A STUDY ON THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
By Flora Debora Florist
Marsha Divina
Pertra Christian University, Indonesia
SUMMARY
This Journal is about the research of EFL students’ reading skills. In this case the writer focused on the investigation of the reading skills of ten-batch-2003-students studying at an English Department of a private university in Surabaya. They were selected because they have passed all levels of reading classes.
The writers used some types of data collection that is implemented in that university. Those are :
The first step was to analyze the kinds of reading skills which were taught. The result lead the writer to focus on seventeen reading skills which were already taught, namely:
1. Scanning
2. Skimming
3. Improving reading speed
4. Structural clues: morphology (word part)
5. Structural clues: morphology (compound words)
6. Inference from context
7. Using a dictionary
8. Interpreting pro-forms
9. Interpreting elliptical expression
10. Interpreting lexical cohesion
11. Recognizing text organization
12. Recognizing presupposition underlying the text
13. Recognizing implications and making inference
14. Predictions
15. Distinguishing between fact and opinion
16. Paraphrasing
17. Summarizing
The second step of the data collection was to develop two reading test. The tests were designed in short answer type instead of multiple choices answer type to avoid respondents’ guessing in doing the test.
The third step was piloting the two reading tests. This steps was aimed to help the writers to see wheter the two reading test had clear and good instruction and items.
The next step was to distribute the reading tests to the students who were chosen randomly.
The final step was to check and count the result of both reading tests. The rule was that if the respondents’ answer were correct or in accordance with the answer keys more than 75% the respondents got full mark, on the other hand if the respondents got less than 75%, the respondents got zero.
The result of the data analysis showed that the most difficult reading skill for these students was recognizing as text organization (72.5%). According to the writers it could be because many Indonesian students were not trained to active recognizing text organization after they read a passage. The second most difficult reading skill was paraphrasing (65%). Perhaps it was because thay had not fully understood the ideas of the original passage or sentence.
This research was a small scale one, the findings discussed in this study showed that each reading skill had different level of difficulty for the respondents. May be the larger number of respondents could also be used to produce wider result which could be used to make generalization.
COMMENTS ON THE CONTENT
This research was based on the seventeen reading skills which were already taught by the respondents. The all seventeen reading that was tested are include in the conventional ways of reading testing. Why did I say that things? Here is my opinion supports.
- A series of question that contains seventeen skills tested to the respondents only took short time just to measure their skills seem like they are in ‘unfair judgment’. The test takers felt in underpressure condition, that obliged them to answer all the questions in the limitation time provided by the researcher.
The critical reading does differently from the concept of the test above. The critical reading may takes more time because there are three processes that have to be done by the readers. The important value that we will get from this long processes is that students participate actively to study the text. Students not only read the text then throw it away and do nothing after they finish read the text, but further they will give their personal opinion to the text which will improve their ability not only in the reading skills but also in another skills.
- In the second step of the data collection was to develop two reading tests. In developing the tests, the writers used the following steps. First, they adopted two reading texts entitled Learning to be Funny is No Joke and The Birth of Rock by Marker and Lenier (1986) and Using the Creative Imagination and Power of the Press by Talok (1992). On the other hand, the critical reading that popular among the students nowadays mostly use the happening news taken from newspaper or magazine article. The aimed of using the happening article is that students can relates the article with their experience. This statement based on Huckin (1997), who counsels teacher to consider students’ age and interests so that the lesson will be more relevant to their experience and thus more profitable.
The critical reading not only focus on the students’ comprehension of the text, that measured by some questions related to the text, but also to help EFL readers feel they have options in the way they choose to read the text and to help them feel in a more equal relationship with the writer (Wallace 1992,80).
- After readng that article we know the reason why did the most difficult reading skill for these students was recognizing text organization. The researcher said that perhaps it was because many Indonesian students were not trained to activate recognizingtext organization after they read the passage. If we concern on the advantages of critical reading, this problem that mostly faced by the Indonesian students from the lowest level to the highest could be solved. Because critical reading will train students to recognizing text organization. This research just shows us the level of reading skills difficulties, but they did not give us the solution.
THE BENEFIT OF THIS RESEARCH TO THE TEACHER
In my opinion the benefit of this research are:
First, As the test designer, we also take an important role. After knowing the level of difficulties faced by EFL University students in mastering reading skills, we should realize that they are weak in certain reading skills. So that when we design the test, we have to consider this problem.
Second, teacher will know the level of reading skills difficulties faced by the students in the test. By knowing the level of reading skills difficulties, teacher could concern more to the most difficult reading skill by giving them some solutions to solve the questions.
Third, teacher further could find the best method to solve the students problem in mastering the recognizing text organization skill. As a teacher we can not force the students to master this difficult skill instantly, but we have to help them to find the most appropriate method to make it understandable to the students.
