92
ENCOURAGING QUESTIONING IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF MAN MODEL
MANADO Sri Suharti
I. INTRODUCTION
Reading is an activity with purpose. It is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The purpose of reading is
to connect the ideas on the page to what we already know. The purpose of reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. Moreover, teaching
reading will not be successfully if the students can only reads words, without understanding the message being read. In other words, what ever we read, it should be
understood. Smith and Robinson 1980 argue that “Comprehension means understanding”. This means that reading comprehension is a process of thought where
the readers understand the writer’s ideas and interpret them into his or her own needs. And it is generally accepted that the major goal for any reading activity is
comprehension. Comprehension is the essence of reading. The writer creates a text to communicate a message; the reader’s task is to comprehend that message Anderson et
all ; 1969 ; Robinson 1975 ; Harmer 1983 ; Suhor 1988. This goal is in line with the objective of teaching reading in high school. However, the changing of national
curriculum doesn’t describe that it will also change the teachers’ views on how to improve the teaching style of English in general, specifically in reading. It seems that
the teaching of reading mostly doesn’t give opportunities to students to involve in the activities since the teachers usually only ask the students to translate and do text based
questions. In other words, students are rarely trained to arouse interest and curiosity concerning to the topic which is being read. Whereas the curiosity of the students to the
topic discussed can be aroused in simple ways, it is questioning.
Questioning is a critical strategy that helps readers make meaning of literature by
promoting critical
thinking about
what is
being read
http:www.literacymatters.orgcontentreadandwritequestion.htm. Questioning
occurs as a natural part of the classroom routine as teachers encourage students to pose, discuss, and answer questions. Questions can be generated by the reader, a peer, the
teacher, or curriculum developers. Any one of these kinds of questions can be answered by the student individually, after discussion with others, or in collaboration with peer.
“Almost everywhere children are schooled to become at answering questions and to remain novices at asking” Dillon cited by Van Der Meij, 1993. Why is that so? Do
students and lack the necessary skills? Do schools not stimulate questioning enough? The answer is probably that both skills and conditions are important.
Reece, Ian and Walker, Stephen argues “Communication is a two way process, where you want to communicate to your students and you want your students to
communicate with you. Question and answer is a good way to develop this interaction style of communication”. Moreover, to be successful, independent learners need to be
able to ask interesting questions. Wonder gives birth to creativity. Based on the quotation above, it can be concluded that question and answer is important to do in
communication although it is stimulated through reading texts.
93 Interest and motivation are expressed through questions. New knowledge is built
by means of questioning. Yet most students in most traditional content classrooms ask very few lesson-related questions. In teachers’ perception, this fact is caused by the
students lack interest and motivation. For the most part, however, lack of interest and motivation is only a secondary symptom. The primary cause of apathy, in most cases, is
that students simply do not know how to ask questions in the classroom environment, which can be layered with subtle inhibitions, to questioning. Seeing the low ability of
students in questioning, a good teacher should create strategies which can courage students to arise questions by learning from various texts in reading activities. Derived
from the text given, it is hoped students can be stimulated to ask questions individually, in pairs, groups, even to do questions and answers with teachers. The teaching of
learning process will become learners-centered. It is in line with the concept of comprehension that students will be courage to search out importations from text by
formulating questions by themselves and then become discussion. Regarding to the problems above, the writer wants to conduct a research entitled “Encouraging
Questioning in Reading Activities for the second year students of MAN Model Manado” to better the students’ ability in reading. It is assumed that this strategy can
develop students’ reading ability, especially their comprehension.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. Is questioning strategy effective in teaching reading comprehension? 2. What are students’ attitudes towards the application of questioning strategy?
II. DISCUSSION
