IJLRES - International Journal on Language, Research and Education Studies ISSN: 2580-6777 (p); 2580-6785 (e) DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 Vol. 3, No. 3, 2019 Page: 478 - 506 494 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT IN NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH TEAM PRACTICE TECHNIQUE Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay Senior Lecturer at State Islamic University of Sumatera Utara Medan sholihatulhamidah@uinsu.ac.id Abstract.This study was conducted to find out the students’ reading comprehension achievement in narrative text through team practice technique. This research was applied by class room action research. The technique of analyzing data of this study was applied by using qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were taken from interview, diary notes, observation sheet and documentation. The quantitative data were taken from the best. It indicated that the work technique can improve students’ comprehension achievement in narrative text through team practice technique. It’s strengthened by the result of observation showed that most of the students in teaching learning process were active and serious in joining the lesson. They were active in discussing and they had already been brave to propose question and give the solution to the problem. Keywords: Reading Comprehensive, Narrative Texts, Team Practice Technique INTRODUCTION In learning English as a foreign language, students are expected to get some information from their readings. Since it is generally learned from the secondary level of education and higher education, the students are expected to comprehend a reading text as well as possible. But the students still face some problems to get information from their reading. These problems should be considered in the terms of the relevance of teaching technique. Team practice teaching should be taken into consideration for teaching reading skill. This technique will give the contribution to do some activities in comprehension. Through this technique, the students can be more active in teaching and learning process, especially in teaching reading comprehension. In teaching reading, the students can’t comprehend English text well. There are some factors why they cannot understand the text. There are students who do not have good motivation to read and they felt the text is not interesting for them because they must keep on looking up the words in a dictionary to find out the meaning of the words. mailto:sholihatulhamidah@uinsu.ac.id Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 495 These activities make them feel bored and uninterested in reading comprehension. So, it is a problem for the teacher in teaching reading comprehension in the class. In the teaching and learning process, the problem of teaching is not only the teaching material, but also the technique of teaching. The teaching process will not give a good result if the way of teaching is not suitable to the students’ needs. Therefore, teaching technique will make teaching learning process run well. The teacher must know the suitable technique for the students to make the students more comfortable in the class especially in reading comprehension. To improve students’ reading comprehension achievement, team practice technique can be used. Artz and Newman (1990:230) states that team practice is a group member or team designed to be more motivated to engage every member in mastering the material being studied. It means that through using team practice technique, the students can work together as a team practice technique, the students can work together as a team to accomplish a common goal, namely answer the question, predicting the main idea, etc. In team practice technique, the students are assigned to four or five member learning teams. After the teacher has introduced the academic material, team members use worksheets to master the academic materials and then help each other learn the material through tutoring, quizzing one another, or carrying on team discussions. It means that using team practice technique, the students can learn the material by working together through tutoring, quizzing one another, or carrying on team discuss. Based on the explanation in the background of the study, the problem of this study is formulated as the following: “Does the team practice technique significantly to improve the students’ reading comprehension achievement in narrative text?” LITERATURE REVIEW Reading Comprehension Reading comprehension is a skill that must be developed and can be only developed by means of extensive and continual practices. Grellet (1986:167) states that reading comprehension is a skill to understand a written text by extracting the required information may be explicit or implicit. It means that reading comprehension is a process to get some information explicit or implicit. Otto (1979:261) states that in comprehending Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay 496 reading text, readers have to find the main ideas to obtain the message. In the other words, finding the main ideas will determine the quality of their reading comprehension. It means that in reading comprehension, the reader is expected to understand fully the reading material. The reader should be able to give a clear explanation about the reading material when he/she is asked some question concerning the ideas contained there. If he is able to do, so we can say that he/she already understood the reading material. Turner (1988:378) states that some factors affecting of reading comprehension are: 1. The reading material. The total program of reading instruction; the students’ own personality, attitudes, interest, motivation, and habits; and his out-of-school environment all influence development of reading comprehension. 2. Insufficient experiential background for a reading selection. Lack of sufficient guidance may also be a major factor in low reading comprehension of particular reading assignments. 3. Reading rate. Optimal leading comprehension requires that the individual reader be able to vary reading rate. There is no verification from research that readers with a fast reading rate comprehend less well than readers with slower rates. Fast reading simply saves time, and the proficient reader will use the rate demanded by the occasion, however, repeated reading of material or concentration on easy material seems to increase both comprehension and rate. Narrative is any written English text in which the writer wants to amuse, enter people, and to deal with actual or vicarious in different ways. Narrative is a text containing five components: orientation, evaluation, complication, resolution, and re- orientation by which a writer amuses, entertains, people and to deal with actual or vicarious experience. The orientation is the beginning of the text. Its function is to set scene and introduces the participants. The second is the evaluation. It is a stepping back to evaluate the plight. The third is the complication in which the crisis arises. The fourth is the crisis resolved for better or for worse. The fifth is the reorientation. It can be optimal. The elements of genre of the text are: 1. Purpose: to amuse/entertain the readers and to tell a story. Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 497 2. Generic structure : - Orientation - Evaluation - Complication - Resolution - Orientation 3. Language Features : - Using past tense - Using action verb - Chronologically arranged - Using simple present tense - Using imperative sentence - Using adverb - Using technical terms structure of procedure Team Practice Technique Fiechnter and Davis (1991:56) state that team practice prepares students for the modern workforce where there is an increased emphasis on team work and their meaningful participant in a democratic society. Then, Johnson and Johnson (1998:182) write that simply putting students in groups and telling them to cooperate would not produce the desired outcomes; there were certain pre condition that must be present for real learning to occur; these precondition are positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction, social skills and group processing. It means that in teaching learning, the teacher gives guidance in training students for group work. Working in groups appears to be grounded in the culturally embedded understandings of group formation and group cooperation. The goals and expectations of the team, structure, and processes were discussed prior to the team’s formation. It was agreed there would be regular meetings, communication, and assigned individual tasks were to be completed on time. Oaklay et al (2003) stated that two important first steps in turning groups into effective teams are to set out a clear set of guidelines for team functioning and to have members formulate a common set of expectations of one another. Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay 498 Richard and Rodges (2001:206-8) state that there are some purposes of team practice technique, they are: - All students work on the same material, - Practice could follow a tradition teachers directed presentation of new material and for that reason is a good starting point for teachers and or students new to group work. - The task is to make sure that everyone in the group knows the answer to a question and can explain how the answer was obtained or understands the material. Because students want their team to do well, they coach and tutor each other to make sure that any member of the group could answer for all of them and explain their team’s answer. - When the teacher takes up the question or assignment, anyone in a group may be called on to answer for the team. - This technique is good for review and for practice test; the group takes the practice test together, but each student will eventually do an assignment or take a test individually. - Test technique is effective in situations where the composition of the groups is unstable (in adult programs, for example). Students can form new groups every day. METHODOLOGY Team Practice Activities in Reading Comprehension Metzke and Berghoff (1999:122-3) state that there are some activities in using team practice technique in reading, they are : - Students within a given class are assigned to four- or five member learning teams, each of which has representatives of both sexes, various racial or ethnic groups, and high, average, and low achievers. - After the teacher has introduced the reading material, team members try to identifying the purpose in reading by looking for some information from text and use worksheets to master the materials and then help each other learn the material through tutoring, quizzing one another, or carrying on team discussions. Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 499 - The students use graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding. They also receive worksheet answer sheets, emphasizing the importance of learning the concept rather than simply filling out the worksheets. - After read the text, the students try to skim and scan the text for main ideas. Skimming gives them to predict the purpose of the text, the main topic, or message, and possibly some of the developing or supporting ideas. Scanning is to extract specific information without reading through the whole text. - The strategy of semantic mapping or grouping ideas into meaningful clusters. - Following team practices, students individually take quizzes on the material they have been studying. To answer the quizzes, the students can use semantic mapping or groping ideas into meaningful clusters. It leads them to find the answer exactly because these quizzes are scored, and each student is given an important score. This improvement score is based on the degree to which the score exceeds a student’s past averages, rather than on a student’s absolute score. Weekly newsletters announce teams with the highest scores and students who have exceeded their own past records by the largest amounts or who have perfect scores on the quizzes. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The writer got the data from students’ score in cycle I and cycle II after having done the research. The data in this study were quantitative data and qualitative data. The writer had been done the research with two cycles, the first cycle including pre-test was conducted into three meetings and the second cycle was conducted in two meetings. So totally, there were five meetings in this research. The data were taken from only one class of MTs Hifzhil Qur’an Islamic Center Medan. The class was class VII-3 grade consist of 39 students. The Quantitative Data There were five meetings were conducted within two cycles in this research. The first cycle was consisted of two meetings. The test given three times, a test was a pre-test Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay 500 and two test in the last of cycle I and cycle II. So, a pre-test was given to student without any treatment. The test of post-test I and II were given to the students after teaching for each cycle had been completely finished. Table I The Result of Students’ Score in Pre-Test, Post-Test I of the First Cycle and Post-Test II of the Second Cycle NO INITIAL NAME SCORE Cycle I Cycle II Pre-Test Post-Test I Post-Test II 1 AR 40 60 60 2 ARS 60 70 80 3 APA 30 60 60 4 AS 30 50 60 5 AMH 40 60 70 6 A 40 60 70 7 AF 50 70 80 8 ARI 50 70 80 9 ANS 30 70 80 10 ASP 40 60 70 11 AAK 30 70 70 12 AM 50 70 80 13 AS 50 60 60 14 AKL 60 60 80 15 BIS 60 60 70 16 CL 50 70 80 17 CNM 50 70 80 18 CFNI 60 80 80 19 DA 30 60 70 20 DP 30 50 70 21 DS 60 60 80 22 F 60 60 90 23 FKH 60 70 80 24 HFZL 50 70 70 25 NM 50 70 80 26 MR 40 70 80 27 RF 40 60 70 28 RHN 50 70 80 29 SSHD 50 70 80 30 SMH 40 50 70 31 SAM 30 50 60 32 SAS 30 60 70 Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 501 33 SBHAM 40 60 60 34 TH 60 80 90 35 WHH 80 90 100 36 YM 40 60 70 37 YPS 40 50 60 38 ZFB 30 50 60 39 ZASH 50 70 80 Total ∑𝑿 =𝟏𝟕𝟖𝟎 ∑𝑿 =𝟐𝟓𝟎𝟎 ∑𝑿 =𝟐𝟖𝟖𝟎 X= 45,64 X = 64,10 X = 73,84 Based on the data above, the mean of the students’ score was kept improving from the pre-test second cycle. In the pre-test, the total score of the students was 1780 and the number of the students who took the test was 39 students, so the mean of the students score was 45,64. In the post test of the first cycle, the students score was 2500 and the number of the students who tool the test was 39, so the mean of the students score was 64,10. In the post test of the second cycle, the students score was 2880 and the number of the students who took the test was 39, so the mean of the students who took the test was 39, so the mean of the students score was 73,84. The Qualitative Data The qualitative data were taken from diary notes, interview sheet, observation sheet and questionnaire sheet. In the qualitative data, both teacher and students behavior were evaluated during the process of teaching and learning. Those are gained within two cycles. The activities of pre-test In the first meeting, the pre-test was given to know the students achievement in reading comprehension, they were prohibited to ask their friends and worked in groups. As the result, it was found that most of the students had difficulties in reading comprehending a reading test and answer the test given. The activities of first cycle a. Planning Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay 502 In this cycle, the teacher explained about the advantages of the students’ achievement in narrative text. Before doing the research, observation was done to know the students problem in reading. All the preparation that was needed in the process of research was prepared, such as analyzing and observing, examining, conducting students test, observation sheet, designing questionnaire, designing the learning narrative text. In order to get problem clearly, the writer tried to make an interview both the teacher and the students to know their opinion about the difficulties in reading comprehension. Based on the result of observation, it was found that students’ achievement in comprehending reading narrative text was still low. To improve students’ reading comprehension achievement would be applied. Then was correlated it into subject to students’ achievement in narrative text through team practice technique. b. Action In this phase, the teacher explained the definition of narrative text and reading comprehension. Then the teacher introduced team practice technique and its procedure. Next, the students were divided into groups. each group consisted 6-7 students. They cooperated with their team members. In discussing, some of the students were serious with their reading text while the other not. They read the reading text after the teacher explain the material. Next, give the question to the teacher and the teacher answered the question. Some of students’ were still confused how to ask of potential questions. It can be seen from their questions were still little. c. Observation In this phase, the writer observed and wrote students activity during teaching and learning process, such as the students attitudes, behaviors, even the obstacle that while the students read a text and do their works individually or in the group. It was done by observation sheets and taking notes. Observation was done carefully because data which taken from this activity were used as a basic of reflection. In this cycle, before discussion the material about narrative text which entitled “Smart Monkey and Dull Crocodile”, the teacher explained about narrative text and gave the example to make a question in order to help the students to comprehend the reading text easily. Students are given explanation of the generic structure of narrative text, language features of Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 503 narrative text. While the other students looked afraid and ashamed in expressing their questions, they had less motivation and enthusiastic in teaching learning process. d. Reflection The teacher evaluated teaching learning process in the end of meeting of the first cycle. The teacher asked about their difficulties and the problem in understanding the lesson. The evaluation of two meetings become the reflection to the researcher in making second cycle. Second cycle held to achieve the improvement score of the students’. The evaluation could be from on the student result test and observation of the students’ attitude and also from the diary notes. The activities of second cycle Based on the result of the first cycle, the writer decided to do second cycle. The first cycle indicated that the second score was still low. It happened because the students still got difficulties and confused how to apply. In the second cycle, the writer would explain the procedure of Team Practice Technique more clearly. It was expected that the result in the second cycle would better than the first cycle. a. Planning In this cycle, the writer conducted the same procedure as the first cycle. But teaching and learning process were more developed by giving motivation an controlling the student moving around the class to make all of the students were more active in group discussion. b. Action In this second cycle before asking the students to read the text, the teacher gave motivation first about the importance of reading comprehension, gave the chance to the student to ask some question which they didn’t understand. The teacher admonished the students who made noisy during the teaching learning process. The teacher also rearranged the member of the group based on their ability, gender and their background in order to make them work more cooperative. In the end of this cycle, the teacher cheeked the students’ comprehension by giving them essay tests. c. Observation Sholihatul Hamidah Daulay 504 In this cycle, the students were more active and serious in their own group. They are very enthusiastic to write a list of potential questions and combine or revise with the team members. The students felt interesting and enjoyable to comprehend the text through team practice technique. It can see that they could work cooperatively and shared their ideas in their own group. d. Reflection Having checked the students reading test, the writer found that the student scores showed an improvement from test I to test II in the second cycle. Most students were more active in their group. They worked cooperatively, it mean that team practice technique should be able to motivate the students about reading comprehension in the teaching and learning process. The result of researcher indicated that there was an improvement on the students reading comprehension, which using Team Practice Technique. It was proved by the data, which showed the progression mean of the students. The mean in the cycle II (73,84) was higher than the mean in the cycle I (64,10) and also from the pre-test (64,10). It was indicated that the scores and the means in second cycle were better than first cycle, the percentage of the students who got point up also grew up. In the pre- test, students who got up 70 there were only 1 of 39 students (2,56%). In the post test of cycle I, students who got up 70 there were 18 of 39 students (46,15 %). In the post test of cycle II, students who got up 70 there were 31 of 39 students (79,49%). The improvement was about 76,93. In another words, the students was became better in the first meeting to the next meeting. The data is from the observation sheet, interview sheet and diary notes. The students showed improvement in their reading comprehension through team practice technique. It can be seen from how they began to make a list of questions enthusiastically and seriously understanding the text and work in team. On the other hand, by using the question it can help the students to comprehend the reading text, because before they make question they can make list of questions. This technique gives the students more opportunities to interact with the others in understanding the text, increase their self-confidence and motivation. So, it is very useful to solve problem in reading comprehension because this technique includes various activities that can motivate and maintain the students’ interest in comprehending the Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement in Narrative Text Through Team Practice Technique DOI: 10.30575/2017/IJLRES-2019091215 505 reading material. The students are exercised do something together to finish assignment. But this technique also have lack because only give opportunity to clever students as actor and the other only listen and make notebook. CONCLUSION After analyzing the data, we found that the students’ achievement in reading comprehension on narrative text improved from the pretest to post test of the first and second cycle. It means that there is improvement in students’ achievement in reading comprehension in narrative text affected through Team Practice Technique in teaching. It can be seen from the improvement of the mean score for pre-test (45,64) and the percentage of pass student (2,56%), post-test cycle I (64,10) and the percentage of pass students (46,15%), post-test II (73,84) and the percentage of pass students’ (79,49%). The students’ score continuously improved in each test. Therefore, it can be concluded that Team Practice Technique can improve students’ comprehension achievement in narrative text. BIBILIOGRAPHY Anas Sudijono. 2008. Pengantar Statistik Pendidikan. Jakarta : Raja GrafindoPersada. Artz, A. F., and Newman, C. M 1990. Cooperative Learning. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. Brown, D. 2001. Principle Language and Teaching. New York: The Megraw-Hill Companies. Fiechnter, L and Davis, M . 1991. Group worthy tasks : When four heads are better than one . Educational Leadership. Grabe and Stoler. 2002. Teaching Researching Reading. Malaysia: Pearson Education. Grellet, 1986. 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