Building on
Students’ Weaknesses to Practice Guessing Meaning from Context and Improve
M V Joyce Merawati
This
paper discusses the results of conducting inductive action research with the
First Year Students of D III Civil Engineering of Politeknik
Negeri Bandung (Polban). This study was triggered by an issue that students
at tertiary level of education, especially the Polban
students, was often complaining when they had to read English textbook; even
though they had studied reading comprehension since studying English in high
schools and one semester in Universities or Polban. Considering the ESP theory, designing
acceptable and reasonable content of ESP course needs the awareness of the
learners’, sponsors’, and teachers’ needs (Hutchinson and Waters, 1989). Among
those three groups – learners, sponsors, and teachers – the first group plays
very important role in learning because learners are not the objects of
teaching (Mustahafa, 2000: 4). In
To
eliminate boring situation (Alwasilah, 2001: 13) and
the unsuccessful English target from learners’ perception (Alwasilah,
2000: 106), teachers are to serve learners’ interests and needs. This is also a
way to seize the teachable moment of the learners (Watson and Crowley, 1987 as
cited in Tierney, 1995) but at the same time lead them to the target needs.
Thus, ESP teachers are advised to seize this teachable moment by facilitating
the students’ perceived problems in reading (Oxford, 1990; Wallace, 1998;
Stringer, 1996).
Then,
some questions come up:
1.
What are the problems of the first semester
students when they are reading texts?
2.
What are their strategies to overcome these
problems?
3.
What are the reasons of applying these
strategies?
4.
What are the treatments to overcome these
problems?
5.
What do the reading materials look like for
practicing guessing meaning from context?
6.
What improvement do the students achieve after
three treatments?
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Merawati, M. V. J. (2003, October). Buidling on students’weaknesses to practice
guessing meaning from context and improve reading skills and strategies.
Paper presented at the 51st TEFLIN International Conference,
Website: www.geocities.com/eltindonesia
Email: eltindonesia@yahoo.com