CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents introduction. It consists of seven sub-chapters. They

are (a) Background of the Study, (b) Formulating of Research Questions, (c)

Research Objectives, (d) Significance of the Study, (e) Scope and Limitation,

(f) Hypothesis, (g) Definition of Key Terms

A. Background of the Study

There are four skill in English language teaching that students are

required to master, they are reading, listening, writing, and speaking.

Among those four skills, reading is the most important one. Brown

(2007:21) states that reading is the most important skill in learning any

subject. However, Krashen & Terrel (1983:131) states that Reading may

contribute significantly to competence in a second language, there is

good reason, in fact, to hypothesis that reading makes a contribution

to overall competence , to all four skills . It means that the learners who

have well in reading, they will good in other skill.

As a part of English skill, reading of English language should

mastered by the learners. There are many reason why the learners should

master reading. It is because reading is as basic skill than perhaps any

other, not only for promoting the students personal development but also

for cognitive development. Reading is a construction of meaning from

written text – it is an active, cognitive, and affective process (Biddulph,

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2002:3). By reading people can transfer of meaning from mind to

mind, a message from a writer to a reader. In addition, reading can be

used to build a concept, develop vocabulary, giving knowledge, adding

personal enrichment process, develop intellect, help understand and

understand the problems of others, developing self-concept and as a

pleasure.

Reading is also the most difficult skill in English language teaching

because reading is complex skill especially for reading comprehension. It

needed high thinking to catch the meaning and the information in print and

script within a social context. Reading skill is specific abilities which

enable a reader to read the written form as meaningful language, to read

anything written with independence, comprehension and fluency and to

mentally interact with the message. According to Biddulph (2002:8) states

that Reading involves using a range of thinking skills in order to make

sense of texts. In this case, reading is also can be seen as an “interactive”

process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or reading

fluency (Alyousef, 2005). It means that in the interactive process the

reader guess, predict and try to get the meaning of the text about. As an

essential part of language learning, having good reading is needed. It is

because good reading proficiency means the reader has abilities to

understand written statements or any type of written texts accurately and

efficiently (Mahfoodh, 2007: 1).

In this globalization era, Reading also plays the important role for

EFL learners achievement especially in academic context for every level

from Elementary School until the University because students need to

comprehend and deal with all reading aspect and difficulties. Reading is

as a basic skill in English language cannot be separated from the

education. On the School Based-Curriculum or K13, reading is one of the

important skills in English. It is based on the main and basic competencies

in teaching and learning process. The basic purpose is English learners at

school must be able analyze the structure of the text.

The explanation of the basic purpose above has means that the

learners should have the competence in improving reading involves master

the competence of understanding and comprehend of the text. Therefore,

reading is one of the competencies that must be developed in the Senior

High School based K13 especially for reading comprehension because it is

an essential of reading that without comprehension, reading is nothing. It

means that the comprehension has important role in reading skill.

Teaching reading for Senior High School students should be

different from children in Elementary School. It is because different

characteristics of their psychological background. In reading skill, the

comprehension is needed especially for Senior High School students. John

Kruidenier (2002:27) elaborated that comprehension is an active process

and the reader must interact and be engage with the text for it to work

well. It means that the students not only read for the text or answering
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what is the text about. In reading comprehension, the students also should

know the meaning of the text that they have read. There are two meanings

that exist, they are explicit meaning and implicit meaning. Understanding

explicit facts is one of the primary reading comprehension. While implicit

meaning the students must read the text until they are really

understand and comprehend the text well. It means that to know the

implicit meaning of the text.

Based on the researcher observation, there were some facts show

that many Students had difficulties in understanding and comprehend the

text. They got difficulty comprehend the text. The students needed a lot of

time in understanding the text. Besides that, the students only had a limited

scope of vocabulary, and the topic of the reading passage made them not

really understand. In fact, it was hard for them to master their skills in

reading because most of the students fail in answering question related to

the topic, student’s motivation in studying reading was low.

Since the motivation was low, so they have some difficulties

in reading comprehension. Most of the students can’t comprehend the

content of the text well. Finally, the students had difficulties in doing

exercises. Those all made their achievement became low and caused

failure in teaching and learning process. The cause of the problem not only

came from the students, but also from the teacher. From the teacher’s side,

the teacher’s way of teaching reading affected the students’ reading

comprehension in the class, speaking too fast, the explanation was unclear
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and monotonous strategy used by the teacher in learning reading. The

teacher did not understand how to manage their class and make the

students feel bored to learn English especially for reading class.

Therefore, the English teacher has to be able to organize teaching and

learning activities; they have to give materials by using a suitable strategy

and master the lesson effectively.

In achieving the objective above, it became a challenge for the

English teacher to activate student’s motivation to read. English

teachers have to play important role in the class especially in teaching

reading skill. The teacher do not only ask the students to read certain text

in the book or students’ exercises book (LKS), and then he asked them to

do the task based on the text. But, the students needed more interesting

learning especially in reading class.

Based on the difficulties above, the researcher wants to apply

appropriate technique or strategies and teaching media in teaching reading.

Nunan (1999:249) said that success in teaching depends on many factors,

one of them is teaching strategy. In fact, it is probably true to say that

more time is spent teaching reading than other skill. In this case, the

technique should be interesting to have students interest during teaching

learning process. One of the strategy is a graphic organizer. Liliana (2009)

as cited in Praveen Sam D & Premalatha Rajan (2013) states that Graphic

organizers are representations, pictures or models used for processing

textual information. It means that graphic organizer facilitates the students

to understand the information to work with.

Graphic organizers display information, structure, and key

conceptual relationships using visual and spatial arrangements or maps.

Graphic organizers often involve lines, arrows, text boxes or bubbles,

pictures, and other visual depictions to represent ideas, facts, and concepts.

Graphic organizers are meant to help students clearly visualize how ideas

are organized within a text or surrounding a concept. Graphic organizers

provide students with a structure for abstract ideas. The researcher chooses

graphic organizer strategy because Graphic organizers provide a

framework for students to connect existing knowledge to new information.

Graphic organizers are visual displays of key content information designed

to benefit learners who have difficulty organizing information (Fisher &

Schumaker, 1995). It means that Graphic organizer is wonderful strategy

to get students actively involved in their learning. Because graphic

organizers include both words and visual images, they are effective with a

wide variety of learners. Thus, it will make learners more active because

they are as a learner’s center.

In general, there are many kinds of graphic organizer, they are star,

descriptive map, tree, flow cart, T-chart, Venn diagram, word web, KWS,

persuasion map, problem solving map, spider, timeline, pyramid, fishbone,

pie charts, decision making diagram, story map, cluster, vocabulary map,
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paragraph structure, character traits, biography diagram, animal report,

cause and effect, classifying, compare contras matrix, cycle and watch.

Spider map plays the important role in reading comprehension

because it helps the students to organize their thought. A spider map is the

type of graphic organizer that is used to investigated and enumerate

various aspect and of a single theme or topic. Report text is the text which

presents information about something. In report text the writer provide

detail information about something. By using spider map supporting detail

can be shown easily. The spider map helping the student to focus on main

topic and supporting ideas, requires the students to review what they

already know in order to organize their knowledge and help the students to

monitor their growing comprehension of the text.

Based on this explanation, the researcher is going to conduct this

study by experimental with tittle “THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING

GRAPHIC ORGANIZER TOWARD THE STUDENTS’

ACHIEVEMENT IN READING COMPREHENSION OF REPORT

TEXT AT MAN TRENGGALEK”

B. Research Problem

Based on the background of the research, the researcher has formulated the

following research question:

Is there any significant different on students’ achievement in reading

comprehension of report text before and after taught using graphic

organizer?

C. Research Objectives

This research was conducted with the following objective:

To find out if there is significant effect of using graphic organizer on

students’ achievement in reading comprehension of report text

D. Hypothesis

The study belongs to quantitative approach in which the data are in

the forms of numbers or scores. That is way, the researcher needed to

formulate hypothesis. There are two hypotheses formulated in this study;

Null Hypothesis (H0) and Alternative Hypothesis (H1).

H0 = There is no any significant difference on reading comprehension

before and after using Graphic Organizer

H1 = There is any significant difference on reading comprehension

before and after using Graphic Organizer

E. Significance of the Study

The findings of this study are expected to give contribution for the

English teachers, English learners, other researchers and the writer herself.

1. For the teacher

The finding of this study may be helpful for the English teacher

to be employed in his/her teaching practice. It can give information

for the English teacher who teach reading comprehension by using

Graphic Organizer can be applied to students as well

2. For the students

This study may be helpful to the students, because using Graphic

Organizer in learning reading comprehension will make their

understanding clearly and useful for student get the opportunities

to improve their readings specify in understanding, developing, and

explain main idea of the text.

3. The writer

It will get new knowledge and experience in teaching reading

comprehension using Graphic Organizer, beside fulfill of the

requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Education.

4. The Other Researchers

This study can be used for the references for developing effective

strategy in teaching English

F. Scope and Limitation

Scope in this research is on studying reading comprehension. In

addition, this study only focuses on applying of spider map graphic

organizer strategy on the students’ reading comprehension of report text

at the eleventh grade of MAN Trenggalek.

G. Definition of the Key Terms

The writer gave the definition of the terms in order to avoid

misunderstanding and ambiguity, as follows:

1. Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension is understanding a written text means

extracting the required information from it as efficiently as possible

(Grellet, 2010: 3). In reading comprehension, the students need to read

a text then comprehend and construct the meaning from the text.

2. Report Text

Report text is a text which presents information about something as it

is. It is a result of systematic observation and analysis

3. Graphic Organizer

Graphic Organizer is visual way that often involve lines, arrows, text

boxes or bubbles, pictures, and other visual depictions to represent

ideas, facts, and concepts. It provide a framework Graphic organizer is

a visual representation of knowledge that structure information by

arranging important aspects of concept or topics into pattern using

label (Billmeyer, 2008:27).

4. Spider Map

Spider Map is a type of graphic organizer that is used to investigate and

enumerate various aspects of a single theme or topic, helping the

student to organize their thoughts.