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LIST OF APPENDICES Page
Appendix A Permission Letter ..................................................................
57 Appendix B
The List of Pre-design questionnaire and Interview Questions ..............................................................................
59 Appendix C
The Post-design Questionnaire ............................................. 63
Appendix D Teacher’s Manual, Answer Key and Syllabus .....................
69 Appendix E
The Final Version of the Designed Materials ....................... 90
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
In this study, the writer would like to design a supplementary reading material for the ninth grade students of junior high school. This chapter presents
six parts, namely research background, research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits, and definition of terms.
A. Research Background
English is an international language which is very important for global communication in every aspect. Considering the importance of English,
Indonesian government makes English as a compulsory subject in junior high school and senior high school, and also as an additional subject in elementary
school. In the National Examination, Indonesian government includes English as a subject which will be tested. The score of the National Examination determines
whether the students can graduate or not. Therefore, students have to learn English deeply to pass the examination.
In learning English, there are four skills that should be gained: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading as one of the basic skills is also important
in the second language learning. By reading, students can improve their vocabulary list and get a lot of information. Even, Nunan 2003 stated that
reading is also the most important skill to master in order to ensure success not only in learning English, but also in learning in any content class where reading in
English is required. It means that reading is a basic skill which is not only
2 important in learning English, but also in other subjects. In detail, Krashen
1981:23 argues that reading can be a way to become good readers, to develop a good writing style, to master vocabulary, to master grammar, and to become good
spellers. In National Examination, reading has a bigger portion than the other skills.
Usually, there are many reading passages in the National Examination worksheet, then the students are given some questions related to the reading passage.
Therefore, students have to comprehend the content of the reading passage to answer the question correctly.
Krashen 1985, as stated in Mikulecky’s book 1990, has posited that the best way to improve reading is by reading. He concludes that simply allowing
students to read more books will result in improved reading just as often. It means that students have to practice reading more and more to improve their language
skill. The problem is that not all students are interested in learning reading. It is
hard to make students interested in learning reading. According to writer’s experience when she taught the students of SMP Joannes Bosco, the students had
no willingness to read a complicated text. A complicated text for them means a text which has many unfamiliar words and uninteresting topic.
According to the School-Based Curriculum, a school has a right to develop and construct their own curriculum based on the
school’s potential, students’ character and socio-cultural background. It means that the teacher has an
opportunity to create and develop the teaching learning activities and materials.
3 SMP Joannes Bosco
has used textbook to facilitate the teaching learning process. The textbook, en
titled “ENGLISH ON SKY” which is published by ERLANGGA, is the main source of the teaching learning materials. However,
textbook is not enough to support the teaching and learning processes. Sometimes, textbook does not give various topics and activities
which can evoke students’ ability in learning English, especially reading. It makes the students not interested
in the materials. They may be bored and sleepy. Then, they will not grasp the materials well. Therefore, the English teacher of SMP Joannes Bosco has to find
other reading materials because it is necessary to provide additional reading materials which are more interesting to evoke their reading ability and to make
students motivated. Considering the need of reading materials for the students of SMP Joannes
Bosco, the writer decided to design supplementary reading materials for them. The
writer chooses the ninth grade students of junior high school not only to help them learn reading, but also to help them in preparing the National Examination for
English subject, especially the reading skill. In designing the reading materials, the writer adopted task-based learning
approach. Task-based learning is an approach which gives the teacher opportunity to be creative to assign task for the students. Through tasks, students may become
better communicators and learn new words and phrases from each other Willis, 1996, p.55. In other words, by using task-based learning, the students will not
only learn about language, but they also learn how to socialize with others. It is
4 because task-based learning offers opportunity in which students can interact to
share and think with classmates.
B. Research Problems
1. How is a set of supplementary reading materials using task-based learning for the ninth grade students of SMP Joannes Bosco designed?
2. What does a set of supplementary reading materials using task-based learning for the ninth grade students of SMP Joannes Bosco look like?
C. Problem Limitation
The research focuses on designing a set of supplementary materials for learning reading in SMP Joannes Bosco. The designed materials are developed for
the ninth grade students. The aim of designing supplementary materials is to support the textbook that has been used by the students of SMP Joannes Bosco.
The writer develops the designed materials for semester 1 and 2. The approach
used is task-based learning, which can support students to evoke and improve their reading skill. Since the designed materials are as supplementary materials,
the writer chooses only three main topics: procedure, report, and narrative.
D. Research Objectives
Related to the problem formulation above, there are two objectives that need to be accomplished in this study:
