IMPROVING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT BY USING FOLKLORE. Oleh: SRI MULYATI PRIHATININGSIH – JURNAL JP3

  

IMPROVING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT

BY USING FOLKLORE

  Oleh: SRI MULYATI PRIHATININGSIH

  Guru Bahasa Inggris SMP Negeri 7 Jember

  

Abstrak. Beberapa tahun terakhir hasil belajar siswa SMPN 7 Jember pada

mata pelajaran Bahasa Inggris pada skill Reading Comprehension khusus kelas

  

IX D masih rendah. Mereka kurang bergairah dalam mempelajari reading

comprehension,selain karena keterbatasan kosakata dan jenis teks yang

diajarkan kurang bervariasi sehingga nilai rata-rata yang dicapai hanya 60,

sedangkan standart ketuntasan belajar minimal yang ditetapkan sekolah 65.

Untuk mengatasi permasalahan ini digunakan teks “Folklore” sebagai alternatif

pilihan, karena bahan ini selain memiliki sifat menghibur pembacanya, folklore

juga memiliki keuntungan lain seperti: mudah diingat, universal/umum, penuh

makna, banyak jenisnya dan banyak mengandung pesan moral yang berguna

untuk kehidupan siswa. Hasil penelitian dengan teks “Folklore” dalam

pembelajaran dapat meningkatkan minat baca siswa sehingga nilai rata-rata

hasil belajar mereka pada siklus ke satu 66, 78 atau 80% sudah diatas kriteria

yang ditetapkan. Pada siklus kedua 85% dari mereka sudah diatas kriteria.

Penerapan teks “Folklore” efektif pada pembelajaran reading comprehension

sehingga siswa kelas IX D SMPN 7 Jember semakin bergairah dalam belajar

Bahasa Inggris. Sehingga kosakata mereka semakin bertambah , mereka juga

semakin tergugah untuk mempelajari jenis-jenis teks yang lainnya. Guru

menjadi lebih terampil dalam mengajarkan jenis teks folklore dan lebih

bersemangat untuk mengajarkan jenis teks yang lain diwaktu yang akan datang.

  Kata-kata kunci: Folklore, Membaca pemahaman Introd uction

  Reading is a process of constructing or developing meaning from printed text (Cooper, et al at Rosmalina, 2004). In line with this idea, Eskey at Rosmalina (2004), states that reading is primarily cognitive process. It means that when reading, students are transferring information from the text into their brain by understanding the explicit or implicit meaning of the text. Besides, reading is one of the important skills to master in English. It is the first of the most important factors that can support the process of mastering the language skills and improving can improve knowledge (Hanafi, 2000).In conclusion, it can be said that reading is for meaning. Readers are reading in order to gain information, knowledge, and understand the meaning of printed text.

  The above statements indicates that readingabsolutely needs comprehension. According to Johnson as quoted in Payani (2003), reading comprehension is the result of thinking which is triggered by visual symbols. By reading comprehension, students are doing thinking process deeply in understanding the meaning of the text. Moreover, reading comprehension can be divided into four categories: understanding vocabulary, specific information, the main idea, and the ability to infer or to imply Brown (at Payani, 2003).

  According to the experiment, many students still have difficulties in learning English, especially in reading comprehension. It is because students must study about the vocabularies, grammar, and sentence structure when read a text (Byrnes, 2008). It makes reading a complex skill. It is not just read but also understanding other skill or component in English. In addition, there are some possible factors affecting language teaching. Those factors can be classified into internal and external factors. According to Hanafi (2000), internal factors are related to psychological condition of the learners such as motivation, confidence, worry and interest. External factors are related to some varieties of the ideal condition in language teaching.

  Based on the above fact that reading is one of the important things for English learners, teacher should find out an effective way to make the reading comprehension possible to achieve. Nutal and Dupuis (as quoted in Payani, 2003), say that the important consideration for teachers in selecting reading is that the materials should be able to raise students’ interest to read.

  Then, the result of the daily test which was done on October, 10. 2011, it was found that the ninth year students’ score of reading comprehension were less than the pre-determined school score level. The average score of reading comprehension was sixty (60) whereas the standard score to be achieved was sixty-five (65).

  It is however in line with the reading scores achieved by the students of SMP Negeri 7. The evarage of reading comprehension score is still less than pre- determined criterion, such as 5.6. Most of them have not achieved the determined criterion, yet.

  Yet, the teaching instruction employing the chosen folklore provides better reading comprehension. Here, folklore is considered as the teaching material that can be applied in the teaching and learning process in the classroom.

  Dundes (1965), folklore is oral tradition including myths, legends, folktales and jokes. They are rich of vocabularies that will help the students understand about English text. They are so short and memorable that the students easy to understand and comprehend the English text

  Also, it is based on the research conducted by Mansur (2004), it was found that folklore could improve the students’ reading comprehension. The aveage score increased from 5.2 up to 5.8. Again, It was proved that folklore could improve the interest of reading comprehension. Another study by Lestari (2004), proved that folklore could help the students in learning English. In her research, she used fable as the material to improve the reading comprehension achievement 5.6 up to 6.1.It was briefly concluded that one kind of folklore that is fable could improve the students’ reading comprehension achievement of the respondents.

  Problem

  The problem of this research is formulated as follows: how can the use of folklore as teaching material improve the students’ reading comprehension

  Objective

  The objective of the research is to improve the students’ reading comprehension achievement

  Significance

  It is hopefully expected that the result of this classroom research will give valuable significance for helping the students to 1) overcome the difficulties and problems in comprehending reading text, 2) to give new experience in teaching reading comprehension, 3) increases the students’ interest and motivation in learning English.

  Literature

  According to Grellet (1996), reading comprehension is considered as an active process involving predicting, checking, guessing, and asking one’s self- question, so that it is possible to develop the students’ power of inference through systematic practice or introduce questions that encourage students to anticipate the content of text from its title and illustration or at the end of story from preceding paragraph. While students are reading, they transfer the information from the text into their brain. They activate their reading skill in order to get the meaning of the text and get the information from the text.

  Further, he states that reading comprehension is the process of understanding a reading text. It means that when students read a reading material, they must be able to get information from the text. Furthermore, they must comprehend the words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs in order to gain the meaning of the whole text (1996).

  The purposes of reading comprehension are as follows: 1) to gain information; 2) To verify existing knowledge; 3) To critique one’s ideas; 4) To enhance knowledge of the language being read and 5) to get enjoyment or pleasure (Byrnes, 2008).

  According to Hanlon (1999), there are ten advantages of folklore such as short; fun; memorable; universal; infinitely meaningful; infinite variety; linking to oral and written literatures, popular culture with many academic subjects and skills; enhancing transtitions from childhood to adult life and uniting children and adults.

  Method

  This research has already applied a classroom action research (CAR) in which the cycle covers the activities of planning the action, implementing the action, class observation and evaluation, and reflection (Elliott, 1991). Planning becomes the most important step before carrying out the action. It consists of constructing the lesson plans for the cycles, preparing the material and instructional material and test items.

  Implementing the action of cycles during the school hours as the schedule of English. It is planned to be done for about 2 weeks. The action given was teaching and learning reading comprehension by using folklore as the reading material.

  Observation is done to monitor the students’ activities in the classroom. It is done during the teaching learning reading comprehension process by using folklore. Reflection becomes the last step of the cycle. It belongs to the crucial step to decide

  The area of this research was SMP Negeri 7 Jember. It lies on Jln. Cendrawasih 22 Jember. The research subjects of this research were the ninth year students of SMP Negeri 7 Jember especially the class IX-D which has 45 students.

  Among the seven existing classes, the researcher took one class purposively based on the scores of reading test.

  In analyzing the data, the researcher used descriptive quantitative method to analyze the data from reading comprehension test and questionnaire. The reading comprehension score was calculated by dividing the score with the total score then timed with 100% as following formula:

  X =

  X = mean score of the students Σx = the total scores of the students

  n = the total number of the students

  Table 1. C

  lassification of thie scoree level Score Category

  80-100 Excellent 70-79 Good 60-69 Fair 50-59 Poor

  0-49 Failed

  

(Depdikbud, 2004)

Result Cycle I

  The action of the firt cycle has been done in five meetings including the reading comprehension test. In this case, other English teacher became the observer while the researcher became the doer of the action. The first meeting has been done

  th th

  on October 17 2013 and the second on October, 18 2013. Meanwhile, the test was

  th th

  done on October 24 and 25 2013. The result shows that most of the respondents (80%) have absolutely achieved the determined criteria. It means that most of them have got the score more than or the same as sixty-five (65). There are only 20% or 9 students having not achieved the criteria. More detail see the following table.

  Table 2. Reading comprehension achievement No. Score Range Frequency Percentage (%) 1 80 – 100

  5 11.11 % 2 70 – 79 17 37.78 % 3 60 – 69 16 35.56 % 4 40 – 59

  5 11.11 % 5 0 – 39 2 4.44 % Based on the above data, it is important to carry out the last step of this action research; that is reflection. It is being done as soo as the first cycle has bee done for the sake of preparing the next cycle or not. Since, the mean score of the reading comprehension test after being taught by using folklore is 66,78 and there are 80 % of the students who got the score at least 65.

  It means that the standard score requirement of reading comprehension achievement in this action research has been achieved since there is an improvement of the students score in reading comprehension. Their score improved from 60 to

  66.78. But, second cycle was absolutely needed to know the consistency of the result in the first cycle.

  That’s why; the writer has already proposed to have another cycle for the sake of knowing the consistency of the research result. It is important that the research result become an alternative model of English reading instruction for the writer and other English teacher at SMPN 7 Jember.

  Cycle II

  Based on the previous plan, second cycle was done together between the writer and the other English teacher. As usual, the researcher became the doer of the action while the other became the observer. As soon as the collected data was being analyzed, the result shows that 38 respondents or (85 %) achieved the criteria. There are only 15 % or 7 students having not achieved the criteria yet. The following is the gained data taken from the cycle II.

  Table 3. Reading comprehension achievement No. Score Range Frequency Percentage(%) 1 80 - 100

  7 15.56 % 2 70 – 79 16 35.56 % 3 60 – 69 15 33.33 % 4 40 – 59

  6 13.33 % 5 0 – 39 1 2.22 %

  Based on the above data, it is briefly assumed that the result showed its consistency. There is however any improvement of reading comprehension achievement. The average score has increased from 66, 78 up to 67, 74. Again, the number of respondents achieving the determined criteria has also increased from 9 up to 7 students.

  Discussion

  The analysis of the action results has been done as reported in the previous explanation. Here, the result of the reading comprehension test has improved in cycle 1. The mean score of the students’ reading comprehension test was 66,78, it has fulfilled the standard mean score requirement of the mean score that was 65. There are at leastr 80 % of the students got score at least 65.

  Further, the result of the reading comprehension test in cycle II has improved as well. The mean score of the students’ reading comprehension test was 67,74. It means that teaching of reading by using folklore as the material showed its consistency. This statement was supported by Baynham (1986), “using folklore as educational material helps the students to develop their reading achievement and interest.

  On the other hand, the instructional materials has absolutely motivated the students’ learning interests. During the reading instruction, the respondents have actively involved in the classroom discussion, participation such as having responses to the available questions. It is briefly assumed that the chosen materials make the students interested to the reading instruction.

  Conclusion

  Based on the above research result, it is concluded that folklore improves the students’ reading comprehension achievement. The result of the reading comprehension test is 67.74 and there are about 85 % of them achieving higher score that 65 as the determined criteria. And, there are only 15% not achieving the criteria anymore.

  Suggestion

  Considering the result of this classroom action research, some suggestions are proposed to maily English teacher and other researcher. It is suggested to English teacher that more folklore becomes significant instructional material for teaching reading comprehension. It is however suggested that English teachers hopefully expected to conduct further research in the same topic but using different type of folklore,

  Bibliography

  Baynham, M. 1986. Bilingual Folk Stories in the ESL Classroom.ELT Journal 40/2:113-120. Byrnes, H. 1998. Teaching Reaading in Grace Stovall Burkart, ed. Modules for the Professional Preparation of Teaching Assistants in Foreign Languages.

  Washington DC.: Center for Applied Linguistics. Dundes, A. 1965. The Study of Folklore. Englewood Cliffs: NJ. Practice hall, Inc. Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. 2004. Kurikulum Standar Kompetensi Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris Sekolah Menegah Umum dan Madrasah Aliyah.

  Jakarta: Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. Grellet, F. 1996. Developing Reading Skill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Hanafi, 2000. Speed Reading Technique: The Effective Strategy of Improving Reading Comprehension Skill. Jurnal Pancaran Pendidikan. Thn XVII page 60-71.

  Hanlon, T.L. 1999. General Giudelines for Teaching with Folktales, Fairy Tales,

  Fables, Ballads, and Other Short Works of Folklore. Available at http//:www.shortworksoffolklore.com.htm. Retrieved on July, 24 2008.

  Lestari, E.A. 2008. Using Fables in Teaching English to Improve the Second Year

  Students’ Writing Achievement at SMPN 1 Kalibaru Banyuwangi in the 2006/2007 Academic Year. Universitas Jember: Unpublished S1 thesis. Mansur, M. 2004. Using Folklore in Developing Students’ Interest in Reading (A Developmental Reserach at MAN Blitar in the Academic Year 2002/2003).

  Universitas Jember: Unpublished S1 thesis. Payani, D, Diem C.D and Purnomo, M. E. 2003. The Readability Levels of the EFL

  Text and the Reading Comprehension Levels of the State High School Students in Palembang. Lingua Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra volume 5 page 47.

  Rosmalina, I. 2004. Reading for Pleasure and Academic Achievement of the SLTP Students. Lingua Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra vol 5 No 2: JBPS-FKIP, LB, PSPB-PPS UNSRI MLI CABANG UNSRI Balai Pustaka Palembang.