4.1. Phrase 1: Diagnosing the Research topic
4.1.2. The result of the survey questionaire
After, analysing the result of the diagnostic test, the researcher decided to do a servey (APPENDIX 1) to have deeper understanding of students‟ opinion of the reading text in the currently-used text book, the reasons why students have poor reading comprehension performance, and their expectation of the supplementary reading materials.
4.1.2.1. The students’ opinions of the current text book for grade 10th students
Question 1 is to investigate the teachers‟ and students‟ evaluation on level of language difficulty, content and length of reading texts in the currently-used text book for year tenth students.
Table 2: The students’ opinions on level of difficulty, content and length of the reading texts in the textbook
Opinions on Students’ percentage
a.Level of difficulty +) too difficult
+) too easy +) relevant
77,5%
10%
12,5%
b. Content
+) interesting +) boring +) familiar +) unfamiliar
72,5%
0 % 72,5%
27,5%
30 c. Length of the reading texts
+) too long +) too short +) relevant
27,5%
10 % 62,5%
As illustrated in the above table, the majority of the students say that the current text book is not easy. 77, 5% of the students think that the reading text in the text book is too difficult.. Only 10 % of the students claim that the textbook is too easy. And the percentage students think that the text book is relevant to the students proficiency is 12,5%. The reason for various evaluations of students on the level of difficulty is that the students‟ language competence is different.
Also, when being asked to give evaluation on the content of the reading text, 72,5 % of the students claim that the textbook is interesting and familiar. 27,5 % of the students asked say that the content of the textbook is unfamiliar. It is noticeable that none of the students says that the content of the texts is boring.
In terms of length of the reading texts, 62,5% of the students‟ state that the length of the reading texts is relevant. The percentage of the students who propose that the reading texts are quite long is 25 %.
From above analysis, the researcher can come to conclusion that most students find the reading texts difficult but interesting and of appropriate length.
Table 4: Students’ opinions on reading exercises in the textbook.
Reading exercises Students „percentage (%)
a. of various types 42,5%
b. of few types 22,5%
c. very difficult 65%
d. very easy 7,5%
e. quite few exercises 10%
f. many exercises 57,5%
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As described in the table 4, the highest portion of students (65 %) is for the idea that reading exercises in the textbook are too difficult. Besides, 7,5% of the teachers answer that reading exercise are too easy. Similarly, only 7,5 % of the students find reading exercises too easy. When being asked to give comment on the types of exercises, 42,5% of the students think that reading exercises are of various types. Furthermore, 22,5% of the students support the idea that reading exercises are of a few types.
The table also shows that the percentage of students who answer that there are too many exercises for each reading text 57,5 % in contrast with 10% of the students say that they there are too few reading exercises for each reading text.
4.1.2.2. The reasons for students’ low level of reading comprehension 4.1.2.2.1 Students’ lack of regular reading practice outside the classtime Question 1 is designed to figure out whether students often do reading practice or not?
Table 2 : The frequency of doing reading practice outside the classtime Frequency of practicing
reading
Number of students Percentage
Very often 2 5%
Often 5 7,5%
Sometimes 10 25%
Rarely 23 57,5%
As illustrated in the above table, 23 out of 40 students (57,5%) said that they rarely do reading practice outside the classtime, which is a great number.
Meanwhile, only seven students said that they practice reading very often or often . Some other 10 students (25%) said that they sometimes do reading exercise outside the class.
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From the above statistics, the researcher can come to a conclusion that one of the reasons leading to her students‟ poor reading comprehension is the lack of practice.
4.1.2.2.2. Students’ lack of suitable reading materials
This question is designed with a view to finding out the reasons why students do not practice reading outside the classtime.
Table 3: Students’ lack of suitable reading materials The reasons for students’ lack of
reading practice
The number of the students
Percentage
Students don‟t like reading in a foreign language
30 75%
Students don‟t like the topic 5 7,5%
Students don‟t have time to practice reading
5 7,5%
Students don‟t have suitable reading materials to practice reading everyday
38 95%
From the above table, it is apparent that most students like the reading topic and they have time to practice reading at home. However, the ablove table illustrates that most of the students ( 75%) do not like reading in foreign language. And the most remarkable point is that most students (95% of the students ) said that they could not find suitable reading materials to practice reading outside the classtime.
4.1.2.3 Students’ expectation of the supplementary reading materials 4.1.2.3.1 Kinds of reading exercise in the text books that students prefer This question is designed in order to find out the types of exercises in reading tasks that students prfer doing so that the researcher can apply suitable types of exercises in the supplementary materials to improve their students‟ reading skill.
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Chart 1: The kinds of exercises that students prefer
Various types of exercises are mentioned in this question. The result in chart 3 show that most of the studetns choose multiple choice questions (40 out of 40 students and the second highest number belongs to true/false/no information because of the fact that these two types of exercises are familiar to them and especially, it is these exercises that can help them do better in their GCSE examination. It can be seen easily from the chart that four next types of exercises selected by the teachers are matching, gap-filling and completion exercises (27,25, and 20 students respectively). It is believed that with these exercises students can comprehend the reading texts thoroughly and enhance their reading ability remarkably. From the students‟ viewpoint, only there is a small number of students (15 students) like doing jumbled sentences/ jumbled paragraphs in their reading materials because of the fact that this kind of question is quite difficult for them to practice due to their low level of proficiency.
25
30
20
40
27
15
5 5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Matching True False No
information Gap
filling Multiple choise
Completed exercises
Jumped sentences
Summary writing
Others The number of
students
34 4.1.2.2.2 Kinds of the reading passage
Table 7: The students’ expectation of the supplementary reading materials
Options Students’ percentage
Reading passage of different topic 12,5%
Reading passage of related topic 90%
Reading passage of higher level of difficulty 2,5%
Reading passage with the same form of the
GCSE reading test 82,5%
Vocabulary exercises 37,5%
Vocabulary test 22,5%
Vocabulary games 0%
Reading skill practice 82,5%
Grammar exercises 10%
Grammar test 17,5%
Critical thinking questions 5%
Others 5%
As depicted in table 5, the highest percentage students, which account for 90% say that the supplementary materials should include a reading passage of related topic. Moreover, when asked about the types of exercises in supplementary materials, the students all say that there should be a reading passage with various type of exercises in the supplementary materials. In addition, 82 % students suggest that supplementary materials should be in the same form of the reading test in the GCSE test. Grammar exercises are suggested by 10% of the students. What can be seen clearly from the table is that 37,5 % of the students say vocabulary exercises should be used in the supplementary materials. One thing should be noted here is the vocabulary games and critical thinking questions are selected by 0% of the students. It is very easily understood that vocabulary games are not suggested by students as they do not have much time to deal with these types of exercise.
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Furthermore, critical thinking questions are too difficult for the students because of their low level of proficiency.