Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Language is a part of human being. It is not able to be separated from daily life because by using language people can express their idea, feeling, and willingness. Nowadays the ability to communicate in English is an important skill for Indonesian. In the last few years, communication among nations has rapidly increased automatically English becomes a basic tool to make relationship with other countries. English has four language skills listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading is the important skills which must be learned and mastered by everyone. By reading, one can relax, interact with feelings and thoughts, obtain information and improve the science knowledge. Although it is said that reading is the important language skill, but particularly in cases students are reluctant to read English. In fact they read English but they do not particularly pay attention to difficult words and structures but just skip over expressions. They cannot understand or they are afraid to grapple with. There are so many different reasons for reading and that we read in different ways for different purposes Nuttall, 2000: 2. These different purposes are generalized into the following two main categories; we read for pleasure and for information in order to find out something or in order to do semething with the information Grettel, 2001: 4. Specificallly, they are to get information, to respond to curiosity about a topic, to follow instructions to perform a task, for pleasure, amusement, and personal enjoyment, to keep in touch with friends and colleageues, to know what is happening in the world, and to find out when things are Hedge, 2000: 195 At Senior High School Muhammadiyah 1 Ponorogo, English is taught 4 credit- hours a week with allocation 45 minutes each. Based on students’ English classroom observation, the students in majority found that they are difficult to understand the texts given by the teacher although they have learned English since Junior High Schools. Factually the ability to read is very important in supporting students’ daily life and to make their life better. Reading is important for the students because the success of their study depends on their ability to read. If their reading skill is poor, they are likely commit to user 2 to fail in their study or at least it will be difficult to progress. On the other hand, if they have a good ability in reading, they will have a better chance to succeed in their study. The way of reading which usually can be done by the student is to read from the first page to last pages. If it is necessary they did it several times. Reading with such strategy is not appropriate and make the students do not progress in their learning. The sample effect is they can pass the exam, but they tend to gain unsatisfying achievement. Because of that reason, the researcher should use another more effective reading strategies, it is Collaborative Strategic Reading CSR The purpose of this research was to identify the methods used and describe how the method is used by the teacher in teaching reading in order to make the students active, interested in the topic, and develop the topic discussed. Collaborative Strategic Reading CSR is one of collaborative approaches in teaching English. In this approach students are taught reading comprehension strategies while working collaboratively Muijs Reynolds 2008:322. Students used this strategy to preview a text before they read it to distinguish between what they do and do not understand as they read and to review after they have read Klinger Vaughn, 1998 in Kinberg, 2007: 146. It combines instruction in comprehension strategies and study skills with collaborative peer practice. Students learn four strategies through a Preview i.e. previewing and predicting b Click and Clunk i.e. monitoring for understanding and vocabulary knowledge, c Get the Gist i.e. understanding the main idea, d Wrap Up i.e. self-questioning for understanding. The goal of Collaborative Strategic Reading was to help students learn to monitor their own comprehension Klinger Vaughn, 1998 in Kinberg, 2007: 146. The goals of CSR are to improve reading comprehension and increase conceptual learning in ways that maximize students’ involvement Vaughn, S Klinger, J. K, 2011. Many teachers still use Direct Instruction method to teach reading. Duran, et al. 2003: 3 state that Direct instruction is a method by which students are taught face to face in small or large group utilizing systematic and explicit instruction. In this method, the activity is teacher-centered and the students have lack of opportunities to express their own idea in the class. They just become the followers and depend on the teacher during learning process. Usually, the teacher asks the students to read the text, asks the difficult words, and then asks the students to translate the text. commit to user 3 The other thing that can influence the student’s reading skill comes from other factor besides the teaching method. It is the students’s self-esteem. Watts 2004: 8 states that self-esteem is how we think and feel about ourselves. It refers to how we think about the way we look, our abilities, our relationships with others, and our hopes for the future. Self-esteem is the confidence we have on ourselves. Centeno. Kat, 2010 In a learning environment, it provides a platform for a learner to develop the skills to achieve success in life. A high self-esteem in children will carry them through as they grow up. Children with such characteristic are confident, positive, independent and happy. When they feel good about themselves, learning new skills is easy and harmonious. This characteristic is not taught. Rather, it is built up through school activities that will help nurture it. Self-esteem is considered as one of the important affective factors because success or failure of a person depends mostly on the degree of one’s self-esteem. Self-esteem plays the important role in reading skill. Students with high self- esteem are likely less to feel embarrassed or afraid when they read text. Meanwhile students with low self-esteem tend to be afraid doing it. Based on the background of the above problems, the researcher intends to conduct a research on “The Effectiveness of Collaborative Strategic Reading CSR compared with Direct Instruction Method to teach reading viewed from students’ self- esteem An Experimental Study at the Second Grade Students of SMA Muhammadiyah 1 Ponorogo in the Academic Year of 20112012.

B. Problem Identification