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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Research Background

Reading is considered necessary for the overall improvement of students

who are willing to enhance their language proficiency. Undeniably, reading is one

of the best ways to expand ones horizon and acquiring new knowledge. It is like

a window which opens access to the world. As for EFL students, reading is the

most important skill to master in order to ensure success not only in learning

English, but also in learning any context class where reading in English is

required. As emphasized by Ahmed (2016: 189) that by enhancing reading skill,

learners will make better improvement and progress in all other areas of learning.

Inevitably, one of the main pre-requisites to materialize success in foreign

language learning is to be a proficient reader, which is undeniably necessary for

EFL students. In addition, to be a proficient reader, EFL students should use a

variety of reading strategies. By utilizing reading strategies, EFL students will

ease their effort to understand texts they read which could lead to better

comprehension and eventually help them to become proficient readers.

However, EFL students might not be aware of their own reading strategies

which impede their progress to be proficient readers. In fact, the awareness of

reading strategies is extremely helpful for the improvement of EFL students

reading skills in English. As pointed out by Pressley and Afflerbach (1995) in

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Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002: 3) that the main difference between skilled and

unskilled readers are their awareness of the reading strategy use.

In order to gain prior information about the participansts regarding the

usage of reading strategies, an informal interview was conducted to ten students

of second semester of English Study Program of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak in the

academic year of 2016/2017. The results of the informal interview revealed that

most of the students did not realize that they actually implemented certain reading

strategies such as using dictionary to find the words meaning, and guessing the

words meaning from the context while reading academic texts. Instead, they

considered those strategies as part of their reading habits.

Additionally, when those strategies failed to help the students in

comprehending text, most of the students would just put aside what they read

without trying to figure out another way of making sense of what they read.

Surprisingly, when the researcher mentioned other reading strategies such as

underlining important key words to help them remember important information,

and paraphrasing the information using their own words, most of the students

answered that they rarely implemented those strategies in helping them

understanding what they read; moreover, they did not know that those acts were

also included as reading strategies. This lack of knowledge about reading

strategies were strengthened by the fact that most of the students believed that

their reading abilities were still low.

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However, despite the fact the students had limited knowledge about reading

strategies, they also agreed that those reading strategies they mistakenly

considered as reading habits were extremely helpful in assisting them

understanding what they read. Furthermore, when the researcher gave them

opportunity to ask several questions, most of the students basically addressed

similar question which was, what are other reading strategies we can use to

improve our reading ability and comprehension? This question indicated that the

students were interested to know more about other reading strategies they might

not realize they had been using while reading

The awareness of reading strategies by Auerbah and Paxton (1997) and

Carell, et al. (1988) cited by Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002: 3) is known as

metacognitive awareness or metacognitive control. This awareness is highly

crucial to the improvement of EFL students reading skills. Moreover, it was found

that students reading ability was related to their awareness of reading strategies

where low ability readers had a lower level of awareness of strategy use, and vice

versa (Mokhtari and Sheorey, 2001: 16).

Based on the explanation above, the researcher believed that the second

semester students are not aware of their reading strategy usage which might

impede their progress to be proficient readers. However, the results of the

informal intervew which revealed that the phenomenon of unawareness of reading

strategies did occur among the second semester students were not strong enough

to generalize that all the second semester are not aware of their reading strategies.
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Therefore, conducting a further study is needed to describe the usage of reading

strategies by the second semester students.

Another important issue that has received little attention in reading strategy

use is gender differences (differences between male and female students in using

reading strategies) among EFL students which is still relatively rare. There is still

a gap in our knowledge about the differences betwen male and female in terms of

their reading strategy use, especially at the university level. Moreover, questions

still exist pertaining to whether or not males and females students significantly

differ in terms of the type of reading strategies they use and the frequency with

which they use them (Poole, 2005: 8).

Therefore, it should be noted that exploring gender differences in terms of

reading strategy use is paramount important, because it could help teachers or

lecturers to find ways to maximize students reading ability and hence their

comprehension (Ahmad, 2015: 16).

IKIP-PGRI Pontianak is one of the educational institutions in Kalimantan

Barat which facilitates the students who are choosing English as their major to be

professional English teachers after they graduated. It is expected that the students

also will have sufficient knowedge and skills among four skills (reading, writing,

speaking, and listening) in English language; before, they become English

teachers.

Additionally, since English language is considered as a foreign language in

Indonesia, the students of English Study Program of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak can be

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categorized as EFL (English as foreign language) students, specifically EFL pre-

service teachers.

Previous studies on reading strategy use have been focusing on researching

EFL and ESL students who are not categorized as EFL pre-service teachers

(Sheorey and Mokhtari, 2001; Sari, 2011; Mamoudi, 2014; and Dundar, 2016).

Therefore, focusing on EFL pre-service teachers hopefully will be able to provide

valuable information regarding reading strategy use.

Finally, considering the impact of the awareness of reading strategy use

which can enhance EFL students reading ability and comprehension, and the fact

the gender differences in using reading strategies also need to be further

investigated, as well as to prove whether the assumption that the second semester

students are not aware of their reading strategies is scientifically true, the

researcher is interested to carry out a study entitled, An analysis on Reading

Strategies based on Metacognitive Awareness and Gender (A Descriptive

Research to the Second Semester Students of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak in the

Academic Year of 2016/2017).

B. Research Questions

Based on the background of this study, the following research questions

were formulated:

1. What type of reading strategies is used by the second semester students of

English Study Program of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak when reading academic

materials?
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2. What are the most dominant strategies used by each male and female

students in using reading strategies by the second semester students of

English Study Program of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak in the academic year of

2016/2017?

C. Research Purposes

As the research questions formulated above, the research purposes of this

study were aimed to find out:

1. The type of reading strategies used by the second semester students of

English Study Program of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak when reading academic

materials.

2. The most dominant reading strategies used used by each male and female

students by the second semester students of English Study Program of IKIP-

PGRI Pontianak in the academic year of 2016/2017.

D. Significance of the Research

The present research would benefit toward the following aspects:

1. Theoretical Benefits

Since previous research on reading strategies viewed from metacognitive

awareness and gender rarely select EFL pre-service teachers as the subject of

the research, the present study provided new knowledge and information in

the context of reading strategies research by focusing on EFL pre-service

teachers as the participants in this research.

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2. Practical Benefits

a. To Participants of the Study

The findings of this study would be valuable information for the

participants for two reasons. First, the participants would be able to know

their level of awareness of reading strategy which later they could

improve. Second, the participants would be able recognize their own

reading strategies when they read academic texts which in turn could be

used and adapted in various situations to get better reading ability and

understanding.

b. To Lecturers/Teachers

The results of the present study would provide valuable information

regarding students reading strategy usage which help lecturers or teachers

to recognize the characteristics of the students. In this case, the researcher

considered that reading strategies of the students are one of the

characteristics the lecturers need to know about the students.

c. To Researcher

The result of this study later could be explored and investigated by

the researcher with different research variables in order to gain full

understanding about reading strategies of college students. Moreover, the

researcher believes that the finding of this study would contribute to the

existing theories particularly, in reading strategies.

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E. Scope of Research

1. Research Variable

A variable is a characteristic or attribute that varies (Lodico et al., 2010:

24). In addition, Creswell (2012: 112) states that, a variable is a characteristic

or attribute of an individual or an organization that the researchers can

measure or observe and varies among individuals or organization studied. In

the other words, variable can be considered as objects or subjects that posses

varied characteristics which can be measured and observed by researchers.

In this present study, one single variable is set, that is reading strategies

used by second semester students of IKIP-PGRI Pontianak in the academic

year of 2016/2017 while reading academic materials.

2. Terminologies

The researcher provides the following brief explanations of several terms

which are used in this study in order to avoid misinterpretation. The terms are

as follows:

a. Reading strategies

Reading strategies can be defined as strategies which readers use to

help them comprehend texts they are reading.

b. Metacognitive awareness

Metacognitive awareness is learners awareness of how they read

and how they use strategies to accomplish reading task.

c. Gender

Gender refers to a persons self-representation as a male or female.