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text. However, the teacher should cover all the things that the students can work out with the text. The teacher has to discuss the text fully, study the language, and
give additional tasks to the students.
7. The Teaching of Reading in Junior High School
Based on the standard competence,
UU Permendiknas no 23 tahun 2006
for reading, students in Junior High School have to be able to comprehend short
functional texts and simple essays in the form of recount and descriptive. The learning genre is presented as one of the subjects in English lesson for junior high
school students. The students learn how to comprehend the content of texts; they also study about the generic structure and what language used to construct the
texts varying to each other. The generic structure and language features which are commonly found in different text from one to another which are used based on the
purpose of each genre. There are some abilities or micro skills that should be mastered by students in
reading texts, for example in reading descriptive, which is based on graduate competence standard in
Permendiknas No.23, 2006
. In the descriptive text, the students are expected to be able to determine general description, certain
information, detailed information, main idea, and meaning of words. The seventh grade students of junior high schools have special characteristics.
At this age, teenagers start looking for their own personality, they concern about appearance and start considering the importance of relationship with others. Here,
Brown 2001: 92 says the considerations in teaching teens are as follows.
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a. Intellectual capacity adds abstract operational thought around the age of
twelve. b.
Attention spans are lengthening as a result of intellectual maturation but, once again, with many diversions present in a teenager’s life, those potential
attention spans can easily be shortened. c.
Varieties of sensory input are still important. d.
Factors surrounding ego, self-image, and self-esteem are at their pinnacle. e.
Secondary school students are of course becoming increasingly adult-like in their ability to make those occasional diversions from the “here and now”
nature of immediate communicative contexts to dwell on a grammar point or vocabulary item.
Teaching reading in Indonesia is arranged in the School-Based Curriculum SBC. The school-based curriculum is an operational curriculum that is arranged,
developed, and implemented by each school that is ready and able to develop it BSNP, 2006: 5.
The aim of the English teaching and learning process according the school- based curriculum is to achieve students’ communicative competence, in which
students are expected to be able to master five competences: linguistic competence vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and intonation, socio-cultural
competence the way to communicate such as language style and politeness, discourse competence context, strategic competence competence to overcome
the problems or difficulties in communication, and action competence listening, speaking, reading and writing.School - Based Curriculum has provided
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guidelines for the teachers in teaching the subject. The guidelines for teaching reading for Junior High School are as follows.
1 The aims of reading
Based on School-Based Curriculum, in teaching English subjects, students are expected to: a develop competences to communicate in the spoken and written
form to reach the level functional literacy, b have awareness the truth and importance of English subject to improve the competitiveness of nation, and c
develop their comprehension about connection between language and culture. 2
Scopes of reading As stated in School-Based Curriculum, English subject in Junior High School
includes: expression ability, comprehension ability and production ability of various short functional and monologue text along with essay of text types
genre, and support of competence. 3
Text types Based on School-Based Curriculum for SMP and MTs in the semester one, the
kinds of text or genres that should be taught are descriptive and procedure.
8. Problems of Teaching Reading Comprehension
Teaching reading is a part of the activity in teaching English that must be done by the teacher. Like teaching other skills of English and teaching other subjects in
the schools, teaching reading cannot be said as easy. Some teachers find problems in teaching reading comprehension. The first problem is that the teacher cannot
know exactly the students’ prior knowledge National Research Council, 2003:
62. Although the teacher has taught some materials which are related to the topic
