THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SKIMMING AND SCANNING TECHNIQUES IN IMPROVING STUDENTS READING ABILITY
The chapter gives a brief description of the whole content of the research, including background, statements of the problem, aims of the study, scope of the study, significance of the study, hypothesis, and research methodology.
1.1 Background
Reading is considered as an important aspect for students because of its valuable benefit in developing knowledge. Reading is also the most important skill for EFL learners especially in academic context because students need to comprehend and deal with all reading aspects and difficulties.
In general, the essence of reading is made up of recognizing or identifying, interpreting, and responding the components of a written message (Oliver and Boyd 1986).It means that individuals, in this case the students, have to understand and interpret the meaning of words or symbols in a text to achieve their own goals or interests.
In getting the entire components of information and acquiring the meaning in a written message, many students come across several difficulties because they have to go through a certain process of puzzle-solving (Brown, 2001 : 299). Other difficulties also can be encountered by students from teachers, curriculum, government policy, textbooks, techniques, etc (Bond et al, 1994).
In Indonesian traditional classrooms, which practice English as a foreign language, teachers insist that students understand every word in a text to get the general idea for the purpose of looking for required information, and this prompts the students to think for if they do not understand each and every word they are somehow not completing the task (Ismini, 2000). This phenomenon reveals the practice of a conventional teaching reading strategies and the writer assumes that those kinds of situations will not help the students to overcome the difficulties they encounter and will not improve their reading abilities.
In addition, Wiryodijoyo (1989) stated that the national examination in English subject put a large emphasis on reading aspect, and this situation will assure students who cannot read or comprehend the text and answered the question in the examination to face tremendous difficulties and overwhelm the students.
A study on reading and its strategies conducted by Amanda (2007) found that students apply several strategies such as making prediction of the words that they do not know, search for words in the dictionary, and many others to help overcome the obstacle in their reading task. This shows the implementation of a conventional reading techniques and the lack of reading strategies from the students in overcoming their reading task.
Particular reading techniques are needed not only to overcome student difficulties, but also to improve their reading abilities. Those techniques are skimming and scanning.
Scanning is the technique for quickly finding specific information in a text while ignoring its broader meaning, it searches for keywords or ideas in a written text (Brown, 2001 : 308). Meanwhile, skimming is a technique in looking over a text to get a quick idea of the gist of a text (Harmer, 2001). By encouraging the students to glance their eyes and take a short look at a text and searching for specific piece of information, it will help them get the general understanding and detail information of the text itself (Harmer, 2001).
Based on that explanation, therefore, skimming and scanning techniques are required in helping students in comprehending a text, getting detailed information and other reading tasks. Skimming and scanning techniques are also intended to help students in overcome the senior high school curriculum task in Indonesia, which is to understand the meaning of short functional text and simple essay in the form of report, narrative and analytical exposition in the context of everyday situation and also to access knowledge (KTSP, 2005).
Hence, the present study is intended to investigate the effectiveness of skimming and scanning techniques in improving students' reading abilities and it is expected that this research will contribute to the practice of reading teaching in the future.
1.2 Statements of the problem
This study is conducted to answer these following questions :
1. How is the students' mastery of reading comprehension before learning the skimming and scanning techniques ?
2. How is the students' mastery of reading comprehension after learning the skimming and scanning techniques ?
3. Do skimming and scanning techniques effective in teaching reading ?
1.3 Aims of The Study
Based on the questions formulated above, the aims of the study are :
1. To find out the students' mastery of reading comprehension before learning the skimming and scanning techniques ?
2. To find out the students' mastery of reading comprehension after learning the skimming and scanning techniques ?
3. To find out the effectiveness of skimming and scanning techniques in teaching reading.
1.4 The scope of the study
According to Surakhman (1975, cited in Setiawan 2006), the scope of the study is necessary since it can simplify the subject for the researcher and solve the problem, such as time, dexterity, cost and energy that emerge from the research planning.
Based on that, this study focuses on the use of skimming and scanning techniques in improving the students' reading abilities and the subjects are the second grade students of UPI Laboratory High School.
1.5 The significance of the study
This study is expected to :
1. Contribute to the EFL teaching methodology where skimming and scanning techniques is used as an alternative technique in teaching and learning reading.
2. Enhance students and teacher knowledge related to reading skills.
3. Develop students and teachers creativity in the teaching learning process of reading.
1.6 Hypothesis
In this research, the writer uses the null hypothesis which is : Ho : There is no effectiveness in using skimming and scanning techniques in improving students reading ability.
1.7 Organization of The Paper
The research paper will be organized as following :
Chapter I Introduction
This chapter consists of an introduction which provides the information on the background of the study, the scope of the study, statement of the problem significance of the study, research technique that comprises population, sample, instrument, and procedure, clarification of terms, and organization of the paper.
Chapter II Theoretical Foundation
This section focuses on the theoretical foundations that are relevant to the present study, with skimming and scanning techniques as the main issue.
Chapter III Research Methodology
This part comprises the methodology of the research includes the formulation of the problems, aims of the present study, data collection, scope of the study, analytical frameworks and data analysis.
Chapter IV Findings and Discussions
This chapter provides the results of the research and discussion of the research findings.
Chapter V Conclusions and Suggestions
This chapter presents all the conclusion of the study and also provides for implications and suggestions for further researchers and related institutions.
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