Determining the Actions to Solve the Field Problems

59 3 Post-reading Phase a The teacher aids the students‘ knowledge into a greater schema. It can be done through doing comprehension questions related to the text, drawing relationship contrast and comparison between their personal experiences and the material discussed by having a class discussion. The activities above then were formulated into four steps. They were building interest and attention, accessing prior knowledge and exploring key words, building connection between students‘ prior knowledge and the new material, and comprehending the new material. Those steps were so called steps in schema activation strategy. The brief descriptions of each steps is as follows: 1 Building interest and attention Building interest and attention was one of the most significant activities in the teaching and learning processes in general. In teaching and learning reading, this activity became an important activity. Once the students were interested in the lesson, they felt at ease in understanding the lesson. Besides, when the students had paid their attention to the lesson, the process of teaching and learning reading ran well. Considering the importance of building interest and attention, the researcher used several ways in this step. She chose interesting topics which were closely related to their reality, took the reading materials from many sources, and told the students about the reading goals so that they were 60 motivated to read the material. Besides, the researcher also used media in building the students‘ interest and attention. The researcher used slides, which contained some pictures and materials which were used in the lesson. The pictures were suitable for the topic and material taught. Most of the pictures were taken from the internet, but some of them were also taken from a certain textbook. In selecting the pictures, the researcher also considered how far the pictures could attract the students‘ interest and how far the students were familiar with the pictures. When the students were attracted and familiar with the pictures, activating the st udents‘ prior knowledge and exploring their vocabulary became easier. 2 Accessing prior knowledge and exploring key words The next steps was accessing prior knowledge and exploring key words. This step was done by some ways. From the picture shown, the researcher asked the students some questions related to the picture and the topic introduced. The researcher also tried to relate the picture and the topic to the students‘ real life. Those questions were about what the meaning of the topic was, what the picture was, what the students have already known about the picture, and about things, which were related to the picture and the topic. According to Willis 2008: 131, these activities belong to exploring key words. The purposes of this activity were improving the students‘ vocabulary and preparing them before reading new materials.