the text. Finally, using intensive reading, teachers can help students develop their reading fluency.
c. Teaching Reading Comprehension in Junior High Schools
English is one of compulsory subjects taught in Junior High Schools in Indonesia. The major aims of English instructions for students of Junior High
Schools in Indonesia are as follows: 1 to develop communicative competences both written and oral ones in order to
achieve the functional literacy level; 2 to have awareness about the nature and the importance of English in order to
increase the national competitive ability in the global community; and 3 to
develop students’ understanding about the relationship between language and culture.
English instructions in Junior High Schools in Indonesia are developed in accordance with KTSP School-Level Curriculum and it has each school develop
their own plans and arrangements concerning purposes, content and materials as well as processes to realize the purposes of English teaching-learning activities.
According to Government Regulation Number 19 Year 2005 on National Education Standards and Act of the Republic of Indonesia Number 20 Year 2003
on National Education System, KTSP curriculum development in elementary and high schools shall be developed by each school in accordance with Content
Standards SI and Graduate Competence Standards SKL and refers to the guidelines set by BSNP the Board of National Education Standards. SI is then
specifically stated through Standards of Competence SK and Basic Competence KD in the attempt to realize SKL, especially in Junior High Schools that is to
have students achieve the functional level of literacy, i.e. they are able to communicate both orally and in written to solve daily problems. This
communicative competence is then defined as the ability to comprehend produce written oral texts realized within the four language skills, namely listening,
speaking, reading and writing. English materials therefore are delivered in the form of text-types.
In response to the four skills of English, these SK and KD comprise each skill. Table 1 below presents SK and KD of reading skill for the eleventh grade
students of junior high schools in the first semester.
Table 1: SK and KD of the Reading Skill for Grade VIII of JHSs in the First Semester
Standard of Competence SK
Basic Competence KD Membaca
5. Memahami makna teks
tulis fungsionaldan
esei pendek
sederhana berbentuk descriptive
dan recount
yang berkaitan
dengan lingkungan sekitar.
5.1. Membaca nyaring bermakna teks tulis fungsional dan esei berbentuk descriptive dan recount pendek dan sederhana
dengan ucapan, tekanan dan intonasi yang berterima yang berkaitan dengan lingkungan sekitar.
5.3. Merespon makna dan langkah retorika dalam esei pendek sederhana secara akurat, lancar, dan berterima untuk
berinteraksidengan lingkungan sekitar dalam teks berbentuk descriptive dan recount.
Reading 5. Students are able
to understand
meaning in functional texts and simple short
essays in the forms of descriptive
and recount in order to
interact with their surroundings.
5.1. Students are able to read functional texts and simple short essays in the forms of descriptive and recount aloud and
meaningfully using the appropriate pronunciation, stress, and intonation related to their surroundings.
5.3. Students are able to respond to the meaning and the rhetoric steps of short and simple essays accurately, fluently,
and appropriately related to their surroundings in the forms of descriptive and recount.
Based on the table above, it can be seen that recount texts are one of reading materials taught to students grade VIII of Junior High Schools in the first
semester. As different types of texts have different structures and language features, students need to be introduced to these text structures and language
features specific to each text.
1 Recount Texts
A recount text is a type of text that retells past events. This type of text is usually retold in the order in which the events happened. The purpose of a recount
text is to give the audience a description of what occurred and when it occurred. Recount texts consist of several paragraphs. The first paragraph called orientation
gives background information about who, what, where, and when. The next paragraphs retell events in the order in which they happened. The writer
sometimes presents a concluding paragraph at the final paragraph of the text. In addition to the generic structure, recount texts also contain language features
specific to this text type such as grammar. According to Knapp and Watkins 2005, readers need to recognize grammar in order that they can effectively
handle the information presented in the text for a range of purposes. Other language features usually found in a recount text are proper nouns to identify
those involved in the text; descriptive words to give details about who, what, when, where, and how; the use of past tense to retell the events; and words that
show the order of events.
2 The Learning Cycle
In the attempt to realize those aforementioned learning objectives, the teaching of reading recount texts in this reseasch adopted the genre-based
approach proposed by Feez and Joyce in Richards 2006. This approach was then combined with the selected action of Directed Reading-Thinking Activity DR-
TA. Similar to the objective of English instructions in Junior High Schools, this approach views communicative competence as involving the mastery of different
types of texts Richards, 2006. It consists of five stages, namely building the context, modelling and deconstructing the text, joint construction of the text,
independent construction of the text and linking to related texts where each stage has special objectives and activities. Since assessment towards students’ reading
ability ends in the fourth stage, the lesson plans therefore only adopted the first four stages without continuing to the fifth stage, i.e. linking to related texts. Below
is the elaboration between the stages of the genre-based approach and the research
conduct. a
Building the Context
In this stage, students are introduced to the social context and the social purposes of the text type being studied as well as the immediate context of
situation by investigating the register of the model text which has been selected on the basis of the course objectives and learner
s’ needs. In this research, the activities done in this stage were focused on exploring
the topic of the recount texts to be studied and enlarging vocabulary relevant to the topic of the texts. Lead-in tasks such as answering questions related to the
topic of the text and ordering sequences of pictures related to the topic of the text were given
to facilitate the activation of students’ background knowledge of the text.
b Modelling and Deconstructing the Text
In this stage, students investigate the structural pattern and language features of the model and compare the model with other examples of the same text-type.
During the research, this stage focused on reading and comprehending an example of recount texts which the topic had already been explored in the previous stage
using DR-TA. The teacher modelled the use of DR-TA to the class to comprehend recount texts by leading them in a group-based discussion consisting of
predicting, reading and provingdisproving the prediction. Media in the form of pictures illustrating the text being discussed, an LCD, a screen, a white board and
presentation slides were used to support the discussion. However, each time before the students started discussing a text, the researcher selected some
important and unfamiliar words taken from the text and had the students find the meaning to those words. Then, reinforcement in the form of open-ended questions
related to the text were given to the groups. The questions asked were related to the main idea, details information and references. Finally, using the model text,
the teacher and the class worked together exploring the social function, the generic structure, and linguistics features that the text contains.
c Joint Construction of the Text
In this stage, students begin to contribute to the construction of whole examples of the text-type. The teacher gradually reduces the contribution to text
construction as the students move closer to being able to control the text-type independently.
During the research, the students were divided into small-groups of four or five and they had discussion activities consisting of predicting, reading and
provingdisproving the prediction about the content of the recount texts being studied. Sheets of Prediction Verification Checklists were distributed to the
groups to report their discussion process. As in the previous stage, some important and unfamiliar words from the text were given and the students had to find the
meaning to those words. Media such as an LCD, a screen, a white board, pictures related to the texts and presentation slides were use to facilitate the discussion.
When the discussion finished, the groups were given a list of open-ended questions related to the text discussed as a reinforcement activity. The questions
asked were related to the main idea, details information and references.
d Independent Construction of the Text
In this stage, students work independently with the text and their performances are used for achievement assessment. Thus, the teacher should
minimize support, scaffolding and interference on students learning process. The purpose of this stage is to know how far the students master the lesson
individually and thus the students will have their individual performance assessed. In this research, the activity done in this stage basically was in the form of
assessment. As the name implies, the teacher let the students to work on their own during this stage.
The students were given a post-test consisting of 25 multiple choice questions and they needed to complete it within 40 minutes.
d. Assessing Reading Comprehension
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