The Background of the Research

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Research

English is the most widely used language in world. Besides that, English is also the first foreign language that has been taught in Indonesia in every level of school education - from primary school up to university. English is taught as a local-content subject in primary school, as a compulsory subject in secondary school and as a complementary subject in university. In the Course Outline CO of English curriculum, it is stated that English is considered as the instrument for expressing meanings. Based on the concept and the function of English as stated in that Course Outline, the teaching of English at secondary school aims to develop the language skills. According to the statement above, the government hopes that Indonesian students could master English language. By mastering English, the students can develop their knowledge in every subject and communicate with people from other countries. Therefore, the teacher should be more creative and imaginative to develop students’ ability in English teaching learning. Teaching a foreign language especially English is not as easy as teaching the first language, because the students will certainly face many problems. So, if the teachers or students learn a second or foreign language, they will meet many methods, approaches and techniques of teaching appearing to help teachers and learners in teaching learning process. Teachers always do their best to achieve the learning goal through methods, models, or techniques of language teaching by improving their methods of teaching in every teaching learning process. Up to now, we often hear the disappointment of English teachers because of the students unsatisfying scores in the final exam. Considering the importance of reading skill, the teacher must improve the teaching of reading comprehension. The teacher can use some methods of teaching reading so that the students can enjoy and be stimulated in learning English especially reading comprehension. One of them is by using small group interaction teaching technique. Group may be described in many ways, but there is no single clear- cut definition that adequately and quickly encompasses the concept of small group. In brief, a group may be said to exist when two or more persons have as one quality of their relationship; some interdependence and posses some recognizable unity. 1 Based on the statement above it can be said that group is a number of people when it consists of more than two people interacting with each other, with or without an assigned leader in such a way that each person influences, and is influenced by another person in the group. Practically, group is used by the large numbers of English language teacher in everyday teaching and learning practice. By using group in teaching and 1 Mary A. Bany and Lois V. Johnson, Classroom Group Behavior, New York: The Macmilan Company, 1964, page. 31. learning, the students will be active in learning, especially by using small group interaction; the students will be more interested and more active in learning because it gives students an opportunity to share what they read. The use of small group work is posited to have a number of advantages over individual practice. The main benefit of small group work seems to lie in the co-operative aspects it can help foster. One advantage of this lies in the contribution this method can make to the development of pupils’ social skills. Working with other pupils may help them to develop their emphatic abilities by allowing them to see others’ viewpoints which can help them to realize that everyone has strength and weaknesses. Trying to find a solution to a problem in a group also develops skill especially in learning reading comprehension. 2 As a skill, reading is clearly one of the most important skills in learning English, it can be seen that many instances around the world argue that reading is the most important foreign language skill, particularly in cases where students have to read English material for their own specialist subject, but may never actually have to speak the language. Much of the current thinking on reading tends to focus primarily on the purpose of the activity; even if reading is done for pleasure it is still purposed. 3 The writer is the English teacher at Sunan Bonang Islamic education institute. She teaches at second until fifth grade of Elementary school. In order to get some information about English teaching and learning process at Sunan Bonang Junior High School, in one occasion the writer asked the English teacher at Sunan Bonang Junior High School about the English teaching learning process, and tried to join the class for observing the teaching method of the English teacher at seven grade of 2 Daniel Muijs and David Reynolds, Effective Teaching Evidence and Practice London: SAGE Publication, 2005 page. 52 3 Jo McDonough and Christopher Shaw, Materials and Methods In ELT a Teacher’s Guide Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993, page 101. Sunan Bonang Junior High School. The writer found that the way of English teacher in teaching reading comprehension is used the whole class teaching. It is caused the decreasing of student’s interest in learning English and the student’s low score in learning reading skill. Knowing problems in teaching reading skill, the writer is interested in using a small group interaction in teaching reading comprehension. On the title: “The Effectiveness of Using Small Group Interaction in Teaching Reading Comprehension”. The writer believes that small group interaction serves more habit forming than the Grammar Translation Method.

B. The Limitation and Formulation of the Problem