6. Techniques in Assessing Reading Comprehension
Typically comprehension question are used as the major means of focusing on comprehension of the text. The learners read a text and then
answer question about the content of the text. There is a variety of question types that can be used:
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a. Pronominal questions Questions begin with who, what, when, how, why, etc. these
questions often test writing ability as well as reading ability because the students must write the answers.
b. Yesno questions This question only needs short answer, so the students do not
need to have a high level of writing skill. c. Truefalse sentences
The students look at each sentence and decide if it is true or false according to the passage.
d. Multiple-choice questions Good multiple-choice questions are not easy to make and often
they are more difficult than they should be, because the wrong choices must seem possible and not stupid.
e. Sentence completion or Gap-filling test The students complete sentences by filling the empty spaces to
show they understand the reading passage. f.
Information transferMatching Technique The students complete an information transfer diagram based
on the information in the text. g. Translation
The students must translate the passage into another language with their own words.
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Nation, op.cit, p. 32.
h. Summary Test The students read the passage, and then they write the summary
of the text and can be discussed in group work.
B. Idiom 1. The Definition of Idiom
All languages have phrases that cannot be understood literally and therefore cannot be used with confidence. They are usually opaque or
unpredictable because they do not have a clear meaning. Even if people already know the meaning of all the words in a phrase and understand all the
grammar of the phrase completely, sometimes the meaning of the phrase is still confusing. A phrase or sentence of that type is said to be idiom.
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Idioms can be found in many kind of texts, these can be found in educational texts,
magazines or in advertisement on a newspaper. Idiom consists of two or more words that have different meaning from
their individually meaning of every word. Idiom forms a new meaning that usually unclear and different from the meaning of its words. Moreover, idiom
is the assigning of a new meaning to a group of words which already have their own meaning.
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When these words meet and joined into a word it will make a new meaning.
According to Gairns and Redman, idiom is a sequence of words which operates as a single semantic unit, and like many multi-word verbs the
meaning of the whole cannot be deduced from an understanding of the parts.
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So to understand the meaning of idioms, the reader cannot translate or separate the words into a single part of semantic unit because the meaning of
the idiom can be interpreted by interrelate of its words. For example, if the students translate the sentence that contains of idiom in “this works are piece
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Richard A. Spears, Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004, p. V.
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Adam Makkai, M. T. Boatner, and J. E. Gates, A Dictionary of American Idioms, New York: Barron’s Educational Series, 1987, p. VI.
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Ruth Gairns and Stuart Redman, Working with Words: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Vocabulary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 35.
of cake for me” word by word it can be has a weird meaning, but when the idiom is not translated word by word the sentence can be interpreted as “this
works are easy for me”. Laflin also added, idiom is a phrase which means something different
from the meanings of the separate words that are a part of it. It usually cannot be understood by literal interpretation of the words that make up the
expression. They put together but the meaning is often uncorrelated to the individual words in the idiom.
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In the same line, Lado stated that idiom is a sequence of words that cannot be translated literally. They have a new
meaning that is different from the meaning of every word.
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It can be said idiom has a new meaning that cannot be translate word by word because it
will change the meaning of idiom. The meaning of idiom can be known by understand the whole words.
An idiom is a sequence of words which has a different meaning as a group from the meaning it would have if you understood each word
separately. Idioms add color to the language, helping us to emphasize meaning and to make our observations, judgments, and explanations lively and
interesting. They are also very useful tools for communicating a great deal of meaning in just a few words. Idiom is a language style that used in writing, so
the writing can be interesting for the reader. Ammer said that an idiom is a set phrase of two or more words that
means something different from the literal meaning of the individual words.
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The way in which the words are put together is often odd, illogical, or even grammatically incorrect. These are the special features of some idioms, but the
other idioms are completely regular and logic in their grammar and
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Shelley Vance Laflin, Something to Crow About: A Concise Colloction of American English Idioms for Everyday Use, Washington D.C.: Materials Development and Review Branch,
1993, p. iii.
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M. J. Lado, Ungkapan Kata Kerja dan Idiom Phrasal Verbs and Idioms, Jakarta: PT. Gelora Aksara Pratama, 1989, p. i.
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Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Boston: The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust, 2003, p. preface.
vocabulary. Because of the special features of some idioms, learners have to learn the idiom as a whole and cannot change any part of it.
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Many definitions about idioms mentioned above, they can be concluded that an idiom is a group of words that has different meaning from
the individual word as part of it. It cannot be translated word by word, but the meaning of idiom is the meaning of a whole word. Idioms are sometimes
irrational and ungrammatically, but another idioms are rational and fixed grammatical. It can be understood by guessing from the context.
2. Types of Idiom
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