Background of the Problem

SMPN 15 Yogyakarta were found. Those problems showed that the teaching and learning of reading did not motivate students yet. Firstly, the kind of teaching learning process led the students to focus only on reading aloud . They focused on the meaning of the words rather than the entire text. The teacher did not concern on ‘how to read’ but ‘what to read’. Secondly, many students did not have enough background knowledge . For example, when a teacher presented the students a text entitled “my house”, students found difficulties to comprehend the text as they did not have enough knowledge about “my house”. To comprehend the text, they did not only have to understand each word, sentence, or paragraph in the text. However, they had to be able to relate their previous knowledge with the new one as well. The third problem was related to the teaching technique that the teacher used in the classroom. The English lesson lacked variation of learning activities . The activities mostly focused on books or Student Worksheets or Lembar Kerja Siswa LKS. After getting the explanation, the students were asked to complete the exercises . Most of the learning materials were taken from books. In addition, the learning activities were lacked of group-work activity. Most activities were individual works in the form of reading passages and answering-question activities. The fourth problem was related to the learning media. The teaching activities were rarely supported by the use of media, whereas the variation of media was important in gaining the students’ interests to the teaching and learning process. The teacher was unable to create attractive teaching learning atmosphere in the classroom. He failed in creating reading activities which were interesting and motivating for the students. The use of media which could support teaching and learning process in the class was still low. As the consequence, the students were bored with the teaching and learning process. This boredom was commonly showed by the behavior that students showed in the class. They did not pay attention to the teacher’s explanation. Those problems related to the teaching process gave impacts on the students’ motivation of reading. Based on the interviews conducted by the researcher, some students said that they lacked reading practices. The students’ reading habits were still low. They did not like reading, even reading the books written in their native language. The use of media which could support the teaching and learning processes in the class was still low. As the consequence, the students were bored with teaching learning process. The next problem was related to the students’ lack of vocabulary . They got difficulties in understanding meanings of some words and how to pronounce them. When they did not understand about the meanings of particular words, they were reluctant to look up in the dictionary or ask the meanings of those words to the teacher. They preferred asking their friends to asking their teacher.

C. Delimitation of the Problem

It was impossible to solve all problems. After conducting the discussion with the English teacher as one of the collaborators, the study would focus on solving the problems related to the technique for teaching reading. The researcher would try to overcome some problems related to the teaching of reading which still lack variations of activities and media. Based on the discussion with the English teacher, Silent Card Shuffle Strategy SCSS was used to overcome the problems related to the teaching technique used for teaching reading. The researcher hoped that SCSS could provide the students with more opportunities and varied activities to practice reading.

D. Formulation of the Problem

From the limitation of the problem, the problems can be formulated as follows: “How can SCSS be applied to improve the teaching and learning process of reading in Class VII J of SMPN 15 Yogyakarta?”.

E. Objective of the Research

The objective of this research is to improve the teaching and learning processes through the use of SCSS for teaching reading.

F. Significance of the Research

By conducting this research, the researcher wants to obtain new knowledge related to the teaching of reading by using SCSS. Generally, the significance of the study can be divided into two parts. 1. Theoritical Significance