Teaching English Using Edmodo

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPETENCE

USING EDMODO POSTING

(A Classroom Action Research at Grade IXD SMP Negeri 17 Surakarta       in 2012/ 2013 Academic Year)

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A.    Background of the Study

      English has played an important role in the world as a means of international communication. Crystal (in McKay, 2000:7) says that English is rapidly assuming in the role of a world language and no other languages have spread along the world extensively, making English a truly international language. Besides it has become a global language that is used by most communities in the world. Many countries use English as official or foreign languages, as stated by Crystal (2003:19):

“Of course English is a global language, they would say. You hear it on television spoken by politicians from all over the world. Wherever you travel, you see English signs and advertisements. Whenever you enter a hotel or restaurant in a foreign city, they will understand English, and there will be an English menu.”

As an  international language, English is spoken in many countries both as a native and as a second or foreign language. It is taught in the schools in almost every country on this earth. It is a living and vibrant language spoken by over 300 million people as their native language. Millions more speak it as an additional language (Thirumalai, 2002:3). They study the language because it plays a very important role in almost all fields of life such as: communication, commerce, economy, politics, education, science, technology and so on.

           The fact that English becomes one of the most important international languages for communication has been acknowledged by the Indonesian government; therefore, the government, particularly through Department of National Education (Diknas), has recommended English as compulsory subject in since the students are in the Junior High School until the University. The purpose of teaching English in the schools has been to develop the student’s communicative competence that would help them to communicate in English in higher education as well as in their future jobs or employments. Thus, Indonesian government admitted the important role of English to accelerate the process of state and nation development.

            In general the aim of teaching English as the foreign language is that the students achieve the four language skills namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Those skills are integrated and have to be taught to the students in order that they are able to master English well. According to Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan 2006 (KTSP,2006:278) the aim of the English teaching in Indonesia especially teaching English to junior high school is to enable students to have the ability in developing communicative competence in both oral and written form in achieving functional literacy level, to have the awareness about the essence and the important of English in increasing competition in global community, and the last is developing the students’ comprehension about interrelatedness between language and culture. With regard to this, the curriculum ( Kurikulum, 2003:2) states,

“pada tingkat functional orang  diharapkan dapat menggunakan bahasa untuk  memenuhi kebutuhan hidup sehari-hari seperti membaca bagian surat kabar  yang diminati, membaca manual; Dalam kurikulum ini, lulusan  SMP  ditargetkan untuk dapat mencapai tingkat functional untuk tujuan komunikasi “survival”,

Nowadays, literacy becomes a part of people's life. Almost every detail of people's life deals with literacy; when reading a book, when getting information from the internet, when reading a manual, and so on. Such activities, in which reading and writing are involved, are called 'literacy event' (Barton, 1994 in Cameron, 2001). Therefore, since literacy events become the heart of people's life, at least the skill of reading has to be mastered.

            Reading deals with written language which is different from spoken language. Therefore, the skill of reading cannot be acquired by nature as speaking or listening skill. The statement is in line with Cameron (2001) who said that literacy skills (reading and writing) require individual's specific skills and knowledge about how written language operates in text.

            Reading is one of the language skills that needed taught in language classroom. Students need to be able to read texts in English either for their carriers, for study, or simply for pleasure. Reading is also plays an important role in language acquisition. When students are provided with comprehensible linguistic inputs, some of the language will stick in their minds as part of the language acquisition process. When reading texts are very interesting and engaging the acquisition process will be successful. According to Harmer (Fauziati:32) reading text provides opportunities for students to learn vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and even good models for English writing – the way sentences, paragraphs, or texts are constructed. Last but not least, reading texts can introduce interesting topics and stimulate discussion. (Harmer, 2005;68). Reading skill also is one of the ways to make people able to share ideas, opinions, or arguments on what they see, feel and think and to express them into such a good communication. Hence, reading is one of the four English skills that become the standard competency of curriculum the teacher must design teaching and learning activities to explore students' skill in reading in order to obtain instructional purpose.

            Based on the English curriculum, reading skill is to understand the meaning in various types of written interactional and monolog text. Two types of the texts which are taught in the ninth grade of junior high  school are genre  and short functional text which the genre text covers descriptive text, procedure text, recount text, narrative text, and report text; meanwhile for the short functional are notice, greeting card, short message, invitation card, schedule, announcement, advertisement, e-mail, and letter.

            In the process of teaching reading texts at SMPN 17 Surakarta, there are some obstacles faced by the students.  Based on problems observed from the reading class situation were:  (1) They looked bored to learn reading text (2) Students prefer talking to each other to read English text. When they were asked to do the task, they preferred talking their own business to doing task, (3) when they were asked to work in group there was not learning community in the group. Only the clever did the task. When the teacher asked them to answer reading questions, they were depending on English dictionary. (4) They did something which did not have relationship with the teaching learning process. Some students did not focus on learning English. (5). Most students were still supposed that they did not know how to understand reading text well. Those problems always arose and the result of this condition caused the student’s reading competence wasnot satisfactory. It can be seen from the pre-test. There are 27 students of IX D   who have got scores more than 72 only  5 students or 18.5 % and for those who got less than 7,0 are 22 students or 81.5%.  Besides the average score of the students in final examination in the first semester was only 62. It means they have not reached student’s KKM, 72.  It also was found that the students still get difficulties in grasping the content of the text, understanding the purpose of the text or finding the main ideas of any paragraph of the reading materials.

            There are several causes that make students' ability in reading low. First, students are less motivated in reading. Second, most of the students think that reading is difficult, since they do not have enough vocabulary. Third, the students rarely use their prior knowledge of the previous experience. Cadena (2006: 35) says that the students read the text without their background knowledge. It makes the students have no interaction with the text. Student's background knowledge actually influences their reading comprehension. In addition to their teacher sometimes lets their students work alone with their limited knowledge without giving attention to students' thorough comprehension. On the other hand, as a matter of fact, the cornerstone of being successful in schooling is learning to read proficiently (Wilson &Trainin, 2007, p. 257 as cited by Westwood, 2008). Westwood states that most students do not accomplish this basic skill well.

            While the qualitatively difficulties that I got from interviewing some of the students. The researcher interviewed 9 students of each groups of reading class, most of them stated that they have problem to understand the vocabularies of English text, while  of they said that actually they enjoyed reading English texts but they got difficulties to grasp it because of rarely reading at home, and the students also stated that English text is very difficult to read it, because of their still limited vocabularies, not knowing the communicative purpose of the text, still confused to find implicit information, lack of motivation, not having good media to support them to master reading skill except almost of them still using dictionaries. However, they still have high motivation to improve their weaknesses. Mostly, I observed that they wanted to be better in achieving English reading competence. It can be seen when they are able to mention the kind of English genre and short functional texts that should be learned at school.

            In this case, interest becomes a crucial factor in deciding on teaching learning activities for the students. So, the teacher should be able to apply the right technique and approach which can increase the students’ interest to the learning process in the classroom. In other words, the technique and approach used by the teacher in teaching English to the students should be able to create an interesting atmosphere so that the students will be enthusiastic to the learning process.  The teacher should be able discover various material, teaching media and strategy, which are appropriate with to the students and teacher’s belief. The teacher must believe strongly that what he gives to their students will be on the students’ need. His teaching style and strategy are appropriate with his students and will enforce them to join. Therefore, he should employ an interesting strategy for them so they do not feel reluctant to join reading class.

            After learning the problems and causes above, I intend to make a better condition in teaching and learning process on improving students’ reading by applying utilizing internet based as a teaching media. There are several features of internet-based technology  which is able to be intergrated in teaching and learning process. One of them is a social education network which is called Edmodo. Thongmank (2013) stated that Edmodo is a private social network that is claimed to provide a secure learning platform for learners and educators. According to Majid (2011) the interface of Edmodo looks like Facebook so that new user who has used Facebook will be familiar with it. Majid (2011) ,then, mentioned that Edmodo provide also authentic reading by letting students join many kinds of communities which provide discussion among students, tips, and materials.  Student can communicate with other other students all over the world and talking about various any kinds of topic, including their culture.

            The use of Edmodo in language teaching enables the teacher to create new situation in teaching and learning process. It is possible to encourage the students’ motivation. Technology encourages the students’ eagerness to use it. Ramachaudran (2004) adds that using new forms of technologies in the language class will certainly encourage and motivate learners to use the target language. Monalisa (2013) mentioned that Edmodo is very useful in facilitating teaching - learning activities, because it can encourage social interaction, whereas student can interact directly with teacher through "wall" Edmodo, so that they are not afraid to express even to share their ideas, opinion without being blaming. Teacher as an educational practitioner should not judge students in true - false opinion, but she/he has to open direct discussion forum in Edmodo. Instead the fascinating layout itself, Edmodo has file storage for teacher and also student (see "library"), they do not need to be afraid if their document are seen by other students. All assignment and examination cannot be accessed by those students who are not register in Edmodo. 

            The usage of Edmodo also encourages students’ learning independence. In this case, every student has an account on Edmodo. It enables them to arrange the contents they would like to learn. Obviously that Edmodo can be implemented in English teaching in SMPN 17 Surakarta. It overcomes the teacher’s problem creating relax situation of learning. Furthermore the use of Edmodo enables a teacher create group discussion, which encourages learning community. The situation of English teaching becomes fun. It means that the strategy of the teaching can attract students’ interest. And it is hoped the achievement of students’ reading will improve.

            The use of Edmodo as teaching tool in improving students’ reading competence dealing with genre text and the short functional text which will be tested in the National Test later was done by creating a certain group with one code. Nowadays, Edmodo can also support English teaching, especially for reading class. Students can be given reading materials in several ways. Teacher can just share a link or paste a text to the note just like what can be done in Facebook. However, Edmodo has another better way of doing it. Teachers can attach a file when they update a status so that the reading materials come in the form of .txt, .doc, or .pdf. Students then can download or preview it and post responses to enrich their comprehension. Edmodo provide also authentic reading by letting students join many kinds of communities which provide discussions among students, tips, and materials. Students can communicate with other students all over the world and talking about various kinds of topic, including their culture. Based on the previous ideas the researcher believes that Edmodo will attract student’s interest and motivation so they can comprehend the text easily for it is an extraordinary aid, which is never used before in SMP N 17 Surakarta.

            Finally, considering the characteristics of Edmodo, the students’ reading competence and the situation of reading class, I have a strong belief that implementing Edmodo posting can improve the students’ reading skill.

A.    The Problem Statement

            To make the problems clearer, the problems of this study are formulated as follows:

1.   Can Edmodo posting improve the students’ reading competence? If     yes, to what extend is its improvement?

2.   What are the difficulties of implementing Edmodo posting in    teaching reading?

B.    The Aims of the Study

            The objectives that will be achieved in this study are:

a.        To describe in detail whether Edmodo posting can improve the students’ competence in reading.

b.       To identify what are the difficulties of implementing Edmodo posting in teaching reading?

C.    The Benefits of the Study

            Hopefully the  result of the study will be able to give some benefits for me as an  teacher who teaches English at Junior High School especially at SMP Negeri 17 Surakarta, because the teacher can get description about how to use the teaching media in teaching English effectively to Junior High School students in which it should be suited to their characteristics. Besides, it can lead him/her how to create an interesting and comforting atmosphere in the classroom so that the students will not feel bored to join the learning activity. In addition, their motivation to master English reading competence will increase.

            Meanwhile, the benefits for the students, it can serve them the more comforting and interesting situation inside the classroom so that they will be more interested to join the class. Dealing with their English reading competence in learning English, they will get easier to master it by using social media, Edmodo, and they will be able to increase their English achievement especially in English reading. 

While, the benefits for readers, it  probably  will be  used as the reference for those who want to conduct a research in English teaching process, especially   in  improving  the students’ English  reading  competence. At least, it can be used as a contribution or only a large knowledge in English teaching process. Finally, I  hope so much that the other researchers can utilize the result of the study on bigger scope for a similar research.