CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background

Nowdays, the development of science and technology encourage

people to develop their self. The development can be achieved from the

information. The source of information can be got from many ways; one of them

is from a text. Most people learn to read. However, for getting information by

reading text needs a certain skill called reading skill.

Reading skill can be seen as an interactive process between a reader and a text

which leads to automaticity or (reading fluency). In this process the reader

interacts dynamically with the text as he/she tries to elicit the meaning and where

various kinds of knowledge are being used (Aliyousef, 2006: 64).

In other word, this skill can be used to get more informations and know what

happen around the world.

Reading as a field of teaching is considered as one of the important areas of

teaching. The students must need good reading skill for acquiring knowledge and

learning new information. Pang (1986: 6) states that Learning to read is an

important educational goal. For both children and adults, the ability to read opens

up new worlds and opportunities. It enables us to gain new knowledge, enjoy

literature, and do everyday things that are part and parcel of modern life, such as,

reading the newspapers, job listings, instruction manuals, maps and so on.
 Therefore, reading is important language skill that should be mastered

by the students for having communicative competence. Great information that be

got from the reading text may support students to improve their ability in

speaking, listening and writing.

In Indonesian education, reading is one of the main problem in

teaching learning process, especially at Senior High School. Therefore, reading is

one skill aspect in language should be paid attention seriously, because through

reading students may get any information, improve their knowledge and at the

same time broader their insight. Pang (1986: 6) states that readers typically make

use of background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience

with text and other strategies to help them understand written text. So, by reading,

the readers can gain new knowledge.

For this this case, it becomes the teachers’ role in creating the successful of

teaching and learning process. They must be able to choose the the appropriate

technique in teaching reading in order to improve the students’ reading

comprehension. Teachers can provide support by teaching fluency skills students

need to read for comprehension. Clarke and Silberstein (1977) states that it

becomes the responsibility of the teacher to train students to determine their own

goals and strategies for a particular reading. So, that students will be more

interested in comprehending the reading material.

In language skill, reading belongs to receptive skill, in which is used to gain

information and knowledge. In learning English as Foreign Language, the

meaningful input is very needed to develop the productive language skill namely

writing and speaking. If the EFL learners have enough input, they will be able to

produce the language well either in spoken or written forms.

In reading skill, comprehension is very necessary in reading text. reading

comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a number

of complex processes that include word reading, word and world knowledge, and

fluency (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985; Jenkins, Larson, &

Fleischer, 1983; O’Shea, Sindelar, & O’Shea, 1987). Similarly, Pang (2006: 14)

states that Comprehension is the process of deriving meaning from connected

text. It involves word knowledge (vocabulary) as well as thinking and reasoning.

Therefore, comprehension is not a passive process, but an active one. The reader

actively engages with the text to construct meaning. This active engagement

includes making use of prior knowledge.

So, the successful of reading depends on how the students comprehend the

reading text. To comprehend the text, a reader must have a wide range of

capacities and abilities. These include cognitive capacities (attention, memory,

inference, and visualization ability), motivation (a purpose for reading, an interest

in the content being read) and various types of knowledge (vocabulary, domain

and topic knowledge, linguistic and discourse knowledge).

 Kitao and Kitao (2005) in Widyastuti (2007) claims that comprehending a

reading text is not an easy work, because it does not always provide the

situational context as a conversation do. In addition, the broader context of a

written language may not be as clear to the reader.

On this base, it may be inferred that the complexity of a written text often

makes the EFL learners have serious problem in understanding a reading text.

Moreover for the students who have lack of vacabulary and less of knowledge in

grammatical aspect make students have low interest and motivation to study.

Those are may significantly cause many EFL learners have poor reading

comprehension. Meanwhile, Students have to follow the examination in the

school which demands them to answer the questions in the examination as a

requirement for them to graduate from school. They need reading skill that helps

them to know the instruction of the text and the content of reading task.

Furthermore, Bond (1984:10) states that the importance of reading is to obtain

the information which can be used to solve problem and for pleasure, particularly

in the elementary and intermediate levels. Students need to read to confirm their

spoken language and to be able to acquire other skills like listening, speaking and

writing. So, it is clear that reading becomes the essential point that has to be

emphasized in teaching of language in Indonesia.

Referring to the problems explained above, it is necessary to provide a way to

help the students to comprehend the reading text easily. The teacher is as a figure
in guiding students in school should consider the best way to overcome the

students’ problem in comprehending a reading text. according to Brucbacker in

Slameto (2003) says that the success or fail of learning process depend on the use

of a suitable method. It appears that technique in teaching reading is needed to be

given more attention by the English teacher. The suitable tecnique can grow up

the students’ interest and motivation especially in teaching English as foreign

language. High motivation will help students to follow the whole of teaching and

learning process.

Although the techniques of teaching reading have already been developed by

the experts, but in fact there are still many students who are poor in their reading

comprehension. One of the problems of the poorness of students’ reading

comprehension is the inappropriate technique that teacher uses in presenting

material. So, students fell boring in teaching and learning process.

The English teacher has an important role in teaching learning process.

The teacher must work hard to improve the students’ achievement and improve

their achievement in reading comprehension. Therefore, the teacher are hoped to

use a good technique and method in reading and to improve the students’

motivation in learning.

In SMA Negeri I Sampolawa, English subject seems to need proper

attention. This subject covers four skills namely listening, speaking, reading and

writing. In terms of those skills the researcher only focusses on reading skill.
Besides, based on researcher’s observation in SMA Negeri 1 Sampolawa on

Friday, January 29th 2010, it seemed that the teaching of English reading in that

school is still facing difficulties. The researcher observed that most students get

difficulties to comprehend a reading text, they have less of vacabulary and

grammatical aspect. Therefore, students have difficult to gain information from

the reading text. When the teacher asked them to find out some information on it,

students still got difficulty to finish it.

Before conducting this study, the researcher also interviewed the English

teacher at SMA Negeri I Sampolawa. The English teacher said that the students at

the first year in learning reading were still difficult to comprehend a reading text.

Students’ problems such as how to find out specific information and detail

information. It is because the students at the first year have poor motivation and

interest in learning English.

The problems explained above cannot be separated with the teacher

responsibility to solve students’ problem. Researcher sees the different

phenomenon in the school. The teacher has not applied some interactive

techniques in teaching reading. In teaching and learning process the teacher just

explained a little and then asked the students to answer some questions given.

Therefore, the researche is interested to apply one of cooperative learning

technique namely One Stay Two Stray by using classroom action research to

solve students to solve students’ problem in reading. Actually there were some

researchers who have conducted this study study. They are Citrawati (2004).
These researchers have conducted studies about teaching reading under One Stay

Two Stray Technique. They used experimental (quosy experimental) design. The

result of these studies show that One Stay Two Stray technique has significant

effect to improve students’ reading achievement.

Cooperative learning is an instructional program in which students work

in a small group to help one another to master academic content (Slavin, 1995).

Cooperative learning allows students to wor with their group mates to reach a

certain goal in learning. Besides, group members can complete each other

strengths and weaknesses in English. For example, students might have strong

vocabulary that can supply to students with a good backgroun in grammar. This

means that vocabulary and grammar are very important owned by the students to

help them comprehen a reading text. Vocabulary plays a fundamental role in

reading process, and contributes greatly to a reader’s comprehension. A reader

cannot understand a text without knowing what most of the words meaning.

While grammar can help them to distinguish the event whether is occurred in the

present, past or furure situation.

One Stay Two Stray technique itself is a model of cooperative learning

which involve the students’ active learning in the teaching and learning process.

Jacobs, et al ( )
 The researcher believes that the application of cooperative learning under

One Stay Two Stray technique can solve students’ problem in comprehending

reading easily, because when students who have lack of vocabulary and

grammatical aspect can be supplied from others. They can exchange information,

reinforce each others; give feedback, and also responsible to their answer in their

group.

Based on above explanations, the researcher interest to apply One Stay

Two Stray technique to improve students’ reading comprehension on content of

reading text and to provide theoretical and practical solution on the teaching of

reading in ESL/EFL context generally, and in SMA Negeri I Sampolawa

particularly.

1.2 Research Question

The research question of this study is “Can One Stay Two Stray technique

improve students’ reading comprehension at first year of SMA Negeri I

Sampolawa?

1.3 Objective of the Study

 The objective of the study is to improve students’ reading comprehension on

content of reading text through One Stay Two Stray technique at the first year of

SMA Negeri I Sampolawa.

1.4 Significance of the Study

The significant of this study are as follow:

1. For students: To improve students’ reading comprehension through One Stay

Two Stray technique

2. For teacher: As an information resource about the alternative method in

teaching reading

3. For further researcher: As a reference who takes the same study.

1.5 Scope of the study

This study focuses on content of reading text to get students’ reading

comprehension by using One Stay Two Stray technique. To make more specific

the researcher limits the comprehension on literal and interpretive level. The

material is related to English syllabus for first year of SMA.

1.6 Action Hypothesis

The hypothesis of this study is “ If One Stay Two Stray technique is applied; it

will improve students’ reading comprehension at the first year of SMA Negeri I

Sampolawa”.

1.7 Definition of terms

To avoid misunderstanding about this study, the researcher provides some

definitions of term are follows:

1. Action research is

2. One Stay Two Stray means a teaching technique in which students from a group of

three; that is group consist of three members with a decisions of one stays and two

stray. The two members stray to the other groups to learn something to find out

assigned information. As they get information, they go back to their home team,

and teach their friend the one who stays (Adapted from Jacobs, 1996: 50).

3. Reading comprehension is a process to get ideas in a reading text, Betty D

Roe and Barbara D stood (1978)

4. Comprehension is the process of deriving meaning from connected text.