The Use of
Islamic Newspaper Articles to Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension
Introduction
English is the first foreign language in Indonesia. To
have the success life, everyone should have good ability in English, especially
for students. One of English skills that students should master is reading. Having
good reading skill is very important because reading is a key to improve
learning outcome in many field of study (Hamra and Syatriana, 2010). However,
reading is difficult
to learn. Most students felt under pressure to understand the text that they
read. They have difficulty in catching the information. As the result, most of
them have low interest in EFL Reading (Cahyono and Widiati, 2007).
There are many factors that can affect students low
interest in reading, such as the students prior knowledge of material in reading
text (Cahyono and Widiati, 2007), reading strategy (Grabe and Stoller, 2002),
and the reading materials that is provided by teacher. Reading materials are
important because they are the contents of the learning process and also the
media to connect students to the knowledge they require to understand (Zahrina,
2017). Sidek (2011) also put his argument that reading is the foundation of
writing. In order to improve students interest, motivation and ability in
reading comprehension there should find a way and an appropriate reading
materials that is suit to students need (Febriani, 2015). Therefore, the goal
of teaching reading can be reached.
On the other hand, there are no differences English materials
that is provided in the religious school compare with other state school. In
the religious school, they also used the general book like other school. It
would be unfortunate for the students in the religious school if they are not
familiar with English Islamic themes in their school.
In the religious school, students are hoped to have
Islamic values, including in learning English. The idea of Islamization of
knowledge was proposed as the result of the first world conference of Muslim
education in Mecca in 1977 (Muhsinin, Rukmini, Saleh, Sofwan, 2017). To have
success of this vision, teaching English could be implemented by integrating
Islamic values (Munir and Hartono, 2016). Thus, in terms of teaching reading
comprehension, using Islamic newspaper articles is considered appropriate. By
using this media, students not only enhance their reading comprehension, but
also can increase their religiosity.
The Islamic newspaper articles are been to be highly
motivational for students of all ages and students enjoy the variety of reading
and visual material included in the newspaper (Elmadwi, 2014). Ahmmed (2016)
also claimed that Islamic newspaper article is easy to understand because its
written clearly and directly and the language used in newspaper is a day to day
language. Besides, Islamic newspaper is easy to understand because the
information that is provided is based on students prior knowledge so that
students can catch the information and the vocabulary which is contain is the
real vocabulary. It means that the students familiar with the context because
they have learned about their religion since they were children.
Based on the explanation above, the writer would give the
Islamic newspaper articles to students as the supplementary reading material so
that students’ interest in reading can also be increased. Thus, this study is
aimed to improve students’ reading comprehension by using Islamic newspaper
Articles. This material is expected to be an alternative solution for teaching
reading at the second grade of MAN Kota Bakti.
REFERENCE
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