CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This introductory chapter informs readers about the research topic, the issue
being investigated, the importance of investigating the issue, the position of this
research in relation to the related previous studies, the research focus, and the
research contributions.

1.1 Research Background

Success in high school mainly depends on the students’ prior knowledge
including four major skills namely; Listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
According to Sam and Rajan (2013), reading is an important language skill to be
mastered because it has a great influence in teaching learning process at school.
Students mostly involve in reading activities since it is the basic skill student learns
in the classroom. In line with this, Carrel (1989) states that reading is the main
reason why students learn English and in order to succed, they have to possess solid
reading achievement. It will also become their experience in taking part in reading
activities for pre-entry college attributes because the reality shows that most first-
year students lack reading skill. Thus, teaching reading to Junior High School
students is really crucial.
Reading is the activity in which readers accept and understand the
information from the texts (Hermida, 2009). It can be said that, students maintain
understanding and retention of knowledge and information from the passages in
reading activity. Although readers do not produce any information, Grellet (1999)
suggests that reading is an active skill since it requires readers to guess, predict,
check, and ask information from the passages. It is also called as a constant process
of guessing. That is why, learners should be taught to use what they already know to
understand unknown elements, whether these are ideas or simple words. Moreover,
students who possess sufficient prior knowledge and the high recognition ability will
be able to comprehend a passage very well, as compared with those who don’t. In
conclusion, good readers has a good reading comprehension competence.
According to Sam and Rajan (2013), Reading comprehension is the way
students get the required information from a passage which has to be done as
efficiently as possible. However, Osborne (2010) cited in Sam and Rajan (2013) sees
students’ major problem in reading is to comprehend a passage and find the main
idea. Students are worried about understanding every single word and they finally
fail to connect the ideas. While comprehending a passage, they even try to translate
the content into their first language but they end up failed to verify the accuracy of
the text meaning of the translation in their first language compared to the meaning in
English.
Related to the students’ difficulties in comprehending texts, it is crucial to
apply strategies in English language teaching in order to solve students’ problems in
reading. According to Gracia and Villegas (2003), research has showed that the
majority students are visual learners, so it is evident that learning through visual is an
effective tool for students. In line with this, Slavin R. E. (2011) cited in Sam and
Rajan (2013), learning through visuals will help students comprehend passages more
effectively than other reading strategies. Moreover, Chien (2012) states that Graphic
Organizer as a visual outline help students organize and structure information and
concept. Gil-Gracia and Villegas (2003) categorize visual graphic organizer into six
types as follows: descrioption or simple listing, temporal sequence, definition and
example, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and problem-solution. There are
also varieties of graphic organizers such as, word web, T-chart, Venn diagram,
Ogle’s KWL (What you already know, what do you want to know, and what you
have learned), semantic web, mind-mapping, and flow chart.
Several studies have discussed about the same topic which is the use of
graphic organizers for the last seven years (Griffin et. Al, 2006; Boothby and
Alvermann, 2010; Chien, 2012; Ozlem Ozturk, 2012; Sam and Rajan, 2013; and
Hamdan, 2014). They only differed in research participants. Griffin et. Al (2006) and
Boothby and Alvermann (2010) took elementary students as their participants.
Ozlem Ozturk (2012) and Sam and Rajan (2013), each invited intermediate level
students and middle school students. Hamdan (2014) On the contrary, Chien (2012)
invited Elementary school English teachers instead as her subjects. The previous
studies also performed different types of graphic organizers on their studies. They
also applied more than one graphic organizers. The most use graphic organizers was
mind mapping and bubble map. However, a report synthesizing the use of KWL
chart as a graphic organizer at Junior High school level has been underexplored.
There is only one study discussing the use of KWL chart alone among those previous
studies that have been mentioned. Therefore, this further study about KWL chart as a
graphic organizer is an attempt to fill the gap.
According to Hamdan (2014), KWL chart was introduced with three letters
and they represent three main components. “K” stands for “what I already know”,
“W” stands for “What I want to know” and the last is “L” which is “What I have
learned”. The first component is an excellent way to activate students’ prior
knowledge since it requires students to brainstorm everything they already know
about the topic being discussed. As have been mentioned that reading is a contant
process of guessing, it is really important to train students to use their prior
knowledge. In line with this, Ogle (1986) suggests that to read well, we must access
the knowledge we already have about the topic. Therefore, based on the research
background above the experimental study about the use of KWL chart as a graphic
organizer on Junior High School students’ reading comprehension is really crucial.

1.2 The Research Problem

Based on the research background, the research problem is formulated as
follows :
a. Is there any significant effect of using a KWL chart as a graphic
organizer on Junior High School students’ reading comprehension?

1.3 The Research Objective

Based on the research problem, the research objective is to know whether or
not there is any significant effect of using a KWL chart as a graphic organizer on
Junior High School students’ reading comprehension.

1.4 The Research Contribution

The result of this research is expected to give theoretical contribution and
practical contribution for the future researchers, the English teacher and the
participants.
a. Theoretical contribution
a. for Future researchers.
 Hopefully, the results of this research will be able to inform useful
informations about the use of KWL chart as a graphic organizer on students’ reading
comprehension in Junior High School level for future researchers in reference to
conduct related studies about graphic organizer. Furthermore, this studies are
expected to inspire the readers to conduct a new innovation on graphic organizer
researches

b. Practical contribution
The English teachers
I expect that this research can contribute a lot to the English teachers
development in taking part students in Graphic organizer activities. Hopefully, the
English teachers can lead students to achieve the goal in reading activities, including
comprehending passages to get the required information as efficiently as possible.
The participants
The result of this research is useful for the English students to achieve and
motivate them in reading activities, the students will have new experiences to
organize and structure information properly.