USING SCHEMA ACTIVATION STRATEGY TO IMPROVE READING COMPREHENSION OF GRADE 8B STUDENTS OF SMP N 1 SLEMAN IN THE FIRST SEMESTER OF 2013/2014

Abstrak / Ringkasan

This research is classified as an action research study. It is aimed at improving the reading comprehension of grade 8B students of SMP N 1 Sleman.
The research was carried out in two cycles, and each cycle consisted of two meetings. The researcher worked collaboratively with the English teacher as the collaborator. The subjects of the research were 30 students of 8B class of SMP N 1 Sleman in the academic year of 2013/2014. The data of the study were qualitative and quantitative in nature. The qualitative data were obtained by observing the teaching and learning process of reading during the implementation and interviewing the students and the English teacher as the collaborator. The data were in the form of field note, interview transcript, and photographs. Meanwhile, the quantitative data were obtained through assessing the students’ reading comprehension by conducting pretest and posttest. The data were in the forms of students’ reading scores in the pretest and posttest. The t - test was used for the analysis of the quantitative data.
The results of the two cycles showed that the use of Schema Activation Strategy is effective to improve the students’ reading comprehension. It is supported by qualitative data which show that the students were able to use their prior knowledge to understand the text. By following the steps in Schema Activation Strategy such as: building students’ interest and attention, accessing prior knowledge and exploring keywords, building connection between students’ prior knowledge and the new material, and comprehending the new material, the teaching and learning process of reading became interesting as the researcher used picture media and conducted vocabulary game. The students also felt at ease in understanding the text as the activities done in those four steps were able to accomodate them to relate their prior knowledge with the new knowledge in the text. Their vocabulary also improved. In addition, they were able to do smart guesssing. As the result, they were able to guess the meaning of difficult words without opening the dictionary. The findings were also supported by quantitative data. The mean of the students’ reading comprehension improves from 5.45 in the pretest to 6.73 in posttest I, and 7.82 in posttest II. Then the result of the t – test in pair 1 (pretest – posttest 1) is -13.056 (p<0.05) and the t – test in pair 2 (posttest 1 – posttest 2) is -10.014 (p<0.05). From the results above, it can be concluded that the use of Schema Activation Strategy can improve the students’ reading comprehension.

Topik Terkait

Sitasi