Research and Information Collecting

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CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The main point of this chapter is answering the research problems which are stated in Chapter 1. Therefore, this chapter is divided into two parts. The first part explains the process of designing the reading blog while the second part presents the designed reading blog.

A. The Reading Blog Development

This part answer the first research problem: How is the reading blog for SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta grade X students designed? As it has been discussed in Chapter 3, this study employed Research and Development RD method proposed by Borg and Gall to develop the reading blog. The details of each step are as follows.

1. Research and Information Collecting

The first step of this method is research and information collecting. The writer collected information from literature reviews and questionnaires distributed to the respondents. By conducting literature review, the writer collected theories of instructional design models, the nature of reading and its teaching methods, the description of School Based Curriculum Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan or KTSP, and also the nature of blog. These theories were important because they were the basic foundation of the reading blog development as it was explained in the Theoretical Framework in Chapter 2. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 42 In order to complete the information, the writer distributed questionnaires to the research respondents in group one and two. Group one consisted of one hundred tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta, who were randomly chosen and group two consisted of three English Language teachers of SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta. The questionnaires were distributed in SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta from August 18, 2010 until August 24, 2010. a. The Results of Group One’s Questionnaires The results of group one questionnaire showed the students’ background knowledge of reading in English, their interest and habit in reading English passages and in using internet or blog. From Part I of the questionnaire, it was revealed that more than half of the respondents 66 were not really interested in English reading and 63 stated that their English reading skills were just adequate. Concerning the English reading lesson at school, 64 stated that it was not really interesting and only 34 in total stated it was interesting. There were some factors which made English reading was difficult for the respondents; the factors included vocabulary 49, English grammar 25, and the passage’s length 18. From these data, it could be seen that most respondents were not interested in English reading. They believed that their English reading skills were not good enough and the English reading lesson at school was not interesting enough for them. Secondly, they had problems which affected the reading comprehension including vocabulary and grammar. Ten percents of the respondents stated that they often read English passages outside the English lesson at school, while 61 chose “sometime”, 25 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 43 chose “seldom”, and four percent 4 chose “never.” The respondents read English passages in forms of magazines 30, internet articles 25, novels 20, newspapers 7, and the others were song lyrics, comics, and various books 4. Most respondents chose Music 23.1 and Entertainment 22.2 as the most interesting topics for English reading. The other topics were Sport 12.9, Lifestyle 8.9, Nature 6.7, Culture 5.7, Animals and Plantations 5.3, Biography 4, Science and Technology 3.1, Education 2.7, Health 1.8, Politics 1.8, Humanism 0.9, and Photography 0.9. This first part of the questionnaire also showed how frequent the respondents accessed the internet in a week. Twenty two percents 22 accessed the internet less than twice a week, 33 accessed twice to five times in a week, 23 accessed five to ten times in a week, and nine percent 9 accessed more than 15 times in a week. From all respondents, half of them were familiar with blog while the other half were not. The second part of the questionnaire, which focused on respondents’ reading skills and interest, showed that most respondents had the basic ability in reading such as predicting, skimming, and scanning. More than half of the respondents 57 stated that they predicted the content of a passage from its title. Sixty two percents 62 of the respondents agreed that they read a passage thoroughly before they read it in details. Even though the first part of the questionnaire showed that most respondents were not interested both in English reading lesson and English PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 44 reading activity itself, the second part of this questionnaire showed the contrary. Fifty four percents 54 agreed that they looked for the Indonesian meanings of difficult words they found in a passage and 64 tried to look for the pronunciations. To the statements related to the respondents’ familiarity with blog, only 24 chose “Agree” and 7 chose “Strongly agree” that they understand how to use blog properly. However, 50 agreed and 15 strongly agreed that they read blog to find information in the internet. b. The Result of Group Two’s Questionnaires The results of group two’s questionnaires revealed the tenth grade students’ ability and interest in reading activities of English lesson from the teachers’ point of view, and also the role of internet in the learning process. In the first part of the questionnaires, it was stated that the students showed interest in English lesson’s reading activities. Even so, two respondents stated that the students’ reading skill was adequate, and one stated it was good. The respondents referred to some sources in English reading lesson including compulsory books, newspaper, magazines, internet, and movies. The questions in the second part of the questionnaire focused on the reading teaching and learning activities done by the respondents and the possibility of using internet as media in English reading lesson. All respondents stated that they used collaborative and active learning in English reading lesson. Mostly, the students would work in a group and do exercise or discuss the text in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 45 their own groups. The students were expected to be more active in the learning activities. The students were motivated when they were to do various activities, such as searching English text in the internet, or from newspaper and magazines. They were also motivated to participate more in the teaching-learning activities when they were given score for their participation. Therefore, using internet was effective because internet could be a useful source in learning English reading skill. Also, because internet minimized boredom in the learning activities, students were more motivated to be involved. All respondents agreed that using internet is effective to support the learning activities in the way that internet provide materials and would expand the students knowledge. However, the application in the learning process should be managed so that it would be more effective. From the results of the Research and Information Collecting questionnaires, the writer concluded several points in considerations to design the reading blog. a. Even though the teachers stated that the students had interest in English reading activity, most of the students stated they were not really interested in it. b. Based on the opinions of the students and teachers, the students’ reading skill was adequate. The students faced difficulties when having longer English text with uncommon vocabularies. However they understood the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 46 basic strategies of reading. This point was taken into the writer’s consideration in deciding the difficulty level of the texts. c. Students had difficulties in vocabulary and grammar mastery. Therefore, vocabulary and grammar exercises would be included in the reading blog. d. Most students rarely read English texts outside the English lesson at school. This fact showed that the students should be motivated to read more outside the English lesson at school. e. Using internet as a medium for reading activity was suitable for the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta. This was shown from the fact that most students accessed the internet at least twice in a week. The teachers also stated that the students were more motivated when they had to work using the internet. f. The students should be more motivated by various activities in English reading lesson. g. Only half of the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI 2 Yogyakarta were familiar with blog. Therefore, the writer decided to use popular blog domain and provided clean and simple blog layout to enable the students read the blog comfortably.

2. Planning