Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension

Research in English and Education (READ), 1(2), 129-136, December 2016 E-ISSN 2528-746X Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension Vebriana Setia Deny*1, Syamsul Bahri, Dian Fajrina1 1Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh *Corresponding Author: vebrianasetiadeny@gmail.com Abstract This research is intended to find out whether Suggestopedia method improved students’ reading comprehension. This research was conducted at SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. The sample was taken by random sampling of the students of class VIII-1. The technique of data collection, the researcher used pre-test, treatment and post-test. The materials used in the test were narrative texts. The reading comprehension which tested was main idea, detail information, vocabulary and reference. The researcher used one group pre-test and post-test design. The tests consisted of 10 multiple choice questions of narrative texts. The technique of data analysis, the researcher used statistical formula. The mean score of pre-test was (53.18) and the post-test was (79.09). The finding showed that the improvement of the mean was 25.91. The critical value of 0.05 significant level was 2.080 and degree of freedom was 21. T-test 4.197 was higher than t-table (2.080). As a result, Suggestopedia method can improve the students’ reading comprehension in narrative text particularly at the VIII-1 of SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. Keyword: Reading comprehension, suggestopedia, improvement 1. INTRODUCTION Reading is one of the crucial academic language skills in English besides speaking, listening and writing skills. It is very important for students in all stages from Elementary School up to Senior High School to comprehend the reading for certain purpose. Through reading we can get more information, knowledge, enjoyment and solving the problem from what we see like symbol and text. According to Alyousef (2006, p. 64), reading is a process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity. In the process, the reader interacts dynamically with the text to get the meaning. Reading cannot be separated from comprehension because understanding of what we read is the purpose of reading. According to Wolly (2011, p. 15), reading comprehension is the process of making meaning from the text in order to understand of what is described in the text. 129 Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension by Vebriana Setia Deny, Syamsul Bahri, Dian Fajrina To comprehend the text, a reader must be able to construct the meaning internally from interacting with the material that is read. As a result, they are expected not only be able to read the text but also to master reading with comprehension. However, reading is not as easy as what people think because it is not only read a sentence and say it out to others but also we have to understand the content of the reading text and its purpose. Based on the curriculum 2013 (Depdiknas 2013), English is one of the subjects that must be taught in school. In curriculum 2013, the second grade students of Junior High School have to able to comprehend the meaning of short functional texts, namely; descriptive, recount, and narrative in daily life context. In the basic competence (KD 3.14), one kind of the texts that the students should be able to comprehend well and accurately is the narrative text [Permendikbud, 2014). It clear that the second grade students of junior high school are expected to be able to comprehend the meaning, purpose and generic structure of the text accurately and fluently in order to get more knowledge or information. Based on the researcher’s a simple preliminary study of grade VIII-1 of SMPN 8 Banda Aceh, she found that many students still had difficulties in comprehending the texts. During the reading activity, the students could not focus on what they read because the environment of the classroom did not support them to read well. Moreover, because they felt hard to comprehend the text, many students were bored to participate in the classroom activity. The students got bored when the teacher asked them to read a long text, so the students tended to ask the difficult words to other students or used dictionary. Then, the teacher just explained the material in front of the class without any interaction between the teacher and the students and then gave students assignment individually. As the result, they did not understand the main ideas, detail information, reference and vocabulary of the text. Hence, it needs an appropriate method to overcome this problem. In this research, the researcher is interested in using Suggestopedia as a method that can be used to - overcome students’ reading problem. The effect of applying this method is the students feel relax in reading because they do not feel under pressure to learn in the classroom. According to Harmer (2001, p. 89), Suggestopedia is a method that have a physical surroundings and the classroom atmosphere. The students can relax, fun, and comfortable in teaching learning process. The researcher strongly believes that to comprehend a narrative text using Suggestopedia method is useful for the students’ activity to help them get ideas. Therefore, the researcher is interested to conduct this study under the title “Using Suggestopedia Method to Improve Reading Comprehension”. Therefore, based on the explanation above, one research questions were prepared for this study: Does Suggestopedia method improve students’ reading comprehension of narrative text ? 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Reading Comprehension Reading is one of the skills in English that students should master beside speaking, writing, and listening. Reading is very important in our life because it can give more information and knowledge from written text. Reading is as a way to draw information from a text and a form an interpretation of that information (Grabe&Stoller, 2013). A reader can begin by looking at the printed word, understand the meaning and interpret the information by using her knowledge. 130 Research in English and Education (READ), 1(2), 129-136, December 2016 Reading comprehension is the ability to understand information in a written text and interpret it appropriately (Grabe&Stoller, 2013). A reader has to understand what the researcher tells in a text. When she reads a text, she needs prior knowledge and critical thinking to interpret information of the written text. Main idea is the most crucial part in a reading text. It is the author’s idea about the topic. It is usually a complete sentence that include the gist of every ideas from the paragraph. Sometimes the main idea is stated in a sentence in the text. That sentence is usually the first—and sometimes the last—sentence in a paragraph. Here, a reader needs to predict the main idea and has to understand what the author writes. Detail is a specific information that support the main idea in a text. It can be fact, opinion, and evidence around the main idea. Detail information is very important for a reader to comprehend the whole text. They are usually stated directly in the text. It helps a reader to find more information in understanding a text or paragraph. Reference is words used to replace other word or phrase. Reference is a very crucial part when a reader follows ideas through the text. It is not enough just to understand the words in a text but have to be able to identify words that connect ideas and the ideas that these words connect. Vocabulary is very important for reading comprehension. Without mastering vocabulary, a reader cannot understand the whole text. To know the information written in a text, students have to know the meaning of the words. Vocabulary addresses not only single lexical items—words with specific meaning(s)—but also includes lexical phrases. 2.2 Suggestopedia Method Suggestopedia is a method of language teaching developed by Georgi Lezanov, the Bulgarian psychologist and educator in 1970. Lezanov believes that in the learning process the students use an unconscious mind by giving positive suggestion to make the students relax and concentrate. Using music rhythm is used in the teaching learning process (Harmer, 2001, p.90). This method applies the influence of suggestion of human behavior. It was supported by Rodríguez (2011), Suggestopedia is a method deals with concentration and relaxation to get a maximum understand of the material that given by the teachers (p. 12). Giving motivation for students is one of the characteristics of Suggestopedia method to make students relaxed and comfortable during read a text. In the Suggestopedia method, Students’ feeling have an important place.Venkanna & Glorry, (2015, p. 130) added that the effect of physical surrounding and pleasant atmosphere of the classroom can make the students relaxed, confident and comfortable in reading the text because they do not feel under pressure to learn in the classroom. The purpose of this method is to make the students relax and enjoy during the learning process. Music in the learning process background helps to make students focus and concentrate to the material. Thus, it can be concluded that Suggestopedia is a good method for students to improve their comprehension during the reading activity in the classroom with relaxed and comfortable situation in the learning process. Lezanov (2005, p. 89-96) justified that there are three procedures of Suggestopedia method. The purpose of this stage is to help students to relax, enjoy and move into a positive frame of mind. 131 Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension by Vebriana Setia Deny, Syamsul Bahri, Dian Fajrina In addition, the teacher arranges the students’ seats in a comfortable way and gives the students information about the objectives of the learning. Lezanov divided this session into two parts namely, active concert and passive concert. Active concert involves the active presentation of the material to be learnt. Here, the teacher uses some classical music or instrument and he or she reads the text in the harmony with the musical phrases. Passive concert invites the students to relax, close their books and listen to classical music by reading a text very quietly. The practice stage is given on the day after the passive session. According to Kharismawati (2014), in the practice stage, the teacher does not something stressful for students. 2.3 Narrative Text Narrative text is a kind of the text that has function or purpose to entertain the reader. Setiyaningsih (2003, p. 3) points out that narrative text has function to interest the readers with actual experience in different ways. Moreover, In the organizational structure may be built some episode of the story based on the characters, setting, problem, goal and resolution. It means that narrative text is a text that tells the story to amuse the reader which consist of some characters, plot, setting and action which have problematic problems like fable, legend, folktale and so on 3. METHODS The research design in this study is experimental quantitative research. For research design, in this study the researcher used one group pre-test-post-test design. The scheme of one-group pretest-posttest desig. This research was conducted at SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. The population of this research is the eighth grade students’ of SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. There are six classes of the eighth grade students. The number of research population is 132 students. The sample of this study was VIII-1 at SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. To select the sample for this study, the researcher used simple random sampling which assumes that this technique gives everyone the same chance to be a sample. The researcher used instrument for this study in form of test. In this study, the researcher provided two types of the test namely; pre-test and post-test. Pre-test was given for the students before implementing the Suggestopedia method. Meanwhile, post-test was given after the treatment of the Suggestopedia method. The test used in pre-test and post-test of reading test was designed and adopted from English book of Junior High School. The test used narrative texts taken from: English in focus kelas VIII. In this research, the researcher gave an objective test consisting of multiple choice items. There were 10 questions in multiple choice (a, b, c, and d). The questions were about main idea, detail information, reference, and vocabulary in the narrative text. The researcher limited this research only in teaching simple short narrative text. To analyze the collected data, the researcher used statistical formula as Ary et al. (2010, p. 108). The components of the formula namely; mean score, standard deviation and hypothesis testing. 132 Research in English and Education (READ), 1(2), 129-136, December 2016 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Findings Pre-test given to the students before the researcher applied Suggestopedia method in teaching narrative text to know they basic comprehension of reading. The researcher given the pre-test in the first meeting to measure the students’ ability in reading comprehension.The researcher presented the chart to illustrate the frequency of the students’ pre-test. Figure 4.1 The Students’ Pre-Test Score Figure 1. The Students’ Pre-Test Score. From the figure above, there were two students got 20 scores, four students got 30 students, five students got 50 score, four students got 60, six students got 70 and one student got 80. It is clearly that from the figure above the highest score was 80 which only one student could achieve. The lowest score was 20, there were two students. It was true that the students still have difficulty in comprehending narrative text before implementing Suggestopedia method. Post-test was a final test given for the students after the researcher applying Suggestopedia method. In this session, the researcher asked the students to read three narrative texts followed by 10 questions. The data of students’ achievement in the post-test is displayed below. Figure 2. The Students’ Post-Test Score. 133 Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension by Vebriana Setia Deny, Syamsul Bahri, Dian Fajrina From the figure above, it can be seen that the highest score was 100 which was achieved by 4 students. While the lowest score was 60 which was achieved by 6 students. As a result, the score of post-test was higher than pre-test. 4.2 Discussion After collecting the data and processing all data taken from pre-test and posttest, it is necessary to discuss the result of the research. Referring to the treatments, the researcher would like to explain more clearly about the process of the implementation of Suggestopedia method. It has three times of treatment conducted by the researcher. In the first treatment, the researcher opened the learning process with greeting, praying, check the students attendance, and told to students the purpose of learning. The researcher asked the students to arrange the chairs in semicircle (UShape). After the students sit in the U-Shape, the researcher gave them the instruction to relax with given the positive suggestion in first meeting. It is very important for teacher make students relax to eliminate stressful, tired and improved motivation in teaching learning process. After that, the researcher showed them the picture related to the story “The Fox and The Grapes”. The researcher asked the students about the picture that the researcher showed them. For example: “what do you see in the picture?” could you mention what the fox do?.etc. The students answer the question enthusiastically. After activating the students prior knowledge, the researcher gave the text about “The Fox and The Grapes” for students. The researcher turned on the music instrument (Baroque music) in the class. Music instrument is a part of implementing Suggestopedia method. Giving music while in teaching reading comprehension could made the students more relax and enjoy. The researcher asked the students to listen and pay attention while the researcher read the story “The Fox and The Grapes” followed by Baroque music and the different teacher’s intonation. Intonation is an important thing because the students can memorize the story that researcher read. It was related with Lezanov’s theory to make students relaxed and fun in learning process including interaction between students and teacher, physical activities, intonation and music to memorize the material by using Suggestopedia method. After reading process, the researcher asked the students to answer 10 questions about main idea, detail information, vocabulary and reference related to the story. The researcher as a facilitator controlled and helped them when facing difficulties. After the students answered the questions that gave by researcher, she collected students’ papers and switch to another students. Then, the researcher discussed with students about the answer and told them the correct answer. In the second treatment, the researcher taught the story about “A Wolf in Sheep Clothing”. The researcher used the same method (Suggestopedia) in this meeting to teach reading. The researcher gave the reading text to student about “A Wolf in Sheep Clothing”. For this story, the researcher given 10 questions related to the text. It was main idea, detail information, vocabulary and reference. Because the students already knew about the Suggestopedia method, the learning process is more effective than the previous meeting. In the third meeting, the researcher introduced the story entitled “Collin Thinks Big”. The researcher gave the text about “Collin Thinks Big” to students. In this 134 Research in English and Education (READ), 1(2), 129-136, December 2016 meeting, the method applied was similar to the previous meeting. The researcher gave the some questions related to the text. Furthermore, there is a significant improvement that relates to the KKM (70). Before the treatment was given by the researcher, the average score of students in pre-test was 53.18, the lowest score was 20 and the highest scores was 80. However, after the researcher gave treatment by using Suggestopedia method to improve the students’ reading comprehension in narrative text, the average score was 79.09, the lowest score was 60 and the highest score was 100. As a result, there was a significant result between pre-test and post-test t- score = 4.197 α = 0.05 df (degree of freedom) = n-1 n-1 = 22-1 = 21 From the calculation above, the researcher found that the t-score was 4.197 and the critical value of t-score for 21 degree of freedom on the level significant 0.05 is 2.080. It is clear that t score> t table,(ts = 4.197 >tt= 2.080). It signified that alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted and null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected. It can be interpreted that there is significant difference between students’ score pre-test and post-test of VIII-1 at SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. The difference can be seen in the mean score of post-test is higher than the pre-test after the students are taught using Suggestopedia method. It can be concluded, there was an improvement for students’ reading comprehension in narrative text after they were taught using Suggestopedia method. 5. CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION The purpose of this research was to know whether or not the Suggestopedia method has significant improvement in teaching reading comprehension for the students at VIII-1 SMPN 8 Banda Aceh. The improvement can be seen from the result of mean score of pre-test and post-test. In this research the result of means score of pre-test (53.18) and mean score of post-test (79.09). It means that the means score of post-test is higher than the pre-test. It can be indicated that there was significant difference between pre-test and post-test. Moreover, the researcher found that t-test score of the students was 4.197 while the t-table was 2.080. It was seen very clearly that t-test (4.197) was bigger than t-table (2.080). It means that Ha (Alternative Hypothesis) stating that Suggestopedia method can improve students’ reading comprehension at VIII-1 SMPN 8 Banda Aceh was accepted. Based on the conclusion, the researcher would like to present some suggestions to the teachers and other researchers. These suggestions could give good impact to the student so that they got improvement in reading comprehension. The researcher suggest for the teacher can be used this method as an alternative method in teaching reading skill. In the Suggestopedia method, the teachers should be more creative do design the classroom atmosphere to make the student attract in reading text. For the researcher, to conduct a similar study, but they should investigate this problem in different grades for example; in the second or third grade and in the different types of genre. 135 Suggestopedia Method on Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension by Vebriana Setia Deny, Syamsul Bahri, Dian Fajrina REFERENCES Alyousef, H. S. (2006). Teaching reading comprehension to ESL/EFL Learners. Journal of Language and Learning, 5(1), 379–380 Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C., Sorensen, C. K., & Walker, D. A. (2014). Introduction to Research in Education (8th ed). Belmort, CA: Wadsworth. Grabe,W., & Stoller, L. (2013). Teaching and researching Reading (2thedition). London and New York: Routledge. Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching(3rd edition).Cambridge: Longman. Kharismawati, R. (2014). Suggestopedia Method in the Teaching and Learning Process. Jurnal Mahasiswa Teknologi Pendidikan, 2(1). 2-11. Lezanov, G. (2005). 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