Difficulties in Listening Theory of Listening

19 listeners do not come to class without any information. In fact, the listeners will actively build their own understanding on what they listen to by relating it with their existing knowledge. In top down processing, the teacher, as the facilitator of learning in the classroom, may help the students to prepare or to construct their prior knowledge on what is going to be learned. In preparing the students, reading activity can be a way to help students construct prior knowledge which is important for listening comprehension in the classroom.

3. Theory of Reading

Reading is very significant in life. Through reading, someone can be rich of important information. A piece of reading text can make someone know more. In other words, by reading, people will gain more knowledge. Reading is one of the ways to broaden knowledge. Besides, according to Raygor and Raygor 1985: 3, reading is also a great source of entertainment for many people. Therefore, it implies that reading is very useful to give the readers new information and also to entertain them. As a comprehension skill, reading is divided into two main types. The first type is extensive reading and the second one is intensive reading. The division of these two types is based on the quality and also quantity of information that students gain. Extensive reading emphasizes the amount of information that is gained from as many sources or texts as possible. 20 Additionally, intensive reading tends to put attention on the high quality of comprehension from small number of sources or texts. 1. Extensive Reading Extensive reading covers a large area. Extensive reading involves the students to read long texts or large quantities for general understanding, with the intention of enjoying the texts Stanley, 2005:1. In addition, this type of reading can encourage the students to acquaint various types of texts. The use of more than one text or sources will enrich the students’ knowledge. However, Paulston and Bruder 1976: 199 note down problems found in extensive reading. The problems concern with the selection of reading materials or texts and how to make students read the texts. 2. Intensive Reading Different from extensive reading, which uses as many sources as possible to gain knowledge, the intensive reading, on the other hand, emphasizes more on the depth of information from a single or few texts. Intensive reading focuses on the detailed information from a single or a few texts. Intensive reading will train the students to read carefully in order to understand the text well. The use of single text may cause the depth of understanding that leads to the better understanding of the text. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 21

a. Text Selection

Reading activity can be very useful in the learning processes in the school. McKim 1958: 15 states that “reading is important aspect of living in school”. It implies that printed sources, which are used in the reading activity, are very familiar to the students as they often learn using text books. Nevertheless, in using reading texts to support the learning in schools, the teacher should pay attention to the text selection, that is how the teacher chooses the text suitable for learning purposes, and the teacher should know the type of the text to be used in order to understand the function of each type of text. In preparing the reading texts for the students, the teacher needs to be very selective. There are several things to be considered in preparing the reading texts in teaching learning process. Duffy 1985: 147 points out three important aspects to be measured in preparing usable texts for teaching. The aspects are as follows: 1. Audience Audience means the reader of the text. Duffy 1985: 147 states that audience of a text can be different. He implicitly says that a text may be very useful for a group of audience, but not for others. However, a usable text should be written by considering the readers so that the message can be understood by the readers well. Teachers should consider the readers’ cultural background, linguistics competence, and also interest. Otherwise, the message of a text will not be grasped by its readers.