guidance. The reading comprehension instruction will be easier with the CIRC activities.
Based on the teaching practice of a teacher of Scandaga Elementary School, Scotia, New York in the past as described by Slavin 2005: 204, it
can be inferred that the students enjoyed the process of CIRC to be able to read well. They reached more success in reading because they were part of
the process. All of them finished doing the CIRC activities and became better readers.
Besides, CIRC also can help students to understand a text through the activities. Most students are closely related to the reading comprehension
activities such as word meaning, identifying the characters, the main idea, the setting of a story, etc. Thus, CIRC is expected to be able to improve
the reading comprehension ability of students.
27
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
A. Type of the Research
This study was action research. This research identified the problems in the classroom especially about reading comprehension and then found a
way to bring changes or even an improvement. The research was conducted by the researcher and the English teacher as the collaborator in terms of
technique and sharing information. Here, the research made an improvement to the students’ reading comprehension ability. The strategy used was
cooperative integrated reading and composition CIRC as one of the methods in the cooperative learning. By using this strategy, the reading comprehension
ability of the students was expected to be able to increase. B.
Setting of the Research
This research was conducted at SMP Islam Terpadu Abu Bakar SMP IT Abu Bakar from October, 23
th
up to December, 4
th
2013 in the academic year of 20132014. SMP IT Abu Bakar is located on Jl. Veteran Gang Bekisar
No. 716 Q Pandeyan, Umbulharjo, Yogyakarta. Class VIIIH was the focus of this research. The class had 31 students.
The available rooms in this school are the headmaster room, teachers room, a room for guiding and counseling, an administration room, a school
health unit, a kitchen, a mosque, a canteen, teachers’ toilets, student’s toilets,
24 classrooms, a language laboratory, a library, a sport hall, and a computer laboratory.
C. Research Members
This research involved the English teacher and the students of SMP IT Abu Bakar Yogyakarta especially the students of class VIIIH in the academic
year 20132014, and the researcher.
D. Instruments of the Research
The instruments of this research are presented below:
a. Interview guideline
Interview guideline was used as a guide when the researcher was conducting interview with the students and the collaborator during the
research. b.
Observation checklist It was used to check the application of CIRC in the teaching and learning
process. c.
Pre-test and Post-test A pre-test was used to know
the students’ reading comprehension ability before the CIRC was applied by the researcher. On the other hand the post-
test was used to know the improvement of students’ reading
comprehension after they were involved in the implementation of CIRC during the teaching and learning process.
E. Techniques of Data Collection
The data in this research consist of qualitative and quantitative data. The data were in the form of opinions, suggestions, comments, and
expectations from the research members. The qualitative data were field notes, interview transcripts and observation sheets during the actions. On the
other hand, the result of the reading comprehension test was the quantitative data. In collecting the data, there are three techniques as discussed below :
a. Interview
Some interviews were conducted to the English teacher as the collaborator and the students of class VIIIH during the research.
b. Classroom observation
The classroom observation was done during the research whether before the action, during the action or after the action. It was done to know the
teaching and learning process in class VIIIH and students’ progress in
reading comprehension during the implementation of CIRC technique done by the researcher.
c. Conducting a reading comprehension test
Reading comprehension test was done as a part of monitoring sequences. The data were in the form of score transcript. The reading comprehension
tests were conducted to test and evaluate students’ reading
comprehension. The result of the tests were used as supporting data. From the result of the test, the researcher was able to know the progress of
