Observation of Teaching Reading for Students Grade XI in SMAN 1 Geger

PART I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background of Study
Reading is a receptive skill since learners do not need to produce language; they receive and understand the written form. The teacher can choose what types of written language to be included in teaching reading. For example, there are reports, articles, short stories, recipes, maps, schedules and so on. Reading can be difficult because the written text is more complex than speech. Therefore, the teacher should know the appropriate techniques to teach reading to make it easy. Brown (2001) noted strategies for reading comprehension, they are:
1. Identify the purpose in reading.
2. Use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding. (especially for beginners)
3. Use efficient silent reading techniques for relatively rapid comprehension.
4. Skim the text for main idea.
5. Scan the text for specific information.
6. Use semantic mapping or clustering.
7. Guess when you are not certain.
8. Analyze vocabulary.
9. Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.
10. Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships.
Each of those strategies can be applied to the teacher’s classroom techniques.
In developing the reading skill, the teacher also includes some cognitive skills of comprehension. Richard (1983) noted some micro skills that should be involved, they are:
• Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthographic patterns of English.
• Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.
• Recognize a core of words, and interpret word order patterns and their significance.
• Recognize grammatical word classes, systems, patterns, rules, and elliptical form.
• Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in signaling the relationship between and among clauses.
• Recognize the communicative functions of written text, according to form and purposes.
• Infer context that is not explicit by using background knowledge.
• Infer links and connections between events, ideas, etc., deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.


B. Questions Research
To measure whether the teacher has taught reading skill appropriately, these following questions should be answered:
1. What is the aim of teaching reading in the class?
2. What type of written language is used?
3. What techniques are used by the teacher in teaching reading?
4. What micro skills of reading comprehension are used?
5. What type of reading classroom performance is done?
6. How does the teacher subdivide the reading activities?
7. How does the teacher give feedback in teaching reading?




PART II
RESULT

A. Setting of Observation
School : SMAN 1 GEGER MADIUN
Teacher’s name : Sofiah, S.Pd.
Class : XI Science 4
Class Time : 07.00-08.30
Date : 12/12/2009

B. Empirical Data
 The teacher reviews the previous texts about “Global Warming” and “Drugs”.
 To know whether the students understand the texts or not, the teacher asks some questions relate to the texts.
 She explains the definition of global warming by drawing on the whiteboard.
 Before reading activity, she teaches a particular grammar about simple present tense and gives the grammar rule.
 She also explains what subjects are followed by Vs/es or V without s/es.
 After giving explanation, the students are asked to do exercises in the textbook about simple present tense.
 The teacher checks the students’ answers after they finished their work.
 In reading activity, she gives a text about weather report taken from the textbook.
 She chooses a student to read the text loudly.
 When the student mispronounces a word, the teacher corrects it directly.
 After reading activity, she asks her students what the text is about, what the genre is, and what the purpose of the text is.
 Then, they do vocabulary study and the teacher translates the difficult words into students’ native language.
 For the second time, she asks her students to do exercises about vocabulary and connectors.
 She gives short explanation about the difference between before, after, and until by drawing on the whiteboard.
 At the end of the lesson, the teacher concludes what materials that they have learned; they are simple present tense, a report text, vocabulary study, and connectors.
 She uses English to explain and give instructions, but she uses her native language to translate the difficult words.












PART III
DISCUSSION
The aim of teaching reading to the students grade XI in SMAN 1 Geger is enable students to understand a genre text. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher reviews the texts that they have been discussed to know whether the students understand the passage or not. Reviewing the previous texts is an important activity to rebuild the students’ knowledge about the texts. To achieve the goal, the teacher prepares the materials and chooses the appropriate classroom activities before she starts the lesson. In teaching reading, there is a written language that will be discussed. First, the teacher decides what type of the text. In this class, she gives a text about weather report taken from students’ textbook. Since the text is about weather, the type of written language which is used by the teacher is a map. It is to show the weather condition of Asia. The students are asked to get information from the map. By using map, there will be a transfer of information in reading process. The weather information from the map can be transferred into a verbal form. This transfer of information helps students to understand the map and gives the teacher instant feedback because she can know immediately whether the students have received information from the map.
Before discussing a text, the teacher explains a particular grammar about simple present tense. She uses bottom-up processing, so the students must recognize the linguistics signals such as grammatical cues which relate to the text that will be discussed. Since the teacher wants to discuss a report text, she precedes the activity by explaining simple present tense which is used in a report text. The grammar about simple present tense is taught deductively. The teacher gives a grammar rule of the tense and also explains what subjects are followed by Vs/es and V without s/es. After giving the rule, she asks her students to do exercises about simple present tense. However, giving the explicit grammar rule is not appropriate. It does not give students a chance to figure out the rule by themselves. If a concept is found by them, it will be stored longer in their memory.
In teaching reading, one thing that the teacher should bear in mind is whether she teaches or tests her students. Therefore, the materials and activities in teaching reading should help the students to improve their reading ability. An efficient reading strategy is reading with a purpose (abbott, greenwood, McKeating, & Wingard, 1981). Before the students read a text, they should know the purpose for their reading. In fact, the teacher asks her students to read a text about weather report and gives questions after they read. That is the normal procedures that mostly done by teachers in teaching reading. If the teacher always uses that procedure, it means that she is not teaching reading because questions set afterwards act as a testing device. So, the teacher can set the questions before the text as a learning device.
To establish a purpose for reading, the teacher involves the relevant micro skills for reading comprehension. She develops some micro skills such as:
 Recognize the grammatical rule. It is done by giving the rule of simple present tense that links to a report text.
 Recognize the communicative functions of written text. The students are asked to find the purpose of a report text.
 Detect such relations as new information and given information from the text. From the map, the teacher asks her students to find some information about weather and temperature in Asia.
By developing those micro skills, the teacher expects that students reading ability can improve and they can comprehend the reading text well.
In this class, the teacher applies oral reading because she chooses a student to read the text loudly. At the beginning and intermediate levels, oral reading can serve as evaluation check, pronunciation check and student participation. But, this type of classroom reading performance is not suitable to be applied for students grade XI. Reading aloud is not effective because as Brown (2001) stated that oral reading is not a very authentic language activity and while one student is reading, others can easily lose attention. Moreover, reading aloud is done since the teacher wants a change activity or a rest.
To design interactive reading techniques, one of the principles is subdividing the techniques into pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading phases (Brown, 2001). In reality, what the teacher has done is not including pre-reading activity. She does not spend some time to introduce the topic of the text, so the students do not have a purpose in their reading. So, the students read the text because of teacher’s command, not a purpose. In while reading activity, they are not asked to find the main idea and the supporting details from the passage which usually done during the reading activity. Consequently, in post-reading activity, the students just asked to answer the questions based on the text. Moreover, the teacher also asks about what the text is about, the type of text, and the writer’s purpose. After reading the text, the students do follow up activities from the textbook such as vocabulary study and connectors. In follow up activities, the teacher still explains the difference between before, after and until. It is better to give explanation in the beginning of the lesson.
At the end of the lesson, the teacher concludes all activities that have been done to check whether her students have difficulty during the learning process. They have learned about simple present tense, a report text, and vocabulary study. From this feedback, she knows that vocabulary is the most difficult part for students in reading. Therefore, she translates the difficult words in students’ native language. However, during the teaching process, the teacher speaks English to explain and give instruction to her students.





PART IV
CONCLUSION
A. Conclusion
The goal of teaching reading for students grade XI in SMAN 1 Geger is enable students to understand a report text. The teacher has prepared appropriate materials to achieve the goal and explained difficult concepts. On the other hand, the teacher has some deficiencies in helping her students to improve their reading ability. The learning process is focused on reading skill, but the teacher has not completely applied the techniques in teaching reading. Those deficiencies are:
 The grammatical rule which relates to the passage is taught deductively.
 The teacher applies reading aloud as a technique.
 There is not reading with a purpose.
 There is not subdivision into pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading phases in reading activity.
B. Suggestion
Some suggestions for the teacher to help students developing their reading skill are:
• The grammatical rule should be taught inductively.
• The teacher should apply silent reading rather than oral reading.
• Give the students a purpose before they read a text.
• The reading activity should be subdivided into pre-reading activity, while-reading activity, and post-reading activity.
REFERENCES
1. Brown, Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. New York: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
2. Abbott, Gerry, et al. 1981. The Teaching of English as an International Language: A Practical Guide. Great Britain: William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd.
3. Larsen-freeman, Diane. 2000. Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. New York: Oxford University Press.
4. Richards, Jack. 2001. Curriculum Development in Language Teaching. USA: Cambridge University Press.