IntroductionEnglish is the lingua franca among the middle class, especially in the large towns and cities. Every Malaysians should have the ability to use English so that they are able to enter the door to greater opportunities in educational and profession. English is compulsory subject in the Malaysian school curriculum (Chitravelu, Sithamparam, and Choon, 2005). Since British colonial came to this country until 1956, English language has been used and learned by the local people as a medium of communication and also as a second language. According to Keow (2011), the Malays were given six years of basic education for the purpose of achieving the objectives such as arithmetic skills, awareness and moral values and proficiency of the children in royal family in the English language. Our government prepares their citizens to face the world through schools by requiring all of them to learn English language as one of the main subjects. The aim of English language instruction in Malaysian schools is to enable the learner to communicate effectively and efficiently in English in social and professional situations (Chitravelu, Sithamparam and Choon, 2005). Every teacher needs to prepare their students to reach certain level of literacy of the language. An improvement had been made by Ministry of Education to enrich the proficiency level of language among the students. KSSR introduced in a way to overcome the problems that arose during KBSR period. Through KSSR, fun, meaningful and purposeful learning has been introduced. 5 hours a week provided to pupils to acquire all of the four components of the language, which is speaking, writing, listening and reading. Reading is one of the main skills needed to be mastered by the students so they can be labelled as a competent user of the particular language. It is crucial for every student to comprehend the text that they read so that they can use it in daily lives. For example, reading newspaper, billboard and commercial. As English is being widely used, we need to have basic knowledge to read, write, listening and speaking so that we will not left behind. Reflection of the Teaching and Learning ExperienceDuring two phases of practicum, I had stumbled upon various types of anticipated problems. All of the inconveniences that happened during my teaching have its own advantages and disadvantages towards me to improve my knowledge and skills in this profession. Some of the problems have been solved while other problems require me more time and research to look for the best solution.One major problem that I encountered from the first practicum was pupils did not know the name of the sea creatures when being probed with the question such as what kind of sea creature is this?. This problem arose when I started teaching the topic From the Sea to year 3 pupils at SK (2) Jalan Batu Tiga. The pupils seem lost and blurred when I asked them a question about the sea creatures. They seem not having any experience with the term of sea creatures. They noticed about the topic when I gave the example such as dolphin and crab.(Journal entry No. 1, 7th April 2014)I found that this problem occurred because of my preparation or the lack thereof. I could not prepare good stimuli to trigger their past knowledge. My teaching aids also are not helping much to aid me in explaining the content of the topic. I had to provide better teaching aids for them in order to help them to remember and have better grasp of the topic. As a solution, I chose picture cards and word card as one of my teaching aids. The pupils need to match the word cards with the correct pictures. pupils are having fun when they can match the words with the pictures. They seem attracted to the color pictures, especially the characters in their favourite movie, Finding Nemo. I can call many volunteer because they are eager to answer my question(Journal Entry No. 2, 14th april 2014)The end result of this approach have been very encouraging, to say the least. The anticipated problem has been encountered through this method. The result showed that the students were able to identify and remember the name of the sea creatures after the usage of pictures and word cards. Other than that, this teaching aid helped the students to engage better in the teaching and learning process. I could allow them to discover the words by themselves and facilitate them in this stage. I noticed that the usage of pictures and word cards has its own advantages in helping the students. It could be a good stimulus as it can attract the students attention and also assists the teacher to explain about the particular topic. This is because according to Seyed Jalal Abdolmanafi Rokni and Neda Karimi (2013), the use of visual materials or visual elements in teaching and learning has a positive result because visual treatment can help to improve the students learning in several ways. Pupils can benefit more from vocabulary learning. Picture cards also able to fulfil students needs and also promotes the core KSSR principles. According to Ministry of Education (2012) that KSSR principle promotes the pupils to learn English in fun, meaningful and purposeful ways. Having colourful images on the picture cards also helps to gain their attention. It is a good stimulus where it can help the students to remember what being taught better. According to Berk (2013), started from the childbirth, humans will scan the environment and looking for the most interesting sights and moving objects. So, when I put the colourful word cards, the pupils start to attract with it and helps them to remember it. Moreover, another problem that I need to face during past practicum was pupils cannot differentiate the words according to the word class. Pupils of 3 Dedikasi in SK Jalan Air Panas cannot classify the word class, especially noun and verb. They seem clueless when I probed some questions such as which one is a noun and which one is a verb? and can you tell me which word should I put, either noun or verb?. This issue happened when I teaching writing skill. It was very hard for me to construct a proper sentence when pupils cannot classify the word class.3 Dedikasi pupils could not provide me the answers when I asked them about noun and verb. When I tried to relate them with presious lesson, they still cant get what I mean.(Journal entry No. 3, 23rd July 2014)From the observation made, this problem occurred due to my teaching style. I am not well versed on the sentences structure. When they were probed with the question as stated before, it was very hard for the pupils to comprehend them.To encounter this problem, I prepared coloured word cards to show the difference of the word classes. Every time I put the word card, I drilled them by asking them which word class the word belongs to. Through coloured word cards and drilling, they managed to differentiate the words according to the word classes. After that, I did the action of the verb such as using gesture to ensure their understanding. It made me realised that through drilling and gestures, pupils found it easier to remember the words and its function. It is also an interactive way of learning because I provided pupils the opportunity to be independent in their learning. It can attract pupils to follow the instructions and memorise the words subconsciously. They tend to focus in doing the gestures while chanting the word. One of the major problem need to be countered until now is the lack of volunteers whenever I asked a question. This problem has been puzzling me until today. They tend to answer in choral, but when I ask for volunteers, they tend to be more timid, showing lack of confidence in answering the question provided. Before I ask for the volunteers, they started to shout the answer to me. In contrary, when i enforced the rule of raising hand before provide the answer, I hardly see any hands on the air to answer my question.(journal Entry No. 4, 6th August 2014)Many factors can be associated with this problem. One of the contributing factors is pupils lack of confidence. Most of them know the answer but are not brave enough to try to answer. This situation happens because they are not well exposed to converse in English. Besides, they are too afraid to make mistakes in the classroom, due to several reasons The pupils knew the answer, but too afraid to tell it to their friends. When I asked them individually, they can give me the correct answer. But if I ask them to tell it to their friends, the pupil remains silent.(Journal Entry No. 5, 8th August 2014)I need to solve this problem because it will affect the momentum every time teaching and learning process takes place. It is a major problem for me because the pupils tend to be more passive in classroom. Because of it, I cannot measure students comprehension through probing questions. It also does not fulfil the KSSR principle. Research IssueI faced some issues and problems in my previous practicum. I have found the solution to encounter this problem. As a result, some of the problems can be solved but some of the problems beyond my capability as a teacher trainee. I was assigned to teach year 5 pupils at SK Jalan Air Panas and year 3 pupils at SK Jalan Batu Tiga. Pupils from different background, age, and proficiency level of language are having the same problem. For SK Jalan Air Panas, a handful of students were not able to extract the information from the text. They can only know the gist of the text, and showed the lack of ability to understand the text although the text provided appropriate to their level. Surprisingly, I did not know they were unable to do the comprehension question. I thought the story of Timmel the Fish is suitable for them. Although they well noticed about the characters, they did able to tell me why the fish did the action(Journal Entry No. 6, 16th April 2014)I noticed that the problems occurred when I did not prepare my lesson well. I did not able to provide proper teaching aids and systematic lesson that be able to ease the problems. My teaching style also did not fit the pupils learning style. Sometime, the activity that I designed failed to prepare them the best to use the language. The pupils need teaching aids so that they can understand the explanation. Choral reading is not enough for them to comprehend the text. (Journal entry No. 7, 20th April 2014)I did look for a solution by providing the teaching material that emphasises more on fun, meaningful and purposeful learning atmosphere. It was because the issue is the students did not show any interest in learning the component. Reading component should be mastered by all of the students because it is a major component of the language. In preparing students to the reality of the world, teachers need to teach the pupils to read and able to make meaning from it. According to Shin and Crandall (2014), reading is a receptive skill, processing what others have said or written, but doing so in an active ways. It is a crucial skill for them to go to the next level of learning. Learning to read and write is complex and difficult enough in childrens native language: doing it in another language is even more difficult (shin and Crandall, 2014). Looking back in teaching and learning process, I chose reading as a main issue because after multiple times of observations, most of the student did not able to make meaning from what they had read. I am having same problem from past practicum. The pupils not able to answer the comprehension question although all of the answer can get from the text. It is same with before, everyone can read well, but not understand about what they read(Journal Entry No. 8, 19 August 2014) The main purpose of reading is to make meaning. According to Shin and Crandall (2014), when we read, we activate two types of knowledge which are top down processing and bottom up processing. Most of the teachers will focussed on helping to see the relationship between sounds and letters and neglects the part where the students focus on meaning. That is why the students that were being observed by me can read the text fluently but did not understand what the text is all about.
What Had I Learnt About My Research IssueThere were few possible causes can be related to my research issue. The typical ways that I had used were not suitable for the particular risen problem. It can be found in my journal entry.Ive tried another technique to help them to understand the text, but the result still same. Only handful of them able to fill the information according to the pictures provided. Although the pictures arranged according to the consequences, only handful of them can answer it correctly.(Journal Entry No.9, 25th August 2014)This problem occurred when the students were faced with comprehension questions. Only a handful of students were able to answer the question while other students found it difficult to accomplish the objectives. One of the main causes was because of the students language proficiency level. They showed a lack of understanding when the questions were provided to them. It happened due to their limited vocabulary. Although the vocabulary was chosen according to their level, they still have problems to get the gist of the text. Another explanation related to this problem was the teaching aids. With minimal teaching aids, they showed little to no improvement in reading comprehension. They need a well-organized teaching aid that is able to guide them to manage the information that they gather from the text.Today, my reading comprehension lesson is a success. I listed all of the information on the whiteboard so that they can refer when they start to answer the comprehension question. The function of list the information is like a word card, helping them to remember(Journal Entry No. 10, 28th August 2014)There are many possible risk factors involved in this problem. According to Murcia, Brinton and Snow (2014), every engaged readers have a specific goals that are read for pleasure, for information and learn something new. Based on my case, most of the pupils are not being engaged reader. It was because they did not show any signs of having any specific goals. They also did not show any awareness of the goal for the reading task. Grabe (as cited in Murcia, Brinton and Snow, 2014) stated that sometimes students do not fully understand the goals for a given reading text and perform poorly not because of inability to comprehend but unaware with the goals. Besides that, the possible cause of the risen problems was because most of the students learnt reading through drilling and repetition. It is related to the Audi-Lingual Method. According to Freeman and Anderson (2011), the characteristic of Audio Lingual Method is the language is learned through imitation and repetition. Cultural information is contextualized in the dialogues or presented by the teacher (Freeman and Anderson, 2011). This part was not well emphasized by the teachers when they are teaching reading. They tend to focus more on fluency rather than make meaning. Many people, including several professional teachers, think that reading merely involves the ability to sound the words printed on a page (Chitravelu, Sithaparam and Choon, 2005). It is the reason why most of the teachers focus on fluency as the main objective in reading, not making meaning. On the other hand, when the observation focuses on the students that able to answer the comprehension questions at minimum level, we can see that they are reading for pleasure, not looking for the information as the main focus. That was the reason why they did not able to answer the higher order thinking question.Pupils of 5 Maju showed an improvement in reading comprehension, but they still not able to answer the higher level question. They seem like skimming the text, really focussed. That is the reason why they cannot answer question number nine and 10.(Journal Entry No. 11, 3rd September 2014) According to Ediger (as cited in Murcia, Brinton and Snow, 2014), reading purpose is different when compared to the real life reading, generally ones start out with a goal and purpose for which one is going to read, a reason for taking up a text in the first place and then one uses various strategies to determine how to proceed with reading in order to get the information necessary for accomplishing the main purpose. That was the difference that can be detected in pupils where we cannot clearly see their main purpose. Noji, Silva and Ford (As cited in Murcia, Brinton and Snow, 2014), stated that when students have a purpose when they are reading, they are more able to read and understand material in much easier way. During the observation, pupils were not able find the message that needs deeper understanding. That is the reason why the pupils show inability to answer the higher order thinking questions. Motivation plays a central role in the development of positive reading habits and attitudes (Murcia, Brinton and Snow, 2014). The task sheet and the reading text given to the pupils maybe too boring for them and did not able to motivate them to be an active reader. It would be next to impossible to teach a child to read when he himself is not interested (Chitravelu, Sithaparam and Choon, 2005). It was one of the possible causes that my pupils are not able to comprehend the text because of lack of motivation during reading session occurred. I was unable to create the positive environment of learning to them, and did not provide them with enough motivation to learn other language. According to Shin and Crandall (2014), in order to introduce other language to the children, they must be provided with learning environment that is similar to their first language acquisition. The use of illustration together with the reading text is something new and unfamiliar concept by the pupils. The situation also made them feel different with the environment when they acquire the first language. Here, I want to discuss the possible solution to the problem based on my personal experience, theories, expert opinions and findings from past studies. I had found a solution that able to help the students to manage the information that they can gather from the text. I did look for a solution that is in line with KSSR principles that are fun, meaningful and purposeful. According to Cox (2008), meaning is created during reading and writing in a two way transaction between readers or writers and the text they read and write. Referring to the statement, the solution that I was looking for should be related to writing. I have come out with a solution that is able to fulfil the criteria to subdue the problems listed before. I proposed a solution using a mind map to help the pupils. It is basically a graphic organizer. Generally, a graphic organizer is a visual and graphic representation of relationships among ideas and concepts (Longhi, 2006). It was because mind map can fulfil the learning style of the pupils. According to Guastello (As cited in Longhi, 2006), typical graphic organizer is always visually appealing and accessible to both struggling and advanced students, and it help students to connect prior knowledge to new information. It was a perfect solution for my issue because it is very practical. Mind map can be drawn, coloured and combined with the illustration. It was a good way to help the pupil. It is because, according to Cox (2008), drawing painting and other graphic arts are used to communicate throughout their early stage of learning. For instance, young learners usually able to draw first before they can write. In addition, arts are always integrated in the curriculum. We can see a lot of illustration and various colours that being used in the text books provided by the government itself. My past experience of using mind map helps me a lot to save time in managing the information and also provides me with a clear view of the information related to one and another. It helps me to comprehend a text in depth after I used the graphic organizer. Moreover, according to Cox (2008), a graphic organizer can be added to over time, as a child comes up with new ideas and words. According to Shin and Crandall (2014), we need to consider about kind of skill and strategies that the child has developed in making meaning from and with text. According to the statement, most of the students are always being exposed with illustrations, colours and sketch, which are tally with the characteristic of the mind map which may help them to learn better and improve their comprehension level. What was my Research Objective?My research objective was about the effectiveness of using mind map in improving reading comprehension among year 5 remedial pupils. Who Were My Research Participants?My research participants were 10 year three pupils from a school in Shah Alam. The pupils proficiency is intermediate and I chose the middle class from all year five classes in the school.The selection of the students was based on their performance. The performance was based on their examination results and also recommendation from the teachers. The participants were also filtered based on their background, such as their parents social status. This is because to ensure about the exposure of the language to the targeted group before I proceed to the intervention. I need to know about their background was to reduce the scope of the students. The school is situated near to the industrial area where most of the people did not work in higher class occupation. The exposure of the language outside school is limited. The parents solely rely to the school. According to the teachers, most of the pupils did not attend any other English class outside the school. From informal classroom questioning, most of the answer I got was they did not learn English much from other medium such as television and radio. Their parents also not encouraged the pupils to learn English and not stressed on their academic achievement. Only handful of the pupils received sufficient academic support outside from school. As stated before, the targeted group was from intermediate level of proficiency. The pupils were able to understand the instruction given but could not converse well in English. Most of them were able to understand simple English and only handful of the students were encouraged enough to converse with me in English. The main skill focussed in this research was reading skill. The pupils skill in reading can be praised because most of the students can read fluently. The problems arose when they not able to make meaning from what they read. Other than that, their vocabulary was very limited. Thus, it makes them hard to understand what they read. Because of their level, they able to comprehend simple reading sentences but when it comes to complex sentences, they will have difficulty in understanding. Focussed scope of the pupils was the pupils from 3 Gemilang. Sum of 3 Gemilang pupils was 35 pupils. 13 of them were females and other 22 were males. The scope of this research was about 10 pupils from this class. They were chosen based on the test result. Pupils who were underachiever being chosen as a participant for this research. According to the discipline teacher of SK Seksyen 18, the pupils do not have any major discipline problems. However, based on my observation, the respondents could not pay attention in the teaching and learning process. In todays lesson, some of the pupils were frequently asked to go to the toilet. Their behaviour disturbed the others. This problem interrupts my teaching and learning process where I stopped the lesson and asked the pupils to take turns when they want to go to the toilet.(Journal Entry No. 7, 23rd February 2015)10 pupils were selected as respondents. They consist of five males and five females.Table 2Respondents of this action researchNO.RESPONDENTGENDERRACE
1AMaleMalay
2BMaleMalay
3CMaleMalay
4DFemaleMalay
5EFemaleMalay
6FFemaleMalay
7GFemaleMalay
8HFemaleMalay
9IMaleMalay
10JMaleMalay
How Did I collect My Data?I collected my data through the usage of 4 instruments. It was the way to assess whether the intervention is successful in fixing the problem or not. According to Abeywickrama and Brown (2010), assessment is an ongoing process that encompasses a wide range of methodological techniques. There should be various ways to assess the target group to ensure the intervention is effective. The instruments that I suggested for this study are journal entry, questionnaires, interview and test. Data Triangulation is a process of verification that increases validity by incorporating several viewpoints and methods in gathering data (Denzin & Lincoln, 2013).TestsOne of the instruments that I used was tests. Test is a subset of assessment, a genre of assessment techniques. It is a method of measuring a persons ability, knowledge or performance, in a given domain. (Abeywickrama and Brown, 2010). Test is an appropriate tool to measure a pupils understanding of a topic. Tests are among the most useful tools of educational research, for they provide the data for most experimental and descriptive studies in education. Tests can further enhance pupils language development and encourage pupils to learn more.In my research, I used two types of short tests which were Test 1 and Test 2. Both of the tests were under different types of assessment. For the Pre-test, I ran a formative test to identify in their competencies and skills in the language. According Abeywickrama and Brown (2010), formative assessment has their own primary focus the ongoing development of the learners language. The pre-test was given to the pupils before intervention action to know their comprehension, mastery of reading skills, and ability to taking notes. On the other hand, post-test was under summative test. Summative test aims to measure, or summarize what a student has grasped and typically occurs at the end of a course or unit instruction (Abeywickrama and Brown, 2010). Post test were given after two weeks of the application of mind map among the targeted groups. The purpose of the post test is to measure the effectiveness of the intervention to the targeted group. The data collected and measured through the result of the post test. It is important to determine the test format and types to get the result for assessment. The types of the test I chose for the pre test was diagnostic test. The purpose of the test is to diagnose aspects of a language that a student needs to develop or that a course should include (Abeywickrama and Brown, 2010). Through this, I able to elicit the information on what students need to work on in the future. I used this information to have better, more detailed, subcategorized information of the learner. According to Abeywickrama and Brown (2010), tests offer a checklist of features for the administrator to use in pinpointing difficulties. Because of this, I prepared subjective questions for Year 3 intermediate class, which required them to write their answers in spaces provided according to the checklist formed by me. This test was not unfriendly to the pupils. It motivated the pupils to learn and achieve more in the future. Creating a good and quality test items, there are few steps that I followed in the construction of a test. Since the Year 3 pupils proficiency level is intermediate, I provided five questions for Test 1 and 6 questions for Test 2. The questions constructed according to the Blooms Taxonomy. The very first step in the development of a test and prior to the construction of any items is the specification of the test domain. I did a test specification before doing any test item. I included one difficult item to test pupils understanding. The test items have been constructed with the guidance of the teacher and some findings through my researches (sample refer to the appendix). InterviewsInterviews have long been used in research as a way of obtaining detailed information about a topic or subject. According to Goh (2012), interview is a to person conversation initiated by the interviewer for the specific purpose of obtaining research relevant information, and focused by him on content specified by research. Interview is believed to provide a deeper understanding of public phenomena than would be obtained from purely quantitative methods. According to Goh (2012), with good questioning techniques, researchers will be more able to facilitate the subjects accounts and to obtain quality data from them. Through an interview, I can evaluate my target groups attitude and the personal quality which I cannot measure using a test. Other instruments are focussing on the surface elements of quantifiable but interviews is a handy to measure what pupils think about the meaning and significance of what is happening. When we interview a person, we can extract immeasurable, useful information about the research topic. According to Robson (as cited in Goh, 2012), there are three basic types of research interviews which are structured, semi structured, and unstructured. For my research, I will use the semi structured interview. According to Goh (2012), semi-structured interview is very useful because it allows the interviewer to elicit information with probes to get in-depth responses. According to Buns (1999), a semi structured interview is openended and thus provides much greater flexibility. So, it is a suitable instrument for me to collect data that gives another perspective of information to help me to measure the effectiveness of the intervention. Those who can provide the best insights, who represent the full range of understanding and views, can be chosen for interviews purposes. I chose only three pupils for my interview session because other pupils are not fluent in speaking and affected my data collection. The interview sessions conducted after both teaching and learning process. One of the interviews carried out after the intervention action. This instrument supported my findings of my research. I transcribed the interviews and used excerpts to support my findings (sample refer to the appendix).Journal EntriesA reflective approach to the research process is now widely accepted in many qualitative researches. Journal entries were interpreted sequential record or a log of experiences and events. According to Wallace (1999), reflective journal is shared accounts of a persons actions, thoughts and feeling written by the person himself, usually on a daily basis. Journal entries make us to develop the thoughts into written content, which simultaneously forces to think deeper into the topic that is important. In the journal entries, I included all the incidents that happened in the class to be used as data collection. The journal entries also can improve ones teaching because when we reflect on what has happened, we can resolve and avoid making the mistakes. According to Goh (2012), reflective journal adds a valuable dimension to the research report. Journal entries also help me observed the pupils participation in a particular lesson and reflect on the process of teaching. In addition, journal entries help me recalled what happened during the event, and as a record to look back on. Journal entries were very helpful for me to reflect on the effectiveness of mind map in improving comprehension among the remedial students QuestionnaireI used questionnaire as one of my instruments to authenticate my data. Questionnaire provides a very efficient way of creating a variable by case matrix for large sample (de Vaus as cited in Goh, 2012). The rationale of having questionnaire as my instrument is I collected a large amount of information from the pupils in a short period of time. Questionnaire was easy to standardise as every pupils will be asked to answer the same questions, in which making this a very reliable method. According to Nardi (2006), this method constitutes interactions between the researcher and the respondents in which standard instructions are given to all the participants. Therefore, questionnaire used to strengthen the reliability of my data as I only involved three pupils in my interview session. Questionnaire will be distributed to 10 participants after every lesson. The constructing process of my questionnaire was mainly focused on the types of questions and organisation. Questionnaire was short and able to yield answers that are useful for data analysis later on. My questionnaire only incorporated questions related to my objectives. The responses from the pupils helped me to determine the effectiveness of mind map. Moreover, the language used in the questionnaire was simple. This was to ensure that all pupils will be able to understand the questions.I used closed-ended questions for my questionnaire to ensure the pupils are able to answer the questions. Scales used to help the pupils to answer the questions as they only needed to choose from the scales given. The five-point scales in which 1 represents strongly disagree, 2 represents disagree, 3 represents do not know, 4 represents agree, and 5 represent strongly agree will be used to allow the pupils to express how much they agree or disagree with the statements. The five-point format used in my questionnaire, aided the pupils to think first before they answered the statements. From here, the reliability of the questionnaire increased. (sample refer to the appendix).What was My Recommended Intervention?My recommended intervention conducted a week after I had conducted the lesson using traditional teaching method. I conducted the lesson using the mind map after I selected the most suitable pupils. The selection of the students was based on the results from the Test 1. The students tested before the intervention takes place. I was not separated the selected pupils from their classmate because I need to create the most encouraging atmosphere for them. I wanted my research participants to be in their most natural states and for them to feel at ease.For the first week of teaching, I used traditional method of reading comprehension. My intention is to ensure the students are able to understand the content of the text. It was used as a comparison before and after the intervention being implemented to them. My intervention focused on linear text. Fictional text will be easy for me to exploit to ensure it is suit with the students interest. The number of information was the same for both of the lesson and should also be same to ensure the validity and the reliability of the research. Both of the lessons were not contradicted and coherent with each other in terms of environment, and situations. I prepared the students to be active participants in reading activity, such as reading readiness. I excluded or minimize the external factors that influenced the result of the data such as the state of the targeted group. I created the environment that helped the student felt more comfortable and safe, such as conducive classroom, no disturbing background noise that affected their condition and discouraged their abilities and capabilities. As with other lessons, this lesson I accomplished the objectives stated in the plan. There are two different objectives targeted from the lesson. The first objective was pupils able to transfer 6 out of 8 information from provided text to the mind map template. The second objective was pupils should be able to answer 4 out 6 subjective question based the mind map written by them. In this particular lesson, I planned for the intervention; there were 5 different stages I had constructed, similar with my other lesson plan. In the first stage, the set induction, I provided a picture puzzle based on the fiction that they going to read after this stage. It is based on the past lesson and also their prior knowledge. I will call the pupils in front to complete the picture puzzle so that others can guess what the picture puzzle is all about. This activity will help me to gain pupils interest towards the lesson in the latter stages. After the set induction, I entered the presentation stage where I introduced the new vocabularies to them. The introduction and explanation of the vocabularies was to help and aided the pupils to read the text and comprehend it. It was crucial to the pupils so that the new vocabularies were not affected them in comprehension later when they start to read the text all the way through. The teaching aids that I used were pictures and word cards to ensure that they will get a clearer description of the words. At the same time, I prepared the students for the reading activity. I introduced the text and talked about the background of the text so that they related it with their previous knowledge.The next stage was the most crucial stage where I was implemented the suggested intervention. During the practice stage, the pupils need to do choral reading. The rationale of this activity is to help the students to improve their understanding. This was because they improved the comprehension by restoring the features of speech while they are reading. After pupils went through this activity, the pupils filled the information that they obtained through the reading session into mind map. Every branches of the mind map labelled before, used as guidance for them to manage the information. Every sub branches labelled according to the information that they need to extract from each paragraph. During this stage, I helped the students by aiding them to fill in the mind map so that the information is well managed. I guided the students that face difficulties in completing the task. After that, I gathered all of the answers from the pupils. I called some volunteers to fill the information on the board so that everyone will be able to verify their answers. Through this, every pupil completed and correct mind map as a reference for the next stage. After they finished transferring the information into a mind map, I probed the pupils with open - ended questions so that the pupils got the chance to share their interpretations about the text. The questions helped them to develop their personal understanding towards the text. The open ended questions that asked to them such as: What do you like about this text? Have you ever experienced about this text is all about? Which part of the text do you like most? Do you agree with the writers opinion on the ....?The production stage was where the pupils need to answer the subjective questions related to the text. The subjective questions constructed according to the Blooms Taxonomy. It helped the students to feel comfortable when they are answering the questions. The mind map was the main medium that they can use while they are answering the questions. The questions that they answered were the test that I used as an instrument to measure whether the intervention is successful or not. All of the questions were comprehension questions and I provided 2 higher order thinking questions to test whether they able to see beyond the text. After the class has finished with the test, I administered the questionnaires to all of the pupils in the classroom. I called out pupils in that particular classroom to come for the interview. I finished interviewed the target group in two daysTable 2 summarises the steps that taken in the implementation of the action of the research. No.WeekSteps
1.10th January 2015Select the title of the proposal and the instrument.
2.Discussion with lecturer regarding the research topic
3.3rd April 2015Prepare the first draft on action research proposal and submission.
4.First Week Inform the school teacher about the action research
5.Discussion with the school teacher and selection of the participants.
6.Look through the time table to decide the time to do the research.
7.Second WeekPrepare the lesson plan (traditional method)
8.Implement the lesson plan in the class (traditional method)
9.Implement the Pre- short assessment
10.Do the structured interview
11.Third Week Prepare the lesson plan (New method)
12. Implement the lesson plan in the class. (New method)
14.Post-short assessment
15.Do the structured interview
16.Continued weekData analysis
17.Do the report
18.Editing the report
19.Send the report
Table 2: Steps in implementing the actionWhat Were the Result of My Study?The main focus of this section is the result of analysed the research data. When all of the data have been gathered, an analysis can declare whether the intervention is a success or not. Burns (1999) stated that, data analysis in action research engross forward the action components of the cycle, which the main focus are planning and acting, to the research aspects, where the focus turns to be more systematic observing and reflecting. Based on the result, we can come up with a conclusion and create a hypothesis. A conclusion can be drawn regarding the tenability of the hypotheses, and you have made some progress toward answering your research question (Lehman, ORourke, Hatcher & Stepanski, 2005). To be exact, data analysis is the main process to give meaning to the numbers collected and obtained from the data collecting instruments. It has to be analysed differently because of the method of collecting data is different. Consequently, I will discuss in depth about data collection for each and every data instrument that I used in this research. TestFor my first instrument, which is the test, I tabulated the data into a table. The data collected after I finished marking the test paper. The test marked according to the marking scheme devised by me. Then, I arranged the results that I have obtained in order by tabulating the results in the form of a table. The table will be created to show comparison between test 1 and test 2. Table below shows a blank example of the table I intended to use. Table 5Comparison of Test 1 and Test 2 scoresPupilsTest 1(Traditional)Test 2(Mind Map)Difference
A154
B242
C143
D352
E253
F42-2
G440
H341
I352
J341
Total score264116
Mean 2.64.11.6
Table above shows that the total marks for test 1 was 26 over 50. The mean for test 1 was 2.6. The differences in total and mean scores were 16 and 1.6 respectively. The result shows the improvement of the pupils in comprehension comparing between test 1 and test 2. The result is consistent with the Table 5 also shows that the total and the mean scores for Test 1 was 209 and 9.1 respectively. For Test 2, the total score was 338 and the mean score was 14.7. The differences in total and mean scores were129 and 5.6 respectively. The results show that the total and mean scores were 61.5% higher for Test 2 as compared to Test 1. The results indicate that the performance of the pupils were better in Test 2 as compared to Test 1. This finding is consistent with my journal jotting.
I will compare the results in two different ways. First, I will calculate the differences of mark for each individual in test 1 and test 2. I will group the results according to grades, A as the highest and E as the lowest grade. The figure below shows the grading scale that is prepared in accordance to the School Examination Analysis System (SAPS):Figure 3: Grading Scale based on SAPS
Grade A (80% - 100%)Grade B (60% - 79%)Grade C (40% - 59%)Grade D (20% - 39%)Grade E (0 % - 19 %)
The frequency of the grades presented in test 1 and test 2 will be analysed. If the scores proven to be in line with my research objective, where scores of test 2 are higher than the one in test 1, I can conclude that my intervention method leads to better usage of preposition of place. However, the result from the test here is not the only one used in concluding the research. Only after triangulation of results from this instrument and the other three, I will be able to conclude on the effectiveness of my intervention. The second way is that I will calculate the mean of scores for both test 1 and test 2. Then, I will convert them to percentage to see if there are any significant changes in their performance. If any differences exist, I need to calculate the difference between test 1 and test 2. The reason for this action is because I need to have set to indicate a significant change is around 10%. If the mean from test 2 shows an increment of 10% or more, I can conclude that the intervention method is triumphant in its objective and vice versa. InterviewI will have an interview session with the targeted group. During the interview, i will provide them with sets of open ended question. All of the answer given by the pupils will be collected as a data. I will jot down all of the information and transcribe it into written form. Then, from the transcription, I will look and search for information that supports my findings in other instruments. For example, if my research participants ability improved in test 2, I will look for responses that are consistent with that statement. An example of interview response that I will be looking for in said situation is provided below:1. Can you understand what you have learnt today?Answer: Yes, I learnt about mind map and how to use it. 2. Do you think that todays lesson helped you to understand how to use mind map?Answer: Yes, I can understand it better with the use of pictures and interacting with it in front of the class.
Questions: Example of interview responses that supports positive findings. QuestionnaireAfter I have collected the data from my questionnaire, I will list the result in the form of a table. As I use a rating scale in my questionnaire, I will calculate the mean for each item and compare them after each method. The table below shows how I would tabulate my data. NoItemMean
Difference of the Mean
The Traditional MethodThe Intervention Method
1I am able to understand the text with less guidance from the teacher.
2I can confidently answer the questions in the worksheet.
3I able to extract the information from the text.
Table 2: Example of the table for analysing questionnaire data.The example I provided is only for the positively-stemmed questions. For this type of questions, I will compare the mean of the data for traditional method and intervention method. If the mean of an item in the intervention method is higher than that of the traditional method, it is safe to say that the intervention method is effective in increasing the research participants ability to use mind map correctly. However, for the negatively stemmed questions which are not included in the example above, If the mean of an item in the intervention method is higher than that of the traditional method, it bring a negative implication about the research. It means that the intervention only degenerate the pupils ability of comprehending the text that they read. JournalJournal is the final instrument to measure the effectiveness of the intervention. The main purpose of reflective journal is top record the observations during the intervention are happen. The journal should be in detail, critical and covers all aspect in classroom that may change the variable of the research. I will record the conventional method of teaching reading comprehension and the intervention of teaching reading comprehension. Alternatively, through journal writing, I can reflect on the behaviour of the participant and my own actions. Through this, I can improve parts that have weaknesses. I can quote my journal to any relevant excerpts that will help me in my findings. For instance, when I conducted the intervention and results shows me positive sign regarding of the research, I need to jot down the detail of the class so that I can quote as a support for my statement. The example of the quotation is should be as,
Less of pupils raised their hand when I ask if they have any problems to do the task. Most of them occupied with the task that I provided to them. (Journal Entry X, Date X)
What can I relate about this study is, the pupils have different styles of learning that need a teacher to fulfil. The multiple intelligences can be induced in teaching and learning session to cater pupils need. Some of the pupils might be suit with the previous teaching styles, but for lower proficiency level of pupils, the teacher need to search for different styles of teaching to ease and also boost their confidence in learning new things.
