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CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The aim of the research is to improve students’ reading comprehension through the use of semantic mapping technique. The result of the research
implementation is presented in Chapter four which consists of three sections; reconnaissance, reports of Cycle 1, and report of Cycle 2.
A. Reconnaissance
The research was conducted in collaboration with the English teacher of SMP Negeri 1 Jetis. The researcher was the teacher who implemented the action
research. Two collaborators, the English teacher of VII E and an English Education Department student of UNY were the observers during the research.
At the beginning of this study, the researcher had a discussion with the English teacher about the English teaching and learning process in the VII E class,
did observation of the English teaching and learning process, and conducted interviews with VII students. During the observation, she found that the class
situation of the English lesson, especially in reading was still monotonous and the class was not active. The teacher used to ask the students to read aloud together,
translate the text, and then answer the questions. The students tended to be passive during the lesson. They sometimes did not pay attention to the lesson. Moreover,
the students’ reading comprehension was still low. Besides, in the interview with
some students before the research, they said that when answering the reading comprehension questions, they could answer them merely by matching the words
and the sentences in the tasks with the words and the sentences in the text without knowing what the text told them about.
The list of problems that occurred in the English class are presented below:
1. Identification of the Field Problem
Based on the discussion and observation, the researcher identified 16 problems related to the English teaching and learning process in the VII E. the
problems are shown in the table below:
Table 1. The field problems concerning the teaching and learning process of English in the VII E class of SMP N 1 Jetis
No Problems
Code 1
The students found that English is a difficult subject. S
2 The students easily got bored during the English class
S 3
The students make noise and chat with their friend during the English lesson. S
4 The students lacked vocabulary.
S 5
The students were not interested in reading a long text. S
6 The students took a long time to comprehend a text.
S 7
The students tended to translate text word by word. S
8 The students tended to copy their friends’ work.
S 9
The materials were not interesting for the students. LM
10 The students have difficulty in finding detailed information from the text. S
11 The teacher lacked variation in her teaching technique. T
12 The teacher never modelled how to use efficient reading comprehension strategies. T
13 The teacher only focused on testing students’ ability to translate and answer the
question. TT
14 The teacher did not use various media, especially in teaching reading. TT
S: Students T: Teacher TT: Teaching Technique LM: Learning Materials 2.
Problem Selection Based on the Urgency Level
From Table.1, it can be seen that the problems occurring in the teaching and learning process of English are related to the Students, the teacher, and the
teaching technique. Since the researcher focuses only on the students’ reading
comprehension ability, she decided to weigh the field problems based on the urgency level as the following presentation.
Table.2 The most urgent problems related to the teaching and learning process of reading.
No Problems
Code 1
The students lacked vocabulary. S
2 The students were not interested in reading a long text.
S 3
The students took a long time to comprehend a text. S
4 The students tended to translate text word by word.
S 5
The materials were not interesting for the students. LM
6 The students have difficulty in finding detailed information from the
text. S
7 The teacher lacked variation in her teaching technique.
T 8
The teacher never modelled how to use efficient reading comprehension strategy.
T 9
The teacher only focused on testing students’ ability to translate and answer the question.
TT 10
The teacher did not use various media, especially in teaching reading.
TT
3. Problems Selection Based on the Feasibility Level
After weighing problems based on the urgency level, the researcher then identified and selected them based on feasibility level in which the researcher is
able to solve the problems that occurred in the class. The researcher decided to solve the problem in the following table;
Table.3 The problems selected based on the feasibility level
No Problems
Code 1
The students lacked vocabulary. S
2 The students were not interested in reading a long text.
S 3
The students take a long time to comprehend a text. S
4 The students tended to translate text word by word.
S 5
The materials were not interesting for the students. LM
6 The students have difficulty in finding detailed information from the
text. S
7 The teacher lacked variation in her teaching technique.
T 8
The teacher never modelled how to use efficient reading comprehension strategy.
T 9
The teacher only focused on testing students’ ability to translate and answer the question.
TT 10
The teacher did not use various media, especially in teaching reading.
TT
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