of the English teachers i.e. the teacher collaborator identified problems related to reading and decided which feasible problems to solve.
To plan and develop the appropriate actions to be implemented in each research cycle, several steps are taken. First, the researcher and the teacher
collaborator selected the appropriate action to improve students’ reading
comprehension ability. Considering the stages it suggests, Directed Reading-
Thinking Activity DR-TA was considered the best method. The next step was to make lesson plans. SK 5 and KD 5.1, and 5.3 on recount texts were chosen. The
lesson plans adopted the genre-based approach, consisting of BKOF, MOT, JCOT and ICOT. Media such as presentation slides of recount texts and hard copies of
pictures related to the texts were also prepared to support the implementation of DR-TA. The researcher and the teacher collaborator also decided to give rewards
students completing tasks well to encourage their participation in the teaching and learning process. Finally, the researcher prepared three research instruments to
collect data, namely interview guidelines, observation sheets, and reading comprehension tests. The try-outs of the prototypes of reading comprehension
tests and the analysis of the test items were also performed in this stage.
2. Action and Observation
After designing the plan, the researcher implemented the designed action in the action stage. During the action implementation in the class, the researcher
acted as the English teacher while the English teacher acted as the research collaborator. There was also another research collaborator who helped to
document the research conduct in this stage.
In the observation stage, the context, actions, and opinions of the students and the English teacher were documented. To do that, data were collected. First,
pre-test was administered at the beginning of the first research cycle to measure students’ initial reading comprehension ability. Then, during the action
implementation in the class, the teacher collaborator sat at the back, observing and filling the observation sheets
concerning teacher’s and students’ activities in the class. Both the students and the teacher had semi-structured interviews to reveal
their responses to the implementation of DR-TA. Responding to the pre-test conducted at the beginning of Cycle I, post-tests were conducted each at the end
of Cycle I post-test I and Cycle II post-test II of the research to reveal improvements in
students’ reading comprehension ability.
3. Reflection
Every time a research cycle ended, the researcher and the teacher collaborator made reflections to decide whether or not another research cycle was
necessary. In this phase, all qualitative and quantitative data gathered were analyzed. Based on the analysis results, the researcher together with the teacher
collaborator decided whether the action implemented in the attempt to overcome the problems concerning st
udents’ reading comprehension ability worked or not. Then, the unsuccessful actions were improved for the benefit of the next research
cycle.
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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS
This chapter describes research processes, research findings and discussion of the findings. This section is divided into three parts, namely 1 reconnaissance,
2 implementaton of the actions, and 3 findings and discussion. The details are explained below.
A. Reconnaissance
This section concerns with some activities intended to reveal field problems. Later, the discussion in this section is spilt into two sections, namely 1
identification of the field problems and 2 the determination of actions to be taken.
1. Identification of the Field Problems
The research was started by gathering initial information from the English teacher and some Grade 8H students of SMPN 1 Yogyakarta. It was done by
having interviews with the English teacher and the students, conducting a preliminary classroom observation and administering a pre-test on reading
comprehension, which findings will be explained later in this section. To begin, below is the interview transcript between the researcher R and
the English teacher T.
