English Education Journal
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TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION BY USING RECIPROCAL TEACHING APPROACH
Get PDFThe objective of this study was to investigate the effect of using the reciprocal teaching approach in teaching reading comprehension to the second grade (year 11) students of SMA Negeri 2 Lhoksukon. This study employed a true experimental design in which there were two classes as the sample, one as the experimental and the other as the control class. The experimental group was taught by using the reciprocal teaching approach, while the control group was taught by using the teacher centered approach. In collecting the data, a test and a questionnaire were used, and then the collected data were analyzed by using Statistical Product and Service Solution (SPSS) Version 22. Before the data were processed into further inferential statistics, the normality and the homogeneity of the data were examined. The results of the normality and homogeneity tests showed that the data were normal (sig. 0.20 and 0.12) and homogeneous (sig. 0.63). Based on the t-index from the analysis, it was found there was a significant difference between both groups as 0.17 is higher than =0.05. The findings indicate that the students taught by using the reciprocal teaching approach achieved significantly better scores in reading comprehension than those taught by using the teacher centered approach. Hence, the alternative hypothesis was accepted and the null hypothesis was rejected. Moreover, the result of the data analysis from the questionnaire indicated that almost all the students responded positively towards the use of the reciprocal teaching approach since it effectively improved their reading comprehension skills
PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FOR TEACHING ENGLISH
Get PDFThis research was conducted to find out how well English teachers in Banda Aceh displayed Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in teaching English and how they developed their knowledge of teaching. This research was a classroom research and the focus of the analysis was knowledge of the subject, teaching strategies and knowledge of learners conceptions. The participants were four English teachers (Betty, Dina, Aminah and Cut - pseudonyms), each from a different junior high school. They teach second grade ESL students. The instruments used for collecting the data were observation sheets and interview guides. The results from the study show that the teachers each had their own strengths and weaknesses in teaching English. The four participating teachers taught different topics and they showed dissimilarity in displaying PCK. Betty and Dina had more subject matter knowledge compared Aminah and Cut. For teaching strategy, Aminah, Cut, and Dina used a telling or lecture method whereas Betty used a Grammar Translation Method to teach her students to learn to understand spoken English. In the last trait analyzed, these four teachers had limited knowledge of how to identify the conceptions of learners even though they had had many years experience as English teachers and had often observed other colleagues. The differences in teaching knowledge amongst the sample teachers could be caused by many factors such as different methodologies used, different teaching experiences, different marital status, and different language backgrounds of the students. This study shows that these teachers still needed to improve their PCK
Using The Group Investigation Technique in Teaching Reading Comprehension
Get PDFThis study was conducted to investigate the effect of Group Investigation Technique (GIT) for teaching reading to second grade students of private high school in Pidie Jaya. An experimental design was used and the data were collected through a test as the instrument. Two sets of tests (pre-test and post-test) in the form of multiple choice items were administrated. The population of this study was all the second grade students of the school, and two classes were taken as samples, one for the experimental class (EC) and one for the control class (CC), with 36 students in EC and 32 students in CC. The findings showed that the GIT used for teaching reading improved the reading comprehension scores of the students concerned. The EC students had higher reading scores (=77) than those from the CC (=64). The reading abilities of the students in the different classes were different as indicated by the z-score. The z-score showed that the result of the z-count was 4.29, while the result of z-table at the level of significance 5% (=0.05) was around -2.04+2.04. This means that the z-count was higher than the z-table (4.29-2.04+2.04). Therefore, the alternate hypothesis was accepted and the null hypothesis was rejected. In other words, it was concluded that the students taught with GIT got better results in reading than those who were taught using the standard individual reading activity method. English teachers are suggested to apply this technique in teaching reading
Implementation of the Semantic Mapping Strategy for Teaching Reading Comprehension
Get PDFThis research studies the implementation of Semantic Mapping Strategy (SMS) in teaching reading comprehension to second year students from a junior high school in Aceh Besar. The objectives were to find out whether students taught reading comprehension through SMS would get better results than those who were taught using the Grammar Translation Method (GTM), the types of reading sub-skills that they would master better by using the SMS, and their responses towards the use of the SMS in reading comprehension classes. The sample for this research was two classes, one as the control group (CG) and another as the experimental group (EG). The classes were selected using a random sampling technique. The research instruments used to collect the data for this research were reading comprehension tests (pre-tests and post-tests) and a questionnaire. The result of this research showed that the students in the EG who were taught reading comprehension using the SMS got better results than the students in the CG who were taught using the GTM. Furthermore, the reading sub-skills where the students got better results through using SMS were main idea, and specific information. Finally, the students responded positively to the implementation of SMS in their reading comprehension classes. Thus, it can be said that the SMS was proven an effective strategy to be used for teaching reading comprehension to the second year students of the school
Project Based Learning Techniques to improve speaking skills
Get PDFThis Classroom Action research was to describe the application of the Project Based Learning (PBL) technique through group work in teaching English especially for a speaking class in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of three meetings. The research was done in six major steps: preliminary preparations, planning, acting, observing, reflecting, and evaluating of the results of the teaching-learning speaking process. The instruments used in collecting the data were the researchers and the students observation sheets, tests, and student questionnaire sheets. The result from the first cycle was that the score for the researchers participation at the end of the first cycle was 73%, which is categorized as good; while after the second cycle the score was 90%, which is categorized as very good. With regard to the students participation, the percentage score after the first cycle was 70%, which is in the middle category. This increased significantly after the second cycle to 81% in the good category. Furthermore, the students improvement in speaking skills can be proved by comparing the results from the pre-tests and the post-tests. Their average score pre-teaching was 67, and post-teaching after the first cycle it rose to 71. Moreover, after the second cycle the students post-test result increased to 79. This means that the success indicator was reached. Consequently, PBL technique can improve the students speaking skills. Finally, data from the questionnaire shows that 90% of the students chose the options agree and strongly agree to the use of the PBL technique in their speaking class. They also responded positively to the use of the PBL technique in the process of teaching-learning speaking
Cooperative Teaching-Learning using the Fishbowl Technique for teaching reading
Get PDFThis study was done to find out the effects of using cooperative learning with the Fishbowl technique with third year students from the English department at UIN-Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. The main purpose of the study was to find out if students who were taught reading using the Fishbowl technique would achieve better performance in reading comprehension than those who were taught using the usual technique. Two classes were used as the sample from the target population, one class was the Experimental Group (EG) which got the Fishbowl technique treatment and the other class was the Control Group (CG) which got the standard treatment. The EG had 25 students and the CG had 30. The mean post test score from the EG was 76 while that from the CG was 63. The t-test showed that the EG result was significantly higher than that from the CG. Thus the EG students who were taught using the Fishbowl technique got better performances in reading than the CG who were taught by the usual technique. A questionnaire was distributed to the EG at the end of the treatment to find out the perceptions of the EG students towards the use of the Fishbowl technique in their reading class. The students responses reached the level of Strongly Agree which means that they responded positively to this cooperative model of teaching-learning. Thus, based on the findings, it is suggested to other researchers and teachers who have problems with teaching reading comprehension to their students to try to use this type of teaching-learning technique as it might help to overcome their problems
Using the Storytelling Technique to Improve English Speaking Skills of Primary School Students
Get PDFThis research was conducted to find out whether the use of Storytelling Technique (STT) could improve the English speaking skills of primary school students. This Classroom Action Research (CAR) project was done in two (2) cycles, where the procedures consisted of planning the action, implementing the action, observing and reflections. The instruments used for collecting the data were observation sheets for the teacher and students, and a speaking test and questionnaire for the students. The results showed that STT improved the speaking skills of the students especially in pronunciation fluency, accuracy, and comprehension of produced sentences. The data from the speaking tests showed that the mean score from the students after the first cycle was 5, and increased to 7 after the second cycle. It further showed that 58% of the students got scores above average in the first cycle and increased to 80% in the second cycle. From the observation sheet, the students participation gradually increased, with 55% in the first cycle and 86% after the second cycle. Furthermore, based on the observation sheet from the teacher, the researcher also showed improvement in teaching where after the first cycle, she got a score of 61% which increased to 87% after the second cycle. Moreover, based on the responses to the questionnaire, 80% of the students responded positively to the implementation of the treatment. These results indicate that this classroom action research was a success where STT effectively improved the students English speaking skills
Using the Place Mat Technique to improve writing skills
Get PDFThis research was to find out whether teaching descriptive writing by using the Place Mat technique would be effective to improve the writing skills of students and to find out their responses to the implementation of this technique. The sample for this research was 56 students from the first grade at SMAN 4 Banda Aceh in the academic year 2014/2015. A true experimental design was used in this research in which two classes were selected at random, one to be the experimental class, and the other the control class. The instruments used to collect the data were tests and a questionnaire. There were two steps in collecting the test data, namely the pre-test and the post-test. To get the students responses to the implementation of this technique, a questionnaire was used. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in achievement in writing descriptive texts between the students who were taught using this technique and those who were taught by using the individual writing activity. This was proven by the score from the t-test on the post-test which was 3.27 that was higher than the t-table score which was only 1.684. Furthermore, based on the result from the questionnaire, the students responded positively toward the use of this technique for teaching writing
