AUTHENTIC TEXTS FOR CRITICAL READING ACTIVITIES

This research takes an action research aimed at promoting critical reading (“thinking” while reading) skills using authentic materials among the students. This research also aims to reveal the students perception on using critical reading skills in reading activities. Nineteen English Education Depa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ila Amalia
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa 2016-03-01
Series:Journal of English Language Studies
Subjects:
Online Access:http://jurnal.untirta.ac.id/index.php/JELS/article/view/686/539
Description
Summary:This research takes an action research aimed at promoting critical reading (“thinking” while reading) skills using authentic materials among the students. This research also aims to reveal the students perception on using critical reading skills in reading activities. Nineteen English Education Department students who took Reading IV class, participated in this project. There were three cycles with three different critical reading strategies were applied. Meanwhile, the authentic materials were taken from newspaper and internet articles. The result revealed that the use of critical reading strategies along with the use of authentic materials has improved students’ critical reading skills as seen from the improvement of each cycle - the students critical reading skill was 54% (fair) in the cycle 1 improved to 68% (average) in cycle 2), and 82% (good) in cycle 3.. In addition, based on the critical reading skill criteria, the students’ critical reading skill has improved from 40% (nearly meet) to 80% (exceed). Meanwhile, from the students’ perception questionnaire, it was shown that 63% students agreed the critical reading activity using authentic text could improve critical thinking and 58% students agreed that doing critical reading activity could improve reading comprehension. The result had the implication that the use of authentic texts could improve students’ critical reading skills if it was taught by performing not lecturing them. Selectively choosing various strategies and materials can trigger students’ activeness in responding to a text, that eventually shape their critical reading skills.
ISSN:2527-7022
2541-5131