CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

Language is very important in our lives. According to Aileen, et all
(2005: 7) “we use language to convey information to each other, to ask about
opinion or interpretation, to express our feeling to each other”. Language is
an important tool to communicate with the other. To communicate means to
understand, to express many ideas, and also to develop culture between
speakers and listeners or writers and readers.
There are many languages in this world, and it is impossible if people
should understand all languages in this world. English is an international
language that is used to communicate among people all over the world.
English is so widely spoken, it has often referred to as a world language, the
lingua franca of modern era, and while is not an official language in most
countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language.
Studying English as a foreign language is gradually getting more
important. In Indonesia, English is considered as a first foreign language.
English is one of a compulsory subject in Indonesia. One of the aims of
teaching English is developing the ability to communicate. Learning English
means learning four skill, namely: reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
Listening and reading belong to receptive skill in which the language users
require the ability to receive spoken and writen language, while speaking and
writing belong to productive skills in which the language users require the
ability to produce language both spoken and writen (Harmer, 1983:44).
The researcher is mainly focused on reading comprehension skill,
because reading is considered the most difficult skill to be learned by the
most students. In the classroom, reading is one of ways to make the students
understand in teaching – learning process. If they cannot understand the
intended meaning of the text well, the teaching-learning process will not run
fluently. Reading comprehension needs hard thinking. It is an active, thinking

1
 2

process that depends not only on comprehension skills but also on the
student’s experiences and prior knowledge.
In the first observation, the researcher found there are many students in
XI social science 1 class of SMA N 1 Bulu Sukoharjo, that have difficulty in
reading comprehension. It is showed by: first, in the learning process, they
don’t understand what the meaning of the text when the teacher asked them,
second, their score from some reading test are low. Those are due to several
factors, the problem do not only come from the language competence, but
also the classroom situation. It can be seen from the involvement of students
during the teacing-learning process in the class. Some of them showed 'off
task'behaviour, for example doing another lesson's homework, talking with
their peers, etc. Moreover, the teacher more focused in writing skill rather
than reading, and the teacher only used monotonous method, so it caused low
student interest. The success of teaching learning depends on the teacher
carrying out the process. The teacher is supposed to be creative in developing
their teaching method to creat a good atmosphere. Other reason might also
come from the students themselves. Some students have low motivation in
improving their reading skill.
To help students’ solved these problems, it needs another technique more
interesting in teaching reading. There are a lot of techniques in teaching
reading. The researcher would like to propose a method which is the
scaffolding method, to be apllied in teaching-learning process. Scaffolding is
defined as the "strategy used by the teachers to facilitate learners' transition
from assisted to independent performance"(Sukyadi and Hasanah, 2013:4).
There are some advantages by using scaffolding method, Scaffolding is a
highly flexible and adaptable model of instruction that can be used to support
learners at all levels, scaffolding engages the learner, in working with students
who have low self-esteem and learning disabilities, scaffolding provides an
opportunity to give positive feedback, it also can minimize the level of
frustration of the learner. The researcher strongly believed that scaffolding
can be used to improver student's reading comprehension.
 3

Based on the phenomenon above, the researcher interest in conducting a

research with the title “Improving Student’ Reading Comprehension Using
Scaffolding Reading Method at SMA N 1 Bulu Sukoharjo In The Academic
Year of 2018/2019”.

B. Identification of the Problem

Based on the background above, the researcher likes to identify the
problems on the research as follows :
1. Student have low reading skill
2. The teacher uses monotonous method

C. Limitation of the Problem

The limitation of the problem is the using of Scaffolding method to
improve the reading comprehension at SMA N 1 Bulu Sukoharjo in the
academic year of 2018/2019.

D. Problem Statement
Based on the limitation of the problem above, the problem statement of
this research is “can the scaffolding strategy improve the reading
comprehension at SMA N 1 Bulu Sukoharjo in the academic year of
2018/2019?”

E. Objectives of the Research

Based on the problem statement above, the objective of this research is to
identify whether scaffolding method can improve reading comprehension at
SMA N 1 Bulu Sukoharjo in the academic year of 2018/2019?

F. Benefits of the Research

1. Theoretically
The result of this study is able to develop an interesting strategy in
teaching and learning reading comprehension.
2. Practically
a. English teacher
The teacher can implement this strategy in order to make the
teaching learning process successfully.
b. Student
The students can have a deep unterstanding on the new material
since the teaching learning process will be meaningfull for them.
c. Researcher
 4

1) By conduncting this research, the researcher can improve her

knowledge in teaching learning process, especially teaching
reading.
2) For the other researcher, they can use this as one of the
references to study about how to improve reading
comprehension.