Factors Affecting EFL College Students Reading Comprehension

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Submitted to fulfill one of the requirements for conducting research to write a thesis in the English Teaching Study Program, Faculty of Education and Teacher Training, Christian University of Indonesia

By :

Name : Ahmad Mujib Student Reg. No.: 111 215 0057 Department: English Teaching Study Program

ENGLISH TEACHING STUDY PROGRAMFACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHERS TRAININGCHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIAJAKARTA2014

Table of Contents

Table of Contentsi

Chapter I: INTRODUCTIONA.Background1B.Problem Statements3C.Objective of the Study3D.Significances of the Study4E.Scope of the Study4

Chapter II: LITERATURE REVIEW, CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESISA.Literature Review5a.Nature of Reading Comprehension5b.Reading Comprehension Process6c.Reading Problems for English Foreign Language Learners8B.Conceptual Framework9C.Hypothesis10

Chapter III : RESEARCH METHODOLOGYA.Research Method11B.Place and Time11C.Population and Sample12D.Data Collection Techniques, Instruments and Procedure12E.Data Analysis Technique13

References14

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Chapter IINTRODUCTION

A. BackgroundLearning foreign language means we have to master the four skills of the language which are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Of all the skills, reading is essential because not only we can gather knowledge through the activity but also we can develop other language skills at the same time. While reading activity takes place we can also learn to speak and listen by reading the text loudly.However, reading is not an easy task, readers need to comprehend the meaning of the text being read otherwise reading will be meaningless. Comprehending a text means the readers should engage with the text. There have to be connection and interaction between the reader and the text. Readers should activate their prior knowledge related to the text being read. So it will help readers comprehension toward the text. Moreover, there are many reading strategies that can be applied while reading. Readers have to be wise in applying the strategies because there are many text types. Different text types required different strategies to be applied. Academic reading will need different approach than job related reading or personal reading. The successful of using strategies in reading will assure readers comprehension toward the text.Reading strategies is one of the cognitive factors that affect students reading comprehension. There are many other cognitives factors that have great influence on how the students engaged with the text. These reader factors included background knowledge, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension skills. What about other factors that related with readers affective intelligent. Do they have great influence also?Kenneth J. Rowe (1995) had conducted the research about reading factors that affect students progress in reading. The research resulted Finally, the present study has identified that the large variation in students reading achievement is due to significant between-class/teacher differences. The fact that such teacher level factors have strong positive effects on students attitudes, behaviors in classroom, and achievement outcomes is of vital importance, with profound implications. It was proven that students perception toward their English teacher somehow affect their motivation to read and to try to understand the text.Other than that, Andrejs Geske, Antra ozola (2008) stated that there are also socioeconomic factors that influence students reading ability. Other internal factors need to be considered related with the reader, such as age, sex, and reader interest. Do these internal factors have significant effect on students reading comprehension?Therefore, this research aims to investigate the internal factors such as age, sex, and interest; and external factors such as teacher method and strategies; that affect EFL College Students Reading Comprehension at the English Teaching Study Program Faculty of Education and Teachers Training, Christian University of Indonesia.

B. Problem StatementsThe main concern of this study is the factors that influence college students reading comprehension. Specifically the study sought to answer the following questions:1. Is there any correlation between students age, gender, and interest towards their reading comprehension?2. Is there any correlation between teacher methods and strategies, and English language competence towards students reading comprehension?

C. Objective of the StudyThis study will be conducted to achieve the followings:1. To see whether students profile, students interest, and students reading comprehension are correlated or not.2. To see students perception on teachers methods and strategies, and English language competence and how it is correlated with students reading comprehension.

D. Significances of the StudyThis study will hopefully be beneficial to the followings:1. To the lecturers, this study expected to give encouragement for the lecturers so they could employ the best strategy in teaching reading to EFL Learners.2. To the students, this study expected to motivate students so they could find the best way to improve and to make reading interesting to them.3. To other researchers, the result of this study can provide a basis for conducting researches on the same area.

E. Scope of the StudyTo make the study focused, the population of the study will be limited only to the whole students of the English Study Program of UKI. The sample will be chosen randomly from Executive class. In addition, the data will be collected through questionnaire and reading examination.

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Chapter IILITERATURE REVIEW, CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND HYPOTHESIS

A. Literature Reviewa. Nature of Reading ComprehensionIt is believed that reading is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and foreign language. Reading skill will play as media to develop the other three skills. Reading may be developed to improve pronunciation, vocabulary, conversational skill, grammar, and listening skill.Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension). It is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas (Wikipedia). English learners, in order to be able to construct the meaning of the text, they need to develop their reading skill by practicing it and apply some strategies according to the text they read. In addition, reading is an active act instead of passive. It means that readers not only do the reading but at the same time also think creatively and analyze the content of the text. Reading comprehension has broader meaning than just regular reading. We define reading comprehension as the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. We use the words extracting and constructing to emphasize both the importance and the insufficiency of the text as a determinant of reading comprehension (www.rand.org). Learners must have the skill and knowledge, understand vocabulary, and applying some strategies in order to be able to extract and construct meaning from the text.

b. Reading Comprehension ProcessThe reading comprehension factors and process can be seen below (as adapted from UK Department for Education and Skills):

Source : UK Department for Education and Skills

The processes consist of 6 essential parts. First, learners should understand what the text is about. This can be taken from general themes or main idea of the text. Next, they have to activate their prior knowledge and see if there are connections between. Learners will easily relate to a text if they have basic knowledge about that matter. Learners can also reflect upon responses from text. In addition, to have deeper understanding of the text, they have to be engaged with it. Last, learners have to apply reading comprehension strategy to clarify their understanding.

c. Reading Problems for English Foreign Language LearnersReading is important for learners to gather knowledge and information whether the text is on our native language or on foreign language. However sometimes learners face some problem in comprehending a text, even it is on our native language. The problems become bigger when it is on foreign language. Learners do not really understand the vocabulary and the grammar of the language. It takes some time to comprehend a text in foreign language. There are also many related factors that affect EFL learners to master the skill. The issue of age was first addressed with the critical period hypothesis. The strict version of this hypothesis states that there is a cut-off age at about 12, after which learners lose the ability to fully learn a language. This strict version has since been rejected for second-language acquisition, as adult learners have been observed who reach native-like levels of pronunciation and general fluency. However, in general, adult learners of a second-language rarely achieve the native-like fluency that children display, despite often progressing faster in the initial stages (Wikipedia).Ellis (1994) stated: sex is, of course, likely to interact with other variables in determining L2 proficiency. It will not always be the case, therefore, that females outperform males. Asian men in Britain generally attain higher levels of proficiency in L2 English than do Asian women for the simple reason that their jobs bring them into contact with the majority English speaking group, while women are often "enclosed" in the home. Sex interacts with such factors as age, ethnicity, and, in particular social class as cited by Shakouri and Saligheh (2012). Other than that students interest towards reading also affect their eagerness to learn the language.More related factors that affect students are teachers methods and strategies, and their English language capability. Good teaching strategies will help students to grasp the point of the subject. Moreover, it will make the teaching learning process more interesting both for the students and teachers. Last is the text material given by the teachers interesting? Students need to be comfortable with the material in order to have maximum gain during learning process.

B. Conceptual FrameworkBased on the discussion, the need of reading skill mastery is essential to learners. Through reading learners can broaden their study into other language skills such as writing, speaking and listening. However, learning reading especially in second language is not an easy task. There are many factors affecting it. Therefore, researcher interested to do this research to find out the correlation between students reading comprehension and their internal factors such as age, gender, and interest. Moreover, we also need to know the correlation between students reading comprehension and their external factors such as teachers methods and strategies, and their English Language competence. Last, we need to know the correlation between students reading comprehension and both of the factors that influence it. Hopefully the result of the research can improve students reading comprehension and also encourage teachers to apply the best strategies in teaching reading to English Foreign Learner.

C. HypothesisThe hypothesis to test in this study is formulated as follow:Ho: There is no significant correlation between 1) students Age, Gender, and Interest; 2) teachers methods and strategies, and English Language Competence; and students reading comprehensionHa: There is significant correlation between 1) students Age, Gender, and Interest; 2) teachers methods and strategies, and English Language Competence; and students reading comprehension

Chapter IIIRESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research MethodThis study is a case study using the descriptive correlation type of research. In order to obtain the data the researcher made use of a self-made questionnaire regarding their profile, the perception of the respondents towards their English teachers, the text material and its connection to their reading comprehension level. In addition, to obtain their current reading comprehension level in English the researcher conducted an English reading comprehension exam from http://www.examenglish.com/IELTS/index.html.

B. Place and TimeThis study will be conducted in the English Study Program of the Faculty of Education and Teachers Training, Christian University of Indonesia (FKIP-UKI) Jakarta in the even semester of the 2014/2015 Academic Year.

C. Population and SampleThe population of the study is the whole students of the English Study Program who were active at the time this study will be conducted. The sample will be taken randomly among all executive class students.

D. Data Collection Techniques, Instruments and ProcedureData collection will be employed by conducting a survey and an English reading comprehension examination. The survey will be conducted using a questionnaire and the exam will be conducted on paper by taking from the online material.The questionnaire will be divided into three sections. The first one is aimed to collect participants demographic variables, such as age, gender, academic year and interest toward reading English text. The second section is aimed to gather students perceptions toward English Reading Teachers methods and strategies, and their English language competence. The last section will be aimed to gauge participants interest toward some kind of reading genre. These data will be gauged by asking the participants to indicate their agreement or disagreement to each statement on a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree, score 1, to strongly agree, score 5. Both instruments will be distributed at the same time on the reading class activities. It will take 75 minutes to finish both the questionnaire and the reading comprehension test including the preparation and directions for the participants.

E. Data Analysis TechniqueThe qualitative data obtained through the questionnaire and quantitative data obtained through examination will be analyzed using descriptive statistical operation in the form of table and graphs. SPSS will be administered to determine the correlation between 1) students Age, Gender, and Interest; 2) teachers methods and strategies, and English Language Competence; and 3) Text materials; and students reading comprehension.

References

Aslan, Y. (t.thn.). A Study on the Factors That Affect Turkish Students' Reading Comprehension Skills. Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences , 38-47.Education.com. (t.thn.). Reading comprehension factors. Dipetik January 01, 2015, dari Education.com: http://www.education.com/reference/article/reading-comprehension-factors/Geske, A., & Ozola, A. (2008). Factors Influencing Reading Literacy at the Primary School Level. Problems of Education in the 21st Century , 71-77.Limited, E. E. (t.thn.). IELTS - Exam English. Dipetik April 30, 2014, dari Exam English Limited.NA. (t.thn.). Reading comprehension report. Dipetik April 30, 2014, dari RAND Corporation.Rowe, K. J. (1995). Factors Affecting Students' Progress in Reading: Key Findings from a Longitudinal Study. An International Journal of Early Literacy .Shakouri, N., & Saligheh, M. (2012). Revisiting Age and Gender Influence in Second Language Acquisition. Advances in English Linguistics (AEL) .Skills, U. D. (2005). Understanding Reading Comprehension. DFES Publications.Wikipedia. (t.thn.). Reading comprehension - Wikipedia. Dipetik April 30, 2014, dari Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension