Text Selection Theory of Reading

25 improve language skills. In this sense, reading becomes the vehicle of learning, supporting the students to construct knowledge about what is going to learn. By doing so, all students will have basic knowledge since the teacher facilitated the reading texts. In order to link or integrate reading with the other language skills, reading texts play an indispensable role. Reading texts have benefits to help the teacher to teach other skills. Through reading texts, the teachers can integrate reading with speaking, reading with writing, or even reading and listening, which both are receptive skill. Reading texts are usually used to give examples or background knowledge to the students. In teaching writing skill, reading texts can be used as models to the students to start their own writing. It means that reading texts are used to prepare the students to learn writing skill. Reading texts are indeed frequently used to provide inputs for the students. Moreover, reading texts are also used in teaching speaking to the students. The students will read first and then talk. The last, reading texts also contribute background knowledge to the listening skill. By reading the texts before the lesson is started, the students will have knowledge of related topic to be learned.

5. Students’ Perception on the Implementation of Reading Text as Pre-

Listening Material There are several definitions of perception according to experts. Perception is defined as “the process of organizing and interpreting sensory stimuli into meaningful 26 patterns” Kalish, 1973: 77. Similar to the definition by Kalish, Gibson 1997: 97 states that perception is “a process of organizing the information that an individual gains from his environment to make it logical and sensible”. Another definition is proposed by Altman and Hodgetts 1985: 85. They stated that perception is “an individual’s view of reality”. Therefore based on the definitions, it can be concluded that perception involves organizing and interpreting information from the environment so as to make the information meaningfully interpreted. People may see the same thing, but they may perceive it in different ways Gibson, 1982: 53. Altman and Hodgetts 1985: 85 mentioned that people’s perception depend on how they process the available information. However, there are several factors that can influence one’s perception. Robbins 1997: 39 clearly stated that perception is commonly influenced by the perceiver and the characteristics of the target being observed. Further, the characteristic involves attitudes, interests, expectation, past experience, and needs, as well as emotion Robbins, 1997: 40.

B. Theoretical Framework

Listening skill is in fact very significant to be mastered. In learning English language, listening skill can be said as the basic skill to acquire other language skills; speaking, reading, and writing. The contribution of listening skill to support other language skills makes listening worth to be learned seriously. In schools, listening skill is often taught using less background knowledge as the time is very limited. Meanwhile, the background knowledge is very important in building new understanding of new materials in every lesson including in learning PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 27 listening skill. Background knowledge will make the students easier to understand the message of what they listen to. It will also raise their motivation to listen. Therefore, lack of background knowledge may cause ineffective listening. Hence, prior knowledge is very significant in helping students construct new knowledge. Prior knowledge gives contributions to the students in building a new understanding while learning in the classroom. Brownell 1996: 10 believes that prior knowledge contributes successful learning. He says that in order to learn new knowledge, people in fact need prior knowledge. In other words, people need to relate information they already possess to the new materials that is going to be learned in order to construct new knowledge Brown, 1994: 79. Prior knowledge which is well constructed before learning a new material offers contributions to the students in the learning process Brownell, 1996: 10. For this reason, prior knowledge also needs to be constructed to the students in learning listening skill. Students’ prior knowledge should have been well constructed when they enter the class to start the new materials. Constructing students’ prior knowledge becomes hard since the time of learning is very limited. Thus, the present study tries to investigate the effort of constructing prior knowledge to prepare them in listening section. Due to the limited time of listening section in the classroom, the students construct prior knowledge by reading the given texts from the teacher at home. Reading texts, which are commonly used by the students in learning, are in fact significant in helping them to construct background knowledge. Hence, the employed texts are authentic. They can be appropriate for the students as they help the students to be well-prepared in listening