An overview of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents detailed information about the data gathered in this study, data analysis, and other findings in order to answer the questions in problem formulation. The discussion successively has two main sections. They are exercised types used in Basic Reading I and students’ problem in reading.

A. The Exercise Types Used in Basic Reading I

The researcher used data from observations, document analysis, questionnaires, and interview to answer the first problem formulation. Therefore, to facilitate the discussion of first problem formulation, the researcher divides the discussion into two. The first is an overview of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I. The second is the exercise types used in 1 st , 8 th , and 15 th meeting of Basic Reading I.

1. An overview of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I

Basic Reading I was one subject course in the English Education Study Program. This course had a planned lesson. The lecturer designed the lesson during one semester. In planning a lesson, the teacher would first decide the material to be presented as exercises. The materials contained several aspects, for example structures, vocabulary, and idioms. Then teachers will select methods they will use in presenting each item, remembering the need for variety of 54 treatment within the lesson and for varying the way of tackling the same kind of task from lesson to lesson as stated by Candlin 1967, pp. 11-12. Therefore, the lecturer decided what exercise types to be used in Basic Reading I. Reading exercise type can be described as the reading passages use various types of texts adapted from authentic sources. The readings develop a variety of reading skills, including reading for details, skimming, scanning, and making inferences. Also included are pre-reading and post-reading questions that use the topic of the reading as a spring board to discussion Nunan, 2004, p.103. Moreover, exercises were a kind of assessment. It is used in classroom instruction. Thus, the exercises were kind of formative assessment which was used to know the students’ learning progress. These were also used to train the reading skills and assessed the student-learning outcome. In a reading material which consisted of a set of exercise types, students were expected to use appropriate reading skills when reading resulting the learning outcome. The learning outcome was adjusted to the learning goals as Miller, Linn, and Gronlund explained 2009, p.26. The learning goals of Basic Reading I were to apply the reading strategies when reading various types of texts, develop the English vocabulary and reading aloud ability, and help the students become independent and effective readers Syllabus of Basic Reading I. Thus, to attain the learning goals, the various exercise types were used. Previously, a reading course should know the objectives of reading because knowing the purpose of reading greatly influences to devise the appropriate tasks Alderson, 2000, p. 255. The general objectives of reading as 55 Raygor 1985 are comprehension, speed, etc. Comprehension is seen as the learning outcome process since the ability is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately Grabe and Stoller, 2002, p.17. Therefore, comprehension as the learning outcome was also expected in Basic Reading I. To assess the learning outcome, then, the lecturer used the various exercise types. Moreover, the consideration of choosing the exercise types as stated by the lecturer in lecturer questionnaire. She said that “pertimbangannya adalah tujuan dari mata kuliah Basic Reading I dan karakter text yang dibaca” the considerations were the goal of Basic Reading I and the text characteristics. This considerations were related to what McNeil, Donant, and Alkin 1980, pp.8-9 state. They state three levels of choosing exercise types. The levels are goal statements, objectives or skill statements, and activities. The three levels were that the first level was that goal statements in which the goal for Basic Reading I were to help students to become independent and effective reader and students should hands-on in applying reading skills when they are reading various text type; The second level was that objectives or skill statements; it is an instructional objectives or skill level. The Basic Reading I lecturer set some objectives that students would be able to do after they were completing the course. They were to read aloud with correct pronunciation, understand the types of the basic reading strategies, understand various types of texts, and apply the reading strategies when reading various types of texts; the third level was that activities which includes the lessons, the reading selections, games, learning centers, discussion, cassettes, films, all of the things and events 56 that students engage in when learning to read. It was similar to Basic Reading I, the lecturer used videos, online learning, games, etc. Then, the researcher formulated the data that were obtained from observations, document analysis, questionnaires, and interview. The observations were conducted in class and outside class. In class observation, the researcher conducted three times, August 18 th , 2011, October 13 th , 2011, and December 8 th , 2011. Then, the researcher collected the documents. Since collecting the documents the researcher did not specify the time, the documents were collected anytime during a semester. The researcher, then, distributed questionnaires and guided interview. The researcher, then, summarized the result as in table 4.1. Meeting Reading materials Reading skills aimed Exercise types used 1 Sanctuary Scanning, skimming Short-answer question, matching 2 Why men don’t iron Predicting, skimming, scanning, guessing word meanings from contexts. Matching, short- answer question, reading aloud 3 Reaping rewards of learning English Previewing, scanning, guessing word meanings from context. Multiple-choice, short-answer question, reading aloud. 4 Appointment in Samarra and other folktales Skimming, making inferences, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context. Fill in the blank, short-answer question, reading aloud. 5 Speed reading practice Skimming, scanning Multiple-choice 7 Gender Gap in Cyberspace Predicting, skimming, making inferences, guessing words meaning from context. Multiple-choice, matching, short- answer question. 8 Humorous stories Skimming, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context. Short-answer question, summary, reading aloud. 9 The Chaser Predicting, making inferences, guessing word meanings from context. Multiple-choice, true-false, short- answer, reading aloud. 10 Dreams and it making inferences Short-answer 57 Meeting Reading materials Reading skills aimed Exercise types used couldn’t be done question, reading aloud 11 Nicole Predicting, making inferences, guessing word meanings from context. Short-answer question, reading aloud 12 Diversity and tolerance-A brighter future Previewing, scanning, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings in context. True-false, matching, fill in the blank, summary. 15 Old Ways, New World Previewing, making inferences, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud. Short-answer question Table 4.1 reading materials, the reading skills aimed, and exercise types used in Basic Reading I As seen in table 4.1, together with the reading materials, those were completed with reading skills aimed and the exercise types used. Reading materials given to students were used to train particular reading skills. However, to train these reading skills, the lecturer used exercises. The exercises itself were not only used to train students’ reading skills, but also they were a kind of assessment in order to measure the learning goals, monitors the progress students make toward those goals and ends with a judgment concerning the extent to which those goals have been attained Miller, Linn, Gronlund, 2009, p.26. Generally, all exercise types were used to train and develop reading skills aimed in Basic Reading I. However, the exercise types used in Basic Reading I were used to train and develop reading skills. It could be seen in the exercise types used during Basic Reading I course. Students were trained to learn and apply reading skills through texts given. Hence, the student-learning outcome was comprehension. They needed to know when the reading skills needed to apply. Therefore, they should learn consciously because like what Brown, Armbruster, 58 and Baker 1986, p. 86 state that cognitive psychologist have shown in their research that students learn new strategies or thinking processes most effectively when they are consciously aware that they are doing so. Once they are conscious of the processes, students can monitor their comprehension and apply appropriate strategies or skills as needed to comprehend a text Brown, 1978. Table 4.2 presented exercise types used in Basic Reading I to train and develop reading skills aimed. Meeting Reading skills Exercise types used Mu ltiple- ch oice True-false Mat c hin g Sh o r t- an sw er Fi ll in the bla n k Su mmar y Rea d er’s lo g 1 Skimming √ Scanning √ 2 Predicting √ Skimming √ √ Guessing word meanings from context √ 3 Previewing √ Scanning √ Guessing word meaning from context √ 4 Skimming √ √ Finding pronoun referents √ Making inferences √ Guessing word meanings from context √ 5 Skimming √ Scanning √ 6 All reading skills √ 7 Predicting √ Skimming √ Making inferences √ Guessing word meanings √ 8 Skimming √ √ Finding pronoun referents √ √ Guessing word meanings from context √ √ 9 Predicting √ Making inferences √ Guessing word meanings from context √ 10 Making inferences √ 59 Meeting Reading skills Exercise types used Multip le - choice Tr u e -f al se Match ing Sho rt - an sw er Fill in th e bla nk Summa ry Rea d er’s lo g 11 Predicting √ Finding pronoun referents √ Making inferences √ Guessing word meanings from context √ 12 Previewing √ Scanning √ Finding pronoun referents √ Guessing word meanings from context √ 13 All reading skills √ 15 Previewing √ Finding pronoun referents √ Making inferences √ Guessing word meanings from context √ Table 4.2 Exercise types used to train and develop the reading skills based on the documents Nevertheless, the exercises used in Basic Reading I to be more specific were kinds of formative assessment. It was because the exercises were used to monitor learning progress during the instruction. This kind of assessment provided a continuous feedback to both students and teachers concerning learning successes and failures Miller, Linn, and Gronlund, 2009, p.21. Moreover, the exercise types used in Basic Reading I as seen from the format of assessment, they were categorized as selected-response and complex-performance assessment. Therefore, the complete analysis of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I was as follows. 1 Multiple-choice Multiple-choice type is quite used in any textbooks for teaching reading, in fact, some exercises are developed with this type Alderson, 2000, p.204. 60 Multiple-choice is a kind of selection types. This type is used only one absolutely correct response Miller, Linn, and Gronlund, 2009, p.195. The functions of multiple-choice type are measuring knowledge outcomes and measuring outcomes at the understanding and application levels pp.196-199. Based on the questionnaire result, 24.39 students chose multiple-choice type as their favorite. For example, one of the student participants in student questionnaire said that “untuk menjawab di multiple-choice kita gak perlu lama- lama, jadi sangat praktis” to answer the multiple-choice type did not take long time, so it was practical. Another result showed that 29.26 students chose multiple-choice type as the easiest exercise type. Most of their reason was that multiple-choice type provided several options, so that students chose the answer easier. The answers of every question in multiple-choice type include the distractor to represent a reasonable misinterpretation of some part of the text. The purpose of it is that if a learner responded with an incorrect choice, the nature of his misunderstanding would be immediately obvious, and could then be ‘treated’ accordingly Alderson, 2000, p.204. However, the disadvantage of multiple- choice type was the distractor. Based on the students’ opinion, the distractor made them confuse to choose the correct answer. The questionnaire result related to this matter showed that 2.44 students chose multiple-choice type as the most difficult type. Moreover, multiple-choice type involved some reading skills. The reading skills were used by students when they were reading a text in order to answer this 61 question type. For instance, the question asked about the definition of describing the term “polarization”. In the area of physical science, which one of the following definitions describes the term “polarization”? a. The separation of electric charges by friction. b. The ionization of atoms by high temperatures. c. The interference of sound waves in a closed chamber. d. The excitation of electrons by high frequency light. e. The vibration of transverse waves in a single plane. Carneson, J., Delpierre, G., Masters, K. n.d. In this example, students could practice scanning and skimming skill. Skimming is useful when you are seeking specific information rather than reading for comprehension. Then, scanning is used when you first find a resource to determine whether it will answer your questions. In most cases, you know what you are looking for, so you are concentrating on finding a particular answer “Skimming and Scanning”,n.d. In Basic Reading I, multiple-choice type was used in 3 rd , 5 th , 7 th , and 9 th . The reading materials for the meetings were “Reaping the rewards of learning English”, “Speed reading practice”, “Gender gap in Cyberspace”, and “The Chaser”. Moreover, multiple-choice type in Basic Reading course was used to train and develop reading skills; they were scanning, skimming, and guessing word meanings from context as seen in table 4.2. 2 True-false True-false is one popular type. It is dichotomous items. Because of its apparent ease of construction, are items with only two choices. Students are presented with a statement which is related to the text and have to indicate whether it is true or false, or whether the text agrees or disagrees with the 62 statement Alderson, 2000, p.222. It was the advantage of true-false type. This type is a kind of selection types. The most common use of the true-false items is in measuring the ability to identify the correctness of statements of facts, definitions of terms, statements of principles, and the like Miller, Linn, and Grondlund, 2009, p.179. One of the useful functions is in measuring the students’ ability to distinguish fact from opinion p. 180. The type also can become measures of understanding if the opinion statements attributed to an individual or group are new to students. Hence, true-false type in Basic Reading I were used to train and develop reading skills, predicting and guessing word meanings from context. It was used in meeting 9 th and 12 th . The reading materials which were used in the meeting were “The Chaser” and “Diversity and tolerance-a brighter future” as seem in table 4.2. The result of student questionnaire showed that 39.02 students chose true-false type as the favorite, whereas 41.5 students chose this type as the easiest exercise type. For instance, one of the student participants in student questionnaire said that “true-false mudah untuk dikerjakan karena hanya ada dua dan bisa mencakup semua konten dalam waktu singkat” true-false was easy to do because it only provided two options and also it could cover a lot of content in short time. In other words, the true-false type helped students to comprehend the text and to learn new vocabulary in a short time. Yet, the true-false type had the disadvantages. The student questionnaire result presented that 4.87 students said 63 that they were being tricked mostly when they were doing this exercise type. The trick was from the ambiguity of the statements provided. 3 Matching Matching type is usually called multiple matching. This type provides two sets of stimuli which have to be matched against each other, for example matching headings for paragraphs to their corresponding paragraph Alderson, 2000, p. 215. On the other hands, students are asked to match the options associated with agivenwords “Questions based on Bloom’s Taxonomy”, n.d.. In addition, the matching type consists of two parallel columns with each word, number, or symbol in one column being matched to a word, sentence, or phrase in the other column Miller, Linn, and Gronlund, 2009, p.186. In any event, the students’ task is to identify the pairs of items that are to be associated on the basis indicated p.186. The typical matching type is limited to measuring factual information based on simple associations. Matching type in Basic Reading I course was used in meeting 1 st , 2 nd , 7 th , and 12 th . In the meetings, matching type was used to train and develop reading skills, skimming, scanning, and guessing word meanings from context. For example, in 1 st meeting, the reading skills aimed were scanning and skimming. As an example that was stated by Alderson 2000, p.215, the matching type in 1 st meeting was used to match the heading and the paragraphs. The students, then, required to apply the scanning and skimming skill in order to find the correct heading. 64 Therefore, the questionnaire result showed that 9.75 students chose this type as their favorite and 4.87 students chose matching type as the easiest exercise type. According to students’ opinion, matching type was easy to do because this type provided options, so that they just needed to match the correct answer. Still, some students thought that matching type was the difficult one. It related to the questionnaire result that 21.96 students chose this type as the most difficult exercise type. For example, one of the student participants in student questionnaire answered that “pilihan-pilihan yang ada di matching hampir sama, jadi kadang-kadang sulit untuk bedainnya” the options in matching type was almost similar one another, so they were sometimes difficult to distinguish them. This is the problem of matching type. The task designer needed to ensure the options to avoid the possibility of double answer in every question Alderson, 2000, p.219. 4 Short-answer questions Short-answer question provides possibility to interpret the students’ response to see if they have really understood Alderson, 2000, p. 227. The short answer question requires students to supply the appropriate words, numbers, or symbols to answer a question or complete a statement. Therefore, short-answer question was seen as the exercise type which could develop students’ reading skills better. It was seen by the questionnaire result that the students who agreed that short-answer question could develop their reading skills were 7.32 students. Moreover, it was equally to the questionnaire result that was for students who 65 liked short-answer question and students who thought it was a difficult exercise type. The result was also 7.32 students. In addition, the students’ reason for choosing it as favorite was that students thought its practicality when they faced this kind of exercise because they could finish doing the exercise type in short time. Yet, one of the student participants in student questionnaire as an example thought that “menurutku tipe short-answer sangat sulit karena kita harus menjawab lumayan lengkap” this type was the difficult exercise type was that to answer this type, students needed to write the answer in a wide range of response. Hence, students were seen it as the difficulty because to be able to write a complex answer, they needed to have a complex skill too. The complex skill that they need was just like grammar, vocabulary, etc. Still, this exercise type could develop another students’ skill through the requirement that the students should have to answer the short-answer type. Moreover, since short-answer question type required a complex skill to answer, short-answer question type was almost used in every meeting of Basic Reading I. The lecturer once wrote on the lecturer questionnaire that essay type or short answer type was mostly used in Basic Reading I. It was useful to train and develop scanning, skimming, prediction, previewing, making inferences, finding pronoun referents, and guessing word meanings from context. 5 Fill in the blanks Fill in the blanks type required students to read a text, read a summary of the same text, from which key words have been removed. Their task was to 66 restore the missing words Alderson, 2000, p.240. In Basic Reading I, this exercise type usually provided several options, then students were required to pick one appropriate option and filled in the text. It led the students’ response to choose fill in the blank type as their favorite exercise type for 9.76 students. Further explanation from the students, for example, one of the student participants in student questionnaire said that “aku suka tipe ini karena menggunakan logika untuk menemukan jawaban yang benar” I like this type because it uses my logical thinking to find the right answer. However, most of the students argued that this exercise is the easiest exercise type. The questionnaire result was 19.52 students. Most students said that they just needed to find the correct answer and filled the answer to the text. It was because the lecturer usually provided the answers. Still, the answers could contain one distractor or more in order to measure the student’s understanding about the text. Moreover, fill in the blank type was employed in 4 th and 12 th meeting. It was used to train and develop skimming, finding pronoun referents, and guessing word meanings from context in Basic Reading I. The example of the implementation of the type was shown in 4 th meeting. The meeting used reading material “Appointment in Samarra”. In the first section, students were required to apply finding pronoun referents skill with finding pronoun referents from the word provided, then, if the students found the answer, they put the answer into the space provided. 67 6 Summary Summary is one of the variant of the free-recall test. Students read a text and are required to summarize the main ideas, either of the whole text or a part, or those ideas in the text that deal with a given topic. The requirement is that students needed to understand the main ideas of the text, to separate relevant from irrelevant ideas, to organize their thoughts about the text and so on, in order to be able to do the task satisfactorily Alderson, 2000, p.232. Therefore, summary type was chosen as the exercise that could develop the reading skill better. The students who agreed were 51.21 students. It was more than a half of students’ amount in the class. They argued that through this exercise type they could understand the text better because they should read carefully to find the correct answer. Otherwise, several students considered summary as the difficult type. The percentage of students who chose that was 4.87 students. The reason was that students were trapped in mistakes. The mistakes that they stated were such as misunderstanding the text, confusing to get the main idea correctly, etc. Moreover, this exercise type was used in 8 th and 12 th meeting with the reading skills aimed were skimming, finding pronoun referents, and guessing word meanings from context. The reading materials used at the meetings were humorous stories and “Diversity and tolerance-a brighter future. For instance, in 12 th meeting, students were asked to summarize the writer’s view point of the story. Hence, they were consciously asked to use skimming skill to find the writer’s view point. 68 7 Reader’s log Reader’s log is one of the exercise types that consisted of a set of exercise types. This exercise was seen as the complex exercise. It consisted of several parts. The first part was that students should write the title of the article and mentioned the main idea of the article. Along with the article, the students should mention the source of the article. The second part was that students had to write the new vocabulary. The second part was divided into four parts. The four parts were new words, part of speech, meaning or synonym, and sentence using the word. Reader’s log gave some benefits for students such as students had an occasion to speak their mind and it could encourage students to read more. Quite often, the conversation strays off the actual topic of an article, and students were able to express their feeling about important, sometimes personal, issues. In addition, reader’s log also gave the lecturers benefits like the lecturers could help the students particularly the quite students to revise their estimation of the students’ abilities Mikulecky, 2000, p. 20. Therefore, many students thought that reader’s log could develop their reading skill better than other exercise types. Then, the result for it was more than 50 students or 51.21 students. They argued that through this exercise type they could read more and gave them new knowledge related to the real life. They added that they could choose the topic of the article freely, so that they chose their favorite article. It influenced their motivation to read. Based on Krashen 1985, students’ reading motivation increases when they read what they are interested in. 69 Since reading improves with practice, reading self-selected books should consequently lead to improve reading. However, for some students this exercise type was seen as the difficult exercise type. The result for this was 4.87 students. Students argued that the difficult part of reader’s log type was when they were asked to understand the reading text. Furthermore, they should put more effort in understanding new vocabulary they found in the text. Vocabulary has been being a problem matter for reading comprehension. Thus, students needed to train the reading skill like guessing word meaning in context. By this skill, students required to understand the words as related to the context aimed. As Gipe 1979 as cited in Mikulecky, 2000, p. 82 explained, reasons that a familiar context will activate a learner’s old information or schema and that the new meaning will then be assimilated. By relating the new word to an existing schema, the students are more likely to retain the meaning of the new word. Exercises that require the learners to identify cognates and guess the meaning of unknown words from context are common in some syllabuses and materials. These can be useful strategies for serious reading in a foreign language, and certainly for motivating the learners in the early stage Davies and Pearse, 2008, p. 95. Therefore, reader’s log exercise type did not apply in the class. It was the take home assignment. The students were asked to submit the work three times; they were in the first progress test, second progress test, and final test. Since reader’s log type contained several exercise types in it, it was useful to train and develop the reading skills aimed in Basic Reading I course. 70 However, the researcher found the different exercise types given by the lecturer instead of the handouts. Then, the data were obtained from the observations. The lecturer asked the students to do a game, reading aloud, speed- reading, discussion, and online tasks. Those kinds of exercise were used to avoid boredom in the class. It related to learner role and class situation. As known, D class of Basic Reading I was a dynamic class, not a static class. The learners or students were involved actively in class activities. So, if they were given the same exercises all the time, they would get bored easily. Then, the teacher needed to make an innovation for the exercises given to students. The other exercises conducted in Basic Reading I, were stated as follows. a Games Game, as Wright, Betteridge, and Buckby 2006 stated that is an activity that is entertaining and engaging, often challenging, and an activity in which learner play and usually interact with others. Therefore, one of the meetings in Basic Reading I used game as one of class activities. The game used in Basic Reading I was what the lecturer called as ‘whispering game’. The ‘whispering game’ is a kind of running dictation game. This game requires students to memorize and dictate a text, and record a dictated text accurately in writing. It is usually conducted in a group work. This was suitable to the class activity that needed students’ interaction. Based on the types of games, this game is a remember game; students try to remember something and then communicate what they have remembered. While doing this game, the students were moving around, so it is a kind of kinesthetic game as well. 71 The reason why lecturers chose games as class activity were that language learning is hard work, so games help and encourage many learners to carry on their interest and work; games also help the teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful; games provide the key features of ‘drill’ with the added opportunity to sense working of language as living communication. Thus, a game was used in Basic Reading I with intended meaning to develop and train the students’ reading skills. Moreover, the procedure of the running dictation game is as follows. a. Depending on the size of the class, display one or more copies of the text on the classroom wall or on a table. b. Divide the learner into pairs and have each pair decide who will be learner A and who will be learner B. c. Explain the rules of the game as follows: Learner A must run the text to learner B. Learner A should then dictate what they remember of the text to Learner B, who should record it in writing. Learner A can run the text as often as is necessary to complete dictating the whole text. d. Applaud the first pair to finish with no mistake. Davis and Rinvolucri, 1988 as cited in Wright, Betteridge, and Buckby, 2006 The procedure of ‘whispering game’ in Basic Reading I had a little different with the running dictation game as aforementioned. The differences were that since the D class of Basic Reading I had many students around 45 students, the lecturer decided to divide the class into five big groups; every group consisted of eight or nine students; the rules remained the same, but it did not stop in 72 Learner B, the text kept running until the last students, then the last students should record it and write it on the white board; the group who could write the answer first on the white board was the winner. b Reading aloud Reading passages can be dealt with in the following ways; they are silent reading, reading aloud by the teacher, reading aloud by individual members of the class and choral reading. Provided the new words have been explained, silent reading followed by oral or written comprehension questions can be valuable exercise Candlin, 1967, p. 23. Hence, based on the class observation in Basic Reading I, the reading passages were dealt with two ways; silent reading and reading aloud by individual member of the class. Reading aloud used to be one of the normal methods for giving students language practice. Students Pronunciation mistakes were encouraged by that method, because students often had to pronounce words that they had never seen before. In this course, reading aloud was done whenever both students and lecturer had an opportunity. Based on the observation, the students were given a chance to read the text aloud if they were asked to bring a text with them. Good reading aloud of a foreign language is such a special achievement that all students should be given special instruction, example and practice in reading their mother tongue aloud before they are called upon to read the foreign language aloud. If they learn to read their mother tongue aloud with good expression and ease, they will soon learn to read the foreign language aloud well, 73 provided they understand fully what they are reading, and have been given special instruction and training. The special task of teaching pupils to read a foreign language aloud should normally be carried on during the first two or three year with the Readers. This case was in accordance with Basic Reading I, it offered in early semester of this study program. In early years, the reading aloud is useful for giving practice in pronunciation, though the amount read by each student should be short. In case, if they should read a long passage, attention will often be attracted to meaning, and pronunciation will be forgotten. In addition, reading aloud also can be used to improve tone, rhythm, and fluency; that is, an expression exercise. P. Gurrey, 1955, p.97-98 as cited in Byrne, 1972, p.97-98 c Speed Reading The other exercise was speed reading. Speed in reading should be carried out by all students particularly students of foreign language in order to increase their vocabulary and fluency of reading Byrne, 1972, p. 100. Therefore, Basic Reading I course provided one meeting to train the students in speed reading. Since foreign language students especially students of D class of Basic Reading I were obligated to read many various text with different lengths, it gave some benefits for them to practice reading faster. It was seen from the aims of reading faster. Reading faster was aimed that increasing the students’ reading rate reinforces that the idea that it is possible to understand a passage without necessarily reading every word, relating to students’ reading assignments they 74 who do not learn to read faster can spend three or four times longer than others, and improving comprehension Mikulecky, 2000, p.54. In addition, Grabe and Stoller 2001 suggest that “the use of timed and paced readings together with other activities that are done under time pressure may be a way to develop this skill”. The exercise for speed reading that was employed in Basic Reading I was that students should read materials at their English language proficiency level ‘against the clock’ and then answer comprehension check question Mikulecky, 2000, p.54. d Discussion Discussion was also employed to develop students’ skill in Basic Reading I. Discussion could develop the interaction among students to students and teacher to students or students to teacher. The idea of this exercise is to get something done via the language, to read a text and do something with the information Long Crookes, 1992 as cited in Nation, 2004. Whole tasks involve performance of reading in conjunction with other skills: listening, speaking, or writing. For example, students in a small group might read a number of texts, such as brochures, timetables, or maps, and listen to radio weather or traffic reports in order to carry out the larger task of deciding on the best method of transportation to use on a trip. In such an activity, each student deals with one category of information, and all students must communicate their information to one another to come up with the best plan for the trip. For example, a classroom-reading task might involve students drawing a picture based on a written text, reconstructing a text that has been cut up into 75 paragraphs, or, in pairs, reading slightly different versions of the same story and discovering differences through speech alone. These tasks, while not real world, are still communicative; the focus is on understanding a text to get something done Knutson, 1998. e Online tasks One more exercise type used in Basic Reading I course was that online tasks. Online task is a kind of online learning that uses computer and internet as the medium. The computer is merely the vehicle that provides the processing capability and delivers the instruction to learners Clark, 2001 as cited in Ally, n.d.. Online learning is an educational material that is presented on a computer Carliner, 1999 as cited in Ally, n.d.. Khan 1997 as cited in Ally, n.d. defines online instruction as an innovative approach for delivering instruction to a remote audience, using the Web as the medium. The aims of online learning are to access learning materials; to interact with the content, instructor, and other learners; and to obtain support during the learning process, in order to acquire knowledge, to construct personal meaning, and to grow from the learning experience. Hence, the lecturer of Basic Reading I also used online tasks as a medium in learning activity. The web address that was used by the lecturer was basicreading1.pbworks.com. The lecturer used this media to give some materials that students needed to learn, then the students should open the internet and get the materials. It was the benefit of online tasks; students could access the online materials at any time. Furthermore, students could use the internet to access up-to- 76 date and relevant learning materials, and could communicate with the lecturer and other students. Moreover, the lecturer often asked the students to submit their assignment through this web, and give comment of a particular topic on which they asked to do. Yet, to get full service from this web, students had to sign up first. Using online tasks, the lecturer also got some benefits, for example, the lecturer could update learning materials and students were able to see the changes at once. For example, students should compare and give comments on Why Men Don’t Iron and the articles provided. One of the students with the nick name yhipyan on September 14 th , 2011commented: Man and Woman... In my opinion,,, differences in men and women when faced with a problem that they react by thinking, talking and taking decisions in different differences between men and women is how they deal with and cope with their stress. Men become increasingly focused and withdrawn while women increasingly confused and emotionally involved. At times like this, mans need for comfort is different from the needs of women. Men will feel better by solving problems, while women will feel better by talking about those problems. If a man under pressure, he rarely talked about issues and emotions to others. he tucked it away and solve their own problems. Meanwhile, if a woman feels the tension, to obtain relief, he will find someone who believed, then will talk in great detail about his problems. After sharing the feelings of confusion, he felt better. This is how a woman resolve her tension. so my opinion is very clear that men and women are very different both in terms of thinking, speaking, and make decisions in a problem or issue basicreading1.pbworks.com In short, the researcher concluded that there was short-answer question that was most likely used in Basic Reading I course as seen in table 4.2. If students knew the exercise types used mostly in Basic Reading I, it would bring the benefit for them because the students knew the purpose of giving this exercise type in order to develop reading skills. Another benefit was that they would be accustomed to doing the short-answer question type even in other subjects. 77 Short-answer question type required students to supply the appropriate words, numbers, or symbols to answer a question or complete a statement. Reserve short answer questions for situations when supplying the answer is a necessary part of the learning outcome to be measured such as to recall the information. The short answer is suitable for measuring a wide variety of relatively simple learning outcomes p. 172. For example, “what is the name of the man who invented the steamboat? Robert Fulton” p.172. Short-answer question provides possibility to interpret the students’ response to see if they have really understood Alderson, 2000, p. 227. Thus, short-answer question type was most likely being used in Basic Reading I because the lecturer considered this exercise type as the one which could develop students’ understanding about a reading text and train their reading skills. Moreover, the researcher summed up the four categories of students’ preference to exercise types as in table 4.3 based on the questionnaire. Exercise types Students’ preference categories the favorite type the easiest type the most difficult type the type that train and develop students’ skills most Multiple-choice 24.39 29.26 2.44 0 True-false 39.02 41.5 4.87 0 Matching 9.75 4.87 21.96 7.32 Short-answer question 7.32 4.87 7.32 7.32 Fill in the blank 9.76 2.44 19.52 2.44 Summary 0 2.44 24.39 19.52 Reader’s log 7.32 9.75 4.87 51.21 Table 4.3 students’ preferences of exercise types used in Basic Reading I As seen in table 4.3, the favorite exercise type is true-false with 39.02 participants. The easiest exercise type is also true-false with 41.5 participants. 78 Then, the most difficult type is summary with 24.39 participants. The last is the exercise type that trains and develops students’ skills most is reader’s log.

2. Exercise Types of 1