Rega Detapratiwi
2201409057
405-406
Final Task of Topics in Applied Linguistics
A STUDY ON THE READING
SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Flora Debora Floris
Marsha Divina
Petra
Christian University, Indonesia
A. SUMMARY
EFL
students who read a lot seem to acquire English better than those who do not. Realizing
the importance of reading for EFL students, it is very crucial for EFL students
to have good reading proficiency. Having good reading proficiency means the
reader has abilities to understand written statements or any type of written
texts accurately and efficiently. Reading proficiency is determined by reading
skills. According to Nuttall (1996, pp. 44-124) there are three major
categories of reading skills and each is divided into sub-skills as follows:
1.
Efficient reading skills: identifying the reason
for reading, choosing the right material, using the text effectively, making
use of all the resources in the text, and improving reading speed.
2.
Word attack skill: the interpretation of
structural clues, inference from context, and the use of the dictionary.
3.
Text attack skill: understanding syntax,
recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices, interpreting discourse makers,
recognizing functional value, recognizing text organization, recognizing
implications and making inferences, and prediction.
Considering
the importance of mastering reading skills, the writers were interested in
doing further investigation about the reading skills of EFL students. The study
was guided by the following research questions:
1.
What are the types of reading skills that EFL
students have difficulty with?
2.
What is the most difficult type of reading
skills for EFL students?
Method
In
doing the data collection, the writers used some steps:
1.
Analyzing the kinds of reading skills. The writers
decided to focus on seventeen reading skills which are already taught namely: scanning,
skimming, improving reading speed, structural clues: morphology (word part),
structural clues: morphology (compound words), inference from context, using a
dictionary, interpreting pro-forms, interpreting elliptical expression,
interpreting lexical cohesion, recognizing text organization, recognizing presupposition
underlying the text, recognizing implications and making inference, prediction,
distinguishing between fact and opinion, paraphrasing, and summarizing.
2.
Developing two reading tests. In developing the
tests, the writers used the following steps: adopted two reading texts and
developed test items based on those reading texts.
3.
Piloting the two reading tests. The piloting was
aimed to help the writers to see whether the two reading tests had clear and
good instructions and items.
4.
Distributing the reading tests to ten students
of English Department Batch 2003 students who had already passed all reading
classes.
5.
Checking and counting the results of both
reading tests.
Findings
The
research found the students’ difficulty in reading skills (seventeen reading
skills) in percentage.
Discussion
The
most difficult reading skills for these students was recognizing text
organization (72.5%). Perhaps it was because many Indonesian students were not
trained to activate recognizing text organization after they read a passage. The
second most difficult reading skill for these students was paraphrasing (65%). It
could be because they had not fully understood the ideas of the original
passage or sentence. It was found that vocabulary skill was the third, most difficult
reading skill for these respondents (57.5%). Inference from context skill was
one of important word attack skill which was needed by the respondents to deal
with new or difficult vocabularies. It was found out that there were only three
wrong answers (7.5%) from the total respondents’ answer toward scanning skill’s
items. It could be assumed that students did not have much difficulty with this
skill. The other reading skills which had low difficulty level were improving
reading speed (10%) and recognizing presupposition underlying the text (10%)). This
finding indicated that the respondents were good readers because they were able
to read fast and in meaningful chunks.
Conclusion and suggestion
The
findings from the small scale discussed in this study showed that each reading
skill had different level of difficulty for the respondents. Larger number of
respondents could also be used to produce wider results which could be used to
make generalization.
B. COMMENT
In
my opinion, the study which was done by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina has
advantage to show the difficulties that face by students in EFL class in
reading skills. The writers used some steps to search students’ difficulties in
seventeen reading skills, and it can be used to find some ways to solve the
students’ problems. From the result, teacher will know how to improve students’
certain reading skills which is low and develop the skill which is high or
students have low difficulty on it. In short, by using the results of this
study I think that teacher can help students in EFL class to find a way to
improve their low skill and develop their high skill in reading, one of four language
skills which must mastered by them.
C. HOW IS THE RESULT OF THE STUDY USEFUL FOR
TEACHERS
The
result of the study shows that students in EFL class have difficulty in some
reading skills, so it has some advantages for teachers:
1.
Teachers will find a way or method to teach their
EFL students in reading, a certain method which is appropriate to improve
students’ reading skills.
2.
Teachers can give more exercises to increase
students’ reading skills, since students in EFL classroom still have
difficulties in reading skills.
3.
Teacher will pay more attention to the most
difficult reading skills faced by students, so the students’ difficulties can
be reduced.
