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STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work of parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and references, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, 21 June 2012 The writer,

Yunita Sulistyaningtyas 071214032

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma:

Nama : Yunita Sulistyaningtyas

Nomor Mahasiswa : 071214032

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Pepustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

The Exercise Types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalty kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyataan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal: 21 Juni 2012

Yang menyatakan

ABSTRACT

Sulistyaningtyas, Yunita. (2012). The Exercise Types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

Reading is a dynamic and interactive process, during which learners make use of a variety of skills and strategies, combined with background knowledge. Therefore, one of the teaching reading goals is to give students opportunity to develop their skills. Then, to accomplish it, teachers used various exercise types.

There are two problems in this study: (1) what are the types of exercises used in Basic Reading I? (2)What are the students’ problems in reading? Thus, the study has two objectives. The first is to find out the types of exercise used in Basic Reading I. The second is to find out the students’ problems in reading.

The researcher observed the exercise types in D class of Basic Reading I, collected the documents of Basic Reading I such as weekly handouts, course outline, and syllabus. The researcher, then, distributed the student questionnaire to the students who took Basic Reading I and lecturer questionnaire, and interviewed four students who were randomly selected to gain deeper information. The participants of this study were the students and the lecturer of D class of Basic Reading I academic year 2011/2012. The data were collected from the observation notes, documents, questionnaire sheets, and interview transcripts. The researcher employed qualitative research particularly in survey and document analysis. It means that the purpose of this study is to gain information about the exercise types in Basic Reading I and the students’ problem in reading.

Responding to the first question, the exercise types used were multiple-choice, matching, true-false, short-answer question, fill in the blank, reading aloud, reading faster, games, discussion, reader’s log, and online tasks. Moreover, the exercise types aforementioned were used to develop and train reading skills in Basic Reading I. The reading skills were previewing, prediction, skimming, scanning, finding pronoun referents, making inferences, and guessing words meaning from context. Responding to the second question, the research revealed the students’ problems in reading were due to text characteristics, reader characteristics, and interaction between reader and text.

The researcher concluded that short-answer question was the exercise type that was most likely used in Basic Reading I. Moreover, the research revealed the students’ preference to exercise types in Basic Reading I that true-false was the favorite and easiest exercise type; the difficult type was summary and the type that developed skills most was reader’s log. In addition, the students’ problem in reading from text characteristics was lack of vocabulary. Meanwhile, the problem which was from reader characteristics was lack of background knowledge. Then, the problem which was from the interaction between reader and text was comprehension in which was influenced by the lack of vocabulary and the lack of background knowledge.

ABSTRAK

Sulistyaningtyas, Yunita. (2012). The Exercise Types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Membaca merupakan proses yang dinamis dan interaktif dimana siswa menggunakan kemampuan dan strategi yang berbeda, dan dikombinasikan dengan latar belakang pengetahuan. Oleh karena itu, salah satu tujuan mengajar membaca adalah memberikan kesempatan siswa untuk mengembangkan dan melatih kemampuan membaca mereka. Untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut, para pengajar menggunakan tipe latihan yang bervariasi.

Ada dua masalah dalam penelitian ini: (1) apa saja tipe latihan yang digunakan di kelas Basic Reading I? (2) apa masalah siswa dalam membaca? Penelitian ini memiliki dua tujuan yaitu untuk mengetahui tipe-tipe latihan di kelas Basic Reading I dan masalah para siswa dalam membaca.

Peneliti mengobservasi, mengumpulkan dokumen misalnya handout mingguan dan silabus dari Basic Reading I kelas D, memberikan kuesioner kepada siswa dan dosen, dan mewawancarai empat siswa secara acak untuk menjawab pertanyaan. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini adalah siswa dan dosen dari Basic Reading I kelas D tahun ajaran 2011/2012. Data dikumpulkan melalui observasi, dokumen, kuesioner, dan wawancara. Peneliti menerapkan penelitian kualitatif khususnya survei dan analisis dokumen. Hal ini bertujuan untuk mendapatkan informasi tentang tipe-tipe latihan di kelas Basic Reading I dan masalah siswa dalam membaca.

Untuk menjawab masalah pertama, tipe latihan yang digunakan adalah multiple-choice, matching, true-false, short-answer question, fill in the blank, reading aloud, reading faster, games, discussion, reader’s log, dan online tasks. Tipe-tipe latihan tersebut digunakan untuk melatih dan mengembangkan kemampuan atau strategi membaca yang dipelajari di Basic Reading I. Strategi membaca yang dipelajari adalah previewing, prediction, skimming, scanning, finding pronoun referents, making inferences, dan guessing word meanings from context. Untuk menjawab masalah kedua, penelitian ini menemukan masalah siswa dalam membaca yaitu berasal dari karakteristik teks, karakteristik pembaca, dan hubungan antara pembaca dan teks.

Peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa short-answer question adalah tipe latihan yang sering digunakan di Basic Reading I. Penelitian ini juga menemukan bahwa tipe true-false adalah tipe latihan yang paling disukai dan paling mudah menurut siswa, summary adalah tipe yang paling sulit dan reader’s log adalah tipe yang paling dapat mengembangkan kemampuan dan melatih strategi membaca siswa. Selain itu, masalah siswa dalam membaca ditinjau dari karakteristik teks adalah kurangnya kosakata; dari karakteristik pembaca adalah kurangnya latar belakang pengetahuan; sedangkan dari hubungan antara pembaca dan teks, berasal dari pemahaman membaca yang juga berhubungan dengan kurangnya kosakata dan latarbelakang pengetahuan.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank everyone who supports me until I can accomplish the research. Therefore, first of all, I would like to address my deepest gratitude to Allah SWT because without His guidance, I could not have accomplished this research.

I give my special gratitude to Christina Kristiyani, S.Pd. M.Pd. as my major sponsor, for her guidance, patience, and especially challenge and trust that can encourage me to work on the research. Her comments, correction, suggestion for the research were the biggest contribution. Without her help, I would not have been able to finish my thesis. Moreover, I would also like to thank Henny Herawaty, S.Pd., M.Hum., for the opportunity given to me to conduct my study on her Basic Reading I class.

Furthermore, I thank all participants in my research. The research would not have been accomplished without their cooperation and participation. I also would like to give my gratitude to all PBI’s lecturers from whom I have learnt many valuable things. In addition, I thank the PBI’s staff and library staff who helps me much.

Then, my special gratitude devotes to my parents. My father, Bapak, Sumarjiyo, S.Pd., who has passed away and may God give him rest in peace. This thesis is my obligation to him and also my beloved mother, Ibu, Dra. Sri Rahayu Tyas Wibowo, who always supports me in everything I do. My sister, Een, is my best sibling in the world.

I would also thank my best friends in PBI Sanata Dharma University, Widi, Sance, Eboy, Rima, and Ruddy for their trust and friendship. They are the best friends I have ever met. I thank them for the happy and sad moment we had together. I also would not forget to say thanks to Merici who has given me useful advice, Novi, and Suster Yusta. I also thank all my classmates in PBI Sanata Dharma University. They have given me a wonderful experience.

Moreover, I would like to thank them who have helped me to finish my research but the names have not been stated here. May God bless them all forever.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TITLE PAGE ... i

APPROVAL PAGES ... ii

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ... iv

PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ... v

ABSTRACT ... vi

ABSTRAK ... vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ... x

LIST OF TABLES ... xii

LIST OF APPENDICES ... xiii

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ... 1

A. Research Background ... 1

B. Problem Formulations ... 6

C. Problem Limitations ... 7

D. Research Objectives ... 7

E. Research Benefits ... 7

F. Definitions of Terms... 8

1. Types of Exercise ... 8

2. Basic Reading I ... 9

3. Students of Sanata Dharma University ... 9

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... 10

A.Theoretical Description ... 10

1. Definitions of Exercises ... 10

2. Three Levels of Choosing Exercises by Teachers ... 12

3. Types of Exercises ... 12

4. Theory on Reading ... 21

c. Reading skills ... 24

d. Comprehension in Reading ... 27

e. Problems in Reading ... 28

5. Teaching Reading for University Students ... 28

B.An Overview of Basic Reading I ... 30

C.Theoretical Framework ... 32

CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 35

A.Research Method ... 35

B.Research Setting ... 36

C.Research Participants ... 37

D.Instruments and Data Gathering Techniques ... 39

E.Data Analysis Techniques ... 46

F. Research Procedures ... 51

CHAPTER IV: RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ... 53

A.Exercise Types Used in Basic Reading I ... 53

1. An overview of exercise types used in Basic Reading I ... 53

2. Exercise types of 1st, 8th, and 15th meetings of Basic Reading I .... 78

B.Student’s Problems in Reading when Doing Exercises ... 83

1. Text Characteristics ... 84

2. Reader Characteristics ... 86

3. Interaction between Reader and Text ... 87

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 89

A.Conclusions ... 89

B.Recommendations ... 91

REFERENCES ... 93

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

2.1 Reading skills aimed in Basic Reading I... 31

2.2 Reading materials and the text genre in Basic Reading I ... 31

2.3 Reading skills aimed and the reading skills aimed ... 32

3.1 Part A data of student questionnaire ... 42

3.2 Part B data of student questionnaire ... 43

3.3 Data of first question in Part C ... 44

3.4 Data of lecturer questionnaire ... 45

3.5 Data of document analysis ... 48

3.6 Relation of reading skills aimed and the exercise types used ... 48

4.1 Reading materials, reading skills aimed, and exercise types used in Basic Reading I ... 56

4.2 Exercise types used to train and develop the reading skills ... 58

4.3 Students’ preferences of exercise types used in Basic Reading I ... 77

4.4 Reading materials, reading skills aimed, and exercise types used in 1st, 8th, and 15th meeting ... 81

4.5 Exercise types used to train and develop the reading skills aimed in 1st, 8th, and 15th meeting ... 82

APPENDICES

Page

Appendix A: Observation result and Online Tasks... 97

Appendix B: Student questionnaire and Lecturer Questionnaire ... 109

Appendix C: Transcripts of Interview ... 118

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The research investigates the use of exercise types in Basic Reading I by first semester students of academic year 2011/2012 Sanata Dharma University. This chapter presents the research background, problem formulations, problem limitations, research objectives, research benefits, and definitions of terms.

A. Research Background

Language has contributed greatly to the progress made by mankind by providing, not only the external social skill of communication, but also by giving man an advanced type of shorthand which has enabled him to communicate with himself in thought (Moyle, 1972, p.22). Reading is such of a written language. Moreover, reading is an active skill that involves the reader, the text, and the interaction between the two. The acquisition of reading skills is a very important aspect of first (L1) as well as second (L2) or foreign language (FL) literacy. Reading in a L2 or FL is a dynamic and interactive process, during which learners make use of a variety of skills and strategies, combined with background knowledge, L1-related knowledge and real-world knowledge to arrive at an understanding of written material (Aebersold & Field, 1997, p.ix as cited in Constantinescu, 2007). On the other hands, reading is a process in which we look at words printed on a page and derived some meaning from them (Raygor & Raygor, 1985, p. ix).

Meanwhile, it is important to view any method of teaching. To successful English language teaching and learning, teachers need to define the goals and objectives on their teaching (Davies, 2008, p.3). Nevertheless, there is no known correct or perfect way to approach the teaching reading in the present state of knowledge (Moyle, 1972, p.28). This is because the process of reading is such a complex mixture of individual abilities, skills, and personal traits. However, the general objectives of teaching reading can derive from comprehension, speed, etc. as known that reading comprehension is seen as very complete understanding of a topic (Raygor & Raygor, 1985). It is said that although different readers may engage in very different reading processes, the understanding they end up with will be similar.

Hence, one of the teaching reading goals in a classroom is giving the opportunity for teachers to develop their students’ ability in reading such a reading comprehension. Nevertheless, the teachers should pay attention to the teaching goals and objectives that should be apparent to the learners. They should feel that every activity the teachers do with the learners is worthwhile, and that the whole course is worthwhile (Davies, 2008, p. 5). Therefore, to develop the students’ reading skills, teachers need a kind of assessment devices, for example assignment, homework, and practice (Miller, Linn, & Grounlund, 2009, p.26). They are used as the way to reach the goals and objectives of the teaching and learning. Homework and practice are instructional techniques that are well known to teachers. Both provide students with opportunities to deepen their understanding and skills relative to content that has been presented to them in the

beginning. It is naturally obvious that practice is necessary for learning of any type (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001, p. 60).

According to Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001, p.67), students should adapt and shape what they have learned while practicing. Practice has a classroom implication that is students must adapt skills as they are learning them. In fact, one can think of skill learning as involving a phase that is called as “shaping phase”. During this “shaping phase”, learners focus on their conceptual understanding of skills. They should follow procedures effectively. The generalization of practice notes that skills should be learned to the level that students could perform them quickly and accurately.

In addition, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) states that to facilitate the skill development, students should be encouraged to keep track of their speed and accuracy. It uses the idea of “focused practice” (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001, p. 70). It is particularly important when students are practicing a complex, multistep skill or process. For example, there are some aspects to make troublesome for students, and the students might need to be given some exercises that help them to focus on one objective they want to reach. This type of exercises is referred to as focused because the learner still engages in the overall skill or process in the teaching learning activity.

Furthermore, teachers typically set time aside for modeling the skill or process, for providing guided practice with the steps of the skills or process, and then for assigning independent practice sessions. It is also important if students understand how a skill and a process work, for instance teacher gives the material

about speed reading, then teacher should set a time and steps to the material. Homework and practice are ways to provide students with opportunities to refine and extend their knowledge. Teachers can use both of these practices as powerful instructional tools (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001, p. 70).

Based on Piepho in the “Communicative teaching of English” by Candlin (1983, p. 45), practice is seen as part of a method and is introduced through sets of integrated exercises as a means towards curriculum objectives. Practice demands the learners’ willingness to do a set of exercises or a sequence of tasks. Generally, practice is likely to be most effective when it is followed by communicative or interpretive tasks. The tasks or exercises should make the learners clear that the tasks are a combination of cognitive and linguistic skill.

Later on Piepho as cited by Candlin (1983, p. 46) explains that exercises are not simply a didactic organization. It involves the relationship between the teachers and the learners. Thus, the essential conditions for successful teaching are patience, encouragement, praise, and helping every learner continually towards the mastering of learning. The way of the teachers can look after every individual learner in this way has organizational or procedural, which is set of repeated exercises. These exercises are not always to be terminated in course book unit or lesson, but it can be form handouts compiled by the teacher. It sequences every learner to achieve the learning objective and to master the skills or sub-skills the related subject, for example, the lecturers can compile the material from internet, and this compilation is based on the students’ need and the objectives of the

course. It likes what Moyle (1972) explains that teachers should know the purpose of giving exercise to fulfill the students’ needs.

The value and effectiveness of exercise lie not only in the more or less automatically correct language produce, but also more importantly in the requirement they force, like formal drill in which the teacher make his purposes clearly through the exercises. Moreover, learners assess the value of exercise in terms of the degree to which their particular objective is fulfilled by the activity required by exercises (Phiepho as cited in Candlin, 1983, p. 47).

Moreover, when doing the exercises, students can face some problems. The problems can come from the motivation, lack of words, environment, etc. This situation influences their interest to do the exercise. The similar problems also can occur in doing reading exercises. When the students are given some exercises about reading comprehension, they may fail to comprehend a text because of their interpreting text process. The problem when interpreting a text is that the readers supposedly reduce their focus on what they should understand. As known that comprehending a text for a reader is crucial. It is related to the meaning from a text. Meaning is created in the interaction between a reader and a text. The text has what Halliday (1979) and Widdowson (1979) called meaning potential, and the potential is realized in the product of understanding only by readers reading (both are cited in Alderson, 2000, p. 6).

Nevertheless, the researcher takes Basic Reading I as the research subject. Basic Reading I provides the students with various exercise types for developing basic reading skills. Based on the informal interview, the students who

joined the Basic Reading I class did some different types of exercises. They were trained to develop their reading skills and reading comprehension. They stated that they could improve their reading skills and reading comprehension because they were doing the exercises given by the lecturer. The examples of exercise types used were multiple choice, true-false, matching, short-answer question, fill in the blank, etc.

Since Basic Reading I was one of the subject in English Education Study Program, it had the course objectives. The objectives are seen to obtain the goal of the course or subject. The students are provided with the hands-on experience in applying the reading strategies when reading various types of texts. Moreover, the course helps the students develop their English vocabulary and reading aloud ability. It also helps the students become independent and effective readers. The topics of this course include basic reading skills which consist of various reading strategies and exercises (Syllabus of Basic Reading I, 2011). Thus, the research will focus on the use of exercise types in Basic Reading I and students’ problem in reading. The title of the research is the exercise types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University.

B. Problem Formulations

Based on the previous part, which is the research background, there are two problems formulated to this research. The problems are as follows.

1. What are the exercise types used in Basic Reading I?

C. Problem Limitations

There are several classes for reading in English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. However, the researcher limits the subject to Basic Reading I. It is because the data gathering will be done in odd semester and the objectives of Basic Reading I class still emphasize on the development of the basic reading skills. In this case, the students of Basic Reading I are given some exercise types during the course. The exercises may differ in several types such as multiple-choices, fill in the blank, matching, etc. The students do the exercises and get the problems in reading when doing such the exercise. Hence, the researcher limits the discussion on the use of the exercise types in Basic Reading I class of first semester students in Sanata Dharma University and its problems in reading.

D. Research Objectives

This study intends to find the answer the two questions stated in problem formulation. There are two objectives. The first is to find out the types of exercise used in Basic Reading I. The second is to know the students’ problems in reading when doing the types of exercise in Basic Reading I

E. Research Benefits

This research will primarily benefit the students, the lecturers, and other researches. They are as follows.

1. The students

The research will be useful for the students in Sanata Dharma University especially English Education study program students. By knowing the type of

exercise that they use in the reading class, will help them to know which exercise types they like most in Basic Reading I course and what problems that they face in doing the exercise, so that they can anticipate the problem before facing the exercise types.

2. The lecturers

The research is also useful for the lecturers because the lecturers will know which type of exercise their students may have the problems and know the purpose of giving exercise to fulfill the students’ needs (Moyle, 1972).

3. Other researchers

Other researchers mean people who will conduct the similar research. This research will be useful because they will have a method view of how to do the research. The other researcher also can apply the similar research in different subject or participants.

F. Definitions of terms

In order to make common conception with the readers about some terminologies used in this research, the researcher defines some terms as follows. 1. Exercise types

Exercise types are kinds of exercise used for developing particular skills in a course since an exercise aims to give the students opportunities to deepen their understanding and relative to content (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001, p. 60). In this study, exercise types are kinds of exercises that are used as the assessment to measure student-learning outcome and develop reading skills.

2. Basic Reading I

Basic Reading I is one of the compulsory courses in English Education Study Program. This course is taken in the first semester (Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2011). It is designed to introduce students with the reading strategies. In this course, the students are provided with the hands-on experience in applying the reading strategies when reading various types of texts. Moreover, the course helps the students develop their English vocabulary and reading aloud ability. It also helps the students become independent and effective readers. The topics of this course include basic reading skills which consist of various reading strategies and exercises (Syllabus of Basic Reading I, 2011).

3. Students of English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma Univeristy English Education Study Program Students of Sanata Dharma University is the person who is listed as a student in English Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University (Universitas Sanata Dharma, 2007).

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents detailed theories related to the research of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I Sanata Dharma University in first semester students’ academic year 2011/2012. This chapter will be divided into three parts; they are theoretical description, an overview of Basic Reading I, and theoretical framework.

A.Theoretical Description

This theoretical description concerns the related theories used to support the accomplishment of the study. There are five major areas. They are definition of exercises, three levels of choosing exercises, types of exercises, theory on reading, and teaching reading for university students.

1. Definition of exercises

Assessment of student learning requires the use of techniques for measuring student achievement. Assessment is more than a collection of techniques, however. It is a systematic process that plays a significant role in effective teaching, It begins with the identifications of 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). Hence, teachers take time to construct and select the assessment type, for example student’s worksheet, homework assignment, projects, and term paper.

Homework, assignment, tasks, exercises, and the like are the assessment type that used in a classroom. As explained by Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001), homework and practice are instructional techniques that are well known to teachers. Both provide students with opportunities to deepen their understanding and skills relative to content that has been initially presented to them.

Piepho as cited by Candlin (1983, p. 46) explains that exercises are not simply a didactic organization. It involves the relationship between the teachers and the learners. Thus, the essential conditions for successful teaching are patience, encouragement, praise, and helping of every learner continually towards the mastering of learning. The way of the teachers can look after every individual learner in this way has organizational or procedural, which is set of repeated exercises. These exercises are not always to be terminated in course book unit or lesson, but it can be form handouts compiled by the teacher. It sequences every learner to achieve the learning objective and to master the skills or sub-skills the related subject, for example, the lecturers can compile the material from internet, and this compilation is based on the students’ need and the objectives of the course. It likes what Moyle (1972) explains that teachers should know the purpose of giving exercise to fulfill the students’ needs.

The value and effectiveness of exercise lies not only in the more or less automatically correct language produce, but also more importantly in the requirement they force, like formal drill in which the teacher make his purposes clearly through the exercises. Moreover, learners assess the value of exercise in

terms of the degree to which their particular objective is fulfilled by the activity required by exercises (Phiepho in Candlin, 1983, p.47).

2. Three levels of choosing exercises by teachers

McNeil, Donant, and Alkin in How to Teach Reading Successfully mentioned the three levels used by teachers to choose exercises. The levels are goal level, the instructional objectives or skills level, and the activity level (1980, p. 8).

a. The goal level

A reading goal is one level of purpose for the guidance of educational activity (p. 8). Statements of goals imply both values and commitment of instruction for their attainment.

b. The instructional objectives or skills level

An instructional objective is a statement of what pupils are supposed know, be able to do, or believe as a result of instruction (pp.8-9).

c. The activity level

Activities or learning opportunities include the lessons, reading selections, games, learning centers, discussions, cassettes, films, all of the things and events that learners engage in when learning to read (p.9).

3. Types of exercise

Classroom tests and assessments play a central role in the evaluation of student learning. They provide relevant measures of many important learning

outcomes and indirect evidence concerning others (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.139). Many different types of assessment data might be useful in a particular situation. The teaching-learning process involves a continuous and interrelated series of instructional decisions concerning ways to enhance student learning (p. 28). Assessment, on the other hand, may include both quantitative descriptions (measurement) and qualitative (non-measurement) of students as in figure 2.1 (p. 29).

Tests and other assessments procedures can also be classified terms of their functional role in classroom instruction (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.38). The categorized are as follows.

a. Format of assessment

1) Selected-response test is that students select response to question from available options.

2) Complex-performance assessment is that students construct extended response or performs in response to complex task (p.45).

b. Use in classroom instruction

1) Placement assessment is concerned with the student’s entry performance and typically focuses on questions. It is to determine student performance at the beginning of instructions.

2) Formative assessment is used to monitor learning progress during instructions. Its purpose is to provide continuous feedback to both students and teachers concerning learning successes and failures. Formative assessment depends on specially prepared tests and assessment for each segment of

instruction. Because formative assessment is directed toward improving learning and instruction, the results are typically not used for assigning course grades. To be effective tools of teaching and learning, formative assessments must be consistent with important student learning goals (p.21). Teachers must be able to control the time that formative assessments are administered and the choice of tasks that students are asked to perform. Thus, exercises are kind of formative assessment.

3) Diagnostic assessment is a highly specialized procedure. It is concerned with the persistent or recurring learning difficulties that are left unresolved by formative assessment. The aim of diagnostic assessment is to determine the causes of persistent learning problems and to formulate a plan for remedial action. 4) Summative assessment typically comes at the end of a course of instruction. It is designed to determine the extent to which the instructional goals have been achieved and is used primarily for assigning course grades or for certifying student mastery of the intended learning outcomes (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, pp.38-39).

In planning for a reading assessment, for example, a list of the reading skills and the number of test items for measuring each skill may be sufficient for specifying what the test is to measure (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.149). Tests and assessments given during instruction provide the basis for formative assessment (p.141). Teachers commonly call these formative tests as learning tests, practice tests, quizzes, unit tests, and the like. Therefore, Basic Reading I

used various types of test items as the exercise intended to develop the reading skills. The types of items used are as follows.

1. Supply type is the type that requires students to supply the answer (p.151). Both short answer and completion are the types that can be answered by a word, phrase, number, or symbol.

a. Short answer

Short answer uses to direct question. 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). b. Completion

Completion is used to answer the incomplete statement. It is like fill in the blank. For example, “the name of the man who invented steamboat is _________ (Robert Fulton)” (p.172). Fill in the blank 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 restore the missing words (Alderson, 2000, p.240).

Both short answer and completion are common used in as follows. 1) Knowledge of terminology

Example: “Lines on a weather map that join points of the same barometric pressure are called _____________. (isobar)” (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.172).

Example: “A member of the United States Senate is elected to a term of ___________ years.” (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.172)

3) Knowledge of Principles

Example: “If the temperature of a gas is held constant while the pressure applied to it is increased, what will happen to its volume? (It will decrease)” (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.172)

4) Knowledge of method or procedure

Example: “What device is used to detect whether an electric charge is positive or negative? (electroscope)” (Miller, Linn, & Gronlund, 2009, p.173)

5) Simple interpretations of data

Example: “How many syllables are there in the word Argentina?” (Miller, Linn, & Grondlund, 2009, p.173)

2. Selection types is the type that requires the students to select the answer from a given number of alternatives (p.151)

a. 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). On the other hands, 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). This type is used only one absolutely correct response (Miller, Linn, & 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).

b. True-False or alternative response

True-false 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 statement (Alderson, 2000, p. 222). 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, & 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. The task then becomes one of interpreting the beliefs held by individual or group and applying them to new situation. This type can measure the ability to recognize cause-effect relationships. Here, students are to judge whether the relationship between the statements is true or false (p.181).

c. Matching

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, & 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. It is a compact and efficient method of measuring such simple knowledge outcome. 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 a given keyword(s) (“Questions based on Bloom’s taxonomy”, n.d).

However, other exercise types used in Basic Reading I are as follows. 3. 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).

4. Reader’s log

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).

5. Games

Game, as Wright, Betteridge, and Buckby (2006, p. 1) stated that is an activity that is entertaining and engaging, often challenging, and an activity in which learner play and usually interact with others. Games are used because language learning is a hard work, so that someone must make an effort to understand, repeat accurately, to adapt, and to use newly understood language in conversation and in written composition; games provide one way of helping the learners to experience language; by making language convey information and opinion, games provide the key features of ‘drill’ with the added opportunity to sense the working language as living communication (p. 2).

Games can be done in group, individual, and pair work. Those types of grouping give value in ensuring that each and every learner has optimum opportunity for oral practice in using language. Moreover, games have eight types; they are ‘care and share’, ‘do: move, mime, draw, obey’, ‘identify: discriminate, guess, speculate’, ‘describe’, ‘connect: compare, match, group’, ‘order’, ‘remember’, and ‘create’ (pp. 4-5).

6. Reading aloud

Reading passages can be dealt with in the following ways: silent reading, reading aloud by the teacher, reading aloud by individual members of the class and choral reading (Candlin, 1967, p. 23). 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 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, pp. 97-98 as cited in Byrne, 1972, pp. 97-98)

7. 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). Speed Reading 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 who do not learn to read faster can spend three or four times longer than others, and improving comprehension (Mikulecky, 2000, p.54).

8. Discussion

Discussion is strictly speaking in task activities. The goal is nonlinguistic. The idea is to get something done via the language, to read a text and do something with the information (Long & Crookes, 1992 as cited in Knutson, 1998). 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 (Knutson, 1998).

9. 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.

4. Theory on reading

The theory of reading presents three major kinds. They are the process of reading, kinds of reading activities, comprehension in reading, reading skills, and problems in reading.

a. The Process of Reading

The number of different theories of reading is simply overwhelming: what it is, how it is acquired and taught, how reading in a second language differs from

abilities, how it interfaces with memory. All these aspects are important, but will probably never be brought together into coherent and comprehensive account of what it is we do when we read. When we consider the complexities of analyzing the texts: since the nature of what we read must have some relation to how we read (Alderson, 2000, p. 1).

The process of reading is what we meant by ‘reading’ proper: the interaction between a reader and the text. The ‘reader’ is presumably also ‘thinking’ about what he is reading: what it means to him, how it relates to other things he has read, to things he knows, to what he expects to come next in the texts like this. He is presumably thinking about how useful, entertaining, boring, crazy, the text is. Evidently, many different things can be going on when a reader reads: the process is likely to be dynamic, variable, and different for the same reader on the same text at a different time or with a different purpose in reading (Alderson, 2000, p.3).

Understanding the process of reading is presumably important to an understanding of the nature of reading, but at the same time it is evidently a difficult thing to do (Alderson, 2000, p. 4). The process is normally silent, internal, private. It is sometimes said that, although different readers may engage in very different reading processes, the understanding they end up with will be similar. Thus, although there may be many different ways of reaching a given understanding, what matters is not how you reach that understanding, but the fact that you reach it, or, to put it another way, what understanding you do reach. The problem of potentially infinite variation in processes of interpreting text is then

supposedly reduced by a focus on what one has understood (Alderson, 2000, pp. 4-5).

b. Kinds of reading activities

Based on Sonka (1979, p.3), there are three kinds of reading activities. They are as follows.

1) Intensive reading

Intensive reading is a reading activity that uses short reading text. Intensive reading is done in class and it requires the students’ detail understanding. Intensive reading lessons are whole-class activities during which teacher leads the students to apply to a common text those reading skills which they have already learned (Mikulecky, 1990, p. 32). In intensive reading lesson, the right passage is crucial to its success. A teacher should take into account the interest, abilities, and goals of the students.

2) Extensive reading

Urquhart and Weir (1998, p. 215) argue that extensive reading refers to either silent reading in the classroom or reading, which is done unsupervised in the library or at home, the aim being pleasure or practice, or both. Nuttal (1996, p. 127) as cited by Urquhart describes reading as the private world of the reader’s own interest and offers some valuable suggestions for organizing such activities. She argues that reading extensively is the easiest and the most effective way to improve reading and it is easier to teach in a climate where people enjoy the activity as well as value it for pragmatic reasons. Furthermore, Williams (1984, p.10) says that extensive reading is described as the relatively rapid reading of

long texts and emphasizes that it should normally be at the level of the students’ reading or below it.

3) Comprehension reading

Comprehensive reading refers to the kind of activity, which involves the students’ previous background knowledge and put it together with the new passage or the new information. Barnitz (1985, p. 14) argues that a major factor in reading comprehension is the background knowledge or schemata of the reader. Background knowledge can influence the interpretation of the text by providing an overall context for the information being encoded, comprehended, and recalled. Smith (1975) in Content Area Reading states that the only effective and meaningful way in which anyone can learn is by attempting to relate new experiences to what he knows or believes already. In comprehensive reading, the readers are expected to comprehend the content of the passages or texts they read by connecting the background knowledge presumed by the author.

c. Reading skills

Conscious development of reading skills is important because we are trying to equip students for the future (Nuttall, 2000). "It is impossible to familiarize them [students] with every text they will ever want to read; but what we can do is give them techniques for approaching texts of various kinds, to be used for various purposes, that is the essence of teaching reading" (Nuttall, 2000, p. 38). Mikulecky (1990) listed the reading skills that students need to develop in order to read standard English effectively (pp.25-26). Moreover, Byrne in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (1998) stated

that strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include previewing, predicting, skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, and guessing from context. The reading skills or strategies are as follows.

1) Previewing and predicting

Giving the text a quick once over to be able to guess what is to come. Previewing is a high-speed reading skill. By previewing, the reader gains enough information from the text to begin hypothesizing about it and to begin the cognitive process of matching new information with what is already known. It is for example, reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection, Whereas predicting is using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content (Byrne, 1998).

2) Scanning

Scanning is looking through a text very rapidly for specific information. Pugh (1978) in Reading in the Second Language describes that scanning as the finding a match between what is required and what is given in a text, very little information processed for long-term retention or even for immediate understanding. Cushenbery and Thomas (1985) argue that scanning is much faster than skimming since the reader is probably viewing pages of material in excess of 2,000 words in a minute. The reader’s mind is focused on what is being sought; it does not abstract any information, word, or phrase that does not answer the

specific question the reader has in mind. Scanning involves looking for particular information, usually facts that one has read recently. This also involves looking quickly through a text to locate a specific symbol or group of symbol, such as, a particular word, phrase, name, figure, or date. The focus is in local comprehension and most of the text will be ignored. Scanning is employed to the purpose of looking for specific words or phrases, figures or percentages, dates of particular events, and specific items in an index (Urquhart & Weir, 1998).

3) Guessing the meaning of unknown words from the context and finding

Pronouns referent

This skill is using such clues as knowledge of word parts, syntax, and relationship patterns. It, then, is using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up (Byrne, 1998). Moreover, recognizing and using pronouns, referents, and other lexical equivalent are used as clues to cohesion (Mikulecky, 1990, p. 25).

4) Skimming

Urquhart and Weir (1998) argue that skimming involves processing a text selectively to get the main idea and the discourse topic as the efficiently as possible, which might involve both expeditious and careful reading and both bottom-up and top-down processing. Cushenbery and Thomas (1985) describe skimming as a quick type of text that is done to get the general gist of the material. The text is processed quickly to locate important information, which may be read more carefully. Purposes of using this strategy are to establish the

general sense of the text, to quickly establish a macro propositional structure as an outline summary, and to decide the relevance of the texts to establish needs.

5) Making inferences

Many inferences are made by readers automatically and out of consciousness. In fact, skilled reading requires such inference making. Yet, readers’ think-alouds also contain many reports of inference making that involve conscious reflection. These inferences vary in scope, from inferences about word meanings to overall conclusions (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995, p.48).

d. Comprehension in reading

Comprehension ability is the ability to understand information in a text and interpret it appropriately. However, comprehension abilities are much more complex than the definition suggest (Grabe & Stoller, 2002, p.17). Balancing the many skills needed for comprehension also requires that the reader be strategic. The readers need to recognize processing difficulties, address imbalances between text information and reader knowledge, and make decisions for monitoring comprehension and shifting goals for reading. Being a strategic reader means being able to read flexibly in line with changing purposes and the ongoing monitoring of comprehension (p.18).

The notion of comprehending is both obvious and subtle. It is obvious in that any person could say that understanding a text is the purpose of reading. One outcome of reading being a purposeful and comprehending process is that also a learning process (p.19).

e. Problems in reading

Difficulty in reading is a common problem happened to a reader. The reasons of difficulty in reading vary from person to person. Some people do not read wide enough variety of materials (Raygor & Raygor, 1985, p.191). One of the most important skills in reading is the knowledge of words. The number of words that students know determines the difficulty and complexity of the material students can read and understand. Failure to develop will definitely hold you back in your efforts to improve comprehension (Raygor & Raygor, 1985, p.xi).

According to Pressley and Afflerbach, problems during reading can be due to text characteristics, reader characteristics, or interactions between text and reader. On the text side, there are a number of ways that text can be poorly written, from problems at the word level to the overall meaning of the passage. On the reader side, difficulties can be due to lack of background for text topic or insufficient lexical knowledge. There can be difficulties due to reader-text interactions; for example, when beliefs of readers clash with opinions expressed in texts (1995, p.66).

5. Teaching reading for university student

In college, the reading material will be more varied such as textbooks, supplementary books, and some of those will have been written in other centuries (Wood, 1991). It is not just textbook and supplementary book, but also other reading materials, for instance, scholarly articles and reports, class handouts and instructions, exam questions, library materials of all sorts, and the various types of information and instructions. In one situation, the college students are asked to

read a novel, the purpose might include learning and remembering it for the test, analyzing it and writing a paper about it, using it as a model for writing, skimming and quoting from it in a research paper, or using it to generate ideas for a paper or a class discussion.

The main purposes of the college reading are to read, understand, and remember the material. Other purposes, however, might include consulting for quick information, scanning to prepare for class, or reviewing to prepare for a test. Reading will become a valuable source of information for you. You will also learn that reading is thinking. Improved reading will result in the improved thinking you need to generate new ideas and solve problems.

a) The needs to do the college reading

To become a better college reader, the students will need to work for improvement in three areas. According Wood (1991), they are as follows.

(1) The students will need to increase your background knowledge and vocabulary by reading widely about a variety subject

(2) The students will need to increase the awareness of how authors write and which rules they follow

(3) The students will need to learn some new study skills and active reading strategies to help them get the meaning from the reading

b) Active reading strategies

The key to more effective reading is to use active strategies that the students can organize into an active reading process (Wood, 1991). Many times, when the material is easy and the students have sufficient background about the

subject, they will ‘just read’ and understand enough. On the other hand, when the material is complicated and new for the students, active strategies can help them to get the meaning when ‘just reading’ is not enough.

B.Overview on Basic Reading I in English Education Study Program of

Sanata Dharma University

KPE 110 Basic Reading I is designed to introduce students with the reading strategies. In this course, the students are provided with the hands-on experience in applying the reading strategies when reading various types of texts. Moreover, the course helps the students develop their English vocabulary and reading aloud ability. It also helps the students become independent and effective readers. The topics of this course include: basic reading skills which consist of various reading strategies and exercises. This course is compulsory and offered in Semester I. There is no prerequisite course for Basic Reading I (Syllabus of Basic Reading I, 2011).

On completing this course, the students will be able to do the learning objectives. They are as follows.

a. read aloud with correct pronunciation

b. understand the types of the basic reading strategies c. understand various types of texts.

d. apply the reading strategies when reading various types of texts.

Reading is one of the crucial skills besides listening, speaking, and writing. Basic skills in reading are important to be learnt, then. According to

Mikulecky (1990, pp. 25-26), she states several basic reading skills such as skimming, scanning, previewing, predicting, etc. However, Basic Reading I course used reading skills as mentioned in Table 2.1.

No Skills aimed

1. Previewing 2. Predicting 3. Skimming 4. Scanning

5. Finding pronoun referents 6. Making inferences

7. Guessing word meanings from context

Table 2.1 Reading skills aimed in Basic Reading I course

Moreover, text is one of the crucial issues in reading which could motivate students. Therefore, there were different genres of text types used in Basic Reading I course. In addition, the use of the genre of the text type was to give students another experience of different text types. Then, to learn each text types better, the students were given different topics of reading material. The reading materials were taken from any sources and chosen by the lecturer. Moreover, the reading materials were adjusted to the genre of the text types aimed. Table 2.2 shows the reading material used in Basic Reading I and the genre of the text types used.

No. Reading Materials Genre of the text types

1. Clothes to die Analytical Exposition

2. Why men don’t iron Analytical Exposition 3. - Reaping Rewards of learning English

- Bob Marley Biography

Recount 4. - Appointment in Samarra and other folktales

- The Chaser - Nicole

Narrative

5. Sulawesi Dive Quest Descriptive

No. Reading Materials Genre of the text types 8. Dreams and it couldn’t be done Poems

9. Old ways new world News report

10. Piracy bites Hortatory Exposition

Table 2.2 reading materials and the genre of the text used in Basic Reading I

Besides, the reading materials have correlation to the reading skills or strategies. The reading materials, used in Basic Reading I are employed to train reading skills or strategies. Table 2.3 is presented the reading materials and reading skills used in Basic Reading I.

Reading materials Reading skills

Why men don’t iron Predicting, skimming, scanning, guessing word meanings from contexts, reading aloud.

Reaping rewards of learning English

Previewing, scanning, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud.

Appointment in Samarra and other folktales

Skimming, making inferences, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud. Recipes Scanning, finding pronoun referents, guessing word

meanings from context, reading aloud

Humorous stories Skimming, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud.

The Chaser Predicting, making inferences, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud.

Dreams and it couldn’t be done

Reading aloud, making inferences

Nicole Predicting, making inferences, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud.

Old Ways, New World Previewing, making inferences, finding pronoun referents, guessing word meanings from context, reading aloud. Table 2.3 reading materials and the reading skills aimed

C.Theoretical Framework

This section discusses the types of exercise types used in Basic Reading I and students’ problems in reading when doing the exercises. Basic Reading I is one kind of intensive reading activities. Intensive reading lessons are whole-class activities during which teacher leads the students to apply to a common text those reading skills which they have already learned (Mikulecky, 1990, p. 32). The aim

of this subject course aforementioned is to introduce students with the various reading strategies. Thus, this course provides the students with hands-on experience in applying reading strategies when reading various types of texts.

The first section discusses about what the exercise types used in Basic Reading I. Exercise types are kinds of exercise used for developing particular skills in a course because an exercise aims to give the students opportunities to deepen their understanding and related contents (Marzano, Pickering, &Pollock, 2001, p.60). Hence, Basic Reading I uses the exercise as the assessment to measure the student-learning outcome and train the reading skills. The assessment as what Miller, Linn, and Gronlund mention that in planning a reading assessment, for example, a list of the reading skills and the number of test items for measuring each skill may be sufficient for specifying what the test is to measure (2009, p.149).

Therefore, the exercises use various types that are taken from the test item types such as multiple-choice, matching, true-false, short-answer question, and fill in the blanks ; and other exercise types such as reader’s log, online tasks, discussion, games, speed reading, summary, and reading aloud. All of the exercise types used in Basic Reading I have aims to train and develop reading skills or strategies and the comprehension as well.

Moreover, the exercise types used in Basic Reading I are related to the college reading that is stated by Wood (1991). In college reading, it requires reading various reading material such as textbooks, supplementary books, and some of those will have been written in other centuries. Thus, they need to train

their reading skills through exercise types like in Basic Reading I in order to facilitate them in reading a various text.

In addition, the second section discusses the students’ problems in reading when doing the exercise. Students can have problems in reading when they are doing exercises in every type. According to Pressley and Afflerbach, problems during reading can be due to text characteristics, reader characteristics, or interactions between text and reader. On the text side, there are a number of ways that text can be poorly written, from problems at the word level to the overall meaning of the passage. On the reader side, difficulties can be due to lack of background for text topic or insufficient lexical knowledge. There can be difficulties due to reader-text interactions; for example, when beliefs of readers clash with opinions expressed in texts (1995, p.66).

By using the different exercise types given Basic Reading I class, the students develop and train their ability to read with using the appropriate reading skills or strategies. Nevertheless, students can get problems in reading when they are doing the exercise types. Those are related to the problem formulation of the research that asks the exercise types used in Basic Reading I and students’ problem in reading when they are doing the exercises in Basic Reading I.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter discusses the method of this research. It also discusses the process of conducting the research. This chapter is divided into six parts. They are research method, research setting, research participants, instruments and data gathering technique, data analysis technique, and research procedure.

A.Research Method

The researcher employed a qualitative research to answer the problem formulations in the first chapter. Qualitative research is multi-method in its focus involving an interpretive, naturalistic approach to subject matter (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p.2). This means that qualitative research studies things in their natural settings, attempting to interpret the phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them.

Since the research was a kind of qualitative research, the researcher used four methods to collect the data. The methods were questionnaire, interview, observation, and document analysis. Moreover, “a method of data collection using questionnaires or interviews to collect data from a sample that has been selected to represent a population to which the findings of the data analysis can be generalized” is a survey (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007, p. 230). Thus, this research was a survey as well.

This research also employed document analysis. Document analysis is one of the methods that used for observing human behavior and features of the environment in which the behavior occurs. The documents could be in the form of written documents, visual media, audio media, and combination media. Meanwhile, observation provides an additional source of data for verifying the information obtained by other instruments (Gall, Gall & Borg, 2007, p.276). On the other hands, the aim of interview is to explore more source of data that could be useful for the data gathering (Best, 1970,p.186). Therefore, this study used four instruments; they were observation notes, documents, questionnaire sheets, and interview transcripts.

In addition, to analyze the data from the instruments, the researcher used both qualitative method and quantitative method. According to Best (1983, p.156), qualitative methods are those in which description of observations are not ordinarily expressed in quantitative terms. Qualitative methods usually describe the data in words instead of numbers or measures, whereas quantitative methods are the opposite. Qualitative and quantitative methods support each other to understand many factors in the research. Therefore, the data obtained presented in the form of verbal statement and the numbers.

B.Research Setting

The researcher took Basic Reading I on Thursday class at 7 a.m. It was the D class. The research conducted in August 18th 2011 until December 8th 2011. During that time, the researcher conducted observation, document analysis,

questionnaires, and interview. The observations were conducted three times; at the beginning, the middle, and the last meeting of course. The observation was conducted on August 18th 2011, October 13th 2011, and December 8th 2011. After conducting observation and document analysis, the researcher distributed the questionnaire for students and lecturer, then for completing the data the researcher asked several students in interview. The distribution of questionnaire was on December 8th, 2011 for student questionnaire and March 15th, 2012 for lecturer questionnaire.

C.Research Participants

Reading is one of the four main skills learnt in the English Education Study Program. Reading course in English Education Study Program has several classes in which the courses are taken in different semesters. In the odd semester, reading course offered in English Education Study Program were Basic Reading I and Extensive reading I. Nevertheless, the researcher took Basic Reading I course academic year 2011/2012 as the participant. The reason was that this course has four learning objectives in which influenced the exercise types used. Therefore, to accomplish the learning objectives, students were given various exercises. The exercises, which were used in this course related to the researcher’s topic.

Regularly, Basic Reading I had four classes; A, B, C, and D means as the population as stated by Sprintall, Schmutte, and Sirois (1991) whose determined “the term ‘population’ refers to the entire group of people, things, or events that have at least one common trait”. However, the researcher only took D class of

Basic Reading I as the sample. Fraenkel and Wallen (1993) described a sample in a research study as the group on which information is obtained. While the larger group to which one hopes to apply the result is called the population. Moreover, the researcher chose D class of Basic Reading I because of two reasons. The first reason was that the class was taught by the course coordinator. The second reason was that it was assumed that the other Basic Reading I courses had the similar syllabus and course outline, so choosing D class was considered as the representative of all Basic Reading I classes.

Furthermore, the researcher would have two kinds of participants for the research. They were students and lecturer. The student participants were students from D class of Basic Reading I, meanwhile lecturer participants was the lecturer who was taught D class of Basic Reading I. Since Basic Reading I had 46 students, all of them became the research participants. The researcher planned that the 46 participants would fill the questionnaire in class. Nevertheless, five students did not come in the class when the researcher distributed student questionnaire, so the researcher would have 41 students as the student participants.

On the other hand, the researcher would not take all the student participants as the interviewees. The researcher took 10% of the total student participants as the random sampling. The reason why the researcher applied the random sampling was to give equal chance for all members in the population to become the participants. Fraenkel and Wallen (1993) stated that a simple random sample is one in which each and every member of the population has an equal and

independent chance of being selected. Related to this theory, every member of the population has the same chance to give his/her contribution toward the study.

D.Instruments and Data Gathering Technique

The researcher employed the observation notes, questionnaires, document analysis, and interview data as the research instruments. All the research instruments were used to answer the questions in problem formulations. Therefore, the researcher would explain the function and usage of the instruments as follows.

1. Observation notes

The researcher used observation notes when the researcher conducted the observation. The researcher role in the observation was participant-observer role. It allows the researcher acts primarily as an observer, entering the setting only gather data and interacting only casually and non-directly with individuals or groups while engaged in observation (Gall, Gall, &Borg, 2007, p. 277). The researcher conducted observation in class and outside the class. In class observation, the researcher noted the exercise type used that time and the class situation. The class situation included the student role and the teacher role in the class. Meanwhile, outside class observation, the researcher observed the exercise types used outside the class such as online tasks.

The finding in observation would determine the components of student and lecturer questionnaire. For instance, in the observation, the researcher found the exercise types, which were used in Basic Reading I, the finding would determine

the question in the questionnaire about the students’ preference of exercise types used in Basic Reading I, so the observation and the questionnaire had a correlation. However, the researcher employed the observation to answer the first and second question about the exercise types used in Basic Reading I.

2. Documents

The other instruments were documents. There are three main types of document to consider; they are personal document, official document, and popular culture document (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003). In this study, the researcher used the official document and personal document. The official documents that were taken from Basic Reading I course were the course outline and syllabus of Basic Reading I, whereas the personal documents were taken from students’ handouts. To gain the formal documents, researcher was given the syllabus and course outline by the lecturer, whereas, the personal documents, the researcher lent and copied them from one of the students. Yet, to confirm the handouts given, the researcher asked the lecturer and she gave the researcher the copy of handouts used in Basic Reading I. Hence, the researcher put the findings into the table. The researcher gained the documents anytime during one semester. It meant that the researcher did not specify the time to gain the documents. The documents were used to answer the first question in problem formulation. As the result of observation notes, the findings in documents would determine the content of questionnaires such as the list of exercise types used in Basic Reading I.

3. Questionnaires

The researcher also used questionnaires. Questionnaires should be attractive and straightforward, with the items ordered in a logical sequence. There are two general types of questionnaire; they were selected-response items with two or more options and open-ended items for which the participants constructed the response themselves (Wiersma, 1995). Thus, the researcher used both general types of questionnaire. It aimed to gain data that were more detailed from the participants. The questionnaire required the participants to write their names and students’ number. Although the student participants should mention their identity on the questionnaire, their identity would be kept its confidentiality from others.

Furthermore, there were two types of questionnaire since the researcher had two different participants. The types of questionnaire were student questionnaire for student participants and lecturer questionnaire for lecturer participant. Both questionnaires were distributed separately as aforementioned. Then, the explanations of both questionnaires were as follows.

a. Student questionnaire

Student questionnaire was divided into three parts; they were part A, part B, and part C. The content of questionnaire was determined by the findings in observation notes. The expected findings in observation notes were the list of exercise types used in Basic Reading I and students’ problem in reading. Hence, the student questionnaire would ask about the exercise types used and students’ problem in reading when they were doing the exercise types. Moreover, the explanations of each part of student questionnaire were as follows.

1) Part A of student questionnaire

The part A was to know the students’ acknowledgement of Basic Reading I course. These data would lead the researcher to support the other data obtained. This part used likert-scale to find the result. The likert-scale degree used, were that strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly disagree. The scale degrees used were as follows.

1: strongly disagree 2: disagree

3: agree

4: strongly agree

Then, the result would be put into the table as follows.

No Statements Answers of every response (n) Percentage (%)

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

1

Total (∑n) Data error (#)

Table 3.1 Part A data of student questionnaire ∑n = total participants # = total data error

n = total answers % = percentage of total answer

In Table 3.1, the table was divided into three main columns; they were statements, answer of every response, and percentage. In statements column, it showed the statements listed in questionnaire sheet. Moreover, the answer of every response column presented the participants’ answer for every scale they have chosen. The last column, the percentage column showed the percentages of every response chosen by participants. The data in Table 3.1 were used to support other data obtained from other instruments.

2) Part B of student questionnaire

The part B was about the exercise types used in Basic Reading I. In order to know the students’ preference to the exercise types used their reasons, this part was consisted of four categories. They were the easiest exercise type, the most difficult exercise type, the most favorite exercise type, and the exercise type that develops their reading skills most. In this part, students were asked to choose one of the exercise types listed and state their reason(s) why they chose the exercise type. Then, the findings would be presented in the table 3.2.

No. Exercise types Total answer N %

Table 3.2 Part B data of student questionnaire

∑n = total participants # = total data error

n = total answers % = percentage of total answer

In the Table 3.2, the table was divided into two main columns. The first column was the exercise types used in Basic Reading I. The second column was the total answers of participants (n). Then data percentage of exercise types was used to know the students’ preference of exercise types used in Basic Reading I. The data helped the researcher to answer the first question in problem formulations. Since part B of student questionnaire also required students to mention their reason(s) of choosing one of the exercise types, the students’ reason were presented in paragraphs.

3) Part C of student questionnaire

The part C was used to answer the second question in problem formulation. This part asked the students’ problem in reading when they are doing

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ABSTRACT

Sulistyaningtyas, Yunita. (2012). The Exercise Types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

Reading is a dynamic and interactive process, during which learners make use of a variety of skills and strategies, combined with background knowledge. Therefore, one of the teaching reading goals is to give students opportunity to develop their skills. Then, to accomplish it, teachers used various exercise types.

There are two problems in this study: (1) what are the types of exercises used in Basic Reading I? (2)What are the students’ problems in reading? Thus, the study has two objectives. The first is to find out the types of exercise used in Basic Reading I. The second is to find out the students’ problems in reading.

The researcher observed the exercise types in D class of Basic Reading I, collected the documents of Basic Reading I such as weekly handouts, course outline, and syllabus. The researcher, then, distributed the student questionnaire to the students who took Basic Reading I and lecturer questionnaire, and interviewed four students who were randomly selected to gain deeper information. The participants of this study were the students and the lecturer of D class of Basic Reading I academic year 2011/2012. The data were collected from the observation notes, documents, questionnaire sheets, and interview transcripts. The researcher employed qualitative research particularly in survey and document analysis. It means that the purpose of this study is to gain information about the exercise types in Basic Reading I and the students’ problem in reading.

Responding to the first question, the exercise types used were multiple-choice, matching, true-false, short-answer question, fill in the blank, reading aloud, reading faster, games, discussion, reader’s log, and online tasks. Moreover, the exercise types aforementioned were used to develop and train reading skills in Basic Reading I. The reading skills were previewing, prediction, skimming, scanning, finding pronoun referents, making inferences, and guessing words meaning from context. Responding to the second question, the research revealed the students’ problems in reading were due to text characteristics, reader characteristics, and interaction between reader and text.

The researcher concluded that short-answer question was the exercise type that was most likely used in Basic Reading I. Moreover, the research revealed the students’ preference to exercise types in Basic Reading I that true-false was the favorite and easiest exercise type; the difficult type was summary and the type that developed skills most was reader’s log. In addition, the students’ problem in reading from text characteristics was lack of vocabulary. Meanwhile, the problem which was from reader characteristics was lack of background knowledge. Then, the problem which was from the interaction between reader and text was comprehension in which was influenced by the lack of vocabulary and the lack of background knowledge.

Keyword(s): Exercise types, reading skills, students’ problem in reading

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Sulistyaningtyas, Yunita. (2012). The Exercise Types in Basic Reading I of academic year 2011/2012 in English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University. Yogyakarta: Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Membaca merupakan proses yang dinamis dan interaktif dimana siswa menggunakan kemampuan dan strategi yang berbeda, dan dikombinasikan dengan latar belakang pengetahuan. Oleh karena itu, salah satu tujuan mengajar membaca adalah memberikan kesempatan siswa untuk mengembangkan dan melatih kemampuan membaca mereka. Untuk mencapai tujuan tersebut, para pengajar menggunakan tipe latihan yang bervariasi.

Ada dua masalah dalam penelitian ini: (1) apa saja tipe latihan yang digunakan di kelas Basic Reading I? (2) apa masalah siswa dalam membaca? Penelitian ini memiliki dua tujuan yaitu untuk mengetahui tipe-tipe latihan di kelas Basic Reading I dan masalah para siswa dalam membaca.

Peneliti mengobservasi, mengumpulkan dokumen misalnya handout mingguan dan silabus dari Basic Reading I kelas D, memberikan kuesioner kepada siswa dan dosen, dan mewawancarai empat siswa secara acak untuk menjawab pertanyaan. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini adalah siswa dan dosen dari Basic Reading I kelas D tahun ajaran 2011/2012. Data dikumpulkan melalui observasi, dokumen, kuesioner, dan wawancara. Peneliti menerapkan penelitian kualitatif khususnya survei dan analisis dokumen. Hal ini bertujuan untuk mendapatkan informasi tentang tipe-tipe latihan di kelas Basic Reading I dan masalah siswa dalam membaca.

Untuk menjawab masalah pertama, tipe latihan yang digunakan adalah multiple-choice, matching, true-false, short-answer question, fill in the blank, reading aloud, reading faster, games, discussion, reader’s log, dan online tasks. Tipe-tipe latihan tersebut digunakan untuk melatih dan mengembangkan kemampuan atau strategi membaca yang dipelajari di Basic Reading I. Strategi membaca yang dipelajari adalah previewing, prediction, skimming, scanning, finding pronoun referents, making inferences, dan guessing word meanings from context. Untuk menjawab masalah kedua, penelitian ini menemukan masalah siswa dalam membaca yaitu berasal dari karakteristik teks, karakteristik pembaca, dan hubungan antara pembaca dan teks.

Peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa short-answer question adalah tipe latihan yang sering digunakan di Basic Reading I. Penelitian ini juga menemukan bahwa tipe true-false adalah tipe latihan yang paling disukai dan paling mudah menurut siswa, summary adalah tipe yang paling sulit dan reader’s log adalah tipe yang paling dapat mengembangkan kemampuan dan melatih strategi membaca siswa. Selain itu, masalah siswa dalam membaca ditinjau dari karakteristik teks adalah kurangnya kosakata; dari karakteristik pembaca adalah kurangnya latar belakang pengetahuan; sedangkan dari hubungan antara pembaca dan teks, berasal dari pemahaman membaca yang juga berhubungan dengan kurangnya kosakata dan latarbelakang pengetahuan.

Kata Kunci: Tipe-tipe latihan, kemampuan atau strategi membaca, masalah siswa dalam membaca