A FRESH LOOK AT STUDENTS’ ABILITY TO READ MULTIMODAL TEXTS: A CASE IN INDONESIA

Abstract

This paper will present a small part of the results of a study conducted in 2018, aiming to identify ten graders’ ability to read. The study involved 6,539 students from 298 schools (non-PISA) in 34 provinces in Indonesia. This paper will centre around the students’ ability to comprehend information presented in multimodal texts. The data were obtained from a reading test consisting of 40 questions, 16 of which involved information gained from multimodal (verbal and visual) texts. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that in general students still need guidance to understand information presented in multimodal texts. The average of the correct answers of the 16 questions involving verbal and visual texts was 45.46%. A question asking students to synthesise information from the picture was answered correctly only by 9.24% participants. Moreover, questions to do with the relationship between visual and verbal texts were answered correctly by less than 40% participants. However, questions on information familiar to the students, such as the location of a new book in a library, could be answered correctly by 87.05%. It is recommended that students and teachers should be exposed to multimodal teaching materials and teachers should be trained to deal with multimodality and to explain the relationship between visual and verbal texts explicitly to the students in all subjects.