2772-Article Text-13435-4-10-20230425
2772-Article Text-13435-4-10-20230425
2772-Article Text-13435-4-10-20230425
website: https://ojs3.unpatti.ac.id/index.php/matail
Volume (1) No. 1 (2020)
Pp. 52-61 accepted in 16 November 2020
e-ISSN. 2774-6356
Teachers’ Strategies in Teaching Reading at Junior HighSchools in Sirimau
Sub-District: Problems and Solutions
Gladiora N. Tuhumury
Pattimura University, Indonesia
e-mail: [email protected]
Renata C. G. V. Nikijuluw*
Pattimura University, Indonesia
*Corresponding e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to explain the understanding of teachers about the method of
teaching reading comprehension, the techniques that are widely used, the challenges encountered
by the teacher and the approaches that have been found to solve these problems. This used the
template of the survey using a hybrid approach, where the results were gathered in quantitative
and qualitative terms. The subjects of this research were 35 junior high school English teachers
in Ambon city. The data collection method was questionnaire, survey and assessment checklist.
The findings revealed that the technique plays a significant role in English reading practices; the
techniques enable teachers to conduct their teaching tasks faster and well-arranged. Mostly,
students use speaking aloud, summarization, vocabulary development, skimming, and testing. In
the end, the teachers themselves and the students were faced with the challenges of using the
technique in the teaching and learning process. The approaches used by teachers to solve the
challenges were enhancing students' knowledge of vocabulary, inspiring pupils, and introducing
different methods for teaching literacy. Teachers need to expand their understanding of
techniques in the teaching and learning process.
BACKGROUND
Reading is more valuable as it allows students to understand a lot of literacy. EFL learners
continue to gain reading comprehension through the use of relevant and efficient reading
strategies. This ensures that the technique is applicable to pupils in the classroom, and it allows
them to understand what they've heard. Therefore, in the context of the text, they are intelligent
and can deliver it in a positive way. In other words, the correct use of reading techniques will also
make it easier to get productive reading. Reading approaches allow EFL learners to easily grasp
reading without having to face any issues. That's why teaching reading has been more difficult
andrequires an effective approach to fix the student’s question.
As mentioned by Oxford (1996), Strategies are “instruments for productive, self-directed
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communication that are important for the growth of communicative skills. Strategies are not only
a single event, but rather a dynamic series of activities that learners consciously use. ". One
problem with the use of technique is that it is either not explained clearly enough or that it is
explained wrongly. When teaching a technique, the technique must be presented with thorough
and clear guidance. The student must be taught how to apply the technique by training, assisted
practice and individual practice with guidance. The technique can also need to be applied to
other environments. Any pupils with comprehension or hearing problems are either not taught
techniques at all or do not learn how to use them properly.
According to Farris et al (2004) as quoted by Mahmud (2008), teachers need to learn a broad
variety of teaching approaches and how to apply them, based on the needs of the students.
Teachers will have a range of teaching literacy techniques and adapt them to classes to help
students’ understanding. For junior high school students who study language, reading is one
ability that needs to be mastered as it will help them improve their skills. But the question is how
to help them understand the need to read. Of this cause, the application of learning methods
plays a significant role in the perception of students.
The Preliminary Research was completed by classroom assessment and interviews. The study
studied and interviewed 2 English teachers at SMP Negeri 1 and SMP Negeri 4 Ambon (Grade
IX). Via class study, the researcher observed that both teachers applied reading instruction
techniques, but in different ways. A Teacher from SMP Negeri 1 in Grade IX presented students
with a range of classroom techniques to help students understand the letter. As a result of the
implementation of the correct techniques, it has been very useful to students. The result revealed
that in the teaching method, the teacher used techniques such as vocabulary development, RAP,
and so on. For the pupils, thus, they were able to consider and understand the passage and fulfill
the learning objectives. As a result, the researcher finds that the teacher of SMP Negeri 4 who
teaches reading in Grade IX never uses a number of techniques. The teacher gives a text and tells
students to answer questions about the text.
Since holding an assessment class with both junior high school teachers of SMP 1 and SMP 4
in Grade IX, the researchers held a short interview with them. The first was a teacher from SMP 1
who taught using a number of techniques. Based on her explanation, she used a number of
methods in order to help students not get bored easily because they're going to be involved in the
class. Whereas the SMP 4 teacher clarified that the reason she always gave the text to the
students and told them to interpret it on their own was that she needed the students to learn to
be more confident, to seek and develop their learning techniques in reading, such as skimming
and scanning.
In light of the above examples, the teacher wants to think about the specific and effective
methods that can be used in the learning process to make it easy for students to understand, and
the students should be more involved in the classroom and do not feel frustrated because they are
more engaged in the learning process. The researcher is also interested in learning more about the
reading teaching strategies widely used by junior high school teachers in the Sirimau Sub-
district. The research also aims to find out the viewpoint of teachers on the approaches, the
challenges encountered by teachers in reading class practices, and how they can solve these
problems.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This paper has three questions to answer as follows in conducting this research. First, what
are the strategies that commonly used by the Junior High School teachers in teaching reading.
Second, what are the problems faced by the Junior High School teachers in teaching reading. The
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third question was how the Junior High School teachers overcome the problems faced in teaching
reading.
LITERATURE REVIEW
METHODOLOGY
The method that used in conducting this study is a mixed-method research methodology. As
stated by PCMH Research Method Series (nd) “Mixed method refers to an emergent methodology
of research that advances the systematic integration or mixing of quantitative and qualitative data
within a single investigation or sustained program of inquiry”. Moreover, this study used survey
design. According to De Leeuw, Hox and Dillman (nd), in survey the data were collected in
quantitative from the sample of population. The type of this survey is cross-sectional survey
design where aim to examine current attitudes, beliefs, opinions, or practices. Attitudes, beliefs,
and opinions are ways in which individuals think about issues and practices are their real
behaviors (Creswell, 2012). Connecting to the explanations above, this study was quantitative and
qualitative in the nature and aimed to collect information from a sample of the population. As the
population of the research, Arikunto (2006) mentioned that population is the whole number of
research subject. The population on this study was the English teachers of Junior High Schools in
Sirimau Sub-district and it consist of 13 Junior High Schools with total teachers are 35. This data
were collected from Education Department Office Maluku Province. Moreover, the sample of the
research used area of probability sample where in its technique of sampling, at this point
participants were taken as the representative from an area within a province (Arikunto, 2006).
Arikunto (2006) defined sample as some or representative of the population for being examined.
In carrying out the survey according to Arikunto, if the subject is less than 100 is better to take all
becoming the sample. In line to this reason, the participants in this survey were 35 English
teachers. Thus, there were only 35 teachers and it less than 100 therefore the 35 teachers will be
selected to become the sample. On the other hand, 5 teachers were chosen to be observed and
interviewed based on their answers within the questionnaire and the following qualifications.
First, the teachers have more than 10-15 years of teaching experiences; it was one consideration
of choosing them. 10- 15 years were considered long enough to be qualified as an experience
English teacher. Secondly, they have participated in workshop or teacher trainings which would
lead them to have new idea of innovation in creating and managing comfortable EFL classroom
activities. Lastly, they have teaching certificate, this also become consideration in choosing the
teachers to be observed and interview because it confirms themselves. The instrument that being
used to gain data from the respondents was questionnaire. Babbie (1990) as quoted by Acharya
(2010) stated that questionnaire is defined as a document containing questions and other types of
items designed to solicit information appropriate to analysis. The type of the questionnaire that
was used is open-ended and close-ended questionnaire. The responses to the questionnaire were
obtained from 13 Junior high school English teachers and it consisted of 35 teachers. The
observation was aimed to identify the information regarding the teachers’ strategies that being
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used in classroom activity. The teacher taught the students while the researcher observed using an
observation checklist. The observation was done for 5 teachers who have been selected based on
their answer with the qualifications. The researcher also prepared some questions for the 5
teachers who have been selected according to their answers in the questionnaire and their
qualifications. The interview was consisted of 7 questions. It was aimed to get further information
that related to the objectives of the study. The questionnaire was aimed to gather the
quantitatively data from 35 teachers while observation and the interview was aimed to gain data
qualitatively from 5 selectedteachers.
DISCUSSION
Strategies that commonly used by the Junior High School teachers in teaching reading
comprehension
From the survey, it was found that Cultivate Vocabulary has the highest frequency among
other preferences because there were 88.5% of the respondents who frequently used and heavily
used Cultivate Vocabulary and 82.7% respondents stated that it was effective to be used in
teaching reading comprehension. As explained in previous chapter where Mahmud (2008) stated
that, vocabulary has an important role in the development of reading skill and academic
achievement. The strategy itself showed how important the mastery vocabulary in learning
reading. However, it was also a good sign to realize the existence of vocabulary to help students
in understanding the text. Vocabulary development can facilitate students in their reading because
when they understand the meaning of the word and word in context, it will help them in
comprehending the text because they have some basic knowledge of the text.
The second most used strategy in teaching reading was Reading Aloud with 85.7%
respondents were frequently used and heavily used and 88.5% who stated that it was effective
to be used. As a teaching strategy read-aloud is effective and is also recommended by Razinski &
Padak (2000) cited by Jennifer et all (2012), to be used as a teaching routine in every class to
reinforce reading skills, furthermore such strategy eases learners to become familiar with literacy.
So it can be said that reading aloud facilitates reading because practice pronunciation, improve
oral English, get deeper understanding, strengthen the knowledge, improve the classroom
atmosphere. This strategy gives students an opportunity to hear the instructor model fluency and
expression in reading technical or literary language. Through intonation, expression, and
attention to punctuation, the reader demonstrates meaning embedded in the text.
The third most used strategy in teaching reading comprehension, there was Skimming with
the total amount of 79.9% respondents who frequently used and heavily used Skimming and
82.7% respondents stated that Skimming was effective to be used in teaching reading
comprehension. Skimming is a very good technique in comprehending it because it gives the
reader to predict the purposes of the text as well as identify the gist of the text. The students
must be convinced that keywords are needed as a prediction to answer the question. It is
important because in skimming, a reader have not to read all sentences. Skimming consists of
quickly running one’s eyes across a whole text (such as an essay, article, or chapter) for its
gist. By skimming technique, the students will be able to get the main idea of the text easily. It
supported by Hutabarat & Arifin (2012) who stated that Skimming gives readers the advantage
for being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or message, and possibly
some of the developing or supporting idea.
Then in the fourth most used strategy in teaching reading comprehension was Scanning with
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the total amount of 79.9% respondents who frequently used and heavily used Scanning and 82.7%
respondents stated that Scanning was effective to be used in teaching reading comprehension.
Scanning is a focused search for specific information or it can be said that Scanning is a
technique used by a reader to get relevant information in a text. When scanning, the reader does
not start from the beginning and read to the end. Instead, what the reader does is jump around in
the text, trying to find the information that is needed. Yan Shan (2009) in Oumelkhir & Wafa
(2017) also said that scanning is a helpful technique when students are looking for answer to a
particular question. Scanning involves moving through the passage seeking specific words and
sentences. Based on the explanations above, in scanning, the students read the text in order to get
relevant information without reading the whole text. So this strategy is very useful to apply to get a
specific piece of information or to find the answer of a particular question.
Lastly, the most used strategy in teaching reading comprehension was Summarization with
the total amount of 71.4% respondents who frequently used and heavily used Summarization and
82.8% respondents stated that Summarization was effective in teaching reading comprehension.
Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points
for more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to
determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them. It is a technique
that enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting
and remembering. Cassaza (1993) stated in Nurhayati et all (2018) said that good readers are able
to distinguish the most important ideas in a passage and summarizing them according to an
appropriate organizational pattern. Furthermore she said that teaching students to summarize
increase their comprehension of report text. The students will be creative to summary the text
with their own language and they will be motivated to study and read the material well. It can be
said that summarization technique gives significant effect to the students’ reading comprehension.
It was effective to thestudents’ reading comprehension.
In conclusion, using strategies in teaching reading proves that it will help both the teachers
and the students in teaching and learning activity. As Nunan (1999) in Alfiyanti (2017) said that
success in teaching depends on many factors, one of them is teaching strategies. In teaching
process, it necessary for the teacher make students interested in learning English and make them
enjoy in the middle of teaching learning process. It is the important one that the teacher as
possible makes students good achievement by applying appropriatestrategies.
The Solutions used by Junior High School teachers to overcome the problems in teaching
reading
Dealing with the obstacles in the process of teaching and learning reading, surely the
teacher needs an appropriate solution to be used in order to overcome those problems and achieve
their learning goals. From the results of the survey conducted to the senior high school teachers,
there are some highlighted aspects such improving students’ mastery of vocabulary, imposing
motivation towards students, and implementing various strategies in teaching reading. Mastering
vocabulary is an important issue in reading comprehension. Thornbury (2002) as cited by
Prihasiwi (2011) stated that vocabulary means a large collection of items. He also adds that
learning vocabulary is important because it enriches someone’s knowledge of words. In
reference to the reading comprehension, the students should acquire a number of vocabularies to
get better understanding in reading an English text. Therefore, it is beneficial for English learners
to master vocabulary in reading comprehension. When students did not know the unfamiliar
words in the English text, they cannot understand well what the text tells about. For example, in
the examination students were not allowed to bring dictionary. This condition made them
difficult to find the meanings of the unfamiliar words in the reading text. That is why they have
to improve their vocabulary mastery. The teacher should provide various techniques in order to
improve the students’ reading ability. One of them is implementing of deducing meaning of
unfamiliar words from the context. With their mastery of vocabulary in reading comprehension,
learners will be able to catch the message of the text they read.
Next solution that used by the teachers is imposing motivation toward students. Motivation is
one of the important factors that influence English learning achievement. It supported by Parsons
et all (2001) in Irsanti 2017, defined motivation as an important component or factor in the
learning process. Learning and motivation have the same importance to achieve something.
Learning makes students gain new knowledge and skills and motivation pushes or encourage
students to go through the learning process. Based on the definition above, it can be understood
that motivation is defined as an important energy that every people has to have, because it can be
as a direction to do and achieve something that will change someone’s life to be better than
before. All teacher teach students who have different motivations and characters. They also need
different attention also. Therefore, an English teacher tries to provide motivation by trying as
much as possible to make the process of learning English as pleasant as possible for them because
of the highly motivation in learning, students will achieve the best results in the learning process.
That is why motivation is influential to the learning process. Lastly, the teachers agree that the
use of various strategies in teaching reading can solve the obstacles or problems they face in the
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classroom. Teacher should have effective reading strategy for the students to gain better reading
comprehension. According to Anderson (2008) in Wulandari (2017), to make students become
active and get involved in reading activities, it is needed to teach them using reading strategies
because reading with various strategies creates students to be creative and critical readers. The
teacher needs a strategy to make the students comprehend and catch the idea of the text easily.
CONCLUSION
From the result of this study, the researcher can conclude that the use of strategies in teaching
reading comprehension is crusial. The teachers can perform their teaching activity better and
well-arranged if they apply strategies in their teaching and learning process. Furthermore, the
students can also learn how to improve themselves through the use of appropriate strategies in
the classroom. Secondly, the strategies that commonly used by the senior high school teachers in
Ambon are Cultivate Vocabulary, Reading Aloud, Skimming, scanning, and Summerization. In
addition, they perceive that those five strategies are effective to help them in teaching reading.
However, the teachers also need to find or use another kind of strategies in order to create a
comfort learning environment for the students. Next, most of the teachers admit that in teaching
and learning reading there were problems faced by them which come from the students and
themselves. Lastly the senior high school teachers have a lot of proper solutions to overcome
their problems such as improving students’ mastery of vocabulary, imposing motivation towards
students, and implementing various strategies in teaching reading. More importantly, the more
various strategies to apply, the better results the teachers achieve. It was a great need for teachers
to acknowledge different kinds of strategies in order to facilitate all the students to improve their
English reading skill.
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