Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Because English is an international language, and every country learns English. In Indonesia, there are many people learning English, and there are some universities opening English department as one of their programs. There are four basic skills that should be mastered when someone is learning language, those are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Every skill has its own role in learning language. Students in higher education often found the sources that are written in English. They need to comprehend the text to get information from what they read. Based on the course description in reading comprehension subject, ideally the students of reading comprehension subject are able to identify main idea of the text, find the pronoun reference, recognize the meaning of vocabulary in context, find detail information from the text, and make inferences. Even though reading comprehension is very important for them as the students in higher education and also as the students of English Department, students’ reading comprehension in reading comprehension subject in English Department of Unswagati is still unsatisfying. It can be seen from the result of pre-test, the average was 54.30. It could be categorized into fair category. Besides, based on the result of interview, questionnaire, and pretest of English Department students of Unswagati have problems in identifying main idea of the text, finding the pronoun reference, recognizing the word meaning in context, finding detail information from the text, and making inferences. The problems that are caused by the students themselves are: first, the students can’t get the meaning of the text because they still lack of vocabulary, this is the biggest problem in the students of reading comprehension because they only understand the text that has been discussed in the class. If it is a new text for them, they can’t get the clear meaning because it contains new vocabularies. Second, the students are lazy to read because they don’t have motivation to read. Although they know that reading is very important to improve their knowledge, they are still lazy to read because they do not understand the content of the text. Third, the heterogeneity of the students. The students in one class have different level in comprehending the text, they also come from different commit to user i background knowledge. There are also students coming from science program, social program, and language program. There are also some students who have taken the course before they take English department. So, it makes the lecturer difficult to decide the technique to use in the class. The other reasons that influence students to learn come from the teacher. First, the method that is used by the teacher is teacher-centered, so it makes them passive. Second, the teacher just reads the passage and discusses with the whole class so the students do not have time to share about the passage freely. The third cause is the teacher doesn’t care whether the students understand the material or not. Besides, the students’ problems in comprehending the text not only came from the students and the teacher but also the condition of the class. In teaching learning process, usually two classes are combined into one class because of the limited room, so it makes them difficult to concentrate. Based on the students’ problems and causes stated above, the researcher proposed a solution to overcome this problem. The researcher proposed Cooperative Reading Groups CRG technique for teaching reading in the English Department of Unswagati. Actually there are many teaching techniques to teach reading, but based on the pre-observation and students’ problems, the researcher proposed CRG as the technique for teaching reading in English Department of Unswagati. Cooperative Reading Groups CRG technique is the technique for teaching reading that is developed by Merril Harmin and Melanie Toth which is adapted from Daniels 1994. In CRG technique, students work together in small groups, usually consisting of four students, to help one another and digest the material. During the group work, each student has a distinctive role to play as the Leader, Summarizer, Connector, and Quizmaster. Each of the members has different role and job description. Learning reading comprehension by using group work will be better than individual learning because in group work they can contribute something one another. Frey, et al. 2009: 21-22 say the group tends to be wiser than the individual. The differentiation that occurs in this phase of instruction is accompanied by the scaffolding that peers are able to provide for one another; these are not individual tasks. Consider, then, that productive group work is a critical phase that occurs within a larger differentiated classroom experience. commit to user i From the discussion above, the researcher is interested in carrying out a research dealing with reading comprehension through Cooperative Reading Groups CRG technique. The researcher believes that CRG technique can make students more active and motivate them to learn more inside or outside the class. Due to the fact, in this research, the researcher as the teacher brings forward the way of teaching reading through CRG technique. In addition, the technique is related to the students’ level and involves them to learn actively. Hence, the researcher has courage to conduct a study entitled “Improving Students Reading Comprehension through Cooperative Reading Groups CRG Technique A classroom Action Research in the first year students of the English Department of Unswagati Cirebon in the 20102011 Academic Year.

B. Problem Statement