Assessing the Reading Competence Needs of Senior High School Students in National Examination: Teachers’ Perspective

Abstract

The focus of this research is to asses the Reading competence needs of senior high school students in English National Examination (ENE) based on teachers’ perspective. The background in conducting this research mainly because of two things. The first one is the importance of curriculum evaluation behind the Needs Analysis itself. The second one is the importance of the certain preparation for strengthening English material to face the incoming English National Examination. Both of these backgrounds are equally important for students and teachers at once. This study is carried out with the objectives to answer the problems, that is to know what do 12 grader senior high school students’ needs in order to have English Reading competence of National Examination based on teachers’ perspective. The next objective is to find out what kinds of effort do teachers make to fulfil those needs. The last objective is to discover what obstacles are faced by teachers in order to fulfill those needs. All of these questions are framed within the scope of the teacher's perspective. The data of this research, included some questionnaires. This research already debriefed 5 English teachers who teach grade 12. They are from MGMP or English Teacher Forum of senior high schools in Boyolali Regency, Central Java Province, Indonesia. They were involved in filling out the questionnaire & also interview where the results were used as the main data in this study. The final findings in this study include the fact that: (1) the basic needs of students in reading competence are the mastership in Reading comprehension, the mastery of sufficient and adequate vocabulary and also high motivation in learning, (2) the teachers then made several programs to meet the needs of the students by providing additional Reading material and adding vocabulary, implementing Computer Based National Examination Simulation, Increasing awareness and motivation of students in reading English texts, Applying group discussion and student mentoring, Inserting speaking material in Reading learning, & makingEnglish Modules (3) students' instant habits in usinggadget, the inconsistency between the compulsory in12th grade curriculum and the material that must be taught by the teacher in the National Exam preparation class, lack of English teacher curriculum,books from the government are poor in content, low motivation & concentration of students in English lessons in the classroom, and low vocabulary mastery of studentsare the main obstacles that are facedby teachers in their efforts to increase students Reading competence in ENE.