IMPROVING STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING
COMPREHENSION BY USING RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGY
FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN 3rd SEMESTER AT STATE
UNIVERSITY OF MALANG
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the writer tries to discuss the background of the study, purposes of
the study, statement of hypothesis, the significance of the study, scope and limitation,
and definition of the key terms.
1.1 Background of the Study
English is a language which is used to communicate with other people around the
world because now English is becoming an international language. In language
teaching, there are four skills that should be mastered by the students. There are
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. However, Grabe and Stoller (2011: 18)
stated that reading is an interactive process based on two ways. First, the various
process involved in reading are carried out simultaneously, it means that while
readers are recognizing words very rapidly and keeping them active in their
memories, they are also analyzing the structure of the sentences to assemble the most
logical clause-level meanings, building a main-idea model of text comprehension,
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monitoring comprehension and so on. Second, it is considered interactive in the sense
of linguistic information from the text that interacts with information the reader's
background knowledge. According to McNamara (2007:3) reading is an
extraordinary achievement when one considers the number of levels and components
that must be mastered. Consider what it takes to read a simple story. The words
contain graphemes, phonemes, and morphemes.
Plaut (2009) claimed that reading is believed to be a very complex activity. Too
many processes are involved in reading for meaning. It involves the rapid
coordination of visual, phonological, semantic, and linguistic processes. Furthermore,
Ghazo (2015) said that, in fact, many of them still have problems in understanding
reading texts due to their lack of vocabulary, lack of grammatical knowledge, and
lack of general knowledge. These problems happen because of poor strategies used
by the teacher for teaching reading and/or to the use of boring teaching materials
which fail to motivate the students or make them interested in reading
comprehension. There are many students have a lack of reading comprehension,
especially, the tenth-grade students. The students have difficulties to comprehend the
text. The students had difficulties in reading comprehension. The problems appeared
during the teacher was reading the text, the students just listened and repeated the
teacher's reading but they did not understand what the information in the reading text
that has been read by the teacher. After finish reading the text, the teacher asked the
students to translate the text, only a few students did the task. During reading activity in
the teaching and learning process, often students were not focused, busy with their
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businesses, talked to their friends and disturbed their friends. This was being bothered the
teaching-learning activity and few students finished their task well. When the students
translated the text, only some students came to the teacher and asked the difficult parts,
like the new words or the words that they did not know the meaning. They have limited
vocabulary and background knowledge.
Reciprocal teaching strategies help the teacher to teach effectively in reading.
These strategies may be applied to all texts and are especially effective with
informational texts. Reciprocal teaching strategy is one of teaching reading strategy
that can solve the problems of the student. Reciprocal teaching strategy helps the
student with four steps, such as predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing
Ozckus (2013: 34). In line with Ahmadi & Gilakjani (2012) reciprocal teaching is as
an instructional strategy that directly teaches the students to apply meta-cognitive
thinking as they make meaning from a text. It is a process of reading comprehension
as an interactive one, in which readers interact with the text as their prior experience
is activated. Moreover, readers construct meaning from the text by relying on prior
experience to parallel, contrast or affirm what the author suggested in the text.
Reciprocal teaching strategy allows a teacher to model and gives the students enough
practice on those four main strategies (predicting, questioning, clarifying and
summarizing) to construct the meaning of a text. Foster and Rotoloni (2005) stated
that one of the challenges of reciprocal teaching strategy is that it was introduced for
learners who are sufficient decoders but are poor in reading comprehension and
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cannot construct the meaning and recognize a text after reading a passage; therefore,
it would not be effective for students with poor decoding skills.
Related to this study, there are a number of studies that have been conducted by
Jaya (2013) regarding the use of reciprocal strategy in teaching reading
comprehension. Reciprocal teaching has been found as a successful teaching strategy
in improving students’ reading comprehension. Another study that was conducted by
Sarasty (2002) and Freahat and Al-Makhzoomi (2012) found that the use of RTP
(Reciprocal Teaching Procedure) can improve the students‟ reading comprehension
behavior after the training and demonstrate its effectiveness to the subjects‟ reading
comprehension behavior. Moreover, most participants found that reciprocal teaching
is a fun activity.
Although there have been a number researches in the literature regarding the use
of reciprocal teaching strategy in teaching reading comprehension, in Indonesia, it is
just a few of researchers that have directly compared the effectiveness of reciprocal
strategy, especially regarding teaching reading comprehension in university level
because most of them conducting the research in junior high school and senior high
school level. Besides, most of them using qualitative design as their research
methodology. Therefore, in this study, the researcher will conduct the research at the
university level and use quantitative design as the research methodology which is to
cover students’ achievement in reading comprehension by using reciprocal teaching
strategy.
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1.2 Statements of the Problem
1. Does teaching by using reciprocal strategy can improve students’ achievement
in reading comprehension?
1.3 Purposes of the Study
1. To know the students’ improvement of using reciprocal strategy in teaching
reading comprehension for undergraduate students in 3rd semester at State
University of Malang.
1.4 Statement of Hypothesis
1. Ho: There is no significant difference in using reciprocal strategy towards
students’ improvement in teaching reading comprehension.
2. Hi: There is a significant difference in using reciprocal strategy towards
students’ improvement in teaching reading comprehension.
1.5 The significance of the Study
1. For the students, it may motivate the students to improve their interest in
reading skill and comprehension with pleasure and not only read one type of
text but also they can be enthusiastic for many other kinds of texts.
2. For the teachers, they will be motivated to use the reciprocal strategy for other
skills in teaching English besides reading skill. So many kinds of strategies
which are included in reciprocal teaching strategy can be applied in four skills
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of English. The teacher will be more creative and active to get more
knowledge of good teaching.
3. For the future researcher, they can find out the new strategy which can be
supported and combined with reciprocal teaching strategy through reading a
text.
1.6 Scope and Limitations of the Study
1. Scope:
The strategy used in this study is a reciprocal strategy which is focused on reading
comprehension for undergraduate students in 3rd semester of State University of
Malang.
2. Limitation:
This research only conducted for undergraduate students in 3rd semester of State
University of Malang.
1.7 Definition of the Key Terms
1. Reading skill
Reading is the most important meaningful skill regarding the interpretation of
printed or written verbal symbols. Based on that statement above, reading is not
only read but also needs thinking and our language skills, moreover, reading
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(especially for English text) without using that skill, someone will get
misunderstanding in comprehending what the author message on the reading.
2. Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension refers to the ability to understand information
presented in written form. Reading comprehension skills also may affect one's
interpretation of direction on examination, homework, and completion of job
applications or questionnaires.
3. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy
The reciprocal teaching approach is one of the reading methods which cover
the necessary reading strategies: predicting, generating questions, clarifying, and
summarizing. It helps students improve their reading comprehension, and develop
self-regulatory and monitoring skills, and achieve an overall improvement in
motivation.
