FINAL ASSIGNMENT
A STUDY ON
THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
By Flora
Debora Florist
Marsha
Divina
Pertra
Christian University, Indonesia
S U M M A R Y
This Journal is about the
research of EFL students’ reading skills. In this case the writer focused on
the investigation of the reading skills of ten-batch-2003-students studying at
an English Department of a private university in Surabaya. They were selected
because they have passed all levels of reading classes.
In
doing the data collection, the writers used some steps, they are:
ü The first
step was to analyze the kinds of reading skills which were taught. The result
lead the writer to focus on seventeen reading skills which were already taught,
namely:
1.
Scanning
2.
Skimming
3.
Improving reading speed
4.
Structural clues: morphology (word part)
5.
Structural clues: morphology (compound words)
6.
Inference from context
7.
Using a dictionary
8.
Interpreting pro-forms
9.
Interpreting elliptical expression
10.
Interpreting lexical cohesion
11.
Recognizing text organization
12.
Recognizing presupposition underlying the text
13.
Recognizing implications and making inference
14.
Predictions
15.
Distinguishing between fact and opinion
16.
Paraphrasing
17.
Summarizing
ü The second
step of the data collection was to develop two reading test. The tests were
designed in short answer type instead of multiple choices answer type to avoid
respondents’ guessing in doing the test.
ü The third
step was piloting the two reading tests. This steps was aimed to help the
writers to see wheter the two reading test had clear and good instruction and
items.
ü The next
step was to distribute the reading tests to the students who were chosen
randomly.
ü The final
step was to check and count the result of both reading tests. The rule was that
if the respondents’ answer were correct or in accordance with the answer keys
more than 75% the respondents got full mark, on the other hand if the
respondents got less than 75%, the respondents got zero.
From the
data analysis we can conclude that the higher the percentage meant the more difficult
that particular reading skill for the respondents. If the percentage was low,
it was assumed that the skill was easier for the respondents.
Here is the
result of the data analysis, the writers got that the most difficult reading
skill for these students was recognizing text organization (72.5%). According
to the writers it could be because many Indonesian students were not trained to
active recognizing text organization after they read a passage.
The second
most difficult reading skill was paraphrasing (65%). Perhaps it was because
thay had not fully understood the ideas of the original passage or sentence.
This
research was a small scale one, the findings discussed in this study showed
that each reading skill had different level of difficulty for the respondents.
May be the larger number of respondents could also be used to produce wider
result which could be used to make generalization.
COMMENTS ON
THE CONTENT
This
research was based on the seventeen reading skills which were already taught by
the respondents. The all seventeen reading that was tested are include in the
conventional ways of reading testing. Why did I say that things? Here is my opinion
supports.
v In the
second step of the data collection was to develop two reading tests. In developing
the tests, the writers used the following steps. First, they adopted two
reading texts entitled Learning to be Funny is No Joke and The Birth of Rock by
Marker and Lenier (1986) and Using the Creative Imagination and Power of the
Press by Talok (1992). On the other hand, the critical reading that popular
among the students nowadays mostly use the happening news taken from newspaper
or magazine article. The aimed of using the happening article is that students
can relates the article with their experience. This statement based on Huckin
(1997), who counsels teacher to consider students’ age and interests so that
the lesson will be more relevant to their experience and thus more profitable.
The critical
reading not only focus on the students’ comprehension of the text, that
measured by some questions related to the text, but also to help EFL readers
feel they have options in the way they choose to read the text and to help them
feel in a more equal relationship with the writer (Wallace 1992,80).
v A series of
question that contains seventeen skills tested to the respondents only took
short time just to measure their skills seem like they are in ‘unfair judgment’.
The test takers felt in underpressure condition, that obliged them to answer
all the questions in the limitation time provided by the researcher.
The critical
reading does differently from the concept of the test above. The critical
reading may takes more time because there are three processes that have to be
done by the readers. The important value that we will get from this long
processes is that students participate actively to study the text. Students not
only read the text then throw it away and do nothing after they finish read the
text, but further they will give their personal opinion to the text which will
improve their ability not only in the reading skills but also in another
skills.
v Finally we
know the reason why did the most difficult reading skill for these students was recognizing text organization. The researcher
said that perhaps it was because many Indonesian students were not trained to
activate recognizingtext organization after they read the passage. If we
concern on the advantages of critical reading, this problem that mostly faced
by the Indonesian students from the lowest level to the highest could be
solved. Because critical reading will train students to recognizing text
organization. This research just shows us the level of reading skills
difficulties, but they did not give us the solution.
THE BENEFIT OF THIS RESEARCH TO THE TEACHER
In my
opinion the benefit of this research are:
ü The main
benefit is that teacher know the level of reading skills difficulties faced by
the students in the test. By knowing the level of reading skills difficulties,
teacher could concern more to the most difficult reading skill by giving them
some solutions to solve the questions.
ü The other
benefit is that teacher further could find the best method to solve the
students problem in mastering the recognizing text organization skill. As a
teacher we can not force the students to master this difficult skill instantly,
but we have to help them to find the most appropriate method to make it
understandtable to the students.
ü As the test
designer, we also take an important role. After knowing the level of
difficulties faced by EFL University students in mastering reading skills, we
should realize that they are weak in certain reading skills. So that when we
design the test, we have to consider this problem.