




































September

AND READING COMPREHENSION IN NARRATIVE TEXT

1 

 

 ELT FORUM 2 (2) (2013) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

THE USE OF THREE PHASES TECHNIQUE  

TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION  

  

 

Ana Setiyaningsih 

 

Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia 

 

Info Artikel 

________________ 
Sejarah Artikel: 

Diterima  2013 

Disetujui Oktober 2013 

Dipublikasikan  

November 2013 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Three phases technique, 

students’ participation, 

reading comprehension,  

action research. 

____________________ 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 

This article is about the use of three phases technique to improve students’ participation and 

reading comprehension in narrative text. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, the 

writer adopted and action research design. The subject of this research was class 8G of SMP N 30 

Semarang in the academic year 2012/2013 which consist of 37 students. There were two cycles 

with four phases in each cycle. They were planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The 

instrument for collecting data, the writer used observation checklist, field notes, test, questionnaire 

and documentation. The result of this study showed that three phases technique could improve 

students’ participation and reading comprehension in narrative text. Three phases technique 

namely pre reading, while reading and post reading can lead the students be more active and 

enthusiastic during teaching and learning process. By using three phases technique, students easily 

understand the content of the text and also they were active asking and giving their argument 

about narrative text.  

 

© 2013 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Alamat korespondensi:  

   Gedung B3  Lantai 3  FBS Unnes  

   Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: anasetiyaningsih@rocketmail.com  

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

2 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

English is one of important languages in 

this world. People use English to communicate 

with others in this world, express their idea and 

their mind. Basically, learning English is very 

important for junior and senior high school 

students, especially in Indonesia. There are four 

skills in English that have to be improved by 

students, they are listening, speaking, reading 

and writing. 

In English, reading is not only read the 

text but understand contain of the text. 

Vocabulary and grammar are also important in 

English. However, the main goal of reading is to 

understand the ideas of the text.Reading will 

mean dealing with language messages in written 

or printed form. Based on Finochiarro 

(1973:119), reading is defined as a process of 

bringing meaning to and getting meaning from 

printed or written material. Thus Nuttal in 

Urquhart (1998: 17), having considered 

definitions of reading in terms of reading aloud, 

or decoding, settles for the extraction of meaning 

from written messages. 

Based on the result of observation in SMP 

N 30 Semarang, the process of teaching reading 

was less effective. The teacher still used 

conventional method that was lecturing and 

structure task in teaching reading. The teacher 

never gave the students chance to understand the 

material by themselves. In addition, the teacher 

still explained the material without having 

interaction with the students. Beside the teacher 

still used conventional method, the students got 

bored with the teacher‟s method and they were 

not interest in doing the activity. They were also 

lazy in reading the material because of the 

contain of the text that was so long to be read by 

themselves. Furthermore, the teacher never 

explained the material in details. The teacher 

didn‟t have any other technique in teaching. The 

teacher just read the material based on the hand 

out without having another sources, just focus 

on the hand out without having variation in 

teaching. The teacher just sat down on his chair 

and never closed with the students. This case 

made the students was not attracted to join the 

class and had difficulty to understand the 

teacher‟s explanation. 

There are many cooperative learning 

techniques which can be used to teach reading 

such as think pair share, jigsaw, and round 

robin. All cooperative learning techniques has 

their own advantages and disadvantages. The 

general advantages of a cooperative learning 

technique are it can make students be more 

active and cooperative in teaching learning 

process. On the other hand, the general 

disadvantages of a cooperative learning 

technique are time consuming and difficult in 

controlling the class during lesson.  

Based on the observation in SMP 30 

Semarang, the average students in each class are 

37 students. Consequently, there is a difficulty in 

managing the class such as in grouping the 

students and using cooperative learning such as 

Jigsaw technique which usually makes the class 

situation become noisy that teacher cannot 

monitor all groups at once. 

Besides using cooperative learning to 

change the conventional method, the researcher 

has a solution in teaching reading. Three-phase 

technique can be used to change the technique 

before which is lecturing and structure tasks. 

Three-phase technique namely pre-reading, 

while-reading, and post reading. This technique 

is almost same with cooperative learning. Three 

phase technique has some phases which can 

involve students to easily understand the 

material without consuming too much time as in 

cooperative learning. Finally, the students will 

be more active in comprehending their reading 

text. 

 

 

REVIEW RELATED LITERATURE 

 

General Concept of Reading 

According to Tickou (1995) in Yusuf 

(2012), “Reading is a process of looking at and 

understanding written language. English texts 

enrich the readers‟ new vocabulary, structures of 

English, sentences and new knowledge.” We 

can enrich our vocabulary and also get more 

new knowledge from reading. It means that if 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

3 

 

we are not reading, we will not get new 

information. In addition, we will be stuck in our 

mindset and will not improve our knowledge. 

Then, by reading we get new vocabulary, 

sentences and knowledge. Moreover, based on 

Finochiarro (1973:119), reading is defined as a 

process of bringing meaning to and getting 

meaning from printed or written material. Thus 

Nuttal in Urquhart (1998: 17), having 

considered definitions of reading in terms of 

reading aloud, or decoding, settles for the 

extraction of meaning from written messages. 

In conclusion, reading is the process of 

bring and get information either reading aloud 

or decoding the extraction of meaning form 

written message. Reading are also involved the 

readers in interpreting what the writers means. 

However, the function of reading is to enrich our 

vocabulary and our information. 

 

Reading Comprehension 

Reading comprehension is the process of 

understanding and constructing meaning from a 

piece of text. According to Olson and Diller 

(1982:42), what is meant by reading 

comprehension is a term used to identify those 

skills needed to understand and apply 

information contained in a written material. 

Other than that, Harris and Sipay (1980:179) say 

that reading comprehension ability is learned to 

be a set of generalized knowledge acquisition 

skills which permits people to acquire and 

exhibit information gained as a consequence of 

reading printed language. Reading 

comprehension is the ability to gain information 

from the texts for the purpose to know the whole 

information deeply. So that it will force the 

readers to read the whole texts to gain the covert 

information. 

However, Comprehension is a highly 

complex cognitive process involving the 

intentional interaction between the reader and 

the text to create meaning. In other words, 

comprehension doesn‟t just happen; it requires 

effort. Readers must intentionally and 

purposefully work to create meaning from what 

they read (David Chard, 2008). 

 

Literacy Level at High School Level 

For the students of Junior high school 

students, there are four literacy levels including 

performative, functional, informational, and 

epistemic (Wells in Hamashima 2011). They 

are, performative, functional, informational, and 

epistemic. The literacy level of Junior High 

School is the functional level which students can 

communicate both orally and written to solve 

their daily problems (KTSP, 2006 : 277). For the 

eighth grade students of Junior High School, 

based on the the Standart competence and basic 

competence which was stated on the curriculum, 

it mentions that students are expected to give 

response towards the meaning of the text 

accurately related with the neighboorhood. So 

that, this study conducted a research about the 

students of eighth grade students of Junior high 

School in the developments of students‟ 

communicative competence  in the functional 

level of literacy in order to think logically, 

critically, cratively, and innovatively about their 

environtment. 

 

Narrative Text 

Anderson and Anderson (1997: 8) say that 

a narrative is a piece of text which tells a story 

and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader 

or listener. In addition, based on Gerot and 

Wignell (1994), the social function of narrative 

text is to amuse the reader and to deal with 

actual or vicarious experience in different ways; 

Narrative deal with problematic events which 

lead to a crisis or turning point of some kind, 

which in turn find a resolution. Then, based on 

Gerot and Wignell (1994: 204), the significant 

lexicogrammatical features of narrative texts are: 

focus on specific and usually individualized 

participants; use of material process; use of 

relational process and mental process; use of 

temporal conjunctions; and the use of past tense. 

In conclusion, the function of narrative text is to 

amuse the reader with actual or vicarious 

experience in different ways which have generic 

structure of orientation, complication, resolution 

and re-orientation. 

 

 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

4 

 

Three Phases Technique 

Based on Ruth Crilly (2002), The Three 

Stages of Reading strategy involves teaching 

students to examine into text. The Before 

Reading stage provides a scaffold for new 

concepts and vocabulary promotes engagement 

and provides a means for prediction. The second 

stage, During Reading, allows students to 

integrate the knowledge and information they 

bring to the text with „new‟ information in the 

text. The last stage, After Reading, allows 

students to articulate and process their 

understanding of what they have read and to 

think critically about the validity of the text. 

In addition, Elif Leyla Toprak (2009) says 

that three phase technique in reading are 

namely, pre-reading, while reading and post 

reading. In pre reading (warm-up, into, before 

reading) activities introduce students to a 

particular text, elicit or provide appropriate 

background knowledge. Then, in while reading 

(during, through reading) exercises help students 

develop reading strategies, improve their control 

of the foreign language, and decode problematic 

text passages. And then, in post reading (after, 

follow-up, beyond reading) exercises first check 

students' comprehension and then lead students 

to a deeper analysis of the text. Each of phases 

in Three Phases technique is involved students to 

have activities when having teaching and 

learning process. In pre reading activity which is 

also called warm up activity, students are lead to 

get the background knowledge of the text. Then, 

while reading activity students are given 

exercises to develop their knowledge about the 

text. The last is post reading which is also called 

post reading activity where students have deeper 

analysis about the text in a whole. 

According to Ringler and Weber, 1984 (in 

Ajideh, 2003), students can be encouraged to do 

a number things. The aims of the pre-reading 

phase are arousing the students‟ interest in the 

topic or type of text, motivating students to read 

the text by providing a purpose for reading, and 

activating students‟ existing background 

knowledge in relation to the topic and getting 

familiar with some language in the text. 

Pre- reading activity (warm up), in this 

stage include discussing the author or text type, 

brainstorming, considering illustrations and 

titles. In pre reading activity, the teacher gives 

motivation to the students by giving some 

question related to the topic with gives the visual 

aids of the text. While reading activity (during, 

through reading), in this stage include guessing 

word meaning by using context clues, word 

information and predicting text content. In while 

reading activity, the teacher asked the students 

to read aloud the material, and mention the 

participants of the text, after that, the teacher led 

the student to predict the text contain by asking 

them some question orally. Post reading activity 

(follow up), in this stage, exercise is very needed 

to check the students‟ comprehension and then 

led students to a deeper analysis of the text. In 

post reading activity, the teacher asked the 

students some questions related to the material 

without look at the material, then teacher gives 

question in written answer to check the result of 

the student in understanding the materials. In 

addition, at this stage, the students review the 

story, determine the generic structure of the text 

and also mention the moral value of the text. 

Moreover, checking students‟ vocabulary is also 

needed in this stage. 

 

METHODS 

 

In this study, I used Classroom Action 

Research (CAR). Based on Valsa Koshy 

(2005:1-2), action research is defined as an 

enquiry, undertaken with rigour and 

understanding so as to constantly refine practice, 

the emerging evidence-based outcomes will then 

contribute to the researching practitioner‟s 

continuing professional development. An action 

research is used to solve the problems faced in 

the classroom teaching and learning process, so 

that the students‟ achievement and participation 

improvement in reading comprehension can be 

seen after using three phases technique as the 

technique in teaching and learning process. 

The subjects of this study were 8G 

students of eight eleven of SMP N 30 Semarang 

in the academic 2012/2013. There were 37 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

5 

 

students consist of 16 male students and 21 

female students. In this study, there were two 

cycles in which each cycle consisted four phases. 

They were planning, action, observation, and 

reflection. In planning, I make an appropriate 

lesson plan and choose text type that would be 

used in delivering the material. In acting I 

applied three phases technique in teaching 

reading narrative text. Then, in observing, I used 

field notes, observation checklist, tests, and 

documentation in assessing the students‟ 

participation and reading comprehension during 

teaching reading narrative text.  

 

DISCUSSION 

 

This study was conducted to investigate 

the implementation of three phases technique to 

improve students‟ participation and reading 

comprehension in narrative text. The data found 

during the treatment in cycle one and cycle two. 

The schedules of having this research were 9th, 

11th, 16th, 18th, 23rd, and 30th of May 2013. Three 

phases technique was namely pre reading, while 

reading amd post reading. In each of the phase, 

students have activities that can lead them to be 

more active. In the pre reading, students were 

given the text then I asked them some questions 

related to the title. The visual aids were also 

given to the students in order to catch their 

attention about the lesson. In while reading, the 

students read aloud the text. After that, the 

teacher asked them about the participants of the 

text. Then in the post reading, the students have 

to think critically to determine the moral value 

of the text. Vocabulary and grammatical feature 

were also check at this phase.  

The implementation of three phases 

technique in cycle one was run well. The 

students enjoyed the reading class. The students 

were more active in delivering their arguments. 

Then, the field notes, observation checklist and 

documentation did in order to observe students‟ 

participation during the lesson. The reflection of 

the cycle 1 was made before did the cycle 2 

activities. The result of the cycle test showed that 

the students have understood about narrative 

text. The difficulty of the students was about the 

vocabulary and the simple past tense. However, 

some of the students still had difficulty in 

determined the moral value of the text. Then, 

the implementation of three phases technique in 

cycle two emphasized on vocabulary, moral 

value and simple past tense. The field notes and 

observation checklist filled during the meetings 

of cycle 2 in order to observe the students‟ 

improvement.  

The analysis of the field note was done to 

find out and describe the students‟ participation 

during the learning process. They were: 

(1) The situation during the teaching and 

learning process 

The situation of the class in the first time 

meeting was inconvenient. The male students 

were very crowded in the corner of the class. 

The second meeting, the class situation was 

good enough, only five male students made a 

noise. They didn‟t respect to me. Then, I moved 

them to seat in the front of the class. The third 

meeting, the situation in the class was good. All 

of the students gave attention and joined my 

lesson. For the next meeting, the situation in the 

class was getting much better. The students were 

active to ask some questions about their 

difficulty and share their opinion about the 

material. This kind of situation last until the end 

of our meeting. 

(2) The students‟ participation during the 

lesson 

The first meeting, their participation was 

very poor. They thought that this meeting would 

be as boring as the one when their teacher taught 

them. The second meeting, the students enjoyed 

my class. Their attention was good and they 

joined my class actively. They excited with three 

phase technique that was used during lesson that 

helped them easily understanding the material. 

Their good participants last until the last 

meeting.  

(3) The interaction between the students 

and the teacher 

The interaction between the student and 

the teacher was effective. Although they were 

difficult to be controlled, they were fast to get 

used to me. The interaction happened normally 

as the students and the teacher. The teacher 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

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acted as the facilitator whenever the students 

needed to ask anything about the lesson. 

Besides used field notes, I used 

observation checklist in order to measure the 

students‟ participation during teaching and 

learning process by using three phases 

technique. According to Burns (2009:63), the 

information from behavior checklist allows the 

researcher to see which particular type of 

behavior the student keeps repeating most 

(interrupting neighbor’s work). The observation 

check list used in this study was consisted of 

seven statements to measure students‟ good and 

bad behavior during the teaching and learning 

process. 

In the first meeting of this research, the 

students had low participation to learn narrative 

reading comprehension. It was proved by the 

behavior that most of them were cheating and 

chatting with their friends. Some of them 

showed their laziness that proved by crossing 

directly the answer of the pre test without 

thought it first. Then, in the second meeting, I 

applied three phases technique during teaching 

reading narrative text, the students‟ participation 

was good enough. It proved by the students‟ 

enthusiasm in following the teaching and 

learning process. Some of the students especially 

the female students answered my oral questions 

related to the material. In addition, in the third 

meeting, the students paid attention to the 

lesson. They were also enthusiastic in asking 

questions that they have known about the 

material yet. 

 In the fourth and fifth meeting were the 

cycle 2 of this research. The others example of 

narrative text and material was given to the 

students. Simple past tense and moral value of 

the text were emphasized at this meeting. The 

Power Point Slide was used to attract the 

students‟ attention. Three phases technique was 

still applied to make the students comprehended 

the material. All of the students pay attention to 

lesson and enthusiasm answering my questions 

about the text. Beside that, some of students 

asking some questions related with narrative text 

and the material. Since the teacher gave new 

classroom‟s rules, the students gave attention 

and no one had chatting with others and also 

they did not show their laziness again. The 

students had determined the generic structure of 

the text and six students shared their argument 

about the moral value of the text. Three students 

asked some questions that they did not 

understand about the material. Almost all of the 

students showed their active participation at this 

cycle. For the end of this research, the students 

did the post test. Of course everyone focused on 

the test. No one was cheating and chatting. 

Everyone was seriously in doing the post test. 

Then, at the end of this meeting, I gave a 

questionnaire to the students. In addition, the 

questionnaire that I used in this study is closed 

questions or closed ended designs will have 

predetermined answers, which are often „Yes‟, 

„No‟, „True‟ or „False‟ (Taylor, Wilkie, and 

Baser : 2006). So that, in this research I provided 

short answer responses consisting of two 

choices: Yes and No. This questionnaire 

consisted of 8 questions to answer the problem 

of the study.  

The result of the questionnaire, before 

having the treatment, the writer gave clear 

explanation about three phases technique in 

teaching narrative text. Then, students thought 

that three phases technique was important in 

teaching narrative text. It was proven by 33 

(89.2%) students answered “yes”. This technique 

was also interesting and could the students more 

enthusiasm also active participated in learning 

narrative text. it was proven by 32 (86.5%) 

students answered “yes”.  Moreover, three phases 

technique helped students to understand the 

narrative text was proven by 31 (83.8%) students 

answered “yes”. Three phases technique also 

increased the students‟ participations during 

lesson. In addition, the students more 

independent and did not cheating with their 

friend in studying English, especially narrative 

text was proven by 32 (86.5%) students 

answered “yes”. Beside that, the students hoped 

that three phases technique also applied in the next 

teaching and learning text type was proven by 34 

(91.9%) students answered “yes”.  

 

 



 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

7 

 

The Students’ Improvement 

The students‟ reading improvement 

measured from the mean of pre test, cycle one 

test, cycle two test and post test. Here the result 

of the students‟ achievement in did the tests: 

Pre 

Test 

Cycle 1 

Test  

Cycle 2 

Test 

Post 

Test 

58,48 73,13 79,73 83,89 

In the pre test, the average achievement of 

the students‟ pre test was 58, 48. It was lower 

than the SMP N 30 Semarang standard 

competence of English lesson, which states 70 is 

required pass. So that, it could be concluded that 

the students‟ pre test achievement was below the 

standard competence of SMP N 30 Semarang.  

Then, the result of the students‟ cycle test 

was good enough. There were 13 students that 

could not reach the standard competence of 

English lesson. Five students got 64 and 8 

students got 68 for their test score. This result 

showed that there were some improvements in 

reading comprehension skill after given 

treatment by using three phases technique. The 

treatment was continued to make sure that all of 

the students could reach the standard 

competence of English lesson in SMP N 30 

Semarang. The next treatment was in the cycle 2 

with the same treatment in cycle 1 but with the 

different management class and different focus 

of the lessons. Then, in the cycle two test, there 

was little increased of the mean of the test cycle 

1 and the test cycle 2. It was better than previous 

one; all of the students reach the standard 

competence of English lesson in SMP N 30 

Semarang. 

For the post test result, the mean 

(average) score of the students was 83, 89. It 

could be concluded that the students‟ 

achievement in learning narrative reading 

comprehension skills using three phases technique 

had improvement. Therefore, it could be said 

that the students‟ reading comprehension was 

successful.  

In addition, to know the significant 

improvement of the pre test and post test result, t 

test was used to compare the student‟s result.

  

 t= 
     

 
     

        
 

= 
     

    
  

= 5.70 

The result of the t-test was 5.70 and the 

d.b value was 36. Ttable 5% alpha level of 

significance for 36 value was 2.021. Since the t 

value was higher than the t-critical value on the 

table, the improvement was said to be 

significant. 

 

 

CONCLUSION  

 

After conducting the research, there are 

two points which can be taken as the conclusion: 

(1) The implementation of Three Phase 

Technique in the class was 

successful. It is argued that three 

phase technique could improve 

students‟ reading comprehension in 

narrative text. The students easily 

comprehend the text without 

depends on their friends. They 

could analyze the generic structure 

of narrative text well. In addition, 

using Three Phases Technique in 

teaching reading narrative could 

lead the students eagerly shared 

their opinion about the text. 

Moreover, they attract to read the 

whole text by using three phases 

technique in reading text. These 

could be drawn from the mean of 

the pre-test and the post-test. The 

mean of the pre test was 58.48 and 

the post test was 83.89. By using t 

test, the significant improvement of 



Ajideh, Parziv. Schema Theory

 

Ana Setiyaningsih / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

8 

 

the students‟ ability in reading 

narrative text was 5.70. 

(2) The students‟ participation during 

teaching and learning process had 

good improvement. The students 

were enthusiastic in delivering their 

questions to the teacher. They were 

active during lesson and paid 

attention to the lesson.  It showed 

on the questionnaire that 86,5% of 

the students were enthusiastic and 

active in learning narrative text by 

using three phases technique.  

 

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