The Actions and Observation in Cycle 2

would get a reward. Finally, there was a male student who bravely came in front of the class and wrote down the word. The researcher gave him the reward because he answered correctly. She continued to distribute the work and verification sheets for each group. Then, she asked the groups to observe the six verbs and guess a possible story or topic based on the verbs. There were various answers from the students, but all of them got the topic wrong. So the researcher asked them to look at the picture and guess the topic or the story again. She helped the students by asking some points of the picture and relating to the verbs in the puzzle as exemplified in the following excerpt of field note. “Kira-kira, jika ada kata bergerak, berjalan, terjebak, menyetir, terluka,dan meninggalkan, cerita apa yang mungkin terjadi?” “If there are words such as moved, walked, trapped, drove, injured, and left, what possible story might happen? “Mobil kecelakaan Bu,” jawab kelompok 5. Kelompok yang lain pun rupanya memiliki pendapat yang sama. R kemudian menayangkan sebuah gambar di slide show, yang juga ada di lembar kerja siswa. “A car crash, miss,” said the fifth group. The other groups seemed to have the same opinions. R then showed a picture in the slide show, which was provided in the student’s worksheet as well. “Okay, boleh lah. Nah sekarang, coba kalian perhatikan gambar ini sambil menayangkan Picture 4. Ada yang berubah pikiran?” “Okay, that’s alright. Now, look at this picture while showing Picture 4. Any of you who chan ge your mind?” “Oooh..itu mobilnya masuk ke jurang, terus orangnya terluka, Bu,” kata seorang siswa dari kelompok 4. “Oh, the car went down to the gap, then the people was injured, miss,” said a student from the fourth group. “Eh, tapi kan itu tanahnya retak,” jawab siswa yang lain. “But, the ground was cracked,” said another student. “Gedungnya juga itu mau roboh nggak si?” siswa yang lain turut berpendapat. “The building was also going to collapse, wasn’t it?” said another student. “Okay, if you have another idea, just write it down on the worksheet.” FNC2M1 It was aimed to direct the students’ thinking into systematic and logical track to determine a topic by relating some key words and a picture. At this point, only one group that guessed it wrong. However, to prove whether their topics correct or not, the researcher invited the students to make a question using a given question word before answering the guiding questions. After selecting the most appropriate question that related to the picture, the researcher asked the students to discuss the answers of the questions, both the guiding questions and the additional question formulated by the students. Afterwards, each group should read their predictions loudly. The same as the previous actions in cycle one, the researcher distributed the stopping point cards for each group. Without inviting the students, they were automatically volunteering to read the card in front of the class. The researcher pointed out one of the students to read it. At this time, the class were silent while the student reading in front of the class. After that, the student went back to his seat and the researcher read the card once again to correct some mispronunciation. Then, the students read the text themselves to obtain the information whether their predictions accurate, less accurate, or not accurate. After 5 minutes reading, each group could confirm and verify their predictions. They immediately corrected their less or not accurate predictions. Afterwards, the researcher asked them whether they still have something to ask or not. Unfortunately, this meeting could not be fully completed in 80 minutes as it should be. It is because there was a special agenda of the school that asked the students to cleanse the class. So, the researcher had to cut the lesson 15 minutes earlier. She, then, briefly summed the material up for the meeting and let the students to cleanse the class. This influenced the next actions of the second meeting. The researcher and the collaborator agreed to continue the material of the first meeting. It means that the fourth recount text could not be presented for the students, instead the researcher would complete the first meeting and continue by reviewing for the whole material. Nevertheless, there are some points that can be concluded from the first meeting. It can be seen that the students’ participation was rising. They started to be confident with their answers without worrying about making mistakes. They started to be confident as well about their perception of the questions as demonstrated in the excerpt from the field note as follow. Di pertemuan kali ini, Ss sudah tidak mengalami kesulitan lagi untuk memahami pertanyaan. Mereka dengan mandiri mencari di kamus arti dari kata yang mereka rasa sulit , dan baru menanyakan kepada R untuk meyakinkan apakah pemahaman mereka sudah benar atau belum. In this meeting, Ss did not have difficulties in comprehending questions. They autonomously looked for the meaning of the difficult words in the dictionary, and asked R just to convince whether their understanding was correct or not. FNC2M1 This meeting also shows that the wrong predictions did not cause a misunderstanding about the text. Instead, it made the students become more aware and anticipate about the information in the text. 2 Meeting 2 The second meeting of cycle 2 was done on April 13 th 2015. In the action plan, the second meeting discussed a new recount text. However, since there was unpredictable agenda in the first meeting so the fourth recount text were cancelled. Instead, the meeting was intended to complete the discussion of the first meeting and had a review on the whole material during the first and second meeting. The class was started with greeting and the students’ attendance list checking. Then, the previous lesson was reviewed in the first meeting. Some questions were asked to recall the students’ memories about the text as presented in the excerpt from the field note below. “What have we done in the previous meeting? Apa yang sudah kita lakukan di pertemuan kemarin?” “What have we done in the previous meeting?” “Itu Bu, puzzle, terus ceritanya tentang apa, topik, buat pertanyaan, lalu menjawab pertanyaan,” jawab beberapa Ss. Puzzle, miss, then what the story is about, the topic, made questions, then answered the questions,” said some Ss. “Apa lagi? Masih ingat stopping pointnya berisi tentang apa?” “What else? Do you still remember what the stopping point is about?” “Orang lagi di dalam mobil, terus mobilnya goyang-goyang, Bu.” A man in a car, then the car kept launched to one side, to the left, miss.” “Jadi kecelakaan atau bukan?” “So it was an accident or not?” “Bukan, Bu. Bannya kempis,” jawab seorang siswa. “Bukan kempis, tapi dikiranya kempis,” kata siswa yang lain. “Not an accident, miss. He got flat tire,” said a student. “Not a flat tire, but he thought he got flat tire,” said another student. FNC2M2 Next, the slide show of the next activity was prepared and the students were asked to prepare the worksheet. The students were asked to observe the picture –the same one as the previous activity –, and also observe the following questions. The students were allowed to ask. Some students asked to make sure whether they interpreted the questions correctly or not, other students asked about some new vocabulary items in the questions. The students were guided to guess the vocabulary items and relate them with the topic and picture of the text. They were also asked some questions to help them figuring out the text through the picture and the guiding questions. The students were invited as well to imagine if they were in the writer’s position as exemplified in the excerpt from the field note as follows. R juga mengajak Ss berimajinasi jika mereka yang ada dalam situasi seperti penulis maka apa yang mungkin mereka lakukan dan rasakan. R also invited Ss to imagine if they were in the writer’s situation then what they would possibly do and feel. “If you were the writer, what will you do? Any idea?” “Menangis Bu,” celetuk seorang siswi dari kelompok 3. “Crying, miss,” said a female student from group 3. “Berdoa,” timpal yang lain. “Praying,” added another student. FNC2M2 After the observing and questioning activities, the students worked in group to make predictions by answering the guiding questions. It took 10 minutes and the researcher distributed the second stopping points of the text. A student volunteered to read the card in front of the class. Other students were silently reading the card while their friend read it loudly. The researcher asked whether they found new or difficult words or not. A student asked about the meaning of “tumbling” as exemplified in the excerpt from the field note below. R mengajak Ss untuk melihat kata setelah kata „tumbling’. R invited Ss to look at the words after the word „tumbling’ “Jadi apa yang tumbling?” So, what was tumbling?” “Rocks, batu, Bu,” jawab Ss. “Rocks, miss,” said Ss “Kira-kira batunya kenapa? Ada yang tahu?” What happened to the rocks? Anyone know?” “Oh, kalau di gambar, itu batunya pada jatoh, Bu,” jawab seorang siswa. Oh, in the picture, the rocks were falling, miss,” said a student. “Iya yah, gempa, berarti rocksnya berjatuhan, Bu,” tambah yang lain. Is that so , earthquake, so the rocks were falling, miss,” added the others. “Very good. Coba untuk memastikan biar mantep, dibuka kamusnya. Dilihat apa benar artinya jatuh atau bukan.” “Vey good. If you want to be more convinced, just look at the dictionary. And see whether the meaning is falling or not.” FNC2M2 The next activity, the students confirmed their predictions. The researcher and the students discussed the answers of the questions. Each group, then, verified whether their predictions were accurate, less accurate or not accurate. In fact, all of the groups did better in making the predictions. Although, there were still some mistakes, their predictions were logical and acceptable. To ensure their comprehension of the text „My Horrible Experience’, a supported task was provided in the form of TrueFalse task consisting of 10 items. At this time, the students had to work individually. It took about 10 minutes for the students to finish the task and after that the researcher together with the students discussed the tasks. The students were enthusiast to know whether their answer correct or not. In this TrueFalse task, students became more careful in determining whether it was true or false. This helped the students to find the detail information of the text. It remained about 20 minutes before the end of the class and the researcher invited the students to review the third recount text „My Horrible Experience’ by asking some questions as exemplified in the following field note. Sebelum melanjutkan ke kegiatan berikutnya, R menanyakan beberapa pertanyaan mengenai teks yang telah dibahas. Before moving to the next activity, R asked some questions about the discussed text. “So, what is the text about, class?” “Tentang earthquake, Bu. Pengalaman seseorang pas ada gempa bumi, Bu,” jawab Ss. “It’s about earthquake, miss. Someone’s experience when an earthquake happened, ” said Ss. FNC2M2 Then, she invited the students to have brief reviews and reflections on the cycle 1 as well. The researcher tried to clear up the material, so she invited the students if they still have something to ask. She reminded the students that they would have a post-test on the next meeting. The researcher dismissed the class afterwards at 10.55 a.m.

c. Reflection

The teaching and learning processes of cycle two had been done smoothly, although there was an unpredictable agenda that had been explained earlier. However, there were not any significant problems found during the meetings. The problems that occurred in the first cycle had been solved by implementing some modifications of the actions as discussed with the collaborators. The students were already accustomed with directed thinking reading activities. They could follow and understand the instruction given and did the task well. The students’ comprehension, especially, in finding the main idea and the detail information of the text increased since DRTA helped them in directing their thinking ways in reading by making predictions and confirming the predictions. As the result, most of them were actively participating during the teaching and learning practice. It was supported with the positive environment between the teacher and the students. The teaching and learning atmosphere is exemplified from the interview transcript as follow. S4 : Well, I was happy if I could answer the question and got a reward, hehehe. Yaa.. saya seneng kalau bisa menjawab dapat hadiah, hehehe. R : So, it’s because the reward, isn’t it? Jadi gara-gara dapet hadiah aja nih? S4 : Well, not only that, ma’am. The lesson was fun as well. The puzzle yesterday was also fun. I like it. Ya enggak Bu. Pelajarannya juga seru. Kemarin puzzle itu seru Bu. Saya suka. InterviewS4 The picture and key words during the lesson helped the students a lot in activating their background knowledge. The vocabulary guessing also helped the students to overcome their difficulties in comprehending the guiding questions as well as the content of the recount text, as exemplified from the interview transcript below. R: Was it interesting or not? Was it easily to understand or not? What do you think? Menarik, atau tidak? Atau mudah dipahami, atau malah sulit? Gimana? S5: They were interestin g, ma’am. You used power point. then, there were rewards for them who got the best score and could answer the questions. Menarik kok Bu. Pakai power point. Terus ada hadiah juga buat yang nilainya bagus sama bisa jawab. InterviewS5 In this cycle, the groups also started to make the predictions in complete English whereas they did not in the first cycle. Instead, they preferred to answer in short and brief sentences. Predicting and reading the text in the form of stopping points actually reduced the students’ boredom. It was because they were directed to focus only to a p art of the text. The students’ attentions and focuses were not disrupted by the density of the words. This was more motivating the students to read. In addition, by correcting their less accurate or not accurate predictions after the confirmation and verification made the students more confident to participate in the class. It made them feel safe to make mistakes and it was a good start as well to invite the passive students to be more active during the lesson. The further discussion of the students’ improvement in reading comprehension is discussed in the general findings and discussion.

C. The General Finding of the Research

This part presents the general research finding in the form of qualitative data supported with the quantitative data in the form of the students’ average scores. The data shows the findings obtained during the cycle 1 and cycle 2. It shows the changes were made and the result of the change after each cycle. Based on the observation in cycle 2, the students reading comprehension skill was improved. The students comprehend the text easily because they were directed to read in logical way using their experiences by answering the guiding questions. The students could overcome their problems related to the vocabulary mastery by guided to guess the vocabulary and related with the clues pictures, key words, and topic of the text. The students became more motivated both in reading and participating during class because they were confident to deal with the problems occurring during the reading process. The qualitative data can be summed up as in the following table. Table 8: The Research Result No. Problems Cycle I Cycle II 1. The students had difficulties in comprehending texts, especially in identifying the main idea and detail a. Students connected their prior knowledge to the information in the text. a. The students became more focus on the text by reading it in the form of stopping point.