THE USE OF SKIMMING AND SCANNING TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE THE READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF GRADE 8G STUDENTS OF SMP NEGERI 1 AMBULU JEMBER

Abstract

Based on the result of semi structured interview with the year 8 English teacher of SMP 01 Ambulu Jember, the students of the year 8 especially 8G had difficulty in comprehending text and they were pasive in joining the English reading class. It was proved by the fact that 8G had low score in the previous English test which mainly covered by reading. The result showed that their average score was 65. It was still under the school standard score requirement, 70. Considering the problems above, this classroom action research was undertaken colaboratively with the English teacher to overcome the problem by using skimming and scanning techniques. The procedures of the teaching and learning process were as follows : at the first time, the students did the pre-reading. In this activity, the researchers gave them some leading questions, and then introduced the technique of skimming and scanning technique including the definition, the function, what kinds of text will work on, and how the students skim and scan the text. The next step was whilst reading. In this activity, the researchers asked the students to focus on the questions first to get the key word of the questions. Then, the students decided what techniques that would be suitable for those questions, and finally they skim or scan the text to find the right answers. After answering all the questions, the english teacher and the researcher discussed the correct answer with the students together. At this stage, the teacher monitors the students’ active participation during the teaching and learning process. At last, the students had post reading. In this step, post reading activity was intended to gave follow up actifities. The activities included gaving further questions, drew the conclusion and evaluated the students’ progress. Classroom Action Research design was applied in this study. The action research was carried out to improve the students’ reading comprehension achievement by using skimming and scanning techniques at the year 8G of SMP Negeri 01 Ambulu Jember. This classroom action research was done sequencely or step by step, namely planning the action, implementing the action, monitoring (by observation) and evaluation; and analysis and reflection. In the implementation, there were two meetings in cycle one and two meetings in cycle two. The classroom observation used an observation checklist to identify the students’ active participation in joining the reading class activities, while the reading comprehension test used objective test in the form of multiple choice, True/false and short answer. There were two criteria used to evaluate the success of the actions in this research. There were : (1) the actions were considered successful if 75% of the students were active in the teaching and learning process of reading comprehension by using skimming and scanning (2) the action were successful if 75% of the students got at least the score of 70 (≥70 ). The Result of the actions in cycle one was unable to reach the research target requirement. Three of students were absent and thirty students were present. There were 20 of 30 students or 66.66% of the students who were active in joining the reading comprehension class by using skimming and scanning in the first meeting of cycle one while in the second meeting of cycle one, all of the students were present. There were 23 of 33 students or 69.69% of the students who were active in joining the reading comprehension class by using skimmming and scanning techniques. In addition, there were only 19 of 33 students or 57.57% of the students could achieve the target score of 70 ( ≥ 70 ). However, there was an improvement on the students’ active participation in joining the reading comprehension class and reading comprehension achievement by using skimming and scanning in cycle 2. There were 24 of 33 students or 72.72% of the students who were active in joining the reading comprehension class by using skimming and scanning in the first meeting while in the second meeting there were 27 of 33 students or 81.81% of the students who were active in it. Then, the number of students who got at least 70 ( ≥ 70) also increased from 19 of 33 students to 26 of 33 students or from 57.57 % to 78.78 %. Therefore, the actions were stopped. Considering the result of the research, it is suggested that the English teacher also uses skimming and scanning techniques as an alternative teaching techniques in teaching reading comprehension because it has been proved that the teaching reading comprehension by using skimming and scanning techniques can improve both students’ active participation in joining the reading comprehension class and students’ reading comprehension achievement. And for the students, they are suggested to use skimming and scanning technique to improve their reading comprehension skill because skimming can help the students to comprehend general information quickly and skimming can help them to comprehend specific information quickly. And in this research result can be valuable information for the future researchers who has the same problem in reading, so they can solve the problem by conducting the research by using skimming and scanning technique