Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN:2723-4126 1 THE USE OF ESA TECHNIQUE ON READING COMPREHENSION AT MTSN GANTING PADANG PANJANG Nanda Fidrian1, Leli Lismay2 1.2 State Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN) Bukittinggi nandafidrian13@gmail.com ABSTRACT The researcher aimed to conduct this research due particular in students reading comprehension at Mts N Ganting Padang Panjang. Researcher found the problems thatfirst, students interest in reading a text was still lacking. Second, students still have difficulty in reading comprehension. Third, students had lack of vocabularies in translating meaning of the word. Therefore, this research is to know how teacher apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. The research aimed to analyze teacher apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. This research used a descriptive qualitative research design. Object of this research were two English teachers in Mts N Ganting Padang Panjang. The instruments of this research were questionnaire and interview.The result of the research showed that ESA technique suitable and effectively for reading comprehension that can be seen from teacher apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. Engage, in this elements the teacher motivate students and active their background knwoledge. Study, in this elements teacher focus on topic in the text and guide students to understanding the content of the text. Activate, in this elements teacher gives exercises and assignment to students, then concludes the contents of the text that has been learned. Key words : ESA Technique, Reading comprehension, Teaching Reading. INTRODUCTION Reading is considered as the main skill that should be mastered in English learning and has relation to the other language skills. Most of the materials given by the teacher (in English or other subjects) are presented in written form, for example in handbook, handout, and etc. It means that to understand the materials and answer the questions, the students must have the ability to look at and get the meaning of the written text. In short, reading is very important to be taught to the students in the language classroom. The main goal of reading is to comprehend the text. According to Anderson as quoted by Nunan that the goal of reading is comprehension (David Nunan,2003). William also states that the overall goal is not to remember most of the specific details, but to havea good graps of the main ideas and supporting ideas, and to relate those main ideas to background knowledge as appropriate( William Grabe,2002) . In result, the capacity for mailto:nandafidrian13@gmail.com Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN:2723-4126 2 understanding the thought and idea of the written material is called reading comprehension. Reading comprehension is not an easy task. The students must consider the extent of information while reading to comprehend the text such as genre, the purpose of the text, and familiar and unfamiliar words. According to Nunan, reading comprehension refers to reading for meaning, understanding, and entertainment . It can be concluded that reading comprehension makes the students easier to understand the text that they have read (Iksan & Duriani, 2015). Reading comprehension is very important in learning because it will train the students to the goal of reading (Anwar et al., 2020). According to judith, reading comprehension is the process of comprehending the meaning of connected words that is more important in reading the text . It means that students have to comprehend the meaning of the word in the text. In reading comprehension, teachers can implement some approach, models, strategies or technique. One of them is ESA (Engage, Study, Activate). Harmer states that ESA (Engage,Study,Activate) technique is one of teaching techniques to motivate the students to get involved actively in the teaching learning process. ESA as teaching technique will help the teachers to teach their students and be able help the teachers in classroom management. While according to Tomlinson state that “ ESA is a technique how to build students interest about a topic and the teacher identified as being problems in learning and the teacher should know to built and control that”. Harmer states that ESA has three elements. First is engage: this is the point in teaching sequence where teachers try to arous the students interest, thus involving their emotions. Second is study : in study the activities are those where the students asked the focus on language (or information) and how it is constracted. Third is activate : this elements describe exercise and activities which are designed to get students using language as freely and communicatively as they can . This research is aimed to find out how the teacher apply ESA technique in teaching reading comprehension. METHODS The design of the research is descriptive qualitative research. According to Gay “A descriptive method is a method of research that involves collecting data in order test hypothesis or to answer question concerning correct status of the subject of the study. It means that if the research conduct a descriptive research, the research should collect the data and try to describe it based on the current status found by the researcher. In this research, the observation checklist and questionnaire to analyze how the teacher apply ESA technique in teaching reading comprehension. The data analyzed by using some steps, as according to Sugiyono, it would be explained as follow: (1) Data Collection: the researcher collects the data through a questionnaire using give paper questionnaire to the teacher and interview the teacher. (2)Data Reduction: the researcher resumes the data and focuses on the research aspects and unnecessary aspects are reduced by the researcher. (3)Display the Data: the researcher made the result of the research that consists of using ESA technique in Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN:2723-4126 3 reading. (4)Conclusion: the researcher concludes the finding based on analysis of using ESA technique in reading. RESULTS The researcher would like to describe and analyse the findings that were gathered from the research. This research would be divided into two, description and analysis of the data. Based on the description of the data above, the researcher would like to elaborate and analyze the responses based on each answer. The more detail analysis described below: 1. Engage The first item of the questionnaire is the teacher motivate students to use several activities to make students interested in the topic. And Teacher A and B answered YES. This item was supported with the interview answer number 5.The second item of the questionnaire is the teacher activate the background knowledge of students. And Teacher A and B answered YES. This item was supported with the interview answer number 6. 2. Study The third item of questionnaire is the teacher asks questions regarding the topic of discussion, so students stay focused on the main idea in the text. And Teacher A answered YES, Teacher B answered NO.The fourth item of questionnaire is the teacher focuses students attention on the important parts of the text. Teacher A and B answered YES. This item was supported with the interview answer number 9.The fifth item of questionnaire is the teacher asks students to make conclusion. Teacher A and B answered NO.The sixth item of questionnaire is the teacher matches students answer with the main ideas in the text. Teacher A and B answered YES. 3. Activate The seventh item of questionnaire is the teacher guides the reading discussion. Teacher A and B answered YES. The eight item of questionnaire is the teacher asks students to remember important parts of the text. Teacher A and b answered YES. This item was supported with interview answer number 10.The nineth item of questionnaire is the teacher asks students to retell with their own sentences the main idea in the text. Teacher A and B answered YES. This item was supported with interview answer number 11. The tenth item of questionnaire is the teacher asks students to respond to the main idea in the text. Teacher A and B answered YES. Based on the interview, teacher’s response was almost the same with their questionnaire. Two teacher used ESA technique for each class and used ESA technique for 4 skills in learning English. Between the 3 ESA sequence the two teachers use the Straight Arrow. The differences between Teacher A and Teacher B, when explaining the Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN:2723-4126 4 purpose of reading. Teacher B doesn’t explain the purpose of reading but directly explains the topic of discussion in the text. The first indicator of the interview wastodescribeEngage. Teacher A said that create a conductive classroom atmosphere and ask questions related to the topic to be discussed. Teacher B said creating activities that involve students in class and recognize students interest and care for all of them. Based on the answer of the two teachers explained how to motivate students to start learning used ESA technique. The second indicator of interview wastodescribeStudy. Teacher A said give questions to students about matters relating to the topic that will be discussed, so that students stay focused on the contents of the text. Teacher B said focus students on important parts relating to the contents of the text to make students more easily understand the text to be discussed. The third indicator of interview was to describe Activate. Teacher A said give key words related to the content of the text, after students understand the content of the text, then the teacher asks students to tell briefly using their own sentence. Teacher B said ask students to respond to the text that has been discussed and ask students to write an outline of the content of the text. DISCUSSION Based on the findings of this research, the researcher also aimed to present one research question that have been answered due to the result of this research. To answer the research question, the researcher conducted descriptive qualitative research to analyze the phenomena to get the detail information. The informants of this research were two English teachers at Mts N Ganting Padang Panjang. On the other side, the instruments to collect data were questionnaire and interview. According to the research question, how the teacher apply ESA technique in reading, it can be concluded from the three elements of ESA technique (Engage, Study, Activate). In HadiShokri journal, Harmer states that ESA technique has three elements. First, Engage, in this phase teacher need to prompt learner’s curiosty, participation, attentiveness, feelings and interest. Second, Study, Study bases its principal objective on language usage. At last, Activate is the stage at which learners get involved in more communicative and authentic tasks. Based on data from questionnaire and interview, the researcher concluded. First, Engage, in this element teacher utilize engagement activities such as game, interesting anecdotes, story telling and picture description. The teacher create a conductive classroom atmosphere and ask questions related to the topic to be discussed. Creating activities that involve students in class and recognize students interest and care for all of them. Second, Study, in this elements the teacher focuses on learner-led grammar discovery that is elicting grammar from learners rather than teacher-led presentations. Teacher’s give questions to students about matters relating to the topic that will be discussed, so that students stay focused on the contents of the text. The teacher focuses students on important parts relating to the contents of the text to make students more easily understand the text to be discussed. At last, Activate, in these elements at which learners get involved in more communicative and authentic tasks. Regarding this element, learners need to use the language communicatively and as free as they can. Copyright © The Author(s) Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2021 e-ISSN:2723-4126 5 Teacher’s give key words related to the content of the text, after students understand the content of the text, then the teacher asks students to tell briefly using their own sentence. Teacher ask students to respond to the text that has been discussed and ask students to write an outline of the content of the text. So, the research result showed that the theory proposed by Harmer’s about the effect of ESA elements on reading comprehension proved that the use of ESA technique on reading comprehension can be concluded from three ESA elements, Engage, Study, Activate. Based on three ESA elements, the researcher concluded that ESA technique suitable for reading comprehension that can be seen from teacher apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. CONCLUSSION According to the findings that are investigated by the researcher toward research question, how teacher apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. It can be concluded from data questionnaire and interview. Based on the theory and analyzed data of the research, the researcher concluded that ESA technique suitable and effectively used on reading comprehension. This technique helps the teachers in the learning process. By looking from three elements of ESA technique (Engage, Study,Activate), Engage, in this elements the teacher motivate students and active their background knowledge. Study, in this elements teacher focus on topic in the text and guide students to understanding the content of the text. Activate, in this elements teacher gives exercises and assignment to students, then concludes the contents of the text that has been learned.So, from three elements of ESA technique can be concluded apply ESA technique on reading comprehension. 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