Putri Anggraeni, et al / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 59 ELT FORUM 6 (1) (2017) Journal of English Language Teaching http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRE-QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE TO TEACH READING COMPREHENSION OF NARRATIVE TEXT Indira Puruhita Utami  English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Received in June 2017 Approved in July 2017 Published in August 2017 ________________ Keywords: pre-questioning technique, reading comprehension, narrative text ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ This article is based on a study which investigated the tenth grade students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text. The objectives of this study is to find out whether pre-questioning technique is effective or not, and to find out it effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique. The research design was a quasi-experimental research with non-equivalent control group design. The data were pre-test and post-test scores. Based on the result, the average score of pre-test for the experimental group was 75.78, and for the control group was 75.89. The average score of post-test for the experimental group was 84.89, and for the control group was 77.81. Based on the statistical analysis, it showed that Sig. (2-tailed) was 0.000, it meant that it was lower than 0.05. Therefore, Ho was refused and Ha was accepted. There was a significant difference of students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text between the students taught by using the pre- questioning technique and by using translation technique. By applying pre-questioning technique, the students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the whole text. Moreover, the students to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation. It could be concluded that Pre-questioning is an effective technique than translation technique to teach reading comprehension of narrative text. © 2017 Universitas Negeri Semarang  Correspondent Address: ISSN 2252-6706 B3 Building FBS Unnes Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 E-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 60 INTRODUCTION The use of English language is becoming very widespread. Not only in the native countries, but also in non-native countries English is used in almost every aspect of life. According to Crystal (2003: 9), “A language becomes global language if it is accepted in every country”. In line with it, as a global language, English is very important and has many interrelationships with various aspects of human life. English is used as a means of communication both oral and written. Mastering English as a global language in this modern era is a crucial need since language has an important role as a means of communication among others. In Indonesia, English is taught and learned as a foreign language which is taught formally from elementary school until university level. The aim of teaching English, as adopted by government, is to develop communicative competence of the learners. English is not only given as compulsory subject which is examined in the national final examination (UAN), but it is also given to prepare students facing the global era for now and their future life. Therefore, the students are hoped to improve their ability in English. In teaching and learning English, students are expected to master four integrated skills; such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Nunan (2003: 69) states that reading is an essential skill for learners of English as a second language. From these four skills, reading is still regarded as the prime focus in higher education because it is a window to the world. Without reading, people in the world will not have knowledge. Therefore, reading is one of the important ways to improve general language skills in English. Mickulecky and Jeffries (2004: 3) define the importance of reading as follows: ”Reading helps you learn to: think in English, enlarge your English vocabulary, improve your writing, a good way to practice your English if you live in a non English-speaking country, and as a good way to find out about new ideas, facts, and experiences”. Reading is also a bridge for students to get the information needed in students’ education field, such as transferring information and knowledge from textbook. Therefore, the students should have ability in reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is fundamental for the learners in getting information and knowledge. In order to improve the skill of reading, students need to be critical readers through active activities. Depdiknas (2003: 10) explains about reading in wide meaning as follows: “Reading in wide meaning is a process of formulating the text in critical and creative way that is aimed to get comprehension about the text, the value, the function, and the impact of text itself, and also to get message and information that is hand-over by the researcher through written form”. However, reading is a process which develops a text critically and creatively in order that the reader can understand content of the text delivered by the writer. Students should have mastery on reading skill and need to use their thinking to be critical readers. It means that they have to recognize what they read by interacting with their knowledge about the texts. In most of English testing, reading comprehension is still focused on measuring students’ ability. Most of the questions in testing are about comprehension. We can find reading comprehension questions in many tests, such as; in mid-term and final-term tests, in national examination, TOEFL test, etc. Students are supposed to be able to answer these questions based on their understanding of the texts. Senior high school students are expected to reach information level because they are prepared to the university. Teaching reading to adolescents is different from teaching reading to children because adolescents have wider knowledge than children. Therefore, teaching reading to senior high school students, a teacher must choose some methods or techniques which are related to the topic and curriculum. I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 61 Harmer (2001: 5) states “A teacher has to be able to perform as a controller, organizer, prompter, participant, resource, tutor, observer, and model”. There must be some varieties in classroom, such as variety of activity and variety of organization. Teachers should have good combination so that the teaching and learning process is not monotonous. As a result, during teaching-learning process, they should let their students work individually, sometimes in pairs, and sometimes in groups. Meanwhile, based on my personal interview with some tenth grade students in the school when I was starting to conduct my research, I found that the students still face difficulties in comprehending a text. There are many factors that can cause students have lack of comprehension in reading. The way of teaching reading implemented by the teacher may be monotonous so that students get bored easily because the teacher does not give any special technique to teach his students. Students do not have high motivation in reading passage. It obstructs the students’ understanding the text. Teaching is a complex process of communicating a subject or a lesson. According to Harmer (2007: 23), teaching is not an easy job, but it is a necessary one and can be very rewarding when we see our students’ progress and know that we have helped to make it happen. There are many activities that can be doing especially when the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Teaching problem is actual problem that is always followed by any teachers. The main factor that influences the student’s achievement is the way of the teacher teaches the subject or lesson to their students. Good achievement in reading is important for the students. To make the students have good reading ability, teachers should apply appropriate teaching technique as well as method to establish the effectiveness of English teaching. Teaching reading can be done in many ways. The teachers can use pre- questioning technique before learning process. Brown (2001: 172) defines pre-questioning implicitly as some questions are provided before the students read the whole text, in order to build the students’ interest and motivation. The questions provided will help the students build knowledge and a view of what the text is going to discuss. The technique will make students more active in the classroom and understand the content of the text. Genre of texts are taught in the senior high school. A narrative text is one of the genres that is taught at the tenth grade of senior high school in the second semester as specified by the curriculum. According to Anderson and Anderson (1997: 8), a narrative is a piece of text that tells a story and, in doing so, entertains or informs the reader or listener. Hardy and Klarwein (1990: 16) with the statement “Some purposes of narrative text are to explain and account for the relationship between people and their world, and also to entertain the readers”. Someone tells a narrative in order to entertain, to stimulate emotion or to teach. It belongs to non-factual text that is written or listened to tell stories or past events, and to entertain the readers or listeners. Based on the considerations above, I am interested in conducting a research about the effectiveness of pre-questioning technique to teach reading comprehension of narrative text of the tenth graders of SMAN 1 Sukoharjo. The objectives of this study are to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by pre-questioning technique and by translation technique, and to know which one is more effective between pre=questioning technique and translation technique. Hopefully, by using pre-questioning technique, the students’ skill in reading comprehension will developed. METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH A research method that was used to obtain the required data and information in this study was experimental research. Arikunto (2010:207) states that experimental research is a research which has a purpose to investigate whether there is an effect of “something” that is treated to the I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 62 subject of research. In other words, an experimental research tends to observe whether there is the cause and effect relation or not. This study investigated a particular treatment whether it is beneficial or not. Therefore, the research design is quasi-experimental which used the non-equivalent control group design. This design can as well be called partly-experimental because the format is experimental research. This research design can be seen as follows: This research design can be seen as follows: O1 X O2 O3 O4 Quasi-experimental design (Saleh, 2005: 40) where: O1 = pre-test for the experimental group O2 = post-test for the experimental group X = treatment (only for experimental group) O3 = pre-test for the control group O4 = post-test for the control group This research compared the two groups; one was as experimental group and the other was as control group. Both groups were tested by pre-test and post-test. One group as the experimental group is taught by using pre-questioning technique as a treatment, and another one as the control group that is taught by the translation technique. The design of the research is shown in Table 3.1. Table 2.1 Research Design The experimental group was given the treatment by using pre-questioning technique. Meanwhile, in the control group the teacher taught using translation technique. Before the treatment was conducted, a pre-test was administrated to the two groups to ensure the homogeneity. After treatment, a post-test was administrated. In this study, population or the subject of the research was the tenth graders at SMA N 1 Sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/2016. A sampling is selected randomly when every number of the population has equal, no zero chance being included in the sample. From the eleven classes of the tenth graders at SMA N 1 Sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/ 2016. This study, I used simple random sampling. All the tenth classes of SMA N 1 Sukoharjo had the same chance to become the sample of the study. Every students had the same probability to be chosen. I chose the sample randomly by writing the class names on a small piece of paper and then rolled it up and put it into box to make the paper rolls mixed. After that, I took two rolls of paper and the class names which I used to be my samples. The two rolls of paper that out from the box were X MIA 7 and X MIA 1. Therefore, I chose X MIA 7 as the experimental group and X MIA 1 as the control group. There are two variables in this study, independent and dependent variables. The independent variable of this study is pre-questioning technique. Then, dependent variable is students’ reading comprehension of narrative text. It is indicated by the score of reading comprehension. The instrument used to collect the data in this study was test. The method of collecting data should be applied in conducting the research in order to get the appropriate result of the research. The methods of collecting data in this research can be seen as follows: Group Pre-test Treatment Post-test Experimental √ Pre-questioning Technique √ Control √ Translation Technique √ I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 63 Firstly, choose the population. The population was the tenth graders of SMA N 1 Sukoharjo. Then, I conducted a try-out test to the students in another class in order to assess the test instrument’s quality before administering the real test (pre-test and post-test). In this test, the students were asked to do reading comprehension test in the form of multiple choice, true/ false, and essay. There were 30 items number that should be answered in the limited time 45 minutes. After try-out test, I took two groups of the population as control group and experimental group. Then, I conducted the pre-test. The test was given to identify the students’ reading comprehension achievement before giving the treatment. There were 28 items number that should be answered in the limited time 45 minutes. Next, the real experiment was given a treatment by using pre-questioning technique in teaching reading comprehension to the experimental group. This treatment conducted in order to determine whether there is a significant difference in reading achievement between the experimental group and control group. The last, data were obtained from the post-test. It was conducted to know the improvement of the students’ reading comprehension achievement after the treatments done. The test items were similar to pre-test items. The students were asked to answer some questions related to the material given. The result of treatments is known by the students’ achievement that obtained by comparing the result before (pre- test) and after treatments (post-test) conducted. I used test as instrument, then analyzed the result of the tests (pre-test and post-test) using t-test formula. It is used to know whether there is any significant difference between the students taught by using pre-questioning technique and those who were not. Before computing the t-test value, I had to find the normality and homogeneity of experimental and control groups’ pre-test to find out that the data was normally distributed and homogeneous. In this study, the researcher played the role as teacher, data collector, and data analyzer. As a teacher, the researcher provided the materials, taught the materials to the students, and tested the students’ achievement. As a data collector, the researcher collected the data obtained from test. Finally, as a data analyzer, the researcher analyzed the collected data by using certain formula. RESULT AND ANALYSIS Some activities to collect the data during the research were done. They were pre-test, two treatments, and post-test. All activities for each group had been held in four meetings. The schedule could be seen in the following table. No. Activity Experimental Group Control Group 1. Pre-test 16 May 2016 16 May 2016 2. Treatment 1 20 May 2016 21 May 2016 3. Treatment 2 23 May 2016 24 May 2016 4. Post-test 27 May 2016 28 May 2016 Table 3.1 Schedule of the Research The aim of this study is to find out whether pre-questioning technique is effective to teach reading comprehension and to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique in the tenth grade students of SMAN 1 Sukoharjo in academic year 2015/ 2016. Pre-questioning was introduced in this study as a technique that was used when I was doing this research. Before conducting this research, most of the students found some difficulties in reading I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 64 narrative text. They had difficulties to understand in reading narrative text, especially to get the gist of the text and to make the students easier in understanding the text before they read whole of the text. However, after using pre-questioning technique, the students were able to understand the text easier. Before experiment was conducted, the students in both of groups were given pre test. The test that was used in the pre test was reading comprehension test. Pre test was aimed to know the prior knowledge of students in reading comprehension of narrative text before the given treatments. In the test, the students were asked to do reading comprehension test in the form of multiple choice, true/false, and essay that consisted of 30 items. Then, the treatments were also conducted two times. Each meeting took 90 minutes. In experimental group, I taught the students by pre-questioning technique. In control group, the students were taught as usual by their English teacher. After that, the students were given the reading comprehension post-test which had the same questions as in the pre-test. After finishing, the result was analyzed. I used SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) to calculate the descriptive statistics analysis and inferential analysis of the data. In inferential analysis, I tested the normality and the homogeneity of the data. Then the last but not least, I found out the final result of the data analysis using independent sample t-test. The results of the descriptive statistics analysis of the pre-test’s score were seen as follows: Group N Min Max Sum Mean Pre_experiment 36 65 87 2728 75.78 Pre_control Valid N (listwise) 36 68 87 2732 75.89 Table 3.2 The Descriptive Statistics of Pre-test’s Score The table above shows that both the control and the experimental groups had the same maximum score but different minimum score, the differential between two means was almost similar. From the Table 4.3, the total pre-test scores of the students in experimental group were 2728 and the mean was 75.78; with the minimum score was 65 and maximum score was 87. While the total pre-test scores of the students in control group were 2732 and the mean was 75.89: with the minimum score was 68 and maximum score was 87. If we calculated the difference of both means, the result would be 0.11 which indicated that the difference still could be tolerated. In order to find out the result of the data analysis, the descriptive statistics analysis of post-test score is also important. After conducting the descriptive analysis of the post-test score, the result could be seen as follows: N Min Max Sum Mean post_experimen post_control Valid N (listwise) 36 36 36 76 70 93 90 3056 2801 84.89 77.81 Table 3.3 The Descriptive Statistics of Post-test’s Score The result was different from the previous result, in this table all aspects show different result. The minimum, maximum, and the mean of the data were different even the number of the data were I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 65 same. The experimental group has higher result in every aspect than the control group. From the computation of the test result, the total post-test scores of the students in experimental group were 3056 and the mean was 84.89; with the minimum score was 76 and maximum score was 93. While the total post-test scores of the students in control group were 2801 and the mean was 77.81; with the minimum score was 70 and the maximum score 90. The difference means between the experimental and control groups was 7.08 which indicates the significant difference between experimental and control groups. Thus, based on the significant difference from both groups, it can be concluded that after the treatment, the enhancement for each class is quite different. The following diagram shows the significant difference between both groups, the experimental group and control group in pretest’s and posttest’s score. From the diagram 4.1, the blue rectangular was maximum score result of pre-test and post-test, the red rectangular was minimum score result of pre-test and post-test, and the gray rectangular was the mean result of pre- test and post-test. It showed that the line of experimental and control group’s pre test was almost the same, but the line of experimental group’s post test was higher than the control group’s one. The result can be illustrated in the following diagram: Diagram 3.1 Pre-test and Post-test Achievement of Experimental and Control Groups From the diagram above, I concluded that after I gave the treatment for the experimental group, there is an improvement in students’ reading comprehension achievement The aim of this study are to find out the effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by using pre-questioning technique and by using translation technique, and to find out whether pre-questioning technique is more effective than translation technique to teach reading comprehension in the tenth graders of SMAN 1 Sukoharjo in academic year of 2015/ 2016. Pre-questioning was introduced in this study as a technique that was used when I was doing this research. In applying pre-questioning technique, I gave the students some questions related to the content of the reading text that given to them. In guiding the students to understand the text better, I connected between the students’ experiences and prior knowledge toward the content of the texts. Before conducting this research, most of the students found some difficulties in reading narrative text. They had difficulties in understanding the content of narrative texts, especially to get the gist of the text and to make the students easier in understanding the text before they read whole of the text. However, after using pre-questioning technique, the students were able to understand the text easier. The result of the study showed that there is an improvement of students’ scores in pre-test 8 7 9 3 8 7 9 0 6 5 7 6 6 8 7 0 7 5 .7 8 8 4 .8 9 7 5 .8 9 7 7 .8 1 P R E - T E S T P O S T - T E S T P R E - T E S T P O S T - T E S T E X P E R I M E N T A L G R O U P C O N T R O L G R O U P EXPERIMENTAL AND CONTROL GROUPS Maximum Minimum Mean I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 66 and post-test. The students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the text. The use of pre-questioning technique makes them read more easily their English narrative texts. This technique helps the students to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation before they read the whole text. Translation technique is used in control group by English teacher. Before each session the teacher gave the students the example of narrative text, then asked the students to read and understand the story. After that, the teacher asked them to discuss together and asked them to translate one by one sentence from the text. The teacher facilitated the process by pointing out the grammar implied in each sentence and helped the students to translate those very sentences. Translation method is also a good way in learning reading comprehension. It can increase one’s comprehension in reading. However, there is still the disadvantages in conducting the lecturing method in reading comprehension activity. Since the students could read the text well, but they did not understand the content of the text. The technique also made the students get bored easily and the result of the learning is not maximum. Therefore, translation technique is less useful for reading comprehension on narrative text. After doing the experiment and analyzing the result statistically, I can conclude that there is an improvement on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text by using pre-questioning technique between the two groups. Based on the computation result, it showed that the significance (2-tailed) 0.000 < α = 0.05. It proved that the difference is statistically significant. Based on the analysis, the result of the experimental group is higher than the result of the control group. The pre- test average scores of the control and experimental groups were 75.78 and 75.89. While, the post-test average scores of the control and experimental groups were 77.81 and 84.89. It can be said that after the treatment, the enhancement for each class is quite different. Due to the fact that there is a significant difference in students’ reading comprehension achievement between two groups, the null hypothesis (Ho) saying that “there is no significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension achievement between experimental group and control group” is rejected. On the contrary, the alternative hypothesis (HA) saying that “there is a significant difference in the students’ reading comprehension achievement between experimental group and control group” is accepted. In addition, this method has answered the problem of this study. Therefore, it can be concluded that the use of pre-questioning technique is more effective than translation technique in teaching reading comprehension to the tenth graders of SMAN1 Sukoharjo in the academic year 2015/2016. CONCLUSIONS According to the result of the study that has been discussed in the previous chapter, I will convey some conclusions about this study. The conclusions of the research are drawn in accordance with the result of the data analysis in the previous chapter. The first conclusion, there were effects on the students’ reading comprehension of narrative text after being taught by pre-questioning technique. By applying pre-questioning technique, the students are able to predict the content of the text before reading the whole text. This due to the fact that some questions addressed by the teacher related to the content of the text. It helps the students to get better understanding during reading activities. Moreover, the students tend to be more active and think critically in reading, get the gist of the text, improve their reading comprehension, and build their interest and motivation before they read the whole text. Pre-questioning technique helps the students to have a better achievement of narrative text I. Puruhita Utami / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 67 Second, translation technique is effective to teach reading comprehension. It can increase one’s comprehension in reading. However, the use of translation technique is still less effective compared to using pre-questioning technique. The students could read the text well, but they did not understand the content of the text. The technique also made the students get bored easily and the result of the learning is not maximum. Therefore, translation technique is less effective for reading comprehension on narrative text. Third, based on the data analysis, I concluded that there is a significant difference between the experimental group’s and the control group’s scores. The average scores for the experimental group were 75.78 for the pre-test and 84.89 for the post test, while the average scores for the control group were 75.89 for the pre-test and 77.81 for the post-test. The experimental group’s average increase was 9.11, while the control group’s average increase was only 1.92. Each group had different achievement. The achievement of experimental group was higher than the control group. Based on the calculation of the average of both groups, there is an improvement of students’ achievement in reading comprehension of narrative text. Meanwhile, from the calculation of t-test analysis showed that sig(2-tailed) : 0.000 and rtable for α = 5% was 0.05. It meant that rtable was higher than sig(2-tailed) (0.05 > 0.000). Therefore, it could be concluded that there is a significant difference and it could be said that using pre-questioning is more effective than translation technique to teach students’ reading comprehension of the tenth graders of SMAN 1 Sukoharjo in the academic year of 2015/ 2016. Based on the result of the study, there are some suggestions for students, English teachers, and further researchers. They are as follows: For students, I suggest that they should be more active and smart in reading texts especially narrative text in order to make them understand the gist of texts easier. For English teachers, it is necessary for them to take the students’ problems into account in teaching and learning activities. They should be able to use the appropriate technique in teaching reading comprehension, and group activities should be suitable to the students’ capability and interest. As the result of the research, it was found that pre-questioning technique could be appropriate technique in teaching reading comprehension of narrative text which implicitly as some questions are provided before the students read the whole text, in order to build the students’ interest and motivation. It makes the students more active in the classroom and understand the content of the text. Finally, these suggestions also will be helpful for further researchers. They should explain about what the narrative text is before asking the students to understand it. The students can learn how to respect each other, to their friends who have different opinions with them. It is expected that the researchers will have more information about the use of pre-questioning technique, especially in teaching another text like descriptive text, so that it can be one of their references in conducting their research. 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