Improving Reading Comprehension on Descriptive Text of the Second Grade Students of Mts Nu Slorok-Garum through the Savi Approach

By Siti Rofi'ah

English is one of the important languages, because English is international language. In Indonesia, English is one of subject taught in school, from the lowest grade, kindergarten to highest levels. There are four Basic English skills that all should mastered by students. One of them is reading. Reading is a receptive skill in which the reader point meaning from the discourse or any written material they see or hear and actively respond it (Harmer, 1991). For example how many times we smile or laugh, not share our head, even shed or tears when we read a novel. As Heilman (1981) points out, reading is a language process requiring the understanding of written language. The understanding can be said as comprehension.

         Reading should be paid more attention. Baradja (1990) says that in Indonesia where English is taught as a foreign language, the teaching and learning of reading is particularly important. Learners are expected to read a lot if they are really serious in their effort to master English well. Nunan (1991) explains that reading is as one of the four skills that are essential for language learners in the school context by considering that: reading is a source of information and pleasurable activities; and reading is means of consolidating and extending students’ knowledge of the language.

         Reading comprehension is also important in achieving the minimum standard score of the National Final Test in SMP/MTs because there are a lot of texts that students must understand to answer the questions well. By reading comprehension, the students will get basic skills on how to understand the English text.

   Comprehension is the process of deriving meaning from connected text. It   involves word knowledge (vocabulary) as well as thinking and reasoning. Therefore, comprehension is not a passive process, but an active one. The reader actively engages with the text to construct meaning. This active engagement includes making use of prior knowledge. It involves drawing inferences from the words and expressions that a writer uses to communicate information, ideas and viewpoint (Pang, Muaka, Benhardt, Kamil 2002, p. 14)

         To get a success in English education, the government makes serious efforts to improve teaching learning English. The government makes some policies to do innovation in educational curriculum. Besides, the teacher hoped to be able to transfer all of the English material maximally. This action expected in order that the students can understand English well to reach the purpose of education based on KTSP 2006.

         But in fact, the result of teaching English is still unsatisfactory. We can see from the school that wants to do the research from the writer. Based on the data from students the pre-test on descriptive texts consisting of ten essay questions of  the second grade students of MTs NU Slorok, students get low scores especially in reading comprehension. The data of 24 students of the second grade MTs NU Slorok, there were 16 students who got low scores. The low scores in this criterion is the scores were under 70 (minimum standard score for English subject which applied in MTs NU Slorok). It means that 67% students did not reach the minimum standard score. 

            After the teacher doing the investigation by interviewing and asking why the students get bad scores, students replied that they considered English is a difficult subject and it becomes one of the subjects that is disliked. Students get many problems to understand the lesson well and were still confused on how to study English well. So, it made them lazy to study English. They feel bored, did not pay attention to the teacher’s explanation and cannot understand the lesson well.

         Based on that situation, the important thing for the English teacher is to motivate the student’s attention to stimulate their interest to learn English. Because of that, all the teachers of English Language have to apply the better and innovative method to create an active class in studying English. SAVI is one of accelerated theory types, is the suitable teaching approach to apply because it teaches students to cooperate with other students in solving their problem and motivates them to deepen in understanding their lesson.(Meier, 2000). Furthermore, it teaches them to compete in their achievement both in groups and individually. So, teachers and students can realize their goal of study.

The components of SAVI approach according to Dave Meier (2000) combines the different kinds of intelligences and learning styles. They are:  somatic: learning by moving and doing; auditory: learning by talking and hearing, visual : learning by observing and picturing and intellectual: learning by problem solving and reflecting. All four of these learning modes have to be present for optimal learning to occur. Since these elements are all integrated, the best kind of learning occurs when they are all use simultaneously. Therefore, by using SAVI approach, the researcher believes that she could improve the students’ comprehension of descriptive text.