TEACHING READING USING PRE-QUESTIONING TECHNIQUE AT THE SECOND

GRADE STUDENTS OF SMPN 1 CIHAMPELAS KAB BANDUNG BARAT

SITI HODIJAH

e-mail:shetyzzaa@yahoo.com
English Education Study Program Language and Arts Department Sekolah Tinggi Keguruan
dan Ilmu Pendidikan (STKIP) Siliwangi Bandung

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research entitled Teaching Reading Using Pre-Questioning Technique at
the second grade Students of SMPN 1 Cihampelas Kab. Bandung Barat was effective to
improve the students reading comprehension ability at the second grade students of SMPN 1
Cihampelas Kab. Bandung Barat.The populations of this study was thirty one of the second
grade students of SMPN 1 Cihampelas Kab. Bandung Barat and the sample was entire
population. This research used one group pretest-posttest design and quantitative method. The
instruments used in this research was pretest and posttest. The collected data were analyzed by
using t-test formula. The results of the data analysis showed that: the mean sscore of pretest was
35.16, the mean score of post-test was 56.61, the t obs was 11.172. The ttable with degrees of
freedom (df) 30 and level of significance at 5 % (0.05) was 1.697.Based on the data above,
teaching reading using pre-questioning technique improved students achievement in
understanding reading text at the second grade students of SMPN 1 Cihampelas Kab.
Bandung Barat, It also mean that the alternative hypotheses of this research was accepted
because the tobs was higher than t table (11.172>1.697).
Key words: Teaching Reading, Pre-questioning Technique

A. BACKGROUND

to read. If their reading skill is poor they are very likely

to fail in their study or at least they will have difficulty
in making progress. On the other hand, if they have a
good ability in reading, they will have a better chance
to succeed in their study.
In reading, to comprehend the text the readers
should be able to manage every part of the text,
because it is easy to gain the comprehension in reading
when the readers are able to organize the text.
Sometimes, they may find form of pre-questioning and
it is important for them to comprehend a reading text
with having knowledge in general view of the text.
Theoretically, pre-questioning itself can build the
students interest and motivation before students read
the whole text. Moreover, the students can predict what
will be discussed on the text. In line with this study,
students may improve their reading comprehension if
they know about pre-questioning and it is very
important to understand about pre-questioning in order
to get good comprehension in reading.

Language is one of the most important things in

communication and it is used as a tool of
communication among nations all over the world. As
an international language, English is very important
and has many interrelationships with various aspects of
life owned by human being. In Indonesia, English
considered as the first foreign language and taught
formally from elementary school up to the university
level.
In English, there are four language skills that
should be mastered, they are: listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. The reading skill became very
important in the education field, students need to be
exercised and trained in order to have a good reading
skill.
Reading is also something crucial and
indispensable for the students because the success of
their study depends on the greater part of their ability

Based on the explanation above, the writer is

interested in finding out the effects of treatment with
pre-questioning and without pre-questioning on
students reading comprehension achievement and
concluded that the pre-questioning consists of some
questions provided before the students read the whole
text. It tends to build the students interest and
motivation to read the text

the very least, some of the language sticks in their

minds as part of the process of language acquisition,
and if the reading text is especially interesting and
engaging, acquisition is likely to be even more
successful. Reading texts also provide opportunities to
study language: vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and
they are constructing sentences, paragraphs and texts.
Lastly, good reading texts can introduce interesting
topics, stimulate discussion, excite imaginative
responses and be the springboard for well-rounded,
fascinating lessons (Harmer, 1998:68).
Based on the statement above, the teaching reading
is important to improve their language.

B. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
1. Definition of Teaching
Teaching is process of communicating a subject or
a lesson. The teaching problem is actual problem that is
always follow by any teacher. The main factor that
influence the student achievement is the way of the
teacher to teach the subject or lesson to their students.
According to Brown (1994:7) said that teaching
maybe defined as showing or helping someone to learn
how to do something, giving acknowledge causing to
know ubderstand.
From the statement above, teaching means giving
instruction to the student to learn something which
effect them in such away that learning is facilitated and
the student can acquire knowledge. So they will know
or understand something.
The final target of teaching learning process is that
the students have the latest and ability using English
because the teacher only gives a condition to the
students have learning process and the objectives
formed or achieved. This means that the teachers
effort is facilitating the students to have learning
process.

4. The Aims of Reading

There are the aims of reading, described by Grellet
(1981:4) in Winarti (2010:10) such as:
a. Reading for pleasure
When you read for pleasure, you will probably
read it quicker and not really think about the
story or what the author is trying to reveal to
you. Sometimes if you tired and want to settle
down with a good book, you may just want to
read for you own enjoyment.
b. Reading for information
Reading for information use when the students
read and written text in order to do a job. The
written texts include memos, letters, directions,
signs, notices, bulletins, policies, and
regulations. It is often the case that workplace
communications are not necessarily wellwritten or targeted to the appropriate audience.
It means that, by reading for information is
very important for us, we got information not
only from the school but we can get
information or knowledge from memos, letters,
and bulletins etc.

2. The Definition of Reading

According to Al-Khulli, (1997:69) in Haq
(2011:12) Reading is one of the four language skills
constitutes as a process to obtain much information and
get meaning from written materials This implies that
reading gives a chance for reader to know what the
purpose is.
Reading is strategies employed to encourage the
reader to read with expectancy and anticipate the
authors thoughts. In addition, Finochiaro and Bonomo
(1973:119) states that reading is bringing meaning to
and getting meaning from printed or written material
.
3. Why Teach Reading?
Reading is useful for other purposes too: any
exposure to English (provided students understand it
more or less) is good thing for language students. At

5. The Technique of Reading

According
to
a
website
(http://riverwrites.hubpages.com/hub/Speed-ReadingTechniques-Skimming-and-Scanning printed on 06-072012 at 21:50 pm), there are some technique of
reading, such as:
1. Skimming
a. Read the title
b. Read the introduction
c.. Read all the subheadings and think about how they
are related to one another and to the title.
d. Read the first sentence in each paragraph. We may
also need to read
the last sentence in each

paragraph depending on the style of writing.

e. Go back through the text looking for clues as to
content and importance.
f. Read the last paragraph
g. It should be finished during fifteen minutes.

provided before the students read the whole text, in

order to build the students interest and motivation,
also their cognitive factors and pre-questioning is very
useful to activate the schemata, thus the students can
predict what will be faced by them in the reading text.

2. Scanning
After reading the text, look at the study question at
the end.
a. Search for key words or ideas.
b. Go back and look up each vocabulary term and reread the definition from the book.
From the explanation above, the writer only use
one technique is skimming technique in her research.

c. Kinds of Pre-questioning
According to Harmer (1985:153) There are some
kinds of pre-questioning, they are: Pre-questioning
before reading to confirm expectations, pre-questioning
before reading to extract specific information, prequestioning before reading for general comprehension,
and pre-questioning before reading for detail
comprehension. The explanations are as following:
1. Pre-questioning before reading to confirm
expectations
The use of pre-questioning as a tool for placing
great emphasis on the lead-in stage (where students
are encouraged to become interested in the subject
matter of the text), encourages students to predict
the content of the text, and gives them an
interesting and motivating purpose for reading.

6. Pre-Questioning Technique
a. Questioning Strategies
The most important key to create an interactive
learning is the initiation of interaction from the teacher
by using question, Brown (2001:169). Appropriate
questioning can fulfill a number of different functions,
such as:
1. Teacher questions give students the opportunity
to produce language comfortably without having
to risk initiating language themselves. It is very
scary for the students to have to initiate
conversation or topics for discussion.
2. Teacher question can serve to initiate a chain
reaction of students interaction among
themselves.
3. Teacher questions giving immediate feedback
about students comprehension.
4. Teacher questions provide students with
opportunities to find out what they think. As they
are nudged into responding to questions about,
say, a reading, they can discover what their own
opinions and reactions are. This self-discovery
can be especially useful for a pre-reading activity.
Perhaps the simplest way to conceptualize the
possibilities is to think of a range of questions,
beginning with display questions that attempt to elicit
information already known by the teacher and the
students. In this study, the writer interested to use prequestioning in order to make the general frame of the
knowledge.

2. Pre-questioning before reading to extract

specific information
Pre-questioning as a tool to force the students
to extract specific information from the text. They
are going to answer before reading the text. If they
do this it will be possible for them to read in the
required way, they should seen the text only to
extract the information the questions demand.
3. Pre-questioning before reading for general
comprehension
In this case pre-questioning used to build up the
students prior knowledge.
4. Pre-questioning before reading for detailed
comprehension
This kind of pre-questioning intends to give the
students some detailed information that should be
found by them in the whole of the text.
Based on the explanation above, in this study
the writer only concern two kinds of prequestioning, they are: Pre-questioning before
reading for general comprehension and the prequestioning before reading to confirm expectations.
In order to deal with students background
knowledge and activating schemata.
Related to this study, the writer used prequestioning with Indonesian version, because the

b. Pre-questioning
Based on Browns (2001:172) explanation of
display questions, schema theory and students
background knowledge explanation. He also defined
pre-questioning implicitly as some questions which are

form of pre-questioning is only to deal the

students background knowledge. Thus, the
students can predict easily what will be discussed
on the text, after they read and answer the prequestioning.

students.
b. Sample
The sample in this research described by
Crowl (1996:15) that samples are subsets of
people used to represent population. The sample
of this research is the second grade from one class
they were 16 students and given pre-test and posttest.

C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research Design
In this research, the writer used pre-experimental
design in one group pre-test post-test design as her
research design because in this research only the
comparator group did not exist. The data of this
research were analysis to examine the hypothesis by
using t-test formula.

5. Research Data Collection

For collecting data, the writer used test. The test
divided two steps, they were pre-test and post-test. The
writer carried out pre-test before treatment and posttest after treatment. Those activities were done to get
students score in skimming technique before and after
treatment. In this research the writer used two kinds of
test. They are pre-test and post-test.

2. Research Method
In this research, the writer used quantitative
research method. Quantitative research methods are
used to examine questions that can best be answered by
collecting and statistically analyzing data that are in
numerical form (Crowl, 1996:10). This research was
mean to find the effect of something given to the
subject of the research to know how effective this
technique.
Based on the statement above, the researcher did
not attempt to answer the question by providing a
verbal description of students interpretations of their
academic performance.

6. Research Procedure
The research was conducted as follows:
1. Identifying study problem.
2. Determining study title.
3. Determining study Population and Sample.
4. Developing study instrument.
5. Collecting study data.
6. Analyzing study data.
7. Drawing study conclusions and suggestions.
7.Research Data Analysis
In analyzing the collected data the writer used t-test
formula with significant level at 5 %.
a. To find out the mean of the score from the test,
according to Crowl (1996:140) the formula as
follow:

=
b. The standard deviation is the square root of the
average squared difference between each score
and the mean score Crowl (1996:140) as
follows:

3. Research Instrument
To find out the research of the investigation, the
writer used a standardized test which means the test
has been designed so that the procedures for
administering the test, the materials used in the test,
and the way in which the test is scored are constant
(Crowl, 1996:114). In this research the writer will use
test as instrument. The test given to the students is
choice.
4. Research Population and Sample
a. Population
In this research, the writer has a population in
her research, populations are groups consisting of
all people to whom a researcher wishes to apply
the findings of a study Crowl (1996:15). The
population of this research is the students of
SMPN 1 Cihampelas Kab. Bandung Barat
especially the second grade. In this case the
researcher tried to use one class consists of 31

S=

( )

c. degree of freedom is needed when we want to

compare between the obtained t (tobs) with the
table entry for relevant df and level significant
the degree of freedom formula is:

df=n-1
d. According to McMillan and Schumacher
(2001:369) the formula of the t-test as follows:

t-test

t=

answer. From the table above, we could see that there was a
significant difference in all students score between pre-test
and post-test. Most students are having categories in
moderate to very unsatisfactory in pre-test and all students
move to categories in unsatisfactory to good in post test.

D. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

a. Pre- test Score

1. Data of this Research

To collect data of this research, the writer used one
group pre-test post-test design. Both the pre-test and
post-test were conducted on 17th till 31st May 2012 at
the second grade of SMPN 1 Cihampelas kab Bandung
Barat. The following were the results of the pre-test
and post-test.
TABLE 1

a. mean

=
b. Standard Deviation
=

Grade chart of pre-test (before a treatment) and post-test

(after treatment)
SCORE
NO
NAME
POSTPRE-TEST
TEST
1
Student 1
55
75
2
Student 2
40
65
3
Student 3
45
70
4
Student 4
35
55
5
Student 5
35
55
6
Student 6
30
60
7
Student 7
40
65
8
Student 8
35
50
9
Student 9
35
60
10
Student 10
45
70
11
Student 11
35
50
12
Student 12
40
65
13
Student 13
25
40
14
Student 14
40
60
15
Student 15
30
55
16
Student 16
40
60
17
Student 17
40
65
18
Student 18
30
50
19
Student 19
35
50
20
Student 20
35
60
21
Student 21
30
50
22
Student 22
30
55
23
Student 23
30
55
24
Student 24
30
50
25
Student 25
35
55
26
Student 26
15
35
27
Student 27
40
65
28
Student 28
40
65
29
Student 29
35
50
30
Student 30
35
55
31
Student 31
25
40
1090
1755
SUM

= 35.16
(

= 52.47 S = 7.24

b. Post test score

a. Mean

= 56.61

b. Standard Deviation
=

= 83.98 S = 9.16

The last calculation is t-test:

35.16 56.61
=
7.24 9.16
21.45
=
1.92
= 11.17
The degree of freedom is:
df = n-1 df = 31-1 = 30
The critical value of t-table at the 0,05 level of the
significance for this degree of freedom 5 % from 30
was 1,69

There are twenty cases of the total number of the test.

Each is pointed five if the answer is true and zero if false

a. To enrich the students understanding about

reading comprehension, the student need to
recognize the kinds of text and make it analyze
by skimming and the explanation deeply.
b. The student should understand the prequestioning technique to make main idea in the
text by skimming it.

2. Discussion
The data analysis shows that:
M1
= 35.16
M2
= 56.61
T obs
= 11.17
The t critical value degree of freedom (df)
=31-1=30
And the level of significance
5%
= 1.69
Based on the data analysis above, the writer
concluded that the alternative hypothesis was accepted
because the tobs was higher than t-table (11.17>1.69).
The hypothesis of this research there was significance
in teaching reading by using pre-questioning technique.
It is also mean that teaching reading by using prequestioning technique is more effective without using
it.
It showed that the students understanding about
pre-questioning technique influenced the students
ability of reading comprehension.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, H Douglas. 2001. Teaching by Principles. San
Francisco: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. Principles of Language
Learning and Teaching. Prentice Hall
Crowl, K Thomas. 1996. Fundamentals of Educational
Research. United State of America: Brown
and Benchmark.
Harmer, Jerremy. 1998. The Practice of English
Language Teaching. New York: Longman, Inc.

E. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Harmer, Jeremy. 1985. The Practice of English

Language Teaching. Longman

1. Conclusion
Based on the data analysis above, the writer
concluded that the alternative hypothesis was accepted
because the t-observed was higher (11.17) than the ttable (1.69), it also means that teaching reading
comprehension by using pre-questioning technique is
influencing students in ability to read and analyze the
text by skimming.
In the teaching reading comprehension by using
pre-questioning technique, the writter get some
conclutions that the students who are taught reading
comprehension by using pre-questioning technique
understand the text better.

Haq, Heri Khaerudin. (2011). Teaching Reading

Comprehension Using Question-Answer
Technique. STKIP Siliwangi Bandung: Paper
Unpublished.
McMillan, H. James and Schumacher Sally. (2001).
Research in Edcation A Conceptual
Introduction. New York: Longman.
Winarti, Wiwin. (2010). The Effectiveness of Skimming
and Scanning Technique in Improving Students
Reading Ability. STKIP Siliwangi Bandung:
Paper Unpublished.

2. Suggestions
1. For the teacher
a. The teacher has to improve his/her technique
and ability in teaching reading.
b. The teacher should be able to explain the kinds
of text in order to make understanding of
students.
c. The teachers have to give the more exercise so
that the student will be familiar with kinds of
text and analyze it by skimming.

______(http://riverwrites.hubpages.com/hub/SpeedReading-Techniques-Skimming-and-Scanning
printed on 29-05-2012 at 21:50 pm)

2. For the student