Summary 14: Improving Reading Comprehension Through Extensive Reading (A Classroom Action Research for the Second Grade Students of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Mlati, Academic Years 2013-2014)

Citation

Prasetyono, Budi. (2014). Improving Reading Comprehension Through Extensive Reading (A Classroom Action Research for the Second Grade Students of SMP Muhammadiyah 3 Mlati, Academic Years 2013-2014). (Unpublished bachelor thesis), Ahmad Dahlan University, Indonesia. 

Summary

In this paper, Prasetyono research’s aims are to improve the quality of teaching and learning process, to describe the students’ response, and to improve the students’ reading comprehension through extensive reading activity. In the observation step, the researcher found that the class reading atmosphere was not so good, the students were not interested in the class reading activity, and their mean score was under the ideal mean score. During the research, the students started to catch the benefits of the extensive reading activity, to use the useful strategies to help them comprehend better, and also to perform better response. The results of this research are that the quality of the teaching and learning process was improving, the students’ response were also better than before the research, and the students’ reading comprehension were also improving.

Application

The classroom atmosphere and the students motivation are important. These aspects depend on the teachers’ performances. We should make a happy classroom atmosphere and make the students interested to us.

Summary 13: Examining the Effectiveness of Pre-reading Strategies on Saudi EFL College Students’ Reading Comprehension

Citation

Rasheed, Hana S. S. (2014). Examining the Effectiveness of Pre-reading Strategies on Saudi EFL College Students’ Reading Comprehension. English Language Teaching (Vol. 7 No. 11). Canada: Canadian Center of Science and Education.

Summary

This article talks about two pre-reading strategies given to two different group of Saudi EFL college students in order to know whether the strategies are effective or not. The strategies are vocabulary pre-teaching and pre-questioning. The result is that there is no significant differences between the two groups. However, it still can be indicated that giving both vocabulary pre-teaching and pre-questioning can improve students reading comprehension.

Application

Pre-reading strategies is important to give hints in a texts. It can be implemented in a classroom activity as well by giving relevant interesting questions or list of vocabulary.

Summary 12: Extensive Reading: Why Aren’t We All Doing It?

Citation

Renandya, Willy A & Jacobs, George M. (n.d.). Extensive Reading: Why Aren’t We All Doing It?. Methodology in Language Teaching (pp. 295-302). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Summary

In this paper, Renandya and Jacobs also give brief explanation about what ER is; that the students will read in quantity, choose their own topic or genre of reading texts, select the materials which suit with their comprehension levels. The students also given post-reading activities as the project. The teacher, being a good model for the activities as well and monitoring the students progress. 

 Renandya and Jacobs also give some benefits of extensive reading. However, the implementation of the ER is not that easy. They also talk about why extensive reading [ER] is not really implemented by most of teachers. The reasons are practical such as the time allocation needed, the curriculum target, and the teachers’ duties. They still believe that they have not enough time to assist the students in doing the extensive reading activity and thet the curriculum time would be better spent on the other subjects tested, or especially doing the intensive reading as the teachers directly guide the students.

Application

Extensive Reading can be implemented in a class by doing teacher modelling and giving explanations about how to do it. The time allocation must be the urgency of this activity, so we can ask the students to do this ER outside the class. We can give them any charts as the instrument of the monitoring activity and make schedules for the individual consultation.

Summary 11: Teaching Strategic Reading

Citation

Janzen, Joy. (n.d.). Teaching Strategic Reading. Methodology in Language Teaching (pp. 287-294). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Summary

In this article, Janzen was using a global teaching approach; the transactional teaching approach. She asked her students of EFL class to focus on one text in a semester. She did some  general strategy discussions both in large or small group discussion. In this case, in making the students understood about the strategies taught, she became the model for the strategic reading activity before asking the students to do the reading activity. She then asked her students to read the text chosen and to make a chart about what they had learn and what strategies they used during their reading. The charts then being analyzed in a group discussion in the class. In this occasion, she asked the students to understand the others’ strategy. In this semester, she gave two types of homework for the students. The first, I call it as class-reading homework because in this homework she asked the students to read in the class. They were predicting, noting questions, describe strategies used, and summarizing the text. The second type is the extensive reading. The students were asked to read outside the classroom and were asked to make the same charts. The result is that the students are able to think and read aloud, identify their own and the others’ strategies used, and they realized that strategy training helps them to understand their reading process better.

Application

In teaching, we should be good model for our students. Not only asking them to do something, but also give them examples and explanations about how to do it and why they have to do it. The types of homework here are also suitable to be applied in Indonesian school; however, the teachers also should be aware of the students motivation in doing these types of homework.

Summary 10: Dilemmas for the Development of Second Language Reading Abilities

Citation

Grabe, William. (1995). Dilemmas for the Development of Second Language Reading Abilities in Prospect, 10[2], 38-51. Methodology in Language Teaching (pp. 276-286). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Summary

This article is take from a book entitled Methodology in Language Teaching edited by Jack C. Richards and Willy A. Renandya in Section 12 Teaching Reading. 

This article talks about dilemmas approach in the development of second language [L2] reading abilities. The first dilemma is that there are many different context in the L2 reading instruction. The L2 reading instruction become more complex because it includes all the L1 instruction contexts and adds the L2 learning instruction itself. The resolution of this dilemma is that the L2 instructors must find more appropriate journals which can improve their L2 learning instruction designs. The second dilemma is about the perspective of the L2 as a part of second language acquisition [SLA] which is more general than the needs of the L2 users. It has to be clear about the relationship between both the L2 and the SLA by doing research or some literature reviews.

The third dilemma is about the learners’ awareness of text structure that may contribute to their reading abilities. In this case, controlling the formal aspects or the language used and the form of the text structure are two of so many ways of improving the learners’ reading comprehension. It is more likely about the teachers way of teaching; about how they explain to the learners themselves. The fourth dilemma is about the vocabulary building. The L1 reading researches believe that extensive reading is important [because they have the basic of vocabulary early] while the L2 is more likely focus on the vocabulary building. However, reading fluency is not only about recognizing vocabulary, but also catching the information from a reading material. So, it can be said that by doing extensive reading, the learners can doing the vocabulary building.

The fifth dilemma is about the social background of the learners that the middle-class families usually prepare their children before the school-age while the low-class families maybe don’t. One of the suggestions is that the teachers must conduct any intensive reading program, in this case, extensive reading to their learners. The sixth dilemma is about the learners’ silent reading as a class activity. It will be strange if the teacher just let the learners read their own materials in the class without doing any real learning activities. The learners’ motivation is also being the problem. There are some solutions noted here; educating the school administrators and the teachers about the urgency of extensive reading so that there will be more time conducted to provide extensive reading activity whether in the class or library.

The seventh dilemma is about the learners ability to understand any reading strategy, to use it appropriately, and to combine the strategies. It is important for the teachers to help their learners to use the reading strategies. So, for this dilemma, the entire schools and programs must commit as a strategic school. The teachers must make the learners understand and aware about the reading strategies. They have to demonstrate it, assist the learners, and make sure that the learners use the strategies. The eighth dilemma is about schema theory which is believed to support comprehension by recalling background knowledge. The problem is that teachers are taught that previewing a text and discussing it before reading will help the learners to activate the schemata; however, there is just a few research about the schema theory so that there is some other questions about the concept. Therefore, the use of the schemata concept is now being a rationale for any teaching suggestion.

The last dilemma from this article is about the relationship between reading instruction and Content-Based Instruction [CBI]. The CBI provides a natural framework for reading because it has potential motivate learners, develop strategic learners, provide contexts for extensive reading, and promote larger and useful vocabularies. Moreover, it can be integrated with other learning theories. The suggestions here is that how to make the CBI as the core of curriculum discussion of reading instruction.

So, from the nine dilemmas above, it can be concluded that extensive reading is important and it has to be taught not only to the teachers and learners, but also the whole environment such as the schools administers and the parents.

Application

It is important to manage the whole environment to understand the urgency of extensive reading activity so that we can make a reading programs in our classes or even in our schools.