Name : Suci Kumala Sari
NIM
: 2201409008
Class : 403-404
Topics in Applied Linguistics
Assignment 8, FINAL
A Study on the Reading Skills of EFL University Students
By : Flora Debora Floris
Marsha Divina
Petra Christian University, Indonesia
Summary
According to this article entitled A Study on the Reading Skills of EFL University
Students written by Flora Debora Floris and Marsha Divina is the result of the research that
taken in one of the university in Surabaya. This research discusses the several problems and
the conclusion about mastering reading skills of EFL University Students. The writers
concern on two main problems, what are the types of reading skills that EFL students have
difficulty with? And what is the most difficult types of reading skills for these EFL students?.
There are five steps used by the writers to investigate the problems that arise in
reading skills of EFL university students. The first step was to analyze the kinds of reading
skills which were taught in Reading One, Reading Two, Reading Three, and Reading Four
classes at the department. The writers decide to focus on seventeen reading skills which were
already taught. The second step of data collection was to develop two reading tests. The third
step was piloting the two reading tests. Then the data collection was to distribute the reading
texts to the students in university. The last step of the data collection was to check and count
the result of both reading test.
The results of the research related to the study and data collection were found the
level of difficulty of reading skills of EFL university students. The most difficult reading skill
for students was recognizing text organization about 72,5 %. The second most difficult
reading skills for students was paraphrasing about 65 %. It was found that vocabulary skill
was the third most difficult reading for the students about 57,5 %. The other skills which had
low difficulty level were improving reading speed and recognizing presupposition underlying
the text are about 10 %.
This research proves that reading skills have different difficulty in each skill that it
have. And there are several problems solving that the teacher or the lecturer can do to handle
the problems in each level of reading skills. The research shows that the reading still needs
some improvement. It looks ordinary and common when talk about reading, but actually
reading not just read and finish answer the questions. The reading skills needed for teacher
and student to know the context of the passage and how to develop the passage more readable
and interesting to get the knowledge.
What are the benefits studies for teachers?
The teachers who done to read and analyze this article will get several benefit for their
next teaching. According to the article that analyze about reading skills, it is important for
teachers to master the reading skills problem solving. The teachers know which level of
reading skill that it is the most difficulty level for students to master it. The teacher can find
the solution to overcome the difficulty that face by the students. If the teacher can handle the
difficult level of reading skill, automatically the students can learn the difficult level of the
reading skill without worried and master it well. So the students can enjoy read the passage
even with the difficult level of reading skills.
After the teachers study the result of this result, the teachers will focus on students’
capability. As we know that, the students’ capability in mastering reading skills are different
each other. The teacher begins to give a try out to know the students’ capability with various
kinds of passages and questions. The purpose of this experiment is to know the various kinds
of capability that students have and which level that the students mostly master than other
level of reading skills. The teachers make the conclusion according to their study and give
more exercise to the students of the difficult level of reading skills they met. Finally, related
to this training, the difficulty that the students face in certain level of reading skills will
decrease.