POSTER PRESENTATION

 

READING HABITS AND ITS EFFECT ON ACADEMIC WRITING SKILL: A STUDY OF MASTER DEGREE STUDENTS

KHOIRUNNISA¹, IDA DWI SAFITRI²,

Faculty of Teacher Training and Education

Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia

E-mail: ¹annisanisa662@gmail.com, ² idadwisafitri@gmail.com

Abstract: Nowaday, students centered became popular strategy in English Language Teaching (ELT). Teacher prefered to become a guider in the learning activity. Thus, as the learner, students should do activity that had big effect to their learning process. Reading was one of the important activity that had great advantage to increase students writing skill. They should take reading as their habitual activity to get significant improvement of learning achievement. In the context of higher education, reading activity was a basic requirement to start an activity in academic work such as writing scientific journal. Through reading, they could get new information from the text. Then, it could be synthesized, evaluated, and implicated as the prior knowledge or supporting information in their writing. The aim of this study was to examine the reading habit of master degree students’ and its effect on their academic writing skill. Twenty students from master degree of Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia were selected to participate in the study.The data collected through a e-survey analyzed qualitatively. The finding indicated reading habit was crucial for students’ academic writing skill. Furthermore, the conclusion discussed the implication of the finding in relation with teaching advanced learner.

Key words:  Reading Habit, Academic Writing Skill, Master Degree Students, Case Study

CORRELATIONAL STUDY

a.      The Nature of Correlational Study.

Correlational research has an important role in education, social, economy, science, and so on. This research focuses on the inclination of variable through  another  variable.  It investigates the characteristics of variables to find the significant influence of the study. Thus, it reveals the relationship between two or more variables through the use of correlational statistics (Gall, 2013. 320). In other word, correlational statistics  used to explore cause and effect relationship between variables, but the obtained results generally do not lead to strong conclusions (Gall, 2013: 324).

b.      Research Background

Correlational study gathers the data from individuals on two or more variable and then  seeks to determine whether the variables are related or not (Ary, 2010: 27). Background of the study should consist of all variables, the reason why the researcher conduct the study, and the purpose of the study. 

c.       Problem Identification

Dewey states that determine the issues of the study will make the study focuses on the problem. The problem is a discrepancy between expectation and reality or something targeted by the researcher but it is not reached (Syamsuddin and Vismaia, 2009: 42). Thus, the characteristics of the researchable problems have contribution for many parties and can be supported by empirical data and suitable with the researchers’ ability (Sukardu, 2004: 27-28).

In addition, the researcher can do pilot project, doing assessment, or doing informal conversation to identify the potential of participant marginalization when doing research (Creswell, 2016: 129). In simply, the chosen problem must have important values in behavior pattern of a complex phenomenon which requires understanding. The variables should be based on the consideration, both of theoretically and reasoning that has a certain relationship. This usually got from previous studies.

E.g.

1.      What factors can influence reading achievement?

2.      What are the indicators of reading achievement?

3.      What are the indicators of vocabulary mastery?

4.      What are indicators of conscientiousness?

5.      How is best method to teach vocabulary toward reading achievement?

6.      Is there any correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading achievement?

7.      Is there any correlation between conscientiousness and reading achievement?

8.      How can character building improve reading achievement?

d.      Problem Statement

Problem statements of correlational study typically involve two statements of researchers’ interest: "What is the strength and direction of the relationship between variable X and variable Y?" and How well variable Y can be predicted from variable X" (i.e., what is the best equation for predicting Y from X? The latter is called the regression equation).

e.      Research Objective

The researchers have to underline the main objectives because it is a very crucial part in a study. Research objectives means showing the reason why we want to conduct the research and the aim what we want to achieve (Silverman, 2013). Correlational research objectives include the variables, the variables relationship, the participants, and the study field (Creswell, 2016: 171).

E. g.

1.      To find/know a correlation between conscientiousness and reading achievement;

2.      To find/know a correlation between vocabulary mastery and reading achievement;

f.        Review of Theories

Review of theories is very important part of the research. It helps the researchers to plan the research content and researchers’ act.  Besides that, it also helps the researchers to find the related study to support their research (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2012: 38). It contains the complete explanation of the related variables.

g.       Rationale

Rationale in a researchis necessary to provide a justification for each hypothesis ans to ensure the readers of its reasonabelness and soundness. Its main point is to support researchers formulate hypothesis (Tuckman, 1978: 315)

h.      Research Hypothesis

After identifying the problems, the researchers employ the logical process of deduction and induction to formulate an expectation of outcome of the study. The researchers hypothesize about the relationship between the concepts that identified in the problem.

i.        Research Method and Design

The basic design of correlational research is straightforward. The problem specified by asking question about the relationship between variable and interest. (Ary, 2010: 352). In addition, the basic design for correlational study involves nothing more than collecting data on two or more variables for each individual in a sample and computing a correlational coefficient (Gall, 2003: 323).

j.        Population/ Sample/ Sampling

A population is defined as a member of any well-defined class of people, events, or objects. For instance: in a study of students in American High School constitute the population of interest, you could define this population as all boys and girls attending high school in United State. 

A sample is a portion of a population. For instance:  the students of Washington High School in Indianapolis constitute a sample of American high school students. (Ary, 2010: 338)

Sample of correlational study must be selected carefully and randomly (min: 30 samples) (Fraenkel, 2012: 338.

k.       Data Collection

Standardized tests, questionnaires, interviews, or observational techniques can be used to collect the data. The data should be in quantifiable form.

l.        Data analysis

When variables are correlated, a correlation coefficient produced. The coefficient will be a decimal between 0,00 and + 1,00 or – 1,00. Coefficient +1,00 or -1,00 means that both variables have strong correlation; it can be positive of negative correlation, and 0,00 coefficient means that there is no relationship between variables.

CRITICAL READING 14

A CRITICAL READING OF MAKING EXTENSIVE READING EVEN MORE STUDENT CENTERED

George M. Jacobs

James Cook University, Singapore

Willy A. Renandya

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Published by Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Vol. 4 No. 2, January 2015, pp. 102-112

Recently, students centered became a popular approach in teaching activity. Student as a subject had a major role in the learning process. The learning process will be success if there any good collaboration between teacher and student. The teachers play as the guider and the students play as the client. Furthermore, transferring information become two sides.

One of the strategies using in students centered approach is extensive reading.  In extensive reading, student free control the action. Students choose what they will read from what is available in their classrooms, in libraries, bookshops, and increasingly, online, while teachers as fellow learners. Many teachers‟ guides to ER recommend that teachers engage in silent reading along with students in order to demonstrate that teachers too read for learning and enjoyment (Day & Bamford, 2002).

In the accordance of that topic, Jacob and Renandya have dealt with the study about Extensive reading. Their article focused on various features of a student centered approach to education and how extensive reading (ER), as it is most often practiced, fits with those features. They also give some recommendations for the teacher. The teacher can implement Extensive reading strategy in learning process,

Based on the explanation above, we as the teacher can also take a part in implementing that strategy. This strategy can implement in senior high school or university level. The strategy is believed can make student get improvement in the skill of reading. As we know that skill of reading can influence the other skill of English such as writing. If it strategy have been implemented successfully so,  the other skill will get goof effect too. 

CRITICAL READING 13

A CRITICAL READING OF DEVELOPING ACADEMIC WRITING

IN A BUSINESS-ORIENTED UNIVERSITY

J.A. Foley

Graduate School of English, Assumption University, Thailand

Published by Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Vol. 2 No. 2, January 2013, pp. 168-186

Nowadays, every field of science deals with English. English as an international need to be required by the student to acquire higher knowledge. As a result, teaching English become a important term in transferring knowledge. Thus, the teacher have to develop the student to have preference in learning English.

In the higher level of education ,English has been taught in specific field such as academic writing. Academic writing is a subject focus on the academic form of writing such as genre text, essay, scientific article, and so on. In the process of writing, it provides many steps and the student should pass the steps simultaneously.

There are many researches about academic writing for instance: the research conducted by Foley (2013). The research investigated the development of language choices in the Academic writing of students at an English-medium university in Thailand. The purpose of this study was to see what effect the implementation of a genre– based approach to writing might have on the development of “academic” writing of university undergraduates. The focus was on the nominal group in Topical and Marked Topical themes position.

The result of his study showed that the students have limited knowledge of genres. They also have narrow lexical and grammatical choices. Furthermore, after implementing the approach of genre based in teaching learning, there are some improvements. They have written a draft text of report.

Based on the finding above, we can learn that writing subject needs to be taught by appropriate teaching strategy. The teacher should develop strategy that make the students understand easier about what they learn. The teacher also can guide the student to write continuously until they can write individually.  

CRITICAL READING 12

A CRITICAL READING OF STUDENTS’ READING PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENTS

Aiza Johari

Amelia Alfred Tom

Affidah Morni

Siti Huzaimah Sahari

Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Sarawak

Published by Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Vol. 3 No. 1, July 2013, pp. 17-28

Motivating student to practice reading everyday becomes challenging activity. Students have different interest in reading. They preferred to learn another activity that funnier to do. This problem is supported by poor literacy atmosphere in their home. Usually parents do not aware with their children activity in the home. The parents believe that in the school, their children have got much knowledge.

Nowadays, there are many studied conducted to reveal that problem. One of the studies was conducted by Johari et.al. (2013) about students’ reading practice and environment. The study aimed to resolve the issues of students who seem to find reading to be unbearable. They wanted to compile students’ reading reason and their home reading environment. The study placed in one of the urban schools in Sarawak, Malaysia consisted of 120 secondary school students.

The result of this study shows that reading is their last hobby. They actually know the importance and the role of reading activity in learning process but they have no sufficient time in practicing reading at home. In reading activity, they prefer to choose reading material such as comics, story books, magazines, etc. furthermore, their parents give the freedom to read book or not in their home. It means that the parents are not aware to their children literacy.

From the result above, we can learn that parents have big role in creating comfortable reading atmosphere in the home. Reading practice become funny activities if they place it as their hobby. It has implication to the parents and teachers.  Parents should be aware in supporting their children reading hobby. Moreover, teachers can provide reading log to control the student reading practice.