Reading supports the development of a learner’s overall proficiency. However, the reading competence of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students in Indonesia has been found to be decreasing. This piece of evidence was obtained from the results of the Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) in 2012, where Indonesian students were the second lowest in the general league table, whilst in the reading domain, they were the sixth lowest of the sixty-five countries that participated, worse than the last PISA in 2009 when Indonesia ranked 57th. This result is quite alarming and directs us to presume that the country’s education system is declining (Mailizar 2013).
To further understand the students’ reading problems, at this juncture, it is important for us to investigate the root of those problems. We commenced our preliminary study at a high school in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, where we informally interviewed the English teachers on the problems of reading that their students might face. They informed us that there were students who have some good reading skills or known as good readers, and those who hardly understand their reading or known as poor readers. However, both groups of these readers were confronting difficulties in reading English texts, each group with different problems. This is despite the classroom activities given to improve their reading, such as taking notes, skimming, scanning, rereading the text, and also discussing it with their friends. Edward Burke’s (quoted in Magner 2011, 20) words, “Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting,” imply that the students’ reading is insignificant if they do not understand it. When they read without reflecting, they are not absorbing the value and the substance of the content. |
