AN ANALYSIS ON THE READING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES OF THE TOEFL OF THE SEVENTH SEMESTER STUDENT OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING

AN ANALYSIS ON THE READING COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTIES OF THE TOEFL OF THE SEVENTH SEMESTER STUDENT OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION STKIP HAMZANWADI PANCOR
2007/2008 ACADEMIC YEAR

By
Oktariza Perdana Putra
03004211

ABSTRACT

        This thesis is aimed at revealing the types of difficult questions and how difficult are the test items in reading comprehension section of the TOEFL of seventh semester of English department student in STKIP Hamzanwadi Pancor.
        The population of the research involves 100 of English department student of STKIP Hamzanwadi Pancor who take a part in the TOEFL. The researcher takes the entire test taker as a sample in this research, the six scaled category are the basis to analyze the data.
Based on the calculation and six scaled category, among 50 test items, 14 test items are categorized into difficult and very difficult items, 34 test items are categorized into average items, 2 easy items and there is no test item categorized into very easy item, the skill categorized into difficult and very difficult are main idea, inference and reference skill. There are 7 test items of main idea, 4 test items of inference and 3 test items of inference skill.
     The types of difficult questions in the Main idea skill are in determining the point of view expressed in the passage by identifying the main idea, finding the topic sentence in each paragraph of the passage, recognizing the sentence evidence (apparently), determining the topic sentence of the passage and finding the topic sentence in each paragraph of the passage, the types of difficult questions in the inference skill are determining a number of alternative inferences from a given sentence, determining the inferences which can be made from the information given in the passage and inferring the information given in the passage. The types of difficult questions in the referent skill are in finding definition from structural clues, determining meaning from word parts and using context clues to determine meaning.

The example of Method of Language Research

Methodology is the strategy, process, or procedure as a way to collect and to analyze the data of the research. Hadi (1989:9) claims that research methodology is a science which discusses the ways or strategies to be employed in the effort to collect, to find, to develop and to verify the correctness of knowledge by using research method. There are two steps taken by the researcher in conducting the paper, including:
1. Method of Collecting Data
The data of the research are classified into two, namely main data and supporting data. Here, main data are all the utterances spoken by the debaters during debate. Meanwhile, supporting data are obtained by reviewing some books, dictionaries, and articles in Internet sites related to the topics of the study.
In Linguistics research, Sudaryanto (1986:33) explains five strategies to collect the data; they are, Recording Technique (Teknik Rekam), the strategy which uses recording instrument; Note Technique (Teknik Catat), the strategy which uses book, note and other document to analyze the object of the research; Separating Technique (Teknik Pisah), the strategy to separate the similarities and differences of the distribution; Transferring Technique (Teknik Balik), the strategy to transfer the data to other data or other books and Changing Technique (Teknik Ganti), the strategy to change the data which are not necessary understand.
The writer applies three of five strategies mentioned above, namely Recording Technique, Note Technique, and Transferring Technique. Recording Technique is used to record the spoken data produced by the debaters during debate. Here, some research instrument such as tape recorder and cassettes are employed. Note Technique is used to note the data that support the research, such as books, dictionaries, and articles in internet sites related to the discussion. The last is Transferring Technique that is used to transcribe the spoken data into the written ones.
The following are the procedures used to collect the data:
1.1 Firstly, the writer prepares the instruments to collect the data, such as tape recorder and cassettes to record the utterances spoken by the debaters.
1.2 Secondly, she records all the utterances spoken by the debaters during debate.
1.3 The last is transcribing the spoken data into the written form.

2. Method of Analyzing Data
In this study, the writer uses descriptive qualitative method which focuses on words rather than number. Further, Bogdan and Taylor (1975:5) define qualitative method as procedure of research producing descriptive data which is integrated in a form of words and sentences. Therefore, the result of this research would be the description of Interference in English debate as a language phenomenon. Moreover, the writer also employs contrastive analysis performed by Soepomo. Contrastive Analysis, according to him, is an analysis to compare the system of two or more different languages (unpublished: 49). It compares two objects by opposing them in order to find out the difficulties in acquiring the foreign language.
There are some steps taken by the researcher to analyze the object. The first, she starts to find the utterances which indicate the influence of Indonesian language in the debate. Having found the utterances, she classifies the data based on the kinds of errors, whether in Morpho-syntax , or Vocabulary category. The next is making data card as pictured below:

001/01/AFF    And me as the Affirmative side of the House support the motion…

Notes:
001 : Number of Datum (e.g. Datum 1)
01 : Speaker’s standing position in a team (e.g. The First Speaker)
AFF : Speaker’s standing team (e.g. Affirmative Team)

The last is showing the error then comparing Indonesian language rule with the Standard English. In order to acquire the answer of the research problem, she makes the conclusion based on the data analysis.

Background for Choosing the Subject

        Human interacts with each others by using a media called language. It occupies an important role in human life since the function of language is quite significant. One is able to utter his feeling or to convey message by using a language, so that the others understand the meaning.
       In a country where the people are heterogeneous and come from many different ethnic groups like Indonesia, many languages are used for communication between them. Being heterogeneous country, its people speak various kinds of languages depending on the area they come, which is called regional language. Javanese, and Sundanese as well as Bataknese are the examples of regional languages in Indonesia.

      Besides regional languages as mentioned above, Indonesians also speak Indonesian Language for communication activity. It has function to unite those different regional languages, as not all Indonesians are able to comprehend all regional languages. By regarding its function to unite the various kinds of regional languages, Indonesian language is called National Language, that is a language which is learned and spoken by people to communicate across islands in Indonesia.
    For communication activity, Indonesians often involve their native languages or mother tongues, or first languages. Encarta (2005:3) describes first language as the first somebody learns as a child at home. It is used to communicate within the people in a certain community in a specific region as well. Regional languages like mentioned above are the examples of first languages for Indonesians as it is spoken as day-to-day language.
     Indonesian can be included into second language for Indonesians since it is used only in particular occasion, not in daily conversation. Quirk (1957:3) argues that language is called second language when it is used necessarily for certain official, social, commercial, or educational activities within a certain country. Therefore, Indonesian language can be called the second language for Javanese, Sundanese, or Bataknese. However, there are numbers of people who use Indonesian for daily conversation, such as the people who stay in urban city like Jakarta.
      Another language learnt and spoken by some Indonesians is English as a foreign language. It is taught in some formal education institutions, such as schools and Universities, as well as non-formal ones. As the time goes by, more and more people started from Elementary School up to University students learn it as they realize that English plays an important role in the world and becomes an International Language. Moreover, it is used in International forum whereby the members of the forum may express their ideas, thoughts and feelings by using English.

       In line with that, Quirk (1957:3) defines the term foreign language as follows:
By foreign language, we mean a language as used by someone for communication across frontiers or with people who are not his countrymen.
      The definition gives idea that foreign language is used only when the speaker encounters a situation when he has to deal with people from other countries whose languages are different from his native language and not used for everyday communication.
This foreign language is used by Indonesians in particular situation only, such as in formal meeting, speech, lecturer, traveling activity, touring guide, debate speech and many more. Debate speech is the most interesting activity using English, since it is very challenging, so that more and more students are eager to practice it. Furthermore it will be the topic of the discussion in this paper.
      Debate is one of several activities using English actively in a form of spoken language, not in the written one. The debaters –those who perform debate- are supposed to speak English actively while delivering arguments during debate. They are not only forced to speak English fluently, but also to have basic knowledge related to the topics that are being debated.
In line with that, Oxford Advanced Learner Dictionary defines debate as a formal argument or discussion of a question, especially in a public meeting or in a Parliament with two or more opposing speakers and often ending in a vote (1995:307). Referring to the definition above, it can be concluded that debate is a discussion which is delivered by using formal language with two or more speakers who attempt to defend their arguments by providing it with some evidences, in order to strengthen the arguments. For every issue, there are always different sides of a story that is why people support or disagree with that certain issue. Debating seeks to explore the reasons behind each side. To make those reasons are understandable and convincing, debaters should deliver their arguments with good communicative skills.
      This activity is done by the students in some educational institutions. Even, several of them establish the debate organizations to follow up the abilities of the students in speaking English. Ahmad Dahlan University is one of some educational institutions which support the debate activity by establishing the debate organization named DeCo which stands for Debating Community. It aims at encouraging and enhancing the students’ capabilities in speaking English as well as sharpening their critical thinking. For the students find some advantages of debate, such as to sharpen mind, to broaden knowledge, to enhance the English speaking ability as well as to encourage mental behavior, there are more and more students join this organization.
      Delivering arguments by using English is not an easy matter to do since English is not daily language owned by Indonesian debater. It is quite possible for the debaters who are non-native English speakers and do not use English actively in everyday lives to make errors when they attempt to convey message into English due to the influence of t heir native language that is Indonesian. It is possible to happen since they are accustomed to using Indonesian rather than English for daily conversation.
       The use of English by Indonesian debaters during debate would be the most interesting topic to be discussed. The analysis concerns with the errors occurred while delivering arguments in English as the influence of Indonesian language. Therefore, the writer gives the title to her paper The Interference of Indonesian Language Spoken by the Members of Debating Community at Ahmad Dahlan University: A Contrastive Analysis.