11 TEACHING READING IN NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING STORY FRAME STRATEGY TO THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP MUHAMMADIYAH 4 PALEMBANG DIKA RESA SEPTIANI UIN Raden Fatah Palembang Email: dikaresa@yahoo.com ABSTRACT: The objective of the study was to find out whether or not there was a significant difference in reading comprehension achievement between the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang who are taught by using Story Frame and those who are not and to find out whether or not there was a significant difference in reading comprehension achievement between the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang who are taught by using Story Frame and those who are not before and after the treatment. One of the quasi-experimental designs, nonequivalent pretest-posttest design was used. The population of the study was all of the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang. Purposive sampling was used, where 30 students belonged to experimental group and 30 students belonged to control group. In collecting the data, test was used. The test was given twice to experimental and control groups, as a pretest and posttest. To verify the hypotheses, the data of pretest and posttest of the experimental and control groups were analyzed by using independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test in SPSS program. The finding showed that the p-output (sig.(2-tailed)) was 0.000 lower than 0.05 and the t-value 3.734 was higher than t-table 1.672. And than p-output from paired sample t-test was 0.000 lower than 0.05 with df=29 (1.699) and the t-value 8.362. Therefore, null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. It means that teaching narrative reading comprehension by using Story Frame had a significant effect on the students’ reading comprehension achievement. Keywords : Teaching reading comprehension, story frame strategy, narrative text. Introduction Language is a code that is delivered by someone in term of communication with others. According to Algeo (2010, p. 2), a language is a system of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate. Therefore, language is as a communication tool to connect people with each other. Without language, it is difficult for people to communicate with others. There are many languages that people use in this world, such as Arabic, German, Mandarin, and English. One of them is English which used as an international language. According to Crystal (2003, p. 4), English is a global language, which is widely used in various countries and in various fields. mailto:dikaresa@yahoo.com 12 There are four skills that students should master. They are listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of them is reading which is one of the important skills in learning English. Squire, Berg, Bloom, Lac, Ghosh & Spitzer (2013, p. 935) state that reading skills occupy a uniquely important position in overall cognitive development and critically supportive of educational success. It means that reading is an important part that needs to be developed. By reading, the students can get much information and knowledge, and also the students can improve their ability in English. Based on the explanation above, it is clear that reading is an essential skill in learning English. Therefore, the students must have ability in reading comprehension. In teaching and learning process, it is not easy for the teachers to encourage their students in order to get a good ability in reading. In learning reading, the students usually get some difficulties in understanding the texts especially narrative text. They have problems in reading comprehension because they just read the text, but they do not understand the meaning of the content of the text. In this research, the researcher choose SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang as the population. The reason for choosing SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang especially for the eighth grade students because the researcher found that the students had problems in learning English especially in reading skill. After conducting an informal interview on April 16th, 2015 with one of the teacher of English at SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang, the researcher acquired some information that many students had problems in comprehending the reading text especially in narrative text. They were not really enthusiastic in following the lesson that the teacher gave them. Moreover, they had poor vocabulary, they could not find the main idea or got the information from the narrative text. To solve the problems above, teacher should has a specific strategy that can be applied to motivate students to be more interested in reading. One of the strategies is Story Frame strategy. Story Frame is a reading strategy which is done in the post-reading activity. It tests students comprehension skill in a reading passage by filling the blanks words of the story frame that has been given. According to Fowler (1982, p. 176), a Story Frame is a sequence of spaces hooked together by key language elements. In most cases, these language elements are transition words and they often reflect a specific line of thought or arguments. 13 Story Frame is a focus on the story’s structure, it is thought that using story frames to develop reading comprehension will give children an independent guide to organizing and remembering information from narrative selections (Cudd and Roberts, 1987, p. 74). Furthermore, Oja (1996, p. 129) adds that using Story Frame along with the basic elements of story grammar directs both students and teachers attention to the actual structure of the story and how the content fits that structure and this strategy is particularly useful for middle school students. The Story Frame strategy can help students understand about structure as an independent tool for remembering information about a text and also helps them how to find the answer of questions. It can also motivate the students’ interest in learning reading because they have known the strategy to answer the questions. Moreover, it can make the students spend not much time in answering the questions and Story Frame strategy is used effectively, students will be helped to understand the text which they learn. Based on the reasons above, the resercher would like to conduct a research entitled “Teaching Reading Narrative Text by Using Story Frame Strategy to the Eighth Grade Students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang” Concept of Teaching A good teacher must be patient in teaching, guiding and providing the knowledge to the students. A good teacher must also know the level of students’ ability so that the teacher is not being arrogant or overbearing to his/her students and the teacher can give the material with the good method in teaching and learning process. It is supported by Q.S. Al-baqarah: 151 meaning : “... that a similar (favor we have already received) in that we have sent among you a messenger of your own, rehearsing to you our signs, and sanctifying you, and instructing you in Scripture and Wisdom, and instructing you what you do not know yet”. (Surah Al-Baqarah verse:151). Based on the verses above, it means that teaching is our responsibilities as muslim.Teacher has several responsibilities to her/his students, such as: as a facilitator, a guide, a motivator and a manager in the class. Teacher should have teaching strategy moreover in teaching English as a foreign language. The strategy must be easier to be understood by students. The strategy should support students with different way in learning proces. Therefore, teaching is 14 guiding and directing others to be able to do something new and providing new knowledge to others to be interpreted and understood. Concept of Reading Seyler (2004, p. 3) defines that reading as the process of obtaining or constructing meaning from a word or cluster of words. Reading is not only reading a text or something that is written, but also getting new vocabularies, knowing thing and increasing knowledge. Therefore, reading cannot be separated from comprehension. Furthermore, Komiyama (2009, p. 32), state that reading is an important skill for English language learners in today’s world; it supports the development of overall proficiency and provides access to crucial information at work and in school. Reading is the fundamental skill upon which all formal education comprehends. Based on the statements above, it can be concluded that, reading is important to be mastered by students. By reading well, students are able to understand and comprehend the materials they are learning. The students do not only read the reading text fluency but also they should be able to understand and respond what they have read. Indeed, if students have a good reading ability they will have better chance to success in their study. Concept of Reading Comprehension Reading and comprehension are linked to each other. People need to comprehend the texts content and context to gain the information during the reading activity. Snow (2002, p. 11) defines reading comprehension as the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. Readers can have a surface or literature understanding of what was read, or they can gain a deeper understanding involving inferring meaning from what is not explicitly stated, analyzing information and the meaning into a new or deeper meaning. According to Wolley (2011, p. 15), reading comprehension is the process of making meaning from text. The goal, therefore, is to gain an overall understanding of what is described in the text rather than to obtain meaning from isolated words or sentences reading comprehension may appear to be both simple and obvious. 15 Based on the explanations above, it can be concluded that reading comprehension is a complex activity where the readers can get knowledge from the text both of information or message. By a lot of reading, people also can add their vocabularies. Concept of Story Frame Strategy In teaching reading, there are many strategies that can be applied by the teachers. One of them is by using Story Frame Strategy that can help the students with a powerful note making framework that helps them deepen comprehension by thinking as they read and learn. According to Fowler (1982, p. 176-177), a story frame is a sequence of spaces hooked together by key language elements. language elements are transition words and they often reflect a specific line of thought or argument. Meanwhile, Cudd and Roberts (1987, p. 74) state that Story Frame is a focus on the story’s structure, it is thought that using story frames to develop reading comprehension will give children an independent guide to organizing and remembering information from narrative selections. Oja (1996, p.129), adds that Story frame can refer to a number of methods for looking at a story's structure. Once a frame is constructed it can be used with new story so long as the story can support the line of thought or argument implied with the frame. Teacher can be used to help students organize information in order to identify important ideas, analyze characters and their problem, make comparisons, and summarize passage content. Concept of Narrative Text According to Cooper (2000, p. 13), narrative text tells a story and is the type usually found in short stories and novels. Narrative text often fiction in which the values are used to describe and/or to explain human behavior. In addition, Narrative text is a story conveyed to entertain the readers or listeners (Browder and Spooner, 2011, p.142). There are five generic structure of narrative: 1. Orientation: which set the scene and introduces the character. 2. Evaluation: reaction by characters to the complication. 16 3. Complication: in which a crisis or problem arises, which usually involves the main characters. 4. Resolution: a solution to the problem for better or for worse. Here, the main characters find ways to solve the problem. 5. Re-orientation: this is a closing remark to the story and it is optional. It consists of a moral lesson, advice or teaching from the writer Research Method In this study, the quasi experimental design was chosen. The design, one of the most commonly used quasi experimental designs in educational research, is such naturally assembly groups as intact classes or samples which may be similar. One of the quasi experimental designs is the pretest-posttest non equivalent group design. Represented by Cohen, Manion, & Morrison (2007, p. 283) as follow: Where: O1 = Pretest in experimental group X = Treatment to experimental group taught using story frame strategy O2 = Posttest for the experimental group O3 = Pretest in control group O4 = Posttest for the control group . . . . . = The dashed line separating the parallel rows in the diagram of the non-equivalent control group indicates that the experimental and control groups have not been equated by randomization-hence the term ‘non-equivalent’. O1 X O2 Experimental Group ---------------------- O3 O4 Control Group 17 Population and Sample Creswell (2012, p. 142) defines population as a group with some common defining characteristic that the researcher can identify and study. The population of this study is all of the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang. Within this target population, researcher selected a sample for study. Creswell (2012, p. 381) states that sample is the group of participants in a study selected from the target population from which the researcher generalizes to the target population. In this study, the researcher used purposive sampling technique. According to Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun (2012, p. 100), purposive sampling is different from convenience sampling in that researchers do not simply study whoever is available but rather use their judgment to select a sample that they believe, based on prior information, will provide the data they need. The purposive sampling was used Class VIII.1 and VIII.2 were selected as the sample of the study. Class VIII. 1 and VIII.2 were chosen based on informal interview with the English teacher, VIII.1 and VIII.2 have the same background knowledge and difficulties of reading ability. After the pretest, the result of class VIII.2 was higher than class VIII.1. Therefore, class VIII.2 was selected as control group and class VIII.1 as experimental group. The total sample of the this study is sixty students out of 90 students. Findings and Discussion Validity Test The analysis is done to the instrument of the research before used in pretest and posttest activity. 1) Construct Validity The researcher did construct validity of the test to judge or measure whether or not a test instrument well to measure student ability. The format of the instrument test was measured by three validators before doing tryout. Fraenkel et al. (2012, p.150) assumes that a common way is to have someone look at the content and format of the instrument and judge whether or not is appropriate. The “someone” of course, should be an individual who knows enough about what is to be measured the format of the instrument test. They were Manalullaili, M.Ed, Eka Sartika, M.Pd, and Masagus Sulaiman, M.Pd who are the lecturers of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang. They measured including such things as the clarity of printing, size of type, adequacy of work space (if needed), appropriateness of language, clarity of directions, and so on regardless of the adequacy 18 of the question in an instrument that it must be measured by giving test or tryout to students later on. After measuring the format of the instrument test, the three validators accepted it to continue doing tryout to the eighth grade students. 2) Validity of Each Questions Item In this study, validity of each question item was identified by number and the correct option indicated. The group of the students taking the test was divided in tryout to the basis of students’ score on the test. The researcher did tryout to find validity of question items. The tryout of the test was held on Tuesday, 4th of August 2015 at 12.40 p.m-14.00 p.m. The instruments of the test were tested to 37 students (VIII. 4) to the eighth grade students of SMP Nurul Iman Palembang. If the result of the test shows that rcount is higher than rtabel (0,325), it means that the item is valid. It was found that there were 42 test items from 60 test items provided by the researcher which could be used as the instrument since the scores of significance were higher that 0,325. The result indicated that 18 items were invalid and 42 items were valid. 3) Content Validity Content validity is a matter of determining if the content that the instrument contains is an adequate sample that supposed to represent (Fraenkel et al., 2012, p.150). in this study, the researcher took 40 question items to be an instrument of pretest and posttest after obtaining 42 valid question items. The instrument focused on narrative text. Reliability Test To know the reliability of the test used in this study, the researcher calculated the students’ score by using Spearman-Brown Prophecy Formula found in SPSS 20 (Statistical Package for the Social Science) program. The scores of reliability are obtained from tryout analysis which is done once using the instruments test. The school where the tryout analysis is different from the school where the research study will be done. In this part, split-half test method is used to obtain the scores of tryout analysis. To measure the reliability test using split half method, it was found that the p-output of Gutman Split-half Coefficient is 0.738 from the score it can be stated that the 19 reliablity of reading test items is reliable since the p-output is higher than r-table (0,325) with sample (N) is 37 students. Normality Test The function of normality test is to know whether the sample is normal or not. In this study to know the normality of the sample was used one sample kolmogronovsmrinov in using SPSS 20. The data are obtained from students’ pre-test and post-test scores in control group, pre-test and post-test scores in experimental group. IThe researcher used 1-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test to analyze the normality. The result showed that the pretest in control and experimental groups were 0.875 and 1.117. Then, in posttest in control and experimental groups were 0.806 and 0.646. it can be concluded that the data were considered normal since they are higher than 0.05. Homogeneity Test The function of homogeneity test is to determine the students’ scores are homogeneous or not. In this study to know the homogeneity of the sample was used levene statistics by using SPSS 20. the homogeneity test to measure students’ pretest and posttest score in control and experimental group in analyzing the homogeneity, the researcher used levene statistic. The result showed that the pretest scores was 1.192 and posttest scores 2.856 it can be conluded that the data was homogeneous since the score was higher than 0.05. Hypothesis Testing A significant improvement is found from testing students’ pretest to posttest scores in experimental group, and a significant different is found from testing students’ posttest to posttest score in control and experimental group using regression linear. it was found that the p-output is 0.000 with df=29 (1.699), and t-value= 8.362, It can be stated that there is a significant improvement from students’ pretest to posttest scores in experimental group taught using Story Frame strategy since p-output is lower than 0.05. It can be stated that the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected, and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. And it was found that the p-output was 0.000 and the t-value was 3.734. Since the p-output was lower than 0.05 level and the t-value (3.734) was higher than critical value of t-table (1.672). It can be stated that there is a significant 20 different from students’ posttest to posttest scores in control and experimental group since p- output is lower than 0.05. It can be stated that the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected, and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted. It can be stated that there was a significant difference on students’ reading comprehension score taught by using Story Frame strategy and those who are not at SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang. Conclusion Based on the findings and interpretations presented in the previous chapter, the reseacher concluded that there was a significant different on students’ reading comprehension achievement taught by using story frame strategy. The result could be seen from the improvement of the eighth grade students, such as: the students become active readers in the class and feel comfortable to learn, the students were motivated and interested to learn especially in reading skill, the students tend to ask each other more questions that related to the structure of the text, the students began to show a greater interest in asking probing and significant questions, the students were able to comprehend the narrative text easily, and the students enjoyed following the materials in the class. Therefore, it could be concluded that story frame strategy was effective to the eighth grade students of SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Palembang. The students could also increase their achievement in reading. It also could be seem from the result of the test, it implied that story frame strategy could be used as an alternative strategy in teaching reading. REFERENCES Algeo, J. (2010). The origins and development of the English language. (6th ed). 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