The Students’ problems in Reading Tasks

doing reading tasks. The other problem is they are not creative in realizing and solving the problems. Most of the students do not have a habit to open a dictionary to find out meaning. They also never behave creative to make a note for vocabulary. W : Apa kesulitan adik-adik dalam reading bahasa Inggris? What are your problems in reading? S :Mengartikan……. Finding the meaning W :Mengartikannya yang sulit ya, …? it’s difficult for you to find the meaning, isn’t it? S :Ya yes. W :Kalau ada vocab gitu biasanya adik-adik gimana kalau tidak tau artinya? How do you usually do if you find difficult words or vocab?. S :Yaa ………tertawa malu, seolah bingung bagaimana menjawabnya. Yes….smile embarrassedly like being confused how must they answer. W :Apakah adik-adik buka kamus kemudian mencari artinya? Ditulis gak? do you usually open your dictionary and find the meaning? S :Tidak…ya……..ditulis ya ada yang menjawab tidak tapi malu ketauan No,…yes we write them some students answered “no” slowly and the others said yes. W : Kalau adik……tidak? How about you? S : Ditulis …….. I write too W :Yang tidak tadi siapa? Tidak ditulis ya?........ya tidak apa-apa jujur ja adik-adik gak papa. Who said no? it’s fine just trust me, no problem…. S :Ya yes W :Kalau untuk text, misalnya text Descriptive, text Recount, text Narrative apa yang adik-adik gak paham dari text itu? What difficulties do you have about texts, for example for Descriptive, Recount and Narrative text? S :seperti bingung tidak menjawab being confused to answer W :Kemarin apa yang membuat adik-adik sulit dalam mengerjakan test kenaikan kelas kemarin? what’s your problems in doing your final semester test last week? S :Gak bisa mengartikan lho mbak,….gak bisa mengartikan. Soalnya sulit. I could not know the meaning, I didn’t understand the questions and the test was so difficult. W :Tidak tau artinya, apa lagi adik-adik? Bacaanya sulit? Pertanyaanya paham gak adik-adik? you could not understand the meaning, the passages were too difficult, and do you understand the questions? S :Gak no . Interview 2, Column 4-19 In addition, the students of SMPN I Tanjungsari, Gunungkidul do not understand grammar well. They cannot know why the sentences in a text should be arranged and they also cannot find correct sentences to understand their reading of texts. They still do not understand the pattern of present and past tense. They are also still confused about Subject plural and singular. Moreover, they cannot match the S and the appropriate Verb or auxiliary. Based on the problems, it is a must to design learning grammar in designing the reading materials intensively for grade VIII students of junior high schools. The strategy that can be used to slve the problem is giving texts with the topics that can encourage students to read. Through suitable texts that involve interesting topic for reading, students are expected to be motivated to read because they want to know about the content of the text. It can also be supported with interesting and appropriate illustrating pictures. Through the attractive pictures, students can be persuaded to know then afford to read. Of course, in reading students will find some difficult words or vocabulary. Due to their interest for understanding the meaning of the text or the passage, the students will try to find the meaning. They can be guided by their teacher or open a dictionary to find out the meaning. This activity will help the students to enrich their vocabulary. Understanding vocabulary will help students to do reading easily. If the students begin to be interested in reading, it will cause them to have a reading habit. A reading habit will help them to be familiar with reading. Being familiar can improve the students’ ability in reading so the expectation of good mark in English test or examination can be achieved.

2. Writing the Course Grid

Before designing the reading materials, the writer decided the good arrangements for guidelines in the writing the materials in the form of a course grid. The course grid explains the outline of the materials that will be explored and developed into good materials within units. Each unit consists of a cover for opening that will give a view of what will be learned in the unit, the objectives of the learning materials, and the main material of a kind of a text such as Descriptive or Recount or Narrative texts, tasks, and grammar zone. There are four units that will represent the different texts: Descriptive, Recount, and Narrative. The texts are based on the syllabus of grade eighth students of junior high schools. Each unit is designed within different topics which had been chosen by the writer based on the result of the analysis of the students’ needs and characteristics. They are I Want to Know, Share Experiences, and Fun with Story. The process of writing the Course Grid used the consideration of the steps in designing materials that is based on Tomlinson theory that involves various steps. They consist of identification, exploration, contextual, pedagogical realization, and physical production. Identification was regarded by the writer to create the creation reading materials based on the eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Tanjungsari needs. Exploration was for determining suitable texts of Descriptive, Recount and Narrative which are based on the syllabus for the eighth grade students of the school. Using Exploration, the relation of the tourism aspect to the texts was also watched by the writer. Suitable ideas, contexts or texts with which to work were called Contextual Realization. Pedagogical Realisation of materials could be principled for creating appropriate exercises and activities and the writing of appropriate instruction for use. Physical Production of the materials was to consider the layout, size, visuals, reproduction, tape length etc. The main material is designed and presented in four stages based on the steps of Feez and Joyce 1998. The stages are Building the Context BC, Modelling and Deconstructing the Text MDT, Joint construction of the Text JCOT, and Independent Construction of the Text ICOT. The following is the description of the course grid. The Course Grid was arranged in the stages as follows,