

know about the story.

Besides, in this research, the researcher conducts oral presentation in

experience phase. She decides to conduct oral presentation because she wants the

students to become actively involved in teaching and learning process. Hopefully,

the students’ attentiveness and participation can be improved through this activity.

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The other difference between this research and the previous researches is in the

text phase. Previously, after asking students to read a segment of a text, the

researcher only gave comprehension questions related to the segment. But here,

the researcher gives reading strategies to help the students have better

comprehension. The strategies include the ones for finding main idea,

communication purpose, explicit and implicit information, meaning of words, and

reference. The researcher decides to do this because she thinks that teaching

reading means teaching strategies.

E. Rationale

Reading is very essential because it is one of the basic skills needed in

learning any subjects. Reading is a thinking activity involving comprehension

strategies of the reader to gain the knowledge. When students can read text

effectively, they are successful readers.

The objective of teaching English in junior high school stressed on

reading skill is providing students with comprehending knowledge. Students are

taught to comprehend written recount and narrative text. Teacher, therefore, has

responsibility to make students easier to comprehend text and facilitate them to

get well comprehension, covering the ability to infer meaning of words based on

the context, find main idea, determine reference, understand the purpose of text,

find out specific information stated in certain text (both explicit and implicit), and

read aloud with acceptable pronunciation, stress, and intonation.

Researcher conducted pre-research toward English class of the eighth

grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban. Based on the data got from the pre-

research, it seems that most students had difficulty in reading comprehension.

The students’ problem in reading comprehension covered some

indicators: (1) the students had difficulty in identifying main idea of text; (2) the

students got difficulty in identifying communicative purpose of text; (3) the

students had difficulty to find out information, both explicit and implicit, from

text; (4) the students had problems in identifying meaning of words within the

text; and (5) most of the students also had problems in determining reference.

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Besides, the class condition indicated: (1) most students did not pay

attention to the teacher while the teacher was explaining in front of the class; (2)

there were only few students who gave response to the teacher whereas the other

students were only passive; (3) the students were bored in joining the class; and

(4) the students spent much times to do any questions and exercises following a

reading text.

Those problem indicators were caused by some factors. From the

students, the main cause was the students’ low vocabulary mastery. Most of the

students had quite limited vocabularies. Because the students had limited

vocabularies, they did not have willingness to read English text. The students

always kept in their mind that English was not an interesting subject. Moreover,

they considered English was difficult to learn. Consequently, their learning

motivation in English also became low.

From the teacher, the cause was that the teacher never gave explanation

on reading strategies. She did not consider the importance of reading strategies to

help the students easily answer questions following reading text. She tended to

give less care to the students.

The other causes of students’ reading problem also came from the

technique, media, and material. The teaching technique used by the teacher was

monotonous and less appropriate. In teaching reading, the teacher always used

“lecturing” technique to deliver knowledge to the students. Guiding the students

to comprehend the text, the teacher directly translated the content of the text. After

that, the teacher asked the students to do exercises in the worksheet. So far, this

conventional technique was always used by the teacher in teaching reading. Since

it was repeatedly and frequently used by the teacher, the teaching and learning

process became boring. Moreover, directly translating the content of text was not

helpful for the students. The students, then, tended to be extremely dependent on

the teacher. Comprehending the text, they just needed to wait for the teacher to

translate the content of the text for them. As a result, the students became passive.

The other cause was the absence of media for supporting the teaching and learning

process. Presenting the reading materials, the teacher never utilized any media to

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raise students’ attention. Then, the last cause was the less attractive instructional

materials provided for the students. The students were only given material taken

from student worksheet (LKS) with dull and black-and-white colored paper. This

factor made the students bored and less interested in doing reading exercises.

In order to solve the problems, researcher proposes experience-text-

relationship (ETR) method. ETR is a reading method which is beneficial for

improving reading comprehension. The key point of this strategy is the activation

and the use of students’ experience or background knowledge to comprehend the

text.

There are some reasons why the researcher proposes ETR can improve

reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban.

Firstly, ETR makes the students not much dependent on the teacher. An important

requirement of the ETR method is that the teacher be adept in leading the students

to discover the correct answers for themselves, rather than telling them the

answers directly (Carrell, et al., 1989: 654). It means that the students are trained

to be independent in getting any information within the text.

Secondly, the focus on building background knowledge in experience

phase is helpful for students to have better comprehension. Saunders, et al. (1999:

10) state that building students’ background knowledge prior to reading helps

students contextualize story themes, content, and vocabulary. It means that the

students must have information or vocabularies related to the text before reading.

These clues are important since they can help the students have better

comprehension toward the story.

Thirdly, in ETR, the teacher can systematically guide the reading process

and monitor students’ comprehension (Wood and Blanton, 2009: 135). Since the

reading process is done in sections, the teacher can directly check students’

understanding. When there is misunderstanding, the teacher can directly clarify it.

Because any students’ misunderstanding is directly corrected or clarified by the

teacher, it eases the students to have well comprehension toward the story.

Fourthly, background knowledge activation in experience step gives

opportunity for the students to explore dimensions of the story as many as

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possible and to integrate features of it with their existing store of knowledge (Au,

1998: 104). It means that different students probably have different background

knowledge toward the story. Hopefully, this activity makes the students creative.

Moreover, various versions of story can make the teaching and learning process

interesting.

Fifthly, answering any questions related to the story gives the students

practice in formulating complex thoughts (Au, 1998: 104). After reading each

segment of the text, the students are given some comprehension questions related

to the segment. It automatically makes the students accustomed to having

comprehension questions. Then, since the questions cover some indicators of

reading (main idea, meaning of words, explicit and implicit information,

communicative purpose, and reference), the activity of answering these questions

can help students improve their reading comprehension. Besides, the activity

gives the teacher an idea of which questions or reading indicators are still difficult

for the students so that the teacher can think of strategy of teaching the difficult

indicators.

Sixthly, through ETR, the students’ motivation can be increased since the

activities done were actually related to their own background knowledge.

Drawing upon, sharing, and discussing students’ relevant personal experiences as

required in ETR method sustain motivation and help students make concrete and

conceptual connections to the text, its content, and the themes under study

(Saunders, et al., 1999: 10).

F. Hypothesis

Based on the theories elaborated above, the hypothesis for this research

can be formulated as “ETR method can improve reading comprehension of the

eighth grade students of SMP N 3 Mojolaban”.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Context of the Research

1. Research Setting

a. The Place of the Research

The research was carried out in SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban,

Sukoharjo. This school is located at Laban Kulon, RT 04/II, Mojolaban,

Sukoharjo. Since it is only surrounded by rice fields and village, it is not

noisy. The students can study well without any noise from outside.

There are many rooms in SMP N 3 Mojolaban. There are teacher’s

office, headmaster’s room, administration office, library, computer rooms,

language room, laboratories, hall, cafeteria, toilet, and mosque. The

environment of this school is also clean. There are many trees planted as

shelters in the school.

SMP N 3 Mojolaban uses KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan

Pendidikan) curriculum as the basis of teaching and learning process.

Teaching and learning processes are done in six days, from Monday to

Saturday. The students start to learn from 7.00 a.m. and they finish the

lesson at 1.00 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and

Saturday. Meanwhile, on Friday, they finish it at 11.00 a.m.

b. Time of the Research

The research was conducted in January 2012 to May 2012. The

schedule of the research is:Table 3.1 Schedule of the Research

No Activity Time of Research1 Pre-research (Observation) January-March 20124 Pre-test March 20125 Action Cycle One March- April 20126 Post Test 1 April 20127 Action Cycle Two May 20128 Post Test 2 May 20129 Analyzing the result May 2012

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2. Subject of the Research

The subject of this research is class VIII G students of SMP Negeri

3 Mojolaban in the academic year of 2011/2012. There are 38 students in

the classroom: 17 males and 21 females. Economically, the students are

classified into medium to low level. Most of their parents work as laborers.

The researcher chose class VIII G as the subject of the research

based on the fact that, generally, most students of this class were really

passive. They had low motivation in studying English. Most of them

thought that English was really difficult. Although they were aware of the

importance of English for their future, they did not have any effort to

improve their English. In reading class, most of them always looked bored.

It seems that it was difficult for them to give their full attention to the

teacher because they thought that reading was a boring activity. Moreover,

they had difficulty to comprehend any English text presented by the teacher.

Academically, the students of class VIII G were the ones who had

very low English reading skill. Any scores recorded by the teacher showed

that the students really had difficulty in English class.

Although they were passive during teaching and learning process,

they were very talkative in sharing their problems to the researcher. They

were confident when they had communication with the researcher. Most of

them openly shared their problem, especially in reading comprehension and

what they wanted during teaching and learning process. The students’

openness was really helpful for the researcher to know what to do with the

students.

B. Research Methodology

1. Definition of Action Research

In conducting this research, the researcher used action research.

Action research is a valuable way to extend teaching skill and gain more

understanding of teacher herself, the students, and the classroom. Elizabeth in

Burns (2010: 5) states that action research is research carried out in the

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classroom by the teacher of the course, mainly with the purpose of solving a

problem or improving the teaching/learning process. Further, Irais in Burns

(2010: 5) states that action research is a research carried out by teachers in their

classrooms. Teachers identify a problem they wish to improve and based on

theory or experience or a hypothesis they think of an intervention. They

document the intervention and results of it. If the results are positive they could

lead to the dissemination of the information. If not, the cycle may be started

again.

From the definitions above, it can be concluded that action research is

a research conducted by teacher in the classroom. This research is done by

identifying and gathering information about teaching and learning problems

faced by teacher and students and the causes for the problems. The goals of

actions research are solving problems, improving teaching practice, and

evaluating the teaching.

The researcher preferred using action research to other research

because action research is closely related to educational realm. This method

directly engages the teacher, the students, and any problems and factors around

them. Besides, the benefits of its implementation can be directly felt by both

the teacher (researcher) and the students. For the teacher, action research is

really helpful for improving his or her teaching competencies. Syamsuddin and

Damaianti, (2007: 227) state that by conducting action research, teacher can

solve students’ problems in learning and improve his own competencies in

teaching. Furthermore, Aqib (2006: 87) gives some benefits of action research

for the teacher. The benefits are:

a. action research is really conducive for making the teacher sensitive and

perceptive toward learning dynamics in his class. Teacher gives more

concern on students’ characteristics during teaching and learning

process.

b. action research can improve teacher’s competence.

c. through sensitively considering problems in his teaching, teacher can

make the teaching and learning process better. It means that the

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teacher can be able to improve teaching quality by trying out certain

alternatives to solve the problems.

For the students, action research is also beneficial. According to

Sanjaya (2009: 35-36), action research can reduce students’ boredom during

teaching and learning process because this method is actually aimed at solving

students’ problem. Besides, through action research, students’ learning

achievement can improve as their learning problems can be solved. Therefore,

researcher decided to use action research.

2. Model of Action Research

The model of action research used in this research is the model

developed by Kemmis and McTaggart. According to Kemmis and McTaggart

in Burns (2010: 8), action research involves four broad phases:

a. Planning

In this phase, teacher or action researcher identified a problem or issue

and developed a plan of action in order to bring about improvements in a

specific area of the research context.

b. Action

In this second phase, the plan was carefully implemented into teaching

and learning process.

c. Observation

This phase involved the activity of systematically observing the effects of

the action and documenting the context, actions, and opinions.

d. Reflection

At this point, researcher reflected on, evaluated, and described the effects

of the action in order to make sense of what had happened and to

understand the issue she had explored more clearly.

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O B S E R V E

O B S E R V E

ACT

ACT

REFLECTREFLECT

R E V I S E D P L A N

P L A N

Figure 3.1 Action Research Model by Kemmis and McTaggart

3. Procedure of the Research

The four steps at the model of action research can be expanded into

six steps which include in the procedure of action research. The procedures are:

(1) identifying the problem; (2) planning the action; (3) implementing the

action; (4) observing the action; (5) reflecting the action; and (6) revising the

plan. In more detail, the process done in this research ran with the following

procedures:

a. Identifying the problems

“Problem” is the research term for the issue under investigation.

Before starting classroom action research, the researcher identified the

problem. The problems were identified by using four techniques as

follows:

1) Observation

The observation was aimed at knowing the condition of class

including model and management of the class. Moreover,

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observation was also used to know students’ behavior and problem

during the teaching and learning process, especially in reading

class.

2) Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a

series of questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering

information from the students. The researcher distributed the

questionnaire for all students. It consisted of some questions about

the students’ interest and motivation in learning English, students’

feeling toward the teacher’s way of teaching, the students’ behavior

during reading class, the students’ problem in reading, and causes

of the students’ problem.

3) Interview

Interview was done with the teacher and the students as

the interviewee. The goal of this technique was to identify what

problems faced by the teacher and the students, the causes of the

problems, and the students’ feeling toward the teaching and

learning process conducted by the teacher so far.

4) Pretest

Pre-test is a test used to know students’ initial reading

comprehension. Before implementing ETR method for teaching

reading, the researcher conducted pre-test. The result of this pre-

test was used to be the evidence of the students’ reading problems.

b. Planning the Action

The researcher needed to make general plan before

implementing the action. The researcher prepared everything needed in

doing the action. In this research, the researcher prepared the planning of

the research as follows:

1) Making lesson plan and designing the steps in doing the action.

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2) Preparing sheets for classroom observation (to know the situation

of teaching-learning process when the ETR method was applied).

3) Preparing media related to the topic (the media used was pictures).

4) Preparing camera (to take the pictures of the teaching and learning

process).

5) Preparing worksheet and test instruments (to know the

improvement of the students’ reading comprehension).

c. Implementing the Action

The researcher implemented the action based on the lesson plans

the researcher had made. The researcher ETR method in teaching and

learning process in order to enhance students’ reading comprehension.

The real implementation was presented as follows:

1) Experience Phase

a) Teacher divided the students into some groups.

b) Teacher told the students about the topic or title of story that

would be discussed.

c) Teacher asked the students what they know about the story.

d) Teacher showed some pictures related to the text that will be

discussed later on.

e) Displaying the pictures, the teacher firstly asked the students to

make predictions of the story they would read based on the

pictures displayed. The students made predictions in group.

f) Teacher gave some guiding questions so that it was easy for the

students to activate their background knowledge.

g) Teacher asked each group to orally present their prediction

toward the story. Other groups of students listened to their

friends’ predictions.

h) Teacher wrote down or listed new vocabularies or key words

used by the students in predicting the story.

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2) Text Phase

a) Teacher distributed a reading text.

b) Teacher asked some students to read aloud the text written in the

worksheet. The reading was done in segments.

c) Teacher orally gave comprehension questions to the students.

d) After the students answered the questions, the teacher directly

explained the strategy of finding the answers (e.g. strategy for

finding main idea of text, guessing meaning, etc).

e) The reading followed by discussion was repeatedly done until

the students finished reading the whole text.

3) Relationship Phase

a) After the students read and comprehended the whole text, the

teacher asked them to confirm their previous “knowledge”.

b) Teacher gave some questions relating the text to students’ life or

background knowledge.

d. Observing and Monitoring the Action

The observation was done during the teaching and learning

process. Here, the researcher observed all activities happening in the

classroom and took notes related to the process of teaching and learning.

The aspects of teaching and learning process observed were class

situation, students’ behavior, and students’ response when they were

given ETR as reading method. The result of the observation was written

in field notes as the data. The English teacher gave some inputs and

suggestions to the researcher.

d. Reflecting the Result

The researcher made an evaluation towards the teaching activity

that was carried out. The evaluation was written down as field note. The

researcher reflected the field note in order to identify the strengths and

weaknesses of the teaching activity that was conducted. Reflection was

the basic consideration to conduct the next teaching.

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e. Revising the Plan

Based on the weaknesses of the teaching activities, the

researcher revised the plan for the next cycle. By doing the reflection, the

researcher arranged a new plan to teach the student better. The researcher

took the teacher’s input into her consideration.

C. Data Collecting

In this research, the data was collected by using quantitative and

qualitative method. The quantitative data was collected from the students’ reading

score, while qualitative data were from observation, interview, questionnaire, and

document analysis. They are elaborated as follows:

1. Test

A test is a systematic procedure for observing one’s behavior and

describing it with the aid of nummerical device or category system. The

researcher tested the students by written test consisting of pre-test and post-

test (1 and 2).

Before giving pre-test, the researcher firstly conducted try-out test.

It was done to know whether or not the instruments for pre-test and post test

were valid and reliable. The tryout was done twice. The first try out was

done before the research. The valid items got from tryout test 1 were used to

the test items for pre-test and post test 1. Then, the valid items got from

tryout 2 were for post test 2.

To get the instrument valid and reliable, the researcher used the

validity and reliability formula as stated in Ngadiso (2006: 1-3).

a. The validity of the instrument

Validity is the degree to which a test measures what it claims

to be measuring. To measure the validity of the test, the researcher

used internal validity. The formula is as follows:

S t=Σ

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St : standard deviation of the square root of the total of

the square of each deviation score divided by the

number of the students.

Σx2 : the total of the square of each deviation score.

n : the number of the students

rn=

rn : the validity of each item

: Sum of correct answer within the row divided by sum

of correct answers within column.

: the average of the total correct score

St : standard deviation of the square root of the total of the

square of each deviation score divided by the number

of the students

pi : the total of correct answer divided by the number of

the students

qi : the total of incorrect answers divided by the number

of students

Then, an item is considered as valid if ro > rt.

b. The reliability of the Instrument

A test is reliable if it is administrated many times

approximately the same result is obtained. As in the validity, the

researcher used the following formula:

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rkk= 1 − ∑rkk : internal validity

k : the total of valid items

Σpq : the sum of the multiplication of the proportion of the

correct answers and incorrect answers

St : standard deviation of the square root of the total of the

square of each deviation score divided by the number

of the students.

2. Observation

Observation is used to collect the qualitative data. It is a technique

of collecting the data by closely watching and noticing classroom events or

happenings, or interaction, either as a participant in the classroom or as an

observer of another teacher’s observation. In this research, the researcher

observed the process of teaching and learning. Observation was done before

and during the implementation of ETR method. The result of observation

was written in the form of field note.

3. Questionnaire

A questionnaire is a research instrument consisting of a series of

questions and other prompts for the purpose of gathering information from

respondents (the students). In this research, the researcher provided two

questionnaires. The first questionnaire was distributed before she

implemented the action (before giving treatment). It was used to know the

students’ reading problem and causes of the problem. The second

questionnaire was distributed after the action. It was used to know the

students’ opinion and feeling toward the implementation of ETR method in

their reading class.

4. Interview

The researcher held interview to the teacher and the students. In the

pre-research, the researcher interviewed them in order to know what

problems faced, especially in reading, faced by the students. Interview to the

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teacher was done once. Meanwhile, the researcher interviewed the students

twice: in pre-research and at the end of the research. The interview given in

pre-research was used to know students’ problems, the cause, and their

feelings toward the teacher’s way of teaching. Then, the second interview

was done to know students’ feeling and improvement after ETR method was

implemented in teaching reading.

5. Document Analysis

Documents are important source of data in action research.

Document analysis can help researcher complement other observations by

building a richer profile of the classroom for the research. Documents can

also give insight into the theoretical and practical values (Burns, 1999: 140).

There is a wide range of documents that could be related to the research

focus. The documents that were collected by the researcher were

photographs, students’ scores, and students’ worksheet. The results of

English tests here were pre-test and post-test which were used to collect the

data of the improvement in reading comprehension.

D. Data Analysis

The data was analyzed to get conclusion of each cycle. The data analyzed

in this research was divided into two kinds of data, qualitative and quantitative

data. The qualitative data consisted of the result of observation (field notes),

interview, document, and questionnaire. The qualitative data is analyzed using a

method proposed by Burns. Burns (1999: 156) gives several steps of analyzing

qualitative data:

1. Assembling the data

The first step was to assemble the data that had been collected over

the period of the research: field notes, interview, questionnaire, and so on.

At this stage, broad pattern should begin to show up which could be

compared and contrasted to see what fitted together. By scanning the data, it

began to process of more detailed analysis by bringing up possible patterns

which could be adapted and added to as it is processed.

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2. Coding the data

After collecting the data, the researcher coded them. Coding is a

process of labeling the large amount of data that may be collected to more

manageable categories of concepts, themes, or types. Data analysis become

much messier and coding becomes less clear cut when it is dealing with

diary entries, classroom recordings, or open ended survey questions.

3. Comparing the data

Once the data had been categorized in some way, comparison was

made to see whether themes or patterns were repeated or developed across

different data gathering techniques.

4. Building interpretation

This was the point where the researcher moved beyond describing,

categorizing, coding, and comparing to make sense of meaning of the data.

This stage demanded creative thinking as it was concerned with articulating

underlying concepts and developing the theories about why particular

patterns of behavior, interactions, or attitudes had emerged.

5. Reporting the outcome

The final stage involved presenting an account of the research for

others. A major consideration was to ensure that the report set out the major

processes of the research, and those findings and outcomes were well

supported with the examples from the data

The researcher analyzed the data from the result of observation, field

notes, interview, documents, and questionnaire. They described how the process

of teaching reading comprehension using ETR ran in the classroom. After

studying notes, the researcher identified progresses and advantages as well as

problems and its possible solution in teaching reading comprehension using ETR.

Besides, the researcher gave written test to measure the students’ reading

achievement. After the data from written test were collected, they were analyzed

to prove whether teaching reading comprehension using ETR method could

overcome the student’s problems in reading or not. The results of the tests were

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served as the justification of the result of the observation and vice versa. The tests

were scored by looking for the mean by using quantitative method. In analyzing

the quantitative data, the researcher used descriptive statistics.

The mean of pre-test and post-test were calculated with the formula:

nX

X nY

Y

In which:∑ = The sum of students’ score before the action∑ = The sum of students’ score after the action

X = Means of students’ score before the action

Y = Means of students’ score after the action

n = number of student

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CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The research was conducted with the collaboration of the English teacher

at SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban. In this research, the researcher became practitioner

who implemented the action in teaching and learning process and the real English

teacher (Mrs. Kuswiyanti) became the collaborator. The researcher took two

questions regarding: (1) whether and to what extent the use of ETR method can

improve students’ reading comprehension and (2) what happens when ETR

method is implemented in the reading class.

A. Research Findings

1. Identifying Problem

Before doing action, the researcher did preliminary research in order

to identify the problems found by the students of class VIII G of SMP Negeri 3

Mojolaban in the academic year of 2011/2012. The problem identification was

done through four techniques: observation, interview, questionnaire, and pre-

test. The summary of the identified problems found before the action can be

seen in the following table.Table 4.1 Problems Found Before Action

Problems Found DescriptionA. Reading Comprehension

1. Identifying main idea The students had difficulty in identifyingmain idea within a text.

2. Identifying purpose of text It was difficult for the students to identifythe purpose of text they read.

3. Finding explicit information Most students still had problems in findingexplicit information within a text.

4. Finding implicit information The students found difficulty in findingimplied information in a text.

5. Determining meaning of words The students found difficulty in guessingmeaning of words based on the context.

6. Determining reference It was difficult for the students to determinereference stated in a text.

B. Class Situation1. not paying attention There were many students who did not pay

attention when the teacher was givingexplanation. They were busy in doing their

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own non-academic businesses.2. Passive Most students were only passive in joining

the class. There were only few students whogave response to the teacher when theteacher gave questions or instruction.

3. Bored The students were bored in joining readingclass.

4. spending much time The students spent much time for doingexercises following reading text.

Based on the table 4.1 above, it can be concluded that the eighth grade

students of SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban had problem in reading comprehension.

The problems can be classified into two indicators: reading comprehension and

class situation.

In reading comprehension, the researcher found that most students in

the classroom had difficulty in all indicators of reading. The first problem was

in identifying main idea. Although they knew what main idea was, it was still

difficult for them to identify the main idea of each paragraph in certain text.

Next problem was in identifying purpose. The students had difficulty in

understanding the communicative purpose of text they had just read. The third

problem was in finding explicit information. Although the information was

clearly stated in the text, most students still had problems in allocating the

answers of questions covering this indicator. Besides, the students had

difficulty in finding implicit information. It was really difficult for the students

to infer or make conclusion toward the information within a text. In addition,

they found it difficult to determine meaning of unfamiliar words. When the

students found unfamiliar words, they suddenly gave up and thought that the

text was difficult to understand. Moreover, the students had problem in

determining reference.

The students’ reading problems in comprehension could be

quantitatively proven by their result of pre-test. The detailed data for students’

reading score in each reading indicator before the action is shown in the

following table.

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Table 4.2 Students’ Reading Score in Pre-Test

Indicator Mainidea

Explicitinfo

Implicitinfo

Wordmeaning

Reference Purpose

Score 42.11 55.26 34.21 27.89 40 36.32Mean 39.3

As shown in the table 4.2 above, it can be seen that the students had

problems in the six reading indicators. In all those indicators, the mean score

got by the students did not fulfill the passing grade required by the school that

was 61. From 38 students, there were only two students who were considered

successful in doing the pre-test. Besides, the mean score of the reading score

was only 39.3.

Moreover, the reading class before the action also showed some

problems. Firstly, most students did not give their attention during the teaching

and learning process. When the teacher was explaining in front of the class,

there were some students who did not look at the teacher. They precisely

looked at their friends, had conversation with other students, and did their own

non-academic businesses. Moreover, there were some male students who

frequently made noise during the class. They spoke in a laud voice and,

sometimes, they made joke. As a result, the other students laughed at them.

This really disturbed class conduciveness since the students lost their focus on

the teacher. The students paying attention were only the ones who sat in first

row. This observation results were supported by the result of interview. The

teacher said, “Yang memperhatikan itu hanya beberapa siswa yang duduk di

depan, Mbak. Yang lain malah sering ramai sendiri. Apalagi yang laki-laki.

Susah sekali dikondisikan. Jerit-jerit karepe dewe.”

Secondly, most students were passive in joining reading class. When

the teacher gave instruction or question, there were only few students who gave

response to her whereas the others did nothing. When the teacher asked

whether they had problem, the students just kept silent whereas they actually

had problems. This observation result was supported by the result of

questionnaire. About 81.08 percent students said that they were not active

during the reading class. It is also supported by the result of interview. One of

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the students said that only the students sitting in front row gave response when

the teacher gave some questions.

Thirdly, the students were bored in joining the class. When the

researcher did observation, there were some students putting their head on the

desk when the teacher was giving explanation. The data was proven by the

answer given by one of the students stating, “Ga enak, bosen, galak sisan.

Moreover, other student also said, “Tapi kadang ya bosen. Di suruh ngerjain

LKS terus. Caranya gitu-gitu terus”. In questionnaire, it was stated that 51.35

percent students did not consider English as an interesting subject. This result

implied that students were bored in joining reading class.

Fourthly, the students spent much time for doing exercises following

reading text. Asking the students to do an exercise, the teacher needed to repeat

the instruction several times. The students did not directly do the task given by

the teacher. Consequently, they spent much time for the session. Finally, the

teacher had to directly guide them for doing the exercises. This last problem

was also seen when the researcher conducted pre-test. Several minutes after the

researcher distributed the question and answer sheets, most students only

answered few numbers of question. Consequently, when the time was up, there

were some students who did not finish in doing the test.

In the process of problem identification, the researcher also found

some causes for the problems. From the students, the main cause was the

students’ low vocabulary mastery. Most of the students had quite limited

vocabularies. In the interview, the English teacher said, “Sebenarnya yang

paling menyebabakan masalah di sini tu vocab siswa, Mbak. Vocab mereka itu

sangat rendah. Nah, karena mereka tidak tahu artinya, mereka jadi

bermasalah di semua indicator.”

Because the students had limited vocabularies, they did not have

willingness to read English text. When they found that they did not know the

meaning of words within a text, they immediately gave up and thought that the

text was difficult to understand. The students always kept in their mind that

English was not an interesting subject. Moreover, they considered English was

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difficult to learn. Consequently, their learning motivation in English also

became low. They were always lazy for joining the class.

From the teacher, the cause was that the teacher never gave

explanation on reading strategies. When the researcher did observation toward

the reading class conducted by the teacher, she found that, in discussing

reading exercises, the teacher did not give reading strategy to the students.

Instead of letting the students to firstly think, the teacher precisely directly

gave the answers of the questions. Then, the teacher also did not firmly

reprimand the students who frequently made noise and disturbed the class. She

tended to give less care to the students. One of the students said “Kalau ada

yang rame gitu, Ibunya sabar dan diam saja. langsung ga digagas sama Bu

Kus”.

The other causes of students’ reading problem also came from the

technique, media, and material. The teaching technique used by the teacher was

monotonous and less appropriate. The teacher said, “Jujur saya cuma pake

ceramah. Kadang sempat mikir pake metode yang lain, kan sekarang ini

banyak sekali. Tapi saya lagsung mikir, pake ceramah saja siswa tidak bisa

mengikuti, apalagi untuk menerapkan metode yang lain.”

Guiding the students to comprehend the text, the teacher directly

translated the content of the text. After that, the teacher asked the students to do

exercises in the worksheet. Moreover, presenting the reading materials, the

teacher never utilized any media to raise students’ attention and interest. Then,

the last cause was the less attractive instructional materials provided for the

students. The students were only given material taken from student worksheet

(LKS) with dull and black-and-white colored paper. This factor made the

students bored and less interested in doing reading exercises. In interview, the

teacher said, “Saya cuma pake materi yang ada di LKS, mbak. LKS kan

disusun MGMP, ya itu sudah mencakup semua yang memang perlu diajarkan

kepada siswa.”

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2. Implementation

This research was done in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of some

steps: (1) planning the action; (2) implementing the action; (3) observing the

action; (4) reflecting the action; and (5) revising the plan.

a. Cycle 1

Before explaining the implementation of cycle 1 in detail, the

researcher provides the table showing the summary of how the cycle 1 ran.

The following table shows the summary.Table 4.3 Summary of the Implementation of Cycle 1

Procedure Meeting DescriptionIdentifyingproblem

Through observation, interview, questionnaire, and pre-test, the researcherfound that the students had problem in reading. The problems were indicatedfrom both the reading comprehension and class condition.

Planning theaction

The researcher prepared anything related to the teaching and learningprocess including lesson plans, instructional materials, worksheet, camera,pictures, and items for post test 1.

Implementingthe action

The researcher implemented ETR method in reading class in four meetings.Meeting 1 Ss made group Ss told what they knew about the story of Nyi Roro Kidul Ss presented their version of story Ss comprehended the text entitled “Legend of Nyi Roro Kidul Ss did exercises following the text Ss related the text to their life

Meeting 2 Ss discussed the exercises of the previous meeting by trying to use

reading strategy Ss reviewed about narrative text

Meeting 3 Ss made group In group, Ss made prediction based on the pictures distributed by the

T Ss orally presented the prediction Ss read the text in segment Ss comprehended each segment by answering some questions Ss confirmed the prediction Ss related the text to their life. Ss discussed exercises following the text

Meeting 4 Ss made group In group, Ss made prediction based on the pictures distributed by the

T Ss orally presented the prediction Ss read the text in segment Ss comprehended each segment by answering some questions given

by the T Ss confirmed the prediction

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Ss related the text to their life. Ss discussed exercises following the text

Observing theaction

Meeting 1 Ss were passive and ashamed for being active Ss were not familiar with making group and any activity in

experience phase yet Ss could not independently answered comprehension questions Ss had to be appointed Picture of Nyi Roro Kidul was less interesting for students Relating the text to the life seemed interesting and made the class

atmosphere alive Some Ss made noise Some Ss did get involved in the discussion (dependent on other)

Meeting 2 Ss were not accustomed to using reading strategies yet Ss had to be appointed to answer the exercises Ss made mistakes in doing the exercises, especially in task 4 Some Ss made noise Ss paid attention when T explained narrative text

Meeting 3 Making group took much time Pictures of Up made students enthusiastic Ss enjoyed predicting activity Ss had to be appointed to do some instructions and answer questions Some Ss did not get involved in group discussion (dependent on

other) Male Ss easily lost their focus Ss began to be accustomed to using reading strategies. Ss still had problem in some reading indicators (main idea, reference,

word meaning, and implicit information Ss still needed much guidance from T Ss enjoyed relating the text to their life Some students made noise

Meeting 4 Making group took much time Ss began to be familiar with predicting activity Some Ss did not get involved discussion There were some Ss began to be active Picture made Ss enthusiastic Ss could not answer questions in implicit information, reference, and

word meaning Ss enjoyed relationship phase Male Ss easily lost their focus. Consequently, they showed less

improvement than the females Some male Ss made noise

Reflecting theaction

Strengths:Reading Comprehension the Ss’ scores in finding main idea, purpose of text, and explicit

information passed the KKM (passing grade) Reading strategy much helped Ss Keywords got by the Ss in experience phase helped the students in

comprehending the text.

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Class Situation Predicting activity raised Ss’ interest in joining the class Picture could raise Ss’ interest. Relating the text to Ss’ life was interesting for Ss

Weakness:Reading comprehensionSs could not independently use strategies for identifying word

meaning, determining reference, and finding implicit information.Consequently their scores in those three reading indicators could notfulfill the passing grade.

Class Condition Male students easily lost their focus on the learning process.

Consequently, they showed less improvement in both readingcomprehension and reading class. It might be because the male Ss satin a group. When there was a student made noise, other Ss directlyfollowed to make noise.

Making group took much time. Dependence factor among Ss who were in a group was still much. Guidance, in some phases, was still dominant There were still some Ss who made noise Sometimes, T could not manage the time well.

Revising theplan

Since the scores in meaning of word, implicit information, andreference did not fulfill the passing grade yet, in the second cycle, theresearcher planned to give more practices in implicit information,word meaning, and reference.

Because the male students tended to easily lose their focus when theysat in group, the researcher planned to ask the students to sitdispersedly (male students may not sit in a group)

Since making group phase always took much time and some studentstended to be dependent on other students, the researcher planned toeliminate group work. Building background knowledge is done inpair.

For reducing researcher’s domination, the researcher planned not togive guiding questions in experience phase because the students werealready familiar with predicting or building background knowledge(they know what they have to do). It was not so necessary forproviding guiding questions.

Not giving guidance to the students in using reading strategiesbecause the students are already familiar with the strategies.

Providing predicting activity for experience phase because thestudents were more interested in building knowledge throughpredicting.

Considering allocation time that has been made in the plan.

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The detail and further explanation of the table 4.1 above is presented

in the following sub points.

1) Planning the Action

After gathering data regarding students’ reading problems and

the causes, the researcher made a plan to teach in the class. The

researcher made lesson plans and worksheets. The lesson plan was made

for each meeting. The steps of teaching were adjusted to the three basic

steps of ETR method. Actually, for this cycle, the researcher planned to

conduct three meetings. In the first meeting, she chose a text entitled

“Legend of Nyi Roro Kidul”. For the next meeting, she planned to give a

reading text entitled “Up”. Then, in the last meeting, she planned to

discuss a text entitled “The Real Story of Pinocchio”. Besides, she also

prepared the instructional materials, especially reading text and

explanation of reading strategies and anything needed to support the

teaching and learning process.

Researcher also prepared the items for post test 1. The items for

this test were actually the same as the ones used in pre-test. After making

60 items covering six reading indicators (main idea, purpose of text,

explicit information, implicit information, word meaning, and reference),

the researcher tried out the items in order to find which items were valid

and reliable. Using internal validity formula, the researcher got 38 valid

items. In order to make the calculation easy, the researcher decided to

only use 30 items for both pre-test and post test 1.

2) Implementing the Action

The researcher actually planned to have three meetings for

implementing the action. Because the first lesson plan could not be

finished in single meeting, she decided to add a meeting for this cycle.

The following table shows the summary of the implementation of ETR

method in teaching reading.

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a) Meeting 1

The first meeting was conducted on March, 29th 2012. At

8.20, the researcher and the teacher entered class VIIIG. The

researcher opened the class by standing in front of the class and

greeting the students. After greeting the students and checking the

attendance, she directly told the students that she would conduct

research with the students as the subjects of the research. She told

everything related to the research. She also told that she would use

ETR method to teach reading. She simply explained about what ETR

method was.

Experience Phase

Starting the implementation of ETR method, the researcher

asked the students to make some groups. Each group should consist of

3 to 4 students. The students chose their members by themselves.

After the students made the group, the researcher showed

some pictures of Nyi Roro Kidul. Since there was no LCD projector in

the school, the researcher showed pictures which were printed in large

papers. When she showed the pictures, she orally gave some questions

to the students. The questions basically asked about what the students

knew about the story of Nyi Roro Kidul. For this activity, the students

did not work in group yet.

After showing the pictures, the researcher asked students to

start conducting a group work in order to discuss what they knew

about the story of Nyi Roro Kidul. For the discussion, the researcher

gave 15 minutes. The students used dictionary to get some keywords

related to the story. Several minutes later, the researcher asked some

groups of students to orally present their “story”. Each group should

ask one of the members to be the presenter. When the students

presented their background knowledge, the researcher wrote down the

new vocabularies or keywords used by the students on the whiteboard.

At the end of experience phase, the researcher reviewed the meaning

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of the words listed on the whiteboard that were previously used by the

presenters of the groups.

Text Phase

After conducting the experience phase, the researcher moved

on text phase. Here, she firstly distributed worksheet for the students.

In the worksheet, there was a reading text entitled “Legend of Nyi

Roro Kidul”. After all students got the sheet, she appointed a student

to read the first two paragraphs. Because the students only needed to

read the text, for reading session in the text phase, the students did not

work in group. When a student read aloud the segment, the researcher

directly corrected the mistakes on intonation, pronunciation, and

stress. After the student finished reading the paragraphs, the

researcher gave some comprehension questions based on the

paragraphs. The questions covered some indicators of reading. After

that, she directly explained the strategies of reading comprehension.

She wrote the indicators of reading and the strategies to answer the

questions related to those indicators. Next, she gave other questions to

the students. In giving the questions, the researcher appointed some

students since there was no student who raised hand for answering the

questions. The activity of answering comprehension questions in the

text phase was not group work activity. After being appointed, the

students individually answered the questions. When the students could

not answer the questions, she gave the question to other students.

After comprehending the first segment, the researcher

appointed other student to continue reading the next paragraph. The

“reading in segment” was done until the students read the whole text.

After reading each segment, the students were given some

comprehension questions related to the segment of text they had just

read. The reading followed by discussion was repeatedly done until

the students read the entire paragraphs.

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Relationship Phase

After the students read the whole text, the researcher asked

them to compare and confirm their previous story. This activity was

done in group again. After the students finished confirming their

previous knowledge, the researcher appointed some groups to tell the

comparison of their previous knowledge with the story in the text.

Finally, she gave some questions relating the story and their real life.

Since the questions were personal ones, the students did not discuss in

group. The researcher appointed some students to give their personal

answers.

Finishing implementing ETR method to teach reading

comprehension, the researcher asked the students to do exercises on

the worksheet. Actually, in doing the exercises on the worksheet, the

students should firstly discuss in group. But, suddenly, the bell rang

and the researcher could not continue the lesson. She directly asked

the students to do the exercises at home. Then, she closed the lesson.

b) Meeting 2

On Monday, April 2nd 2012, the researcher entered the class

to conduct the second meeting. This meeting was only used to

continue the implementation of lesson plan 1. Therefore, there was no

ETR implementation in this meeting.

After greeting, checking students’ attendance list, and asking

the students to sit in their previous group, the researcher asked

students to open up their homework (the exercises for “Legend of Nyi

Roro Kidul”). The researcher, then, invited the students to discuss the

exercises. Before, she explained about reading strategies again. The

strategies used were still the same as the ones explained before. In

discussing the exercises, the researcher appointed group-not

individual. After a group gave answer for certain question, the

researcher asked other group who had different answer. When the

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researcher found different answer among students, the researcher

invited the students to discuss the question together.

After discussing the exercises, the researcher explained about

narrative text. She utilized the whiteboard to write down the main

points. The explanation included the purpose, generic structure, and

the linguistic features of narrative text. In the end of the explanation,

the researcher asked question about purpose of text that had just been

discussed.

When the bell rang, the researcher closed the lesson by

summarizing the lesson that had just been conducted. After that, she

asked whether the students had questions or problems. Then, she

asked students’ feeling toward the teaching learning process,

especially in the implementation of ETR method in reading class.

Finally, she thanked to the students for their attention and

participation. She left the room by saying “good bye and see you”.

c) Meeting 3

On Wednesday, 4th April 2012, the researcher conducted

meeting 3 for implementing the second lesson plan. At 11.20, the bell

rang. The researcher started the lesson. Opening the class, she greeted

the students and checked the students’ attendance. Then, she

explained the topic that would be discussed.

Experience Phase

The researcher asked students to make some groups. In this

phase, group work was conducted in the step of building background

knowledge. After the students made group, the researcher distributed a

set of pictures for each group of students. The pictures represented

“Up” story. After distributing the pictures, the researcher gave some

questions such as “Have you ever known about the story before”.

Since the students did not have any background knowledge related to

the story, the researcher asked them to make prediction toward the

story. In group, the students generated prediction based on the

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pictures. When the students discussed the pictures, the researcher gave

guidance by stating some questions that might be helpful for the

students to generate the prediction.

Around twenty five minutes later, the researcher asked the

students to choose one of the members to be the presenter. Then, she

asked the presenter students to orally share their prediction. From the

presentation, the researcher listed some new words used by the

presenters. After the presenters of two groups presented their

predictions, the researcher reviewed the meaning of the words listed

from the presentations that had just been conducted.

Text Phase

After conducting experience phase, the researcher moved on

the text phase. The researcher distributed worksheet to the students.

Distributing the sheet, she was helped by some students. After all

students got the sheet, she appointed a student to read the first

paragraph. Since the students only needed to read the text, they did not

need to work in group in this phase.

After the student read the paragraph, the researcher asked

some questions related to the paragraph. In answering the

comprehension questions, the students did not firstly discuss in group.

The questions were directly given to the individuals. Giving the

questions, the researcher randomly appointed and mentioned name of

students. Once again, the researcher guided the students to use

strategies to find out the answers. Reading aloud followed by

discussion was repeatedly done until the students comprehended the

whole text.

Relationship Phase

After conducting text phase, the researcher moved to the last

phase that was relationship phase. Here, she firstly asked students to

confirm the previous prediction. The prediction confirmation was

done in group. The researcher provided 5 minutes to the students to

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discuss the comparison of their previous prediction and the story

stated in the text. Then, the researcher asked some groups to tell their

confirmation. After confirming, the students were given some

questions in order to relate the story with their own life. The questions

were directly given to the individual because they were related to

students’ personal life and experiences.

Finishing conducting three phases in ETR, the researcher

asked the students to do exercises following the text. The students

were given time for discussing the exercises in group. In the last

fifteen minutes, the researcher invited the students to discuss the

exercises together.

After discussing the exercises, the researcher invited the

students to summarize the lesson that had just been conducted. Then,

she asked if the students still had problems or questions related to the

lesson. Next, she asked the students’ feeling toward the teaching

learning process. Finally, she closed the lesson by saying goodbye.

d) Meeting 4

The fourth meeting was conducted on Thursday, 5th April

2012. At 08.20, the researcher entered the classroom. After doing

some opening activities, the researcher was ready to implement ETR

method for teaching reading.

Experience Phase

As usual, the researcher opened this phase by asking the

students to make some groups. Little bit different with the previous

meetings, here, the researcher was the one who decided the group

members. After dividing the students into groups, the researcher told

the students that they would discuss a new story of Pinocchio. She

distributed four pictures representing the story of Pinocchio. Each

group got a set of pictures. Then, the researcher asked the students to

make prediction based on some pictures. For making prediction, the

students worked in group. Several minutes later, the researcher asked

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them which group that would tell the story. When the students acting

as presenters presented their knowledge, the researcher wrote the

keywords and unfamiliar words used by the students. Finally, she also

reviewed the meaning of the words.

Text Phase

After the students presented their “story”, the researcher

distributed worksheet. Each group got two worksheets or a worksheet

was for two students. After distributing the worksheet, the researcher

invited the students to start the text phase. Asking the students to read

the paragraph of the text, the researcher did not directly appoint the

students. She firstly asked the students who wanted to read the text.

When there was student raising hand for taking the chance, the

researcher directly allowed her to read a segment of the text. The

student read aloud the first paragraph of the text. After the reading, the

researcher directly gave some comprehending questions. Here, she

began to let the students independently use the reading strategies to

find the answers. Sometimes, the researcher still gave guidance to the

students. The reading and discussion were repeatedly done until the

students finished reading the whole text.

Relationship Phase

After comprehending the whole text, the researcher asked the

students to relate their previous story with the one stated in the

worksheet. The activity was done in group. Besides, she gave some

life-related questions to the students. The life-related questions were

given to individuals because they were related to students’ personal

life and experiences.

Finishing discussing the exercises, the researcher invited the

students to summarize the lesson that had just been conducted. In this

phase, the researcher tried to ensure the students that ETR method

could help them in comprehending a text. She invited the students to

find the proof of the benefits of ETR method. Then, she asked the

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students about the problems they had and what they felt the teaching

learning process conducted. Most of them said that they enjoyed using

the method. Then, she told the students that there would be test on the

following day. The researcher closed the lesson by saying “see you”.

3) Observing the Action

a) Meeting 1

In the first meeting, there was a student who was absent.

Joining the class, the students were still passive and ashamed for being

active. When the researcher asked them to make group, they just kept

silent and did nothing. It seemed that the students were not familiar

with making group. The researcher needed to repeat the instruction

and told them how to make group. Consequently, the students spent

much time only for making group.

First of all, when they were shown a picture, some students

looked interested and enthusiastic whereas the others looked not really

interested in. It seemed that the picture of Nyi Roro Kidul was less

interesting for the students. It might be because the students ever saw

it before. When they were given some questions related to the pictures

of Nyi Roro Kidul, most of them kept silent. There were only two

students who gave response. Finally, the researcher decided to ask

them to firstly discuss the story. Here, most of the students were still

confused of what to do. Most of them thought that they needed to

make and write the story. The researcher, then, gave more explanation

and guiding questions to them. She said that they just needed to say

anything they knew about the story. After they got what to do, they

directly discussed in group.

When the students conducted group discussion, the

researcher walked around the class. There were some students who

were not actively involved in the discussion. They just kept silent. It

seemed that they were dependent on other members. Moreover, the

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group which all the members were male did nothing but making noise

and doing their own non-academic business such as playing, having

conversation with other students, and making noise by talking in a

loud voice. When the researcher approached and reprimanded them,

they were silent but when she left them, they directly made noise.

When the students were asked to tell their story, no one was

brave to raise hands. Consequently, the researcher had to appoint two

groups to do the presentation. When the presentation ran, there were

some male students who made noise. Since they spoke in a loud voice,

the other students tended to easily lose their focus and the room

became less conducive for the teaching and learning process. From the

presentation, the researcher listed “ocean, disaster, curse, jump, and,

kingdom” as context clues.

Problem also raised in the text phase. When the researcher

gave the students simple question about main idea, there were only

few students who gave response. The others were only in silence.

Then, when she gave questions about explicit information, sometimes

the students could give the correct answers but sometimes they did

not. The students also could not give answer when the researcher

gave questions about word meaning, implicit information, and

purpose. For answering questions about reference, there were only

few students who gave response. After the researcher explained the

strategies of finding the answer, they began to be able to answer some

questions with much researcher’s guidance. The students were not

familiar with the strategies yet.

After comprehending the text, the researcher conducted

“relationship” phase. During “confirmation” phase, the students were

confused what to do in confirmation. The researcher, then, gave

example. Next, the students knew what to do in the phase of

confirming the previous knowledge. Then, when the students were

given some questions relating the text with their own life, they looked

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interested. Moreover, when they were asked what they would do if

they were the queen or king of the south ocean, some students gave

funny answer and made the others laugh. The students looked happy.

Since the meeting was the first meeting, the students needed

much more time to adapt and understand what to do. Consequently,

there was no time for discussing the exercises and explaining narrative

text.

b) Meeting 2

In the second meeting, nobody was absent. First of all, the

researcher invited the students to review about reading strategies.

Most students forgot the strategies. There were only few students who

gave response during the review. Then, the researcher invited the

students to discuss the exercises following the text entitled “Legend of

Nyi Roro Kidul”. When the students were invited to discuss the

exercises, they were not brave to raise their hands for taking chance to

answer the questions. Finally, the researcher appointed some groups to

give their answers. The researcher still gave much guidance for

answering the questions. In the discussion, the students still made

mistakes in answering some questions. The mistakes were mostly

made in task four. The students did well in other tasks since they were

quite easy.

When the researcher was explaining about narrative text in

front of the class, the students paid attention and some of them gave

response. Sometimes, some male students made noise. The researcher

directly reprimanded them. Being reprimanded, the naughty students

directly kept silent. After explaining about narrative text, the

researcher gave question of what the purpose of the text that had just

been discussed and “to entertain or to amuse”.

In the end of the meeting, the researcher invited the students

to summarize the lesson that had been discussed in the meeting but

only few students who gave response. Most students only kept silent.

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When the researcher asked “Any question?”, the students still kept

silent. They were passive in the meeting. Then, when they were asked

about their feeling about the meeting that had just been conducted,

there was only a female student saying, “Menarik pas lihat gambar

Bu tapi masih belum paham tentang strategi”.

c) Meeting 3

In this third meeting, no student was absent. Overall, the

teaching and learning process ran better than the previous meetings.

The students began to have motivation in learning. When they were

given some pictures representing “Up” story, they looked interested

and enthusiastic. The students looked happy when they were asked to

make prediction based on the pictures. When having problems in

generating prediction, the students briefly asked to the researcher. The

room became noisy but it was not a problem since it indicated that the

students began to be active. When the researcher walked around the

class, she saw the students discussed the pictures. Unfortunately, in

this discussion phase, there were some members who still did not get

involved. However, the number of the passive students was less than

the one in previous meetings.

When the students were asked to present their prediction, no

group was brave to do it. Then, the researcher appointed a group.

When the presenter did the presentation, there were some male

students who made noise and the researcher directly reprimanded

them. After the students presented their prediction, the researcher

asked the other students to give applause. The presenter looked happy.

With the pictures, the students could create more context clues. She

listed “fly, waterfall, house, balloon, old, married, hospital, cloudy,

explode, and fight” as context clues.

In text phase, the researcher still needed to appoint the

students to read the text and answer the questions. It seemed that the

students were not accustomed to using the reading strategies yet.

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When the researcher gave comprehension questions and explained the

strategies, only female students who mostly gave response whereas

the males just kept silent. Moreover, sometimes, males made noise

and did not focus on the lesson. However, the researcher could handle

the problem.

In answering some questions covering main idea, implicit

information, reference, and word meaning, the students still made

mistakes. The researcher needed to guide them in using strategies for

finding the answers. They could correctly answer questions about

explicit information and purpose of text. In doing exercises following

text, the students still made mistakes.

The class became alive when the researcher conducted

relationship phase. The students, including the males, were actively

involved in relating the text to their own life experiences.

Then, in discussing the exercises on the worksheet, some

students still looked passive. They did not actively participate in

finding the answers for the questions. When the researcher invited the

students to discuss the exercise together, only female groups who

wanted to take the chance for giving their answers. In this meeting, the

male students were still passive. They showed less improvement.

When the researcher asked the students to summarize the

lesson given in the meeting, there were only some female students

who participated. Regarding to the implementation of the meeting, the

students said that they liked predicting activity, the pictures

representing the “Up” story, and the story of “Up”.

d) Meeting 4

Regarding to the result of observation of previous meetings

stating that there were some students who were dependent on the

others during group discussion, the researcher decided to select the

members by herself. Hopefully, this activity could reduce dependence

factor among the students but the fact was that it spent more much

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time. There were some students who refused to be in the same group

with the other students. Consequently, the researcher needed to firstly

advise the students.

During experience phase, the teaching and learning process

ran better. After the researcher told the students that they would

discuss a new story of Pinocchio, the students looked interested. Being

given pictures, the students looked more interested. Getting the

pictures, they directly generated prediction. The students looked

accustomed to predicting activity. Researcher did not need to give

much guidance in this phase. However, she still saw some students

were still passive in joining the group discussion.

In text phase, there were some students who began to be

active. Being given some instruction and questions, the students were

brave to raise their hands. They became accustomed to using reading

strategies. The students could answer questions covering purpose of

text, explicit information, and main idea. However, they could not

answer questions related to word meaning, implicit information, and

reference. The researcher had to guide them in answering questions

related to those three indicators. During the class, the students kept

their focus and paid attention. The researcher did not need to appoint

the students again.

In this meeting, it found that the students who frequently

answered questions were still female ones. Most male students tended

to easily lose their focus during the class. Some of them still made

noise and disturbed class conduciveness.

4) Reflecting the Action

After conducting the research in four meetings, the researcher gave

post test 1 to the students. The post test was conducted in 9th April 2012. In

the test, there were 30 items covering six indicators of reading including

identifying main idea, identifying communicative purpose of text, finding

explicit information, finding implicit information, determining word

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meaning, and determining reference. When doing the test, most students

seemed do them easily. It seemed that reading strategies really helped them.

In several minutes after the researcher distributed the question and answer

sheets, the students could do some items.

Before stating the reflection of the implementation of cycle 1, the

researcher wants to show the all research findings in cycle 1. The findings

are presented in the following table.Table 4.4 Research Findings on Cycle 1

Findings Before Action After Cycle 1Students’ readingcomprehension.

The students had low readingcomprehension.

Students’ reading comprehensionimproved.

Students’ readingscore

Pre-testHighest: 63.3Lowest : 13.3Mean : 39.3KKM : 61

Post Test 1Highest : 90Lowest : 46.7Mean : 63.8KKM : 61

Students passingKKM

2 24

Score in eachindicator

Main idea : 42.11Purpose : 36.32Explicit I. : 52. 56Implicit I. : 34.21Word Meaning: 27.89Reference : 40

Main idea : 70Purpose : 81.58Explicit I. : 83.16Implicit I. : 46.84Word Meaning: 44.21Reference : 56.84

Students’ readingproblem

Students had problem in:1. identifying main idea2. identifying purpose of text3. finding explicit information4. finding implicit

information5. determining meaning of

word based on the context6. determining reference

Students had problem in:1. finding implicit

information2. determining meaning of

word based on the context3. determining reference

Class Situation Strength:1. not paying attention Most students kept their attention

when the teaching and learningprocess ran.

2. Passive Most students began to be active. Itcan be seen from: there were some students

who raised their hand fordoing some instruction oranswering some questions.

the students briefly askedthe researcher when theyhad difficulty.

The students gaveresponse when theresearcher guided them to

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use reading strategies.3. Bored The students looked interested in

joining some learning phases. It canbe seen from: the students looked

interested when gettingpictures.

the students lookedinterested in predictingstory based on the picture.

The students enjoyed inanswering questions inrelationship phase.

4. spending much time The students did not spend muchtime for answering questions inreading.Weakness:1. Sometimes, researcher’s

guidance was still dominant.2. Some students were dependent

on others.3. Some male students made noise

during the class.4. Male students tended to easily

lose their focus during the class.5. Making group activity took

much time.6. The researcher, sometimes,

could not manage the time well.

Based on the research findings presented in the table above, the

researcher got some reflections, both positive and negative ones.

a) Strength

Reading Comprehension

Before stating the positive reflection on reading

comprehension, the researcher wants to show the table and chart

showing the whole improvement of students’ reading scores in

each reading indicator.Table 4.5 The Students’ Score in Each Indicator After Cycle 1

Percentage of Correctness Mean

MI EI II WM Ref PurPre-test 42.11 55.26 34.21 27.89 40 36.32 39.3

post test 1 70 83.16 46.84 44.21 56.84 81.58 63.8

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The improvement showed in the table 4.5 above can be

clearly seen in the following chart.

Chart 4.1 Improvements in Reading Score in Each Indicator

Based on the chart 4.1 and table 4.5 above, it is clear

that the strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in

the indicators of main idea, purpose, and explicit information. In

those three reading indicators, the students got much

improvement. Before action, the score for main idea was 42.11

for main idea, 36.32 for purpose of text, and 52.56 for explicit

information. After cycle 1, the students’ scores rose to 70 for

main idea, 81.58 for purpose of text, and 83.16 for explicit

information. Those three scores passed the passing grade that was

61.

Other positive reflection regarding to students’ reading

comprehension is that the improvement in mean score. The

students’ mean score in pre-test was only 36.3 and it increased to

6.38 in post test 1. Formerly, the number of student who passed

the passing grade was only 2. Fortunately, the number improved

into 24 later.

Class situation

In class condition, the researcher got some positive

reflections or strengths. The first reflection is that most students

70

The improvement showed in the table 4.5 above can be

clearly seen in the following chart.

Chart 4.1 Improvements in Reading Score in Each Indicator

Based on the chart 4.1 and table 4.5 above, it is clear

that the strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in

the indicators of main idea, purpose, and explicit information. In

those three reading indicators, the students got much

improvement. Before action, the score for main idea was 42.11

for main idea, 36.32 for purpose of text, and 52.56 for explicit

information. After cycle 1, the students’ scores rose to 70 for

main idea, 81.58 for purpose of text, and 83.16 for explicit

information. Those three scores passed the passing grade that was

61.

Other positive reflection regarding to students’ reading

comprehension is that the improvement in mean score. The

students’ mean score in pre-test was only 36.3 and it increased to

6.38 in post test 1. Formerly, the number of student who passed

the passing grade was only 2. Fortunately, the number improved

into 24 later.

Class situation

In class condition, the researcher got some positive

reflections or strengths. The first reflection is that most students

020406080

100

70

The improvement showed in the table 4.5 above can be

clearly seen in the following chart.

Chart 4.1 Improvements in Reading Score in Each Indicator

Based on the chart 4.1 and table 4.5 above, it is clear

that the strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in

the indicators of main idea, purpose, and explicit information. In

those three reading indicators, the students got much

improvement. Before action, the score for main idea was 42.11

for main idea, 36.32 for purpose of text, and 52.56 for explicit

information. After cycle 1, the students’ scores rose to 70 for

main idea, 81.58 for purpose of text, and 83.16 for explicit

information. Those three scores passed the passing grade that was

61.

Other positive reflection regarding to students’ reading

comprehension is that the improvement in mean score. The

students’ mean score in pre-test was only 36.3 and it increased to

6.38 in post test 1. Formerly, the number of student who passed

the passing grade was only 2. Fortunately, the number improved

into 24 later.

Class situation

In class condition, the researcher got some positive

reflections or strengths. The first reflection is that most students

before

cycle 1

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paid attention during the class. Before the action, most students

did not pay attention to the teacher when she conducted teaching

and learning process. They were always busy in doing their own

non-academic businesses. After cycle 1, the researcher found that

most of the students paid attention to the class. When she

conducted the teaching and learning process, most students kept

their focus on the lesson.

The second reflection is that the students began to be

active during the class. Before the action, the students were very

passive. The students who gave response were only the ones who

sat in the first row. The condition changed after cycle 1. The

students began to be active, especially female students. They

began to be brave for raising their hand, asking questions, and

giving response to the researcher during the class.

The third reflection is that students had improvement in

learning interest. Before action, the researcher saw many students

looked bored in joining reading class. They felt that English was

boring activity because they only needed to listen to their teacher

who translated the text for them and do exercises on the LKS

from time to time. The students’ interest improved after ETR

method was implemented in reading class. Being shown some

interesting pictures, the students really looked interested. The

students also looked interested and enthusiastic in generating

prediction. Besides, the students were interested in relating the

text to their own life and experience. In answering questions in

relationship phase, they looked happy and enthusiastic. Regarding

to students’ interest, the researcher also reflected that the students

were more interested in predicting activity than telling what they

knew about a story. Besides, she also found that the students

preferred having new story to the one that they had already

known.

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The last reflection is that the students did not much

time for doing any questions related to reading comprehension.

Before action, the students spent much time for doing the

exercises following reading text and pre-test. They used less time

after cycle 1. Since they had strategies for answering

comprehension questions, they did not spend much time for doing

the exercises and post test 1.

b) Weakness

Reading Comprehension

Based on the chart 4.1 and table 4.5, it is clear that the

weakness of cycle 1 is the little improvement in the indicators of

word meaning, implicit information, and reference. The scores of

those three indicators did not fulfill the passing grade required by

the school. The students’ scores were only 46.84 in implicit

information, 44.21 in word meaning, and 56.84 in reference.

Those three scores were still far from the passing grade that was

61.

Class Situation

The researcher found some weaknesses toward the

implementation of cycle 1. The researcher found that most

students needed to be much guided by the researcher. Her

guidance was still dominant. The students could not be

independent readers yet.

After cycle 1, dependence factor among students was

still much. In group discussion, there were some students who

were not actively involved. They were just dependent on other

members for generating prediction. They did nothing while the

other members were working hard to get context clues.

The next negative reflection is that the students took

much time for making group. Either the students chose the

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members by themselves or being chosen by the researcher, they

still took much time for making group.

The other reflection is that there were still some

students who made noise and disturbed the conduciveness of the

class. Besides, the male students were still passive. They showed

less improvement. They tended to easily lose their focus. It might

be because the male students sat in a group. When there were

some naughty students who made noise, the other males began to

lose their focus on the researcher. The last negative reflection is

that the researcher, sometimes, could not manage the time well.

5) Revising Plan

After reflecting the implementation of cycle 1, the researcher

decided to revise the previous plan. The plan was revised in order to make

the implementation of cycle 2 better than the previous cycle.

The revision was made by considering both strengths and

weaknesses of cycle 1. The researcher used the strength and eliminated the

weaknesses. The revisions she made were:

a) providing predicting activity for experience phase because the

students were more interested in building knowledge through

predicting.

b) eliminating group activity; building background knowledge is done

in pair. It is because the students always took much time for

making group. Hopefully, the dependence factor among the

students could be decreased through this revision.

c) not giving guiding questions in experience phase because the

students are already familiar with predicting or building

background knowledge (they know what they have to do). It is also

for decreasing researcher’ domination during the class.

d) not giving guidance to the students in using reading strategies

because the students are already familiar with the strategies.

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e) asking students to sit dispersedly (male students may not sit in a

group) because when the male students sat in group, they tended to

easily lose their focus (there were some male students making noise

and disturbing them).

f) giving more practices in implicit information, word meaning, and

reference.

g) considering allocation time that has been made in the plan.

b. Cycle 2

The implementation of cycle 2 is summarized in the following

table.Table 4.6 Summary of Implementation of Cycle 2

Procedure DescriptionPlanning The researcher prepared anything related to the research: lesson plan,

worksheet, instructional material, and items for post test 2Action The researcher conducted the action in three meetings:

Meeting 1 In pair, Ss made prediction based on a picture Ss presented the prediction Ss comprehended the text in segment In pair, Ss confirmed their previous prediction Ss related the text to their life and experiences In pair, Ss discussed the exercises on the worksheet. The

exercises consisted of the practices on the three readingindicators that became the problems of cycle 1. The indicatorswere determining reference, finding implicit information, andguessing meaning of word.

Meeting 2 In pair, Ss made prediction based on a picture Ss presented the prediction Ss comprehended the text in segment In pair, Ss confirmed their previous prediction Ss related the text to their life and experiences In pair, Ss discussed the exercises on the worksheet that

consisted of the practices on three reading indicators.Meeting 3 In pair, Ss made prediction based on a picture Ss presented the prediction Ss comprehended the text in segment In pair, Ss confirmed their previous prediction Ss related the text to their life and experiences In pair, Ss discussed the exercises on the worksheet

Observing theaction

Meeting 1 Dependence factor among Ss decreased Ss were interested in pictures and predicting activity Ss were accustomed to predicting activity

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Firstly, Ss rather forgot about reading strategy. researcherneeded to review the strategies for them

Male Ss began to focus on the lesson Ss still needed guidance in answering questions about implicit

information, word meaning, and reference.Meeting 2 Ss could independently answer the questions about explicit

information, main idea, and purpose of text that were orallygiven by the researcher in text phase

Ss’ problems in implicit information and reference decreased Ss still needed guidance in guessing meaning based on the

context Male Ss began to be active Ss paid attention There were still some Ss who made noise

Meeting 3 Ss’ reading problems could be solved Ss’ still had difficulty in word meaning Ss became active Researcher’s guidance decreased Ss liked predicting story Ss enjoyed the relationship phase

Reflecting theaction

StrengthsReading Comprehension Ss’ scores in finding main idea, explicit information, purpose

of text, reference, and implicit information were higher thanthe passing grade.

Reading strategy was helpful for the students.Class Condition Predicting activity was interesting for the students Dispersedly sat, the male Ss kept their focus Male Ss were active in joining the class. Ss were interested in relationship phase Pictures raised Ss’ interest Pictures and predicting activity helped Ss get context clues The class was conducive for teaching and learning process.

WeaknessReading comprehension Ss’ score in word meaning did not fulfill the passing grade Ss still needed guidance in guessing meaning based on the

contextClass Condition Sometimes, there were still some Ss who made noise.

1) Planning the Action

After reflecting the implementation of cycle 1, the researcher

decided to do some revisions in order to make the research result better.

Considering the revised plan, she prepared the instruments needed for the

implementation of cycle 2. Here, she made three lesson plans with three

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reading texts entitled “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, “The Elves and

the Shoemaker”, and “The Princess and the Pea”. She also prepared some

instructional materials and worksheets.

For post test 2, she conducted try out 2. After making 60 items

covering six indicators of reading, she tried out the items. The total of

valid items was 34. In order to make the calculation easy, the researcher

only took 30 items for post 2.

2) Implementing the Action

a) Meeting 1

The first meeting in the second cycle was conducted in May,

2nd 2012. After doing some opening activities, the researcher started to

implement ETR method in reading class.

Experience Phase

Starting the class, the researcher told the students that for the

next three meetings, they would not work in group but in pair. She

explained that pair work was only conducted in the steps of building

background knowledge, confirming prediction, and doing exercises on

the worksheet. She also told the students the reason why she decided

to eliminate group work activity. Besides, the researcher also male

students might not sit in a group. They had to sit dispersedly. The

researcher told the reason.

After that, the researcher was ready to implement ETR

method on reading class. She distributed a picture for each pair. The

picture represented the story of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. She

also wrote the title of the text on the whiteboard. After that, she asked

the students to generate prediction based on the picture and the title.

The activity was done in pair. Since the students had already been

familiar with predicting activity, she did not give any guidance for

them. Not giving guiding question was aimed at decreasing

researcher’s guidance. Several minutes later, the researcher asked the

students to orally present their prediction. A pair was only represented

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by a presenter. When the student presented their prediction, the

researcher wrote down the keywords and new vocabularies used by

the student.

Text Phase

After conducting experience phase, the researcher started to

conduct text phase. In this phase, the students did not do pair

discussion because they were only required to read and spontaneously

answer comprehension questions given by the researcher. First of all,

she distributed a reading text entitled “Ali Baba and the Forty

Thieves” to the students. A pair got a worksheet. Then, she asked a

student to read the first two paragraphs of the text. After the student

finished reading the segment, she gave some comprehension questions

related to the segment. The questions given in text phase only covered

explicit information, purpose of text, and main idea of each paragraph.

The practices on other three indicators would be given later on. Giving

the questions, the researcher appointed and mentioned a name of

students. When the student could not answer the questions, the

researcher gave the question to other students. Here, she required the

students to independently use the reading strategies that had been

taught before.

Next, the researcher asked other student to continue reading

the next segment of the text. The reading in segment was repeatedly

done until the students read the whole text. After reading each

segment, the students were always given some comprehension

questions covering the indicators of main idea, explicit information,

and purpose of text.

Relationship Phase

Starting the relationship phase, the researcher asked the

students to confirm their prediction. Confirming the prediction, the

students worked in pair. The researcher gave five minutes for the

activity. Then, she appointed some pairs of students to tell their result

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of confirmation. After that, the researcher gave life-related questions

to the students. The questions were orally given by the researcher.

Answering the questions, the students did not need to discuss in pair

because the questions were personal ones.

Finishing the implementation of ETR method, the researcher

asked students to conduct pair work to discuss the exercises on the

worksheet. The exercises specially consisted of the practices on the

three reading indicators that still became problems for the students.

The three indicators were finding implicit information, determining

reference, and guessing meaning of word. Before, the researcher

reviewed the strategies for finding those indicators. She provided

some numbers of questions covering those three indicators. The

practices on the three indicators were particularly stated on the

worksheet because the researcher felt that it was difficult to

spontaneously made questions on those indicators. She needed

preparation. The questions on main idea, purpose, and explicit

information could be spontaneously provided by the researcher. After

that, she invited the students to discuss the exercises following the

reading text together.

Ending the class, the researcher summarized the lesson that

had just been conducted. She invited the students to review the

implementation of the meeting. Any students’ problems and questions

were directly discussed by the researcher. She also asked the students’

feeling toward the class. Finally, the researcher closed the lesson by

saying good bye.

b) Meeting 2

The second meeting was conducted in May, 3rd 2012. At

8.20, the researcher entered the class and greeted the students. After

that, she checked students’ attendance and other opening activities.

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Experience Phase

The researcher distributed a picture for each pair of students.

Then, she asked the students make prediction based on the picture and

the title written above it. The prediction was made in pair. The

students used dictionary to find the English of the context clues they

got. When the students discussed in pair, she walked around the class

for observing the students. Several minutes later, she asked students to

orally present their prediction. Each pair was represented by a

presenter. Presenting the prediction, the researcher did not appoint the

students. The students did not need to be appointed anymore. When

the presentation ran, the researcher listed the new vocabularies and

keywords used by the presenters.

Text Phase

The researcher distributed a reading text entitled “The Elves

and the Shoemaker” to the students. Then, she asked a student to read

the first five lines of the text. After the student finished reading the

segment, she gave some comprehension questions related to the

segment. In this meeting, the researcher tried not to appoint the

students to answer the questions. She began to give the questions to all

students. The students who could answer the questions should raise

their hands. Here, the researcher wanted to make the students brave

and active. The questions given in this phase were only the ones

covering main idea, purpose, and explicit information.

Next, the researcher asked other student to continue reading

the next segment of the text. The reading was continuously done until

the students read the entire paragraphs. The comprehension questions

covering the indicators of main idea, reference, and implicit

information related to each segment were also given by the researcher

after the students read each segment.

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Relationship Phase

Starting the relationship phase, the researcher asked the

students to firstly confirm their previous prediction. The confirmation

was dome in pair. Several minutes later, the researcher invited the

students to tell their result of confirmations. After that, the students

answered the questions relating the text to their life and experiences.

The questions were orally given by the researcher. The students did

not work in pair for answering the questions since the questions were

personal ones.

Finally, the researcher asked students to do the tasks on the

worksheet. She gave time for the students to conduct pair discussion

to do the exercises. As the same as the worksheet distributed in the

previous meeting, the worksheet of this second meeting only consisted

of the practices on reference, implicit information, and word meaning.

After that, the researcher and the students discussed the exercises

following the reading text together.

Ending the class, the researcher reviewed the lesson of the

meeting. She also gave opportunity for the students to ask any

questions they had. Next, she asked the students’ feeling toward the

class that had just been conducted. Finally, the researcher closed the

lesson by saying good bye.

c) Meeting 3

The third meeting was conducted in May, 9th 2012. At 11.15,

the researcher entered the class and greeted the students. After that,

she checked students’ attendance and told the students about the topic

that would be discussed.

Experience Phase

The researcher distributed a picture for each pair of students.

Then, she asked the students make prediction based on the picture and

the title written above it. The prediction was made in pair. When the

students discussed in pair, she walked around the class for observing

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the students. As the same as the first two meetings, the researcher did

not give guiding questions for the students. Building their knowledge,

the students were only helped by the picture and title. Several minutes

later, she asked students to orally present their prediction. A pair was

represented by a student for doing the oral presentation. When the

presentation ran, the researcher listed the new vocabularies and

keywords used by the presenter. In the meeting, there were two

presentations.

Text Phase

The researcher distributed a reading text entitled “The

Princess and the Pea” to the students. Then, she asked a student to

read the first paragraph of the text. Since, in the text phase, the

students only needed to read text, they were not required to work in

pair. After the student finished reading the segment, she gave some

comprehension questions related to the segment. As the same as the

previous meetings, the questions given in the text phase only covered

main idea, explicit information, and purpose of text. For answering the

questions, the students did not appoint by the researcher. Anyone who

could answer might raise their hands.

Then, the researcher allowed other student to continue

reading the next segment of the text. The reading followed by

discussion of each segment was done until the students read the whole

text.

Relationship Phase

Starting the relationship phase, the researcher asked the

students to firstly confirm their previous prediction. The confirmation

was dome in pair. Several minutes later, the researcher invited the

students to tell their result of confirmations. After that, the students

answered the questions relating the text to their life and experiences.

The questions were orally given by the researcher. The students did

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not work in pair for answering the questions since the questions were

personal ones.

Finally, the researcher asked the students to do the exercises

on the worksheet. The exercises still covered the indicators of implicit

information, word meaning, and reference. The students did the tasks

in pair. After the students did the tasks, the researcher invited them to

discuss the exercises together.

Ending the class, the researcher invited the students to

summarize the lesson of the meeting. She reviewed the

implementation of ETR in the meeting. Next, she invited the students

to ask any questions and shared their learning problems. Finally, she

asked the students’ feeling toward the class that had just been

conducted. She also told the students that they would have post test 2

in the next meeting and the questions would be different with the ones

in the previous tests. Finally, the researcher closed the lesson by

saying good bye.

3) Observing the Action

a) Meeting 1

In the first meeting of cycle 2, no student was absent. When

the researcher entered the class, the room was so noisy. Before

opening the class, she asked the students to take their seat and keep

silent. She told that the class would not be started when they were still

noisy. The students directly kept silent. When the researcher asked

“Can we start now?”, they said “Yes”.

At the beginning of experience phase, the class condition was

not really conducive. When the researcher messed up the position of

the students in order to separate the male students, most students

directly complained. Some students said “Aku ga mau sama dia, Bu. It

really took time for advising the students that they all were friends.

The other problem also occurred in several minutes later. After the

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researcher told the students that there would not be group work

activity, the students grumbled. The room directly became noisy. The

researcher needed to explain the reasons why she decided to eliminate

group work. Finally, the students wanted to understand.

When the researcher distributed the picture, the students

looked interested. There was a student saying, ”Mesti kon nebak neh”.

It seemed that the students had been accustomed to predicting activity.

During experience phase, the students did not frequently ask the

researcher. They had known what they had to do. They also used less

time for finishing their prediction. When the researcher walked around

the class, she found that the students were actively involved in the

discussion. It might be because the students only worked in pair. They

could not be dependent on other anymore.

However, when the researcher asked who would present the

prediction, no one raised the students. They said that they were

ashamed. Then, the researcher told the students that they had been

familiar with the activity. Therefore, it should be easy for them to do

the presentation. She also said that she would wait until there was

student who wanted to be the volunteers. After that, there was a

female student raising her hand. The researcher allowed her to do

presentation. After the student presented the prediction, she asked

other student. Once again, she found that the student who raised hand

was female. She allowed her to do presentation.

During text phase, the female students looked more active

than the males. They were brave for taking chance for reading aloud

the text in segments. When the researcher gave comprehension

questions, she found that most students did not give response. They

said that they forgot the strategies for answering reading questions.

Consequently, the researcher needed to review the strategies. When

she was reviewing the strategies, the students paid attention, including

the males.

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After getting the strategies, the students could answer the

questions given by the researcher. However, most male students were

still passive. They just kept silent. Sometimes, the researcher found

some male students did not pay attention and made noise. She directly

reprimanded them and they kept silent.

When the students moved on relationship phase, they looked

happy. They liked answering questions relating the text to their life

and experiences. They gave some funny personal answers and it made

the class enjoyable.

However, in discussing the exercises following the text, the

students got difficulty. They could not easily answer the questions,

although they had known the strategies for answering the questions.

Consequently, the researcher guided the students to use the strategies

and find the answers for the questions.

b) Meeting 2

In the second meeting, the teaching and learning process ran

better. When the researcher distributed the picture representing the

story of “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, the students looked

interested because they never knew about the story before. In making

prediction, it seemed that the students did not find any problems. They

knew what they had to do and they did not ask many questions to the

researcher. The class condition was rather noisy but it was fine since it

indicated that the students began to be active. In making prediction,

the students participated actively. When the researcher walked around

and observed them, all students actively discussed the pictures.

When the researcher asked the students to do oral

presentation, there were only two female students who raised hand.

Then, she told the students that for the meeting, she only invited the

students who never did any presentation before, especially male

students. After that, she found no male student raising hands. Then,

she told that she would wait for the “gentleman”. Finally, there was a

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male who raised hand. Surprisingly, the student was the one who

usually made noise. The researcher directly allowed him to present his

prediction. After the student did the presentation, the researcher asked

the students to give applause to him. The student looked happy

because of the applause.

Then, the researcher asked who wanted to be the next

presenter. Surprisingly, there was other male student raising hand. He

did the presentation well. The researcher complimented the two

presenters and they looked happy.

During text phase, the researcher found some students who

wanted to read the text. When the researcher gave questions for each

segment, the students actively gave response. However, there were

some students who did nothing. She decided to appoint the passive

students to answer the questions. Overall, the students could easily

answer the questions given in the text phase.

Doing the exercises following the reading text, the students

still had problems, especially in guessing meaning based on the

context. They began to be able to answer the questions about reference

and implicit information, although, sometimes, they still needed

researcher’s guidance.

Closing the lesson, the researcher asked the students what

they felt about the lesson that had just been conducted. They said that

they were happy. They liked predicting story based on the pictures.

c) Meeting 3

The third meeting ran as well as the second one. During

experience phase, the students were active in discussing the picture

representing “The Princess and the Pea”. When the researcher

approached each pair, they looked serious in making prediction and

using their dictionary. They seemed enjoying the predicting activity

since they knew what they had to do. The researcher did not need to

give much guidance for the students. At the time for presenting the

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prediction, the students also did not need to be appointed. The

students successfully got some context clues or keywords from the

picture given to them.

During text phase, the students also paid attention and kept

focusing on the lesson. When the researcher gave some

comprehension questions, they actively gave response. They only

needed guidance in answering few questions. However, there were

still some male students who made noise but this problem could be

directly handled by the researcher. The male students looked more

active than before. They were involved in answering comprehension

questions given by the researcher.

The students’ interest was also shown during the relationship

phase. The students looked happy and enthusiastic in answering

questions relating the text to their life and experiences. The class

became alive since the students were actively involved in giving their

personal answers.

In answering the exercises on the worksheet, the students,

sometimes, still did mistakes, especially in guessing meaning based on

the context. It was difficult for them to identify the part of speech of

the word and connect the word to other words in the sentence. Their

ability became better in answering questions about implicit

information and reference. However, they still had problems in those

two indicators in some occasions.

4) Reflecting the Action

After observing the implementation of experience-text-

relationship method in reading class, the researcher got some reflections.

The reflections were based on the findings got from the implementation

of cycle 2. The following table presents the findings of research on cycle

2.

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Table 4.7 Research Findings on Cycle 2

Findings Before Action After Cycle 1 After Cycle 2Students’readingscore

Pre-testHighest: 63.3Lowest : 13.3Mean : 39.3KKM : 61

Post Test 1Highest : 90Lowest : 46.7Mean : 63.8KKM : 61

Post Test 2Highest : 96.7Lowest : 56.7Mean : 73KKM : 61

Score ineachindicator

Main idea : 42.11Purpose : 36.32Explicit I. : 52. 56Implicit I. : 34.21Word Meaning: 27.89Reference : 40

Main idea : 70Purpose : 81.85Explicit I. : 83.16Implicit I. : 46.84Word Meaning: 44.21Reference : 56.84

Main idea : 71.05Purpose : 91.58Explicit I. : 83.68Implicit I. : 62.63Word Meaning: 60Reference : 68.95

ClassSituation

Strengths: Strengths:1. not paying attention most students kept their

attention when the teachingand learning process ran.

Most students, includingthe males, kept theirattention when theteaching and learningprocess ran.

The number and thefrequency of the malestudents making noisedecreased.

2. Passive Most students began to beactive. There were some students

who raised hand for doingteacher’s instruction andanswer teacher’s questions

The students briefly askedthe researcher when theyhad difficulty.

The students gave responsewhen the teacher guidedthem to use readingstrategies.

Most students became active.It can be seen from: male students became

actively involved in theclass.

The students did not needto be appointed for doingany activity.

Since the studentsworked in pair inexperience phase, theyparticipated actively indiscussion for makingprediction. It alsoindicates that dependencefactor among studentsdecreased.

the students briefly askedthe researcher when theyhad difficulty.

the students did not needto be much guidedanymore.

The students gaveresponse when theresearcher gave questionsand instructions.

3. Bored The students were interested injoining some learning phases. The students were

interested whengetting pictures.

The students wereinterested inpredicting a story.

The students enjoyedrelating text to their

The students lookedinterested in joining somelearning phases. It can be seenfrom: the students looked

interested when gettingpictures.

the students lookedinterested in predictingstory based on the

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Based on the findings presented on the table 4.7 above, the

researcher got some reflections, in reading comprehension and class

condition.

a) Strengths

Reading Comprehension

Before stating the reflection on reading comprehension,

the researcher wants to present the table and chart showing the

students’ improvement in each reading indicator.Table 4.8 Students’ Score in Each Reading Indicators after Cycle 2

MI EI II WM Ref Pur Mean

Pre-test 42.11 55.26 34.21 27.89 40 36.32 39.3

post test 1 70 83.16 46.84 44.21 56.84 81.58 63.8

Post test 2 71.05 83.68 62.63 60 68.95 91.58 73

The improvement presented in the table 4.8 above can be

drawn into chart below.

life. picture. The students enjoyed

answering questions inrelationship phase.

4. spending much time The students did not spendmuch time for answeringquestions in reading.

The students did not spendmuch time for answeringquestions in reading.

Weakness:1. sometimes, teacher’s

guidance was still dominant2. the students were dependent

on others.3. some male students made

noise during the class.4. Male students tended to

easily lose their focusduring the class.

5. Making group activity tookmuch time

6. The researcher, sometimes,could not manage the timewell.

Weakness:1. sometimes, there were

some students whomade noise anddisturbed classconduciveness but theresearcher coulddirectly handle thisproblem. By firmlyreprimanding thestudents, the researchercould make them silent.

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Chart 4.2 Students’ Score in Each Reading Indicators after Cycle 2

Based on chart 4.2 and table 4.8 above, it is clear that the

strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in the

indicators of main idea, purpose of text, explicit information,

implicit information, and reference. In those indicators, the

students’ scores passed the passing grade that was 61. For main

idea, the students’ score was 42.11 in pre-test, 70 in post test 1, and

71.05 in post test 2. For purpose of text, the score was 36.32 in pre-

test, 81.58 in post test 1, and 91.58 in post test 2. For explicit

information, the score was 52.56 in pre-test, 83.16 in post test 1,

and 83.68 in post test 2. For implicit information, the score was

34.21 in pre-test, 46.84 in post test 1, and 62.63 in post test 2.

Then, for reference, the score was 40 in pre-test, 56.84 in post test

1, and 68.95 in post test 2.

Regarding to students’ reading score, the other reflection

is in the improvement of the mean score. In post test 2, the

students’ mean score increased to 73. It was better than the

previous tests. In pre-test, the mean score was only 39.3 and the

mean score in post test 1 was 63.8. From 38 students, there were

only 4 students who did not fulfill the passing grade. In pre-test, the

number of unsuccessful students was 36 students and the number

89

Chart 4.2 Students’ Score in Each Reading Indicators after Cycle 2

Based on chart 4.2 and table 4.8 above, it is clear that the

strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in the

indicators of main idea, purpose of text, explicit information,

implicit information, and reference. In those indicators, the

students’ scores passed the passing grade that was 61. For main

idea, the students’ score was 42.11 in pre-test, 70 in post test 1, and

71.05 in post test 2. For purpose of text, the score was 36.32 in pre-

test, 81.58 in post test 1, and 91.58 in post test 2. For explicit

information, the score was 52.56 in pre-test, 83.16 in post test 1,

and 83.68 in post test 2. For implicit information, the score was

34.21 in pre-test, 46.84 in post test 1, and 62.63 in post test 2.

Then, for reference, the score was 40 in pre-test, 56.84 in post test

1, and 68.95 in post test 2.

Regarding to students’ reading score, the other reflection

is in the improvement of the mean score. In post test 2, the

students’ mean score increased to 73. It was better than the

previous tests. In pre-test, the mean score was only 39.3 and the

mean score in post test 1 was 63.8. From 38 students, there were

only 4 students who did not fulfill the passing grade. In pre-test, the

number of unsuccessful students was 36 students and the number

020406080

100

89

Chart 4.2 Students’ Score in Each Reading Indicators after Cycle 2

Based on chart 4.2 and table 4.8 above, it is clear that the

strength on reading comprehension is the improvement in the

indicators of main idea, purpose of text, explicit information,

implicit information, and reference. In those indicators, the

students’ scores passed the passing grade that was 61. For main

idea, the students’ score was 42.11 in pre-test, 70 in post test 1, and

71.05 in post test 2. For purpose of text, the score was 36.32 in pre-

test, 81.58 in post test 1, and 91.58 in post test 2. For explicit

information, the score was 52.56 in pre-test, 83.16 in post test 1,

and 83.68 in post test 2. For implicit information, the score was

34.21 in pre-test, 46.84 in post test 1, and 62.63 in post test 2.

Then, for reference, the score was 40 in pre-test, 56.84 in post test

1, and 68.95 in post test 2.

Regarding to students’ reading score, the other reflection

is in the improvement of the mean score. In post test 2, the

students’ mean score increased to 73. It was better than the

previous tests. In pre-test, the mean score was only 39.3 and the

mean score in post test 1 was 63.8. From 38 students, there were

only 4 students who did not fulfill the passing grade. In pre-test, the

number of unsuccessful students was 36 students and the number

Pre-test

post test 1

post test 2

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decreased into 14 in post test 1. Finally, the number rapidly

decreased into 5 in post test 2.

b) Weaknesses

Reading Comprehension

The weakness on reading comprehension was in the

indicator of word meaning. For word meaning, the score was 27.89

in pre-test, 44.21 in post test 1, and 60 in post test 2. The score did

not fulfill the passing grade that was 61.

Class Situation

There was still a negative refection toward the class

condition after cycle 2. During the class, there were some naughty

students who made noise and disturbed the class. Although the

frequency much decreased, their noise still disturbed the class.

Fortunately, the researcher could directly handle the problem by

giving firm reprimand and saying that the teaching and learning

process would be stopped if the students were still noisy.

The reflection of the implementation of cycle 2 showed that the

students still had problems in the indicator of word meaning. Besides, in

class situation, the reflection stated that the there were still some students

who, sometimes, made noise and disturbed the class. Since the researcher

found that there were still some weaknesses after the implementation of

cycle 2, she actually needed to conduct cycle 3 in order to solve those

problems. But because of the matter of time, the researcher decided not

to conduct the cycle 3. The results got after the implementation of cycle 2

became the final results of the students’ reading comprehension.

B. Discussion

Considering the research findings elaborated above, the researcher

conducted discussion by justifying the findings with the relevant theories given by

experts. In more detail, the findings are discussed below.

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1. Experience-Text-Relationship method improves reading comprehension

The finding of this research showed that ETR method could

improve the students’ scores all reading indicators. The improvement could

be achieved since the researcher (as required in the implementation of ETR)

always gave comprehension questions after the students read certain section.

The questions covered all reading indicators including main idea, explicit

information, implicit information, word meaning, reference, and purpose of

text. The questions gave practice to the students and made the students

accustomed to having comprehension questions. Thus, it can be concluded

that the step of questioning students in text phase of ETR can improve

students’ reading comprehension and ability in answering questions

covering reading indicators.

The finding is supported by the theory given by Raphael, et al.

(2005: 3-8). They state that effective questioning practices in ETR are

designed to promote reading comprehension, engagement, and monitoring.

Furthermore, they state that ETR provides meaningful sites within which

teacher can think aloud to model and scaffold questioning practices. The

question and answer relationship required in ETR can be helpful in

delineating the boundaries of strategies to be used for responding to

questions asked.

Besides, the improvement in reading indicator can be specifically

discussed in the following:

a. ETR improves ability in finding main idea

After the research, the researcher found that the students

could find main idea easily. Reading in section (in this research, the

section was divided based on paragraph) made the students focused.

Focusing on certain paragraph in a time made the students easy in

getting the main idea. Thus, it can be concluded that ETR improves

ability in finding main idea. The finding is in line with the theory

given by Salataci and Akyel in Lawrence (2007: 60). They state that

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ETR method helps the students activate background knowledge,

summarize, and get main idea more often.

b. ETR method improves ability in determining word meaning based on

the context

ETR requires background knowledge activation prior to

reading. From this activity, the students could get the meaning of

some words that might be found in the text that they would be

discussed in text phase. It made the students easier to comprehend the

text since they had known the meaning of some words. It is in line

with the theory proposed by Saunders, et al. (1999: 10). They state

that building students’ background knowledge prior to reading helps

students contextualize story themes, content, and vocabulary. In

addition, Saunders and Goldenberg (1999: 8-9) state that ETR

provides substantial comprehensible input in which learners can

produce sophisticated structures or vocabulary within the total context

in which they are used.

c. ETR improves ability in finding information within text (explicit)

After research, the students’ scores in the indicator of finding

explicit information improved. ETR method helped them find

information within the text they read. It is in line with the theory

proposed by Raphael, et al. (2005: 3). They state that in ETR,

discussion leaders (teachers) emphasize questions in ways that elicit

and/or build students’ background knowledge at appropriate times,

focus their attention on text specific information, and help them make

links to their own experiences.

d. ETR improves ability in identifying purpose of text

After asking question on purpose of text in text phase, the

researcher found that the students got easier in identifying purpose of

text they read. They became accustomed to having question covered

the indicator. Thus, it can be concluded that ETR method can improve

students’ ability in identifying purpose of text.

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e. ETR improves ability in finding implicit information

The result of the research showed that the students got

improvement in finding implicit information. Thus, it can be

concluded that ETR method can help them make conclusion in order

find implicit information within text. It is in line with the theory

proposed by Ladue (2009: 82). She says that ETR method can help

readers master the meaning vocabulary, literal comprehension, and

non-literal comprehension. Here, the researcher points out on the third

function of ETR that is helping readers have non-literal

comprehension. Non-literal comprehension may include interpretative

comprehension. The comprehension requires the students to be able to

draw conclusion and make inferences. Since the readers are able to

draw conclusion, they are, then, able to find implicit information

(finding implicit information means making conclusion based on the

explicit information)

f. ETR method is able to improve ability in determining reference

After the implementation of ETR method in reading class, the

students were able in determining reference. Their scores in the

indicator got improvement. Thus, it is proven that ETR method can

improve students’ ability in determining reference.

2. Experience-Text-Relationship method improves class situation

a. ETR method improves students’ learning motivation

ETR requires background knowledge activation prior to reading.

The reading teacher should conduct discussion in order to help the students

have adequate background knowledge before reading a text.

In this research, the researcher activated students’ background

knowledge through asking the students what they knew about the story that

they would have and predicting activity. Through those activities, the

students became motivated. They looked interested to continue reading

because they wanted to know whether the content of the text was similar

with the background knowledge they had.

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The effectiveness of background knowledge activation in

motivating the students is supported by the theory given by Carrell, et al. in

Pennington and Young (1989: 654). They state:

“In the experience step of ETR, the teacher leads the students indiscussion of their own knowledge or experiences that are relatedin some way to the passage to be read. This is important not onlybecause the students can activate any relevant prior backgroundthey may have and begin to relate it to the text to be read, but alsobecause the experience step provides a motivation for reading thetext.”Supporting the theory proposed by Pennington and Young above,

Saunders et al. (1999: 10) state that drawing upon, sharing, and discussing

students’ relevant personal experiences as required in ETR method sustain

motivation and help students make concrete and conceptual connections to

the text, its content, and the themes under study.

b. ETR method makes students active and independent

In implementing ETR method, the researcher always let the

students find answers for any questions she provided by themselves. The

researcher did not directly give the correct answers to the students. She

asked the students to think and discover the answers through discussion.

This technique made the students active and independent. They did not

much depend on the teacher. The finding is in line with the theory given by

Carrell, et al. in Pennington and Young (1989: 654). They state:

“An important requirement of the ETR method is that the teacherbe adept in leading the students to discover the correct answers forthemselves, rather than telling them the answers directly. The goalof the method is to enable the students, who have had the processesmodeled for them by the teacher, to use these same cognitiveprocesses on their own.”

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, AND SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

There are some findings resulted from this research. Based on the

findings, it can be concluded that ETR method can improve both students’ reading

comprehension and class situation. Firstly, ETR method is able to improve

students’ reading comprehension. Question and answer section conducted in text

phase was really helpful for making the students accustomed to having

comprehension questions. Since the students were always trained to discover

answers for comprehension questions covering indictors of main idea, explicit

information, implicit information, purpose of text, word meaning, and reference,

their ability in reading got improvement. The improvement can be clearly shown

in the students’ reading score. Before the researcher implemented ETR method in

reading class, the students’ reading score was really low. The result of pre-test

showed that the mean score of the students was only 39.3. The score was really

far from the passing grade that was 61. After the ETR method was implemented

in the reading class, the students’ mean score increased to 63.8 after cycle 1 and it

finally rose to 73 after cycle 2.

Secondly, ETR method can improve the reading class condition.

Through the implementation of ETR method in reading class, the students became

active and independent. Being trained to discover correct answers by themselves,

the students became independent and actively involved in the teaching and

learning process. They were not much dependent on the teacher in doing any

activities in reading class. Besides, during reading class, the students were

motivated and interested in doing some activities that were the parts of ETR

method implementation. The interesting activities included building background

knowledge through predicting activity, group discussion, oral presentation, and

relating text to students’ life and experiences. Besides, the use of pictures as

teaching media was also attractive for the students. Since the students had interest

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in learning, their boredom decreased. As a result, their attention to the teacher

improved. During the class, most students gave their attention to the researcher.

They kept their focus on the lesson.

B. Implication

In teaching reading, it is important for English teachers to use appropriate

method. Appropriate method can be considered as an influential factor for the

success of teaching and learning process. ETR method is a teaching method that is

effective to improve reading comprehension. ETR method can improve both

students’ reading comprehension and class condition. Question and answer

section implemented in text phase helps the students improve their reading

comprehension. Besides, the use of some activities in ETR makes the students

motivated, active, and independent readers. The activities include building

background knowledge prior to reading and relating students’ background

knowledge and the reading text. Thus, it can be implied that ETR can be used as

an effective method for improving students’ reading comprehension and class

situation.

C. Suggestion

Based on the conclusion made and the implication stated, the researcher

would like to give some suggestions dealing with reading class.

1. For Students

The students should motivate themselves to learn English. They

should get actively involved in the activities during the lesson. They also

need to give their full attention when the teaching and learning process

runs. Regarding to reading comprehension, the students need to do more

exercises on reading.

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2. For teacher

English teacher should realize that providing appropriate teaching

technique or method is really helpful for the students. Since the findings of

the research shows that ETR method can improve students’ reading

comprehension, the teacher can use the method as an alternative way of

reducing students’ boredom caused by the previous monotonous

technique.

3. For school

SMP Negeri 3 Mojolaban should support the teachers to teach

well. It is needed for schools or other educational institutions to conduct

educational trainings. The trainings should be able to train English

teachers to be more creative in managing their class. Besides, the school

should provide complete facilities to support the teaching and learning

process.

4. For other researchers

This research studies the implementation of ETR method in

improving the students’ reading comprehension. Hopefully, other

researcher can use the research findings of this study as additional

reference for their further research and it is better for them to read more

available references in order to get more information about ETR method.

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