The Advantages and the Disadvantages of Using PLAN Strategy in Reading

2.9 The Advantages and the Disadvantages of Using PLAN Strategy in Reading

Comprehension PLAN Strategy provides many advantages in teaching reading comprehension. According to Urquhart and Frazee 2012:138, PLAN is a reading strategy to get information from the text both general and specific that facilitates the students read strategically based on the steps followed. Accessing of what they already known as they read allow them to interpret, illustrate and add some information with new ideas. Seagrave 2006:8 finds several advantages when use PLAN in teaching reading comprehension. 1. Activating the students’ prior knowledge in before, during and after reading phase. The students can relate their last experience to what they have known from the text stated. Besides, this strategy facilitates active reading for the students. 2. Students interact more with the text as they should create their predictions into a map. The students are motivated to illustrate the situation of the text in their mind. Also they may associate the relationship between the ideas and the supporting ideas in the text. 3. Then, it engages students’ background knowledge of the topic that simultaneously builds their interest and motivation to read. It is similar with the point 1 that the students’ prior knowledge may cause a benefit in their active reading. 4. This strategy also encourages students to take responsibility of their comprehension by requiring concrete evidence of their reading. When the students are asked both orally and written, they can show the reason to strengthen their answer from the text either presented implicitly or explicitly. 5. Creating concept map facilitates students to visualize the ideas in the text that will monitor their comprehension. It also facilitates students recognize text construction easily. Based on the statements above, it is clear that the use of PLAN Strategy in teaching reading brings a lot of advantages which leads the students to achieve their reading comprehension achievement. In spite of the advantages, PLAN Strategy also has some disadvantages in teaching reading, they are: 1. The use of PLAN Strategy in the step of note taking sometimes is considered as a weakness of this strategy. Because, when the students do less note taking, the continued process will be distracted and may effect to totally relying on the concept map as a written reference. The worst impact is incomplete notes and missed information which affect when they do some relevant tasks. This disadvantage can be overcome by giving the students some questions related to the reading text to ensure that they well understand with the content from the text. 2. Time consuming in creating the key answer for the concept map is another disadvantages of using PLAN Strategy on reading comprehension. When applying this strategy in small group discussion, there was a possibility that one of the groups’ members will be difficult to understand writing the incorrect information. Considering the complex steps in this strategy, the students may miss out on receiving valuable feedback Antika, 2015:24. This problem can be solved by showing a big picture of concept map, adding some new information and guiding the students to revise the concept map together thus all the students can get the feedback. Based on the explanation above, the English teacher should aware how to minimize the disadvantages of using PLAN Strategy in teaching reading comprehension.

2.10 The Previous Research Outcomes on Predict Locate Add Note Strategy