| dc.description.abstract | Reading comprehension is one of the skills in learning English. Souvignier
and Moklesgerami (2006) define reading comprehension as the reader’s ability to
read and remember, reproduce, learn form, and find deeper meaning in text for later
use (Chegeni & Tabatabei, 2014:306). In process of reading, sometimes, readers face
difficulties or problems. One of the difficulties and problems is learning new
vocabulary (Shehu, 2015:93). It is more challenging for Indonesian readers as EFL
(English Foreign Language) learners to learning English because they might spend
many years developing their vocabulary. To achieve the amount of vocabulary
required to comprehend academic texts in English is thus a major to learn new
vocabulary, which may be ineffective as well as impractical, considering the limited
time available for direct instruction (Jiang et al., 2015:19). L2 (second laguage)
learners may be able to acquire new vocabulary more efficient with enhanced
morphological awareness (Kieffer & Lessaux, 2008), which may enhance their
reading comprehension and support their academic studies (Jiang et al., 2015:19).
Morphological awareness may play a significant role in reading comprehension in
English (Curinga, 2014) because it should help readers determine more accurately
and more efficiently the meanings of unknown words (Kirby et al., 2011).
This research specifically focuses on derivational awareness among
Indonesian college readers, who are majoring in English literature in Universitas
Jember who took Academic Reading class. The participants are 22 college freshmen
learners of English. They are divided into two groups, high and less proficient
readers. The groupings are made based on their previous class. In this case, the
participants came from A, B, and C Class. Therefore, the researcher concluded that
the participants who were came from A and B class are labelled as high proficient
readers. In other words, the participants who came from class C are labelled as less
proficient readers.
This research employs two research questions. Those are how do high and
less proficient Indonesian college readers differ in their perception and application of
derivational morphological awareness. This research used qualitative data to analyze
the data. The data itself were collected through reading comprehension test and
interviews. The study found that there were no differences between the high and less
proficient readers in their perception of morphological awareness of derivational
morphemes. They the high and less proficient readers viewed morphological
awareness of derivational morpehemes as a great tool that can help them to infer the
meaning of new or unfamiliar words. In the application, there were four strategies
used by the high and less proficient readers to infer the meaning of new or unfamiliar
words. Those are 1) guessing from the text/context, 2) consulting a dictionary, 3)
ignoring the words, and 4) guessing from the rules of derivational morphemes. The
difference between the high and less proficient readers’ application of morphological
awareness of derivational morphemes is ignoring the words applied by the high
proficient readers and guess from the rules of derivational morphemes applied by the
less proficient readers. However, there were no significant differences between them.
They the high and less proficient readers ability to apply morphological awareness of
derivational morphemes to infer the meaning of the new or unfamiliar words are
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