15 One day, the Prince was riding through the forest looking for Snow White
and found her. He leaned over and kissed her. She opened her eyes and sat up with a smile. Everyone was happy. The Prince took Snow White to his palace
where they were married and lived happily ever after.
Taken from English in Focus, 20008:60
2.3 The Teaching of Reading Comprehension at MTs N Arjasa.
Based on the classroom observation done by the researcher when she conducted teaching practice in MTs N Arjasa, the implementation of teaching
reading comprehension is the following. The teacher reads the text loudly in front of the class. After that, the teacher asks the students to repeat after him. Then, the
students read the text loudly together per row. The last, the teacher asks the students randomly to read paragraph per paragraph. Next, the teacher asks the
students whether there are some unfamiliar words or not. When the students have a problem in understanding some words, the teacher does not guide them to
understand the word based on the context. In fact, he directly helps them by translating the meaning of the unfamiliar words into Indonesian language. After
that, to check the students’ comprehension, the teacher delivers some questions orally related to the text. If the students have known about it, the teacher asks
them to do the written exercises. There is no English book that is used in MTs N Arjasa. Mostly, the teacher writes the materials on the black board, but sometimes
she gives printed materials to the students in English class.
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2.4 Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is one of the teaching techniques that can be used in teaching learning process. Cooper 1999:272 defines that cooperative learning is
an instructional task design that engages students actively in achieving a lesson objective through their own efforts and the efforts of the members of their small
learning team. Cooperative learning is small group activities that consist of three or four
students that work together to achieve the same goal Orlich et. al, 1998:287. The purpose of this teaching technique is the students are able to socialize within the
group, and they have to share their ideas and discuss the problems from the teacher. It means that this technique does not allow the member of the groups
work individually, but they have to work cooperatively and maintain a good relationship while doing the small group discussion. By applying this technique in
teaching learning process, the students will learn how to share their opinion in team work, and they will understand how to build a good relationship in achieving
the same goal together with their groups. According to Johnson and Johnson in Orlich et. al 1992:227, there are
five basic fundamental principles of Cooperative Learning which are related to each other. They are as follows.
1. Positive Interdependence
Positive interdependence means the success of a team depends on the individual success within the group. In this technique, there is no competition
between the members of each group. So, all of the members should work together in answering the questions. Each group should prepare and make sure
that all of the members understand the materials, because nobody knows who will be called by teacher to answer the questions.
2. Face –to – Face Interaction
In this principle, the students could discuss and share their opinion directly in doing the task with their teams. This means, each member will create the face
to face interaction with their teams. It can be said that all of the members should be confidence and give their participation in doing interaction within the group.
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3. Individual and Group Accountability
Every member should give an active contribution to the group in which every member should think and share hisher ideas. It means that this principle
invites the students to built solid cooperation to achieve the same goal. The group’ successful depends on the member’ successful. Therefore, every member
should be serious and active in doing the group work.
4. Interpersonal and Small Group Skills
Cooperative learning is more complex than individualistic learning. In this case, the students have to share with others as a team work. Leadership, decision
making, trust building, and communication are needed by the students while doing the task. The students also have to learn about conflict management skills
to manage the problems in team-work and task - work optimally.
5. Group Processing
Group processing is a process which is done after the students finished their group activity. In this case, the students should be able to analyze how well
they do the task given and how far they can maintain their social skills. In this process, the students have to discuss who are helpful and unhelpful, and they
need to understand what behaviors should be continued or changed. Cooperative Learning has some models that can be used in teaching
learning process. Kagan 2010 states there are five examples of Cooperative Learning activities. They are Three- Step Interview, Roundtable, Think-Pair-
Share TPS, Solve- Pair- Share, and Numbered Heads Together NHT. This research will use Numbered Heads Together NHT Technique as a
model to teach reading skill. The researcher will use this technique because this is a fun and interesting way in teaching reading that motivate the students to
work in group, and it decreases the students’ boredom in learning English. By applying Numbered Heads Together NHT Technique, it will be easier for the
students in comprehending a text because they can ask, discuss, and share their ideas together with their team. Besides, the students will be enthusiastic in
answering the comprehension questions in order to get the point and become the winner of the competition.
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2.5 Numbered Heads Together NHT Technique
