Much
Deiniatur
University of Ahmad Dahlan
Abstract
Reading holds
the important rule
in learning english because
reading is one activity which can not be released from
our live to search some information or knowledge from printed text. Thus, the
students should have good reading skills.
The writer uses
the jigsaw tehcnique in teaching reading because By using
jigsaw technique, they acquire basic knowledge. Then, they apply that
knowledge in their expert groups to discuss the guiding questions. It also
gives every student a chance to be an expert. They are
forced to synthesize their
previous discussion into
something meaningful activities.
Jigsaw helps student to comprehend the text more
effective in short time, beside that, by using jigsaw technique students is
given the chance become an expert for teaching each other in their group. Its
expectation is students have a good achievement in reading skills. So that, the
goal of teaching and learning process will be gotten well.
Keywords:
Reading, Jigsaw, cooperative learning
INTRODUCTION
English
becomes important language in the world since it is used
as international language,
everyone recognizes that it
has an important role
in cooperating with others in this
universe, English holds important part in human life and contributes to all
aspects, such as; social, politic, culture, technology, economic, education,
and so on.
There
are four English basic
skills, to be able to communicate, they are listening, speaking, reading
and writing. Reading
holds the important
rule because reading
is one activity which can not be
released from our live to search some information or knowledge from printed
text. Thus, the students should have good reading skills.
In
the fact most of students still have low competence in those skills and
language components. For them English is difficult and boring lesson. And
it makes students
less motivation to learn English
especially at school. One reason is
the technique in teaching English. The writer thinks
that one solution to solve
the problem is
that the English
teacher should have
an appropriate technique
in teaching reading. One of technique is jigsaw technique. Jigsaw
technique is the technique in teaching
where the student work
in jigsaw group
and study together in each group
to become an expert in their own group.
The reason
why he uses
jigsaw technique is
to give students
more chance for students
to discus and to
find some information in printed text.
The writer assumes that jigsaw technique is
suitable way to
motivate students in
reading text. By
using jigsaw technique, they
acquire basic knowledge. Then, they apply that knowledge in their expert groups
to discuss the guiding questions. It also gives every student a chance to be an
expert. They are forced
to synthesize their
previous discussion into
something meaningful activities.
DISCUSSION
1.
Cooperative Learning
Cooperative
learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on
the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups and
in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is
motivated to increased the learning of others. (Olsen and Kagen in Richards and
Rodgers, 2001:192).
According
to Brown (2001:47), A curriculum or classroom that is cooperative usually
involves the above learner centered characteristic. As students work together
in pairs and in groups, they share information and come to each other’s aid.
They are a “team” whose players must work together in order to achieve goals
succesfully.
Cooperative
learning, as the name implies, requires students to work together on a common
task, sharing information, and supporting one another. The teacher designs and
assigns group learning tasks, manages time and resources, and monitors
students’ learning, checking to see that students are on task and that the
group process is working well. (Barkley,2005:5)
2.
The Types of Cooperative Learning
Johnson
et al in Richards and Rodgers (2001:196) describe three type of cooperative learning groups :
a) Formal
cooperative learning groups. These last from one class period to several weeks.
These are established for a specific task and involve students working together
to achieve shared learning goals.
b) Informal
cooperative learning groups. These are ad-hoc groups that last from a few
minutes to a class periode and are used
to focus student attention or to facilitate learning during direct teaching.
c) Cooperative
base groups. These are long term, lasting for at least a year and consist of
heterogeneus learning groups with stable membership whose primary purpose is to
allow members to give each other the support, help, encouragement, assistance,
they need to succed academcally.
3.
The Important Elements in Cooperative learning
Olsen
and Kagen in Richards and Rodgers (2001:192) describe the key elements of
cooperative learning:
a) Positive
interdependence occur when group members feel that what helps one
member helps all and what hurts one member hurts all. It is
created by the structure of CL task and by building a spirit of mutual support
within the group. For example, a group may produce a single product such as an
essay or the scores for members of a group may be averaged.
b) Group
formation is an important factor in creating positive interdependence. Factors
involved in setting up groups include:
·
Deciding on the size of the group: this
will depend on the task they have to carry out, the age of the learners, and
time limits for lesson. Typical group size is from two to four.
·
Assigning students to group: groups can
be teacher-selected, random, or student-selected. Although teacher-selected is
recommended as the usual mode so as to create groups that are heterogeneous on
such variables as past achievement, ethnicity, or sex.
·
Student roles in groups: each group
member has a specific role to play in a group, such as noise monitor,
turn-taker monitor, recorder, or summarizer.
c) Individual
accountability involves both group and individual performance, for example, by
assigning each student a grade on his or her portion of a team project or by
calling on a student at random to share with the whole class, with group
members,or with another groups.
d) Social
skill determine the way students interact with each other as teamates. Usually
some explicit instruction in social skills is needed to ensure successful
interaction.
e) Structuring
and structures refer to ways of organizing student interaction and different
ways students are to interact.
4.
Reading Comprehension
Reading
is one activity in order to get the information from printed text.
Reading also has positive effect on students’ vocabulary knowledge, on their
spelling, and on their writing. Reading text also provide good models for
English writing. At different times we can encourage students to focus on
vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation.(Harmer, 2007:99).
Harmer also said that there are two kinds of
reading, namely extensive and intensive reading. The term extensive reading
refers to reading which students do often away from classroom. They may read
novels, web pages, newspaper, magazines, or any other reference material. The
term intensive reading refers to the detailed focus on the construction of
reading texts which takes places usually in classroom. Teacher may ask students
to look extracts from magazines, poems, internet web sites, novels, newspaper,
plays and a wide range of other text genres.
5. Teaching Reading using Jigsaw Technique
a. Jigsaw
The Jigsaw method is a cooperative
learning technique in which students work in small groups. Jigsaw can be used in a variety of ways for a variety of
goals, but it is primarily used for the acquisition and presentation of new
material, review, or informed debate. In this method, each group member is
assigned to become an "expert" on some aspect of a unit of study.
After reading about their area of expertise, the experts from different groups
meet to discuss their topic, and then return to their groups and take turns
teaching their topics to their groupmates. (http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/PD/coop/page4.html)
Jigsaw
is a teaching technique invented by social psychologist Elliot Aronson
in 1971. Students of an average sized class (26 to 33 students) are divided
into competency groups of four to six students, each of which is given a list
of subtopics to research. Individual members of each group then break off to
work with the "experts" from other groups, researching a part of the
material being studied, after which they return to their starting group in the
role of instructor for their subcategory.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigsaw_(teaching_technique).
b. The
benefits of the jigsaw technique
There
are the benefits of the jigsaw technique:
·
Students are directly engaged with the
material, instead of having material presented to them, which fosters depth of
understanding.
·
Students gain practice in self-teaching,
which is one of the most valuable skills we can help them learn.
·
Students gain practice in peer teaching,
which requires them to understand the material at a deeper level than students
typically do when simply asked to produce on an exam.
·
During a jigsaw, students speak the
language of the discipline and become more fluent in the use of
discipline-based terminology.
·
Each student develops an expertise and
has something important to contribute to the group.
·
Each student also has a chance to
contribute meaningfully to a discussion, something that is more difficult to
achieve in large-group discussion.
·
the group task that follows individual
peer teaching promotes discussion, problem-solving, and learning.
·
Jigsaw encourages cooperation and active
learning and promotes valuing all students' contributions.
·
Jigsaw can be an efficient cooperative
learning strategy. Although the jigsaw assignment takes time in class, the
instructor does not need to spend as much time lecturing about the topic. If
planned well, the overall time commitment to using the jigsaw technique during
class can be comparable to lecturing about a topic. (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/teaching_methods/jigsaws/why.html).
c. Jigsaw Learning Procedure
According
to Barkley, et al (2005:157), there are some procedure of Jigsaw:
·
The instructor presents a list of
possible topics for developing expertise, making the division of the material
into component parts clear.
·
Either through teacher asignment or by
interest areas, students from groups charged with developing expertise on a
particular topic.
·
Students work in these expert groups to
master the topic. They also determine ways to help others learn the material.
Exploring possible explanation, examples, illustrations, and applications.
·
Students move from their expert group to
new jigsaw groups in which each students serves as the only expert on a
specific topic. In these groups, experts teach the material and lead the
discussion on their particular topic. Thus each new jigsaw group consists of
four to six students, each prepared to teach their subject to their peers.
·
The whole class reflects on the group discoveries
in a closure activity.
CONCLUSION
Jigsaw
technique is one of a good technique in teaching reading. It helps student to
comprehend the text more effective in short time, beside that, by using jigsaw
technique students is given the chance become an expert for teaching each other
in their group. Its expectation is students have a good achievement in reading
skills. So that, the goal of teaching and learning process will be gotten well.
REFERENCES
Barkley, et al. 2005. Collaborative
Learning Technique. San Francisco: Jossey
Bass.
Brown, H Douglas.
2001. Teaching By Principles; An
Interactive Approach To
Language Pedagogy. Second edition. England: Pearson education
limited.
Harmer, Jeremy.
2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. England:
Pearson
education limited.
Richards,
Jack & Theodore, Rogers. 2001. Approaches and method in Language
teaching. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Internet
sources:
(accessed November 2nd, 2012)
(accessed November 2nd, 2012)
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