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the students’ responses and the impact of the actions. During the implementation, the English teacher, the collaborator, and I observed the condition of the teaching and
learning process. It was done to know the students’ responses and the impact of the actions. The actions were conducted in two cycles for two meetings in each cycle. In
the last stage, reflections were done on each meeting and each cycle. They were conducted to evaluate the actions and to solve the other problems during the actions.
Reflections were needed to find out the problem that might came up during the teaching and learning process and also to avoid the same mistake happened in the
following meeting.
1. Identification of the Field Problems
The identification of the field problems was done after conducting observation and interviewing both English teacher and some students of class VII-C of SMPN 1
Jogonalan for one a half hours on Friday November 1
st
2013. The situational condition of the teaching and learning process was described in the following field
note observation below. Mrs. E entered the class of VII-C and greeted the students. Then she asked the
chief of the class to lead the morning prayers. After the prayer, Mrs. E checked the attendance list that day. Then, she introduced P who already sat on the last
row and ready to observe the teaching and learning process on that day. After
that, Mrs. E started the lesson by checking the students’ last homework, which was description text. Then Mrs. E discussed the difficult words the students may
found in the text and discussed the content of the text. She also discussed the answers related to the questions from the text, one by one. She used both Bahasa
Indonesia and English to ease the students understand the discussion. After the discussion finished, Mrs. E asked whether there was any question from the
students or not. No one asked, and Mrs. E finished the lesson by greeting the students. Field note 1, Friday, November, 1
st
, 2013
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After conducting observations in the class, I interviewed some students and then had a discussion with the English teacher. Based on the observations, interviews
and discussion, the English teacher and I identified some problems that occurred in the English teaching and learning process. The field problems arising during the
teaching and learning process could be seen in the list table below:
Table 1: The Problems Related to the Process of Teaching Reading No.
Problems Code
1. 2.
3. 4.
5. 6.
7. 8.
9. 10.
Most of the students were passive in the reading activity Most of the students had low motivation in reading
Some students found difficulties to comprehend the text Some students did not pay attention to the lesson
Some students encountered difficulties in understanding the meaning of some difficult words.
The English teacher could not control the students well when some students made noise.
The English teacher did not use innovative technique in reading class There was low interaction among students and the English teacher
The class was teacher-centered Teaching reading mainly focused on translating and testing
S S
S S
S T
T M
M M
S = Students T = Teacher
M = Method
Having formulated the problems above, I had a discussion with the English teacher. They discussed the problems in VII-C class that might be solved. By
considering the problems found above, the English teacher and I decided to solve the problems in the teaching and learning process of reading. Those problems were as
follows:
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a. Most of the students were passive in the reading activity.
b. Some students found difficulties to comprehend the text.
c. The English teacher did not use innovative technique in reading class.
d. The class was teacher-centered.
2. Determining the actions to solve the problems
After the English teacher and I identified the most important problems that needed to solve, we discussed again the point of those problems. After discussing, we
agreed that those problems were related to the reading activity. Then we tried to look for the appropriate technique
to improve the students’ reading skill through PALS technique. I limited the found problem into the table below.
Table 2: The Urgent Problems Related to the Process of Teaching Reading. No.
Problems
1. 2.
3. 4.
5. 6.
Most of the students were passive in the reading activity. Most of the students had low motivation in reading.
Some students found difficulties to comprehend the text. There was low interaction between the students and the English teacher.
The class was teacher-centered. The teacher did not use innovative technique in reading class.
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B. Implementation of Cycle 1
1. Planning
The collaborator and I planned some actions as the efforts to overcome the problems according to the problems identified above. The efforts were focused on
improving students’ reading skills by implementing PALS. The efforts were described below:
a. I planned to make lesson plans. The material was about descriptive texts.
b. I planned to give an example of a descriptive text, and then explain about the
descriptive text, and the generic structure used in a descriptive text. c.
The researcher planned to teach the students how to comprehend the descriptive text in an effective way by introducing PALS technique.
d. I planned to make the students understand the descriptive texts by practicing the
use of PALS technique in comprehending of some texts given to them. e.
I planned to ask the students first to do “tutor and tutee” role-play and then discussed the content of the text.
f. I planned to ask the students to answer questions, after that the students and I
discussed the answers together.
2. Actions and Observations
There were 2 meetings in Cycle 1 that was held on Tuesday, November 19
th
and Friday, November 22
nd
, 2013. The actions focused on implementing PALS technique to improve students’ reading skill. While the English teacher and the
