Improving the Students’ Reading Comprehension through Neurological
Impress Method (N.I.M) (A Classroom Action Research at the Second Grade Students
of SMA)
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
A.
Background
English
is one of the subjects in Indonesia’s curriculum for elementary until
university level and also become a subject which is examined in National Examinations.
Law of National Education Standard (2005) stated: In the level of Senior High
School (SMA) or other forms in the same level, National Examination includes
subjects of Indonesia Language, English, Mathematics, and the subjects which
are become the characteristics of Education Program.
Besides as a
compulsory subject, English is also a need in this globalization era. The goals
of teaching English in Indonesia are mainly to enable the students to use
English for communication and to read books and references written in English.
The students are expected to have skills of the English language such as reading, writing, listening, speaking, and other elements of language that must
be taught to the students through the chosen themes.
Among
the four skills above, reading get greater attention than three others, because
reading is one of the important skills. Reading can be defined as an active
cognitive process of interacting with the print and monitoring comprehension to
establish meaning and through reading we can get much knowledge, study new
words, comprehend ideas, study the word are used, how to implement the
grammatical rules, and gain the information from their reading material if they
are able to derive meaning from what they read. By reading people can explore
the world, find and improve new concept, enhance experience, find problem
solving, and to up-date the changes in the world.
In syllabus of KTSP of Senior High School (2010) at the second grade, states that curriculum of education expect the students to be able to
understand reading texts. In this case is especially for hortatory exposition
through reading based on the context of the text. Constructing their ideas and
automatically expressing their ideas into speaking and writing which are
appropriate with environment where they are. It affirms that one of the basic
competences that should be mastered by the students is reading comprehension. It proves that reading
comprehension is very important in learning English.
As the explanation above, the researcher will use Neurological Impress
Method (N.I.M) to improve the students reading
ability especially in reading comprehension. It can help the
students to express their ideas and can be able to comprehend the text or material they read. It will be held at the second year students of SMA . In that school the students still lack of
ability to express their own ideas through reading. It is proved from their successful minimal
criteria (KKM) are 7.0 while
the students just got 6.0, which
the researcher has taught in P2K (Teaching Practice) for two months. It means very low. Such problems are found by the researcher
through observation and teaching-learning process in diagnostic test.
The ultimate goals of reading
are that learners should be able to read hortatory exposition material with
comprehension. Reading along with a more
fluent reader is thought of as an impress in of word memories on the natural
process (Heckelman in
Imran, 2010). Based on the background above, the researcher
would like to carry out a research under the title “Improving the Students’ Reading Comprehension through Neurological
Impress Method (NIM) at the second grade Students of SMA
