LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 63 IMPROVING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN LEARNING READING COMPREHENSION OF NARRATIVE TEXTS THROUGH CONSTRUCTIVE READING MODEL (CRM) Ida Maenawati State Senior High School 7 Cirebon Email: idamaenawati@yahoo.com ABSTRACT This article is a report of an action research project conducted in reading class for Eleventh Year Students of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon in the Academic Year of 2012/2013. The objectives of this study are to describe: (1) the problems faced by the students in learning reading comprehension (2) how Constructive Reading Model is implemented (3) whether Constructive Reading Model improve students’ participation in learning reading comprehension . The result from the questionnaires and observation sheet showed that(1) the students did not actively participate in the process of teaching learning, (2) by using Constructive Reading Model students’ participation from pre-cycle to cycle 1 increased , from cycle 1 to cycle 2 increased, and (3) students’ score of reading comprehension from pre- cycle to cycle 1 increased 15.65 points, from cycle 1 to cycle 2 increased 11.59 points. So the study concluded that the implementation of Constructive Reading Model (1) could solve the problems faced by the students in learning reading comprehension (2) could improve students’ participation in the process of teaching learning and(3) could develop students’ reading comprehension mastery of the Eleventh Year Students of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon. Key words: Students’ Participation, Reading Model, Constructive Reading Model, Narrative Texts. INTRODUCTION: This part deal with background of the study, reasons for choosing the topic, statements of the problems, objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study and definition of terms. Reading is one of important skills that must be taught in school beside listening ,speaking and writing. It is as one of the language skills that takes a major place among the other language skills. Harmer (2007:99) stated that reading is useful for language acquisition because reading text provides students more or less understand what they read. The teaching and learning process of English from junior to Senior high school emphasized on the reading skill. It is also proved in English National examination, reading text takes the major test questions. However, reading is perhaps the most difficult language skill to teach in senior high school, because they do not participate actively in teaching learning 64 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 process, reading becomes the most boring class. To solve this problem, the teacher must think how to make students participate actively and how to find the appropriate approach, technique or model that is appropriate for her students so that they can folow the reading lesson enthusiastically, and can learn reading in an interesting, exciting and easy way. So, it is assumed that the most important issue which needs to be improved is participation of students in the process of teaching learning English. To fulfill this task, this study is intended to observe on improving students’ participation in comprehending of narrative text through “ Constructive Reading Model” for students of State Senior High school 7 Cirebon that might help them to learn in an easy way and eventually improve their reading ability. The facts show that the students still have difficulty in reading. The students do not have good participation to comprehend a reading text, they do the tasks given by the teacher lazily, they do not enthusiastic in teaching and learning process. In order to clarify the problem that will be investigated, the researcher has formulated the following research questions: (1) What problems are faced by students of the Eleventh Year of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon in learning reading comprehension of narrative texts by using Constructive Reading model? (2) How is Constructive Reading Model implemented in the teaching of reading of Narrative texts in the second year of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon? (3) Does Constructive Reading Model improve students’ participation in learning reading comprehension of narrative texts? In relation to the problem formulation, the main goal of this study is to find the answer to the questions above. Therefore the objectives of the research are as follow: (1) To describe the problems faced by the students of Senior High School 7 Cirebon in learning reading comprehension of narrative texts using Constructive Reading Model ; (2) To describe how Constructive Reading Model is implemented in the teaching of reading in second year of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon; (3) To describe whether Constructive Reading Model improve students’ participation in learning reading comprehension of narrative texts. The following are some of reading models that belong to Constructive Reading Models that inspire the researcher to implement in the class to help students comprehend a text and actively participate in teaching and learning process. They were created by some experts such as: a. Fountees & Pinnelle’s Model: they called their model as “Guided reading”, They propose the term “ Before, During ,and After Reading Activities”. This model help to drive the enthusiasm and joy of learning to read LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 65 b. Sharon Vaughan and Janette K. Klingner’s Model: they proposed a model which is called: Collaborative Strategic Reading model or CSR for short. This model consists of four strategies namely : preview, Click and clunk, main idea and wrap –up. The goal of this model are to improve reading comprehension and increase conceptual learning to maximize students involvement. c. Grage William and Fredericcka L. Stoller’s Model: Grabe & Stoller wrote a book, the title of their book is “Teaching and Researching Reading”. They stated that the models of reading is classified into two, they are Metaphorical and specific models of reading. In the Constructivist reading models only metaphorical is adopted. Those three reading models were modified to be Constructive Reading Model or CRM for short. The first unit of Constructive reading Model called background knowledge activation and stimulus is based on the activities in before reading activities (Fountes & Pinnelle), preview (Sharon & Klingner) and bottom- up (Grabe & Stoller) reading activity. The purpose is to assist students predict the content of the text they are going to read. The second unit is Comprehension. It is based on the during reading activity (Fountas & Pinnele), get the gist (Sharon & Klingner) and top-down (Grabe & Stoller) reading activity. This activity is used to help students comprehend the text. The third units in constructive Reading model is called enabling task is based on the after-reading activity (Fountas & pinnelle), click and clunk (Sharon & klingner) and interactive reading activity (Grabe & Stoller). In this unit the students are asked to review the linguistics aspects such as grammar and vocabulary. The forth unit of the constructive reading model (CRM) is based on: after reading activity (Fountas & Pinnelle) wrap-up (Sharon& Klingner) and interactive reading activity (Grabe and Stoller). In this unit the students are asked to write or to tell what they have read by following the questions provided by the teacher or by answering question words such as: what. when, where, why and how, or they have to remember what they have read by writing or telling a paragraph related to the topic freely. These above units are used to foster students in understanding text easily so that joyful learning situation is reached. RESEARCH METHODS The research design that was used was suggested by Kemmis and Mc. Tagart: Action Research consists of cycles, every cycle consists of four actions. They are planning, action, observation and reflection. Based on the method employed in this study, the nature of the data was qualitative quantitative. They were needed to answer the three research questions. The data needed to answer the first, second and the third questions. They were 66 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 taken from the result of questionnaires, the students’ tests and observation sheets in the on going process. 34 students of the eleventh grade Science 5 of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon in the academic year 2012/ 2013. The instruments that were needed in this research were questionnaires, field note /observation sheet, and tests. The explanation is the following: a. Questionnaire before the action: to know the problem in teaching learning process especially comprehending narrative texts and questionnaire after the action: to analyze learners’ feedback to CRM in its units. b. Observation sheet : to record events such as students’ participation in class. c. Tests consisted of try out test: to know the quality of the test empirically, test before the cycle, and test after the cycle. The research was carried out at the Eleventh Science Five Class students of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon . It had been begun in the first week of April and finished first week of May 2013.So, there were five weeks or ten meetings needed for conducting the research. The respondents met twice a week in a classroom, one meeting was forty five minutes times 2. For eight meetings , including one meeting for gaining the score of students’ reading comprehension before the cycles, six meetings for learning process, one meeting for gaining the score of students’ reading comprehension after the cycles, and the last weeks for filling in the questioners, after that the researcher analyzing quantitative and qualitative data then doing the next cycle Data were analyzed as follows: Tabulating the respondents opinions or answers on the questionnaires, scoring the test before the cycle and after the cycle, Finding out the gain score, tabulating and interpreting the observation sheet, interpreting and drawing the conclusions. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The description of initial condition were based on the questionnaire, the result of the questionnaires showed that students : a. did not actively participate in learning reading comprehension b. did not feel confident to answer teacher’s questions c. felt unsure with their answer in reading comprehension d. At times they thought they were not good at all in reading lessons. Description of the 1st and 2nd cycle Based on the problem found in the analysis, the researcher decided Constructive Reading Model to improve students’ participation in learning reading comprehension of narrative texts, the activities were described as follows: a. Planning: preparing a strategy, designing lesson plan, preparing teaching aid, test before & after the cycle LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 67 b. Action: the researcher implement activities in C R M, they were background knowledge of activation and comprehension activities for the first meeting; enabling task and wrap- up activities in the second meeting. c. Observation; to know the effect of CRM to improve students’ participation in learning reading , the researcher collaborated with some English teachers by using observation sheet, questionnaire and tests. d. Reflection: this phase was conducted to analyze the data Finding and discussion of the first cycle The first cycle consisted of two meetings that were conducted at April the 3 rd and the 8th. In those meeting the researcher had done observation and had some findings. They were: Students’ participation during the implementation CRM. A few of students had excellent participation, it means a few students demonstrated very active involvement, nearly a half of students had good participation, they contributed to well discussion, nearly a half of students had fair participation they did not give a lot of contribution in class interaction and a few of students had poor participation, they were present not disruptive but they did not involve in discussion. Students’ reading comprehension after the action. Average of students’ score in reading comprehension was 72.12 while before the action was 56.47. It means that students’ score after the action increased by 15.65 points. It was not significant yet, and it could not be said successful so it had to be continued in the second cycle. Result of questionnaires after the action. Before the action the average score of their participation in the process of teaching learning of reading comprehend- sion was 68.47 ,while the average score of their participation after the action was 80.11. It means that before the action the students did not actively participate in the process of teaching and learning while after the action it showed that their participation increased. After analyzing the 34 students the researcher found that all students agree that C R M gave much contribution to increase their participation in learning reading, they like to learn reading. They thought that CRM were attractive technique to improve reading skill. By using CRM, they could actively involve and could do the task cooperatively with their friends and teacher. Through activation of their background knowledge, they could answer questions easily and the activities made them proud of themselves. 68 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 Findings and discussion of cycle II Second cycle consisted of two meetings that were conducted at April the 26 th and the 30 th. In those meeting the researcher had done observation and had some findings. They were: Students’ reading comprehension before cycle. Students’ average score before the cycle was 73,5 only 18 students or a half of all students got above the minimum passing grade fulfillment, while the average score after the cycle was 83.71, so nearly all of students got their score above minimum passing grade fulfillment or 82 .35 % o Students’ participation after the action Nearly a half of students had excellent participation, it means that nearly a half of students demonstrated on going very active involvement. Nearly a half of had good participation, it means that they listened to his teacher and peers attentively, they contributed well to discussion. A few of students had fair participation, the students did not give a lot of contribution in class interaction and few of students had poor participation they had not demonstrate involvement in discussion with his peers or teacher. Findings from questionnaire Nearly all students stated that they like to learn reading through C R M, they thought that CRM were attractive technique to improve their reading skill, they could actively involve and did the task cooperatively with their friends and teacher, they felt confident to answer the exercises in comprehension activities, exercises in wrap-up activities made them involve actively and enjoy to make a summary of a paragraph, they could be more enthusiastic to learn . Discussion The criteria of successful proposed in this study had been accomplished, those were based on the findings towards students’ participation and students’ reading comprehension, To summarize the researcher made a simple illustration below which covered the success of the students’ achievement both in cycle 1 and cycle 2. Criteria of successful are as follow: (1) If nearly all of students had good/excellent participation. (2) If more than 75% students passed the passing grade fulfillment. (3) If the implementation of Constructive Reading Model could contribute the students’ participation. The summary are presented in the following figure: LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 69 The figure above means that the result of students’ participation during the teaching learning process from cycle 1 to cycle 2 increased by 48.51 points. It means that the implementation of Constructive reading model could improve students’ participation. The score of students reading comprehension from pre-cycle to cycle 1 increased by 15.65 points, from cycle 1 to cycle 2 increased by 11.59 points, it means that Constructive reading model contributed significantly to the improvement of the students’ reading comprehension of narrative texts. The result of students’ questionnaire from pre- cycle to cycle 1 increased by 11.64 points, from cycle 1 to cycle 2 increased by 7.06 points. It means that Constructive reading model contributed significantly to the improvement of the students’ participation. CONCLUSION This chapter presents conclusions and suggestions that are made in reference to the research findings and discussions. The learning process of grade X1 science 5 students of State Senior High School 7 Cirebon in learning reading had some problems. Based on the questionnaires the problem faced by the students were as follows: students did not actively participate in learning reading comprehension. They did not feel confident to answer questions, they felt hesitate or afraid of making mistakes to answer the questions. They could not express their view or opinion spontaneously in English lessons, they felt unprepared to answer the questions , they felt unsure with their answer , they felt bored with the tasks and activities , and at times they thought they were not good at all in reading lesson. To solve the problem above the researcher used Constructive Reading 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 Pre cycle Cycle 1 Cycle 2 Student's participation during the treatment Student's Participation Quaestionnaire Reading Comprehension 70 LANGUAGE CIRCLE Journal of Language and Literature Vol. VIII/1 October 2013 Model. It gave the students opportunity to have meaningful interaction to share and communicate their ideas or thought, so they can actively participate in the process of teaching learning. This was the appropriate technique that bring them to do the steps of learning reading. The students did the activities in group and individually, so they could do the tasks actively and confidently. Additionally, Constructive Reading Model implemented in this study contributed to the students in terms of their participation in the process of teaching learning and the students’ reading comprehension. This activities could be done both in speaking or writing tasks. So the students can both improve both in writing and speaking. The activities in Constructive Reading Model were able to encourage the students to be more active. Having the treatment of Constructive Reading Model to students of the Eleventh Year Senior High School 7 Cirebon, the writer would like to give some suggestions, especially to senior high school teachers: Teacher can apply the Constructive Reading Model in teaching reading comprehension; English teachers should use some strategies in teaching learning process in the classroom to improve the students’ participation and students’ reading comprehension; For other researcher, it is suggested to continue the action research by using Constructive teaching learning in teaching reading or in the teaching of other language skills such as writing, speaking and listening REFERENCES Brown H. Douglas, 2004, Language Assesment principles and classroom Practices, New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Fountas & Pinnelle 1996. Guided Reading. in Donna Kester Philips, Guided Reading: Constructivism in Action. (on line). Available: www.jpacte.org/2008.philips.pdf. 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