CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of Problem

Reading is about understanding written texts. It is a complex activity that

involves both perception and thought. Reading consists of two related processes:

word recognition and comprehension. Word recognition refers to the process of

perceiving how how written symbols correspond to one spoken language.

Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences, and connected

text. Readers typically make use of background knowledge, vocabulary,

grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them

understand written text.

According to Kalayo and Fauzan (2007:128), reading comprehension is an

activity with a purpose. It is very useful for all people. It is an interactive process

that goes on between the reader and the text. A person may read in order to gain

information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to analyze a researcher’s

ideas or reading style. Many schools or courses offer English as one of the

lessons. The important point is that the students get bask learning in English to

make the students easier to learn further. Therefore, the decrees of Indonesian

government No.19 year 2005 about standard of national education states that in

Improving people's ability in mastery English. The Indonesian government has

made an effort in English mastery in Education curriculum by giving English

lesson from the elementary school until high level education. The mastery of

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English subject can be known by English standard of competence of listening,

speaking, reading, and reading.

Mark Clarke and Sandra Silberstein (1977:136-37) claim that reading is

only incidentally visual. More information is contributed by the readers than by

the print on the page. That is, readers understand what they read because they are

able to take the stimulus beyond it is graphic representation and assign it

membership to an appropriate group of concept already save in their memories.

Reading skill depends on the efficient interaction between linguistic knowledge

and knowledge of the world.

Reading has become one of the important language skills that learners

need since the first time they start to study English. Through reading they can get

much information they need either to the needs of mastering English itself or other

things. Then, without information they will surely not know anything happen

either change in situation of education, economic, politic, or necessary

information in reading text of English lesson specifically. In line with it, English

students need to be good in reading and get much information to increase their

knowledge and ability from the any sources that they have and get. In addition,

the students are expecting to develop their reading ability in understanding and

comprehending many kinds of texts.

Many students have read different sources in English to support their

academic project. Reading sources are provided in textbooks at any level of

education including second semester of the English Students of FKIP-UIR

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Pekanbaru. In other words, reading is an integral part of English skills. Because of

it is importance, students’ reading improvement should become a priority. Both of

lecturers and students have to understand the rationale of this skill who wants to

improve their teaching and learning reading comprehension.

Based on the curriculum of the English Department of FKIP-UIR

Pekanbaru, the second semester students have to attend reading II as required

subject. In reading II, the students will learn types of article such as narrative,

descriptive, expository, and argumentative/persuasive and other scientific writing

as the material in reading class.

The curriculum of the English Department of FKIP-UIR Pekanbaru states

narrative, descriptive, expository, and argumentative/persuasive are applicable at

the second semester and after teaching those types of texts, the students are still

difficult to comprehend the descriptive texts, it is the reason why the researcher

chose the descriptive texts as her research. While descriptive texts help students in

variety of classroom situation and must prepare to continue this practice in the

workplace and in the real life decision making situation. In high school, college

and university classroom, students are required to read descriptive texts to

complete class assignment. Given the importance of description comprehension, it

is essential that all students become proficient text-based reasons and an important

toward this goal is to access university students’ ability to read and comprehend

complete description texts.

As the researcher observed during teaching and learning process in reading

class, the researcher finds some problems faced by students and lecturer. From

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students side; first, when students read a reading text, and only to realized within a

few minutes that students could not remember what they just read. It made the

students spend many time to read the text in order to get the meaning of the text

that they have read. This fact can be seen from the result of reading exercise given

by lecturer in the classroom.

Second, even though the students have understood the text that they have

read, but 80 % of students had difficulty in describing what the information from

the text because the students are not trained to restate the text after reading.

Besides, students also have problem with various vocabulary to express the

information of the text that they have read. It is proved by the result of students

test. The lecturer also checked students’ comprehension by giving reading text,

she gave students a descriptive text, then asked students to answer the questions

by their own words, the students have difficulties to express the questions,

because they have problem in using of different vocabulary, at the result, the

students often used the same vocabulary of the original texts to express their

statement.

Last, the students are not able to restate the text to the new statement.

They are not able to construct the restatement to get the meaning of the text

properly. This fact proof, when lecturer asked the students to get the meaning of

the text that they have read and create the restatement based on the idea of the

text , the students seem to think hard and confuse. This fact also strengthened by

the result of students’ task and tests during process of learning. From 30 students

who joint in reading II, only 20% students could comprehend the text that they

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have read by restating the text in other words. It indicated that students are not

able to restate their comprehension about the text they have read.

Then, the problems from lecturer side, lecturer did not pay attention for her

strategy in teaching reading activities, she still taught her students by using old

strategy, for example; displaying students reading text, finding the difficult words,

translating, and answering the questions. It makes students are not interested in

learning of reading. Less practice for students in restating the text that students

read, it makes students less experience in expressing the text that have read by

their own words. It also made students did not absolutely comprehend the reading

texts.

Realizing on the phenomenon above, the researcher considers two

particular Strategies namely paraphrase strategy and semantic map strategy to

solve these problems. By Paraphrasing strategy the students can restate a passage

precisely in the students own words in order to clarify the meaning. It purposes to

help the students understand the original text properly, and students able to

express the text content in other way or different words. Based on the reason,

paraphrase is an important strategy which can be used by students in order to

ensure that they have properly understood the material which has been studied.

Bellanca (1992) explains that the purpose of the Semantic Mapping strategy is to

help students identify prior knowledge and experience as a bridge to a new

concept, lesson, or unit. The Semantic Mapping strategy encourages the students

to active participating in English learning in which the Sixth activity is

recognizing the topic of the study and knowing the student knowledge about the

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topic. And it is also as the stimulant to arise their motivation to learn English.

Sometime the students have no motivation in learning English because they have

not understood what they learn

The lecturerr will use these strategies in teaching reading at the second

semester of English Department Students of FKIP-UIR. The type of reading text

which is going to be used by the researcher is descriptive texts. Revealing all of

these, the researcher is interested to carry out a research entitled “A Comperative

Study on the Effects of RAP Paraphrasing Strategy and Semantic Map

Strategy towards students Reading Comprehension of Descriptive Texts at

Semester II of the English Department Program of FKIP-UIR Pekanbaru”.

1.2 The Statement of the Problem

The main aim of this study is to compare between RAP Paraphrasing

Strategy and Semantic Map Strategy towards students reading comprehension in

descriptive text. Rupp (2008: 57) mentions that reading comprehension is

complex, interactive and integrative and requires the effective interaction of

multiple mental components for the creation of multiple mental representation of

text. The role of reading comprehension plays in the process of learning is widely

document (Shanakan, Callison, Carriere, Duke, Pearson, Torgesen, et al. 2010;

Luckner & Handley 2008; Coleman 2003). These studies and many other similar

studies point to the fact that reading comprehension forms the basis for the

learning process. Thus, learners who read without comprehending what they read

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have fewer chances of succeeding academically than learners who read with

comprehension.

Regarding to background of the problems above, there are some problems

in teaching-learning of reading, especially teaching learning of reading

comprehension of descriptive texts. The problems might come from students and

lecturers. However, those problems that considered to be solved immediately.

Most of the students are difficult to describe the text that they have read by they

own words or different way. Further, most of the students are not able to clarify

the meaning of the text that they read precisely. They also had difficulty to link

the text to restate the new statement.

Other problem is the lecturers themselves. It is difficult for the lecturers to

find and choice an interesting meaningful reading activities, because the lecturer

are still used old strategy in teaching reading. Further the lecturer did not pay

attention for her appropriate strategy in teaching and learning reading.

Since the phenomena also affect learners at the second semester English

Department FKIP UIR Pekanbaru, some questions need to be address. How can

lecturers help to students’ in reading comprehension? How the students have low

motivation to read an English text? How is the first grade student doing on

reading comprehension?, Do the students spend the time effectively in reading

comprehension, Do they realize the important of reading the text to encourage

their reading comprehension? How is the influence of reading strategy to their

reading comprehension by analyzing those variables? And is the teaching strategy

appropriate in improving the students’ ability in reading comprehension? Which

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strategy gives better result either RAP Paraphrasing Strategy or Semantic Map

Strategy on reading comprehension?

By Paraphrasing strategy the students can restate a passage precisely in the

students own words in order to clarify the meaning. It purposes to help the

students understand the original text properly, and students able to express the text

content in other way or different words. Based on the reason, paraphrase is an

important strategy which can be used by students in order to ensure that they have

properly understood the material which has been studied. Bellanca (1992)

explains that the purpose of the Semantic Mappingstrategy is to help students

identify prior knowledge and experience as a bridge to a new concept, lesson, or

unit. The Semantic Mapping strategy encourages the students to active

participating in English learning in which the Sixth activity is recognizing the

topic of the study and knowing the student knowledge about the topic. And it is

also as the stimulant to arise their motivation to learn English. Sometime the

students have no motivation in learning English because they have not understood

what they learn

1.3 The Limitation of the Problem

This research investigates the comparison between RAP Paraphrasing

Strategy and Semantic Map Strategy on students reading comprehension in

descriptive text at the second semester students English Depatment of FKIP UIR

Pekanbaru. The limitation of the problem is to investigate which strategy gives

better result either RAP Paraphrasing Strategy and Semantic Map Strategy on

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students reading comprehension in descriptive text at the second semester students

English Depatment of FKIP UIR Pekanbaru?

1.4 The Purpose and Objective of the Research

The purpose of this research is to investigate what is useful strategy that we

use in teaching and learning process and how to improve reading comprehension

and at the second semester students English Depatment of FKIP UIR Pekanbaru.

In learning English these problems arise so that more lecturers are trying to find

out what the barriers are and how to anticipate them. Based on the research

questions formulas, the objectives of the research are state as follows:

1. To find out whether RAP Paraphrasing Strategy gives significant effect on

students reading comprehension between Experimental group & Control

group

2. To find out whether Semantic Map strategy gives significant effect on

students reading comprehension between Experimental group & Control

group

3. To find significant difference on students’ reading comprehension between

using RAP Paraphrasing Strategy and Semantic Map strategy at the second

semester students English Depatment of FKIP UIR Pekanbaru.

1.5 The Research Questions

1. Does using RAP Paraphrasing Strategy give significant effect on students

reading comprehension between Experimental group & Control group?

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2. Does using Semantic Map strategy give significant effect on students reading

comprehension between Experimental group & Control group?

3. Is there any significant difference on students’ reading comprehension

between using RAP Paraphrasing and Semantic Map strategy at the the second

semester students English Depatment of FKIP UIR Pekanbaru?

1.6 The Significance of the Research

The study aims to improve a new strategy in teaching English to English

Language learners as a research contribution to EFL teaching and learning. It is

expect that RAP Paraphrasing and Semantic Map strategy will generate future

EFL/ TESL research in future. Those strategies help the students to consciously

control how they learn reading comprehension so that they can be more efficient

and motivate.

The English Lecturer is also hope this study will help instructors or

lecturers of University as the designer in teaching learning process so that the

English lecturers are able to develop their knowledge and creativity in reading

descriptive text. To raise students’ awareness of reading comprehension,

As the student are concern hope this study will be, how to comprehend a

text, to increase their achievement in reading descriptive text, and also to

encourage them to be more active and high motivate students.

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1.7 The Rationale of the Research

The success in teaching and learning process depends on the teacher’s effort

and motivation which is given by using RAP Paraphrasing and Semantic Map

strategy so the learners can be easily to appreciate their capability in product of

teaching activities. However it is a hard work and the researcher hopes that the

strategy which the researcher designs to be going useful not only for lecturer but

also for students in the teaching process. The researcher uses significant product

and can be using for one way for a teacher in the teaching process. So by using

RAP Paraphrasing Strategy and Semantic Map strategy can improve the students

reading comprehension is able proven.

According to Munro (2007:5) there are some benefit of paraphrase; first,

offering the students a chance to learn how to connect the text to the new thought.

Second, delivering them the manners to tell about ideas in the topic. Third, aiding

students to remember ideas in short term memory. Last, helping readers’ link new

statement with had they known.

Margosein, Pascarella and Pflaum (1982) and Vogt (1983) make a

confirmation in their research that semantic map was a better strategy. It is further

explained by them that, semantic map help the students to relate their background

knowledge to the new words and to see the conceptual connection among words

According to them also, implementation of semantic maps brings huge

developments in reading comprehension.

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1.8 The Definition of Key Terms

In this research, the researcher tries to give simple definition of the title

so it does not become a far ranging discussion. The title of this research is A

Comperative Study on the Effects of RAP Paraphrasing Strategy and Semantic

Map Strategy towards students Reading Comprehension of Descriptive Texts at

Semester II/D of the English Department Program of FKIP-UIR Pekanbaru. The

definition of key term is as follows :

a) RAP Paraphrasing Strategy is a paraphrasing strategy involving an

individual reading a paragraph, asking himself or herself what the main

ideas and details about a paragraph are, and putting these ideas and details

into his or her own words (Schumaker, Denton, & Dechler, 1984).

b) Semantic Map Strategy is the process by which a graphic arrangement

is constructed demonstrating the major concepts and relationships in text

before, during, or after the text is read, based upon the students’ prior

knowledge or schema (Sinatra, Stahl-Gemake, & Berg, 1984).

c) Reading Comprehension is a fluent process of readers combining

information from a text and their background knowledge to build meaning

(Nunan, 2003: 68) Reading comprehension requires an interaction

between the text and the reader’s knowledge. In addition, reading

comprehension is determined by readers’ access to language, prior

knowledge and reading ability.

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