EXPLORING INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS’ METAFUNCTION COMPETENCE AND THEIR CRITICAL READING Indonesian EFL Journal, Volume 1 (1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427 EXPLORING INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS’ METAFUNCTION COMPETENCE AND THEIR CRITICAL READING Nani Ronsani Thamrin Department of English Education, University of Kuningan, IndonesiaEmail: nani_cute@yahoo.com Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Department of English Education University of Kuningan, IndonesiaEmail: prince_kafa@yahoo.com APA citation: Thamrin, N. R. & Maulana, J. A. (2015). Exploring the relationship between students’metafunction competence and their critical reading. Indonesian EFL Journal, 1(1), 70-80Received: 01-08-2014 Accepted: 11-10-2014 Published: 01-01-2015 Abstract: This study explores the relationship between students’ metafunction competenceand their critical reading. This study uses mixed method approach to discover deep andwhole comprehension of the research problem. The five undergraduate students who haveattended functional grammar class are purposively involved. This study shows that students’metafunction competence and their critical reading positively correlate. In the other words,the students’ metafunction competence develops their critical reading ability. It iscorresponding with the conclusion which is drawn by Bumela (2011) that the initialformation of meaning is also largely influences by reader’s expectations and backgroundknowledge. Hereby, students’ metafunction competence plays as students’ backgroundknowledge to recognise the features of the texts and identify the metafunctions of the textswhich is beneficial as the departure for critical reading. Keywords: students’ metafunction competence, critical reading. INTRODUCTIONThis study is intended to explore therelationship between students’ metafunctioncompetence and their critical reading. Itexamines the influence of students’metafunction competence level toward theircompetence to read the text critically. Inaddition, it also tries to discover thecorrelation of them. This study is inspired bythe works of Maulana in “Exploring theCritical Reading Sheet: A Tool for Students’Meaning Making Practice” (2014); andBumela’s work entitled “The MetafunctionsRevealed: EFL Learners’ Experience inMaking Sense of the Text” (2011). Maulana(2014) investigated the critical reading sheet(the list of guiding questions offered as aninstrument to analyse the text around thenotion of metafunctions – ideational,interpersonal, and textual) developed byEggins (1994), Knapp & Watkins (2005), Thompson (2004) and Wallace (2003) as atool for students meaning making practice. Hetried to reveal how the critical reading sheethelps EFL learners to make sense of the textas it offers them tool to generate deepcomprehension and interpretation of the text.The emphasis of his conclusion is that thecritical reading sheet gives them the ability torecognise the features of the texts andidentify the metafunctions of the texts.Therefore, it triggers EFL learners toapproach, make sense and read the textcritically.In addition, Bumela (2011) captured theEnglish as foreign language learners’experience in making sense of the text. Heemphasized that reading is a discursiveactivity which is influenced by the previoustextual experiences. The quality ofinterpretation is always affected by thebackground knowledge of readers, the ability 70 mailto:nani_cute@yahoo.com mailto:prince_kafa@yahoo.com Nani Ronsani Thamrin & Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Exploring Indonesian EFLLearners’ Metafunction Competence and Their Critical Reading in recognizing the features of the texts, and, ofcourse, the ability to identify themetafunctions of the texts. Critical readingmeans that a reader applies certain processes,models, questions, and theories that result inenhanced clarity and comprehension. Thereis more involvement both in effort andunderstanding in a critical reading than in amere skimming of the text. The importance ofcritical reading of the text to get at deepstructure, as proposed by LearningDevelopment at the University of Leicester(2009), is because during the research andwriting process, the author(s) will have mademany decisions and each of these decisions isa potential topic for examination and debate,rather than for blind acceptance. In addition,authors design the texts for specific audiences.Thus, readers need to be prepared to stepinto the academic debate and to make theirown evaluation of how much they are willingto accept what they read. Importantly, apractical starting point of critical reading,therefore, is to consider anything the readersread not as fact, but as the argument of thewriter. Taking this starting point, the readerswill be ready to engage with the text byzooming in and out, asking questions, andmaking decisions as they read the texts(Anderson, 2011).The aim of critical reading is not to findfault, but to assess the strength of theevidence and the argument. It may includethe context of idea, context of culture, andcontext of situation of the text production. Itis just as useful to conclude that a study, or anarticle, presents very strong evidence and awell-reasoned argument, as it is to identifythe studies or articles that are weak.Learning Development at the Universityof Leicester (2009) pointed that there are fivemost characteristic features of critical reading.Firstly, readers can examine the evidences orarguments presented. Secondly, readerscheck out any influences on the evidences orarguments. Thirdly, readers check out thelimitations of study design or focus. Fourthly,readers examine the interpretations made.Lastly, readers decide to what extent thereaders are prepared to accept the authors’arguments, opinions, or conclusions. Functional grammar reveals that everysingle text is grammaticalised in nature by thewriter/author to meet particular purposes(Bumela, 2011). Consequently, the text doesnot merely appear as it is, but it bears basedon the writer’s perspective toward thesubject matter, with its specific purposes andfor the specific audiences. In the other word,the construction of the text is politicized.Therefore, to become good readers, studentshave to possess good reading competence todiscover what appears and what lies behindthe texts.Functional grammar offers the studentsreading procedures to reveal themetafunction of the text designed to arm thestudents with competences to discover andcomprehend how grammar is used inparticular contexts and how grammaticalchoices are meaningful choices (Jones &Locke 2011). Those competences to revealthe metafunction of the text is what is calledstudents’ metafunction competence.The metafunction is three types ofmeanings simultaneously constructed withinthe text: (1) ideational meanings; (2)interpersonal meaning; (3) and textualmeaning (Eggins 1994; Gerot & Wignell 1994;Halliday 1985). The ideational metafunctionrefers to the function for construing humanexperience which is the means by whichreaders make sense of reality (Halliday,1985). It is what Eggins calls the carrier of thecontent of the talk. The analysis of a text fromthe perspective of the ideational metafunctioninvolves inquiring into the choices in thegrammatical system of transitivity includingprocess types, participant types, andcircumstances. Process types refers to thetypes of verbs used in the texts (material,relational, mental, behavioral, verbal,existential), participant refers to the name(s)of specific names or things as apparent in theclause, and circumstances commonly refersto specific places and times which occur inthe beginning or the end of the clause.The interpersonal metafunction relatesto a text's aspects of tenor or interactivity(O’Halloran, 2006). Like field, tenorcomprises three component areas includingthe speaker/writer persona, social distanceand relative social status (Coffin, 2006). 71 Indonesian EFL Journal, Volume 1 (1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427 Interpersonal metafunction is fundamentallyrealized through the system of mood andmodality. Mood refers to the forms of theclauses – declarative, interrogative,imperative –, while the modality refers to thedegree of commitment of the speaker/writerand hearer/reader towards the things he/shesays. The modal verbs such as must, can, andshould definitely depict different degrees ofobligation.The textual metafunction relates tomode that is the internal organisation andcommunicative nature of a text (O’Halloran,2006). This comprises textual interactivity,spontaneity and communicative distance(Coffin, 2006). The grammar of textualmeaning is chiefly realized within the theme-rheme system. Theme is what occurs in thebeginning of the clause. It is usually apparentin the Subject and Finite of the clause, whilerheme is what occurs after the theme. Areader needs to be completely aware of thetypes of themes constructed by the author sothat he/she can mark out the given/newinformation rooted in a clause (Bumela,2011). METHODThis study uses mixed method approachin which qualitative approach is used tounderstand and discover what lies behind thephenomenon while quantitative approach isto prove positive correlation betweenstudents’ metafunction competence and theircritical reading. The five respondents whohave attended functional grammar class fromEnglish Education Department students atUniversity of Kuningan, Indonesia, arepurposively chosen. The data source used totest students’ metafunction competence andtheir critical reading taken from thetranscripts of the two selected articles fromThe Jakarta Post entitled SBY asks Pertaminato review LPG price hike and Govt accused oflying over LPG price hike. The main reasonwhy newspaper articles are chosen is because,as Lehtonen (2000) put it, newspaperdescriptions of reality are always producedfrom a certain perspective.The data in this study gained throughtriangulation technique consisting of twotests and semi-structured interview. The first test is in form of text response designed tomeasure students’ metafunction competence.The second test in form of critical reading testaimed at measuring students’ critical readingand thus exploring the relationship betweenstudents’ metafunction competence and theircritical reading. Semi-structured interviewgiven to discover how students’ metafunctioncompetence helps them to read the textcritically. Descriptive analysis used todescribe the basic features of the data whilePearson Correlation is applied using SPSSStatistics to reveal the correlation betweenstudents’ metafunction competence and theircritical reading. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION Qualitative AnalysisThe five respondents possess differentcategory of metafunction competence whichcorrespondingly influence their criticalreading. It is represented by how theyaddress every single question provided in thecritical reading sheet traced in Figure 1.It can be seen from figure 1 that the fiverespondents possess different level ofmetafunction competence. #R1 and #R2 arecategorized into students who possess highcategory of metafunction competencealthough significantly they get unbalancedscores in which #R1 gets 90 while #R2 gets70. Generally, #R1 can identify and interpretevery single aspect of every metafunctioncompetence while #R2, in some occasions,are failed to interpret what the findings mean.Differently, #R3 and #R4 belong to thestudent with medium metafunctioncompetence. #R3 and #R4 mainly can identifyevery single aspect of every metafunctioncompetence but, unfortunately, they arefailed in interpreting the meaning lies behindit. #R5 has low metafunction competence.#R5 has the competence to identify aspect ofmetafunction competence but sometimes heis also failed to do it. In addition, #R5 cannotinterpret what the findings mean.As a matter of this study, therelationship between the students’metafunction competence and their criticalreading is the core discussion. To address thisobjective, the students are brought to answerthe following five guiding questions: (1) How 72 Nani Ronsani Thamrin & Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Exploring Indonesian EFLLearners’ Metafunction Competence and Their Critical Reading are the two titles constructed by the authors?(2) How are the events portrayed in the twoarticles? (3) How are the people representedin the articles? (4) How do the authorsevaluate the events depicted in the twoselected articles? and (5) How are the events concluded in the events? In responding thefive guiding questions, the five respondentsuse and reveal different category of criticalreading. It is represented by how theyaddress every guiding question recorded infigure 2. No Competence Score #R1 #R2 #R3 #R4 #R5 Ideational Metafunction Competence(Competence to reveal the writer's/speaker relationship to the subject matter. What the text is about. The languageused to talk about the world. Who did what to whom)1 Identifying and interpreting participants of the text 2 2 2 2 12 Identifying and interpreting processes of the text 2 1 1 1 13 Identifying and interpreting circumstances of the text 2 2 2 2 14 Identifying and interpreting causation of the text 1 1 1 0 0 Interpersonal Metafunction Competence(Competence to reveal how the writer indicates his/her relationship with the reader and what his/her attitude to thesubject matter of the text is, what parts of grammar can be identified as enablers of interaction and who is takingpart?)5 Identifying and interpreting person of the text 2 1 1 0 06 Identifying and interpreting mood of the text 2 2 2 2 17 Identifying and interpreting modality of the text 2 2 2 2 18 Identifying and interpreting appraisal of the text 1 0 0 0 0 Textual Metafunction Competence(Competence to reveal what role language is playing in the interaction, how the text is organized, what kind of text isbeing made, and what the channel of communication is)9 Identifying and interpreting theme of the text 2 2 1 1 110 Identifying and interpreting cohesion of the text 2 1 1 0 0 Total 18 14 13 10 6 Score 90 70 65 50 30 Percentage 90% 70% 65 % 50% 30% Category H igh H igh M ed iu m M ed iu m Low Figure 1. The students’ metafunction competence analysis No Characteristics of Critical Reading Score #R1 #R2 #R3 #R4 #R51 Readers examine the interpretations made. 2 1 1 1 02 Readers will examine the evidences or arguments presented. 2 1 1 1 13 Readers check out the limitations of study design or focus. 2 1 1 1 14 Readers check out any influences on the evidences or arguments. 1 1 1 0 05 Readers decide to what extent the readers are prepared to accept theauthors’ arguments, opinions, or conclusions. 1 2 1 1 1 Total 8 6 5 4 3 Score 80 60 50 40 30 Percentage 80% 60 % 50% 40 % 30% Category H igh M edium M edium M edium Low Figure 2: The students’ critical reading analysis 73 Indonesian EFL Journal, Volume 1 (1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427 It is seen from figure 2 that differentcategory of students’ metafunctioncompetence directly influences their criticalreading category. Figure 3 captures how therespondents address the first guidingquestion aimed at identifying whether therespondents read critically by taking a carefullook at the titles of the texts. As suggested byBumela (2011), a title can mean a lot as itdoes not only tell us the topic of the texts, butalso it leads us to trace the realm of meaningsof the texts.The responses given indicate whether ornot the five respondents can examine theinterpretations made by the author. Seeingcarefully to the two titles of the text, #R1 issuccessful to examine the interpretationmade by the author. #R1 sees that the twotitles are grammatically constructed. This isalong with Halliday theory (1985) that thetext is grammaticalised. If the second titleimplies how the government is blamed forLPG price hike, then the first title, reports how the government defense from publicopinion that LPG price hike is governmentpolicy, Interestingly, #R1 is the onlyrespondent who can reveal that the twoarticles are written by the same writer andsee the relation between the two articles bytaking careful attention on the time release.#R2, #R3, and #R4 seem unsuccessful inexamining the interpretation made by theauthor. #R2 actually evaluates theconstruction of the two titles butunfortunately there is no further explanationabout the judgment by providing any textualevidence. #R3 does the same thing. #R3makes her own judgment on the titles but it islack of elaboration. Similarly, #R4 canevaluate that the titles delivers someimportant information but she cannot revealwhat lies behind the two titles. #R5 justrewrites the two titles of the text. There isneither explanation about the interpretationmade by the author nor his own evaluation ofthe titles. #R Response on Text 1 Response on Text 2 #R1 The title is politicised. The writer supportspresident and gives positive view about presidentand government. The title seems to be political seen from the use ofwords “accused” and “lying over” indicating hiddenfacts and contrary arguments. The writer gives badimage for president. The second title is first in timerelease. But, what is more interesting is that thesearticles written by the same writer. #R2 The title is good and covers the content of thearticle. The title is constructed in the form that will bring us tothe pros and cons. #R3 The title is in declarative mood informing aparticular issue. The title tells how government is accused tomanipulate LPG price hike policy. #R4 The title tells about SBY who asks pertamina toreview LPG price hike. The title tells how government accused of lying overLPG price hike. #R5 The title is SBY asks pertamina to review LPGprice hike. The title is accused of lying over LPG price hike.Figure 3. Respondents’ responses on the first guiding questionHowever, the five respondents haveexamined the interpretation made by theauthor. Their responses can generally revealthe ideation of the text, what the text is about.In other words, they identify who does whatto whom in what circumstance. The onlyrespondent who seems failed in criticallyunderstand the title is #R5. He neitherprovides any examination toward the titlenor appropriate textual evidences.The students’ responses on the secondguiding question recorded in figure 4. The responses given indicate whether ornot the five respondents can examine theevidences or arguments presented by theauthor. #R1 attempts to examine theevidences or arguments presented by theauthor correctly. She can evaluate theportrayal of the events and identify the focusof interest or focus event in the two articles.#R2 writes that the events which become thefocus of interest in the first article is thegovernment (president SBY) asked pertaminato review LPG price hike and governmentgave the time to review it for about 24 hours. 74 Nani Ronsani Thamrin & Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Exploring Indonesian EFLLearners’ Metafunction Competence and Their Critical Reading While in responding to the second article, shewrites that the focus of interest is that thegovernment was being accused by the citizenabout LPG price hike. In this context, #R2seems successful to discover the portrayal ofthe events with no specific evaluation on howthe events are portrayed. In contrast, #R3tends to critically look at the portrayal of theevents. She sees that the first article isconstructed in the positive sense while the second one is in negative sense. The onlymissing point is that how the events areportrayed positively or negatively. There isno further explanation and textual evidence.#R4 and #R5 write that the events in the firstand second articles are chronologicallyportrayed. Unwillingly, there is noexplanation on the types of events describedin the articles. #R Response on Text 1 Response on Text 2 #R1 The events are chronologic and strong to support eachother. The president’s statements support tosuccessfully help government to defense and tackleblame from citizen. The events seem more realistic, because Bambangprovides and relates proof more logically. Itmakes the events portrayed clearly and logically. #R2 The government asked Pertamina to review LPG pricehike and they gave for about 24 hours to review it. The government was being accused by the citizen. #R3 The events are portrayed in the positive senses. The events are portrayed in the negative senses. #R4 The events are chronological. The events are chronological. #R5 The events are chronological. The events are chronological.Figure 4: Respondents’ Responses on the Second Guiding QuestionIt seems that the respondents canmainly examine the evidences or argumentspresented by the author correctly. This tendsto help them to reach critical comprehensionon how the text is constructed, whether thetext is coherent or not. Although in some cases, they still have not supported theirjudgment by sufficient explanation andtextual evidences.The students’ responses on the thirdguiding question traced in figure 5. #R Response on Text 1 Response on Text 2 #R1 The writer interprets the people in a positiveside. The writer interprets the government in a negative side. #R2 The writer provides good image of president. Bambang looks brave and great explaining lie ofpresident and government. #R3 The people or participants represented in thearticle were clear enough. SBY is as the majorparticipant. Bambang Soesatyo is the major participant; HattaRajasa and Jero Wacik are minor participant; and SBY isthe invisible participant. #R4 The article presents good image of government. The article presents bad image of government. #R5 The writer focuses on presidents and pertamina. The writer focuses on president, pertamina, HattaRajasa and Jero.Figure 5: Respondents’ responses on the third guiding questionThe responses given indicate whether ornot the five respondents can check out thelimitations of study design or focus. Itinvestigates what becomes the priority or thefocus. #R1 writes that the participant,especially the presidents, is describedpositively. The president is described as onewho is responsible for LPG price hike policy bytaking early action where the president asksPertamina to review the regulation. Incontrast, in responding to second article, heevaluates that president is guilty. He is described as the one who lies over LPG pricehike policy regarding pertamina is state-owned company. In this context, the writesquotes statements from Bambang as amember of the House of Representatives’Commission III overseeing legal affairs, withhis bravery and greatness to explain lie ofpresident and government over LPG price hike.#R2 and #R4 implies the same thing fromtheir responses. They argue that the focus ofthe first article is that the government is notguilty on the release of LPG price hike policy. 75 Indonesian EFL Journal, Volume 1 (1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427 Therefore, the presentation of the president ispositive. In contrast, they say that the focus ofthe second article is government lie over LPGprice hike policy. Therefore, the presentationof the government is negative. Unwillinglytheir arguments on the positive and negativedescription not explicitly described. #R3 canactually identifies who the main participant is.Unfortunately, the participant who becomesthe focus of interest itself is not described well.#R5 writes that, in the first article, the writerfocuses on presidents and pertamina. While in the second article, the writer focuses onpresident, pertamina, Hatta Rajasa and Jero.#R3 also can identify the focus of the twoarticles but unwillingly, the furtherexplanation is not explained.In conclusion, the five respondents havedifferent capacity to check out the limitationsof study design or focus. They mainly canidentify the focus, but seem failed to interprethow the focus is limited.The students’ responses on the fourthguiding question presented in figure 6. #R Response on Text 1 Response on Text 2 #R1 The writer looks wise and kind to describe president. The writer looks passionate to prove the lie andconspiration in the government. #R2 The author evaluates that the president is good. The author evaluates that the president is the onewho introduced LPG price hike, not Pertamina. #R3 The author evaluates that the president is not guilty. The author evaluates that the president is guilty. #R4 No response #R5 No responseFigure 6: Respondents’ responses on the fourth guiding questionThe responses indicate whether or notthe five respondents can check out anyinfluences on the evidences or arguments.This investigates how the author evaluate theevents (the focus of interest) depicted in thetwo selected articles. #R1 writes that for thefirst title, the writer looks wise and kind todescribe president. While for the second title,the writer looks passionate to prove the lieand conspiration made by the government.From this response, #R1 is rather focusing onthe whole idea of the articles to focusing onhow the author’s perspective influences theevidences or arguments presented in thearticles that should be taken care more. Inalmost same response #R2 and #R3 tend tocritically evaluates how the author’s perspective influences the evidences orarguments presented in the articles. They canidentify that in the first article the authorevaluates that the president is not guilty whichis in contrast to the second article.Unfortunately, they do not give any furtherexplanation and provide any textual evidence.In contrast, #R4 and #R5 give no response tothe fourth guiding questions. They seemconfused to identify how the author evaluatethe events depicted in the two selected articles.In brief, the five respondents tend to beconfused to check out any influences on theevidences or arguments. Only #R1, #R2 and#R3 who are almost able to do it.The students’ responses on the fifthguiding question recorded in figure 7: #R Response on Text 1 Response on Text 2 #R1 The writer concludes that the events can be solvedby consultation of many sides/people. The writer argues that the most important person todecide LPG price hike policy is president. #R2 The author concludes that a consultation with BPKand related ministers is needed. The author concludes that Hatta and Jero must haveconsulted with President Yudhoyono. #R3 Pertamina should review LPG price hike. Pertamina should classify the review of LPG pricehike to limit the misunderstanding between citizenand government. #R4 The writer concludes that Pertamina should reviewLPG price hike. The writer concludes that government lies over LPGprice hike. #R5 The author concludes that BPK also recommendedPertamina to increase the price of 12-kg LPG canistersto contain, or at least to reduce, its financial losses. The author concludes that A consultation with theBPK is needed.Figure 7: Respondents’ responses on the fifth guiding question 76 Nani Ronsani Thamrin & Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Exploring Indonesian EFLLearners’ Metafunction Competence and Their Critical Reading The responses recorded in the figure 7indicates whether or not the five respondentscan decide to what extent the readers areprepared to accept the authors’ arguments,opinions, or conclusions. In responding to thefifth guiding question, #R1 writes textualconclusion which is drawn by the author. It isunwillingly found that #R1 is unable to checkreaders’ readiness to accept the authors’arguments, opinions, or conclusions.Differently, #R2 writes that in the first article,the author concludes that a consultation withBPK and related ministers is needed to decideLPG price hike policy. In this text, the authorimplies that the author urges the reader tobelieve that government is not guiltyregarding LPG price hike policy. It is provenby government early action asking pertaminato soon review the policy. And in respondingto the second article, he argues that Hatta andJero must have consulted with PresidentYudhoyono deciding LPG price hike policy.Therefore, The author implies that readersshould assume that it is a lie if the presidentaccused of lying over LPG price hike sincePertamina is a state-owned company. Fromher responses, it can be drawn that #R2 hassuccessfully decided to what extent thereaders are prepared to accept the authors’arguments, opinions, or conclusions byexplaining the implication from the textualconclusion drawn by the author. #R3, #R4,and #R5 write textual conclusion which isdrawn by the author. It is similar to #R1 andunwillingly found that #R3, #R4 and #R5 areunable to check readers’ readiness to acceptthe authors’ arguments, opinions, orconclusions. In conclusion, the five respondents arestill confused to check readers’ readiness toaccept the authors’ arguments, opinions, orconclusions. Although they can generallyidentify the textual conclusion made by theauthor, they seem failed to reveal what itimplies for the readers.Semi-structured interview is conductedto reveal students’ perspective on howstudents’ metafunction competencecorresponds with their critical reading. Thefindings show that all respondents agree thatstudents’ metafunction competence helpthem to read critically. #R1, #R2 and #R3believe that students’ metafunctioncompetence can be the way or guidelines todevelop someone’s critical reading skill. It isbecause by learning functional grammar, notonly the meaning of words or sentences thatthey gets. They can get the text as a whole:the meaning, function and the structure of thetext. Similarly, #R3 argues that three systemsof metafunction including transitivity system,mood and modality and theme-rheme systemhelp her to read critically. #R5 argues thatshe can know the context of the text in awhole. It means that readers can know thepurpose of the writer and the reason why sheor he write a text. In conclusion, readers canbe more critical in reading a text. Quantitative AnalysisQuantitative analysis used to discoverthe correlation between students’metafunction competence and their criticalreading. Pearson correlation is applied usingSPSS Statistics to do the analysis. The resultof the analysis presented figure 8. Students’ Metafunction Competence Critical ReadingStudents’ MetafunctionCompetence Pearson Correlation 1 .977**Sig. (2-tailed) .004N 5 5CriticalReading Pearson Correlation .977** 1Sig. (2-tailed) .004N 5 5**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).Figure 8: Correlation between students’ metafunction competence and critical readingIt is found that the correlation betweenstudents’ metafunction competence and their critical reading is 0.997. It means that there isa correlation between students’ metafunction 77 Indonesian EFL Journal, Volume 1 (1) January 2015ISSN 2252-7427 competence and their critical reading. Sincethe output is positive and clearly greater than(>) 0.5, it also means that the more studentspossess metafunction competence, the morestudents can read critically. means thatstudents metafunction competence closelycorrelates with their critical reading.Secondly, the significance (2-tailed)gained from the test is 0,004. It is clearly lessthan (<) 0,01 supporting that students’metafunction competence and their criticalreading correlate. The correlation itself issignificant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Thesefindings suggest that increased levels ofstudents’ metafunction competence areassociated with their critical reading. Themetafunction competence tends to besignificantly associated with critical reading.In this context, students’ metafunction competence plays as their textualexperiences which determine their futuretextual experiences, including but not limitedto their critical reading. As suggested bySmith (2003) & Lehtonen (2000) that thecomplexity of readers to texts are not definedby the text itself, but also by readers’ ownposition: their entire resources of textual andnon-textual knowledge and experience. Relationship between students’ metafunction competence and their critical readingThe findings also discover that the threestrands of metafunction competencecorrespond with the characteristics of criticalreading. That is why the students’metafunction competence is positivelycorrelated with their critical reading. Thecorrespondence is presented in figure 9. Figure 9: The correspondence between students’ metafunction competence and their critical readingThe ideational metafunctioncompetence corresponds with one of thecharacteristics of critical reading that isreader examines the interpretations made bythe authors. Ideational metafunction, asstated by #R4, helps her to reveal who doeswhat to whom in what circumstance. Theknowledge to reveal the writer's/speaker relationship to the subject matter, what thetext is about and the language that is used totalk about the world becomes important toexamines the interpretations made by theauthors.The transitivity system which is used toreveal ideational metafunction competencedeals with participants, processes and Examining the evidences or arguments presented Checking out the limitations of study design or focus Metafunction Competence Critical Reading Ideational Metafunction Competence Interpersonal Metafunction Competence Textual Metafunction Competence Examining the interpretations made Checking out any influences on the evidences or arguments Deciding to what extent the readers are prepared to accept the authors’ arguments, opinions, or conclusions 78 Nani Ronsani Thamrin & Jaruki Andriansyah Maulana Exploring Indonesian EFLLearners’ Metafunction Competence and Their Critical Reading circumstances. Those three elements areconsiderably chosen. Therefore, a conclusioncan be drawn that the better studentpossesses ideational metafunctioncompetence, the better student reveals theinterpretation made by the authors.The interpersonal metafunctioncompetence corresponds with two of thecharacteristics of critical reading those arereader decides to what extent the readers areprepared to accept the authors’ arguments,opinions, or conclusions and checks out anyinfluences on the evidences or arguments.Basically, interpersonal metafunctioncompetence refers to the competence toreveal how the writer indicates his/herrelationship with the reader, what his/herattitude to the subject matter of the text is,and what parts of grammar can be identifiedas enablers of interaction.The competence to reveal how thewriter indicates his/her relationship with thereader makes the reader decide to whatextent he/she is prepared to accept theauthors’ arguments, opinions, or conclusions.Moreover, the student’s competence to revealthe author’s attitude to the subject matter ofthe text is and what parts of grammar can beidentified as enablers of interaction helphim/her to check out any influences on theevidences or arguments.The textual metafunction competencedeals with student’s competence to revealwhat role language is playing in theinteraction, how the text is organized, whatkind of text is being made and what thechannel of communication is. Thiscompetence corresponds with two of thecharacteristics of critical reading i.e. readerchecks out the limitations of study design orfocus, and examines the evidences orarguments presented.Theme-rheme system investigates thechoice of the theme and coherence of the text.Therefore, what this study shows is thatstudent’s competence to investigate thetheme of every single clause help him/her tocheck out the limitations of study design orfocus. In addition, student’s competence toidentify the coherence of the text also helpshim/her to examine the evidences orarguments presented in the text. CONCLUSIONWhat this study shows is that students’metafunction competence and their criticalreading correlate due to the significance thatis gained from the test (0,004) is less than (<)0,01. Moreover, it can be concluded thatstudents’ metafunction competence and theircritical reading correlate positively. It isproven by the correlation output (0.977)which is clearly greater than (>) 0,5. Thismeans that students metafunctioncompetence closely correlates with theircritical reading. Therefore, the more studentspossess metafunction competence, the morestudents can read critically. In the otherwords, students’ metafunction competencedevelops their critical reading ability. Thebetter student’s metafunction competence,the better student’s critical reading. It iscorresponding with the conclusion which isdrawn by Bumela (2011) that the initialformation of meaning is also largelyinfluenced by reader’s expectations andbackground knowledge. Hereby, students’metafunction competence plays asbackground knowledge of the students torecognise the features of the texts andidentify the metafunctions of the texts whichis beneficial as the departure for the criticalreading to discover what appears and whatlies behind the text. ReferencesAnderson, D. (2011). Write now. Chapel Hill: Longman.Bumela, L. (2011). The metafunctions revealed: EFLlearners‘ experience in making sense of the text. 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