Improving Reading Comprehension Using Contextual Teaching and Learning ( CTL )

This study was aimed to find out whether teaching-learning reading comprehension using Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) would get better results than using Direct Instruction approach. The research used a quantitative method. The population of the research was students from the Islamic University of Kalimantan Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari. The researcher used cluster random sampling to select two sample groups, the control group and the experimental group. The control group with 25 students was the class that continued to use the Direct Instruction approach. The experimental group, with 20 students, was the class tested using the CTL approach. The results of the study showed that the students studying reading comprehension using CTL got better results than those who were taught using direct instruction. The test was a written test with five multiple choice questions plus an essay test. The test was used to obtain the data. The students’ scores were the data for the study of reading comprehension comparing CTL and Direct Instruction. Based on the results of the study, the researcher found that CTL was more effective than Direct Instruction because the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted so that CTL was found to be better for teaching reading skills. CTL encourages materials that are related to the students’ surrounding so that it helps them use English related to their daily activities.


INTRODUCTION
Most students still have problems learning English because in Indonesia, English is a foreign language which makes it difficult for them to learn it.Thus it is a compulsory subject at high schools in Indonesia which means that English must be studied at school and students must pass their final exams in English in order to graduate from high school.However students still had trouble learning English even though they had studied English for many years, they still could not speak English fluently.These problems must be overcome by teachers so that students can learn it well.
Most students have problems during the English lesson and so they give less attention to the subject in the classroom.This made their learning less optimal, therefore teachers must find ways and effective methods to gain their attention, and further pay attention to their learning styles.In learning a foreign language, the students should learn what they can use and are expected to use the parts of the language; hence the language is not only used in the classroom but also in their daily activities.Furthermore, there are four skills in learning and using English or any other languages, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.All four skills have to be learnt by students in order to be able to use the language either in spoken or written form.
The researcher had previously observed a teacher at a university who usually taught English by using direct learning in his classroom, which his role is to model or demonstrates a procedure to the students.Therefore, the teaching and learning process focused only on him as the centre of learning in the classroom.He also used only the textbook provided by the university as the learning material for English.In other words, the main approach in direct learning is modelling in which the teacher demonstrates some procedure to the students.This made the students to be passive in the teaching and learning process in the classroom.This shows that the teacher was not creative in developing the English teaching learning techniques and materials.Consequently, the researcher of this study was interested in applying the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach to the classroom, especially in teaching English reading comprehension since this is the skill that the students had the lowest scores in at the university.
Accordingly, in this research, the researcher focused on the comparison in the results from students studying reading comprehension by using CTL with those using direct instruction in an extensive reading class.Brown (2000, p. 7) put forward the following definitions of learning as follows: 1. Learning is acquisition or "getting".2. Learning is retention of information or skills.3. Retention implies storage systems, memory, and cognitive organization.4. Learning involves active, conscious focus on and acting upon events outside or beside the organism.

Learning
5. Learning is relatively permanent but subject to forgetting.6. Learning involves some form of practice, perhaps reinforced practice.7. Learning is a change in behaviour.Moreover, Emmit and Pollock (1991, p. 8) state that "learning is a process of making connections, identifying patterns, organising previously unrelated bits of knowledge, behaviour, activities etc., into new (for the learner) patterned wholes".Ellis (1986, p. 6) further say that the term "learning" is used to refer to the conscious study of a second language.Therefore, learning is a process of getting new information through some activities and changes in behaviour in order to identify a new pattern and using memory to store the new information.
According to Gagné (1985) in Brown (2000, p. 93), there are eight types of learning: 1. Signal learning: where individual learners make a diffuse response to a signal.2. Stimulus-response learning: the learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus.3. Chaining: what is acquired by the learner is a chain of two or more stimulusresponse connections.4. Verbal association: verbal association is the learning of chains that are verbal.
Basically, the conditions resemble those for other (motor) chains.However, the presence of language in the human being make this a special type of chaining because internal links may be selected from the individual"s previously learned repertoire of language 5. Multi discrimination: the individual learns to make a number of different identifying responses to many different stimuli, which might resemble each other in physical appearance to a greater or lesser degree.Although the learning of each stimulusresponse connection is a simple occurrence the connections tend to interfere with one another.6. Concept learning: the learner acquires the ability to make a response to a class of stimuli even though the individual members of that class might differ widely from each other.The learner learns to be able to make responses that identify an entire class of objects or events.7. Principle learning: in simplest terms, a principle is a chain of two or more concepts.
It functions to organize behaviour and experience.8. Problem solving: problem solving is a kind of learning that requires the use of internal processes usually referred to as "thinking".Gagné (1985) sees that the higher orders of learning in these types (levels 5-8) are developed upon the first few levels (levels 1-4) in which they need a great deal of progressive capacity of previous learning for their success.The first four levels apt to focus on the behavioural aspects of learning, while the next four levels focus more on the cognitive aspects.Sears (2003) affirms that Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) is a concept that helps teachers relate subject teaching matter to a real world situation.Sears has also written that CTL motivates learners to take charge of their own learning and to make connections between knowledge and its applications in the various contexts of their lives: as family members, as citizens, and as workers.Moreover, Suprijono (2009, p. 79) writes that: Contextual Teaching and Learning is a concept that helps teachers to connect between the instructional materials toward the real world and supports the learner to make the relationship between the learners" knowledge toward the implementation in their life as a member of family and society.CTL is an educational procedure that aims to help the learners understand the material of learning learnt by them by relating it to their own life context in a social and cultural environment.(Suprijono, 2009, p. 79) Based on the definitions above, CTL is an approach for helping teachers in the process of teaching learning using instructional material aimed to help students better understands the lesson.Johnson (2002, p. 25) has also said that CTL is an educational process that aims to help students see meaning in the academic material they are studying by connecting academic subjects with their context.Suprijono (2009, p. 63) asserts that based on Center of Occupational Research and Development (CORJD), the implementation of contextual teaching learning strategy is described as follows: 1. Relating: the process of study relates to the context in the real world or experience.2. Experiencing: studying is an activity of experiencing, students proceeds actively, tries to explore toward the things what learnt, tries to find out and create new things what learned by the students.3. Applying: studying is to emphasize in the process of demonstrating the knowledge and what possessed by the students and applying it.4. Cooperating: studying is a collaborative and cooperative process by studying in groups, communicating interpersonally.5. Transferring: studying is to emphasize in the ability of signifying the knowledge in a new context.The strategy above is well-known for its abbreviation, REACT (Satriani, Emilia & Gunawan, 2012).By providing this strategy in the learning environment, students can make connections between on what they are learning and how that knowledge will be used.Suprijono (2009, p. 46) says that the proponent theory of direct instruction is a social study theory.Based on this theory, direct instruction emphasizes that study is a behaviour change.He also informs that the main approach of direct instruction is modelling which means that the teacher has to demonstrate something, e.g.some procedure to the students.He further explains there are sequences to follow when doing modelling as below: 1.The teacher demonstrates the behaviour which he wants the students to follow and to achieve as a result of their study.2. The behaviour has to be related to other behaviour that the students have already learnt.

Direct Instruction
3. The teacher demonstrates the various steps in the behaviour clearly structured, and sequentially arranged with an explanation of what was done and why after each step is completed.4. Students must remember the steps that they have seen and then they have to imitate them.Furthermore, Suprijono (2009, p. 50) presents some phases in direct instruction as follows: 1. Establishing Set: in this case, the teacher explains the objective(s) of the study, the study background and prepares the student(s) to study.2. Demonstrating: the teacher demonstrates the exact skill and presents it step by step.3. Guided Practice: the teacher gives out the first planned exercise.4. Feedback: the teacher checks whether the students have succeeded to do the task well and gives feedback.5. Extended Practice: the teacher gives the students a sequence of pre-prepared exercises to do paying particular attention to covering a complete topic.
According to Muijs andReynolds (2008, in Suprijono, 2009, p. 51), the steps of direct instruction could be developed as follows: 1. Directions: the teacher after attracting her students" attention explains the objective of the study work to her class and ensures that all her students know what has to be done.2. Instructions: the teacher gives information and instructs well.3. Demonstrations: the teacher makes a model using source materials and visual displays while giving an explanation then asks the students to copy the demonstration 4. Questions and discussions: the teacher asks the students questions and ensures that they are all involved in the activity.5. Consolidating: the teacher maximizes efforts to strengthen and develop what has been taught through various classroom activities.6. Evaluation: the teacher evaluates the efforts/results made by her students.

Summarizing: the teacher summarizes what has been taught and what had been learnt
by her students during the study activity.
By following the steps above, it should support and reinforce the teacher in employing the direct instruction model throughout the day in her teaching.

Understanding Reading Comprehension
Reading is useful for language acquisition (Harmer, 2007, p. 99).Reading is a set of skills that involve making sense and deriving meaning from the printed word, and in order to read, the learner or user must be able to decode the printed words and also comprehend the meaning of what they have read (Linse & Nunan, 2005, p. 69).This means that reading is a set of skills which need comprehension in determining or finding out and making sense and meaning from the printed words and also the ability to decode (sound out) the printed word.Pang, et al. (2003, p. 6) proclaims that: Reading is about understanding written texts.It is a complex activity that involves both perception and thought.Reading consists of two related processes; word recognition and comprehension.Word recognition refers to the process of perceiving how written symbols correspond to one"s spoken language.Comprehension is the process of making sense of words, sentences, and connected text.Readers typically make use of their background knowledge, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, experience with text and other strategies to help them understand written text.(Pang, et al., 2003, p. 6) Klingner, Vaughn and Boardman (2007, p. 2) also informs that "reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a number of complex processes that include word reading, word and world knowledge, and fluency".Hence, reading is an activity in understanding written texts.For success in reading comprehension, the reader has to get the sense of knowledge and understanding from each passage in the text.Besides that, the reader has to be able to construct her thoughts and perceptions to find the meaning in each sentence, each paragraph and each passage.
A study by Peni (2011) has found that CTL is more effective than the traditional Grammar Translation Method to teach reading comprehension for students in a junior high school in Surakarta.There is an interaction between teaching, method and students" intelligence in teaching reading comprehension where students having high intelligence have better reading comprehension than those with low intelligence.
Moreover, CTL focuses on processing approach, hence in the study by Peni (2011), students were seen to be involved actively in class activities such as sharing experiences, working together, analysing and summarizing the reading texts.The teaching learning process was more student-oriented, while the role of teacher was merely to be a facilitator.The aim of the learning activity emphasized not only to the substances and knowledge, but also to make them more meaningful to the students.

METHODOLOGY
The researcher used a quantitative experimental method, because this research compared the effects of two treatments: (1) CTL, and (2) direct instruction to teach reading comprehension to students learning English at the Islamic University of Kalimantan Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari.The data collected was the students" scores.The data was the results from the tests of reading comprehension after the teaching-learning process using either the contextual teaching-learning (CTL) approach or the Direct Instruction approach.The data was collected by the researcher directly as the teacher in this experiment.It took one meeting each for the treatment on CTL for one class and the Direct Instruction for the other class.At the end of the treatment, the same reading test was given to the students.

Research Variable
This research involved two variables; they were the independent variable (X) which was the students" result after being treated with CTL for the experimental class and with direct instruction for the control class.The dependent variable (Y) was the scores from the reading test given to the students.Figure 1 shows the independent variable and dependent variable relationship: This research used a post-test only control design as displayed in Table 1.The model scheme used is as shown in Figure 2.

Population and Samples
The research population was selected from students in the Extensive Reading Classes by cluster random sampling.They were students in their third semester.The researcher took two classes, one for the experimental class and the other one for the control class.Thus, class A, the experimental group had 25 students, and class B, the control group had 20 students.

Instrument of Research
The researcher used a similar test which consists of 30 questions to assess the students" reading comprehension abilities after the teaching and learning processes using CTL for one class and the Direct Instruction in the other (see Appendix 1).

The Validity of the Test Instrument
According to Brown (2000, p. 387), by far the most complex criterion of a good test is validity, the degree to which the test actually measures what it is intended to measure.This means that validity is the degree to which the test measures how well the subjects obtain their results based on their own ability.Brown (2000) informs that there are three kinds of validity: content, face, and construct validity.Content validity is the validity of the test to measure the content of the lesson which will be tested.Face validity is the appearance of the test to make it easy to do the test.Face validity is necessary to ensure that the process of performing the test is easy to do.Construct validity is the validity of the test to measure the knowledge or the ability of the subject which the researcher has organized the particular test to measure.In this case, the researcher used content and face validity because both of these validities were appropriate for assessing the results from the tests of reading comprehension of the students.Furthermore, the researcher used the Pearson Product Moment to test the validity of the instrument.The formula that was used for this test is set out in the following figure:

The Reliability of Instrument
Reliability is a criterion for testing a test whether it is good or not (Brown, 2000, p. 385).A reliable test is consistent and dependable (Brown, 2004, p. 20).For testing the test used, whether it was good or not, the researcher used the Kude-Richard formula 21.The formula as suggested by Tuckman (1999, p. 200) is as shown in the following figure:

Technique Used for Data Collecting
The data sources for this quantitative research were the scores from a test.The researcher used CTL with the experimental class and Direct Instruction with the control class to obtain the results for reading comprehension from student in reading classes.

Techniques Used for Data Analysis
The data were gotten in this research, they were quantitative data.For analysis data, it was used descriptive data for describing respondent characteristics.The steps done to analyse the data were as follows: 1. Collect the data: the data were the scores from the tests of reading comprehension completed by the students.2. Making the tabulations: getting the scores for each item, and summing up to get a score for each variable.

Test of Normality
This test was used by the researcher to test the data for normality.Before finding the Chi-Square values, there were some calculations that had to be done by the researcher.According to Riduwan (2011, p. 121)

Test of Hypothesis
This research used a t-test (two-tail test) to test the hypothesis or the differences in reading comprehension results from students studying with either CTL or Direct Instruction in Extensive Reading classes.To test the hypothesis, the formula used was:

Hypothesis
This research was to answer the question whether there is a significant difference between visual and auditory styles for learning how to read English, so the writer proposed the hypotheses as follows:  Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): "There will be a significant difference in the results for reading comprehension from students studying Extensive Reading using the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach compared to the results from students taught using the Direct Instruction approach". Null Hypothesis (Ho): "There will be no significant difference in the results for reading comprehension from students who studying Extensive Reading using the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach compared to the results from students taught using the Direct Instruction approach".

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
To find out the validity of the instrument, the researcher used the Pearson Product Moment to find whether each question was valid or not.Based on the results from calculating the Person Product Moment, only 24 of the 30 questions were valid as can be seen in the table below:  ,2,3,4,5,6,7,9,11,13,14,15,16,17,18,20,21,24,25,26,27,28,29,30 24 Invalid 8,10,12,19,22,23 6 Based on the table above, there were 24 valid questions and 6 invalid ones.So only the 24 valid questions were used in the test instrument for this research.

The Reliability Test of instrument
In this research, the criteria of reliability test of the instrument could be seen, if the K-R21 was bigger than r-table (K-R21>r-table).For determining the reliability, the researcher must determine the degree of freedom (df) at the level of significance of 5%, (df) = n-2 = 25 -2 = 23 so the r-table was 0.13.The K-R21 was 0.8987, so the K-R21 was bigger than the r -table, and thus the instrument was reliable.

The Normality Test
The researcher used the Chi-Square formula to find out whether the distribution was normal or not.Based on the result of calculating the data, in the experiment group (Xe group), the interval classes consisted of 6 rows, so the degree of freedom (df=N-1=6-1=5) is 5.After getting the degree of freedom, the researcher found that r-table was 11.070.The value of Chi-Square that the researcher got was 5.18.So the distribution of normality test was normal because the x 2 was lower than x2-table (5.18<11,070).In the control group (Xc group), the interval classes also consisted of 6 rows, so the degree of freedom (df=N-1=6-1=5) was also 5. The value of Chi-Square of Xc group was 10.02.Therefore the distribution of normality test was also normal because x 2 was again lower than x2-table (10.02<11.070).

The Homogeneity
The homogeneity test is a test to examine the equality of variance of various populations whether the variances are equal or not.For the homogeneity test, the researcher used the Fisher Test (F-test).By using this formula, the researcher found that the population variance was equal.The F-table was 2.04 and the F-obtained was 0.824, which meant that F-obtained was lower than F-table so the F-obtained was homogeneous.

The Hypothesis Test
The t-table was found by calculating the degree of freedom (df=N1+N2-1=25+20-1=44), so the t-table was 0.3551 and the t-obtained was 0.7570.As the t-obtained was bigger than t-table, the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted.This meant that there was a significant difference in the results from the students" studying reading comprehension by using CTL with the results from those studying using Direct Instruction in the Extensive Reading classes.

Discussion
Based on the findings from the data above, it proved that the value of normality test using Ch-squire test was 5.18 which the value of Ch-squire (X2) was lower than the X2 table and the homogeneity of variance was an equal variance (homogeneous) or spread within the two groups, it could be seen that the F-obtained was lower than the Ftable (0.824<2.04).A continuous range of equal intervals was also found.After testing the normality and the homogeneity, the writer determined the hypothesis.Because the tests were parametric tests, the researcher used the t-test (two-tail test) to prove the hypothesis.Based on the results from the data, using the T-Test, the researcher found that the value of t-obtained was 0.7570 which was bigger than t-table (0.7570>0.3551).Thus the null hypothesis was rejected.Answering the research question, it proved that there was a significant difference in the test results for reading comprehension from students taught using contextual teaching and learning compared to those taught using Direct Instruction in Extensive Reading classes.
Because the researcher used the post-test-only control design, so to find the data, he conducted the treatment in the process of teaching and learning for only one meeting for each class.In the process of CTL approach, the first thing he paid attention to was the material.First, he started the reading activity by asking and answering about the material in accordance with the context of the students" experiences in the real world so that they could construct and inquire the new knowledge by relating to their real life context.Second, he made students to put effort in exploring the material given, to try to find out and create the main idea and the new vocabulary gain during learning.Third, he demonstrated pronunciation to words so that the students were able to read the text correctly.Fourth, he classified the students into group of four so that they could cooperate with each other to solve the questions in the reading exercise.Finally, fifth, he ended the class by discussing implications of the lesson to the students" real life situations and experiences.
In the steps of using Direct Instruction, first, the researcher explained the goal of learning and the information of lesson that were to be learnt by students.The class was teacher oriented, therefore, the class had less discussion time and each student worked individually.Interactions among students were limited, and thus this made it difficult for them to achieve the goal of the learning because they only focused on the lecturer.Second, he demonstrated a model for the learning in the classroom by reading the texts and students only paid attention to his reading aloud.Third, he assigned guided practice individually and this also did not make the students to be more active.Fourth, he gave feedback by asking questions to the students.He gave them a few minutes to think for the answer before they answered the questions.Fifth, he gave extended practice to students in the form of homework.
Based explanation above, it can be said that the teaching and learning process in CTL was more efficient compared to Direct Instruction because CTL made the process of learning more active than Direct Instruction.CTL made student more dynamic in solving the answers together in groups.The Direct Instruction made student more passive because the learning focused on the lecturer.The students acted only based on what the lecturer commanded them to do individually.
The result of this research study is similar to Peni (2011) because both studies found that CTL succeeded to activate the dynamic of the students in the classroom.Interactions became lively and the role of teachers was as facilitators.It proved that CTL is a useful approach because it relates the materials to the real word so that the material taught can be implemented in students" real life.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
The researcher used a t-test (two-tail test) to test the hypothesis, whether to accept the alternative or the null hypothesis.Based on the finding from the results from the data using the t-test, it was found that the value of t-obtained was bigger than t-table: 0.7570> 0.3551.So this means that the alternative hypothesis was accepted and the null hypothesis was rejected.Based on the result of the statistical calculations on the comparison between the final scores of students taught using CTL and Direct Instruction, CTL gained more significance in reading comprehension.Thus, it is expected that teachers renew their approaches for teaching by applying effective ones and CTL is among those them.The materials used in teaching are related to the students" surrounding so it helps them know how to use English in relation to their daily activities.
(4) _______ Some witnesses become confused when they see too many photographs of similar people.(5) _______ Police officers are better witnesses than ordinary people.(6) _______ American courts depend a lot on eyewitness testimony.(7) _______ The judge must decide if witness"s story is accurate.

X Y Figure 1 .
The independent variable and dependent variable relationship.
, these are: a. Find the highest score and the lowest score b.Determine the range (R).R= highest score -lowest score c.Finding out the amount of class (BK) BK = 1 + 3.3 log n n= the total number of items d.Finding out the length of the class interval: e. Making tabulation as a relief table f.Finding out the average or Mean score: g.Calculate the Standard Deviation: h.Making distribution of expected frequency.The steps of finding out the expected frequency are:  Determining the limitation of class.The left score of the first interval class was decreased 0.5, and then the right score of the interval class was added 0.5  Finding out Z-score:  Finding out the value of normal curve field by looking at the normal curve table  Finding out the size of normal curve field each interval class by the steps; first, the number of the first row was decreased the number of the second rows, the second rows was decreased by the third. Determining the expected frequency (fe) by the way of multiplying the size of each interval class and the number of students.i. Finding out the value of Ch-square (X 2 ).The formula is (Riduwan, 2011, p. 265): Note: X 2 = the value of Chi-Square fo = the obtained frequency fe = the expected frequency
Read the passage again.Write the main idea of each paragraph by completing the sentences below.(18) Bernard Jackson was ______________________________________________ .(19) Eyewitnesses sometimes ___________________________________________ .(20) Many factors ____________________________________________________ .(21) Police officers ___________________________________________________ .(22) Courts depend ___________________________________________________ .(23) It is the responsibility of ___________________________________________ .(24) The testimony of eyewitness ________________________________________ .Consider the context of each underlined word.First, write its part of speech on the line.Then, choose the best meaning and write the letter of that meaning on the time.(25) The fire blazed for the hours and nearly destroyed the old house.In this sentence, fire (is a (an) ... .It means a. to shoot at b. red-hot flames c. a match d. to let someone go from a job (26) The workers gathered cane in the fields.In this sentence, cane is a (an) ... .It means … a. a stick used as support in walking b. a sugar stalk c. to hit with a piece of wood d. to weave wood pieces, as in a chair (27) The supervisor asked everyone to make a concerted effort to maintain company production goals.In this sentence, concerted is a (an) ... .It means … a. to act as one b.a musical performance c. bodies d. unified (28) The chair recognized each speaker at the meeting.In this sentence, chair is a (an) ... .It means… a. a piece of furniture b. sitting c. a leader d. to direct a session (29) Rice is considered a staple in many countries.In this sentence, staple is a (an) ... .It means … a. a basic food substance b. to fasten papers c. a metal clip used to attach items d. to supply with food (30) The company of soldiers left their base to patrol the countryside.In the sentence, base is a (an) ... .It means ahis Graduate study of English at the Teachers Training Faculty at University of Lambung Mangkurat in August 2009.He finished his Master"s study at the English Education Program at the University of Palangka Raya in August 2013.He had taught at the Private Junior High School, SMP Johansyah Asan, in Banjarmasin for 2 years.Now he teaches the courses of Extensive Reading, Curriculum and Material Development, Measurement and Evaluation at the Islamic University of Kalimantan Muhammad Arsyad Al-Banjari.

Table 1 .
Research design.Direct Instruction Y e = mean score from final results from the Experimental class Y c = mean score from the final results from the Control Class

Table 2 .
Material content in the reading test.

Table 3 .Validity of instrument test
In line 27, it is their responsibility to decide if….Who does their refer to?