ENGLISH EDUCATION

English Journal for Teaching and Learning

Vol. 08 No. 02 December 2020 pages 155-165
http://jurnal.iainpadangsidimpuan.ac.id/index.php/EEJ

Students’ Reading Recount Text Mastery

Nurkholila Simatupang1, Fitriadi Lubis2
1,2Institut Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN) Padangsidimpuan
email: [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract The aims of the research to describe about students‟ ability, difficulties, and the
efforts of a teacher in mastery reading of recount text. There were many
problems in reading recount text such as the students lack of vocabulary, cannot
understand the meaning of the text, lack of motivation, and less of facilities. The
research was conducted by mixed research. The researcher used the test and
interview to collect the data. After doing the research, it can be concluded that
the ability of the grade VIII students of MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in mastering
reading recount text based on the test has done, was categorized into “very
good” category. The mean score of good category was 85,33. After interviewing
the students, the researcher concluded that the students‟ problems in mastering
reading recount text was in vocabulary mastery, low of understanding the
grammar and the generic structure of recount text. While, the efforts have done
by the English teacher was keep the students learn, review, and explain detailed
about the difficulties that the students got.
Keywords: Recount Text; Reading Comprehension; Generic Structures;
Students‟ Difficulties; Language Features.

Abstrak Tujuan penelitian ini menjelaskan tentang kemampuan, kesulitan dan upaya
guru dalam penguasaan membaca text recount. Peneliti mengidentifikasi banyak
masalah kosakata siswa, siswa tidak dapat memahami makna teks, , kurangnya
motivasi dan kurang fasilitas. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan penelitian
campuran. Peneliti menggunakan tes dan wawancara untuk mengumpulkan
data. Setelah melakukan penelitian, dapat disimpulkan bahwa kemampuan
siswa kelas VIII MTsN 3 dalam penguasaan membaca text recount berdasarkan
test yang telah dilakukan, kedalam kategori sangat baik. Skor rata-rata 85,33.
Setelah mewawancarai siswa, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa masalah siswa
dalam penguasaan membaca text recount adalah penguasaan kosa kata, kurang
memahami tata bahasa, dan generic text recount. Sementara itu, upaya yang
dilakukan oleh guru bahasa inggris selalu menjaga siswa untuk belajar,
mengulas dan merenjelaskan secara terperinci tentang kesulitan yang di dapat
siswa.
Kata Kunci: Teks Recount; Membaca Pemahaman; Struktur Generik; Kesulitan
Siswa; Ciri Bahasa.

E-ISSN : 2579-4043 P-ISSN: 2338-8781


Corresponding Author
 Students’ Reading Recount Text Mastery

INTRODUCTION
English in general is a trade language, a diplomatic language, and a knowledge
language. In 2013 curriculum, English is one of an important subject in all levels of school in
Indonesia. One of English in junior high school level focuses on reading comprehension.
Reading is a skill that must be learned, yet the process of learning to read can become
pleasurable and easy for some students or displeasing and complicated for others (Siregar &
Harida, 2019).
Reading is what the reader does to get the meaning he needs from textual sources
(Walter, 1979). Meanwhile, Guy L. Bond and Eva Bond Wagner explained that the meaning
of reading as the process of acquiring and author‟s meaning and of interpreting, evaluating
and effecting upon those meanings (Guy L. Bond and Eva Bond Wagner, 1969). Next, F.
Dublin explained also that the meaning of reading is primarily a cognitive process, which
means that the brain does most of the work (F. Dublin, D. E. Eskey and W. Grabbe, 1986).
Reading is a process negotiating meaning; the reader brings to the text a set of schema for
understanding it, and it is take the product of that interaction (H. Douglas Brown, 2004).
Furthermore, reading is a fluent process of readers combining information from a text
and their own background knowledge to build meaning (David Nunan, 2003). While
according to Kathleen “Reading, at first, may appear to be routine activity in which
individual words are combined to produce meaning (Kathelen T. McWorter, 1992). Actually
reading a text book is how reader can build and complete the comprehension based on
many words structurally in a text. Also the process must be routine to enrich students
comprehension what the text tell about.
Next, reading is the readers‟ activities to get meaning or massage from an author. An
author gave the meaning or massage to the reader in printed or written material (Henry
Guntur Tarigan, 2005). The goals of reading to get and find information include content and
meaning of the text base on the purpose. Tarigan stated there are some goals reading such
as: 1) Reading for identifying important information, 2) Reading for main ideas, 3) Reading
is for finding the specific information, 4) Reading is for underlining the important
information, 5) Reading is to clasify the difficult word, 6) Reading is to evaluate, 7) Reading
is to compare and to contrast (Henry Guntur Tarigan, 2005).
The purpose of reading is different in the way. It saw the kind of the text will be read.
Next, there are the purposes or the reason of the reading: 1) Instrumental: the mount of the
reading take place because it will help us to echieve some clear aim: thus for example, we
read the road sign so that we know where to go. We are the instruction on the ticket because

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we need to know how operate. 2) Leasureable: the people read the magazine or spend hours
burried in the Sunday paper other poetry, read illustrated cartoon or photo-story. 3) For
general understanding: good reader is able to take in a tream of the discourse and
understanding the gist of it without worrying too much about the detail. Reading for such
„general‟ comprehension means not stopping for every word, not analyzing everything that
the writter includes the text it can use skimming. 4) For spacific information: in contrast to
read the gist. We frequently go to writtent text because we want specific detail. Reading in
this skill is frequently refered to as scanning. 5) For detail information: sometimes we read in
order to understand everything we are reading in detail usually the case with written
instruction or direction, or with the description of scientific procedures, it happent when
someone gives us the address and telephone number and we write down all the detail. 6)
Interprating text: reader is able to see beyond the literal meaning of word on the passage,
using a variaty of clues to understand what the writer implaying. Successful interpreting in
this kind depend on the large extend to share schemata (Jeremy Harmer, 2003).
There are many kinds of reading, Jain devides reading into four types,such as silent
reading, reading aloud, intensive reading, oral extensive reading it will be explained in the
following: 1) Silent Reading, reading is primarily a silent activity. The majority of reading
that we do will be done silently. When the readers want to read title of the book firstly, they
will read silently. For some readers, silent reading is very effective to the comprehensive
completely. They consider the silent reading helps them to be concentration in reading. 2)
Reading Aloud, reading aloud is the test taker sees separate latters, words, and/or sort
sentences and reads aloud, one by one, in the precence of an administrator (H. Douglas
Brown, 2003). In this modern area the teacher still believe that oral reading is the best
approach for teaching. In hels the reader either in pronounciationor understanding a text,
they can do it in the same time. 3) Intensive Reading, intensive reading is related to further
progress in the language learning under the teachers guidence. Intensive reading provides a
basis for understanding structure and for extending vocabulary and idioms. Its also
provides material for developing the skill of speech and writing. 4) Extensive Reading,
extensive reading is reading for pleasure. The purpose of this reading is to train the
students read directly and fluently in the target language for enjoyment, without the aid of
the teacher (M. F. Patel and Praveen M. Jain, 2008).
The process of reading maybe broadly classified into three stages such as the
recognition stage, structuring stages, and interpretation stagew (M. F. Patel and Praveen M.
Jain, 2008). After giving the lesson to the students, it is necessary to know how far their

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ability about the lesson they read and learn, to know their comprehension the teacher gives
the test to the students, because testing is tool the measure. There are some techniques to
make reading test based on Barbara Gross Davis, they are; multiple choice, true-false,
conclusion, closed procedure, matching test and essay test (Barbara Gross Davis, 2001).
Reading in junior high school level is following government regulation in completing
the materials. Genre text is still emphasized in reading materials. One kinds of text is
recount text. There are many definitions of recount text by some experts such as, according
to Hornby AS that recount is to tell some body about something, espacially something that
you have experienced (AS.Horby, 1995). In addition, Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell say that
recount text is to retell events for the purpose of imforming or entertaining (Linda Gerot
and Peter Wignell,1994). In summary Anderson, a recount text is writing about past events
or a piece of text that retells past events, ususally in order which they happened (Mark
Anderson & Kathryn Anderson, 1997). Morever, Sanggam Siahaan stated a recount is type
of spoken or written text that happend in the past for certain purposes to inform or to
entertain the listener or readers (Sanggam Siahaan & Kisno Shinoda, 2008). In summary
recount text is to retell some happen in the past events.
Recount is text which retells events or experiencec in the past. Its purpose is either to
inform or entertein the audience, there is no complication among the participants and that
diffrentiates from narative. Recount text is a piece of text that retells past event, usually in
the order in which they happened and or retell other people about something that has
happened and order words to retell the real past activities, experiment or events. Recount
text is the type of the text can be simply defined as a text that is created with the purpose to
inform about thd activities in the past (Pardiyono, 2007). In summary recount text is retell
other people about something that has happened and other words to retell the real past
activities, experiment or events. Recount is a kind genre that has social function to retell
events for the purpose of informing or entertaining (Syaiful Azhar, 2013). In summary
recount text is text to purpose informing and entertaining the reader, tell about what happen
in the past, and tells about experience.
Recount retells past event. Recount begins by telling the reader who was involved,
what happened, where this even took place and when it happened. The social function in
the recount text is to retell some events that happened in the past for certain purpose: to
inform or to entertein the listener or readers. Recount text is a kind of text which has
function to retell past event for the purpose of informing or entertaining. Gerot and Wignell
said” social function to describe the way things are, with reference to range of natural,

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manmade and social phenomena in our environment (Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell, 1994).
In summary, the social function of recount text to inform or to entertein the listeners or
readers. There Stefen Peter said that” the social function is same with the communicative
purpose which refes to aim of the text which want to be expressed by the writer to the
reader (Stefen Peter, 2002). In summary recount text also purposing the entertein with
expressing what the writer want to be inform to the reader. So based on previous
explanation the reseacher that concluded the social fucntion of recount text is to inform or to
entertein.
Generic structure is the content of a text that consist of orientation, events, incident,
general, and so on. Orientation is a part of text that gives a setting or introduction (Sanggam
Siahaan, 2007). Orientation consists of opening, introduction the participant, time and the
place. The part will guide the reader to make guessing of the content or from of the text
which is read. The reader can guess the content of the text. Futhermore, in short definition
Gerot and Wignell said: “ orientation provide the setting and introduces the participants”
(Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell, 1994). An event is a part of recount text that contains
sequence of phenomenon or tells what happened in the story. Gerot and Wignell said “
event tell what happened, in what sequence (Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell, 1994). In other
word according to Pardiyono said ”events contains of recording pardiyono said “ events
contains of recording of activities of events in the past that is told based on it chronological
events (Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell, 1994).2 Reorientation is a part of structure of recount
text contains optional closure of the event in the text. Pardiyono said the ri-orientation
contains the brief conclusion of the record events (Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell, 1994).
In general the condition of students reading mastery still poor, most of students do
not understand what they read. Based on background of the study students still have
difficulties in reading recount text. In this case researcher is interest to know students‟ ability
in reading recount text. To specify this problem the specific research question are
formulation as follow: 1) How is students‟ ability of the VIII grade students MTsN 3
Tapanuli Selatan in mastering reading recount text?, 2) What are the difficulties of the VIII
grade students MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in mastering reading recount text?, 3) How are the
teachers solution for students‟ difficulties of theVIII grade students MTsN 3 Tapanuli
Selatan in mastering reading recount text.

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 Students’ Reading Recount Text Mastery

METHOD
This research is conducted MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan. It is located at Jln. Flamboiyan,
Desa Telo, Kabupaten Tapanuli selatan. It is about 33 KM from the central of
Padangsidimpuan. The kind of this research is mixed research. Mixed research is
combination of quantitative research and qualitative research. The population of this
research is 176 of the students at Grade VIII MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan. The sample are
choosed by using random sampling and totally 21 students of VIII-1.
The instrument is chosen by researcher to collect the data in order to make research
becomes systematically and easier. In collecting the data the researcher used test and
interview as an instrument. Test is used to evaluate students‟ mastery in reading recount
text and interview is used to find out students‟ difficulties in reading recount text. Tests
consist of 100 making a multiple choice.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Based on the data central tendency result of the ability of the VIII-1 grade students in
MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in mastering reading recount text based on the test have done, the
researcher concluded the data by using statistic count, from the test score above the data
were tabulated as follow;
Table 1
The Resume of Variable Score in Mastering Reading
Recount Text of VIII Grade Students.

No Statistic Variable
1 Highest Score 96
2 Lowest Score 77
3 Sum 1839
4 Class klasify 5
5 Class interval 4
7 Mean Score 85.33
8 Mode 84
9 Median 84
10 Range 19

So, based on the table 1 above , it shows that the mean score of the ability of the grade
VIII-1 student of MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in mastering reading recount text was
categorized into “very good” category; it was 85,33, the total score of all the students was
1839, the highest score that the student of VIII-1 grade gotten was 96, while, the lowest score

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that the student of grade VIII-1 gotten was 77, while mode score was 84 and median score
was 84. While, the lowest score in gotten by the initial name of “EK”.
Then to know the description about classification or the criteria of mean score the
ability of theVIII-1 grade students of MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in mastering reading recount
text in 2019/2020 academic year, look the following table:
Table 2
The Frequency of Students Score in Distribution of the
Students Score in Mastering Reading Recount Text

No Interval F Mid Point percentages

Class
1 77 – 80 3 78.5 14.28%

2 81– 84 11 82.5 52.38%

3 85 – 88 1 86.5 4.76%

4 89 – 92 2 90.5 9.52%

5 93– 98 4 93.5 19.04

Total 100%

In order to get a description of the data clearly and completely, the researcher presents
them in histogram on the following figure:
Histogram 1. Students’ Mastery in Reading Recount Text
Frequency
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
78.5 82.5 86.5 90.5 93.5

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 Students’ Reading Recount Text Mastery

From the histogram 1, it was known that the variable revelation of willingness to
communicate shown that the respondent at interval 77-80 were 3 students (14.28 %), interval
81-84 were 11 students (52.38 %), interval 85-88 were 1 students (4.76%), interval 89-92 were
2 students (9.52%), interval 93-98 were 4 students (19.04%). From the data above, it could be
found that formula of mean score as below;
𝑥𝑖 1792
Mean = X= 𝑁
, x= 21
= 85,33

Thus, the value of mean score could be categorized into good category. It could be
said that the students‟ ability in mastering reading recount text was good. In addition, the
description data of the students‟ ability in mastering reading recount text could be applied
into the distribution frequency.
Next, to know the description about classification or criteria of mean score ability of
the VIII grade students in mastering reading recount text in MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan it can
be looked at the following table.
Table 3
Percentage of Students’ Frequency Score in Mastering Reading Recount Text

Students range Amount of percentages

frequency score Students
(lowest to highest)
77 – 80 3 14%

81– 84 11 52.8%

85 – 88 1 4.77%

89 – 92 2 9.52%

93 – 96 4 19%

100%

From the table 3, frequency distribution above shown that the students good score. In
this discussion, it can be afforded to reveal the real problems in which students got in
learning about reading recount text. It have conducted interview to the grade VIII-1 students
at MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan and English teacher to get the data needed in this research. To
validate the researcher conducted deep interview with participants to minimize the data
error, however, the researcher realized that could not avoid doing mistake.
From AD, statement, the researcher might conclude that students‟ problem in
developing skill were not different with the previous learning. So, the researcher concludes

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the points of the students‟ difficulties at the grade VIII-1 students of MTsN 3 Tapanuli
Selatan in mastering reading recount text based on the interview to the students and the
English teacher as follows; 1) lack of vocabulary, 2) less understanding about the grammar:
simple past tense, 3) less understanding about the generic structure of recount text.
The teacher effort to overcome the problems are 1) Lack of vocabulary; English teacher
ordered effort was the English teacher brought the students to a place or to the text. Next,
the teacher ordered students to write the new vocabularies from the text. The last, they
memorized the new vocabularies found from the text. The English teacher ordered them to
bring the dictionary in learning English. If they did not know about the vocabulary that they
needed, so they can open the dictionary. Then the teacher also ordered them to memorize
the vocabularies. 2) Less Understanding About the Grammar; The teacher and the students
often repeat the lesson then gave the more examples which the near example or familiar
example with students life, for example for using simple past tense in comprehending
recount text. The English teacher must repeat again about the simple past tense for them like
finding action verbs, adverb, and another. Sometimes, the English teacher ordered to
memorize the patterns and write the example of students by using simple past tense. 3) Less
Understanding about the generic structure of recount Text; the teachers and the students
give more text then ask students to identify the generic structure because the more the
students practice, the more they can understand.
Actually, reading in junior high school level expected students to be able to
understand written text to reach the functional level including the ability of understanding
many kinds of short functional text (Siregar, 2018). This fact was as a reason of students still
getting problems in reading comprehension mastery. In line with this research, the previous
studies also have found that the students‟ ability in reading recount text categorized into
moderate or high ability (Anggenny, 2020). She suggested overcoming these problems; the
teacher must use appropriated method on reading comprehension. Moreover, other studies
also have found students‟ problems in reading recount text such as lack of information
about recount text, lack of vocabulary, less motivation in reading (Mustika, 2020). In sum,
students‟ ability in reading recount text actually needed process to get high ability because
their level still junior high school and the solutions for all problems should be solved before.

CONCLUSION
After treating the collecting data, the researcher takes the conclusion about this
research as the follow, the ability of the VIII grade students of MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan in

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mastering reading recount text” can be categorized into very good. The students‟ difficulties
in mastering reading recount text at grade VII-1 MTsN 3 Tapanuli Selatan: Lack of
vocabulary, Less understanding about the grammar: simple past tense, Less understanding
about the generic structure of recount text.

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