An Analysis and Report on the Thesis EntitledIMPROVING STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT ON READING NARRATIVE TEXTS FOR THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF SMAK DIPONEGORO BLITAR THROUGH TBI (TASK BASED INSTRUCTION) BY ANDREAS

presented in the fulfillment of taken-home midterm

of Quantitative Research Methods taught by Dr. Gunadi Harry Sulistyo, M.A.

by:

Nur Alfa Rahmah

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MALANG

GRADUATE PROGRAM

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

December 2011

A. TitleThe title of this thesis is Improving Students Achievement on Reading Narrative Texts for the Second Year Students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar through TBI (Task Based Instruction). Reading this title is like reading an Indonesian title, only the words are in English. It is because the title is so Indonesian English in a sense that it might be translated literally from Indonesian title version. Therefore, if we view it through grammatical point of view, we will realize that it is grammatically improper. To make it clear, it should be changed into at least like this: Improving Narrative Text Reading Achievement of Second Year Students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar through TBI (Task Based Instruction).B. Formulation of Research ProblemsIn the background of the study, the researcher stated that this research is driven by the fact that there are still many students in SMAK Diponegoro Blitar facing difficulties during the reading of narrative text material which consequently causes their mark low in this particular subject. It did not conform to the minimum criteria of mastery learning or KKM (Kriteria Kelulusan Minimal) in SMAK Diponegoro Blitar in which 80% of the students in the class should get 75 for reading. Therefore, the researcher tried to give solution to this. He proposed TBI (Task Based Instruction) to solve the students problem. However, in the statement of the problems, he wrote as below:a. How can TBI method improve the process of teaching of reading for the second year students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar?

b. How can TBI method improve the reading achievement of the second year students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar?

This research focused on the improvement of reading achievement of the students in SMAK Diponegoro Blitar, not the improvement of the teaching reading process in the class. It is stated clearly in the second paragraph of the hypothesis: If TBI method is implemented in teaching reading, the achievement of the second year students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar will be improved. The following chapters in the thesis also did not mention about how the teaching of reading improved would be by TBI; it concerned mostly on the students progress and achievement. This is to say, ideally, that number (a) in the statement of the problems should be omitted because it is irrelevant with what the thesis mainly discussed. In addition, in the background of the study, the researcher did not give a strong reason why he chose TBI to solve the problem of low reading achievement of the students. He only quoted an experts opinion that TBI is specially designed instructional task will be useful to develop grammar and other dimension of communicative competence (Richards, 2002). After the statement, he jumped into the conclusion that Implicitly, TBI can be used as a method to improve the students achievement in reading, especially narrative text. There is some irrelevance between what is TBI specially designed for and why it used by the researcher to overcome low narrative reading achievement. TBI is designed for grammar and communicative competence while narrative text is somewhat a bit far from the two competences even though they are still in one area: English skills, ability, and proficiency. Therefore, the researcher should have elaborated further why TBI was used in this classroom action research. The adoption of experts statement should be strong enough to support or strengthen the foundation of problem formulation.C. Research Design

This thesis used descriptive qualitative research design. It adopted Classroom Action Research (CAR) spiral, the model proposed by Kemmis and Taggart (1988). It is spiral system, consisting of four components: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.

Action research is ideally done by collecting data or information systematically about daily practice and analyzing them to make decisions about practice which should be done in the future . However, in the identification of the problem, ways to collect data about daily practice are not sufficient. They were only two ways which the researcher had been through, which are (1) the observation on the reading ability scores in the reading test and (2) the result of interview between researcher and the English teacher about the teaching learning process in the reading class. Even though the teacher answered that the students got bad score because the students could not understand the material taught by the English teacher, the researcher should have not just come into conclusion that the technique usually used is not effective. The ineffective technique makes the students do not have good motivation to study. Because they are not motivated enough, the students get bad score. It is a jumping conclusion since the researcher had not asked the students opinions yet, either in a form of questionnaire or interview, whether they face difficulties in understanding materials, whether the teachers explanation is understood and interesting, and whether they have good motivation in learning English. Therefore, the conclusion derived from the two ways only is just somewhat too shallow to conclude that the teaching technique was ineffective and students are less motivated.The questionnaire asking students motivation only came after the identification of the problems, in the beginning of the first meeting of action scenario, which is already late since it should have come in the problem identification, and useless since it is not even used in the reflection part of cycle 1 nor in the problem identification part of cycle II.D. Population and Sample as well as the Sampling Techniques

This thesis mistakenly mentioned the objects of the research. It was stated that:The object of this research are lesson plans in the implementation of Task Based Instruction on Narrative text, the questionnaire of students motivation in learning English especially in reading narrative text, the process of the implementation of Task Based Instruction on Narrative text and the result of the implementation of Task Based Instruction on Narrative text.Actually, what the researcher meant by the objects of the research was the instruments and data analysis. Both lesson plan and questionnaire are instruments while process and result of the implementation of Task Based Instruction on Narrative text are data analysis and report.Furthermore, the thesis did not mention clearly the population and sample as well as the sampling techniques used to choose the objects of the research. There is no statement about how many students from the school were observed in the objects of the research part. E. Data TypesIn Data and Source of the Data part, the researcher does not mention clearly the data types, their sources, and how they are collected. It is only stated that:

The writer collects the data from the English teacher of the second year students of Social Department academic year 2009/2010 at SMAK Diponegoro Blitar. There are two kinds of data, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data includes students reading score. Qualitative data includes the students attitude, lesson plans, interest and motivation in learning English.The explanation above is incomplete. Data of this research is not only collected from the English teacher of 2nd year of IPS class 2009/2010, but also from the students. Reading score, attitude, interest, and motivation are variables, not date type. What should have been mentioned in this part are observation, interview, and questionnaire, which are the methods to collect data.

F. Instruments Used to Collect Data

In instruments sub-chapter, the researcher mentioned: observation, interview, questionnaire, documentation, and reading test. Ideally, observation, interview, and documentation should have come in data-type part because they are not instruments but methods to collect data. The researcher should have written interview sheet and observation sheet instead. For the documentation, he should have written the tool he used to document his data.

Questionnaire and reading test were correct; the reading test is clearly explained to have two kinds: pre-test and post-test. However, these two instruments did not cover all instruments used in the research. The suggested points above should be added to complete them both. Furthermore, lesson plans and students score should also be mentioned since the researcher used them too.G. Data Analysis

The researcher divided data analysis into two parts: quantitative and qualitative. For quantitative, the researcher analyzed three data he collected: questionnaire, lesson plan, and students score. To count the average of the students score, he used this formula: Total score

Mean = X 100%

Total sample of students

To analyze the qualitative data, the researcher uses the diagram below.

In Research Findings and Discussion chapter, the researcher uses the interview with the teacher and students score to come into conclusion that:1. Students have bad score in the reading of narrative text

2. Students motivation was very low

3. The teaching technique was ineffective

4. Ineffective teaching technique makes students less motivated

5. Being less motivated, students get bad score

There are somewhat gaps among these premises. The researcher just should not have easily interpreted that the teaching technique was ineffective only by looking at the students score without scientifically defining what is effective teaching like according to some experts. The researcher also should not have directly concluded that students have very low motivation in reading class especially narrative text reading only through their teachers statement. There should have been some data on the students confession about their motivation in that particular material. Even though finally the confession came in a form of questionnaire, it was too late and somewhat useless since it came in the action scenario part, not the identification of the problems. What is the use of the questionnaire then, if it had been concluded that the students have low motivation in narrative text reading? The researcher, in this case, is lucky because the questionnaire result showed that the conclusion was somehow true, that they were less motivated. If it was wrong, then his identification of problem is not relevant with the fact that occurred.Beyond all the mistakes in previous parts or chapters, the researcher gave a complete analysis and explanation on the data. He described the two cycles of classroom action in detail. He compared the result of pre-test and post-test very well so that we can know how big is the gap between the pre-test and post-test. He used the formula below to measure the mean of the students score:

Total Score

Mean = X 100%

Total sample of studentsBelow is the graphic of the students progress from pre-test to post-test 1:

Figure 10. The Students Score Progress

The researcher also describes the progress from post-test 1 to post-test 2 very clearly. He gave the graphic that compare each criterion of the students score classification or level. Below is the picture.

At the end, the researcher concludes that the Task-Based Instruction is effective to teach narrative text reading to students who are less motivated as the second year students of SMAK Diponegoro Blitar. He showed a complete comparison to describe each development of students score level from pre-test to post-test II in the following picture:

In conclusion, this thesis still need many revision especially from chapter I to chapter III because there are still a lot of unclear explanation and even mistaken concepts about classroom action research and research itself. The researcher should be able to distinguish between instruments, objects of research, and data collection method. The population, sample, and sampling technique also should be explained and elaborated clearly. CYCLE 1

Acting

Acting

Planning

Reflecting

Observing

Planning

Reflecting

CYCLE 2

Observing

Identification of Problem

CYCLE 3/etc

Collecting raw data

Reduction

Corpus data

Analyzing data

Result of data analysis