Attitudes Toward Extensive Reading Among English Teachers of Senior High Schools

Abstract

Attitudes Toward Extensive Reading Among English Teachers of Senior High Schools. This survey aims to investigate the attitudes of 32 English teachers of public senior high schools in a district in East Java Province, Indonesia, toward Extensive Reading (ER) as one of the ways of improv­ing reading habit, covering the teachers’ cognitive, behavioral, and affective attitudes. Questionnaires in the form of closed-ended and open-ended questions were used as the main instrument to collect the da­ta, complemented with interviews with sampled teachers to gain more in-depth understanding of the phenomena under study. The results show that cognitively, most English teachers have positive cogni­tive attitudes, which implies good understanding of ER. The teachers’ affective attitudes also reflect their eagerness to know more about implementing ER and to find ways of solving potential problems. However, in terms of behavioral attitudes, the data show that the teachers are still in doubt to conduct ER program due to several problems, such as time allotment, reading resources, students’ motivation, curriculum and school programs, learning assessment, and school rules. The findings imply the need for policy makers at school and government’s educational agencies, as well as experts in the field to help support the teachers in setting up ER program at schools by addressing the issues that teachers are con­cerned with.Abstrak: Sikap Guru Bahasa Inggris Sekolah Menengah Atas Terhadap Membaca Ekstensif. Studi survei ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki sikap (kognitif, konatif, dan afektif) dari 32 guru bahasa Inggris Sekolah Menengah Atas di salah satu kota di Provinsi Jawa Timur, Indonesia, terhadap mem­baca ekstensif sebagai salah satu cara untuk meningkatkan kebiasaan membaca. Kuesioner dalam bentuk pertanyaan tertutup dan terbuka digunakan sebagai instrumen utama untuk mengumpulkan data, serta dilengkapi dengan wawancara dengan guru sampel untuk mendapatkan pemahaman mendalam tentang fenomena yang diteliti. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa secara kognitif, sebagian besar guru bahasa Inggris memiliki sikap kognitif positif, yang menyiratkan pemahaman yang baik tentang membaca eks­tensif. Sikap afektif guru juga mencerminkan keinginan mereka untuk mengetahui lebih banyak tentang penerapan membaca ekstensif dan untuk menemukan cara memecahkan masalah potensial. Namun, da­lam hal sikap konatif, data menunjukkan bahwa guru masih ragu untuk melakukan program membaca ekstensif karena beberapa masalah, seperti alokasi waktu, sumber bacaan, motivasi siswa, kurikulum dan program sekolah, penilaian pembelajaran, dan peraturan sekolah. Hasil-hasil ini menyiratkan per­lunya pembuat kebijakan di sekolah dan lembaga pendidikan pemerintah, serta para ahli di lapangan untuk membantu mendukung para guru dalam menyiapkan program membaca ekstensif di sekolah-sekolah dengan menangani isu-isu yang berkaitan dengan guru.

Challenges in implementing extensive reading (ER) programs: Voices from English teachers at Indonesian secondary schools

“…This study was originally inspired by the empirical piece of evidence reported by Firda et al, (2018), revealing that in spite of their good understanding about ER and their willingness to implement ER, secondary English teachers in our context are still in doubt about implementing ER. Therefore, a case study is worth conducting to explore the real challenges secondary English teachers face when implementing ER in their classroom as well as school contexts so that possible causes of why many teachers still doubted how to implement ER can be untold.…”

“…In the case of the present study, we did not yet have any empirical evidence regarding the problems English teachers have when integrating ER into their English classes or when integrating ER as a part of supporting the national program SLI. What this study was trying to uncover might serve as a follow-up to the study by Firda et al (2018) regarding behavioral attitudes.…”

“…The aforementioned studies indicate that while research has focused on learners' perceptions and views on the potential benefits of ER, there remain two aspects of ER about which relatively little is known, namely the implementation of ER at secondary schools by English language teachers and the challenges they face in ER implementation in the Indonesian context. Firda et al, (2018) found out that the behavioral attitudes towards ER among teachers were not yet positive, suggesting that they were still in doubt about whether to implement ER and also how to implement it. Therefore, there is a need for a study that can document the real challenges that secondary English teachers have in integrating ER into their English classes or in implementing ER in support of SLI implementation at the school level.…”

“…In regard to ER and SLI, it can be said that ER implementation by English teachers will positively contribute to the success of SLI implementation. A number of studies have been done by scholars,including the implementation of ER in secondary schools (Anandari & Iswandari, 2019;Firda et al, 2018) and in tertiary Indonesian education settings (Hadiyanto, 2019;Husna, 2019).…”

Evektifitas Penggunaan Smartphone Dalam Pembelajaran Bahasa Inggris di SMA Negeri Pangkalpinang

“…It means that they learn from six to eight new words each day. That is an enormous achievement (Firda, Widiati, Laksmi, & Hayati, 2018). Mastering a large number of vocabularies is very important for foreign language learners.…”