Background of the Study

author extends. Third, they tended to be lazy to answer the question individually, so they decided to cheat to their friend. Fourth, the researcher found that the teaching learning process was less interesting, so the students were noisy in class. Finally, there is prominent gap that occurred among students with higher level and student with average and lower level. Student with higher performances tend to be dominated and active during teaching and learning process. In contrast, students with average and lower performance tend to be passive and silent in teaching learning process. In summary, there could be an underlined problem. There is the fact that students‘ reading achievement is low due to the low of teaching strategy. However, reading has an important role for success in study. Considering the facts above, there is an urgent need to implement a strategy or technique that can help solve these problems and involve the teachers and students so that the teacher are not too dominant in the class and students can be involved in cooperative and interesting activities. By engaging students in interesting and cooperative activities, they will likely be more interested and motivated in reading. Then, the students in which consider as a high performance can share and teach other students who is categorized as an average and lower performance. There are many alternative strategies to engage students in reading activities. One of which is Students Team Achievement Division STAD technique from the cooperative learning strategy, that make student active in class with use of small group to increase their own and each other‘s ability in learning. This strategy can help the student to solve the problem in reading comprehension and overcome boredom in reading class activities. STAD technique is one of a set of instructional techniques developed and researched by Slavin at Johns Hopkins University. Slavin stated in his book, ―Two of the oldest and most extensively researched forms of cooperative learning are Students Teams Achievement Division and Team-Games- Tournament.‖ 5 It also very adaptable, it has been used in mathematics, science, social studies, English, 5 Robert E. Slavin, Cooperative Learning Theory, Reasearch, and Practice, Second Edition , Massachusetts: Allyn and Bacon, 1990, p. 71. industrial arts, and many other subjects, and at levels from second grade to college. STAD technique is based on the idea of having students work in cooperative learning teams to learn academic objectives. However, this technique emphasizes the use of team goals and team success, which can only be achieved if all members of the team learn the objectives being taught. In other word, in Students Team Learning, the students task are not to do something as a team, but to learn something as a team, where the team‘s work is not done until all team members have mastered the material being studied. Based on the explanation above, it can be interpreted that by using STAD technique, students can learn effectively within their group. The teacher can manage the time efficiently in explaining the material, since they will discuss the material deeper in their group. Moreover, the high level students will facilitate and help others in understanding the material. In line with the statement above, this research is important to be continued under the title ―Applying Student Team Achievement Division STAD T echnique to Improve Students‘ Reading Comprehension in Discussion Text‖ A Classroom Action Research in Third Year Students of SMA Fatahillah Jakarta.

B. Identification Of The Problem

Based on the background of the study above, there are several problems that can be identified in this research: 1. Student still have difficulty in comprehending the text because most students have limited vocabularies. 2. Students could not draw a conclusion of what the author extends because they just have the ability to recognize the word not the whole sentence. 3. Students less interest in learning English because the teacher did not apply any kind of strategies and techniques. 4. Students with higher score tend to be dominant in the class. 5. Students are lazy to do the assessment individually because they do not understand the material.

C. Limitation of The Problem

To avoid misunderstanding and to clarify the problem, it is important to limit the problem. In this research, the researcher only focuses on students‘ still have difficulty in comprehending text. The researcher intends to know whether Student Teams Achievement Division STAD technique can help student comprehend discussion text.

D. Formulation of the Problem

Based on the limitation of the problem, the problem of the study is formulated as follow: ―How does the researcher improve the students‘ reading comprehension in discussion text of the third grade students at SMA Fatahillah Jakarta through Student Teams Achievement Division STAD technique?‖

E. The Objective of the Study

Based on the formulation above, the objective of the study is to improve students‘ reading comprehension of discussion text for the third grade students of SMA Fatahillah, Jakarta.

F. Significance of the Study

The result of the study is expected can give useful information for English teachers at SMA Fatahillah in fostering students‘ reading comprehension. Moreover, the result of the study will introduce a new activity that can be practiced by the student to improve their reading comprehension especially in discussion text. More importantly, teacher can facilitate student with technique that can involve them actively in learning reading, so they will be interested in experiencing reading and hopefully their reading comprehension will increase significantly. And the findings of this study can be used by other researcher as consideration for further study. 6

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This chapter covers some theories related to the Research. The discussion focuses on the reading, discussion text, cooperative learning, and Students Team Achievement Division Technique.

A. Reading

1. The Definition of Reading

Reading is a common thing in our life. In every subject of learning activities consist of reading since the lesson in the content subjects need the use of textbook, reference book and related library writing. Even in hand-writing of the teacher on the blackboard also require to be read by the students. In conclusion reading is truly a basic means of learning in all subjects. Furthermore, there are a lot of definitions of reading. Linguists give definition about reading, their opinions about reading vary. Some of them say reading is the process to get, to understand, to catch the content of the reading. And also reading is a process to understand a written text which means extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible. The definition comes from Francoise Grellet wh o said that ―Reading is a constant process of guessing, and what one brings to the text is often more important than what one finds in it .‖ 1 It is supported by Guy L. Bond that ―Reading is the process of requiring an author‘s meaning of interpreting, evaluating and effecting upon those meaning‖. 2 Reading is to get meaning defined by Guy L. Bond, also said by Mary Finocchiaro that ―Reading is bringing meaning to and getting meaning from printed or written material‖. 3 From all that definitions can be summed up that 1 Francoise Grellet, Developing Reading Skills, Cambridge: University Press, 2010, p. 7. 2 Guy L. Bond and Eva Wagner, Teaching Child to Read, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1969, p. 4. 3 Mary Finocchiaro and Micheal Bonomo, The Foreign Language Learner: A Guide for Teacher, New York: Tegent Publishing Company Inc., 1973, p. 119.