Introduction to Research : Chapter 1

I. Introduction

1.1 Background

     Reading is an important thing in teaching-learning English. Reading, of course, is not only about how to read the text, but also how to comprehend the content of the text. Generally speaking, there are 2 activities in teaching-learning reading, 1) reading, and 2) post-reading activities.  But, there is one more activity that also often used by teachers in teaching reading, that is pre-reading activities

Pre-reading activities are some kinds of activities that are done before the reading process. These activities usually consist of question which is related to the content of the text that will be read next.  By pre-reading activities, students are expected to get an image of what they will read or learn from the text. According to Celce-Murcia (1991), the purposes of pre-reading activities are to activate the students’ knowledge of the subject, to give any language preparation that might be needed for coping with the passage, and finally to motivate the learners to want to read the text.

These activities, however, are not used by teachers in every class of reading. Some teachers use these activities first before begin the reading process. On the other hand, some teachers don’t use the pre-reading activities to start the reading process. They will read the text directly, then do what we called post-reading activities (some activities that are done after reading a text, such as giving question based on the text, retelling the content of the text, etc).  As told above, pre-reading activities have some benefits for students’ reading comprehension, such as giving an image of what they will learn from the text that they’ll read, activating the students’ knowledge of the materials, giving any language arrangement that might be needed for coping with the text, and then motivating the students to want to read the text.

Because of this fact, I think a research to investigate the comparison of the students’ reading comprehension between a class which uses pre-reading activities and a class which doesn’t use pre-reading activities before their reading process, is needed.

1.2 Research Question

     Is students’ reading comprehension of class which uses pre-reading activities better than students’      reading comprehension of class which doesn’t use pre-reading activities before the reading process ?

1.3 Hypothesis

The students’ reading comprehension of class which uses pre-reading activities is better than students’ reading comprehension of class which doesn’t use pre-reading activities before the reading process

1.4 Scope

      The scope of this research includes the reading comprehension of the 5th semester students of  English Department, Lambung Mangkurat University.

1.5 Significant

The main purpose of this research is to investigate how far pre-reading activities influence students’ reading comprehension. By the result of this research, the researcher wish it would give motivation to the teachers to use pre-reading activities in their reading class.

1.6 Operational Definition

1.6.1 Pre-reading activities are the activities to anticipate the content of a book or paper by scanning the table of contents, chapter headings and sub-headings, opening and closing paragraphs in each section and by looking for key words or phrases, summaries or conclusions (Wikipedia)

1.6.2 Pre-reading activities can also called as “enabling activities”, because they provide a reader with necessary background to organize activity and to comprehend the material --these experiences involve understanding the purpose for reading and building knowledge base necessary for dealing with the content and the structure of the material (Tudor, 1989). 

1.6.3 Reading comprehension is the act or fact of grasping the meaning, nature, importance and capacity to include what we read (online Oxford Dictionary)

1.6.4 Reading comprehension is understanding a text that is read, or the process of "constructing meaning" from a text. Comprehension is a "construction process" because it involves all of the elements of the reading process working together as a text is read to create a representation of the text in the reader's mind (Partnership for Reading, 2005)