EEJ 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej The Effectiveness of Close and Explicit Reading Instructions to Enhance Reading Comprehension to Highy and Lowly Motivated Students Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti1, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati2 1. Institut Agama Islam Negeri Purwokerto, Indonesia 2. UniversitasNegeri Semarang, Indonesia Article Info ________________ Article History: Accepted 15 December 2017 Approved 21 January2018 Published 15 March 2018 Keywords: Close Reading, Explicit Reading, Reading Comprehension, Motivation ____________________ Abstract This study was a quasi-experimental study aimed to find out theeffectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high and low motivation. The samples of this research were the second semester students of Islamic Business and Economics Faculty at Public Islamic Institute of Purwokerto in the academic year of 2016/2017. There were nine classes that belonged to Islamic Business and Economics Faculty. For the purpose of this study, there were only two classes selected to be the samples. The first group was the first experimental group in which it was taught by close reading instruction and the other one was the second experimental group taught by explicit reading instruction. The result of this study showed that close reading instruction was not effective to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high and low motivation. In addition, explicit reading instruction was also not effective to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high and low motivation. Therefore, there was no interaction among teaching techniques (close and explicit reading instructions), motivation (students with high and low motivation), and reading comprehension. To sum up, close reading and explicit reading instructions did not contribute a significant difference to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation © 2018 Semarang State University Correspondence Address: Jl. A. Yani No.40-A, Purwanegara, Purwokerto Tim., Kabupaten Banyumas, Indonesia E-mail: windhariyanti21@gmail.com p-ISSN 2087-0108 e-ISSN 2502-4566 Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 2 INTRODUCTION In 2013, Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and Culture announced the implementation of the 2013 Curriculum that guided teaching and learning practices (Ministry of Education and Culture or Kementrian Pendidikandan Kebudayaan, 2013, p.2). Bharati (2010, p.91) explains that the government has been trying to improve Indonesian educational quality. Therefore, the government made a shift on the curriculum. The 2013 Curriculum was the eleventh time for Indonesian Curriculum to change. Previously, the last change of the curriculum was in 2006. At that time, the curriculum was considered as a Competence- Based Curriculum; then, it was replaced by Unit Level of Education-Based Curriculum in 2006. After seven years of Unit Level of Education- Based Curriculum implementation, the government constructed the curriculum to meet the growing needs of Indonesian cultural preservation. Therefore, in 2013, Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture mandated a 2013 Curriculum as the extension of Unit Level of Education-Based Curriculum. However, in 2013 Curriculum, there are some reductions for time allocation for certain subjects; one of them is English subject. It causes the late preparation of English proficiency due to the reduction in 2013 Curriculum. Consequently, it creates some drawbacks for the students, especially for Indonesian students who do not have enough exposure of English. As a matter of fact, English has the role as a foreign language in Indonesia. It means that there is not enough exposure of English for Indonesian students who learn English. The students only can get the access to English in certain places that provide English services. Therefore, they need more environments that can support their English acquisition. For examples, educational institutions, non-formal educational sites, and certain public places that provide English services. The lateness of English preparation can make the students face difficulties to acquire English proficiencies consisting of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Furthermore, the assessment approach based on 2013 Curriculum is expected to be authentic assessment in which it is a comprehensive assessment to measure various competences (Aliningsih and Sofwan, 2015, p.19). In this case, among English proficiencies, reading skill has the most important role for students’ learning success since overall activities of learning are started and developed by the activity of reading. Through reading process, students can build and broaden the students’ perspective. When students’ opportunity of English exposure is reduced, it can cause some problems related to the late preparation of English. The first is that the late preparation of English can be a weakness for the students to deal with the job opportunities in global economic era. The second is related to the career world. When the students are not well-prepared of English, their career opportunities can be slower than the persons who acquire English well. The third is when the students only have little exposure of English reading comprehension; it can make them get difficulties to access information that is presented in English. Therefore, based on those three difficulties above, it is very crucial to prepare the students in order to build their English reading comprehension after the reduction of time allocation for English subject in 2013 Curriculum. In line with the importance of English, Horiba and Fukaya (2015, p.22) explain that reading is an activity that has purposes or goal- oriented intention. There are various purposes of reading. The most common purpose of reading is to get certain information or to entertain oneself. According to McDonough and Shaw (1993), as cited in Medina (2012, p.81), reading is the most important skill because it has the role of a library language in which it is the most widely used skill to obtain the knowledge. Lipka and Siegel’s (2012, p.1874) claim that reading comprehension predicts the success of the school, and that vice versa; the failure of reading Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 3 comprehension can hinder the students to succeed the school. Lipka and Siegel’s (2012) claim is also supported by Shiraz and Larsari (2014). Based on Shiraz and Larsari (2014, p.41), learning to read prepares the students to be ready for better educational future in which the reading skill contributes to the students’ learning process and achievement. Furthermore, Ceron (2014, p.85) explains that reading in a different language involves more demanding tasks. There are some aspects that relate to reading comprehension for English language learners. Those aspects are decoding (Jeon and Yamashita, 2014, p.162), content knowledge (Lee, 2015, p.72), vocabulary knowledge, metacognitive awareness (Guo and Roehrig, 2011, p.45), and grammar knowledge (Zhang, 2012, p.558). Among those aspects, regarding second language acquisition, there is a growing interest of metacognitive awareness to gain reading comprehension (Guo and Roehrig, 2011, p.45). The role of metacognitive awareness has the relationship with content knowledge. The content knowledge that relates to the prior and relevant knowledge can help the students comprehend better. Metacognitive awareness also relates to the students’ affective knowledge. The students can share their motivation to read in order to build the same metacognitive awareness through the sharing motivational activity. To enhance Indonesian students’ reading comprehension, English teachers in Indonesia are supposed to understand the essence of comprehension development and the strategy to foster students’ comprehension effectively (Medina, 2012, p.80). In this case, McLaughlin (2012, p.434) emphasizes the teachers’ responsibilities to achieve the reading objectives. The teachers need to keep updating their teaching instruction especially to deal with reading comprehension. They have a responsibility to administer and arrange the teaching and learning process that addresses the reading instruction. When the teachers are aware to utilize instructional strategy dealing with reading instruction effectively, the teaching process can be more efficient so that both Indonesian teachers and students can achieve the teaching objectives regarding reading comprehension successfully. In terms of teaching instruction, it is not easy to decide what the best teaching instruction that can fit best to enhance students’ comprehension is. This condition refers to the fact that every classroom in Indonesian environment has different characteristics. For example, some classrooms have high and low proficiency level; some classrooms consist of active and less active students; and some classrooms have sophisticated and traditional learning media. Therefore, teachers’ teaching instructions have a very influential role to deal with the classroom setting in Indonesia. To foster the students’ reading comprehension, the teachers are supposed to help them during the learning process by implementing structured teaching instructions. With respect to English teaching-learning in Indonesia, this study proposes two instructions to improve students’ reading comprehension. Those instructions are close reading and explicit reading instructions. Dakin (2013, p.4) states that close reading encourages the students to explore the different elements of the text to find the comprehensive understanding toward the text. It allows the students to build knowledge so that they can broaden their perspectives after they read the text closely. The other structured teaching instruction is explicit reading instruction. Blouin (2014, p.2) mentions that by implementing explicit reading, the teachers provide modelling and practices from teachers’ guided instruction. Explicit reading allows the students to focus on certain elements of the text with guided practice from the teachers. Thus, the two reading instructions of close reading and explicit reading have potential strengths to foster the students’ reading comprehension in Indonesian classroom setting. In terms of students’ reading comprehension, the aspect to gain comprehension level is not only related to teacher’s instruction but also their motivation in Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 4 the process of reading comprehension. To maintain active and fluent reading process, the students are supposed to be persistent in their motivation. Motivation has an essential role to dedicate some efforts in order to achieve reading comprehension. With proper motivation, the students do their efforts in understanding the reading. However, when the students do not have appropriate motivation, it will be difficult for the students to do efforts to achieve reading comprehension. By acknowledging the dilemmas faced by the teachers and the students since 2013 Curriculum implementation, it is crucial to find out the solution to help the teachers and the students as well. Overall, there are three main aspects that have been elaborated in the previous part of this study. They are reading comprehension, teaching instruction, and students’ motivation. To address those three elements, the aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance reading comprehension to highly and lowly motivated students. Therefore, to answer the challenges presented above, this research implements two teaching instructions focusing on reading comprehension. They are close reading and explicit reading instructions. By applying the two instructions, it is important to examine which instruction that achieves more significant result. Therefore, this study investigates the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance reading comprehension to highly and lowly motivated students. The research is conducted at Public Islamic Institute of Purwokerto (IAIN Purwokerto) by involving the second semester students of Islamic Business and Economics Faculty in the academic year of 2016/2017. METHODS To address the research objectives explained previously, the research design applied a quasi-experimental study. It employed the first experimental group and the second experimental group. The quantitative computation was used to provide the evidence of the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance students’ reading comprehension to highly and lowly motivated students. The first experimental group was taught by close reading instruction and the second experimental group was taught by explicit reading instruction. To collect the data, this study used pre-test, treatment, and post-test. To support the data analysis, this study also employed questionnaire to examine the students’ motivation. This study used a factorial design to investigate the relationship among the variables. Factorial design related to a statistical method called as analysis of variance or ANOVA. The use of ANOVA was to compare the finding of the first experimental group and the second experimental group on some quantitative measurement. In addition, t-test was also applied to prove the differences or similarities of the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to highly and lowly motivated students. Furthermore, the statistical computation of this research was administered by using statistical program available in the computer in the form of excel and SPSS programs. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The objective of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation. The research was conducted in two experimental groups. The results of the research showed seven important points that were connected to the overall effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation. First of all, the research procedure was begun by collecting the data form the questionnaire. The students were assigned to complete the questionnaire to measure their Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 5 motivation level. Based on the results of students’ questionnaire, the students were classified into highly and lowly motivated students. Therefore, during the research, the students were classified as highly and lowly motivated students. Each group consisted of 12 students. Before conducting the research, try out was administered to ensure the validity and the reliability of the research instrument. Then, after collecting and analyzing the data from the try out, the research instruments were examined in terms of the validity and the reliability. Furthermore, the following step was conducting the research procedures to the samples of this study. The students were provided some research procedures such as pretest, treatments, and posttest. The pretest was administered to the first experimental group and the second experimental group. The aim of pre-test was to provide evidence that the two groups have relatively equal competence in reading comprehension. After the pre-test, the students were provided the treatment. The treatment implemented close reading and explicit reading instructions. During the treatment, observation sheet was also employed to ensure the warrants of the activities during the treatment. The treatment for the first experimental group was close reading instruction. There were three main procedures for close reading instruction. They were the first reading activities that consisted of reading activity, making annotation, and discussion. Then, the next was the second reading activity. It consisted of re- reading activity, identifying the author’s affirmation, provide supporting detail to the author’s affirmation, analyzing the connection of the author’s affirmation, and discussion. The last was the third reading activity. It consisted of re-reading activity, answering text-dependent questions, providing the evidence from the text to confirm the questions, and discussion. Then, the treatment for the second experimental group was explicit reading instruction. There were three main procedures for explicit reading instruction. The first step was to make prediction and connection to the reading text. Afterwards, the students were assigned to read and analyze the reading. The last activity was reviewing and answering the questions to ensure the comprehension level. After the treatment, the students were assigned to have posttest to measure the students’ reading competence after the treatments. Finally, after collecting the data, the analysis and interpretation were conducted. The analyses were supposed to answer the seven research questions of this study. To answer the research questions, there were also seven hypotheses that belonged to null hypotheses (H0) employed in this study. Statistical Analysis The first statistical analysis was the normality and homogeneity tests. Normality test of the pretest implemented One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The Sig. value for the pretest in the first experimental group were 0.827 (the students with high motivation level) and 0.468 (the students with low motivation level). The significant level of α is 0.05. The data for the pretest in the second experimental group were 0.872 (the students with high motivation level) and 0.993 (the students with low motivation level). It means that the Sig.value of both groups (0.827, 0.468, 0.872, and 0.993) were higher than the significant level of α = 0.05. Therefore, the data showed that the pretest data of the first and second experimental groups were interpreted as a normal distributional data. After elaborating the pretest data, the following section explains the data form the posttest. In terms of the data from the posttest, the value of Sig. for the posttest in the first experimental group were 0.935 (the students with high motivation level) and 0.894 (the students with low motivation level). The data for the posttest in the second experimental group were 0.944 (the students with high motivation level) and 0.352 (the students with low motivation level). The Sig. value of both groups (0.935, 0.894, 0.944, and 0.352) were higher than the significant level of α = 0.05. Therefore, Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 6 the data showed that the posttest data of the first and second experimental groups were interpreted as a normal distributional data. The next analysis was to investigate the homogeneity test. It implemented Levene Statistic Test. In terms of the pretest data for both the first experimental group, the Sig. score was 0.126. in which it was higher than α = 0.05. Therefore, the pretest data for both the first experimental groups were homogenous. Then, the pretest data for based on motivation, the Sig. score was 0.136 in which it was higher than α = 0.05. Therefore, the pretest data based on motivation were homogenous. The following part deals with the posttest data based on experimental group. The Sig. score was 0.058. It means that it was higher than α = 0.05,the posttest data for based on experimental group were homogenous. The last was the posttest data for motivation. The Sig. score was 0.594 in which it was higher than α = 0.05. Therefore, the posttest data for based on motivation were homogenous. Hypotheses Testing The following elaboration analyzes the answer for the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions. The first analysis was to examine the effectiveness of close reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high motivation. By using paired samples test, the mean was 1.412 and the t-value was 0.605. Furthermore, the value of df was 11. Finally, Sig. value (0.558) was higher than α = 0.05. Based on the data, close reading instruction was not effective to help the highly motivated students improve their reading comprehension. Therefore, the first null hypothesis was accepted in which it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the value of pretest and posttest of close reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high motivation. The second point was to examine the effectiveness of close reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with low motivation. By using paired samples test, the mean was -3.00. The t-value was -0.984. Furthermore, the value of df was 11. Finally, Sig. value (0.346) was higher than α = 0.05. Based on the data, close reading instruction was not effective to help the lowly motivated students improve their reading comprehension. Therefore, the second null hypothesis was accepted in which it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the value of pretest and posttest of close reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with low motivation. The third data were to examine the effectiveness explicit reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high motivation. By using paired samples test, the mean was -5.67. The t-value was -1.914. Furthermore, the value of df was 11. Finally, Sig. value (0.082) was higher than α = 0.05. Based on the data, explicit reading instruction was not effective to help the highly motivated students improve their reading comprehension. Therefore, the third null hypothesis was accepted in which it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the value of pretest and posttest of explicit reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with high motivation. The fourth computation was to examine the effectiveness explicit reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with low motivation. By using paired samples test, the mean was -4.00. The t-value was -1.867. Furthermore, the value of df was 11. Finally, Sig. value (0.082) was higher than α = 0.05. Based on the data, explicit reading instruction was not effective to help the lowly motivated students improve their reading comprehension. Therefore, the third null hypothesis was accepted in which it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the value of pretest and posttest of explicit reading instruction to Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 7 enhance the students’ reading comprehension to students with low motivation. The fifth measurement was to examine the significant difference between close and explicit reading instruction to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation. By using independent samples test, the value of Sig. (0.780) was higher than α = 0.05. The data showed that the null hypothesis was accepted. Therefore, there was no significant difference between the students’ achievement after the implementation of close and explicit reading instruction to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation. The sixth calculation was to examine influence of students’ motivation in reading comprehension when they were taught by using close and explicit reading instruction. It was analyzed through the implementation of Levene's Test for Equality of Variances. The value of Sig. was 0.072 in which it was higher than 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted that the students with high or low motivation showed the same results in which the students’ achievement data from the posttest did not provide a significant difference. There was no significant influence of students’ motivation in reading comprehension whether they are taught by using close and explicit reading instruction for the students who had high or low motivation. The last point was to investigate the interaction among teaching techniques (close and explicit reading instructions), motivation (students with high and low motivation), and students’ reading comprehension. It was computed through the implementation of Tests of Between-Subjects Effects. The value of Sig. was 0.78 in which it was higher than α = 0.05. It was concluded that there was no a significant interaction among teaching techniques (close and explicit reading instructions), motivation (students with high and low motivation), and students’ reading comprehension. Triangulation In order to strengthen the confidence of the research findings and interpretation, this research implemented triangulation. The triangulation was conducted through methodological triangulation. The data from the quantitative analysis were supported with the qualitative analysis through the methodological triangulation. Therefore, the data combination was expected to create a comprehensive understanding towards the phenomena occurring during the research. Based on the observation in the first experimental group, the treatment was close reading instruction. It was their first experience to have close reading instruction. The first activity for the close reading was making annotation. During this activity, only a few students that could provide a clear annotation that was appropriate with the nature of close reading instruction. Most of the students still provided annotation that might not have significant relevance to their reading. In fact, the explanation had been provided clearly to the students. However, since it was their first time to do close reading instruction, so they found some difficulties started from the first activity of close reading. Then, the second step of the close reading was re-reading and identifying the author’s affirmation in the text. At this point, they started to have a good understanding towards the purpose of this step. Unfortunately, still, only some of the students that could provide a proper identification in line with close reading procedures. The last step was doing the final reading and answering text-dependent questions. Because the students had the difficulties since the first step of close reading, so when they were supposed to answer the questions, they tended to start re-reading the text. It means that the students could not take the benefits of the activity in close reading. Therefore, close reading instruction did not provide a significant contribution to enhance the students’ reading comprehension. In the second experimental group, it was provided explicit reading instruction. The first Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 8 step was prediction and connection. At this point, the students were assigned to do prediction of the text from the information of the title, author, and other information. During the first step, the students could manage the activity well since they were more familiar with such activity, especially when they were at schools. The second activity was reading and analyzing. The students were assigned to identify the main ideas and the supporting details. During the second step, most of the students could provide appropriate identification for each paragraph. Finally, the last step was reviewing and answering questions. At this point, the students still needed to re-reading the text to make sure the appropriate answer for each question. It means that they could not accomplish the second activity at explicit reading instruction optimally. Although the students could follow the first activity of explicit reading instruction; but, in the last step, they could not take significant benefits from the explicit reading. Therefore, it can be concluded that explicit reading instruction did not provide significant difference to help the students enhance their reading comprehension. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study showed that the implementation of close reading and explicit reading instructions did not provide a significant effect to enhance reading comprehension to the students with high and low motivation. Based on the students’ posttest, there were some students who gained better achievement of the reading comprehension for both close reading and explicit reading instructions for the students with high and low motivation. However, there were also some students who got lower score for their posttest after experiencing the instructions of close reading and explicit reading instructions. The observation of this study showed that the students did not have the familiarity with the instructions of close reading and explicit reading instructions. Therefore, the students found difficulties during the implementation of the two instructions. Consequesntly, when they got the posttest, they needed more effort to implement close reading adn explicit reading instructions individually. Overall, based on the data, both close reading and explicit reading instructions did not provide a significant difference to enhance the students’ reading comprehension to highly and lowly motivated students. Although, at a glance, some students’ scores for post-test in the first and second experimental group showed an improvement after the treatment; but after conducting the further data analysis towards the students’ score, the final data computation ended at the results that there was no significant difference of the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instructions. SUGGESTIONS Although close reading and explicit reading instructions during this study did not provide a significant effect to enhance the students’ reading comprehension; according to the expectation of the values on close reading and explicit reading instructions from the literature reviews, the English teachers can adapt and adopt the reading procedures in close reading and explicit reading instruction as the additional references on improving the students’ reading comprehension. Furthermore, it is important for the students to carefully follow the reading instructions provided by the teachers. Therefore, when the students have some difficulties during the reading process, they are supposed to be active in making clarification or confirmation to the teachers in order to achieve better reading comprehension. Overall, the potency of close reading and explicit reading instruction to enhance the students’ reading comprehension can be very precious for other researchers to conduct further investigation on the effectiveness of close reading and explicit reading instruction. Therefore, the results of this study can be used as references for other researchers to investigate further research. Windhariyati Dyah Kusumawanti & Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati/ English Education Journal 8 (1) (2018) 1 - 9 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my profound gratitude for my advisor Drs. Ahmad Sofwan, M.A., Ph.D. for spending his valuable time to provide his remarkable guidance and support to me in writing this study. In addition, I would like to deliver my gratitude to all lectures in Universitas Negeri Semarang who dedicate their efforts to give valuable knowledge during my study. REFERENCES Aliningsih, F., & Sofwan, A. 2015. English teachers’ perceptions and practices of authentic assessment. 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