the way to make it effective. So, the students could focus on the learning process. However, the English teacher suggested me to turn the projector on before since
it needed time to be ready to use.
e. Motivating the Students through Stories
During the implementation of Cycle I, some of the students looked demotivated to join the English class. So, motivating the students through stories
was done in the Cycle II. After doing the main activities in the fifth meeting, they were told the experience and an inspiring story. The students attended to listen to
the story. The students needed supports to boost their motivation in learning, especially English. The process of giving motivation in the following quotations
is presented below.
f. Giving Rewards to the Students
They were provided with rewards to motivate them to be more active in the classroom activities. It had a purpose to encourage their confidence in the
class. It was given to the students who were brave to show positive learning attitudes or showed good efforts to learn English. It was quite useful in the class.
When the students were ashamed to speak or perform, they were encouraged …R continued through reviewing the material they had learn. Rmoved to joint
construction of the text step. Before R asked Ss to do the tasks, R motivated them to like learning English. Ss attended me. R told them that R
didn’t like English before till R can have good English. R also told them benefits of
having good proficiency of English. They looked seriously to hear my story. R advised them to keep learning English. They agree with that. R asked the
students to comprehend the text in a group.
Vignette 6: Saturday, April 26, 2014
through the rewards. The rewards were foods or souvenirs. They were enthusiastic to get the rewards. The situation can be seen below.
3. Reflections
a. Making the Lesson Plans
The lesson plan was made before the teaching process. This is helpful to prepare the class activities well and to conduct the teaching process in the class
smoothly and systematically. It also minimized the inefficient and ineffective activities. By making the lesson plans, the time was better managed and the
activities were controlled well.
b. Implementing the Interaction-based Activities
After implementing the interaction-based activities at grade VIII A at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta students, this approach was seen effective to improve
reading comprehension. Furthermore, there were a lot of experiences from the students. The teacher should have a positive belief in their ability. It influenced
the performance in teaching and the students’ performance in learning. If the
students were believed that they were able to follow the instruction well, they would be as what the teacher expected.
The students’ background knowledge was an important point that supported, helped, and led their understanding of the
…R asked Ss to rearrange the pictures and told the story according to the pictures. At first, they were silent and no one answered. R told them to tell
what they did in the individual task before. R told them that he would give rewards to the students who could tell the story. Suddenly, most of them
raised their hands. R chose two of them to retell the story. After they finished retell the story, R gave the rewards. They were happy because they got the
rewards.
Vignette 6: Saturday, April 26, 2014
words or texts. In some cases, they found the meanings of the words by connecting what they saw to their own experience. As the result, they had read
the texts in comfort and could answer the questions well.
c. Encouraging the Students to Use Reading Techniques and Strategies
There were a lot of benefits of using reading techniques such as guessing,
skimming, and scanning. I t could be seen from the students’ improvement on
reading the texts. The students were more confident in reading English texts and answering the questions. It was great when the students found the meaning of the
new words through guessing technique than depending on the dictionary. The others also showed good improvements in their English skills, reading
comprehension in particular. They also could comprehend the texts quickly and correctly.
d. Teaching Grammatical Points
Grammar was still being puzzle for the students, since they frequently forgot the concepts and patterns. The actions that performed in this cycle had
been modified. More grammar practices were given to them. They did the exercise of past tense well because they consulted what they did not know. Their
involvement in the learning activities was also improved.
e. Using Power Point Presentations, Pictures, and Handout
The students were happier when reading and discussing the text through the pictures. Using power point was something usual for them because the
teacher always used power point in the classroom. They looked happy when they
got the handout because they could learn by themselves. As the result, they had done the tasks excellently.
f. Motivating the Students
Since telling them their own experience in learning English, the students were motivated to learn seriously. The experience, when it was in the same age as
the students, there was no big motivation to learn English. The students were enthusiastic and thoroughly listening to the story. They asked the researcher to
stay longer and teach them till they graduated from the school. It was such a touching moment in the life.
g. Giving Rewards to the Students
Giving rewards to them were something good to encourage them to be more active in the class. They made the rewards as the goal that they had to
achieve. It made them active in the classroom so it looked so lively.
D. General Findings
Regarding to the findings of Cycle I and II, all actions were successful in improving the students’ reading comprehension and the objective of the research
was achieved. The English teacher and the researcher agreed to end the research in Cycle II. The research findings in improving the students’ reading
comprehension by using interaction-based activities supported by some actions in grade VIII A at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta were concluded as follows:
1. Interaction-based activities were successful to improve the students’ reading
comprehension. The students enthusiastically learnt English through fun activities.
