b. Teaching Reading in Grade XI Vocational High Schools
As mentioned in the Act of National Education System No. 202003, a curriculum is a set of plans which are used as the guideline in the teaching and
learning process to achieve some specific purposes of education. Since the 20132014 academic year, Curriculum 2013 is applied in Indonesia. Not all
schools, including vocational high schools, have implemented it yet though. Some of them have changed the curriculum while the others still use School-based
Curriculum KTSP. Referring to the Act of Ministry of Education and Culture No. 222016
about standard of the process in primary and secondary education, the objectives of learning process in Curriculum 2013 cover three aspects which are attitude,
knowledge and skill. For the English subject, reading belongs to the skill competence. Thus, it should be developed further in the teaching and learning
process. In Curriculum 2013 for vocational high schools, English core competences
are formulated in four aspects in which each aspect is explained further in basic competences. The following table shows the example of reading competence for
Grade XI according to the Act of Ministry of Education and Culture No. 222016.
Table 1: The Core and Basic Competences of Grade XI Vocational High Schools
Core Competence Basic Competence
3. Understanding, applying, and analyzing factual, conceptual,
procedural, and metacognitive knowledge based on their
curiosity about science, technology, art, culture, and
3.3 Differentiating the social functions, structure of the texts, and language
elements of some formal invitations by giving and asking for information
related to the activities at school or the working places based on the
humanity with the concept of humanism, nationalism, and
civilization in relation to the causes of phenomena and
applying procedural knowledge in a specific field
based on their talent and interest to solve problem.
contexts. 3.4 Differentiating the social functions,
structure of the texts, and language elements of some spoken and written
analytical exposition texts by giving and asking for information related to
the actual issues and based on the contexts.
3.8 Differentiating the social functions, structure of the texts, and language
elements of some spoken and written explanation texts related to the natural
or social phenomena which are covered in the other subjects in Grade
XI based on the contexts.
From the core and basic competences, then teachers will know what they are going to teach. Moreover, they are expected to be able to decide what kind of
activity and how the assessment will be. In addition, they should choose the appropriate reading materials in order to achieve the goal of teaching and learning
process. It has been stated in the previous discussion that a curriculum contains a
guideline which is used in the teaching and learning process. In Curriculum 2013, this guideline is presented in the Act of Ministry of Education and Culture
No.1032014 about teaching process in primary and secondary education. Referring to this, there are five steps of the teaching and learning process which is
known as the scientific approach. This process is started from observing, questioning, collecting, associating, and then communicating. Actually, these five
steps are applied for all school subjects. In spite of this, they can be adjusted to suit the characteristic of each related subject.
The steps in scientific approach are quite different from those which are proposed by Stoller and Grabe in Celce-Murcia 2001. Regarding the reading
steps, they suggest a general framework based on pre-, during-, and postreading instruction. Prereading instruction helps students access background information
and gives specific information which are needed for successful comprehension. Then, during-reading instruction guides students to understand and making sense
of relationship among ideas in the text. Furthermore, students will be able to read purposefully and strategically. Meanwhile, postreading instruction ensure students
that the major ideas and supporting information are well understood. Furthermore, Stoller and Grabe in Celce-Murcia 2001 gives some
activities commonly used in each step of reading. In prereading activities, teachers can ask students to preview the text by examining the title, subheadings,
illustration, or captions to determine the general topic of the reading. Besides, students may skim the text to decide the main ideas, formulate some questions,
explore key vocabulary, or review information from previously read texts and find the relation to the text which is going to be read. Next, in during-reading
activities, students usually outline key ideas, examine emotions of key characters, clarify some difficulties, look for answers to questions posed during prereading
activity, and writing down predictions of what will come next. After doing some activities in pre- and during-reading section, students continue to complete a
graphic organizer based on text information, compare information from the text and the teacher, or answer comprehension questions.
By considering the Act of Ministry of Education and Culture about the teaching process, it is not a must for teachers to completely follow the exact steps
in the scientific approach. Some activities which have mentioned above or other theories of language learning might be adapted in order to make the reading
learning process run better. Again, the steps in the scientific approach are generally used for all school
subjects. Since the language teaching and learning has its own characteristic, there will be some different activities in each step. It goes so in the context of the
reading teaching and learning process. The five steps of the scientific approach are then presented below.
1 Observing In this first step, students are allowed to make observations through
reading, listening, or watching. In the context of reading, students read a piece of written text and make a list of some points they have not known yet
and want to know further. This stage is typically similar to the first step of a three-phase sequence
of a lesson that is the P-P-P cycle Presentation, Practice, Production. According to Richards 2006, the Presentation stage presents the new
grammar structure by means of a conversation or short text and followed by checking students’ comprehension of it. Through presenting a short text,
teachers ask the students to observe some new points including grammar.
2 Questioning In this stage, students propose some questions and have a discussion to
clarify them. By considering some activities previously explained by Stoller and Grabe in Celce-Murcia 2001, this second stage can be included in the
prereading activity in which students formulate questions for which students want answers.
3 Collecting In collecting step, students collect more information and explore other
sources that are relevant to their questions. This collecting step is close to what is described in information-gap activities where the students practice
and use the language for their own sake in order to obtain information Richards, 2006.
4 Associating Moving to the next step, students analyze the data and information they
got and relate them one another until they eventually arrive at the answers or conclusions for the questions. From what has been mentioned by Stoller and
Grabe in Celce-Murcia 2001, this activity is similar to those in during- reading activity such as seeking clarification and looking for answers to
questions posed during prereading activity. 5 Communicating
Finally, in the last step, students report or communicate their conclusion orally or in a written form to the whole class. If it is related to the P-P-P
cycle, this communicating stage resembles the production step. According to
Richards 2006, in the production step, students practice using the new structure in different contexts in order to develop fluency. This is in line with
what students do in communicating step because in communicating their conclusion, students are expected to be able to use the new structure with the
new pattern based on their findings.
c. Reading Assessment in Grade XI of Vocational High Schools
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