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IMPROVING STUDENTS READING COMPREHENSION OF

SHORT FUNCTIONAL TEXT BY USING TEAM-PAIR-SOLO
TECHNIQUE
Gimin Yulianto, Eusabinus Bunau, Dwi Riyanti
Teacher Training and Education Faculty Language and Art Department
Tanjungpura University
Emai: Gyoul.qnet@gmail.com
Abstract
The purpose of conducting this research was to improve students reading
comprehension of short functional text by using Team-Pair-Solo Technique at SMP
PGRI 4 Pontianak in Academic Year 2011/2012. Team-Pair-Solo Technique is one
of cooperative learning strategies where the students work together in small group,
pair and individual. This classroom action research was intended to solve the
problems that occurred in the class, which was students difficulty in comprehending
a functional text involving main idea, supporting details, vocabulary and reference.
The subject of this research was the eighth grade students of SMP PGRI 4 Pontianak
class A which consisted of 32 students. This research was done in two cycles. To
collect the data, the researcher used written test, observation checklist tables, and
field notes.
Key words: Team-Pair-Solo Technique, cooperative learning.
Abstrak
Tujuan dari dilakukannya penelitian ini adalah untuk meningkatkan pemahaman
membaca siswa terhadap teks fungsional pendek melalui teknik Team-Pair-Solo
pada SMP PGRI 4 Pontianak tahun pelajaran 2011/2013. Teknik Team-Pair-Solo
merupakan salah satu strategi dalam pembelajaran kooperatif dimana para siswa
bekerja bersama-sama dalam sebuah kelompok kecil, berpasangan dan secara
individu. Penelitian Tindakan Kelas ini dimaksudkan untuk mengatasi masalah yang
terjadi di dalam kelas, yaitu kesulitan siswa dalam memahami teks fungsional
pendek yang meliputi ide pokok, hal-hal pedukung, perbendaharaan kata, dan kata
rujukan. Subyek dari penelitian ini adalah siswa-siswa PGRI 4 Pontianak kelas 8
(delapan) A yang berjumlah 32 siswa. Penelitian ini dilakukan dalam dua siklus.
Dalam pengumpulan data, peneliti menggunakan tes tertulis, tabel observasi, dan
catatan lapangan.
Kata kunci: Teknik Team-Pair-Solo, pembelajaran kooperatif.
eading skill in the Junior High School is vital. This skill can influence the
students to improve their other English skills; speaking, listening and writing. R
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To make them are able to speak, listen and write, the students need to be good in
reading skill. From reading the students can gain a lot of vocabularies as their
foundation to acquire and learn English and to improve their English skills. These
situations make reading is an important skill and need to be improved.
The students are good readers if they can acquire the information of the text.
Reading enables us to gain new knowledge, enjoy literature, and do everyday things
that are part and parcel of modern life, such as, reading the newspapers, job listings,
instruction manuals, maps and so on. For students or people who have less ability at
reading skill, they are going to get the difficulties in this era, especially in gaining
English information. The eighth grade students of SMP PGRI 4 Pontianak are still
poor readers. Most of them have problems in getting main idea, catching detail
information and recognizing reference of word in the text. These problems are also
influenced by the limitation of vocabularies that are known by the students. The core
of reading comprehension is the students can catch the meaning appropriately.
Students success in learning is determined whether they can understand the
information in the text.
Strategy in learning was one of factors to develop students achievement in
learning. Ellis (2003: 34) states that learners use learning strategies to develop
their interlanguage. The teaching of English that occurs in SMP PGRI 4 Pontianak
is still teacher centered, where the teacher gives more explanation rather than gives
more opportunity to the students to do the tasks. Brubacher (1991) as cited in
Elizabeth et. al (2004: 32) states This means that learning contexts should be
intentionally structured as learner-centered rather than teacher-centered and should
foster multiple ways for peer learning to occur, preferably through rich, intrinsically
motivating tasks that drive purposeful talk and cooperative work among students.
Individual learning still occurs in this school. It makes the students less
cooperation in the classroom and influences the students achievement. Robert and
Thomas (1993: 3) state Peer relationships have a strong influence on achievement.
Benard (1990) as cited in Robert and Thomas (1993: 3) states Peer relationships are
a powerful influence on a child's development of identity and autonomy. In making
the process of teaching English be easier and interesting, the changing of learning
strategies that give opportunity to students to cooperate in solving the problems are
needed.
Cooperative learning is defined as a successful teaching strategy in which
small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of
learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Each student is
responsible not only for improving his or her own understanding of the given
material but also for helping other students or group members achieve it.
Cooperative learning is the appropriate strategy because this strategy can improve
the students achievement. Brophy (2000: 27) states Students are likely to show
improved achievement outcomes when they engage in certain forms of co-operative
learning as an alternative to completing assignments on their own. Working
together in the team or pair in the classroom to solve the problem is the character of
cooperative learning. As Slavin (1983:431) said what characterizes these methods
is that students spend much of their class time working in small, heterogeneous
learning groups, in which they are expected to help one another learn.
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Cooperative learning can improve students learning result. The students
cooperate in a group or pair maximally in teaching and learning process to gain a
maximal achievement. Richards and Rodgers (2001: 192) defined cooperative
learning as an approach to teaching that makes maximum use of cooperative
activities involving pairs and small groups of learners in the classroom. Polloway,
Patton, and Serna, (2001) in Elizabeth et. al, (2004) states that Cooperative learning
arrangements have been found to be useful for increasing achievement, encouraging
student involvement, and enhancing motivation for learning.
Team-Pair-Solo is one of the techniques that are developed by Kagan in
creating cooperative learning in the classroom. According to Kagan (2001), Team-
Pair-Solo is simple. Students do problems first as a team, then with a partner, and
finally on their own. Team-Pair-Solo is designed to motivate students to tackle and
succeed at problems which initially are beyond their ability. It is based on a simple
notion: mediated learning. Students can do more things with help (mediation) than
they can do alone. By allowing them to work on problems they could not do alone,
first as a team and then with a partner, they progress to a point they can do alone that
which at first they could do only with help. The procedures in doing this technique
are as follow:
a. Team
The teacher asks the students to make a team. In team, the students are divided
into 4 students to make it easy to pair. Teacher gives the text to each group. In the
reading text there are some questions that must be answered. Those questions are
the problems that must be solved in team. After the teacher distributes the reading
text, the teacher asks them to read the text. Here they read and explore the
meaning and information in the text and also share their each group member
ideas. After they read the text, the teacher gives command to answer the
questions cooperatively in the team or group. In the group they spend no longer
time to find the meaning and information of the text. And then, the teacher
announces the answers.
b. Pair
After the students answer correctly, the teacher asks the student to work advance
in pair. In this phase, besides commanding the student to make pair, the teacher
asks the students to reread the same text. Here, the students read the text deeper
and need more discussion with their each partner. While the students read the
text, the teacher gives new questions to be answered. If the students finish
answering the questions, the teacher announces the answer. In pair, the students
will comprehend the text more because the problems must be solve only by 2
students. Work in pair will encourage students to be the best among all pairs.
Indirectly, here is the phase for each student to prepare his or herself to face
individual work in the next phase.
c. Solo
Finally, after 2 phases are done, the teacher asks the students to work individually
or solo. In this phase the students will show their own ability. There is no help
and discussion any more so the students use everything that he or she gets when
he or she was in group and pair. Here, the teacher gives the more questions that
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must be answered individually. In this phase, the result will indicate the
improvement of students comprehend the text. Individual progress is the core of
Team-Pair-Solo technique.
Method
The form of this research is classroom action research. According to Backwell
cited in Singh (2006: 263) Research concerned with school problems carried on by
school personal to improve school practice is action research. Action research is
often used to investigate specific issues or problems associated with classroom or
school life.
Classroom Action Research cycle
(Kemmis and McTaggart 1988 cited in Burn 2010:9)
The subject of this research is the eighth grade students of SMP PGRI 4
Pontianak class A in academic year 2011/2012. The number of students of class A is
32 students. The researcher chooses measurement technique and classroom
observation technique in this research. The researcher applies the measurement
technique to measure students reading ability in comprehending the text and
observation techniques. The classroom observation is applied to note the actions
during the teaching and learning process. In collecting the data the researcher used
observation checklist, field note and written test.
a. Observation checklist
Observation checklist carries out while teaching and learning process. It
provides the aspects that are observed in the teaching and learning process in the
classroom.
b. Field Note
Field note is used as one of the tools in collecting data to record any impact of
Team-Pair-Solo technique in the classroom while teaching and learning process.
It is made to record other aspects or unpredictable things that are not available
in the checklist.
c. Written Test
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Written test is used to know the students understanding of the text. The type of
test is multiple-choice completion. Brown (2004) as cited in Amalia (2011: 38),
states this type of test was chosen mainly because of practicality in which it is
easy to administer and can be scored quickly. In this research, the test consists
of 10 items with four alternatives. This test is given at the end of the lesson.
The data from students worksheets are obtained by calculating the mean score
of all the students.
N = total points of correct answers X 100
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To compute the class performance, the writer will use the formula of mean
score. All individual scores will be summed and divided by the number of students
in the class
The KKM (Minimum Achievement Standard) in PGRI 4 Pontianak for
English subject is 60. The treatment is continued to the next cycle if the class mean
score and individual score are under 60. The action stops if class mean score and all
individual scores are 60.
Result
First cycle
The teacher prepared some handouts consist of a text in form of personal letter
and some questions in essay, true-false and multiple choice forms. The students
were asked to make group of 4. Next, the teacher distributed the text of personal
letter to each student. While in the group, the students and the teacher read the
personal letter together. Here, the students followed what the teacher was reading.
After that, the teacher explained about personal letter and started to give the
students some questions that would be done in the group. The questions were given
just 5 questions in essay form. While answering the questions, the teacher gave
guidance to the students beside the vocabularies that had been prepared in handout
to help them. In the group discussion, the students must finish answer the questions
in 15 minutes. After that, the teacher and students discussed the answers and all the
groups could answer correctly.
While in the group discussion, the teacher gave more explanation and
guidance how to answer the question. In helping the students to get the main idea of
the paragraph in the text, the teacher guided the students to find keywords and gave
them explanation about the sentences that categorized as main idea. What, who,
when, where, why and how were the question words that guided the students to get
detail information of the text. From it, they could ultimately understand the meaning
Note:
M : the students average score
x : the sum of students score
S : the number of students
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of the text. Part of reading ability that was low for the students was indentifying
reference words. In helping them to identify words that were referring to personal
pronoun, the teacher gave more explanation, for example the students need read the
previous sentence to find who the person is meant. By giving them opportunity to
explore the text more would make them find many words. Guidance from the
teacher was helpful for them to increase their understanding of text.
The next phase of the technique is working in pair. The students moved and
chose their pair. This process took time quite long and make the class be noise. After
all students found their each pair, the teacher distributed again the questions that
would be discussed in the pair. At this time, the forms of questions were true and
false contains of 5 questions. The next step is working in solo or individually. This
phase was done after the teacher and the students discussed their pair answer. In this
phase each student would answer 10 questions in multiple choice forms. When the
time was over, there were still some students did not finish answering the questions.
This condition would affect the students scores. The mean score of students
reading comprehension in the first cycle was 52.19 and the percentage of score of
each aspect of reading comprehension were 43.75 % in getting main idea, 53.91 %
in catching detail information, 40.63 % in finding vocabulary and 68.75 % in finding
reference words.
From the process of teaching and learning, there were some problems occurred
that obstructed it ran well. First, the students did not focus in answering the
questions. Second, the students took long time in making group and third, there were
some instructions from the teacher were not clear so the students got confuse. From
these problems the teacher concluded to minimize obstructions that made teaching
and learning process run well in the second cycle by:
a. Managing the students in the group. It means the teacher determine the name of
students for each group. It is also done to make sure that the students do not take
the time too long in making the group.
b. Giving the instruction clearly, so that the students will not confuse with what they
have to do.
c. Explaining more about the way how to answer the questions, for example in
finding the main idea.
Second cycle
In the second cycle, the researcher came to class earlier to manage the position
of students when they were in their group. This step was quite successful in helping
the researcher to manage the time in order the student had the enough time to finish
the task well. The researcher as the teacher only took a few minutes to set them into
some groups. After all the students had their own group, the teacher started to
distribute the new handout. In this cycle, the teacher did not read the personal letter
together with the student but discuss little bit about the content and the way in
getting main idea and detail information.
In the group work, the teacher wrote 8 questions that would be answered by
each group based on their group number (group 1 would answer the question
number 1 and so on). On the blackboard, each group wrote the answer in order all
students could understand more about the letter based on the questions.
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In the pair work, the teacher still used true and false form as the question. This
time the questions were more detail and the students need to read a lot the letter. In
the solo work, the students did the test with the 10 questions in multiple choice
forms they could do it better than the first cycle. There was no rush in finishing it.
The result of the second cycle showed the progress positively. The mean score of
students ability was only 68.25 point. The percentage of score of each aspect of
reading comprehension were 62.50 % in getting main idea, 70.31 % in catching
detail information, 60.94 % in finding vocabulary and 73.44 % in finding reference
words. The result also showed all the students could pass the KKM.
From the research findings above, it could be seen that the students reading
comprehension ability increased from cycle to cycle. In the first cycle, the mean
score of students reading comprehension it was 52.19 and in the second cycle it was
68.25. The points indicated that the students reading comprehension through Team-
Pair-Solo technique was getting better in every cycle.
There was improvement of students in getting main idea when doing the
classroom action research in teaching reading comprehension. In the first cycle, the
percentage of getting main idea was 43.75 %. In the second cycle, the students
showed good progress where in getting main idea they could reach 62.50 %. There
was improvement of students in catching detail information when doing the
classroom action research in teaching reading comprehension. In the first cycle, the
percentage of catching detail information was 53.91 %. In the second cycle, the
students showed good progress where in catching detail information they could
reach 70.31 %
There was improvement of students in finding vocabulary when doing the
classroom action research in teaching reading comprehension. In the first cycle, the
percentage of finding vocabulary was 40.63 %. In the second cycle, the students
showed good progress where in finding vocabulary they could reach 60.94 %.
There was improvement of students in finding reference words when doing the
classroom action research in teaching reading comprehension. In the first cycle, the
percentage of finding reference words was 68.75 %. In the second cycle, the
students showed good progress where in finding reference words they could reach
73.44 %.
Conclusion
From research finding and discussion above, it can be concluded that students
reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP PGRI 4 Pontianak in
the academic year 2011/2012 improved after they had been taught by using Team-
Pair-Solo technique. Based on Team-Pair-Solo technique, the students reading
comprehension improved from the first cycle to the last cycle. The mean score in the
first cycle was 52.19 and in the second cycle was 68.25.
Team-Pair-Solo technique could change the atmosphere of the classroom since
the students can be more cooperative and improve their own ability because they
work not only in group but also in pair and individual work.
Students improvement in every aspect of reading comprehension can be
described as follow; 1) Students ability in finding the main idea improved from the
first cycle to the last cycle. In the first cycle the percentage of students ability in
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answering question about main idea was 43.75 %, the second cycle was 62.50 %. 2)
Students ability in finding the detail information improved from the first cycle to
the last cycle. In the first cycle the percentage of students ability in answering
question about supporting detail was 53.91 % and the second cycle was 70.31 %. 3)
Students ability in vocabulary improved from the first cycle to the last cycle. In the
first cycle the percentage of students ability in answering question about vocabulary
was 40.63 % and the second cycle was 60.94 %. 4) Students ability in finding the
referent improved from the first cycle to the last cycle. In the first cycle the
percentage of students ability in answering question about referent was 68.75 % and
the second cycle was 73.44 %.
Suggestions
Research findings of this writing suggest something to improve students
reading comprehension of short functional text. The suggestions of this research
writing are defined as follow; 1) it is better in teaching learning process, the students
work in group. When the work in cooperative learning, they will share their ideas
with their friends and could discuss it together to solve the problems that they find in
learning the material. 2) In making this technique runs well, the teacher needs to
control and give clear instruction to the students in order to avoid them confused and
take long time in making group or pair, so the researcher suggests that the
instruction must be given clearly and arranged the time thoughtfully by the teachers.
3) For the teachers who find the students less enthusiasm to work in group and the
students just talking and playing more than doing the tasks, the researcher suggests
to the teacher to give reward and reprimand to motivate the students in doing the
tasks and improve their personal responsibility. 4) The researcher also suggests for
further research. It can be about the use of Team-Pair-Solo technique to improve
students other skill in English.
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