Final Task of Topic in Applied Linguistics

Name     : Abibah

NIM       : 2201409052

Rombel  : 03 (Thursday, 11 a.m.)

A STUDY ON THE READING SKILLS OF EFL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Flora Debora Floris

Marsha Divina

Petra Christian University, Indonesia

SUMMARY

It is 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. And reading proficiency is determined by reading skills. Considering the importance of reading skills of EFL students, the study conducted by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina was guided for ten university students in Surabaya 2003 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 these EFL students?

METHOD

In doing the data collection, the writers used some steps.

1.      Analyzing the kinds of reading skills. It was found the students did not learn all the reading skills. Considering it, they decided to focus on seventeen reading skills namely: scanning, skimming, improving reading speed, structural clues: morphology (word part), structural clues (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.

3.      Piloting the two reading tests.

4.      Distributing the reading tests to ten 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 skill in percentage.

DISCUSSION

The most difficult reading skill for these students was recognizing text organization (72.5%). The writers predicted that 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 was paraphrasing (65%). It could be because they had not fully understood the ideas of the original passage or sentence, they were not able to restate the ideas of the original passage or sentence in their own words although they understood the idea of the original passage.  And it was correlated with the third most difficult reading skill that was vocabulary skill because to restate the idea of the original passage the reader had to have good vocabulary skill. Then, inference from context skill (57.5%) was one of important word attack skill which was needed by the respondents to deal with new or difficult vocabularies. For scanning skill, there were only 7.5 % means that they didn’t have much difficulty with this skill. It might be because they had already been trained to use this skill in all reading class. The other reading skills which had low difficulty level were improving reading speed (10%) and recognizing presupposition the text (10%). It 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 the study showed that each reading skill had different level of difficulty for the respondents. Further research could be conducted on a larger scale to produce wider results which could be used to make generalization.

COMMENT ABOUT THE ARTICLE

According to me, the study conducted by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina about reading skills of EFL University students is very useful. From four language skills, reading skill is a skill that is complicated to be mastered especially for ones who don’t like reading. And the result of the study can be guidance as students have low level in some reading skills to know what reading skills the students have more difficulties also the reasons why they have difficulties in these skills.  

In doing the research, the writers used detail steps through reading tests to analyze the students’ difficulty in reading skills even analyzing seventeen reading skills. And I think it is one of the positive sides from the study. They could prove that students have difficulties in some reading skills and showed the causes of students’ low level in reading.

BENEFITS OF THE STUDY FOR THE TEACHER

The result of the study shows that ELT university students still have difficulty in mastering reading skills. For teachers, the study can give some benefits.

1. Knowing the students’ difficulty in reading skills, they will improve their teaching to help students mastering reading skills so the students can use and increase their English abilities and knowledge. To help students mastering reading skills, teacher will choose methods and techniques in giving reading lesson including all the reading skills mentioned in the study; scanning, skimming, improving reading speed, etc especially for some skills that students still lack in understanding and comprehending the skills so they need more exposure to reading materials in class to make much progress.
2.  There are still teachers that don’t include some reading skills in their lesson. Maybe because of the difficulty of the skills to be conveyed, the time limit, even because of the lack knowledge about the reading skills itself. From this study, remembering the importance of reading for students, teachers must master all reading skills so they can guide the students in mastering the reading skills.
3. From the study, teachers can conduct a research for the students to know their understanding in reading skills so teacher will know what difficulty students face in reading.  

News Item Text-Webquest

News Item Text

           Alyssa Diva Mustika, a student from Pamekasan Junior High School, East Java, won the gold medal at the International Mathematics Contest held in Romania from March 22 until 29, Antara news agency reported.

            Speaking to journalists, Diva said she was glad that she had been able to win the competition, which she said had been very tight. “Thank God I won. I will study harder,” she said.

            Indonesia sent 10 students to the competition in Romania. Diva is not the first Pamekasan student to win an international science competition. Oktavian Latief, a student from Pamekasan Senior High School, won the gold medal at the International Physics Olympiad in 2006. Another student, Shohibul Maromi, won the same award in 2010.

            “Thanks Diva, for giving a good name to Indonesia and Pamekasan on the international stage,” Pamekasan Regent Kholilurrahman said as quoted by Antara.

Sex, Politeness, and Stereotypes

Here, we are examining styles and registers, the way language is used, and linguistic attitudes that the issue of ‘women’s language’ is one which illustrates all these concepts. The author examines evidence that women and men use language differently and looks at what language reveals about the way society categorizes women.

Women’s language and confidence

Robin Lakoff, an American linguist argued that women were using language which reinforced their subordinate status, they were ‘colluding in their own subordination’ by the way they spoke. She suggested that women’s subordinate social status in America society is reflected in the language women use, as well as in the language used about them. She identified a number of linguistic features used by women that expressed uncertainty and lack of confidence.

Features of ‘women’s language’

Lakoff suggested that women’s speech was characterized by these linguistic features: lexical hedges or filters, tag questions, raising intonation on declaratives, ‘empty’ adjectives, precise colour terms, intensifiers, ‘hypercorrect’ grammar, ‘superpolite’ forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress. All the forms identified were means of expressing uncertainty or tentativeness. The internal coherence of the features can be illustrated by dividing them into two: linguistic devices which may be used for hedging or reducing the force of an utterance (explicitly signal lack of confidence) and features that may boost or intensify a proposition’s force (reflect the speaker’s anticipation that the addressee may remain unconvinced and supply extra reassurance).

Lakoff’s linguistic features as politeness devices

As a syntactic device listed by Lakoff which may express uncertainty, tag questions may also express affective meaning functions as facilitative or positive politeness devices, providing an addressee with an easy entrée into a conversation, soften a directive or a criticism, used as confrontational and coercive devices. In that case, women put more emphasis on tag questions than men.

Many linguistic forms have complex functions such as ‘hedges’ used differently in different contexts. They mean different things according to their pronunciation, their position in the utterance, what kind of speech act they are modifying, and who is using them to whom in what context.

Analyses which take account of the function of features of women’s speech often reveal women as facilitative and supportive conversationalists. This also suggests that explanations of differences between women’s and men’s speech behavior which refer only to the status or power dimension. Many of the features which characterize women’s language are positive politeness devices expressing solidarity.

Interaction

There are many features of interaction which differentiate the talk of women and men. The two of them are interrupting behavior and conversational feedback.

-          Interruptions

In same-sex interactions, interruptions were evenly distributed between speakers. In cross-sex interactions almost all the interruptions were from males.

-          Feedback

Another aspect of the picture of women as cooperative conversationalists is the evidence that women provide more encouraging feedback to their conversational partners than men do. In general, research on conversational interaction reveals women as cooperative conversationalists, whereas men tend to be more competitive and less supportive of others.

Explanations

Women’s cooperative conversational strategies may be explained better by looking at the influence of context and patterns of socialization. The norms for women’s talk may be the norms for small group interaction in private contexts, where the goals of the interaction are solidarity stressing-maintaining social good relations. The differences between women and men in ways of interacting may be the result of different socialization and acculturation patterns.

Gossip

Gossip describes the kind of relaxed in-group talk that goes on between people in informal contexts. It is defined as ‘idle talk’ in Western society and considered particularly characteristic of women’s interaction. Its overall function for them is to affirm solidarity and maintain the social relationship between the women involved. Women’s gossip is characterized by a number of the linguistic features of women’s language. Propositions which express feelings are often attenuated and qualified or intensified. Facilitative tags are frequent. Women complete each other’s utterances and provide supportive feedback. Meanwhile, the male’s gossip is difficult to identify. In parallel situations the topics men discuss tend to focus on things and activities rather than personal experiences and feelings.

Sexist language

Sexist language is one example of the way a culture or society conveys its value from one group to another and from one generation to the next. Language conveys attitudes. Sexist attitudes stereotype a person according to gender rather than judging on individual merits. Sexist language encodes stereotyped attitudes to women and men.

Can a language be sexist?

Feminists have claimed that English is a sexist language. Sexism involves behavior which maintains social inequalities between women and men. There are a number of ways in which it has been suggested that the English language discriminates against women. Some of the ways can provide insights about a community’s perceptions and stereotypes. The relative status of the sexes in a society may be reflected not only in the ways in which women and men use language but also in the language used about women and men.