Sebuah Kajian Pustaka: Mardhiyatuzakiyah, Rahmawati & Ridwan: Students’ Perception on Learning… 39 STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON LEARNING READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH RECIPROCAL TEACHING STRATEGY Mardhiyatuzakiyah1, Maya Rahmawati2, Iwan Ridwan3 mardhiyatuzakiyah21@gmail.com, maya.rahmawati@fkip.unsika.ac.id, iwantutorsaja@gmail.com UNIVERSITAS SINGAPERBANGSA KARAWANG ABSTRACT Students encountered several problems when trying to master a reading skill. Reciprocal teaching strategy was known as a guided comprehension strategy that encouraged the students to develop the skills that effective readers and learners did. This research aimed to investigate the perception of twelve students of Islamic senior high school toward reading utilizing reciprocal teaching strategy in terms of cognitive and affective aspects. It was carried out as a qualitative descriptive. The data were collected through observation, semi- structured interview, and open-ended questionnaire. The data were analyzed by using Braun and Clarke’s theory such as read, transcript, code, categorize and interpret the data. The results indicated that based on cognitive aspect, the students had positive responses such as reciprocal teaching facilitated readers to understand some texts, increased their capabilities to answer and ask the questions, estimated what the author means, encouraged them to think rationally, explained the new word, and summarized the next scene. Furthermore, the data also showed that the reciprocal teaching strategy had a positive response based on affective aspect such as supporting students to cope with difficulties during reading. Keywords: Reciprocal teaching strategy, Perception, Cognitive aspect, Affective aspect. A. INTRODUCTION Reading is an activity that aims to process words, understand the meaning, and unite the readers' understanding with new information. According to Alderson (2000), while reading, the reader also think about what he is reading, what it is meant to, and how it relates to other things he has read before, to things he know, to what he expects to come next in the text. This indicates that When trying to understand the text, the reader should master some basic skills, including the ability to know the meaning of words, to understand words contained in the text, to follow the structure of the text, to know the main ideas in each paragraph, to summarize the contents of the story, to make questions answers about the text, and to determine the intent, point of view, and goals of the author. For this reason, reading is an important skill for each person. However, students have various problems in doing reading comprehension test related to their level of mastery. For some students in Indonesia, reading comprehension is a difficult skill to learn. whereas in the 2013 curriculum (KURTILAS), the Indonesian Department of mailto:mardhiyatuzakiyah21@gmail.com mailto:maya.rahmawati@fkip.unsika.ac.id mailto:iwantutorsaja@gmail.com ELTIN Journal, Volume 9/No 1, April 2021 40 Education stated that second-grade students in high school should learn to understand contextual meaning related to social functions, text structure, and language elements in the text. Such as official invitation letters, analytical exposition texts, and personal letters. They are also supposed to be able to establish from such texts (refer to KI/KD: 4/4.4.1-4.4.2 in KURTILAS). In addition, the book entitled Teaching Reading Comprehension to Students with Learning Difficulties by Klingner et al., (2015) stated that students are hard to understand the meaning of the text while reading and they are misplaced in entering a new world, constructing knowledge, and enhancing vocabulary. Revering to the phenomena, the implementation of reciprocal teaching strategy as one of the alternative strategies is a great solution. Many studies investigating the reciprocal teaching strategy help the students to improve their understanding of reading. According to Pilten (2016), most of the experiment group students think that reciprocal teaching is most effective than comprehension activities they encountered in their experience. The other previous research conducted by Gomaa (2015) showed that the implementation of reciprocal teaching strategy can effectively improve reading comprehension of students with disability. The role of the students is more focused on participation in certain activities. The teachers can play the roles of planner, manager, quality controller, facilitator, and motivator. The discussion, effect, impact, and evaluation of reciprocal teaching strategy have been extensively studied. Thus, less attention has been paid to students' responses and participation when learning reading comprehension. Therefore, the researchers are interested to investigate the perception of Islamic senior high school students in the cognitive aspect (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, and synthesis) and affective aspect (receiving, attending, and responding) during learning reading apprehension using reciprocal teaching method. Specifically, this research seeks to answer the research question: what are the cognitive and affective responses of Islamic senior high school students on learning reading comprehension using reciprocal teaching strategy? B. LITERATURE REVIEW 1. Reading Comprehension According to Mc Namara (2007), reading comprehension is the interpretation of the information, using prior knowledge to interpret the explanation and using prior knowledge to interpret the facts and the development of a coherent illustration or picture in the reader's thoughts of what the textual about. It is a complex process that comprises the successful or unsuccessful use of many abilities. When someone reads, they should be able to recall information afterward. Similar to Nunan (2003) in Rosyita & Faridi (2017), reading is a fluent process of readers combining information from a text and their background knowledge to build meaning. Mikulecky (2011) states that reading is a complex conscious and unconscious mental process. In which the reader uses a variety of strategies to reconstruct the meaning that the author is assumed to have intended, based on data from the text and the readers' prior knowledge. 2. Perception Perception is the way when individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their senses. The study of these perceptual forms appears that their functioning is influenced by Mardhiyatuzakiyah, Rahmawati & Ridwan: Students’ Perception on Learning… 41 three classes of factors: the object or occasion being seen, the environment in which perception happens, and the person doing the perceiving. The cognitive aspect is a mental action that acquires knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and senses. Meanwhile, affective aspects are the aspect of mental processes or behavior directed toward action or change and including impulse, desire, volition, and striving. Cognitive perception includes the way someone processes information. Perception refers to the way he or she obtains information from the environment, while cognition describes processes such as memory, perceiving, thinking, learning, problem-solving, and orientation (Haywood, 2013). They are capable to feel the outside and be aware of what is happening around them. This process of sensing the outside world is complete our perception, which makes it possible with our sensory organs allows us to recognize and identify the existence of all kinds of stimuli and then evaluate and give meaning to them through the brain. Affective perception is material based on everything related to emotion. An emotion is an occurrent conscious state with a certain feeling or effects such as appreciation, value, feelings, enthusiasm, interests, and attitudes towards things. Doring (2007) stated that emotion is not an attitude of regarding something as true or false. 3. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy The reciprocal teaching strategy is a fostering-comprehension strategy that took place in the context of the dialogue between the teacher and the students. To begin with, the teacher ought to show the strategy of utilizing reciprocal teaching (predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing) to the students. Then, the students practice the strategy and the teacher support students' participation. There is a gradual change from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning in reciprocal teaching. It is in supported by Pressley (1998) who asserts that reciprocal teaching encourages students to take a more active role in leading a group dialogue, and helps to bring more meaning to the text at a personal and cognitive level. According to Palinscar & Brown, (1984) there are four major strategies proposed in reciprocal teaching, these are: a. Predicting is the way to preview the text and connect the information to the existing knowledge to make logical predictions before and during reading. b. Questioning is the process of asking and answering questions about the text. It will help the readers to have a purpose or reason for reading and deepen their understanding. c. Clarifying is the strategy that will make the meaning of the text clearer. Clarifying helps the readers to recognize difficult words or confusing parts in the text. d. Summarizing is the step to review and arrange important events in the text. The readers will point out the most center of the content. Besides, summarizing assists the reader to identify, paraphrase and integrate the important information from the text. C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY In this study, the researchers investigated the perception of learning reading comprehension using reciprocal teaching strategy, in terms of cognitive and affective aspects. This research employed a qualitative case study. The research design is explained in detail below: This research applied qualitative design by focusing on a descriptive case study to investigate specific phenomena of a certain group by exploring information and analyzing in-depth. It ELTIN Journal, Volume 9/No 1, April 2021 42 explored Islamic senior high school students’ responses toward reciprocal teaching strategy in a reading session. The data of this study were gained through observations, semi- structured interviews, and open-ended questionnaires. The respondents of this study were about twelve students of class XI of Islamic senior high school. They were chosen since of their ability in comprehending the text during reading. The research was conducted at one of the Islamic senior high schools in Purwakarta, West Java. This research applied the qualitative design to know the detail of the participants’ information. Indicating with the statement, this research collected and analyzed data gained through observation, semi-structured interviews, and open-ended questionnaires. Each data collection technique is explained below: The observation is purposed to hint the researcher in writing down any information and to guide in conducting the teaching and learning process. the observation is also used to preview students reading habits. Then, the semi-structured interview is one of the crucial things to hint the researcher in exploring the data related to the students’ perception. The researcher asked about before, during, and after the method was implemented. The semi- structured interview is known as a natural interview. The last is an open-ended questionnaire. It assisted to facilitate the collecting data of the study. Meanwhile, the respondents only need to answer the question posed with short answers such as (strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree) then the respondents included the reasons briefly, concisely, and clearly. The data analysis was conducted to answer the research question. The data obtained from classroom observation, respondents’ interviews, and collecting questionnaires. The data were analyzed in the following stages according to Braun and Clarke (2014) in Castleberry & Nolen (2018). Those are: 1. Read the data deeply 2. Transcript data by describing events or circumstances to make it can be interpreted 3. Giving the sign towards variables that are considered crucial 4. Grouping several types of data 5. Define the situations D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The research findings are to answer previously asked questions. The data is provided based on the observation results of English teachers on learning reading comprehension, semi- structured interviews with students, and asking the students to fill out open-ended questionnaires. Semi-structured interviews are meetings where the interviewer does not strictly follow a formal list of questions. The questions are open questions in which allowing discussions with interviewees instead of a simple question-and-answer forms. An open- ended questionnaire is a questionnaire that requires multiple words to answer. The answer may be in the form of a list, a few sentences or longer, such as a speech, paragraph, or article. The author introduces the reaction of Islamic senior high school students in terms of cognition and emotion. This study was intended to investigate students’ perception toward learning reading comprehension through reciprocal teaching strategy. The findings are classified into cognitive aspect and affective aspect. Mardhiyatuzakiyah, Rahmawati & Ridwan: Students’ Perception on Learning… 43 1. Students’ Responses on Learning Reading Comprehension Through Reciprocal Teaching Strategy in The Cognitive Aspect The data showed that several students had a positive response toward reciprocal teaching strategy because it assisted the students to acquire the knowledge in the text. As in line with Brand-Gruwell, Aarnoustes, and Van Den Bos, (1998) in Ostovar-Namaghi, & Shahhosseini (2011) that reciprocal teaching improves students’ achievement in standardized texts and develops students higher-order thinking skills. The four strategies of reciprocal teaching: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing had a practical way, easy to understand, and easy to practice. For instance, predicting can help the students to preview the content of the text through the title, pictures, bold or italic terms, diagram, etc. Then, the questioning was intended to check and evaluate students’ understanding of the text by inquiring several questions. A questioner must ask the contents of the text then answer it himself. this aims to make it easy for them to understand the text. When students have already questioned the text, they become aware of the text’s important idea (Ozckus, 2003). The clarifying helps the students to define unfamiliar words, phrases, sentences, unclear references, and obscure concepts. The clarifying way can also add new vocabulary to students, as stated by Palinscar and Brown (1985), vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension are significantly related. a. Reciprocal teaching strategy helped to comprehend assorted texts This strategy is flexible manner. It means that any text can be used in students of any level. Other studies have shown that the purpose of reciprocal teaching is to guide students to adopt specific strategies that can be applied to various texts. In the peer-to-peer teaching process, the students discuss in groups and discuss materials through some strategic steps that will make them effective readers (Astarrila & Warman, 2015). As stated by the students: (“Yes, it [reciprocal teaching strategy] will help us to understand various texts with various level of students because we have already known the function of Predicting, Questioning, Clarifying, Summarizing (four strategies in reciprocal teaching), then when we apply those strategies to the text, we can understand the text well”) [RY-Participant] (“Yes, It [reciprocal teaching strategy] is really helpful. Because each of those steps has a role that will make it easier to understand the text”) [TA-Participant] b. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy helped to improve students’ ability to answer and generating questions One of the reciprocal teaching steps is questioning. Questioners should ask several questions about the text they will understand, and they will answer these questions. When students have asked questions about the text, they will realize the important idea of the text. As said by the students below: (“Yes, all of the steps in reciprocal teaching truly helpful, for instance, questioning. When we ask a question and answer it, we automatically know the core of the text”) [LN-Interviewee] ELTIN Journal, Volume 9/No 1, April 2021 44 (“From questioning, we can apply 5W 1H. We come to know “what, who, why, where, when, and how”) [SA-Interviewee] c. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy fostered students’ ability to predict what the writer tells and to find the main idea First of all, before reading the full text, the students are required to predict what the text says or explains. They can estimate by heading or reading the main idea. When students try to understand the text, they will look for the main idea of each paragraph. Although there are obstacles to students’ understanding due to their different levels of understanding, reciprocal teaching can help them to predict the flow of the text. As one of the students said in the interview: (“Using this learning strategy can sharpen my logical thinking skills. For example, a prediction strategy must be able to predict the meaning or purpose of the text from the words we know, even though only a few words that we know but we can use logic to deduce the meaning of the text by linking word for word that is known”) [DY-Student] d. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy helped the students to think rationally Reading comprehension is not a passive activity. It includes different thinking processes, such as fast process, effective process, interactive process, strategic process, flexible process, evaluation process, goal process, comprehension process, learning process, and language process. Logical thinking is reasonable. Two students said that reciprocal teaching inspired their thinking logic: (“Because this strategy makes me responsive to understand an English text”) [AS- Participant] (“Because when I understand English text using reciprocal teaching strategy, my mind is stimulated to think logically”) [IZ-Participant] e. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy helped the students to define unfamiliar words and conclude the text plot In clarifying strategy, students try to explain unclear words, phrases, or sentences by guessing the context of the sentence. This strategy can also add new English vocabulary for the students. Palinscar and Brown (1985) revealed there is a significant correlation between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. They also mentioned that reciprocal teaching strategy is related to vocabulary learning and can stimulate students’ foreign language learning activities. As mentioned by one of the participants below: “This strategy is very helpful, from several stages we can know the author point of view” [ZB-Interviewee] The data above is in line with the statement of Ghorbani, Sahar, and Gangeraj (2013) that when students learn to recognize and clarify difficult words or confuse parts of the text, they will become more strategic readers. Mardhiyatuzakiyah, Rahmawati & Ridwan: Students’ Perception on Learning… 45 2. Students’ Responses on Learning Reading Comprehension Through Reciprocal Teaching Strategy in Affective Aspect In the affective aspect, students also give positive responses when learning reading using reciprocal teaching strategy. The followings are the perception of Islamic students toward reciprocal teaching from the affective aspect. a. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy supported students to overcome difficulties during reading the text EFL students often encounter difficulties when reading English texts such as being lost when entering new words, building knowledge, and improving vocabulary ( Klingner, et al. 2015). Using reciprocal teaching strategy in reading can improve students’ self-confidence and the ability to overcome these difficulties. The students plan and monitor their understanding and then evaluate their understanding. Therefore, the use of a reciprocal teaching strategy will allow you to practice the four key strategies and use them well. As one participant said: (“From reciprocal teaching, we can understand the text and make it easy for the reader”) [AS-Student] b. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy was practical, interactive, and easy to do This strategy makes the teaching process easier for both students and teachers. For students, they are free to discuss in groups, express their idea on the text, and exchange ideas with friends as a group. In addition, readers can rely on previous experience to parallel, compare, or confirm the author’s suggestions in the text, thereby constructing meaning from the text. ("If reciprocal teaching strategy applied in every school, it will greatly help children who are less active become active because by using this we are required to be able to understand the contents of the text") [SA-Student] The data above is supported by the statement of Ahmadi, Ismail & Abdullah (2012) that reciprocal teaching strategy is a process that takes reading comprehension as an interactive process. during the reading process, the readers will interact with the text as the previous experience is activated. At the same time, the teachers only give examples of the four stages that the students should follow the stages. Reciprocal teaching strategy allow teachers to model and provide students with many enough exercises on the four main strategies (predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing) to construct the meaning of the text in the social environment (Ahmadi, Ismail & Abdullah, 2012). c. Reciprocal Teaching Strategy supported students to discuss actively and engage with discussion forums The data also showed that the students believe that reciprocal teaching strategy is a reading strategy in which students take turns to predict, summarize, clarify, and ask questions until all parts of the text are read and formed into a group. Two participants mentioned: (“RT is an exciting strategy, it makes the student not bored because students are directly involved in the discussion forum”) [ZB-Interviewee] ELTIN Journal, Volume 9/No 1, April 2021 46 (“Not all of the students understand the traditional reading method explained by the teacher, perhaps students are not directly engaged with the discussion. It is different with RT that students should comprehend the passage because it is part of their rules”) [UH-Interviewee] The affective showed something related to moods, feelings, attitude, impulse, desire, volition, and striving. The students’ responses in affective aspect say that reciprocal teaching supported to cope with their defiances such as understanding the text, interacting with friends in one group, and practicing listening, speaking, writing, and of course reading skills. Some students interviewed said that this strategy was fun, exciting, challenging, and not boring. RT was fun and exciting because in two-way learning (dialogue), not one-way (monologue), the participants got feedback from peers. The respondents also said that reciprocal teaching promoted interactive discussion skills, bolstered them to talk over effectively, and engaged with a discussion forum. E. CONCLUSION Based on research finding and discussion it can be concluded that the reciprocal teaching strategy had positive answers towards the cognitive viewpoint of second-grade students of Islamic senior high school in Purwakarta. There are: reciprocal teaching strategy helped the students to comprehend various kinds of the texts, improved students’ ability to answer and generating questions, promoted the students to think rationally, and helped the students to define words and conclude the next plot. Secondly, the reciprocal teaching strategy had a positive response toward the affective aspect. There are: reciprocal teaching supported students to cope with difficulties during reading, the students were greatly helped because it was practical and interactive, and reciprocal teaching engaged with discussion forum. F. REFERENCES Ahmadi, M. R., Ismail, H. N., & Abdullah, M. K. K. (2012). Improving Vocabulary Learning In Foreign Language Learning Through Reciprocal Teaching Strategy. International Journal of Learning and Development, 2(6), 186-201. Alderson, J. C. (2000). Assessing Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Astarilla, L., & Warman, D. (2016). Improving Students’reading Comprehension Through The Use Of Reciprocal Teaching Technique At Stmik Riau Pekanbaru. JEE (Journal of English Education), 2(1), 1-8. Castleberry, A., & Nolen, A. (2018). Thematic Analysis of Qualitative Research Data: Is It As Easy As It Sounds?. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning., 10(6), 807– 815. Palinscar, A. S., & Brown, A. L. (1984). 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