The Background of Study
Reading and writing activities can be easily coordinated. The answering of question and the writing of resumes are obvious example
of written work. Reading selection can be used for oral practice in several ways. Sentences from the reading that contain difficult
grammatical patterns may become model for rapid patterns drills with the teacher giving the cues.
2
Reading enables the students to understand the messages presented in written form. They read because they want to get something from the writing;
facts, ideas, enjoyment, even feelings of family from letter. They read to obtain the information for some purpose. For example,
when the students read the instructions on a ticket machine, they need to know how to operate it, when the students read the road sign so that they know where
to go. Meanwhile, the students have some problems when they read, sometimes they get difficulty to understand the meaning of a sentence and they become
more confused to read a long paragraph. So, they felt reading is a boring subject.
Jeremy Harmer, in his book How to teach English, states “six
principles behind the teaching of reading”, they are ; 1. Reading is not a passive skill.
2. Student need to be engaged with what they are reading. 3. Student should be encouraged to respond to the content of reading
text, not just to the language. 4. Prediction is a major factor in reading.
5. Match the task to the topic. 6. Good teachers exploit reading texts to the full.
3
School is one of places where pupils, or in common term as above called student, learn language. The process of teaching and learning, the
interaction between teachers and students, happens in the school. But there are a number of problems that teachers might face in the process of teaching and
2 Edward David Allen and Rebecca M. Valette, Classroom Techniques; Foreign Language and English as a Second Language,New York; Harcourt Bracce Jovanovich, Inc,
1979, p.267 3 Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach English , Cambridge: Longman, 1998, p.70
learning reading. One of the problems that teachers encounter is to choose the appropriate methodology in teaching language. Brown states:
Language teachers have long been faced with a plethora of ‘methods’ from which to choose. Each ‘method’ has tended to claim for itself authority
concerning what students need to learn, the best way to match students’
learning styles, or in some cases the truth about how to present or practice language.
4
As we knows there are many teachers still use explanatory method, they just explain the materials and the students just listen what he said. The
result that the students are bo ring, they didn’t enjoy learning and their
achievements become reduce. They need some activity which can make them fun with the reading learning process, so they can get achieve the main
objective of the learning process. One of the activity is discussion. Discussion is the common types of communication activity. The good
characteristics of discussion is the exchange information of each other. It is useful for the students to express their ideas without fear and embarrassment.
In these activities, the students must work together to develop a plan, resolve the problem or complete the task.
Meanwhile Eugene E. Wright states, Discussion is the systematic, objective sharing and evaluating of ideas and information by two or more
persons for the purpose of investigating and solving a problem.
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The smaller the group of discussion the more alive and effective the discussion would be. Because it make each person easier to express the idea.
Every person have more role on the group to be active in the discussion, to help their friends to finish the task.
4 James Dean Brown, The Elements of Language Curriculum, A Systematic Approach to Program Development, Boston: Heinle Heinle Publishers, 1995, p.1.
5
White E. Eugene, Practical Speech English Fundamentals,New York, McMillan Company, 1960 p.425
Based on the background above, the writer would like to make research on SMP Negeri 18 Tangerang, about The effectiveness of small
group discussion in teaching reading comprehension. The writer choose SMP Negeri 18 Tangerang because when the writer
came to the school to observe to fulfill the assignment from his lecture, the writer found the teacher just use an explanatory method in every time schedule
subject. Students just listen to the teacher explanation and then they do some matters given by the teacher until he give a score for them and so on, it seems
boredom for them. The writer make a conclusion that they need a variation in teaching
learning English process, in order to give a good impression to the student about English subject and to make a teaching learning process more alive for
them, then finally teacher will reach the purpose of the teaching English.