Agus Khairi
NIM. 157835401
Language and Literature Program
Post Graduate Program
The State University of Surabaya
Abstract:
The research was
intended to improve students’ reading comprehension of procedure text by using
picture series. It was simple classroom research based on the researcher’s
previous experiment in solving the ninth grader students’ difficulties in
understanding procedure text. The difficulties are how to understand the steps
and carried out the information from the text caused by lack of vocabulary
mastery. Based on the research finding, there are improvement of students’
interest and the result of the test in each cycle conducted by the teacher. In
the first cycle, the amounts of students who reach the score higher than 60
were 63%, while in second cycle were 87%. Even though not all of the students
(100%) who reach score higher than standard score but using picture series in
improving students reading comprehension of procedure text showed the
significant improvement and as media picture series are effective in teaching
reading skill especially procedure text.
Keywords:
reading comprehension, procedure text, picture series
1. Introduction
Nowadays,
teaching emphasize to the students’ activity in the classroom including teaching English. As Harmer (2002, p. 56) said “under the
influence of humanistic and communicative theories, great emphasis has been
placed on learner-centered teaching, that is teaching which makes the learners’
needs and experience central to educational process.” So that teachers’ role
is not dominant in teaching activity and he/she just facilitates the students
to learn the material.
It is based on the change of curriculum from government is that Ministry of
Education as stake holder in education.
At
Junior High School, there are four language skills that should be mastered in
standard of competence based on the students’ level. Those are listening,
speaking, reading and writing. Those skills are include in each material are taught in each level. To master those skills, the students are taught based on the basic competences that were programmed in National curriculum.
In
reading skills, the students learn some types of text such as; narrative,
procedure, recount, report and descriptive. Those types of reading text often
find in students’ daily life. One of them is procedure text. This type of text
can be found in food receipe in magazine, on the pack of noodle and other food,
manual or instruction of electronic products, etc. Procedure text can be formed in steps how to do
something and how to make something like food or toys.
Generally
in teaching reading, of course there are some difficulties found and faced by the students. Harmer (2002, p. 203) said “on the premise
that texts with longer sentences and longer words will be more difficult to
understand than those with shorter ones.” Of course, longer
sentences contain more complex word and those will be difficult to understand
by students because students sometimes do not master all of the word in the
sentences. So, it is hard to understand sentence by sentence in reading text in order to understand the whole of
reading text. The students had lack of vocabularies to understand the procedure
text and not all of them had dictionary to find the word meaning. As a result
they lost interest on reading the procedure text.To solve
the problem, teacher as facilitator should facilitate the students by using media
or teaching aids in order the students easier to understanding the contents of
the text. One of the alternative choices that can be used in instruction process
is picture series.
Based on the problem above the
researcher conducts simple classroom action research based on the researcher’s
previous experience. It is aimed to solve the problem of students in
comprehending the procedure text by using picture series.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 Reading Skill
Reading is one of four
skills that are taught in school based on the basic competence in National
Curriculum. For having learning experience about reading skill for the
students, many kinds of text in provided in learning material. Those kinds of
text are aimed to improve students reading skill based on the level or grade of
them.
According to Mikulecky (2008) “reading is a conscious and
unconscious process. The reader applies many strategies to reconstruct the
meaning that the author is assumed to have intended.” In reading process the
reader need to get information from the text that the writer wants to
delivered. By understanding word by word from the text the reader will
understand whole meaning in the text. In order to understand the whole of the
text, for each types of text in learning material, the students have to master
reading skill.
“Reading skills are the
cognitive process that a reader uses in making sense of a text” (Mikulecky,
2008). Related to the definition reading
is not only translating word by word, as before, but understanding whole the
meaning of the text. Of course, to reach this skill there are subskills that
involves in reading skills should be mastered by the reader or students. As
Rosenshine in Houdson (2007, p.
80) mention as follow:
-
Recognizing
sequence
-
Recognizing
words in context
-
Identifying
the main idea
-
Decoding
detail
-
Drawing
inferences
-
Recognizing
cause and effect
-
Comparing
and contrasting.
In classroom
activities, there are some types of classroom reading performance as Brown (2000, p.
312) explained as bellow:
1. Oral and silent reading
Reading orally at the beginning and intermediate level: can serve as an
evaluative check on bottom-up processing skills, double as a pronunciation
check, and serve to add some extra students participation if you want to
highlight a certain short segment of a reading passage.
2. Intensive and extensive reading
Intensive and extensive readings are categorized into silent reading.
Intensive reading is usually classroom-oriented activity in which students
focus on the linguistic or semantic details of a passage. While extensive
reading is carried to achieve a general understanding of a usually somewhat
longer text. Most extensive reading is performed outside of class time.
Based on the aim of teaching reading in ninth
grade student in Standard Competence is that understand the meaning of the
short functional text to interact in daily life, intensive reading can be
applied in the classroom. It is because in that level students need to help or
given intervention by teacher in the classroom. As Harmer (2007, p.
273) stated that “intensive reading or
listening is often done with the help and/or intervention of the teacher’.
Intervention can be done by giving guidance or teaching aid when the process in
doing in the classroom. The intervention is aimed to help students easier in
doing activity is that intensive reading.
2.2 Procedure Text
According to Anderson and Anderson (2007, p. 50), “the procedure text is a piece of text that gives us instructions for doing something.” Procedure text
is kind of text that can be found around us, in manual, food recipes,
regulations, and some others “how to” text. Procedure text tells us how
something is done through series of steps or action.” In other word procedure
text help us do a task or make something. They can be a set of instruction or
direction. This kind of text can be found, and actually people often make
communication by using procedure text: when watching cooking program on Television,
read how to operate the radio in manual, doing practicum, etc.
The following is an example of procedure
text.
How to Make Lemonade
Ingredients:
For
each glass use:
- 2
tablespoons of lemon juice.
- 2
tablespoons of sugar.
- 1
glass of water.
Methods:
1. Slice a lemon in half and squeeze the juice into a cup.
2. Take out the seeds.
3. Pour two tablespoons of juice into glass.
4. Add sugar.
5. Add water and stir well.
6. Taste the lemonade. You may want to add
more sugar or more lemon to make it taste just right.
7. Put it in ice cubes. A drop of red food
coloring will make pink lemonade.
Source:
English in
Focus For Junior High School (SMP/MTs), 2008
A procedure text generally has generic
structure as follows:
a.
Aim/goal : can be in form of title of the text,
b.
Materials: material and equipment are needed. But, not all of procedure texts
need this step. This part can be given label “You’ll need”, “Ingredients”,
or “Supplies needed”,
c.
Steps: steps for doing action (procedure text). This part can be given label
“What to do”,
Furthermore, the features that commonly
found in the most of procedure text as follows:
·
Using simple present tense,
usually in imperative form,
·
Using temporal connecting word, as
first, second, then, next, and finally,
·
Using action verbs, as turn on,
stir, cook, etc.
Above, has been explained what
procedure text for. The social function of ‘procedure’ is to give directions of
what the readers should do to accomplish a mission. In other words, ‘procedure’
guides the readers to do something, to operate something, to make something, or
to reach certain objectives. See the function in our daily life; it is
important to understand the procedure text well.
2.3 Picture series as Teaching Media
Teaching media, can be called teaching aids,
has important role in teaching and learning process in the classroom. It is
very useful for teacher in explain about the learning material and students can
understand easier by facilitated with media. By using media, teacher is able to
conduct interesting teaching process and make class atmosphere fun. This
situation make students enjoy the learning process and not bored easily.
Many kinds of media that used in education,
from simple media till complex media. It may be expensive and cheap media
depend on the aim and where it is used. It can be picture, VCD, OHP, TAPE, TV and media that are made by teacher
her/himself. Anything that considered can help in teaching process can be used as
teaching media as Heininch,
Molenda, and Russel (1982, p. 8) argue that “considered instructional
media when they are used to carry messages with an instructional intent.” But the simple one and easy to get around us is picture. Among teaching
media, picture is the most generally used. Picture explains many things and interesting
for students especially for Junior high school. Thus, pictures are usually used
in the classroom teaching process to help the students understanding the
learning material.
Picture
series is one kind of picture media that can be used in teaching process.
Picture series is picture consist of sequence of events or story, it can be
steps for doing something. Picture series explain an event from the beginning
till the end through sequence of picture. It may be consist of steps in doing
work or operating device from the first step till the last step.
According to Harmer (2007, p.
286) “in order to encourage students to
read enthusiastically in class, teachers need to create interest in the topic
and tasks”. In order to make learning process interest teacher provide the task
and topic based on the students character and something new for them. Providing
the material accomplished with picture is one of the way to make learning
process interest and avoid students feel bored in the classroom when ding the
task given. That was the reason why the teacher chooses picture series in
teaching procedure text.
2.4 Teaching Procedure Text Using Picture
series
As mention in the
previous discussion that picture is used as teaching aid to help students and
teacher in teaching and learning process. It can be used to make the meaning
clearer, so that students easier to understand the text itself. Dealing with
the function of picture, in this case picture series, it is aimed help students
understand deeply about steps and vocabulary in procedure text. As known before
that procedure text consists of steps to do something, hopefully picture series
may help students understand about the steps are told in the text.
Here are the rules of teaching procedure text
by using picture series that may conduct by teacher:
1.
Teacher
prepares procedure text material in a paper and provide picture series related
to the text;
2.
Teacher
distributes the materials, both text and picture;
3.
Students
are asked to read the text for several minutes, after that carry out the
information in the text such as; what is the text about? What should be
preparing? And how is the process done on each steps based on the text and
related to the picture series.
4.
Teacher instruct the students to
find out the structure of the text, grammar is used such as; conjunction,
enumerator, and imperative word.
5.
Teacher
encourage the students make conclusion about the material was given.
6. Method
This research is classroom action research
based on the writer’s previous experience in teaching procedure text by using
picture series due to the limitation
of time and place. The
data provided in this research are from score that students got in learning
process. To standardize the result of students’ result in the test, researcher
used KKM in English subject for ninth grader is that 60. Students can be
categorized mastered the basic competence if they reach score ≥ 60. The
subjects of this research are ninth grader students of MTs. NW Tanak Maik, East
Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara which consist of 30 students.
According to
Mertler (2012,
p. 21) “classroom action research can be
defined as a research which is done by the teacher to study their own classroom
in order to better understand students and to be able to improve their quality
and effectiveness.” Thus, both teacher and students are required to get
involved actively in classroom activity.
Here are the
steps in conducting classroom action research adapted from Kemmis and McTaggart
in Burns (2010).
These are the explanation of four
steps of Action Research in the Picture:
Planning
It was done in the first stage.
Here, the researcher prepared everything such as lesson plan and the instrument
to collect data including achievement test and field note that was needed in
doing classroom action research.
The lesson plan was used
to describe the
instruction for one
class, achievement test
was used to measure acquired learning, and field note
was used to record anything happen in the classroom during the
teaching-learning process.
Acting
In this step, the researcher
conducted the research in the classroom where the problem found. He conducted
the research and acted to teach the lesson that has already been prepared. He
was being helped by a collaborator. The researcher as the teacher
explained the material
(procedure text) by providing
picture series and the students
did the worksheets. Then, they
did the task in the group about answering the reading comprehension question
which related to the procedure text in the worksheet. The final step, they would do the test individually
about procedure text.
Observing
The collaborator was observing the
class when the researcher taught in the classroom. The observing activities
were held to collect the data and put in the observation checklist table and
field note. Collaborator as the writer’s
assistant filled in the observation checklist table and field note, and
commented on anything that occurs in the teaching-learning process, including
the obstacles that was found as well as the probable solution to overcome the
problem.
Reflecting
Based on
the observation, the
researcher gets feedback
to reflect the
next cycle. On this stage, the researcher paid attention rapport between
the planning stage and action stage. The result of reflection was used to
determine what should be done in cycles. In this stage, the researcher and
collaborator discussed the result of the observation and evaluated the
treatment which had been done and the students’ achievement in the cycle.
7. Discussion
In this part researcher discuss about research
finding and discussion based on the result of each cycle. For the first will be
discussed about research finding in the first cycle. Based on the result of
first cycle can be conclude that it was not satisfying and it need much effort
to accomplish the goal of action applied is that picture series. These are what
researcher found in this cycle as follow:
1)
The
students are interested in learning process when they looked the picture about
How to Operate Blender.
2)
The
students do the task with enthusiasm in the beginning of time.
3)
Picture
series help students understand easier the steps and vocabulary in the text.
4)
Teacher
monitored the student’s activities and please the students ask about their
difficulties freely.
5)
Teacher
gave the task consist of question about the material (vocabularies), steps and
information from the text.
The following weaknesses are found in the first
cycle:
1)
Teacher
is not doing well in managing time. Especially limitation in doing the task.
2)
Teachers’
role still dominant in giving explanation about the material.
3)
The
activity is lack of student’s participation. The students are more focused on
the picture series not to the task after a while.
4)
The
students have more capability do not spread out within each group.
5)
The
students ask more about the word meaning to the teacher rather than doing by their
selves using dictionary or other sources.
Based on the weaknesses mentioned above, the
researcher concludes that the first cycle is not done well. Thus, the
researcher revised the plan and will apply in the next cycle. The following
revised that will be applied in the next cycle:
1)
Manage
time by focusing on students activities not teachers’ dominant.
2)
Encourage
the students to do the task more active and involved all the students by
spreading out the students who have more capability within each group.
3)
Ask
the students to use dictionary in finding meaning of difficult word.
In the
second cycle the researcher conclude that there are improvement based on the
activities observed and the result of the test. These are the points noticed in
the second cycle:
1)
Students
more active in doing the task and used the picture series and dictionary to
help them understand more about the text;
2)
Students
can explain the steps in the procedural text clearly.
3)
Students
found explicit and implicit information within the text.
After analyzing the result of the whole cycle, the
researcher will discuss some research findings is that how learning process in
applying picture series as teaching aid and the result of test or evaluation.
The findings will be discussed as follow:
First, as the result of the researcher
observation in learning process can be concluded that the students showed their
interest in learning procedure text using picture series. It can be seen in
second cycle process where the students more active in reading the text and
finding the information within it. Although there is another effort that
teacher did in learning process as revision from the previous cycle is that
spread out the students that have more capability in each group work. The
students showed improvement in understanding the steps in procedure text by
looking the picture series given and found the difficult word easier than
before. Thus, they can understand the text more comprehensive than when the
students did not give aid like picture series. Over all, what students showed
in learning process is the effect of using picture series in understanding
procedure text.
Second, the students showed the improvement of
comprehending procedure text that can be seen from the score the reached in
each cycle. In the first cycle there are 63% students reached score higher than
standard score. The data got from the result of the test done in the end of
first cycle. While, in the second cycle there are 87% students reach score
higher than standard score. From the result in the first cycle and second
cycle, there is improvement in the result of test given to the students after
learning procedure text using picture series. It can be seen from the amount of
students who passed the standard score in the first cycle more than in the
second cycle.
6) Conclusion
Based on the
result of each cycle found in this research can be concluded that picture
series can make improvement in teaching and learning procedure, especially in
reading skill. The improvement are showed in this research can be seen in
students’ interest in reading the text and doing the task enthusiastically. The
students more active in doing the task even the students that have lower
capability, they have already helped by looking the picture series and compared
with steps in the text. The other improvement can be seen in the score which
students got for each cycle. There are significant improvements in the score of
students, is that from 63% to 87%. Those result showed us that picture series
are effective in improving students’ reading comprehension of procedure
text.
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