about the topic prior to reading. The teacher can stimulate each student to talk by asking some questions related to the topic.
b. Text T
After the students have shared their knowledge sufficiently, the text then becomes the focus of the class. During this section of the lesson, the
teacher asks the students to read short parts of the text and then asks questions about the content. The teacher must be sensitive to the texts that
can cause the students’ misunderstandings and the teacher should work hard to guide the students to find the correct answer.
c. Relationship R
In the final section, the teacher encourages the students to draw relationships or connections between the content of the text discussed in
the previous section and their personal experiences and knowledge. In this section the teacher also gives the students an opportunity to contrast and
compare the information presented in the text with their existing knowledge. This process provides the opportunity for students to expand
their existing schemata. The teacher’s task is to guide the students constructing the meaning of the text by stimulating them with questions
that can lead them to find the correct answer without telling too much information.
B. Relevant Studies
Several studies have investigated the effect of experience-text-relationship method in improving students’ reading comprehension. The findings show that
the implementation of ETR method in reading comprehension is useful and effective.
The first related study was conducted by Jarmianik, J. 2013, one of researchers from Sebelas Maret University. Her study was aimed at improving
reading comprehension using experience-text-relationship ETR method. She conducted classroom action research in order to investigate students’
improvement toward reading comprehension. In her research, she implemented two cycles of planning, action, observation, and reflection, and it took seven
meetings. The result of the study indicates that ETR method improve the students’ reading comprehension, as well as the class situation.
Samosir, D.N. 2013 also conducted classroom action research to investigate the improvement of students’ reading comprehension achievement in
narrative text through experience-text-relationship method of the eighth grade students of SMPN 41 Medan. The research was done in six meeting consisting of
two cycles. The research showed that the students’ achievement improved from the orientation test, test cycle I, and test cycle II. The mean score of students’
reading comprehension of the first cycle was 64, 38 and the mean score of the second cycle was 77, 20. The result showed significant improvement of students’
reading comprehension through the use of ETR method.
C. Conceptual Framework
Reading is one of English four skills, which has an important role for a learner in language learning. Reading belongs to one of two receptive skills in
which the learner must to learn first before he or she can learn the productive
skills. Considering this, skills in reading are essential for a learner in order to
master the language. However, reading in second language is not merely about the skill in decoding symbols and pronouncing words, but it needs an ability at
grasping the intended meaning inserted by the author in a text or a skill to comprehend a text.
Based on the observation done in SMP N 9 Yogyakarta, the researcher found some problems related to the process of teaching and learning reading. The
first problem was related to the vocabulary mastery. Students’ reading process in understanding the content of the text was often disturbed when they find
unfamiliar words. It made the students to take long time in reading because they tend to translate meaning of words one by one. Secondly, some students did not
pay attention well. When the teacher asked the students to read a text, there were couples of students who did not show good interest to the activity. Lastly, the
teacher rarely taught the students using a particular reading strategy. She gave less effort to solve reading problems occur in the class. One of the examples, when the
students found difficulties in understanding meaning of unfamiliar words, she merely asked the students to look the meaning in the dictionary. As the result, the
students depended too much on dictionary and this activity was not interested for the students. Furthermore, the teacher sometimes also ignored the sequences in
teaching reading consisting pre-reading activities, reading phases, and post- reading activities. These reading sequences, in fact, were meaningful to guide the
students in reading comprehension, especially the pre-reading activity. The pre- reading was a crucial element in a reading process since in this sequence the
students were prepared to face the text and understand the text. However, the reading activity was mostly the same all the time, and it seldom involved students
to activate their schemata. Considering the issues, the researcher is interested in applying schema
activation-based strategy. This strategy focuses on the activating background knowledge to facilitate the students in reading comprehension and on how to build
bridges between existing knowledge and new knowledge. Among the numerous schema-building strategies, the researcher chose
experience-text relationship ETR method to solve the problems. This method is created by Au 1979 in teaching reading comprehension in EFL for Hawaiian
children. This method consists of three phases including experience phase E, text phase T, and relationship phase T. In E phase, it consists of students
sharing their own experience related to the topic prior to reading. In T phase, the text becomes the focus of the class. The teacher asks the students to read short
parts of the text and then ask questions about the content. In the final phase R, the teacher encourages the students to draw relationships between the content of
the text and their personal experience and knowledge. In this section, the students are allowed to contrast and compare the information presented in the text with
their existing knowledge. Through this method of teaching reading, the students and the teacher are
expected to be more aware of the role of background knowledge in determining the success of reading comprehension. It is also expected that the students will
apply this strategy when comprehending English text. Moreover, the ETR method
is also expected to improve students’ engagement and involvement toward reading activity better than before.
D. Research Hypothesis
