Vocabulary skills can make or break any student's feelings about reading. Help students with learning disabilities successfully deal with new vocabulary in ways that empower their future learning with these strategies. These strategies can be adapted for appropriately for different grade levels and are easily done at home or school. They can be used by regular and special education students.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: Vocabulary Word Strategies - This Reading Skill Can be Taught in Approximately 20 Minutes
Here's How:
1. Decoding and Listening to Vocabulary Words: Provide the student with a list of new vocabulary words that will appear in a passage. Have the student sound the word out loud. Read it aloud to her if she does not read phonetically. Ask the student if the word sounds like other words she knows. Do parts of the word suggest what it means?
2. Gleaning for Clues to Understanding: Have the student read the sentences surrounding the new word. Do the sentences give the student an idea of the meaning of the word? Ask her to make suggestions about the meaning. For younger students, provide visual depictions of the words whenever possible though illustrated books.
3. Create a Personal Dictionary: Provide students a list of new vocabulary words from the passage. Older students can scan the passage and make their own lists of unfamiliar vocabulary. Have students create their own personal dictionary by looking up words and writing the definitions in a notebook. For younger students, consider having them also draw an illustration of the words as appropriate. Have students occasionally review their personal word lists to reinforce their learning.
4. Skip It: Sometimes it is best to allow students to read passages and simply skip words they cannot decode or read. Consider having students make a slight mark by words they do not know and continue reading. This allows them to finish the passage without disrupting the flow of text. Have them address the words they missed after they are finished reading the passages. They can address them using the strategies above at that time.
Tips:
1. It is a good practice to teach students these skills as they are learning to read. This helps them to understand strategies as a good way to deal with reading before problems occur. They will recognize this as good practice and not a treatment for a learning problem.
2. For students who have already learned to read, it may be helpful to teach them the strategies apart from a reading activity. Later, as they read, casually remind them of the strategies if they appear to struggle and do not seem to use them.
3. Pair this strategy with other research-based strategies from your Learning Disabilities Guide for more success in school.
What You Need:
* Age-appropriate Dictionary
* Notebook
* Writing Supplies
* Coloring Pencils (for younger students)
Selasa, 23 Desember 2008
How to Improve Reading Comprehension
The Purpose of Reading.
The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:
This is hard to read and remember.
This is easier because of chunking.
This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and structure.
Similarly, if you like sports, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.
Improving Comprehension.
Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques. Here are some suggestions.
Develop a broad background.
Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Become interested in world events.
Know the structure of paragraphs.
Good writers construct paragraphs that have a beginning, middle and end. Often, the first sentence will give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic.
Identify the type of reasoning.
Does the author use cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deduction, systems thinking? See section 20 for more examples on critical thinking skills.
Anticipate and predict.
Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If you're right, this reinforces your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.
Look for the method of organization.
Is the material organized chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially or hierarchical? See section 10 for more examples on organization.
Create motivation and interest.
Preview material, ask questions, discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater your comprehension.
Pay attention to supporting cues.
Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in each section.
Highlight, summarize and review.
Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize and review important ideas.
Build a good vocabulary.
For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or, you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings.
Use a systematic reading technique like SQR3.
Develop a systematic reading style, like the SQR3 method and make adjustments to it, depending on priorities and purpose. The SQR3 steps include Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. See Section 14 for more details.
Monitor effectiveness.
Good readers monitor their attention, concentration and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they've missed an idea and backup to reread it.
Should You Vocalize Words?
Yes, although it is faster to form words in your mind rather than on your lips or throat. Eye motion is also important. Frequent backtracking slows you down considerably.
The purpose of reading is to connect the ideas on the page to what you already know. If you don't know anything about a subject, then pouring words of text into your mind is like pouring water into your hand. You don't retain much. For example, try reading these numbers:
This is hard to read and remember.
This is easier because of chunking.
This is easy to read because of prior knowledge and structure.
Similarly, if you like sports, then reading the sports page is easy. You have a framework in your mind for reading, understanding and storing information.
Improving Comprehension.
Reading comprehension requires motivation, mental frameworks for holding ideas, concentration and good study techniques. Here are some suggestions.
Develop a broad background.
Broaden your background knowledge by reading newspapers, magazines and books. Become interested in world events.
Know the structure of paragraphs.
Good writers construct paragraphs that have a beginning, middle and end. Often, the first sentence will give an overview that helps provide a framework for adding details. Also, look for transitional words, phrases or paragraphs that change the topic.
Identify the type of reasoning.
Does the author use cause and effect reasoning, hypothesis, model building, induction or deduction, systems thinking? See section 20 for more examples on critical thinking skills.
Anticipate and predict.
Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If you're right, this reinforces your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.
Look for the method of organization.
Is the material organized chronologically, serially, logically, functionally, spatially or hierarchical? See section 10 for more examples on organization.
Create motivation and interest.
Preview material, ask questions, discuss ideas with classmates. The stronger your interest, the greater your comprehension.
Pay attention to supporting cues.
Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in each section.
Highlight, summarize and review.
Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize and review important ideas.
Build a good vocabulary.
For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to use a dictionary regularly. You might carry around a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or, you can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots, prefixes and endings.
Use a systematic reading technique like SQR3.
Develop a systematic reading style, like the SQR3 method and make adjustments to it, depending on priorities and purpose. The SQR3 steps include Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. See Section 14 for more details.
Monitor effectiveness.
Good readers monitor their attention, concentration and effectiveness. They quickly recognize if they've missed an idea and backup to reread it.
Should You Vocalize Words?
Yes, although it is faster to form words in your mind rather than on your lips or throat. Eye motion is also important. Frequent backtracking slows you down considerably.
Teaching Reading Comprehension
When was the last time you finished a book and you were asked to complete a worksheet about it?
You probably haven't had to do that since you were a student yourself, however this is something that most of us ask our students to do on a daily basis. To me, this doesn't make much sense. Shouldn't we teach students to read and comprehend books in a manner that is consistent with how they will read and comprehend as adults?
The book Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann and the Reader's Workshop method move away from worksheets with comprehension questions, utilizing more real-world, student-driven instruction.
Rather than depend solely on small reading groups, the Reader's Workshop method blends whole group instruction, small needs-based groups, and individual conferring to guide students through the application of the seven basic comprehension strategies.
What are the thinking strategies that all proficient readers use as they read?
* Determining What is Important - Identifying themes and diminishing focus on less important ideas or pieces of information
* Drawing Inferences - Combining background knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions and interpret facts
* Using Prior Knowledge - Building on previous knowledge and experiences to aid in comprehension of the text
* Asking Questions - Wondering and inquiring about the book before, during, and after reading
* Monitoring Comprehension and Meaning - Using an inner voice to think about if the text makes sense or not
* Creating Mental Images - Implementing the five senses to build images in the mind that enhance the experience of reading
Believe it or not, many children may not even know that they are supposed to be thinking as they read! Ask your students if they know to think as they read - you may be shocked by what they tell you!
Each year, I asked my new group of third grade readers, "Did you know that it's OK not to understand everything you read?" They usually look at me, surprised, and answer, "It is?" Then we talk a little bit about some of the ways that you can build your understanding when you are confused. I told them that even adult readers, like myself, are confused sometimes when they read. They had no idea. But, I bet it made them feel a little better to know that they don't have to fake understanding when they read; the best readers question, reread, look for context clues, and more in order to better understand and move through the text.
To get started with the Mosaic of Thought reading strategies, first choose one of the comprehension strategies to focus on for a full 6-10 weeks. Even if you only get to a few of the strategies in a year, you will be doing a major educational service for your students.
Here is a sample schedule for an hour long session:
15-20 minutes - Present a mini-lesson that models how to use the given strategy for a certain book. Try to pick a book that really lends itself to this strategy. Think aloud and you demonstrate how good readers think as they read. At the end of the mini-lesson, give the kids an assignment for the day that they will do as they read the books of their own choosing. For example, "Kids, today you will use sticky notes to mark the places where you could really visualize what was going on in your book."
15 minutes - Meet with small needs-based groups to meet the needs of students who need extra guidance and practice in this comprehension area. You can also build in time here to meet with 1-2 small guided reading groups, as you may be doing in your classroom now.
20 minutes - Use this time for one-on-one conferring with your students. Try to get to 4-5 students per day, if you can. As you meet, delve deep with each student and have him or her demonstrate to you exactly how they are using this strategy as they read.
5-10 minutes - Meet again as a whole group to review what every one accomplished and learned for the day, in relation to the strategy.
Of course, as with any instructional technique that you encounter, you can adapt this concept and this suggested schedule to fit your needs and your classroom situation.
You probably haven't had to do that since you were a student yourself, however this is something that most of us ask our students to do on a daily basis. To me, this doesn't make much sense. Shouldn't we teach students to read and comprehend books in a manner that is consistent with how they will read and comprehend as adults?
The book Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann and the Reader's Workshop method move away from worksheets with comprehension questions, utilizing more real-world, student-driven instruction.
Rather than depend solely on small reading groups, the Reader's Workshop method blends whole group instruction, small needs-based groups, and individual conferring to guide students through the application of the seven basic comprehension strategies.
What are the thinking strategies that all proficient readers use as they read?
* Determining What is Important - Identifying themes and diminishing focus on less important ideas or pieces of information
* Drawing Inferences - Combining background knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions and interpret facts
* Using Prior Knowledge - Building on previous knowledge and experiences to aid in comprehension of the text
* Asking Questions - Wondering and inquiring about the book before, during, and after reading
* Monitoring Comprehension and Meaning - Using an inner voice to think about if the text makes sense or not
* Creating Mental Images - Implementing the five senses to build images in the mind that enhance the experience of reading
Believe it or not, many children may not even know that they are supposed to be thinking as they read! Ask your students if they know to think as they read - you may be shocked by what they tell you!
Each year, I asked my new group of third grade readers, "Did you know that it's OK not to understand everything you read?" They usually look at me, surprised, and answer, "It is?" Then we talk a little bit about some of the ways that you can build your understanding when you are confused. I told them that even adult readers, like myself, are confused sometimes when they read. They had no idea. But, I bet it made them feel a little better to know that they don't have to fake understanding when they read; the best readers question, reread, look for context clues, and more in order to better understand and move through the text.
To get started with the Mosaic of Thought reading strategies, first choose one of the comprehension strategies to focus on for a full 6-10 weeks. Even if you only get to a few of the strategies in a year, you will be doing a major educational service for your students.
Here is a sample schedule for an hour long session:
15-20 minutes - Present a mini-lesson that models how to use the given strategy for a certain book. Try to pick a book that really lends itself to this strategy. Think aloud and you demonstrate how good readers think as they read. At the end of the mini-lesson, give the kids an assignment for the day that they will do as they read the books of their own choosing. For example, "Kids, today you will use sticky notes to mark the places where you could really visualize what was going on in your book."
15 minutes - Meet with small needs-based groups to meet the needs of students who need extra guidance and practice in this comprehension area. You can also build in time here to meet with 1-2 small guided reading groups, as you may be doing in your classroom now.
20 minutes - Use this time for one-on-one conferring with your students. Try to get to 4-5 students per day, if you can. As you meet, delve deep with each student and have him or her demonstrate to you exactly how they are using this strategy as they read.
5-10 minutes - Meet again as a whole group to review what every one accomplished and learned for the day, in relation to the strategy.
Of course, as with any instructional technique that you encounter, you can adapt this concept and this suggested schedule to fit your needs and your classroom situation.
The effective way to learn vocabulary
Introduction
Learning vocabulary is a very important part of learning a language. The more words you know, the more you will be able to understand what you hear and read; and the better you will be able to say what you want to when speaking or writing.
Which words to learn
Every day you hear or read many new English words. You also find them in your dictionary when you are translating from your own language. You can’t possibly learn all these new words, so your first problem is to decide which ones to concentrate on. Here are some suggestions:
* learn the words that are important to the subjects you are studying
* learn the words that you read or hear again and again
* learn the words that you know you will often want to use yourself
* do not learn words that are rare or not useful (your teacher can help you with this)
How to learn words
Once you have chosen which words to learn, you next have to decide how you are going to learn them. Here are a few ideas:
* write the words in a notebook (with their translations or definitions)
* write the words and definitions on small cards
(advice on how to do this)
* say the words many times (if you have an electronic dictionary you can hear how the word is pronounced)
* put the words into different groups (you could use a graphic organizer)
* write them in a file for use with a computer program
* make associations (in pictures or with other words)
* ask someone to test you
* use the words in your own speaking or writing
Some students put a tick or cross in their dictionary next to every word they look up. The next time they turn to a page with a marked word, they quickly check to see if they remember the meaning of that word.
In all of the above ways, you are doing something with the words. It’s usually not enough to just read through a list of words with their definitions or translations and try to remember them. Most students find that they memorise words better if they do something with them. Even better is to try and learn the word in a typical combination with other words. Learning that to apologize means to say sorry is a good start, but it's much better to learn a whole expression containing the word, e.g. He apologized for being late. Not only is this often easier to remember, but you are also learning some very important information on how the word is used.
Learning vocabulary by reading
The way you learned very many of the words in your own language was by meeting them in the books and magazines you read. The context of a new word in a sentence or story was often enough for you to guess the meaning. Meeting the word again and again in your reading helped you learn it for use in your own speaking and writing. Doing lots of extra reading for pleasure - both fiction and non-fiction - is an excellent way to learn new English words, too. But choose books that you find quite easy to read. Difficult stories or texts that you struggle to understand will not help you to develop your vocabulary the natural way. But remember: to learn new words from reading you have to read A LOT!
More on the importance of reading.
The vocabulary you know can be divided into two groups - passive vocabulary and active vocabulary. Passive vocabulary contains all the words that you understand when you read or listen, but which you do not use (or cannot remember) in your own writing and speaking. Active vocabulary is all the words you understand, plus all the words that you can use yourself. Your active vocabulary, in English and your own language, is probably much smaller than your passive vocabulary.
The more you work on learning a word, as suggested above, the more likely it is that it will become part of your active vocabulary.
Things to know about the words you learn
usually the first things you learn about a new English word are what it means and its translation in your own language. But there are other things you need to find out before you can say that you know a word like a native speaker does. For example, you have to learn:
* how it is spelled
* how it is pronounced
* how it is inflected (i.e. how it changes if it is a verb, noun or adjective)
* other grammar information about it
* how it collocates (i.e. what other words are often used with it)
More on collocation
* if it has a particular style or register
Native speakers learn these things about words by hearing them and reading them again and again. This is the best way for you to learn them, too.
Learning vocabulary is a very important part of learning a language. The more words you know, the more you will be able to understand what you hear and read; and the better you will be able to say what you want to when speaking or writing.
Which words to learn
Every day you hear or read many new English words. You also find them in your dictionary when you are translating from your own language. You can’t possibly learn all these new words, so your first problem is to decide which ones to concentrate on. Here are some suggestions:
* learn the words that are important to the subjects you are studying
* learn the words that you read or hear again and again
* learn the words that you know you will often want to use yourself
* do not learn words that are rare or not useful (your teacher can help you with this)
How to learn words
Once you have chosen which words to learn, you next have to decide how you are going to learn them. Here are a few ideas:
* write the words in a notebook (with their translations or definitions)
* write the words and definitions on small cards
(advice on how to do this)
* say the words many times (if you have an electronic dictionary you can hear how the word is pronounced)
* put the words into different groups (you could use a graphic organizer)
* write them in a file for use with a computer program
* make associations (in pictures or with other words)
* ask someone to test you
* use the words in your own speaking or writing
Some students put a tick or cross in their dictionary next to every word they look up. The next time they turn to a page with a marked word, they quickly check to see if they remember the meaning of that word.
In all of the above ways, you are doing something with the words. It’s usually not enough to just read through a list of words with their definitions or translations and try to remember them. Most students find that they memorise words better if they do something with them. Even better is to try and learn the word in a typical combination with other words. Learning that to apologize means to say sorry is a good start, but it's much better to learn a whole expression containing the word, e.g. He apologized for being late. Not only is this often easier to remember, but you are also learning some very important information on how the word is used.
Learning vocabulary by reading
The way you learned very many of the words in your own language was by meeting them in the books and magazines you read. The context of a new word in a sentence or story was often enough for you to guess the meaning. Meeting the word again and again in your reading helped you learn it for use in your own speaking and writing. Doing lots of extra reading for pleasure - both fiction and non-fiction - is an excellent way to learn new English words, too. But choose books that you find quite easy to read. Difficult stories or texts that you struggle to understand will not help you to develop your vocabulary the natural way. But remember: to learn new words from reading you have to read A LOT!
More on the importance of reading.
The vocabulary you know can be divided into two groups - passive vocabulary and active vocabulary. Passive vocabulary contains all the words that you understand when you read or listen, but which you do not use (or cannot remember) in your own writing and speaking. Active vocabulary is all the words you understand, plus all the words that you can use yourself. Your active vocabulary, in English and your own language, is probably much smaller than your passive vocabulary.
The more you work on learning a word, as suggested above, the more likely it is that it will become part of your active vocabulary.
Things to know about the words you learn
usually the first things you learn about a new English word are what it means and its translation in your own language. But there are other things you need to find out before you can say that you know a word like a native speaker does. For example, you have to learn:
* how it is spelled
* how it is pronounced
* how it is inflected (i.e. how it changes if it is a verb, noun or adjective)
* other grammar information about it
* how it collocates (i.e. what other words are often used with it)
More on collocation
* if it has a particular style or register
Native speakers learn these things about words by hearing them and reading them again and again. This is the best way for you to learn them, too.
Senin, 22 Desember 2008
KIAT MENINGKATKAN IPK
Untuk mendapatkan nilai IPK tinggi lakukanlah 2 hal berikut ini:
1.Kejar nilai untuk mata pelajaran atau mata kuliah yang secara umum tidak terlalu disenangi siswa/mahasiswa.
Apa itu? Oh banyak, contohnya Pancasila, research design, literature, phonology, curriculum and material development, dsb. Lakukan survey kecil-kecilan ke temen seangkatan atau kakak angkatan, saya yakin banyak sekali mata kuliah yang tidak digemari mahasiswa. Intinya di mata kuliah yang diemohi mahasiswa itu, mereka biasanya down nilainya. Nah ini dia kesempatan kita, di saat nilai mereka “pasti rendah”, kita berdjoeang untuk nilai “pasti tinggi” … hehehe. Nah hasil dari tahap satu yaitu kalau ada IPK khusus untuk “mata kuliah tidak populer” kita pasti nomor satu
2. Sudah mantab dengan langkah satu? Langkah dua adalah jangan berhenti, lanjutkan mengejar nilai untuk mata pelajaran atau mata kuliah yang secara umum disenangi siswa/mahasiswa … hehehe.
Belajar keras, kerjakan semua tugas, kalau perlu kejar terus dosen kalau ada yang masih nggak ngerti di mata kuliah “populer” itu. Kalaupun kita tidak bisa mendapatkan nilai sempurna alias sedang-sedang saja ya nggak apa-apa, asal sudah berusaha. Yang pasti karena IPK adalah nilai kumulatif dari mata kuliah “tidak populer” dan “populer”, total nilai kita akan tetap tinggi tho. Lha kan kita sudah jadi the first rank untuk mata kuliah “tidak populer” … hihihi.
Akhir semester silakan dilihat nilai IPK atau raportnya, saya yakin nilai anda akan meningkat. Kalau masih belum naik, lanjutkan tahap 1 dan 2 di semester berikutnya. Kalaupun sampai akhir kuliah tidak naik-naik juga, ya apa boleh buat, memang level kekuatan anda. Mungkin anda kurang berdoa, kurang sholat malam atau kurang puasa senin-kamis, sehingga ridha dan “lucky” dari yang Diatas tidak menyertai anda. Tapi jangan khawatir, IPK bukan segalanya, masih banyak cara lain perlu juga dicatat banyak orang sukses yang IPKnya hancur kok. Untuk yang sudah ber-IPK bagus, jangan cepat puas apalagi sombong dan takabur, karena faktor-faktor itulah yang membuat orang seperti anda tidak sukses ketika masuk ke dunia kerja.
Terakhir, sekali lagi, IPK nggak penting karena hanya masalah dasar saja. Makanya, kalau IPK yang dasar saja sudah jatuh duluan, gimana yang lain … hehehe
Sumber: http://romisatriawahono.net/2008/03/15/kiat-meningkatkan-nilai-ipk/
1.Kejar nilai untuk mata pelajaran atau mata kuliah yang secara umum tidak terlalu disenangi siswa/mahasiswa.
Apa itu? Oh banyak, contohnya Pancasila, research design, literature, phonology, curriculum and material development, dsb. Lakukan survey kecil-kecilan ke temen seangkatan atau kakak angkatan, saya yakin banyak sekali mata kuliah yang tidak digemari mahasiswa. Intinya di mata kuliah yang diemohi mahasiswa itu, mereka biasanya down nilainya. Nah ini dia kesempatan kita, di saat nilai mereka “pasti rendah”, kita berdjoeang untuk nilai “pasti tinggi” … hehehe. Nah hasil dari tahap satu yaitu kalau ada IPK khusus untuk “mata kuliah tidak populer” kita pasti nomor satu
2. Sudah mantab dengan langkah satu? Langkah dua adalah jangan berhenti, lanjutkan mengejar nilai untuk mata pelajaran atau mata kuliah yang secara umum disenangi siswa/mahasiswa … hehehe.
Belajar keras, kerjakan semua tugas, kalau perlu kejar terus dosen kalau ada yang masih nggak ngerti di mata kuliah “populer” itu. Kalaupun kita tidak bisa mendapatkan nilai sempurna alias sedang-sedang saja ya nggak apa-apa, asal sudah berusaha. Yang pasti karena IPK adalah nilai kumulatif dari mata kuliah “tidak populer” dan “populer”, total nilai kita akan tetap tinggi tho. Lha kan kita sudah jadi the first rank untuk mata kuliah “tidak populer” … hihihi.
Akhir semester silakan dilihat nilai IPK atau raportnya, saya yakin nilai anda akan meningkat. Kalau masih belum naik, lanjutkan tahap 1 dan 2 di semester berikutnya. Kalaupun sampai akhir kuliah tidak naik-naik juga, ya apa boleh buat, memang level kekuatan anda. Mungkin anda kurang berdoa, kurang sholat malam atau kurang puasa senin-kamis, sehingga ridha dan “lucky” dari yang Diatas tidak menyertai anda. Tapi jangan khawatir, IPK bukan segalanya, masih banyak cara lain perlu juga dicatat banyak orang sukses yang IPKnya hancur kok. Untuk yang sudah ber-IPK bagus, jangan cepat puas apalagi sombong dan takabur, karena faktor-faktor itulah yang membuat orang seperti anda tidak sukses ketika masuk ke dunia kerja.
Terakhir, sekali lagi, IPK nggak penting karena hanya masalah dasar saja. Makanya, kalau IPK yang dasar saja sudah jatuh duluan, gimana yang lain … hehehe
Sumber: http://romisatriawahono.net/2008/03/15/kiat-meningkatkan-nilai-ipk/
Minggu, 14 Desember 2008
Masih Adakah
masih adakah diriku di hatimu?
sekian lama waktu masih memisahkan kita..
karena ia seakan akan telah pergi ketika selangkah ku jejaki
memang ini semua telah terjadi ..
sekian lama waktu masih memisahkan kita
dan adakah waktu masih membuat dirimu mengingatkan hatimu padaku?
kekasihku , dimanapun kau berada dan apapun aku bagimu
namun untukku engkau adalah kekasihku yang takkan pernah hilang..
kekasihku, maafkan aku yang telah menyakiti perasaanmu dahulu..
kan ku kejar dirimu hingga waktu akan memutihkan rambutku, melemahkan tubuhku namun hatiku takkan pernah rela untuk melepaskan namamu ...
kekasihku ..
aku masih teramat mencintaimu..
sekian lama waktu masih memisahkan kita..
karena ia seakan akan telah pergi ketika selangkah ku jejaki
memang ini semua telah terjadi ..
sekian lama waktu masih memisahkan kita
dan adakah waktu masih membuat dirimu mengingatkan hatimu padaku?
kekasihku , dimanapun kau berada dan apapun aku bagimu
namun untukku engkau adalah kekasihku yang takkan pernah hilang..
kekasihku, maafkan aku yang telah menyakiti perasaanmu dahulu..
kan ku kejar dirimu hingga waktu akan memutihkan rambutku, melemahkan tubuhku namun hatiku takkan pernah rela untuk melepaskan namamu ...
kekasihku ..
aku masih teramat mencintaimu..
Karena Dirimu
Karena dirimu…
Yang membuat diriku bangga
Yang membuat diriku bahagia
Yang membuat diriku lebih berharga
Karena dirimu…
Yang membuat aku sadar akan diriku
Yang membuat aku sadar akan kelebihanku
Yang membuat aku sadar akan kekuranganku
Karena dirimu…
Yang membuat aku menjauhimu
Yang membuat aku meninggalkanmu
Yang membuat aku melupakanmu
Yang Membuat aku benar-benar kehilanganmu
Tapi karena dirimu…
Aku akan selalu menjagamu
Aku akan selalu melindungimu
Aku akan selalu Menyayangimu
Aku akan selalu Mencintaimu
Yang membuat diriku bangga
Yang membuat diriku bahagia
Yang membuat diriku lebih berharga
Karena dirimu…
Yang membuat aku sadar akan diriku
Yang membuat aku sadar akan kelebihanku
Yang membuat aku sadar akan kekuranganku
Karena dirimu…
Yang membuat aku menjauhimu
Yang membuat aku meninggalkanmu
Yang membuat aku melupakanmu
Yang Membuat aku benar-benar kehilanganmu
Tapi karena dirimu…
Aku akan selalu menjagamu
Aku akan selalu melindungimu
Aku akan selalu Menyayangimu
Aku akan selalu Mencintaimu
Bila Aku Jatuh Cinta
Allahu Rabbi aku minta izin
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Jangan biarkan cinta untuk-Mu berkurang
Hingga membuat lalai akan adanya Engkau
Allahu Rabbi
Aku punya pinta
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Penuhilah hatiku dengan bilangan cinta-Mu yang tak terbatas
Biar rasaku pada-Mu tetap utuh
Allahu Rabbi
Izinkanlah bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Pilihkan untukku seseorang yang hatinya penuh dengan
kasih-Mu
dan membuatku semakin mengagumi-Mu
Allahu Rabbi
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh hati
Pertemukanlah kami
Berilah kami kesempatan untuk lebih mendekati cinta-Mu
Allahu Rabbi
Pintaku terakhir adalah seandainya kujatuh hati
Jangan pernah Kau palingkan wajah-Mu dariku
Anugerahkanlah aku cinta-Mu…
Cinta yang tak pernah pupus oleh waktu
Amin !
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Jangan biarkan cinta untuk-Mu berkurang
Hingga membuat lalai akan adanya Engkau
Allahu Rabbi
Aku punya pinta
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Penuhilah hatiku dengan bilangan cinta-Mu yang tak terbatas
Biar rasaku pada-Mu tetap utuh
Allahu Rabbi
Izinkanlah bila suatu saat aku jatuh cinta
Pilihkan untukku seseorang yang hatinya penuh dengan
kasih-Mu
dan membuatku semakin mengagumi-Mu
Allahu Rabbi
Bila suatu saat aku jatuh hati
Pertemukanlah kami
Berilah kami kesempatan untuk lebih mendekati cinta-Mu
Allahu Rabbi
Pintaku terakhir adalah seandainya kujatuh hati
Jangan pernah Kau palingkan wajah-Mu dariku
Anugerahkanlah aku cinta-Mu…
Cinta yang tak pernah pupus oleh waktu
Amin !
Cinta dan Bahagia
Jangan Kau Melihat Wajah Karena Bisa Menipu
Jangan Pula Kau Melihat Harta Karena Bisa Hilang
Datanglah Kepada Orang Yang Bisa
Membuatmu Tersenyum,
Membuatmu Selalu Tertawa,
Dan Membuatmu Merasa Dia akan selalu disampingmu,
Melindungimu dan Menyayangimu.
Jangan Kau Sia-siakan hidup untuk hari ini,
Hidup ini Terlampau Singkat
Bila dilewatkan Bersama Pilihan Yang Salah
Jangan Pula Kau Melihat Harta Karena Bisa Hilang
Datanglah Kepada Orang Yang Bisa
Membuatmu Tersenyum,
Membuatmu Selalu Tertawa,
Dan Membuatmu Merasa Dia akan selalu disampingmu,
Melindungimu dan Menyayangimu.
Jangan Kau Sia-siakan hidup untuk hari ini,
Hidup ini Terlampau Singkat
Bila dilewatkan Bersama Pilihan Yang Salah
Apakah Cinta
cinta bukan sesuatu yg patut untuk dibanggakan,
bukan sesuatu yg patut untuk dipamerkan,
bukan sesuatu yg patut untuk dibicarakan,
bukan untuk dicaci,dihina,diludahi………..
juga bukan untuk disanjung,dipuja,diagungkan……
cinta ya cinta………….
bukan tuhan,bukan malaikat,bukan iblis,bukan bidadari….
cinta adalah suatu kehidupan yg perlu dijalani…
ntah itu menyakitakan ato menyenangkan…..
smua itu takdir yg udah diberikn ke km…..
apa km bisa mengubah takdir dr tuhan??????????
cinta itu hidup ditiap ht manusia,,,,,
laksana burung merpati yg terbang n singgah diranting hati yg dia mau……sesukanya……..
manusia yg tak memiliki cinta adlh manusia yg munafik…
N bila terciptanya cinta hanya untuk melukai hati manusia maka apakah kau tak percaya akan kuasa tuhan????????
ada hikmah dibalik perkara,ada kesedihan dibalik senyuman,ada keharuan dibalik tangisan,dan ada cinta dibalik hati seorang manusia.
jangan lupakan kata-kata itu!
bukan sesuatu yg patut untuk dipamerkan,
bukan sesuatu yg patut untuk dibicarakan,
bukan untuk dicaci,dihina,diludahi………..
juga bukan untuk disanjung,dipuja,diagungkan……
cinta ya cinta………….
bukan tuhan,bukan malaikat,bukan iblis,bukan bidadari….
cinta adalah suatu kehidupan yg perlu dijalani…
ntah itu menyakitakan ato menyenangkan…..
smua itu takdir yg udah diberikn ke km…..
apa km bisa mengubah takdir dr tuhan??????????
cinta itu hidup ditiap ht manusia,,,,,
laksana burung merpati yg terbang n singgah diranting hati yg dia mau……sesukanya……..
manusia yg tak memiliki cinta adlh manusia yg munafik…
N bila terciptanya cinta hanya untuk melukai hati manusia maka apakah kau tak percaya akan kuasa tuhan????????
ada hikmah dibalik perkara,ada kesedihan dibalik senyuman,ada keharuan dibalik tangisan,dan ada cinta dibalik hati seorang manusia.
jangan lupakan kata-kata itu!
Rabu, 03 Desember 2008
Humor: Menghemat
Pada suatu sore di sebuah restoran ada tiga orang dari tiga negara yaitu Jepang, Amerika dan Indonesia sedang mengadakan pertemuan kerja. Mereka sedang berada di toilet sehabis makan.
Orang Jepang: Di negara saya mengutamakan kebersihan, karena itu saya selalu menggunakan banyak tissue dan air untuk membersihkan, sehabis saya buang air kecil.
Orang Amerika: Kalau di negara saya mengutamakan efisiensi, saya hanya perlu sedikit tissue untuk membersihkan.
Orang Indonesia: Lain lagi di negara saya, kami terbiasa untuk menghemat segala sesuatunya. Maka sehabis buang air kecil saya langsung menutup celana saya tanpa buang-buang waktu.
Orang Jepang: Di negara saya mengutamakan kebersihan, karena itu saya selalu menggunakan banyak tissue dan air untuk membersihkan, sehabis saya buang air kecil.
Orang Amerika: Kalau di negara saya mengutamakan efisiensi, saya hanya perlu sedikit tissue untuk membersihkan.
Orang Indonesia: Lain lagi di negara saya, kami terbiasa untuk menghemat segala sesuatunya. Maka sehabis buang air kecil saya langsung menutup celana saya tanpa buang-buang waktu.
Humor: Melompati Guling
Purnomo dan Astuti pulang kampung naik motor, Lagi asyik naik motor, tiba tiba ada angin yang meniup sapu tangan milik astuti sehingga jatuh keseberang parit. Dengan tangkas dan berani purnomo meloncati parit tersebut dan menyerahkan saputangan ke astuti.
Dan mereka meneruskan perjalanan, sewaktu melewati sebuah perkampungan, hari sudah senja dan hujan lebat, maka mereka berteduh disebuah rumah yang sederhana, karena hujan tak kunjung berhenti maka diputuskan malam ini mereka numpang nginap di rumah tersebut, dan pemilik rumah mengizinkan.
Pemilik Rumah: "Maaf ya dik .... kamarnya cuma satu."
Purnomo & Astuti: "Tak apa bu, kami berterima kasih sekali di izinkan menginap."
Pemilik Rumah: "Berhubung adik bukan suami istri maka adik berdua tidurnya di batasi GULING ya."
Purnomo dan Astuti saling pandang, maka mereka tidurlah dengan nyenyak sampai pagi.
Paginya mereka pamit pulang, tapi Astuti cemberut terus dan tak mau bicara sehingga Purnomo menjadi bingung.
Purnomo:"Hei...yang ...! kenapa sih kamu cemberut terus?"
Astuti: "(Dengan kesal menjawab) Aku gak nyangka mas yang begitu tangkas melompati parit untuk mengambilkan saputanganku tapi tadi malam mas tidak sanggup melompati GULING."
Purnomo:"Iya...juga ya..." (sbs/lpk)
Dan mereka meneruskan perjalanan, sewaktu melewati sebuah perkampungan, hari sudah senja dan hujan lebat, maka mereka berteduh disebuah rumah yang sederhana, karena hujan tak kunjung berhenti maka diputuskan malam ini mereka numpang nginap di rumah tersebut, dan pemilik rumah mengizinkan.
Pemilik Rumah: "Maaf ya dik .... kamarnya cuma satu."
Purnomo & Astuti: "Tak apa bu, kami berterima kasih sekali di izinkan menginap."
Pemilik Rumah: "Berhubung adik bukan suami istri maka adik berdua tidurnya di batasi GULING ya."
Purnomo dan Astuti saling pandang, maka mereka tidurlah dengan nyenyak sampai pagi.
Paginya mereka pamit pulang, tapi Astuti cemberut terus dan tak mau bicara sehingga Purnomo menjadi bingung.
Purnomo:"Hei...yang ...! kenapa sih kamu cemberut terus?"
Astuti: "(Dengan kesal menjawab) Aku gak nyangka mas yang begitu tangkas melompati parit untuk mengambilkan saputanganku tapi tadi malam mas tidak sanggup melompati GULING."
Purnomo:"Iya...juga ya..." (sbs/lpk)
Humor: Alasan Mengapa Amerika Tidak Mau Menyerang Indonesia
Pentagon membayangkan jika AS terpaksa harus menyerang Indonesia berapa kerugian yang harus di pikul pihak AS dan berapa keuntungan pihak Indonesia dari kehadiran tentara AS di sana?
Begitu memasuki perairan dataran Indonesia, mereka akan di hadang pihak bea cukai karena membawa masuk senjata api dan senjata tajam serta peralatan perang tanpa surat izin dari pemerintah RI. Ini berarti mereka harus menyediakan Uang Damai, coba hitung berapa besarnya jika bawaannya sedemikian banyak.
Kemudian mereka mendirikan base camp militer, bisa di tebak di sekitar base camp pasti akan dikelilingi oleh penjual Bakso, Tukang Es kelapa, lapak VCD bajakan, sampai obral kaos kaki Rp 10 ribu 3 Pasang. Belum lagi para pengusaha komedi puter bakal ikut mangkal di sekitar base camp juga.
Kemudian kendaraan-kendaraan tempur serta tank-tank lapis baja yang diparkir dekat base camp akan di kenakan retribusi parkir oleh para jukir (juru parkir). Jika dua jam pertama per kendaraan dikenakan Rp 10 ribu (maklum tarif orang bule), berapa yang harus dibayar AS kalau kendaraan & tank harus parkir selama sebulan.
Sepanjang jalan ke lokasi base camp pasukan AS harus menghadapi para Mr.Cepek yang berlagak memperbaiki jalan sambil memungut biaya bagi kendaraan yang melewati jalan tersebut. Dan jika kendaraan tempur dan tank harus membelok atau melewati pertigaan mereka harus menyiapkan recehan untuk para Mr. Cepek. Suatu kerepotan besar bagi rombongan pasukan jika harus berkonvoi, karena konvoi yang berjalan lambat pasti akan dihampiri para pengamen, pengemis dan anak-anak jalanan, ini berarti harus mengeluarkan recehan lagi.
Pagi harinya mereka tidak bisa mandi karena di sungai banyak dilalui Rudal Kuning yang ditembakkan penduduk setempat dari flying helicopter alias wc terapung di atas sungai.
Pasukan AS juga tidak bisa jauh jauh dari peralatan perangnya, karena di sekitar base camp sudah mengintai pedagang besi loakan yang siap memereteli peralatan perang canggih yang mereka bawa. Meleng sedikit saja tank canggih mereka bakal siap dikiloin. Belum lagi para curanmor yang siap beraksi dengan kunci T-nya siap merebut jip-jip perang mereka yang kalau didempul dan cat ulang bisa dijual mahal ke anak-anak orang kaya yang pengen gaya-gayaan.
Para komandan di pasukan AS ini juga akan kena tugas tambahan mengawasi para prajuritnya yang banyak menyelinap keluar base camp buat nonton dangdut di RW 06, katanya ada Inul di sana.
Setelah menimbang cost and benefit akhirnya Rumsfield memutuskan TIDAK AKAN MENYERANG INDONESIA! (sbs/lpk)
Begitu memasuki perairan dataran Indonesia, mereka akan di hadang pihak bea cukai karena membawa masuk senjata api dan senjata tajam serta peralatan perang tanpa surat izin dari pemerintah RI. Ini berarti mereka harus menyediakan Uang Damai, coba hitung berapa besarnya jika bawaannya sedemikian banyak.
Kemudian mereka mendirikan base camp militer, bisa di tebak di sekitar base camp pasti akan dikelilingi oleh penjual Bakso, Tukang Es kelapa, lapak VCD bajakan, sampai obral kaos kaki Rp 10 ribu 3 Pasang. Belum lagi para pengusaha komedi puter bakal ikut mangkal di sekitar base camp juga.
Kemudian kendaraan-kendaraan tempur serta tank-tank lapis baja yang diparkir dekat base camp akan di kenakan retribusi parkir oleh para jukir (juru parkir). Jika dua jam pertama per kendaraan dikenakan Rp 10 ribu (maklum tarif orang bule), berapa yang harus dibayar AS kalau kendaraan & tank harus parkir selama sebulan.
Sepanjang jalan ke lokasi base camp pasukan AS harus menghadapi para Mr.Cepek yang berlagak memperbaiki jalan sambil memungut biaya bagi kendaraan yang melewati jalan tersebut. Dan jika kendaraan tempur dan tank harus membelok atau melewati pertigaan mereka harus menyiapkan recehan untuk para Mr. Cepek. Suatu kerepotan besar bagi rombongan pasukan jika harus berkonvoi, karena konvoi yang berjalan lambat pasti akan dihampiri para pengamen, pengemis dan anak-anak jalanan, ini berarti harus mengeluarkan recehan lagi.
Pagi harinya mereka tidak bisa mandi karena di sungai banyak dilalui Rudal Kuning yang ditembakkan penduduk setempat dari flying helicopter alias wc terapung di atas sungai.
Pasukan AS juga tidak bisa jauh jauh dari peralatan perangnya, karena di sekitar base camp sudah mengintai pedagang besi loakan yang siap memereteli peralatan perang canggih yang mereka bawa. Meleng sedikit saja tank canggih mereka bakal siap dikiloin. Belum lagi para curanmor yang siap beraksi dengan kunci T-nya siap merebut jip-jip perang mereka yang kalau didempul dan cat ulang bisa dijual mahal ke anak-anak orang kaya yang pengen gaya-gayaan.
Para komandan di pasukan AS ini juga akan kena tugas tambahan mengawasi para prajuritnya yang banyak menyelinap keluar base camp buat nonton dangdut di RW 06, katanya ada Inul di sana.
Setelah menimbang cost and benefit akhirnya Rumsfield memutuskan TIDAK AKAN MENYERANG INDONESIA! (sbs/lpk)
Humor: Salah Teriak
Suatu hari di sebuah tempat praktik dokter gigi ada seorang pasien yang sedang berobat. Setelah selesai diobati dan dicabut giginya, si pasien bertanya...
Pasien: Berapa Dok, biayanya..?
Dokter: Rp.200rb saja...
Pasien: Lho, biasanya kan cuma Rp.50rb..!
Dokter: Memang.. tapi gara-gara teriakkan anda, 3 pasien saya yang lainnya kabur! (kpl/rsd)
Pasien: Berapa Dok, biayanya..?
Dokter: Rp.200rb saja...
Pasien: Lho, biasanya kan cuma Rp.50rb..!
Dokter: Memang.. tapi gara-gara teriakkan anda, 3 pasien saya yang lainnya kabur! (kpl/rsd)
Humor: Permintaan Terakhir Terpidana Mati
Pada suatu hari seorang terpidana akan di eksekusi hukuman mati karena terbukti bersalah melakukan pembunuhan sadis berantai.
Sebelum terpidana tersebut di eksekusi oleh regu penembak, seorang kepala regu penembak menanyakan permintaan terakhir sang terpidana.
"Apa permintaan terakhir kamu sebelum ditembak mati?" tanya kepala regu pada terpidana.
"Tolong senapannya diarahkan ke orang lain, Pak!" jawab sang terpidana. (kpl/rif)
Sebelum terpidana tersebut di eksekusi oleh regu penembak, seorang kepala regu penembak menanyakan permintaan terakhir sang terpidana.
"Apa permintaan terakhir kamu sebelum ditembak mati?" tanya kepala regu pada terpidana.
"Tolong senapannya diarahkan ke orang lain, Pak!" jawab sang terpidana. (kpl/rif)
Bukan Sembarang Pembantu
Susi memang pembantu yang seksi, cantik, montok. Tak heran banyak pemuda yang naksir, termasuk Toni, tetangga sebelah rumah juragannya.
Tapi sayang, cinta Toni yang diutarakan berkali-kali ditolak sama Susi. Sampai suatu saat Toni betul-betul dibuat jengkel.
"Sus...sus, kamu gitu aja sok jual mahal. Cuman pembantu aja sombong!"
Tak terima dengan kata-kata Toni, Susi tak kalah ketus:
"He, kamu jangan menghina ya. Saya ini pembantu bukan sembarang pembantu. Saya ini pembantu sekaligus pelayan. Kalau siang saya membantu juragan, kalau malam saya melayani juragan!" (kpl/rif
Tapi sayang, cinta Toni yang diutarakan berkali-kali ditolak sama Susi. Sampai suatu saat Toni betul-betul dibuat jengkel.
"Sus...sus, kamu gitu aja sok jual mahal. Cuman pembantu aja sombong!"
Tak terima dengan kata-kata Toni, Susi tak kalah ketus:
"He, kamu jangan menghina ya. Saya ini pembantu bukan sembarang pembantu. Saya ini pembantu sekaligus pelayan. Kalau siang saya membantu juragan, kalau malam saya melayani juragan!" (kpl/rif
Humor : Menghamili Anak Orang
Seorang pemuda panik luar biasa ketika mengetahui pacarnya hamil. ia takut pada orang tua ceweknya yang selama ini tak pernah merestuinya. Tapi ia lebih takut lagi pada orang tuanya sendiri jika mereka tahu anaknya menghamili anak orang.
Namun tak begitu lama ia akhirnya mengambil keputusan. Saya harus ngomong terus terang pada orang tua saya.
Akhirnya, dengan perasaan takut dan sedikit memaksakan diri ia menghadap ke bapak dan ibunya.
Dengan terbata-bata dan sambil menangis bersujud di pangkuan bapaknya ia mengaku:
"Maafkan aku, pak, ...aku telah berbuat dosa..."
"Aku telah mengecewakan bapak sama ibu...."
"Aku telah mencoreng nama baik orang tua...."
"Aku anak durhaka!"
Dengan terheran-heran orang tuanya bertanya:
"Apa yang telah kau perbuat, nak?"
Sambil tersedu dan ketakutan ia mengaku:
"Aku telah menghamili Susi, pa,....."
Kontan orang tuanya kaget bukan kepalang. Namun tak berapa lama Bapaknya tertawa terbahak-bahak.
"Ha...ha...ha.... Kalau begitu selamat, nak. Sekali lagi selamat! Kau betul-betul hebat. Kau anak bapak yang sejati. Dulu bapakmu ini juga menghamili ibumu waktu orang tuanya tak merestui hubungan kita. Selamat, nak!" (kpl/rif)
Namun tak begitu lama ia akhirnya mengambil keputusan. Saya harus ngomong terus terang pada orang tua saya.
Akhirnya, dengan perasaan takut dan sedikit memaksakan diri ia menghadap ke bapak dan ibunya.
Dengan terbata-bata dan sambil menangis bersujud di pangkuan bapaknya ia mengaku:
"Maafkan aku, pak, ...aku telah berbuat dosa..."
"Aku telah mengecewakan bapak sama ibu...."
"Aku telah mencoreng nama baik orang tua...."
"Aku anak durhaka!"
Dengan terheran-heran orang tuanya bertanya:
"Apa yang telah kau perbuat, nak?"
Sambil tersedu dan ketakutan ia mengaku:
"Aku telah menghamili Susi, pa,....."
Kontan orang tuanya kaget bukan kepalang. Namun tak berapa lama Bapaknya tertawa terbahak-bahak.
"Ha...ha...ha.... Kalau begitu selamat, nak. Sekali lagi selamat! Kau betul-betul hebat. Kau anak bapak yang sejati. Dulu bapakmu ini juga menghamili ibumu waktu orang tuanya tak merestui hubungan kita. Selamat, nak!" (kpl/rif)
Humor: Mati Tersenyum
Alkisah ada tiga mayat di salah satu kamar mayat sebuah Rumah Sakit di New York. Ketiganya dari negara yang berbeda. Yang satu warga negara Amerika, satunya Belanda, dan yang satu lagi Afrika. Anehnya ketiganya meninggal dalam kondisi "tersenyum". Dengan penasaran si penjaga kamar mayat bertanya pada dokter yang mengantar ketiga jenazah tersebut.
Penjaga : "Dokter, mengapa si Amerika ini meninggal dalam kondisi tersenyum?"
Dokter : "oh, dia kena serangan jantung ketika sedang berselingkuh."
Penjaga : "Lalu kenapa dengan si Belanda?
Dokter : "Dia kena serangan jantung karena terkejut ketika mendapat lotere jutaan dollar."
Penjaga : "Bagaimana cara si Afrika ini meninggal, dokter?"
Dokter : "Tersambar petir..."
Penjaga : "Lho?! Tapi kenapa dia tersenyum?"
Dokter : "Ooh... sebab kilatnya dia sangka sinar blitz jadi dia pikir dia lagi difoto!" (
Penjaga : "Dokter, mengapa si Amerika ini meninggal dalam kondisi tersenyum?"
Dokter : "oh, dia kena serangan jantung ketika sedang berselingkuh."
Penjaga : "Lalu kenapa dengan si Belanda?
Dokter : "Dia kena serangan jantung karena terkejut ketika mendapat lotere jutaan dollar."
Penjaga : "Bagaimana cara si Afrika ini meninggal, dokter?"
Dokter : "Tersambar petir..."
Penjaga : "Lho?! Tapi kenapa dia tersenyum?"
Dokter : "Ooh... sebab kilatnya dia sangka sinar blitz jadi dia pikir dia lagi difoto!" (
Humor: I'm Sorry
Seorang wanita yang kurang pintar berbahasa inggris menabrak seorang bule
Wanita :I'm sorry
Bule :I'm sorry too
Wanita :I'm sorry three
Bule :What are you sorry for?
Wanita :I'm sorry five
Bule :Are you sick?
Wanita :I'm sorry seven
Bule :?!? (kpl/rif)
Wanita :I'm sorry
Bule :I'm sorry too
Wanita :I'm sorry three
Bule :What are you sorry for?
Wanita :I'm sorry five
Bule :Are you sick?
Wanita :I'm sorry seven
Bule :?!? (kpl/rif)
Humor: I'm Sorry
Seorang wanita yang kurang pintar berbahasa inggris menabrak seorang bule
Wanita :I'm sorry
Bule :I'm sorry too
Wanita :I'm sorry three
Bule :What are you sorry for?
Wanita :I'm sorry five
Bule :Are you sick?
Wanita :I'm sorry seven
Bule :?!? (kpl/rif)
Wanita :I'm sorry
Bule :I'm sorry too
Wanita :I'm sorry three
Bule :What are you sorry for?
Wanita :I'm sorry five
Bule :Are you sick?
Wanita :I'm sorry seven
Bule :?!? (kpl/rif)
Selasa, 02 Desember 2008
Humor : Tidur Dengan Ayah
Di sebuah Playgroup Si kecil Laura bercerita kepada ibu gurunya dengan suara cedal dan polos. "Tadi malam Ayah tidur dengan caya," ucap si kecil Laura pada gurunya.
"Bukan!, Yang benar, tadi malam Ayah tidur dengan saya!," kata gurunya membetulkan ucapan Laura.
"Lho!.... Ibu tidur dengan Ayah juga?...sebelum caya atau sesudah caya tidur?," tanya Laura balik pada gurunya seperti kebingungan.
"Bukan!, Yang benar, tadi malam Ayah tidur dengan saya!," kata gurunya membetulkan ucapan Laura.
"Lho!.... Ibu tidur dengan Ayah juga?...sebelum caya atau sesudah caya tidur?," tanya Laura balik pada gurunya seperti kebingungan.
Humor : Makan Gratis
Tersebutlah seorang juragan yang sangat terkenal pelit bernama Surya (bukan nama sebenarnya). Pada suatu hari juragan Surya pergi ke sebuah plaza dan melewati rumah makan. Dia berhenti sebentar, dilihatnya pada dinding kaca rumah makan tersebut ada ditempel sebuah brosur yang menarik perhatiannya. ‘MAKAN SEKARANG, CUCU ANDA YANG AKAN BAYAR’
Si juragan pelit melihat ini sebagai sebuah kesempatan dan masuklah ia ke rumah makan tersebut dan memesan sebanyak-banyaknya, makan sampai puas. Setelah selesai, ia segera hendak berlalu dari tempat tersebut.
Belum sempat melewati pintu dia dihadang oleh seorang pegawai yang menyodorkannya selembar bon makanan.
Surya : "Bagaimana kau ini, di situkan disebut, ‘Makan Sekarang, Yang Bayar Nanti Cucu Saya.’"
Pegawai : "Betul Pak, tapi bapak lihat dulu bon ini. Ini bukan bon makanan yang bapak makan tadi. Ini adalah bon makanan kakek Anda yang dulu makan di sini. Jadi giliran bapak membayarnya sekarang!!"
Si juragan pelit melihat ini sebagai sebuah kesempatan dan masuklah ia ke rumah makan tersebut dan memesan sebanyak-banyaknya, makan sampai puas. Setelah selesai, ia segera hendak berlalu dari tempat tersebut.
Belum sempat melewati pintu dia dihadang oleh seorang pegawai yang menyodorkannya selembar bon makanan.
Surya : "Bagaimana kau ini, di situkan disebut, ‘Makan Sekarang, Yang Bayar Nanti Cucu Saya.’"
Pegawai : "Betul Pak, tapi bapak lihat dulu bon ini. Ini bukan bon makanan yang bapak makan tadi. Ini adalah bon makanan kakek Anda yang dulu makan di sini. Jadi giliran bapak membayarnya sekarang!!"
Humor : Mas Kawin
Suatu hari, Agus bertanya kepada Boy, sahabatnya, yang sebentar lagi akan menikahi pacarnya, Lian.
Agus: "Kamu kok lesu?, Sebentar lagi kamu kan mau menikah ...."
Boy: "Aku bingung mencari mas kawinnya."
Agus: "Oooh ... itu. Kasih aja alat-alat kecantikan."
Boy: "Bukan itu masalahnya. Dia menginginkan mas kawin yang sesuai dengan namanya"
Agus: "Emang nama lengkapnya Lian siapa, sih?"
Boy: "Intan Permata Berlian"
Agus: "Kamu kok lesu?, Sebentar lagi kamu kan mau menikah ...."
Boy: "Aku bingung mencari mas kawinnya."
Agus: "Oooh ... itu. Kasih aja alat-alat kecantikan."
Boy: "Bukan itu masalahnya. Dia menginginkan mas kawin yang sesuai dengan namanya"
Agus: "Emang nama lengkapnya Lian siapa, sih?"
Boy: "Intan Permata Berlian"
Humor: Kuliah atau Kost?
Seorang mahasiswa semester satu (1) yang baru saja duduk di bangku PTN ternama di Jakarta mengirimkan surat kepada kedua orang tuanya di desa nun jauh di pelosok
Jawa Tengah. Begini isi suratnya:
"Bapak dan Ibu, alhamdulillah, saat ini saya sudah mulai kuliah di Jakarta. Kuliahnya dari pagi sampai siang. Teman-temanku di sini baik-baik, malah banyak juga yang berasal dari daerah. Saya juga sudah kost, biayanya agak mahal cuma 250 ribu per bulan. Oh ya, Bapak dan Ibu, nilai IP saya semester satu (1) ini sudah keluar, yaitu 3,5. Doakan saya semoga kerasan tinggal di Jakarta"
Sebulan kemudian, mahasiswa tersebut menerima balasan tersebut;
"Anakku, alhamdulillah kamu sudah mulai kuliah. Kami berdua mengharapkan kau cepat lulus dan membantu menyekolahkan adik-adikmu. Mohon maaf bila bulan depan uang kiriman kami agak telat, soalnya harga gabah sedang turun, kata orang-orang desa akibat import beras".
"Cuma kami agak sedikit kecewa melihat nilai kamu. Di Ibtidaiyah, Tsanawiyah hingga Aliyah, nilai kamu kan tidak pernah di bawah 7, malah sering 8 dan 9. Kok sekarang cuma 3,5? Ayo nak, rajin-rajinlah belajar"
"Jangan-jangan ini karena kamu ndak fokus ke kuliahmu ya? Mungkin karena kamu ikut-ikutan kost yang bayarnya mahal itu? Makanya nak, jangan dilakoni semua, kalo mau kuliah ya kuliah, kost ya kost, jangan dua-duanya"
Jawa Tengah. Begini isi suratnya:
"Bapak dan Ibu, alhamdulillah, saat ini saya sudah mulai kuliah di Jakarta. Kuliahnya dari pagi sampai siang. Teman-temanku di sini baik-baik, malah banyak juga yang berasal dari daerah. Saya juga sudah kost, biayanya agak mahal cuma 250 ribu per bulan. Oh ya, Bapak dan Ibu, nilai IP saya semester satu (1) ini sudah keluar, yaitu 3,5. Doakan saya semoga kerasan tinggal di Jakarta"
Sebulan kemudian, mahasiswa tersebut menerima balasan tersebut;
"Anakku, alhamdulillah kamu sudah mulai kuliah. Kami berdua mengharapkan kau cepat lulus dan membantu menyekolahkan adik-adikmu. Mohon maaf bila bulan depan uang kiriman kami agak telat, soalnya harga gabah sedang turun, kata orang-orang desa akibat import beras".
"Cuma kami agak sedikit kecewa melihat nilai kamu. Di Ibtidaiyah, Tsanawiyah hingga Aliyah, nilai kamu kan tidak pernah di bawah 7, malah sering 8 dan 9. Kok sekarang cuma 3,5? Ayo nak, rajin-rajinlah belajar"
"Jangan-jangan ini karena kamu ndak fokus ke kuliahmu ya? Mungkin karena kamu ikut-ikutan kost yang bayarnya mahal itu? Makanya nak, jangan dilakoni semua, kalo mau kuliah ya kuliah, kost ya kost, jangan dua-duanya"
Humor: Kuliah atau Kost?
Seorang mahasiswa semester satu (1) yang baru saja duduk di bangku PTN ternama di Jakarta mengirimkan surat kepada kedua orang tuanya di desa nun jauh di pelosok
Jawa Tengah. Begini isi suratnya:
"Bapak dan Ibu, alhamdulillah, saat ini saya sudah mulai kuliah di Jakarta. Kuliahnya dari pagi sampai siang. Teman-temanku di sini baik-baik, malah banyak juga yang berasal dari daerah. Saya juga sudah kost, biayanya agak mahal cuma 250 ribu per bulan. Oh ya, Bapak dan Ibu, nilai IP saya semester satu (1) ini sudah keluar, yaitu 3,5. Doakan saya semoga kerasan tinggal di Jakarta"
Sebulan kemudian, mahasiswa tersebut menerima balasan tersebut;
"Anakku, alhamdulillah kamu sudah mulai kuliah. Kami berdua mengharapkan kau cepat lulus dan membantu menyekolahkan adik-adikmu. Mohon maaf bila bulan depan uang kiriman kami agak telat, soalnya harga gabah sedang turun, kata orang-orang desa akibat import beras".
"Cuma kami agak sedikit kecewa melihat nilai kamu. Di Ibtidaiyah, Tsanawiyah hingga Aliyah, nilai kamu kan tidak pernah di bawah 7, malah sering 8 dan 9. Kok sekarang cuma 3,5? Ayo nak, rajin-rajinlah belajar"
"Jangan-jangan ini karena kamu ndak fokus ke kuliahmu ya? Mungkin karena kamu ikut-ikutan kost yang bayarnya mahal itu? Makanya nak, jangan dilakoni semua, kalo mau kuliah ya kuliah, kost ya kost, jangan dua-duanya"
Jawa Tengah. Begini isi suratnya:
"Bapak dan Ibu, alhamdulillah, saat ini saya sudah mulai kuliah di Jakarta. Kuliahnya dari pagi sampai siang. Teman-temanku di sini baik-baik, malah banyak juga yang berasal dari daerah. Saya juga sudah kost, biayanya agak mahal cuma 250 ribu per bulan. Oh ya, Bapak dan Ibu, nilai IP saya semester satu (1) ini sudah keluar, yaitu 3,5. Doakan saya semoga kerasan tinggal di Jakarta"
Sebulan kemudian, mahasiswa tersebut menerima balasan tersebut;
"Anakku, alhamdulillah kamu sudah mulai kuliah. Kami berdua mengharapkan kau cepat lulus dan membantu menyekolahkan adik-adikmu. Mohon maaf bila bulan depan uang kiriman kami agak telat, soalnya harga gabah sedang turun, kata orang-orang desa akibat import beras".
"Cuma kami agak sedikit kecewa melihat nilai kamu. Di Ibtidaiyah, Tsanawiyah hingga Aliyah, nilai kamu kan tidak pernah di bawah 7, malah sering 8 dan 9. Kok sekarang cuma 3,5? Ayo nak, rajin-rajinlah belajar"
"Jangan-jangan ini karena kamu ndak fokus ke kuliahmu ya? Mungkin karena kamu ikut-ikutan kost yang bayarnya mahal itu? Makanya nak, jangan dilakoni semua, kalo mau kuliah ya kuliah, kost ya kost, jangan dua-duanya"
Humor:Tolong Bebaskan Suami Saya
Seorang wanita pergi menghadap Gubernur Alabama. Dia memohon agar pemerintah membebaskan suaminya yang telah mendekam di penjara setempat selama beberapa waktu.
"Mengapa dia bisa dipenjara?," tanya Gubernur.
"Karena mencuri daging," jawab wanita itu.
"Tampaknya tidak terlalu berat kasusnya. Apakah dia pekerja yang rajin?," tanya Gubernur lagi.
"Tidak. Saya tidak dapat mengatakan kalau dia rajin. Dia sangat malas," jawab wanita itu
"Oh..., tapi dia sangat berarti bagimu dan anak-anak kalian, bukan?," tebak Gubernur.
"Tidak juga. Dia sangat kasar pada kami, jika anda ingin tahu yang sebenarnya," jawabnya memelas.
"Lalu, mengapa anda menginginkan pria seperti itu segera dibebaskan dari penjara?," tanya Gubernur penasaran.
Sembil mendekati Sang Gubernur wanitu itu berkata, "Begini, Pak Gubernur. Masalahnya, kami sudah kehabisan persediaan daging beberapa waktu ini!" (kpl/dar)
"Mengapa dia bisa dipenjara?," tanya Gubernur.
"Karena mencuri daging," jawab wanita itu.
"Tampaknya tidak terlalu berat kasusnya. Apakah dia pekerja yang rajin?," tanya Gubernur lagi.
"Tidak. Saya tidak dapat mengatakan kalau dia rajin. Dia sangat malas," jawab wanita itu
"Oh..., tapi dia sangat berarti bagimu dan anak-anak kalian, bukan?," tebak Gubernur.
"Tidak juga. Dia sangat kasar pada kami, jika anda ingin tahu yang sebenarnya," jawabnya memelas.
"Lalu, mengapa anda menginginkan pria seperti itu segera dibebaskan dari penjara?," tanya Gubernur penasaran.
Sembil mendekati Sang Gubernur wanitu itu berkata, "Begini, Pak Gubernur. Masalahnya, kami sudah kehabisan persediaan daging beberapa waktu ini!" (kpl/dar)
Humor: Pencopet
Seorang guru sekolah Minggu sedang mengajarkan kepada murid-murid di kelasnya tentang perbedaan antara benar dan salah.
"Baiklah anak-anak, sekarang Ibu kasih contoh ya," kata sang guru.
"Kalau misalnya saya dengan diam-diam memasukkan tangan ke dalam kantong celana seorang bapak dan kemudian mengambil dompetnya, berarti Ibu sudah menjadi apa?"
Si kecil Jonny langsung mengacungkan jarinya dengan wajah tersenyum penuh percaya diri sambil berkata, "Itu berarti Ibu adalah isterinya!" (kpl/dar)
"Baiklah anak-anak, sekarang Ibu kasih contoh ya," kata sang guru.
"Kalau misalnya saya dengan diam-diam memasukkan tangan ke dalam kantong celana seorang bapak dan kemudian mengambil dompetnya, berarti Ibu sudah menjadi apa?"
Si kecil Jonny langsung mengacungkan jarinya dengan wajah tersenyum penuh percaya diri sambil berkata, "Itu berarti Ibu adalah isterinya!" (kpl/dar)
Humor: Selingkuh
Dua orang sahabat yang sudah sangat dekat bertemu untuk membicarakan suatu masalah yang sangat serius.
Orang 1: Ada sesuatu yang sangat penting yang ingin aku bicarakan ke kamu.
Orang 2: Sesuatu apa?
Orang 1: Masalah yang sangat penting.
Orang 2: Iya, masalah apa?
Orang 1 terdiam sejenak.
Orang 2: Nggak apa-apa, ngomong aja. Jangan dipendam. Kita kan sudah lama bersahabat.
Orang 1: Aku takut kamu marah.
Orang 2: Memang aku pernah marah padamu?
Orang 1: Tapi aku takut kamu marah karena ini.
Orang 2: Sudah, omongkan saja. Aku malah marah kalau kamu nggak bicara.
Orang 1: (dengan ragu-ragu dan takut) A... Aku ... Aku selingkuh dengan istrimu!
Orang 2: (diam sejenak, tak menunjukkan keterkejutan berarti) Oooo itu.
Orang 1: (penasaran) Jadi kamu sudah tahu?
Orang 2: Nggak, cuman aku bisa mengerti. Perasaan cinta itu kan normal. Kita bisa mencintai siapa saja dan kapan saja.
Orang 1: (sedikit bingung) Jadi kamu nggak marah?
Orang 2: Buat apa marah.
Orang 1: Maksudmu??
Orang 2: Aku juga sedang mengalaminya, kok.
Orang 1: Maksudmu??
Orang 2: Aku juga selingkuh sama istrimu!
Orang 1: !!!!!???!!! (kpl/rif)
Orang 1: Ada sesuatu yang sangat penting yang ingin aku bicarakan ke kamu.
Orang 2: Sesuatu apa?
Orang 1: Masalah yang sangat penting.
Orang 2: Iya, masalah apa?
Orang 1 terdiam sejenak.
Orang 2: Nggak apa-apa, ngomong aja. Jangan dipendam. Kita kan sudah lama bersahabat.
Orang 1: Aku takut kamu marah.
Orang 2: Memang aku pernah marah padamu?
Orang 1: Tapi aku takut kamu marah karena ini.
Orang 2: Sudah, omongkan saja. Aku malah marah kalau kamu nggak bicara.
Orang 1: (dengan ragu-ragu dan takut) A... Aku ... Aku selingkuh dengan istrimu!
Orang 2: (diam sejenak, tak menunjukkan keterkejutan berarti) Oooo itu.
Orang 1: (penasaran) Jadi kamu sudah tahu?
Orang 2: Nggak, cuman aku bisa mengerti. Perasaan cinta itu kan normal. Kita bisa mencintai siapa saja dan kapan saja.
Orang 1: (sedikit bingung) Jadi kamu nggak marah?
Orang 2: Buat apa marah.
Orang 1: Maksudmu??
Orang 2: Aku juga sedang mengalaminya, kok.
Orang 1: Maksudmu??
Orang 2: Aku juga selingkuh sama istrimu!
Orang 1: !!!!!???!!! (kpl/rif)
humor: Transaksi di Sebuah Pasar
Terjadi sebuah percakapan di sebuah pasar tradisional...
Pembeli: "Mas, telornya berapa sekilo?"
Penjual: "Telor ayam atau telor bebek?"
Pembeli: "Telor ayam."
Penjual: "Telor ayam biasa atau ayam kampung?"
Pembeli: "Ayam biasa."
Penjual: "Yang lokal atau yang import?"
Pembeli: "Yang lokal aja."
Penjual: "Yang lokalnya mau yang dari Jakarta, Bogor atau Depok?"
Pembeli: "Yang Jakarta deh..." (Sambil terlihat kesal).
Penjual: "Mau yang Jakarta Pusat, Barat, Timur, Utara, atau Selatan?"
Pembeli: "Mas ini jual telor atau mau jalan-jalan?"
Penjual: "Maaf Bu, saya penjual mie ayam di sebelah. Kebetulan yang jual telor lagi ke belakang. Saya disuruh ngobrol dulu sama pembeli sampe dia datang." (kpl/rif)
Pembeli: "Mas, telornya berapa sekilo?"
Penjual: "Telor ayam atau telor bebek?"
Pembeli: "Telor ayam."
Penjual: "Telor ayam biasa atau ayam kampung?"
Pembeli: "Ayam biasa."
Penjual: "Yang lokal atau yang import?"
Pembeli: "Yang lokal aja."
Penjual: "Yang lokalnya mau yang dari Jakarta, Bogor atau Depok?"
Pembeli: "Yang Jakarta deh..." (Sambil terlihat kesal).
Penjual: "Mau yang Jakarta Pusat, Barat, Timur, Utara, atau Selatan?"
Pembeli: "Mas ini jual telor atau mau jalan-jalan?"
Penjual: "Maaf Bu, saya penjual mie ayam di sebelah. Kebetulan yang jual telor lagi ke belakang. Saya disuruh ngobrol dulu sama pembeli sampe dia datang." (kpl/rif)
Humor: Dengar Suara Tanpa Rupa
Ada seorang pasien yang datang ke dukun. Kebetulan penyakitnya tak bisa disembuhkan dengan medis. Kata orang-orang ia terganggu makhluk halus. Satu-satunya jalan adalah membawanya ke dukun untuk mengusir roh halusnya.
Ketika sampai di rumah dukun ia langsung dibawa ke sebuah ruangan tertutup. Ruangan itu sedikit gelap alias remang-remang. Hanya ada selembar tikar yang digelar di tengah ruangan dan di atasnya ada sesaji dan juga menyan yang dibakar. Ia langsung disuruh duduk di atas tikar itu.
Dukun: Sekarang pejamkan matamu dan bersedekap. Konsentrasi. Jangan buka mata kalau belum saya suruh.
Pasien: Baik Mbah.
Hening....
Dukun: Nak,...
Pasien: Ya Mbah.
Dukun: Apa kau pernah mengalami hal yang aneh-aneh?
Pasien: Maksudnya, Mbah?
Dukun: Seperti mendengar suara tapi kau tak melihat rupanya?
Pasien: Pernah, Mbah.
Dukun: Kapan dan di mana?
Pasien: Sekarang... di rumah Mbah.....
Dukun: ????#$#$#^^& (kpl/rif)
Ketika sampai di rumah dukun ia langsung dibawa ke sebuah ruangan tertutup. Ruangan itu sedikit gelap alias remang-remang. Hanya ada selembar tikar yang digelar di tengah ruangan dan di atasnya ada sesaji dan juga menyan yang dibakar. Ia langsung disuruh duduk di atas tikar itu.
Dukun: Sekarang pejamkan matamu dan bersedekap. Konsentrasi. Jangan buka mata kalau belum saya suruh.
Pasien: Baik Mbah.
Hening....
Dukun: Nak,...
Pasien: Ya Mbah.
Dukun: Apa kau pernah mengalami hal yang aneh-aneh?
Pasien: Maksudnya, Mbah?
Dukun: Seperti mendengar suara tapi kau tak melihat rupanya?
Pasien: Pernah, Mbah.
Dukun: Kapan dan di mana?
Pasien: Sekarang... di rumah Mbah.....
Dukun: ????#$#$#^^& (kpl/rif)
Humor: Andai Aku Jadi Orang Kaya
Suatu hari di sebuah rumah kontrakan, dua sarjana pengangguran sedang berandai-andai.
Tono : "Par, jadi pengangguran begini enaknya menghayal"
Pardi : "Terus...??"
Tono : "Rasanya kita sulit jadi orang kaya..?"
Pardi : "Lha terus gimana?"
Tono : "Kita ngayal aja, kalo kamu dapet duit 1 miliar, mau buat apa?"
Pardi : "Kamu duluan donk..!"
Tono : "Kalo aku mau beli rumah gedeee banget, beli mobil mewah 5 biji, terus sisanya aku pake buat keliling dunia, trus kalo kamu?"
Pardi : "Kalo aku dapet duit 1 miliar, yang 500 juta aku bagiin ke seluruh anak2 jalanan seJABOTABEK.."
Tono : "Terus sisanya lagi?"
Pardi : "Aku sumbangin ke semua pengangguran seperti kita!"
Tono : "Lha terus, buat kamu sendiri mana?"
Pardi : "Ya... menghayal lagi"
Tono : "Oooo Sialan!" (kpl/rif)
Tono : "Par, jadi pengangguran begini enaknya menghayal"
Pardi : "Terus...??"
Tono : "Rasanya kita sulit jadi orang kaya..?"
Pardi : "Lha terus gimana?"
Tono : "Kita ngayal aja, kalo kamu dapet duit 1 miliar, mau buat apa?"
Pardi : "Kamu duluan donk..!"
Tono : "Kalo aku mau beli rumah gedeee banget, beli mobil mewah 5 biji, terus sisanya aku pake buat keliling dunia, trus kalo kamu?"
Pardi : "Kalo aku dapet duit 1 miliar, yang 500 juta aku bagiin ke seluruh anak2 jalanan seJABOTABEK.."
Tono : "Terus sisanya lagi?"
Pardi : "Aku sumbangin ke semua pengangguran seperti kita!"
Tono : "Lha terus, buat kamu sendiri mana?"
Pardi : "Ya... menghayal lagi"
Tono : "Oooo Sialan!" (kpl/rif)
Humor: Salah Bunuh Orang
Ada seorang satpam yang mempunyai majikan bernama Bu Wati dan Pak Andi. Suatu hari Pak Andi keluar kota dan Bu Wati ditinggal sendiri bersama sang satpam. Suatu hari satpam tersebut mempunyai prasangka buruk bahwa akan terjadi sesuatu yang buruk, lalu dia di telpon oleh seseorang.
Satpam : "Halo"
Penelepon: "Halo pak satpam, ini Bapak.."
Satpam : "Oh iya kenapa Pak?"
Penelepon: "Cepat periksa ke kamar dan lihat ibu sedang ngapain!"
Setelah diperiksa ke kamar...
Satpam : "Sepertinya ibu sedang menghitung duit Pak."
Penelepon: "Sudah saya duga (perasaan kecewa), cepat ambil pistol dan bunuh dia!!"
Satpam : "Tapi Pak.."
Penelepon: "Cepat bunuh!"
Satpam : "Ba..ba..baik Pak.."
Penelepon: "Nanti saya akan telepon lagi dan melihat keadaan."
Setelah dibunuh dan akhirnya ditelepon kembali...
Satpam : "Halo"
Penelepon: "Pak satpam, sudah dibunuh?"
Satpam : "Su..su..sudah Pak.."
Penelepon: "Bagus, biar tau rasa si ibu sudah mencuri uang saya, sekarang kamu cepat ke kamar, ambil semua duitnya, dan ambil juga semua perhiasan Bu Ani!"
Satpam : "Perhiasan Bu Ani?? Bu Ani siapa Pak??"
Penelepon: "Loh, ini bukannya rumahnya Ibu Ani??"
Satpam : "Bukan ini rumah Bu Wati!!"
Penelepon: "Oh maaf saya salah sambung.."
Satpam : "????" (kpl/rif)
Satpam : "Halo"
Penelepon: "Halo pak satpam, ini Bapak.."
Satpam : "Oh iya kenapa Pak?"
Penelepon: "Cepat periksa ke kamar dan lihat ibu sedang ngapain!"
Setelah diperiksa ke kamar...
Satpam : "Sepertinya ibu sedang menghitung duit Pak."
Penelepon: "Sudah saya duga (perasaan kecewa), cepat ambil pistol dan bunuh dia!!"
Satpam : "Tapi Pak.."
Penelepon: "Cepat bunuh!"
Satpam : "Ba..ba..baik Pak.."
Penelepon: "Nanti saya akan telepon lagi dan melihat keadaan."
Setelah dibunuh dan akhirnya ditelepon kembali...
Satpam : "Halo"
Penelepon: "Pak satpam, sudah dibunuh?"
Satpam : "Su..su..sudah Pak.."
Penelepon: "Bagus, biar tau rasa si ibu sudah mencuri uang saya, sekarang kamu cepat ke kamar, ambil semua duitnya, dan ambil juga semua perhiasan Bu Ani!"
Satpam : "Perhiasan Bu Ani?? Bu Ani siapa Pak??"
Penelepon: "Loh, ini bukannya rumahnya Ibu Ani??"
Satpam : "Bukan ini rumah Bu Wati!!"
Penelepon: "Oh maaf saya salah sambung.."
Satpam : "????" (kpl/rif)
Humor: Pria VS Cowok
Tidak semua PRIA adalah COWOK, dan begitu juga sebaliknya...
Sebagian orang dilahirkan untuk jadi "PRIA", tapi ada juga yang cukup menjadi "COWOK" saja. Tapi jangan khawatir, terima saja diri Anda sebagai PRIA (P) atau sebagai COWOK (C), toh semua punya nilai lebih dan kurang tersendiri. Dan yang tak kalah penting, percayalah kadang wanita tidak peduli.
Inilah Perbedaan mendasar antara seorang PRIA dan COWOK
P : Tahu jelas 5 tahun lagi ia mau jadi apa.
C : Tidak jelas 5 menit lagi ia mau berbuat apa.
P : Jago membuat wanita merasa tenang.
C : Jago membuat cewek merasa senang.
P : Bacaannya Jhon Grisham, mainannya golf, tontonannya CNN.
C : Bacaannya Harry Potter, mainannya bilyar, tontonannya MTV.
P : Sebelum umur 30 sudah banyak uang.
C : Sebelum umur 30 sudah banyak dosa.
P : Seimbang antara penghasilan dan pemasukan.
C : Seimbang antara utang dan pembayaran minimum.
P : Mendukung emansipasi wanita, tapi tetap membayari bon makan wanita.
C: Mendukung emansipasi wanita dengan membiarkan wanita bayar sendiri.
P : Punya akuntan, penjahit dan dokter langganan.
C : Punya salon, kafe dan bengkel langganan.
P : Meminta Anda nimbrung ngobrol kalau mamanya menelepon.
C : Pura-pura Anda tidak bersamanya jika mamanya menelepon.
P : Putus dengan pasangannya sambil berjabatan tangan dan mengakui sulitnya menjembatani perbedaan antar mereka berdua, diiringi ucapan, "Kita tetap bisa berteman selamanya."
C : Putus dengan pasangannya sambil kabur dari rumah, merokok berbatang-batang, plus ucapan, "Jangan undang aku ke pernikahanmu nanti!"
P : Mencintai wanita 10% pada pertemuan awal dan meningkat terus.
C : Mencintai wanita 100 % pada pertemuan awal dan menurun terus.
P : Berpikir dewasa seperti orang usia 40 tahun saat berusia 17 tahun.
C : Berpikir kekanakan seperti orang usia 17 tahun saat berusia 40 tahun.
P: Bisa menang hanya dengan otak dalam konflik.
C: Cuma bisa ngamuk, adu mulut, dan adu otot dalam konflik.
P : Mikirnya, "Aku masih kurang pengetahuan, harus belajar lebih banyak."
C : Mikirnya, "Aku yang terhebat di muka bumi, siapapun aku hadapin!!!"
P: Otak no 1, digabungin otot kalo kepaksa.
C: Otot no 1, ditambah otak kalo punya. (kpl/rif)
Sebagian orang dilahirkan untuk jadi "PRIA", tapi ada juga yang cukup menjadi "COWOK" saja. Tapi jangan khawatir, terima saja diri Anda sebagai PRIA (P) atau sebagai COWOK (C), toh semua punya nilai lebih dan kurang tersendiri. Dan yang tak kalah penting, percayalah kadang wanita tidak peduli.
Inilah Perbedaan mendasar antara seorang PRIA dan COWOK
P : Tahu jelas 5 tahun lagi ia mau jadi apa.
C : Tidak jelas 5 menit lagi ia mau berbuat apa.
P : Jago membuat wanita merasa tenang.
C : Jago membuat cewek merasa senang.
P : Bacaannya Jhon Grisham, mainannya golf, tontonannya CNN.
C : Bacaannya Harry Potter, mainannya bilyar, tontonannya MTV.
P : Sebelum umur 30 sudah banyak uang.
C : Sebelum umur 30 sudah banyak dosa.
P : Seimbang antara penghasilan dan pemasukan.
C : Seimbang antara utang dan pembayaran minimum.
P : Mendukung emansipasi wanita, tapi tetap membayari bon makan wanita.
C: Mendukung emansipasi wanita dengan membiarkan wanita bayar sendiri.
P : Punya akuntan, penjahit dan dokter langganan.
C : Punya salon, kafe dan bengkel langganan.
P : Meminta Anda nimbrung ngobrol kalau mamanya menelepon.
C : Pura-pura Anda tidak bersamanya jika mamanya menelepon.
P : Putus dengan pasangannya sambil berjabatan tangan dan mengakui sulitnya menjembatani perbedaan antar mereka berdua, diiringi ucapan, "Kita tetap bisa berteman selamanya."
C : Putus dengan pasangannya sambil kabur dari rumah, merokok berbatang-batang, plus ucapan, "Jangan undang aku ke pernikahanmu nanti!"
P : Mencintai wanita 10% pada pertemuan awal dan meningkat terus.
C : Mencintai wanita 100 % pada pertemuan awal dan menurun terus.
P : Berpikir dewasa seperti orang usia 40 tahun saat berusia 17 tahun.
C : Berpikir kekanakan seperti orang usia 17 tahun saat berusia 40 tahun.
P: Bisa menang hanya dengan otak dalam konflik.
C: Cuma bisa ngamuk, adu mulut, dan adu otot dalam konflik.
P : Mikirnya, "Aku masih kurang pengetahuan, harus belajar lebih banyak."
C : Mikirnya, "Aku yang terhebat di muka bumi, siapapun aku hadapin!!!"
P: Otak no 1, digabungin otot kalo kepaksa.
C: Otot no 1, ditambah otak kalo punya. (kpl/rif)
Humor : Nilai Ulangan
Pada suatu hari seorang Ayah menanyakan hasil ulangan kepada Anaknya
Ayah: "Berapa nilai ulanganmu, nak?"
Anak: "Sepuluh, Pak."
Ayah: " Wah hebat benar anak bapak ini, kalau temanmu dapat nilai berapa."
Anak: "Kalau temanku ada yang dapat 70, 80, 90, dan bahkan ada yang mendapat 100"
Ayah: "????!!!" (kpl/rif)
•
Ayah: "Berapa nilai ulanganmu, nak?"
Anak: "Sepuluh, Pak."
Ayah: " Wah hebat benar anak bapak ini, kalau temanmu dapat nilai berapa."
Anak: "Kalau temanku ada yang dapat 70, 80, 90, dan bahkan ada yang mendapat 100"
Ayah: "????!!!" (kpl/rif)
•
Humor : Nilai Ulangan
Pada suatu hari seorang Ayah menanyakan hasil ulangan kepada Anaknya
Ayah: "Berapa nilai ulanganmu, nak?"
Anak: "Sepuluh, Pak."
Ayah: " Wah hebat benar anak bapak ini, kalau temanmu dapat nilai berapa."
Anak: "Kalau temanku ada yang dapat 70, 80, 90, dan bahkan ada yang mendapat 100"
Ayah: "????!!!"
•
Ayah: "Berapa nilai ulanganmu, nak?"
Anak: "Sepuluh, Pak."
Ayah: " Wah hebat benar anak bapak ini, kalau temanmu dapat nilai berapa."
Anak: "Kalau temanku ada yang dapat 70, 80, 90, dan bahkan ada yang mendapat 100"
Ayah: "????!!!"
•
Humor: Suami-Suami Takut Isteri
Sebuah seminar diselenggarakan dengan thema 'Suami Takut Istri' yang diselenggarakan oleh majalah terkenal di Jakarta. Hadir pada acara tersebut sekitar 100 orang laki-laki yang mengaku telah beristri.
Di penghujung acara, moderator mengumumkan agar bisa mengetahui berapa persen laki-laki di ruangan yang takut pada istri. Diminta kepada semua hadirin yang takut sama istrinya agar berpindah dan berkumpul di sebelah kiri ruangan. Suasana berubah riuh sejenak.
Tidak lama kemudian, ketika suasana sudah tenang, terlihatlah pemandangan menakjubkan. Dari sekitar 100 peserta beristri tersebut seluruhnya berpindah ke sebelah kiri ruangan, kecuali seorang laki-laki yang masih tetap berada di tempat duduknya.
Semua yg hadir kagum melihatnya, ternyata masih ada laki-laki di antara mereka yang tergolong suami tidak takut istri. Moderator bertanya kepada pria tersebut, "Mengapa Bapak tidak ikut pindah berdiri di sebelah kiri? Apakah ini berarti Bapak satu-satunya laki-laki di ruangan ini yg bukan suami yg takut istri? Mungkin bisa berbagi resep kepada kami semua."
Si laki-laki terdiam dan menggeleng perlahan-lahan.
"Maksud Bapak? Resepnya rahasia, gitu?," tanya moderator.
Si laki-laki kembali menggeleng perlahan.
Salah seorang laki-laki berinisiatif mendekati laki-laki itu, berbisik kepadanya, "Tolong, dong bagi-bagi resep Anda?!"
Si laki-laki itu berbisik, "Aku tidak berani pindah, aku tidak berani bicara, sebelum istriku memerintahkannya!" (kapanlagi.com)
Di penghujung acara, moderator mengumumkan agar bisa mengetahui berapa persen laki-laki di ruangan yang takut pada istri. Diminta kepada semua hadirin yang takut sama istrinya agar berpindah dan berkumpul di sebelah kiri ruangan. Suasana berubah riuh sejenak.
Tidak lama kemudian, ketika suasana sudah tenang, terlihatlah pemandangan menakjubkan. Dari sekitar 100 peserta beristri tersebut seluruhnya berpindah ke sebelah kiri ruangan, kecuali seorang laki-laki yang masih tetap berada di tempat duduknya.
Semua yg hadir kagum melihatnya, ternyata masih ada laki-laki di antara mereka yang tergolong suami tidak takut istri. Moderator bertanya kepada pria tersebut, "Mengapa Bapak tidak ikut pindah berdiri di sebelah kiri? Apakah ini berarti Bapak satu-satunya laki-laki di ruangan ini yg bukan suami yg takut istri? Mungkin bisa berbagi resep kepada kami semua."
Si laki-laki terdiam dan menggeleng perlahan-lahan.
"Maksud Bapak? Resepnya rahasia, gitu?," tanya moderator.
Si laki-laki kembali menggeleng perlahan.
Salah seorang laki-laki berinisiatif mendekati laki-laki itu, berbisik kepadanya, "Tolong, dong bagi-bagi resep Anda?!"
Si laki-laki itu berbisik, "Aku tidak berani pindah, aku tidak berani bicara, sebelum istriku memerintahkannya!" (kapanlagi.com)
Senin, 01 Desember 2008
Humor: Makan di Tempat
Bermaksud membeli sebungkus paku payung, seorang kuli bangunan mendatangi sebuah toko bangunan milik Engkoh Liong, di ujung jalan dekat pangkalan becak.
Kuli : "Koh, beli paku payungnya, 3 ons!"
Engkoh Liong : "Dibungkus ya?"
Kuli : "Enggak, makan sini aja!"
Kuli : "Koh, beli paku payungnya, 3 ons!"
Engkoh Liong : "Dibungkus ya?"
Kuli : "Enggak, makan sini aja!"
Humor: Tua Tapi Mesra (TTM)
Sepasang kakek-nenek datang kerestoran Mc Donald dengan saling menuntun. Mereka duduk disebuah bangku panjang berdua, disampingku. Si kakek segera berdiri dan memesan makanan, sebuah hamburger, seporsi kentang goreng dan segelas minuman.
Setelah itu kembali duduk, membagi hamburger jadi 2 bagian, menghitung kentang goreng dengan cermat dan membagi adil dengan si nenek, kemudian mengambil dua
sedotan, menaruh gelas minuman tepat ditengah meja.
Aku memperhatikan tingkah sepasang kakek-nenek itu dengan salut & kagum, pikirku... "Wah sudah tua-tua begitu masih bisa saling berbagi & mengasihi....sungguh patut dijadikan contoh..."
Si kakek kemudian mulai makan bagiannya, sementara si nenek hanya memperhatikan. Akupun merasa kasian, akhirnya mendekat sembari menyodorkan kentangku yang Super Size dan berkata: "Kek ambillah ini..."
Si Kakek jawab: "Tidak usah terima kasih..kami selalu berbagi makanan yang sama".
Sampai si kakek selesai makan, mengelap mulut dengan tissue, si nenek masih saja menunggu tanpa menyentuh makanan bagiannya.
Akupun mendekat lagi, kali ini berkata: "Nek, boleh saya belikan makanan yang lain, mungkin nenek tidak suka yang ini?"
Si Nenek jawab: "Tidak terimakasih.."
Lalu Aku bertanya lagi, "Kalau begitu kenapa makanannya tidak dimakan, katanya kalian suka berbagi?"
Kata si Nenek, "SAYA SEDANG MENUNGGU GIGI... GANTIAN SAMA KAKEK!!" (KapanLagi.com)
Setelah itu kembali duduk, membagi hamburger jadi 2 bagian, menghitung kentang goreng dengan cermat dan membagi adil dengan si nenek, kemudian mengambil dua
sedotan, menaruh gelas minuman tepat ditengah meja.
Aku memperhatikan tingkah sepasang kakek-nenek itu dengan salut & kagum, pikirku... "Wah sudah tua-tua begitu masih bisa saling berbagi & mengasihi....sungguh patut dijadikan contoh..."
Si kakek kemudian mulai makan bagiannya, sementara si nenek hanya memperhatikan. Akupun merasa kasian, akhirnya mendekat sembari menyodorkan kentangku yang Super Size dan berkata: "Kek ambillah ini..."
Si Kakek jawab: "Tidak usah terima kasih..kami selalu berbagi makanan yang sama".
Sampai si kakek selesai makan, mengelap mulut dengan tissue, si nenek masih saja menunggu tanpa menyentuh makanan bagiannya.
Akupun mendekat lagi, kali ini berkata: "Nek, boleh saya belikan makanan yang lain, mungkin nenek tidak suka yang ini?"
Si Nenek jawab: "Tidak terimakasih.."
Lalu Aku bertanya lagi, "Kalau begitu kenapa makanannya tidak dimakan, katanya kalian suka berbagi?"
Kata si Nenek, "SAYA SEDANG MENUNGGU GIGI... GANTIAN SAMA KAKEK!!" (KapanLagi.com)
Humor: Pisau Lipat
Kejadian ini terjadi saat pendidikan dasar untuk para pencinta alam. Seorang senior (instruktur) menemukan sebuah pisau lipat yang tergeletak di atas tanah. Menurut ketentuan yang disepakati, selama pendidikan dasar barang siapa yang meninggalkan sesuatu selama perjalanan harus dihukum.
Senior dengan segera mengambil pisau lipat itu dan bermaksud untuk menghukum siswa pendidikan dasar yang telah lalai meninggalkan pisau lipatnya itu. Setelah para siswa berkumpul semua, sang senior dengan nada berwibawa berkata, "Siapa yang merasa kehilangan pisau lipat di tengah perjalanan tadi?"
Tak ada satu peserta pun yang berani menjawab. Kemudian sang senior menambahkan, "Hayo cepat? saya sebenarnya sudah tahu siapa pemilik pisau lipat ini karena namanya terukir disitu. Tapi saya ingin kejujuran kalian untuk mengaku!"
Masih tidak ada jawaban dari peserta. "Karena tidak ada yang dengan jujur mau mengakui kesalahannya maka saya akan panggil namanya!!!"
Peserta masih saja diam. Akhirnya sang senior habis kesabarannya, diambilnya pisau lipat tadi kemudian dengan lantang sambil melirik ukiran piasu tersebut. "Stain... maju ke depan!," para siswa saling melirik kalau-kalau ada yang maju ke depan. Karena tidak ada yang maju ke depan si senior berkata lagi, "Saya panggil sekali lagi yang bernama STAINLESS STEEL maju ke depan!!!"kapanlagi.com
Senior dengan segera mengambil pisau lipat itu dan bermaksud untuk menghukum siswa pendidikan dasar yang telah lalai meninggalkan pisau lipatnya itu. Setelah para siswa berkumpul semua, sang senior dengan nada berwibawa berkata, "Siapa yang merasa kehilangan pisau lipat di tengah perjalanan tadi?"
Tak ada satu peserta pun yang berani menjawab. Kemudian sang senior menambahkan, "Hayo cepat? saya sebenarnya sudah tahu siapa pemilik pisau lipat ini karena namanya terukir disitu. Tapi saya ingin kejujuran kalian untuk mengaku!"
Masih tidak ada jawaban dari peserta. "Karena tidak ada yang dengan jujur mau mengakui kesalahannya maka saya akan panggil namanya!!!"
Peserta masih saja diam. Akhirnya sang senior habis kesabarannya, diambilnya pisau lipat tadi kemudian dengan lantang sambil melirik ukiran piasu tersebut. "Stain... maju ke depan!," para siswa saling melirik kalau-kalau ada yang maju ke depan. Karena tidak ada yang maju ke depan si senior berkata lagi, "Saya panggil sekali lagi yang bernama STAINLESS STEEL maju ke depan!!!"kapanlagi.com
Humor: Pisau Lipat
Kejadian ini terjadi saat pendidikan dasar untuk para pencinta alam. Seorang senior (instruktur) menemukan sebuah pisau lipat yang tergeletak di atas tanah. Menurut ketentuan yang disepakati, selama pendidikan dasar barang siapa yang meninggalkan sesuatu selama perjalanan harus dihukum.
Senior dengan segera mengambil pisau lipat itu dan bermaksud untuk menghukum siswa pendidikan dasar yang telah lalai meninggalkan pisau lipatnya itu. Setelah para siswa berkumpul semua, sang senior dengan nada berwibawa berkata, "Siapa yang merasa kehilangan pisau lipat di tengah perjalanan tadi?"
Tak ada satu peserta pun yang berani menjawab. Kemudian sang senior menambahkan, "Hayo cepat? saya sebenarnya sudah tahu siapa pemilik pisau lipat ini karena namanya terukir disitu. Tapi saya ingin kejujuran kalian untuk mengaku!"
Masih tidak ada jawaban dari peserta. "Karena tidak ada yang dengan jujur mau mengakui kesalahannya maka saya akan panggil namanya!!!"
Peserta masih saja diam. Akhirnya sang senior habis kesabarannya, diambilnya pisau lipat tadi kemudian dengan lantang sambil melirik ukiran piasu tersebut. "Stain... maju ke depan!," para siswa saling melirik kalau-kalau ada yang maju ke depan. Karena tidak ada yang maju ke depan si senior berkata lagi, "Saya panggil sekali lagi yang bernama STAINLESS STEEL maju ke depan!!!"kapanlagi.com
Senior dengan segera mengambil pisau lipat itu dan bermaksud untuk menghukum siswa pendidikan dasar yang telah lalai meninggalkan pisau lipatnya itu. Setelah para siswa berkumpul semua, sang senior dengan nada berwibawa berkata, "Siapa yang merasa kehilangan pisau lipat di tengah perjalanan tadi?"
Tak ada satu peserta pun yang berani menjawab. Kemudian sang senior menambahkan, "Hayo cepat? saya sebenarnya sudah tahu siapa pemilik pisau lipat ini karena namanya terukir disitu. Tapi saya ingin kejujuran kalian untuk mengaku!"
Masih tidak ada jawaban dari peserta. "Karena tidak ada yang dengan jujur mau mengakui kesalahannya maka saya akan panggil namanya!!!"
Peserta masih saja diam. Akhirnya sang senior habis kesabarannya, diambilnya pisau lipat tadi kemudian dengan lantang sambil melirik ukiran piasu tersebut. "Stain... maju ke depan!," para siswa saling melirik kalau-kalau ada yang maju ke depan. Karena tidak ada yang maju ke depan si senior berkata lagi, "Saya panggil sekali lagi yang bernama STAINLESS STEEL maju ke depan!!!"kapanlagi.com
Humor: Guru Bahasa Indonesia: lawan Kata
Kelas yang tadi ribut-ribut tanpa guru, kini menjadi sunyi. Guru Bahasa Indonesia yang paling ditakuti dan disegani oleh semua murid telah masuk ke dalam kelas. Wajahnya garang seperti harimau kelaparan.
Murid-murid: Selamat pagi, Bu Guru!
Bu Guru (dengan suara melengking): Mengapa bilang selamat pagi
saja? Kalau begitu siang, sore dan malam kalian mendoakan saya tidak selamat ya?
Murid-murid: Selamat pagi, siang dan sore Bu Guru.....
Bu guru: Kenapa panjang sekali? Tidak pernah orang mengucapkan selamat
seperti itu! Katakan saja selamat sejahtera, bukankah lebih bagus didengar dan penuh makna? Lagipula ucapan ini meliputi semua masa dan keadaan.
Murid-murid: Selamat sejahtera Bu Guru!
Bu guru: Sama-sama, duduk! Dengar baik-baik. Hari ini Bu Guru akan menguji kalian semua tentang lawanan kata atau antonim kata. Kalau Bu Guru sebutkan perkataannya, kalian semua harus cepat menjawabnya dengan lawan katanya, mengerti?
Murid-murid: Mengerti Bu Guru...
Guru: Pandai!
Murid-murid: Bodoh!
Guru: Tinggi!
Murid-murid: Rendah!
Guru: Jauh!
Murid-murid: Dekat!
Guru: Berjaya!
Murid-murid: Menang!
Guru: Salah itu!
Murid-murid: Betul ini!
Guru (geram): Bodoh!
Murid-murid: Pandai!
Guru: Bukan!
Murid-murid: Ya!
Guru (mulai pusing): Oh Tuhan!
Murid-murid: Oh Hamba!
Guru: Dengar ini...
Murid-murid: Dengar itu...
Guru: Diam!!!!!
Murid-murid: Ribut!!!!!
Guru: Itu bukan pertanyaan, bodoh!!!
Murid-murid: Ini adalah jawaban, pandai!!!
Guru: Mati aku!
Murid-murid: Hidup kami!
Guru: Saya rotan baru tau rasa!!
Murid-murid: Kita akar lama tak tau rasa!!
Guru: Malas aku ngajar kalian!
Murid-murid: Rajin kami belajar bu guru...
Guru: Kalian gila semua!!!
Murid-murid: Kami waras sebagian!
Guru: Cukup! Cukup!
Murid-murid: Kurang! Kurang!
Guru: Sudah! Sudah!
Murid-murid : Belum! Belum!
Guru: Mengapa kamu semua bodoh sekali?
Murid-murid: Sebab saya seorang pandai!
Guru: Oh! Melawan, ya??!!
Murid-murid: Oh! Mengalah, tidak??!!
Guru: Kurang ajar!
Murid-murid: Cukup ajar!
Guru: Habis aku!
Murid-murid: Kekal kamu!
Guru (putus asa): O.K. Pelajaran sudah habis!
Murid-murid: K.O. Pelajaran belum mulai!
Guru: Sudah, bodoh!
Murid-murid: Belum, pandai!
Guru: Berdiri!
Murid-murid: Duduk!
Guru: Bego kalian ini!
Murid-murid: Cerdik kami itu!
Guru: Rusak!
Murid-murid: Baik!
Guru (stres): Kamu semua ditahan siang hari ini!!!
Murid-murid: Kami sebagian dilepaskan tengah malam itu!!
Guru (stres): 66666
Murid-murid: 99999
Guru (stres): !!!!!
Murid-murid: ?????
Murid-murid: Selamat pagi, Bu Guru!
Bu Guru (dengan suara melengking): Mengapa bilang selamat pagi
saja? Kalau begitu siang, sore dan malam kalian mendoakan saya tidak selamat ya?
Murid-murid: Selamat pagi, siang dan sore Bu Guru.....
Bu guru: Kenapa panjang sekali? Tidak pernah orang mengucapkan selamat
seperti itu! Katakan saja selamat sejahtera, bukankah lebih bagus didengar dan penuh makna? Lagipula ucapan ini meliputi semua masa dan keadaan.
Murid-murid: Selamat sejahtera Bu Guru!
Bu guru: Sama-sama, duduk! Dengar baik-baik. Hari ini Bu Guru akan menguji kalian semua tentang lawanan kata atau antonim kata. Kalau Bu Guru sebutkan perkataannya, kalian semua harus cepat menjawabnya dengan lawan katanya, mengerti?
Murid-murid: Mengerti Bu Guru...
Guru: Pandai!
Murid-murid: Bodoh!
Guru: Tinggi!
Murid-murid: Rendah!
Guru: Jauh!
Murid-murid: Dekat!
Guru: Berjaya!
Murid-murid: Menang!
Guru: Salah itu!
Murid-murid: Betul ini!
Guru (geram): Bodoh!
Murid-murid: Pandai!
Guru: Bukan!
Murid-murid: Ya!
Guru (mulai pusing): Oh Tuhan!
Murid-murid: Oh Hamba!
Guru: Dengar ini...
Murid-murid: Dengar itu...
Guru: Diam!!!!!
Murid-murid: Ribut!!!!!
Guru: Itu bukan pertanyaan, bodoh!!!
Murid-murid: Ini adalah jawaban, pandai!!!
Guru: Mati aku!
Murid-murid: Hidup kami!
Guru: Saya rotan baru tau rasa!!
Murid-murid: Kita akar lama tak tau rasa!!
Guru: Malas aku ngajar kalian!
Murid-murid: Rajin kami belajar bu guru...
Guru: Kalian gila semua!!!
Murid-murid: Kami waras sebagian!
Guru: Cukup! Cukup!
Murid-murid: Kurang! Kurang!
Guru: Sudah! Sudah!
Murid-murid : Belum! Belum!
Guru: Mengapa kamu semua bodoh sekali?
Murid-murid: Sebab saya seorang pandai!
Guru: Oh! Melawan, ya??!!
Murid-murid: Oh! Mengalah, tidak??!!
Guru: Kurang ajar!
Murid-murid: Cukup ajar!
Guru: Habis aku!
Murid-murid: Kekal kamu!
Guru (putus asa): O.K. Pelajaran sudah habis!
Murid-murid: K.O. Pelajaran belum mulai!
Guru: Sudah, bodoh!
Murid-murid: Belum, pandai!
Guru: Berdiri!
Murid-murid: Duduk!
Guru: Bego kalian ini!
Murid-murid: Cerdik kami itu!
Guru: Rusak!
Murid-murid: Baik!
Guru (stres): Kamu semua ditahan siang hari ini!!!
Murid-murid: Kami sebagian dilepaskan tengah malam itu!!
Guru (stres): 66666
Murid-murid: 99999
Guru (stres): !!!!!
Murid-murid: ?????
HUMOR: MENIKAH DENGAN IFUL
Suzy menyampaikan hasrat hatinya pada sang bapak untuk menikah dengan iful, jejaka pilihannya yang juga tetangga dan teman sepermainannya sejak kecil.
Suzy: "Ayah, Iful melamar saya. Kami mau menikah."
Ayah: "Apa? Tidak boleh! Kamu boleh nikah dengan siapa saja kecuali Iful."
Suzy: "Tapi mengapa?"
Ayah: "(Separuh berbisik) Karena Iful sebenarnya adalah abangmu. Tapi, jangan
beritahu ibumu ya!" (Terkejut,Suzy pergi pula kepada ibunya).
Suzy: "Ibu, Ayah melarang saya menikah dengan Iful."
Ibu : "Tak usah dengar kata ayah kamu itu. Kamu boleh kawin dengan siapa saja yang kamu suka, termasuk Iful."
Suzy: "Tapi kata ayah, Iful itu abang saya. Kakak beradik kan tak boleh kawin."
Ibu: "(Separuh berbisik) Hmmm.... Ayah kamu pun tak tahu kamu bukan anaknya."
Suzy: "Ayah, Iful melamar saya. Kami mau menikah."
Ayah: "Apa? Tidak boleh! Kamu boleh nikah dengan siapa saja kecuali Iful."
Suzy: "Tapi mengapa?"
Ayah: "(Separuh berbisik) Karena Iful sebenarnya adalah abangmu. Tapi, jangan
beritahu ibumu ya!" (Terkejut,Suzy pergi pula kepada ibunya).
Suzy: "Ibu, Ayah melarang saya menikah dengan Iful."
Ibu : "Tak usah dengar kata ayah kamu itu. Kamu boleh kawin dengan siapa saja yang kamu suka, termasuk Iful."
Suzy: "Tapi kata ayah, Iful itu abang saya. Kakak beradik kan tak boleh kawin."
Ibu: "(Separuh berbisik) Hmmm.... Ayah kamu pun tak tahu kamu bukan anaknya."
HUMOR: GURU SD
Seorang gadis mendapat lamaran dari empat orang pria, masing-masing pria telah mendapat pekerjaan tetap. Pria perrtama bekerja di PT. TELKOM, pria kedua pegawai PT. Pos Indonesia, pria ketiga seorang dokter sedangkan yang terakhir hanyalah seorang guru Sekolah Dasar.
Orang Tua si gadis dari awal sudah merasa yakin, bahwa anaknya hanya akan memilih tiga pria pertama, sedangkan pria keempat, yang hanya guru SD, pasti tidak akan dipilih. Alasannya, tiga pria pertama jelas masa depan cerah, sedang guru SD, siapapun tahu, gajinya kecil, banyak dipotong sana-sini, dikerjain anak-anak lagi.
Ternyata saat diminta keputusan justru si Gadis memilih guru SD itu. Orang Tua si Gadis penasaran, bertanyalah sang Bapak soal alasan gadis tersebut.
Si Gadis menjawab, "Orang Telkom bisanya cuma tiga menit, lewat itu harus masukkin lagi. Sementara pegawai Pos Indonesia belum apa-apa sudah nanya dulu, yang biasa apa yang kilat?. Terus kalau dokter itu, baru masuk kamar sudah nyuruh buka baju, pegang sana pegang sini, selesai. Selanjutnya ngobrol doang. Jadi Saya tidak pilih mereka."
"Lalu kenapa kamu memilih Guru SD," tanya sang Ayah meminta kejelasan.
"Kalau guru SD kan enak, dari awal dibahas, dikupas, sedikit demi sedikit, penuh kesabaran, kelembutan dan kehangatan, serta pengertian. Selesai dikupas, nanya, sudah ngerti belum, kalau saya jawab belum, pasti diulangi lagi dari awal, kan enak, jadinya lama."
Orang Tua si gadis dari awal sudah merasa yakin, bahwa anaknya hanya akan memilih tiga pria pertama, sedangkan pria keempat, yang hanya guru SD, pasti tidak akan dipilih. Alasannya, tiga pria pertama jelas masa depan cerah, sedang guru SD, siapapun tahu, gajinya kecil, banyak dipotong sana-sini, dikerjain anak-anak lagi.
Ternyata saat diminta keputusan justru si Gadis memilih guru SD itu. Orang Tua si Gadis penasaran, bertanyalah sang Bapak soal alasan gadis tersebut.
Si Gadis menjawab, "Orang Telkom bisanya cuma tiga menit, lewat itu harus masukkin lagi. Sementara pegawai Pos Indonesia belum apa-apa sudah nanya dulu, yang biasa apa yang kilat?. Terus kalau dokter itu, baru masuk kamar sudah nyuruh buka baju, pegang sana pegang sini, selesai. Selanjutnya ngobrol doang. Jadi Saya tidak pilih mereka."
"Lalu kenapa kamu memilih Guru SD," tanya sang Ayah meminta kejelasan.
"Kalau guru SD kan enak, dari awal dibahas, dikupas, sedikit demi sedikit, penuh kesabaran, kelembutan dan kehangatan, serta pengertian. Selesai dikupas, nanya, sudah ngerti belum, kalau saya jawab belum, pasti diulangi lagi dari awal, kan enak, jadinya lama."
HUMOR: KETURUNAN ORANG KAYA
Di lorong sempit di tengah kota nampak dua orang pengemis yang sedang menunggu para dermawan memberikan dirinya rupiah.
Pengemis 1: "Tuan, Nyonya...berilah kami uang..... 500 boleh 100 juga boleh 100 ribu juga nggak nolak".
Pengemis 2: "Berilah kami uang tuan, tuan akan kami do'akan semoga cepat kaya! dan banyak rezeki".
Pengemis 1: "Seharian kita mengemis, kok ya gak bisa buat beli mobil ya?..... eh...ngomongin soal orang kaya, gue ini sebenarnya keturunan orang kaya lho....harta peninggalan keluarga kami nggak akan habis dimakan tujuh keturunan!".
Pengemis 2: "Lha terus kenapa elo jadi kere dan ngemis kaya gini?".
Pengemis 1: "Gue ini keturunan kedelapan!"
Pengemis 1: "Tuan, Nyonya...berilah kami uang..... 500 boleh 100 juga boleh 100 ribu juga nggak nolak".
Pengemis 2: "Berilah kami uang tuan, tuan akan kami do'akan semoga cepat kaya! dan banyak rezeki".
Pengemis 1: "Seharian kita mengemis, kok ya gak bisa buat beli mobil ya?..... eh...ngomongin soal orang kaya, gue ini sebenarnya keturunan orang kaya lho....harta peninggalan keluarga kami nggak akan habis dimakan tujuh keturunan!".
Pengemis 2: "Lha terus kenapa elo jadi kere dan ngemis kaya gini?".
Pengemis 1: "Gue ini keturunan kedelapan!"
Sabtu, 29 November 2008
GROUP WORK AND READING THEORIES
Concept of Group Work
There is one important concept associated with the learning and teaching activity, namely group work strategy. It is an activity getting students to work together rather than compete. Group work provides opportunities for each student to become actively involved in the thinking task at hand and hereby increase students’ learning (Cohen, 1986).
Group work provides the increase in the amount of students talking time and gives them opportunities to use language to communicate with each other. All students in a group are working to4gether and talking to each other, and more importantly co-operating among them. In other words, group work prepares chances for students to react with and against in a group and therefore there will be greater possibilities of discussion (Reynolds, 1994).
Based on what have been mentioned above, the basic principle behind the group work is to get anyone to participate, and does not allow one or two students in the group to take all the responsibilities. In other words, group work gives chances to every group member to participate but does not permit a certain student to be personally responsible for the outcome, or monopolize the situation.
In addition, one of the major concerns of learning and teaching reading in the classroom is how to group students. Generally, students are grouped in order to counteract the inherent problems of dealing with 20-25 students with every different background and ability. They are usually put into several small groups of which each group consists of four or five students. They can be grouped through at least two criteria that have commonly been used: ‘homogeneous’ and ‘heterogeneous’ groupings. Each of these types of grouping has different feature.
The group work of homogeneity would be exactly the same age, have the same ability in a particular subject, or have exactly the same vocational aspirations. Therefore, the lecturers/teachers will treat all students as if they were the same. Age is the most usual indication of maturation among students, and is therefore the most common basis for grouping students for instruction. However, grouping by age alone does not yield the degree of homogeneity that is necessary for effective teaching. Within any particular age group, there are actually physical differences which influence the acquisition of skill in comprehending a written discourse; differences in affective tempers which influence preferences, desire and motivation; and differences in social and home background experiences which support the work of group or detract from it (Robert et al., 1987).
Pertaining to grouping by ability, group work can be formed by involving students on the basis of similar abilities. Within an ability group, a range of background, interest, learning rates, learning strategies, and abilities are discovered. Furthermore, Turney (1981) states that the main argument of ability grouping is that the same curriculum can be taught to a homogeneous group more effectively than if the group is mixed in ability; that is, a more uniform pace of progress can be known and maintained, and each student is likely to work at her/his full capacity.
Besides, grouping students on a heterogeneous basis is deliberately to mingle students of different ability in the same class. Heterogeneous classes are obviously mixed ability, which implies that the important differences between members of a mixed class are in their language-learning ability. Ur (1996: 302) states, “a heterogeneous class is one that has different kinds of learners in it, as opposed to a ‘homogeneous’ class, where the learners are similar.
In relation to the quotation above, it can be said that a ‘heterogeneous’ class is one that possesses different sorts of students in it. In contrast, a ‘homogeneous’ class is one that has similar students in it. There is in fact no such thing as a ‘homogeneous’ class having exactly the same people, since no two students are really similar; and therefore all classes of more than one student are in reality heterogeneous. In the heterogeneous class, students can also divided into several small groups in which each group sometimes has four or five students of different abilities in learning a certainly written discourse.
Types of Group Work
In group work, students perform a learning task through small-group interaction. Students in a class are divided into several small groups in which each group consists of four or five students. Through group work each student is given chances to take part in a problem-solving group, and expected to more actively involve overcoming the tasks related to the main topic concerned. In group work, students may perform a learning task through several types of group activities such as small-group, and pair work (dyads), and trios.
In terms of group work, Kauchak and Eggen (1998) state that group work involves students collaborating in a group small enough so that every person can participate to solve a task that has been assigned. Likewise, Ur (1996:232) states, “ In group work students perform a learning task through small-group interaction” In the small-group discussion students can learn new language and get feedback from each other.
Besides, small group can be viewed or seen as opportunities for students to review and reinforce what they have already learned, thereby increasing students’ comprehension. The small group discussions permit students debating a certain topic, asking questions and/or making comments. In short, the small-group discussions provide opportunities for student interactions, which can be both instructionally and motivationally beneficial.
In summary, the members of small-group are sticking together to achieve collective ends; then team is a working group when each member is willing to work with the other to achieve group ends, despite individual differences. The members of small-group are hoped to be curious that all members of their group know the task and are able to explain the task whenever they are asked to do it so. They work in four-to five-member groups to discuss a particular topic.
Referring to pair work (dyad), Kagan (1994) states that the simplest form of group work is concerned with organizing students into pairs and offering each pair a task. This strategy motivates and activates students to think about the content, through which they compare their thoughts with those of their partners, and share their answers with the whole group.
Indeed, pair work asserts that students can learn to work with another student more easily than with a larger group. Working in pairs encourages each member of their pairs to express opinions or ideas. In other words, the involvement of the members of each pair is high when pairs are discussing the problem concerned. As stated by Harmer (1983) pair work seems to be a good idea because it immediately increases the amount of student practice. It permits the students to use language and also encourages students cooperation which is itself important for the atmosphere of the class and for the motivation it gives to learning with others.
Again, pair work involves students of the same or different ages acting as tutors for other students. The goal of this kind of organizational strategy is to prepare needed extra helps to students without making a lecturer/teacher busy working. Reviews of Otto and Eldrige (1984) of studies in pair work (peer), cross-age, and adult tutoring indicate there is a positive effect towards the academic performance of both tutor and tutees as a result of interaction.
Theory on Group Work Learning
Group work learning is one of the learning-teaching strategies, which is also founded on Learning Together theory as a cooperative learning model that involves students with four or five member heterogeneous groups on assignments (Johnson and Johnson, 1994). Through this strategy, the groups stress on team-building activities before students start collaborating and regular discussions within group how well they are working together.
Further, Slavin (1995) explains that learning together encourages students collaborating in small groups to help one another learn academic content. Students are expected to discuss and argue with each other, to assess each other’s current knowledge and fill in gaps in each other understand. These characteristics of learning together model are similar with the characteristics of group work.
Cooperative learning is not the same as group work. In line with this statement, Kauchak and Eggen (1998:234) state, “Cooperative learning is more structured than group work, otherwise, the two are quite similar.” In other words, supposing cooperative learning is not more structured, it is really the same as group work. Based on this quotation, it can be said that group work is not much similar with cooperative learning strategy.
The Nature of Reading
Rivers (1980) states that reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and a pleasurably activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one’s knowledge of the language.
Based on this statement, it can be said that reading is one of the basic ways of getting information in our society and in academic settings in particular. In other words, reading is a powerful activity that develops in time, with different types of process appearing at different moments. What a student comprehends after having read a passage is the result of these moment-by-moment activities.
In relation to what have been stated above, in the nature of reading students are introduced that reading involves acknowledgement of certain patterns of symbols and these bring specific sounds which form words. They can know with ease particular words, which clarify the function of other words close to them, and words showing logical relationship among parts of sentences or other segments of discourse. They also learn to recognize certain word groups that bring a meaning going beyond the meaning of the individual units of which they are composed. This implies that the students learn to extract from the printed patterns of three levels of meaning: 1) lexical meaning (the semantic content of the words and expression), 2) structural or grammatical meaning which they are from inter-relationships among words, and 3) social cultural meaning (Rivers, 1981).
Generally speaking, the nature of reading process is often introduced with different views by several authors or experts. Bond et al. (1974:4), for instance, state “Growth in reading is developmental in nature. Each of new learning is a kind of an addition to or an expansion or a refinement of the previous attainment. This growth involves the gradual acquisition of skills, which together enable learners (students) to interpret printed symbols correctly and so to enter into meaningful language experiences.”
On the basis of what Bond et al. state above, the nature of reading process in this study is only related to the mature or skilled readers (students), not to the basal readers (students). Therefore, the mature readers or skilled students are not bound to encounter many visually unclear words in which they should not parse the letter string into sets of one or more letters that correspond to phonemic units.
In essence, when a student is reading, she or he tries to get meaning from a printed or written message, when she or he gets the meaning of a verbal message, she or he will comprehend and interpret the words in their particular grammatical functions, and will somehow apprehend the general grammatical patterning of each sentence.
In addition, beyond getting the simple meaning of the text she or he is reading, she or he is probably reacting to it in various ways. She or he may be checking it against her/his own experience or knowledge. She or he may find that it is reminding her/him of the previous thoughts or she or he may begin thinking about its implications for her/his future actions. She or he may make inferences or draw conclusions from what she or he reads that go beyond what is explicitly stated in the text. In doing any or all of these things, she or he may be encouraged to combine ‘bottom-up and top-down’ models, and ‘interactive’ model as being put forward.
Bottom-up Model
The bottom-up model of reading is actually concerned with the process of interpreting print to meaning that begins with print in which a reader decodes the graphic symbols into sounds, then she or he first recognizes the features of letters by combining them together to form words; and then proceeding to recognize the sentences, paragraphs, and text level processing.
According to Gebhard (1996) bottom-up model refers to a process of decoding a message, which the reader reads via the analysis of sounds, words, and grammar. To comprehend written language, we rely on our ability to recognize words, phrases, and sentences.
Likewise, another expert says “bottom-up processing models focus learners on the individual components of written messages, that is the phonemes, graphemes, individual words and grammatical elements which need to be comprehended in order to understand the messages” (Nunan, 1991:4).
In conjunction to the statement above, Nunan continues commenting that the central notion behind the bottom-up model is that reading is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents. The reader processes each letter as it is encountered. These letters, or graphemes, are matched with the phonemes of the language, which it is assumed the reader already knows. These phonemes as the minimal units of meaning are blended together to form words.
Concerning the above quotations, it can be said that these quotations are practical introductions to the ideas that understanding meanings takes precedence over decoding of letters in either basal reading or advanced reading. Therefore, bottom-up model can be applied to both basal readers and mature/skilled readers when they are taught Reading Comprehension.
In bottom-up models of the reading process according to Harris and Sipay (1980) is that reading is basically a translating, decoding, or encoding process, in which the reader starts with letters (or large units), and as she/he attends to them, begins to anticipate the words they spell. As words are identified, they, then, are recorded to inner speech, from which the reader derives meaning in the same way as in listening.
Top-Down Model
Marzano et al. (1987:50) state, “The top-down model of reading deals with the emphasis on having the student (a) recognize that reading is a process of obtaining meaning, and (b) utilize his or her knowledge of the world and of information in print to extract meaning.” Based on this quotation, it can be said that to comprehend a printed page, the students rely on their background knowledge connected to the content of what they are reading is called top-down model.
In relation to all mentioned above, the central option of top-down model is focused on a search for meaning or process of matching the information in the text to the reader’s knowledge base on the basis of the top-down model that assumes that reading begins at the schema level and works down to the letter level. In terms of schemata related to top-down models, Anderson (in Singer and Ruddell, 1985) states that in schema-theoretic terms, a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to main a schema that gives a good account of the objects and events described in the message. In other words, the top-down model calls for activating schemata and applying them when setting expectations for reading and making reference. It helps the student overcome ambiguities or select between alternative possible interpretations of the incoming data.
Interactive Model
The interactive models of reading suggest that readers process a text by using information prepared concurrently from several different sources, and that they can shift deficiency at one level by drawing on knowledge at other levels, namely: higher level processes refer to the processes of understanding a text from schema level – discourse level – syntactic level – word identification level – phonemic level – letter recognition. In contrast, the lower level refers to the processes of understanding a text from letter recognition to schema level. These sources are seen separately in bottom-up and top-down processes (Nunan, 1991).
The reading process involves a complete set of interaction between a reader and a text to derive meaning. A model representing this process assumes that ‘top-down’ or’ conceptual driven’ processing works simultaneously and in conjunction with ‘ bottom-up’ or ‘data driven’ processing to provide a sort of multiplicity of force that jointly determines what readers perceive (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Basically, an interactive model of reading assumes that a reader uses both bottom-up and top-down strategies when reading. The top-down process needs to activate schemata and uses them when setting hopes for reading and makes inferences. The reader’s aims and expectations greatly influence what is read and chosen for reading. In contrast, bottom-up processing appears when the reader reads the text and then searches for structures (schemata) within which to fit the next information. The reader searches information from the bottom-up, replacing the earliest expectations with new ones written in the text (Robert et al., 1987).
Likewise, Sweet and Anderson (1993) state that on the basis of interactive process of reading, the reader arranges meaning by combining text information with information, which is already in memory. The interactive model assumes that the information the reader provides and the information on the text influence each other concurrently to produce comprehension. As the reader feels concrete the information from the text, she/he remembers a number of sources of knowledge like the awareness of letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns, knowledge of word meaning, knowledge of syntactic possibilities and language patterns, and memory of the preceding text. The sources interact to help the reader to collect information about the textual input, connect meaning to it, and combine it with what has appeared before. Thus, the reader is able to construct the larger meaning of the text.
Reading Strategies
Obviously, there is no single strategy of reading since reading varies as a function of who is reading, what she or he is reading, and why she/he is reading. It can be said that the reader’s purpose may be the most urgent decision of the reading process. A reader who skims a passage for the main point reads differently than someone who is attempting to memorize a passage, or another reader who is reading for entertainment. To carry out this purpose of reading, some strategies of reading are presented below.
Intensive Reading
Under the heading ‘reading strategies’ Spiro et al. (1980) include carefully planful control of activities in which the activities deal with clarifying the goal of reading, that is, understanding the task demands explicitly/implicitly, identifying the aspects of a message that are important, giving attention to the primary content area, monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether the ability to comprehend is appearing, involving review and self-interrogation to decide whether the goals are achieved, picking the true action up when failures in comprehension are discovered, and detecting the obstacles.
To be able to do all what have been stated above, the students are advised to use a particular reading strategy called intensive reading. This strategy provides students with linguistic information about how a text conveys meaning so that the students can use that information in order to understand not only the text under careful inquiry, but any text of their investigations may demand them to cope with since all information in a text is signalled linguistically.
Nuttall (1982:23) states, “The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a deepest and detailed understanding of the text: not only what it means, but also of how the meaning is produced.” Based on this strategy, the reader (student) is trained to respond the plain sense of words and sentences, and to review their uses, to follow relationships of thought between sentences and paragraphs, and to combine information in the text with her/his own knowledge and/or experience.
In addition, Rivers (1980:278) states, “Intensive reading will provide a basis for explaining difficulties of structure and for extending knowledge of words (vocabulary). It will also provide material for developing greater control of the language in speech and writing.” Bearing in mind the idea of this strategy as a basis for extension of active knowledge of the language, the main purpose of the intensive reading in conjunction to most comprehension lessons is to help students understand the text through the knowledge of vocabulary since good vocabulary and good reading go hand in hand. Unless readers (students) know the meanings of words, they will have difficulty in understanding what they are reading.
Being able to understand the text, readers (students) must be able to master and understand literal and implied meanings of sentences, paragraphs, and larger textual units. They should relate the meanings of the text to their prior knowledge and experience (Ronald et al., 1979).
Through intensive reading strategy, students are directed to answer the plain sense of words and sentences; to recognize the words and/or sentences uses (implications), to follow connections of thought between sentences/paragraphs, and to integrate information in the text with their own previous experiences and/or knowledge. Plain sense refers to essentially factual, deep and surface meanings; words/sentence implications deal with inference deduced information, emotional suggestion and figurative usage; connections of thought concern with sentences and paragraphs and summarizing (Mackay et al., 1979).
Pertaining to what Mackay et al. state above, it can be said that a student at advanced reading through intensive reading strategy, particularly at the university level, needs the ability to recognize and relate series of ideas. Therefore, she or he needs some guidelines for distinguishing ideas and determining relationships. She or he has to recognize the forms as tools for bringing ideas as well as facts in a logical sequence.
Questioning Strategy
Another reading strategy is called ‘questioning strategy.’ Harry and Ruddell (1985) state that grouping and/or pairing students for formulating and asking each other questions resulted in more comprehension than studying alone.” They continued commenting that questions have the function of transferring information from short to long term memory. As students learn the types of questions to ask in a particular subject area and as they acquire background information and frame work for content comprehension, they can ask their own content-relevant questions.
With respect to what have been stated above, Rubin (1982) states that one way to facilitate comprehension from text during reading is to engage students in selves-interrogation strategy as one model of reading strategy. This strategy leads the student to an active comprehension which involves reacting to a text with questions and seeking answers with subsequent reading. In short, this kind of reading strategy encourages the student to (a) set purposes for study, (b) identify and underline important segments of the material, (c) ask questions which require comprehension of the text to be correctly answered, and (d) think of possible answers to the questions (Harry and Ruddell, 1985).
Likewise, Kauchak and Eggen, 1998) state that questioning strategy of Reading Comprehension is used to train students finding out what they know and what they do not know, how they think about the topic through at least three functions of questions: 1) assessing current understanding, 2) increasing learner motivation, and 3) guiding new learning. Firstly, interactive questioning is a useful strategy for informally assessing students’ current understanding of the topic they are reading. Secondly, effective questions increase the learner’s motivation because they engages students, challenge their thinking, and pose problems for them to consider. Thirdly, questioning strategy is concerned with the instructional function which focuses on the role that questions play in helping students interrelate new ideas and integrate new learning with their current understanding.
Reading Comprehension
Perhaps a good starting point for the term ‘reading comprehension, is concerned with its definitions. ‘Reading Comprehension’ is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities (Rubin, 1982). Based on this definition, it can be said that Reading Comprehension needs readers (students) to use their cognitive and linguistic abilities while processing a text, which has particular structural organization. These three elements: the cognitive ability of the reader, the linguistic ability of the reader, and the structural organization of the text are closely related to the complex intellectual process.
Although Reading Comprehension definition is different in many ways, it can be argued that Reading Comprehension is an interactive process. It is the result of an interaction between reader resources and text data. According to Singer and Ruddell (1985) reading comprehension is the process of selecting and verifying conceptual schemata to account for the situation to be understood.
Based on the definition above, it can be said that Reading Comprehension is the process of remembering which involves the process of selecting and providing an exact shape of schemata to explain about the memorial fragments discovered. In other words, schemata are the widest organizational files used to keep information, which play a basic role in the reading process.
Furthermore, Rumelhart (1980) states that schemata are fundamental elements upon which all information processing depends. Schemata are used in the process of rendering sensory data (in terms of linguistics and non-linguistics), in getting back information from memory, in organizing actions, in determining aims, in allocating resources, and, widely in directing the stream of processing in the system.
On the basis of Rumelhart’s opinions mentioned above, it can be said that a schema theory is basically a theory about knowledge – a theory about how knowledge is presented and about how that representation facilitates the use of the knowledge in certain ways in which all knowledge is wrapped into units called schemata. These schemata are data structures for representing the general concept in memory about knowledge of all concepts such as underlying objects, situations, events, sequence of events and actions. In short, schemata play some main roles in comprehending things, and affect students’ abilities to comprehend or interpret a text (Flood, 1984).
Another opinion about the process of Reading Comprehension stated by Spiro et al. (1980) is that the process of Reading Comprehension involves such things as abstracting the main ideas, understanding sequences of events, knowing the author’s purposes, and drawing inferences. Based on these opinions, it can be argued that reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities, which are concerned with word meanings and reasoning with verbal concepts.
In line with the above abilities, students can comprehend a text through recalling experiences and meanings with the graphic symbols. They understand a text by interpreting words in the context and selecting the meaning that fits the context. They are able to comprehend a text by giving meaning to units of increasing size (the phrase, clause, sentence and paragraph). They comprehend a text by making inferences, by recognizing the author’s purpose, and by recognizing literary and semantic devices (Rubin, 1982).
Levels of Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension involves thinking in which the levels of Reading Comprehension can be distinguished on the basis of the hierarchy of thinking. Therefore, the various levels of comprehension are obviously classified into some categories. Each category is cumulative in that each builds on the others.
Each expert introduces different levels of Reading Comprehension but she/he comments them in the same purpose. For instance, Durkin (1978) presents ‘three levels of comprehension such as 1) literal comprehension, 2) interpretative or inferential comprehension, and 3) critical reading. Whereas, Harris and Sipay (1980) classify four levels of comprehension, e.g.: (a) literal comprehension, (b) interpretation which refers to the probing for greater depths of meanings, (c) critical reading which means the evaluating and passing of personal judgment, and (d) creative reading which starts with an inquire and goes beyond implications derived from the text. Likewise, Nuttall (1982:32) states, “there are five levels of comprehension, viz.: (1) literal comprehension, (2) reorganization or reinterpretation, (3) inference, (4) evaluation, and (5) personal or creative response.” Another expert, Rubin (1982) presents four kinds of comprehension level, i.e.: (a) literal comprehension, (b) interpretation, (c) critical reading, and (d) creative reading. While, Spiro et al. (1980) introduce three levels of comprehension, e.g.: literal comprehension, interpretative (or inferential), and critical reading.
Literal Comprehension
Literal comprehension is the retrieval from written discourse of what is explicitly stated. Often, explicit has to do with detail (Durkin, 1978). As stated by Harris and Sipay (1980) literal comprehension is the simplest level of comprehension and the one that makes the least demands on reasoning. Research indicates that questions calling for literal meaning are the kinds most frequently asked by elementary school teachers.
Likewise, Rubin (1982) states that literal comprehension represents the ability to achieve a low-level type of understanding by using only information that is explicitly stated. Answers to literal questions simply demand that the students recall from memory what the text says. Whereas, Nuttall (1982) comments that literal comprehension deals with questions whose answers are directly available in the text. Questions of this kind could often be answered in the words of the text itself. In other words, the answers of literal query are stated explicitly in the text.
Accordingly, Spiro et al. (1980) state that literal comprehension refers to word meanings, context clues, sentence meanings, and paragraph organization – the ability to derive explicit meanings from a text. Whereas, Carnine et al. (1990) state that literal comprehension is in the simplest written comprehension exercise since in the literal comprehension exercises, the answers are directly stated in passage, and it is usually used for basal readers or low level readers of reading comprehension.
Interpretative Comprehension
Interpretative comprehension actually means the same as inferential comprehension. Based on this category, students read to find out what the author says and means, and how to use the idea (Singer and Ruddell, 1980). On the basis of this category of Reading Comprehension, it can be said that in making inferences or interpretations readers go beyond surface details and ‘read between the lines’ to obtain information logically.
When students read, certainly, they develop ideas from exact information they have before. Concrete details in what they read provide the basis of their previous knowledge. Sometimes not every bit of information is easily apparent or clearly stated; therefore, students have to build upon with their own knowledge and prior experience in order to understand something fully.
Rubin (1982) states that interpretation (inference) is the next step in the hierarchy. This category demands a higher level of thinking ability because the questions in the category of interpretation are concerned with answers that are not directly stated in the text but are suggested or implied. In other words, interpretive or inferential comprehension involves several reading skills: (1) determining word meaning from context, (2) finding main idea, (3) reading between the lines or drawing inferences, (4) drawing conclusion, (5) making generalization, (6) recognizing analogies.
Likewise, Nuttall (1982) states that interpretation or inference is considerably more difficult than that the literal comprehension is, because its questions need students to understand the text well enough to work out its implication. Its questions oblige the students to read between the lines. It suggests students to consider what is implied but not explicitly stated.
Further, Wiener and Bazerman (1988) state that inference or interpretation is a process by which a reader (student) uses indications to collect information. In making inferences, the student goes beyond surface details and “reads between the lines” to gain information logically. By this level of Reading Comprehension, it can be said that when the student reads, obviously, she or he develops ideas from the precise information she or he has before her/him. Factual details in which she or he reads prepare the basis of her/his knowledge.
In line with what has been stated above, it can be commented that when making inferences/interpretation, a student has to be cautious not to step too far beyond the information at hand. Otherwise, her/his inferences might be incorrect. To avoid being wrong in making inferences, the student’s inferences must be based on valid, available information, not simply unclear predictions or guesses.
Another comment stated by Spiro et al. (1980) under interpretive or inferential reading, the authors include: reaching conclusions, drawing inferences from what is read, identifying purposes, anticipating outcomes, recognizing the main idea, and making generalisation.
Critical Reading (Evaluation or Judgments)
As stated by Spiro et al. (1980) critical reading is also called judgment reading or evaluation reading that is concerned with recognizing the diversity between facts and opinions, recognizing the logic of arguments, and judging the appropriateness of arguments and conclusions. In addition, Rubin (1982) states that critical reading is at a higher level than the other two categories such as literal and interpretive comprehensions since it involves evaluation, the making of a personal judgment on the accuracy, value, and truthfulness of what is read.
In line with what has been stated above, it can be stated that before students are asked to read critically, they must be able to distinguish between facts and opinions. They must recognize that facts are statements that tell what really happens or really is the case. They must understand that a fact is based on direct evidence. Further, students must also know that opinions are statements of belief, judgment, or feeling. In essence, they must recognize that opinions show what a person thinks about a subject in which solid opinions, of course, are based on facts.
Harris and Smith (1986) state that critical reading is the ability to apply relevant criteria in examining a selection. It is the judgment of the truthfulness, validity, and value of what is read, based on criteria or standards developed via previous knowledge and experience. Further, critical reading involves analysis and judgment in evaluating written material through which the reader interprets the writer’s message accurately.
In addition, Carnine et al. (1990) present several steps used in the critical reading process that can be regarded as essential component skills: (1) identifying the author’s conclusion; (2) distinguishing fact from opinion; and (3) determining the truthfulness of fact. In terms of identifying the author’s conclusion, the students should be able to select the main idea and list supporting details from the passage that guide them to draw conclusion. In terms of distinguishing facts from opinions, the students should recognize that when a person says something that obviously happened, she/he really states a fact but when she/he feels, thinks, or believes that something has happened, actually, she/he expresses an opinion.
Creative Reading
Harris and Sipay (1980:495) state, “Creative reading may be described as going beyond understanding of the reading matter to arrive at the new ideas or conclusion.” Whereas, Rubin (1982:108) states, “Creative reading uses different thinking skills to go beyond literal comprehension, interpretation, and critical reading levels. In creative reading, the reader attempts to involve with new or alternative solutions to those presented by the writer/author.”
Harris and Smith (1986) state that creative reading primarily deals with combining the reading experience into the knowledge and feelings of the reader and with producing a response unique to each individual. It fosters different thinking whether the results are stated orally, in writing, through motion or via an art form.
Referring to what have been mentioned above, creative reading deals with the divergent thinking that has to do with various different ways of viewing things, looking beyond the actual new ideas or alternative solutions with which readers (students) are encouraged to attempt solving the problems in many different ways. In other words, creative reading helps students to recognize that divergent thinking needs that students may go beyond the truth and that they seek alternate ways to overcome problems. Further, Harris and Smith (1986) state that creative reading fosters different thinking whether the results are orally, in writing, through motion or via an art form. It primarily deals with combining the reading experience into the knowledge and feelings of the reader and with producing a response unique to each individual.
Components of Reading Comprehension
The process of Reading Comprehension involves a complex set of interaction between a student and a text to derive meaning. This process incorporates several important interactive components of Reading Comprehension which play an urgent role in understanding a printed page, for instance, syntactic knowledge, lexical knowledge and text structure knowledge which are wrapped in one package called “language knowledge.” As stated by Singer and Ruddell (1985:766), “Language knowledge includes lexical, syntactic, and text structure knowledge necessary to the understanding and production of language.”
Furthermore, Singer and Ruddell (1985) continue stating that reading is a linguistic process and needs language knowledge if the reader/student is to form a representation of the text. This process makes use of the reader’s syntactic, lexical, and text structure knowledge. These components of reading play important roles in comprehending a text since if they are absent in the reader’s knowledge, the reader cannot rend or comprehend messages in a text.
Syntactic Knowledge
The development of syntactic knowledge is a process that begins very early and directly influences the comprehension of the text. The knowledge of syntax permits the reader to compile messages into larger units than single words. Thus, with improving syntactic knowledge, the reader develops the ability to divide words into larger meaningful segments (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Syntax is the essential means by which learners can specify the designed relation among words. Thus, it serves combination not only by disambiguating the referents of the words but also by defining the new relations among them (Spiro et al., 1980). Based on this statement, it is clear that syntactic knowledge is a primary proportion of linguistic competence in general in which Reading Comprehension requires a syntactic awareness because if the reader does not have the important competence to organize written material into syntactic constituents, both memory and comprehension for the material will suffer.
Additionally, another role of syntax in language processing is to start with the means of language that allows a message to be presented only in sequential fashion the reader’s knowledge of, and expectations about, syntax helps her/him to integrate the meaning of the sequential representation of the information. If the sequential information is not expressed in a familiar structure, the reader has difficult case interpreting it (Marzano et al., 1987).
On the basis of what have been stated above, the students must recognize several aspects of syntax. First, they must know how single words are combined to form larger syntactic units, for examples, a noun and a verb to form a sentence, a determiner, an adjective and a noun to make a noun phrase. Second, they must master simple syntactic rules, namely those used to generate the passive or the negative, which modify the order of the constituents or introduce auxiliary verbs or function words where necessary. Third, they must recognize how single syntactic rules are integrated to generate complex sentences.
Furthermore, another role of syntactic knowledge is to help students parse the meaning of the sequential representations of the information. If the sequential information is not presented in a familiar structure, the students have difficulty interpreting it (Robert et al., 1987). Based on this premise, syntactic knowledge must be taught to the students because it helps students organize information into units of meaning larger than the word. It helps them parse the meaning of the sequential representation of the information.
Lexical Knowledge
The learning of a lexical word involves learning the set of relationships into which it enters with other words in the language, which is called its ‘sense of relationships’: incompatibility, synonymy, antonym, hyponymy, polysemy, and so on. In relation to this set of relationships, Singer and Ruddell (1985) state that the lexical knowledge is concerned with the knowledge of vocabulary and word meanings. It is very important to the reading process.
Based on the statement stated above, the problems of comprehending a written material are usually caused by the lack of understanding the words in a text. Therefore, the learning of Reading Comprehension course must always be related to the semantic approach in which vocabulary also play important roles because to be able to comprehend or interpret a written text, a reader must have a lot of vocabulary and background knowledge (schemata) of semantic.
Text Structure Knowledge
The text structure knowledge is an important part of language knowledge. It deals with the general forms of oral and written text on the basis of the form of structure schemata (Singer and Ruddell, 1985). Based on this quotation, it can be said that to understand printed materials, the reader must make a wide variety of inferences based on schemata that represent the reader’s knowledge of relevant non-linguistic information. In short, understanding text requires an analysis at many different levels and requires the interplay of linguistic knowledge and schemata-based knowledge of the world.
Considering to what have been mentioned above, the schemata students have, obviously contain the “previous information/experiences.” These schemata (background knowledge) are used to interact with ‘new information/experiences’ as readers are reading. Likewise, schemata also play several important roles in comprehending a text since they help students process the text at a deeper level.
Bearing in mind the text structure knowledge, students are expected to be able to recognize the text whether it is narrative or expository because these two terms are obviously different each other. The students must be able to know the probable structure of the text and form expectations for the structure of the content. They must recognize that the narrative text can have characters, story telling, characters’ problems and goals, episode, attempt to overcome problems and resolution, while the expository text has divergent expository structures namely: cause and effect patterns, descriptive and informational patterns, problem and solution pattern, and comparison and contrast patterns (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Further, other characteristics of organizational design also contribute to complexity of expository materials such as cause-effect relationships, comparison and contrast are common in expository materials, especially in science and social studies textbooks. It is clear that expository reading is chopped by headings and subheadings; references to glossaries, pronunciation keys and graphic aids.
Factors Affecting Comprehension
The success or failure in comprehending a written text actually depends on many factors. These factors are classified into several categories: (a) linguistic knowledge, (b) psychological factors, and (c) instructional text.
Linguistic knowledge refers to the reader’s ability to handle effectively the language components of the text – this is syntax, semantic, pragmatics and discourse. All together, these linguistic elements influence comprehension in reading. Therefore, the students must master these elements before the written materials are offered to comprehend.
It is widely admitted that when a reader is reading a printed text, she/he has at least three types of information available in the act of reading. The first two are syntax and semantic clues, which the reader uses in anticipating the content. She or he then uses the third type of information, graphic representation. She or he uses whatever graphic clues she or he needs for meaning, and she or he then checks the accuracy of her/his reading by the sense it makes.
As Flood (1984) states that semantic and syntactic knowledge refer to knowledge of word meanings in the context of various structures, for instance, comprehension of the sentence. “The cat killed the mice” needs knowledge of the meaning of each morpheme in the sentence (cat, kill, -ed, mice) and the relation between morphemes (the modifies cat and mice; the cat is the subject and the mice is the object; -ed modifies kill).
The psychological factors deal with students’ motivation, attitudes, and interest. Thus, motivation is the term used to describe what energizes a person and what directs her/his activity. In other words, the word motivation is used to describe a desire, need, or desire to do something. It can be applied to behaviour in a wide variety of situation. Further, one use of the concept of motivation is to describe a general tendency to struggle to particular types of goals. In this sense, motivation is often seen a relatively stable personality characteristic (Slavin, 1997).
In line with the statement above, the motivation of students is very essential because motivation can serve as both an objective in itself and a means for further achievement of other educational objectives. As a tool, motivation becomes one factor affects in learning to comprehend the text. In short, motivation determines whether students will gain the knowledge, understanding, or skills that we want them to have. As stated by Singer and Ruddell (1980) motivation is an inherent and inseparable dimension of thought, in the sense that it is part of the ongoing process of intellectual activity which influences in reading. Likewise, Robert et al. (1987) state that motivation is a key component of reading process. It is responsible for much of the performance relative to reading.
It is necessary to comment here that motivation and attitudes are closely interrelated in the sense that motivation is strongly influenced by attitudes. If the certain attitudes are present in a particular situation, then students are motivated; if these attitudes are absent, then students are unmotivated (Robert et al., 1987).
In conclusion, the students’ attitudes toward something consist of their feeling for or against what they imagine that thing to be. So an attitude involves emotion (feeling), directionality (for or against), an object (the something), and cognitive elements (what the students imagine the object to be). If a student likes language in terms of the reading subject, it means she or he gets pleasure out of being involved in activities that represent language (the reading subject) for her/him. She or he is likely to seek out activities toward which positive attitudes are held. In essence, attitudes, like motives, arouse and direct purposeful activity.
Furthermore, students with an interest in the reading subject tend to pay much attention to it. These students probably feel that it makes a difference to them, and that is why they want to become fully aware of its character. They enjoy dealing with it either for what it can guide to or for its own sake. Their attention level is high, their work output is sustained or supported, and their satisfaction is great. Their interest can refer to selection of stimuli or attending to something. Thus, it is possible to say that the reading comprehension subject will simply not be noticed and not be attended to unless interest in the object, event, or ideas is present.
In line with the category of the instructional text, Reading Comprehension instruction tends to focus on helping all students to be more active as they read, activate their schemata and knowledge about particular topic(s) in reading passage (Sweet and Anderson, 1993). Likewise, a primary purpose of reading instruction is to enable the students to gain meanings from written language (Harris and Sipay, 1980).
The main goal of the statement above can be achieved if the text selected for reading instruction can create students’ interest to read, and are suitable to the students’ level both in the vocabulary contents and structural complexity of the texts. Further, for the development of comprehension, students must be motivated and encouraged to read a great deal. This will only be possible if the subject matter provided is of real interest to them and suitable for their age level.
Being able to achieve the idea of what have been mentioned above, a lecturer/teacher of English must consider the selection of texts for receptive skills work. She or he must filter the reading texts for use in the English language class, which represent the kind of the text by which the students are required to read for information in the course of their studies. She or he selects the text taken from the specific area of the field upon which the students are engaged. She or he chooses the texts that should be one aimed at neither a broader nor a narrower readership than the students represent. After she or he selects the texts from the particular area of the field upon which the students are engaged, she or he must filter the texts that should be no more advanced than students’ knowledge of the area.
Summary
The belief about learning is that cooperative behaviour is stimulating not only socially but also intellectually and, hence, learning tasks should be associated with student activities for developing students’ communication and social skills through group discussions. In other words, learning is essentially a social process then using group for learning is more likely to be effective than if it is limited to more individualistic approaches. Based on this belief, there are more reasons for using groups when the goal is to learn about group processes, to develop the skills necessary in working with others in problem solving or planning, to obtain an understanding of the difficulties which can arise in groups, or to develop self-confidence via expressing and defending one’s own ideas.
A further reason for using group work in education is that this process of collective enquiry provides students for a society based on democratic principles. Not only do students learn better in this way, not only does group work reflect more realistically the way knowledge is generated, but also learning in group work helps develop individual to be able to live and work participate and to support a society based on those ideas.
Learning through group work involves more than an exchange of ideas and information. In a certain design, the relationships defined between students of each group will affect how much is learned and the quality of learning. However, more than that, these develop social processes inevitably form the part of the students’ experiences of the activity through at least three types of group work namely, small groups, and a pair work (peer, dyad and trio).
Group work is based on the cooperative learning theory in terms of Learning Together theory. Learning Together theory itself shares the ideas that students work together to learn and are responsible for their teammate’s learning as well as their own, and so does group work.
Reading is a process of gaining meanings of words in a text in which at least three primary processes play roles in comprehending the text. The important processes are classified into bottom-up, top-down, and interactive processes. The processes may reflect the strategies of reading such as intensive reading.
Being able to do what have been mentioned above, readers (students) must recognize other elements of Reading Comprehension that can help them understand a text through the components of reading comprehension, e.g. syntactic, lexical, and text structure knowledge. The students who do not have knowledge of these components will get difficulties or trouble in learning the reading comprehension course because those components are the basic tools of reading comprehension in understanding the text.
Further, the components of Reading Comprehension mentioned above, can be achieved through several levels of Reading Comprehension, such as literal comprehension, interpretive/inferential comprehension, critical (evaluation or judgment) reading, and creative reading. These levels are obviously important categories, which lead students to improve their English in comprehending the text. The students’ knowledge of Reading Comprehension can be observed and evaluated through these levels since these levels are generally involved and applied in examining how far students achieve Reading Comprehension course.
A number of factors affecting comprehension are linguistic knowledge, psychological factors, and instructional text. The linguistic knowledge refers to syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. The psychological factors deal with motivation, attitudes and interest. The last factor is the instructional text, which helps students to activate their schemata and knowledge about special topic(s) in the reading passage. In short, the success or failure in comprehending the written discourse basically depends on those factors mentioned above. Therefore, students must pay much attention to them and simultaneously master them.
There is one important concept associated with the learning and teaching activity, namely group work strategy. It is an activity getting students to work together rather than compete. Group work provides opportunities for each student to become actively involved in the thinking task at hand and hereby increase students’ learning (Cohen, 1986).
Group work provides the increase in the amount of students talking time and gives them opportunities to use language to communicate with each other. All students in a group are working to4gether and talking to each other, and more importantly co-operating among them. In other words, group work prepares chances for students to react with and against in a group and therefore there will be greater possibilities of discussion (Reynolds, 1994).
Based on what have been mentioned above, the basic principle behind the group work is to get anyone to participate, and does not allow one or two students in the group to take all the responsibilities. In other words, group work gives chances to every group member to participate but does not permit a certain student to be personally responsible for the outcome, or monopolize the situation.
In addition, one of the major concerns of learning and teaching reading in the classroom is how to group students. Generally, students are grouped in order to counteract the inherent problems of dealing with 20-25 students with every different background and ability. They are usually put into several small groups of which each group consists of four or five students. They can be grouped through at least two criteria that have commonly been used: ‘homogeneous’ and ‘heterogeneous’ groupings. Each of these types of grouping has different feature.
The group work of homogeneity would be exactly the same age, have the same ability in a particular subject, or have exactly the same vocational aspirations. Therefore, the lecturers/teachers will treat all students as if they were the same. Age is the most usual indication of maturation among students, and is therefore the most common basis for grouping students for instruction. However, grouping by age alone does not yield the degree of homogeneity that is necessary for effective teaching. Within any particular age group, there are actually physical differences which influence the acquisition of skill in comprehending a written discourse; differences in affective tempers which influence preferences, desire and motivation; and differences in social and home background experiences which support the work of group or detract from it (Robert et al., 1987).
Pertaining to grouping by ability, group work can be formed by involving students on the basis of similar abilities. Within an ability group, a range of background, interest, learning rates, learning strategies, and abilities are discovered. Furthermore, Turney (1981) states that the main argument of ability grouping is that the same curriculum can be taught to a homogeneous group more effectively than if the group is mixed in ability; that is, a more uniform pace of progress can be known and maintained, and each student is likely to work at her/his full capacity.
Besides, grouping students on a heterogeneous basis is deliberately to mingle students of different ability in the same class. Heterogeneous classes are obviously mixed ability, which implies that the important differences between members of a mixed class are in their language-learning ability. Ur (1996: 302) states, “a heterogeneous class is one that has different kinds of learners in it, as opposed to a ‘homogeneous’ class, where the learners are similar.
In relation to the quotation above, it can be said that a ‘heterogeneous’ class is one that possesses different sorts of students in it. In contrast, a ‘homogeneous’ class is one that has similar students in it. There is in fact no such thing as a ‘homogeneous’ class having exactly the same people, since no two students are really similar; and therefore all classes of more than one student are in reality heterogeneous. In the heterogeneous class, students can also divided into several small groups in which each group sometimes has four or five students of different abilities in learning a certainly written discourse.
Types of Group Work
In group work, students perform a learning task through small-group interaction. Students in a class are divided into several small groups in which each group consists of four or five students. Through group work each student is given chances to take part in a problem-solving group, and expected to more actively involve overcoming the tasks related to the main topic concerned. In group work, students may perform a learning task through several types of group activities such as small-group, and pair work (dyads), and trios.
In terms of group work, Kauchak and Eggen (1998) state that group work involves students collaborating in a group small enough so that every person can participate to solve a task that has been assigned. Likewise, Ur (1996:232) states, “ In group work students perform a learning task through small-group interaction” In the small-group discussion students can learn new language and get feedback from each other.
Besides, small group can be viewed or seen as opportunities for students to review and reinforce what they have already learned, thereby increasing students’ comprehension. The small group discussions permit students debating a certain topic, asking questions and/or making comments. In short, the small-group discussions provide opportunities for student interactions, which can be both instructionally and motivationally beneficial.
In summary, the members of small-group are sticking together to achieve collective ends; then team is a working group when each member is willing to work with the other to achieve group ends, despite individual differences. The members of small-group are hoped to be curious that all members of their group know the task and are able to explain the task whenever they are asked to do it so. They work in four-to five-member groups to discuss a particular topic.
Referring to pair work (dyad), Kagan (1994) states that the simplest form of group work is concerned with organizing students into pairs and offering each pair a task. This strategy motivates and activates students to think about the content, through which they compare their thoughts with those of their partners, and share their answers with the whole group.
Indeed, pair work asserts that students can learn to work with another student more easily than with a larger group. Working in pairs encourages each member of their pairs to express opinions or ideas. In other words, the involvement of the members of each pair is high when pairs are discussing the problem concerned. As stated by Harmer (1983) pair work seems to be a good idea because it immediately increases the amount of student practice. It permits the students to use language and also encourages students cooperation which is itself important for the atmosphere of the class and for the motivation it gives to learning with others.
Again, pair work involves students of the same or different ages acting as tutors for other students. The goal of this kind of organizational strategy is to prepare needed extra helps to students without making a lecturer/teacher busy working. Reviews of Otto and Eldrige (1984) of studies in pair work (peer), cross-age, and adult tutoring indicate there is a positive effect towards the academic performance of both tutor and tutees as a result of interaction.
Theory on Group Work Learning
Group work learning is one of the learning-teaching strategies, which is also founded on Learning Together theory as a cooperative learning model that involves students with four or five member heterogeneous groups on assignments (Johnson and Johnson, 1994). Through this strategy, the groups stress on team-building activities before students start collaborating and regular discussions within group how well they are working together.
Further, Slavin (1995) explains that learning together encourages students collaborating in small groups to help one another learn academic content. Students are expected to discuss and argue with each other, to assess each other’s current knowledge and fill in gaps in each other understand. These characteristics of learning together model are similar with the characteristics of group work.
Cooperative learning is not the same as group work. In line with this statement, Kauchak and Eggen (1998:234) state, “Cooperative learning is more structured than group work, otherwise, the two are quite similar.” In other words, supposing cooperative learning is not more structured, it is really the same as group work. Based on this quotation, it can be said that group work is not much similar with cooperative learning strategy.
The Nature of Reading
Rivers (1980) states that reading is the most important activity in any language class, not only as a source of information and a pleasurably activity, but also as a means of consolidating and extending one’s knowledge of the language.
Based on this statement, it can be said that reading is one of the basic ways of getting information in our society and in academic settings in particular. In other words, reading is a powerful activity that develops in time, with different types of process appearing at different moments. What a student comprehends after having read a passage is the result of these moment-by-moment activities.
In relation to what have been stated above, in the nature of reading students are introduced that reading involves acknowledgement of certain patterns of symbols and these bring specific sounds which form words. They can know with ease particular words, which clarify the function of other words close to them, and words showing logical relationship among parts of sentences or other segments of discourse. They also learn to recognize certain word groups that bring a meaning going beyond the meaning of the individual units of which they are composed. This implies that the students learn to extract from the printed patterns of three levels of meaning: 1) lexical meaning (the semantic content of the words and expression), 2) structural or grammatical meaning which they are from inter-relationships among words, and 3) social cultural meaning (Rivers, 1981).
Generally speaking, the nature of reading process is often introduced with different views by several authors or experts. Bond et al. (1974:4), for instance, state “Growth in reading is developmental in nature. Each of new learning is a kind of an addition to or an expansion or a refinement of the previous attainment. This growth involves the gradual acquisition of skills, which together enable learners (students) to interpret printed symbols correctly and so to enter into meaningful language experiences.”
On the basis of what Bond et al. state above, the nature of reading process in this study is only related to the mature or skilled readers (students), not to the basal readers (students). Therefore, the mature readers or skilled students are not bound to encounter many visually unclear words in which they should not parse the letter string into sets of one or more letters that correspond to phonemic units.
In essence, when a student is reading, she or he tries to get meaning from a printed or written message, when she or he gets the meaning of a verbal message, she or he will comprehend and interpret the words in their particular grammatical functions, and will somehow apprehend the general grammatical patterning of each sentence.
In addition, beyond getting the simple meaning of the text she or he is reading, she or he is probably reacting to it in various ways. She or he may be checking it against her/his own experience or knowledge. She or he may find that it is reminding her/him of the previous thoughts or she or he may begin thinking about its implications for her/his future actions. She or he may make inferences or draw conclusions from what she or he reads that go beyond what is explicitly stated in the text. In doing any or all of these things, she or he may be encouraged to combine ‘bottom-up and top-down’ models, and ‘interactive’ model as being put forward.
Bottom-up Model
The bottom-up model of reading is actually concerned with the process of interpreting print to meaning that begins with print in which a reader decodes the graphic symbols into sounds, then she or he first recognizes the features of letters by combining them together to form words; and then proceeding to recognize the sentences, paragraphs, and text level processing.
According to Gebhard (1996) bottom-up model refers to a process of decoding a message, which the reader reads via the analysis of sounds, words, and grammar. To comprehend written language, we rely on our ability to recognize words, phrases, and sentences.
Likewise, another expert says “bottom-up processing models focus learners on the individual components of written messages, that is the phonemes, graphemes, individual words and grammatical elements which need to be comprehended in order to understand the messages” (Nunan, 1991:4).
In conjunction to the statement above, Nunan continues commenting that the central notion behind the bottom-up model is that reading is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents. The reader processes each letter as it is encountered. These letters, or graphemes, are matched with the phonemes of the language, which it is assumed the reader already knows. These phonemes as the minimal units of meaning are blended together to form words.
Concerning the above quotations, it can be said that these quotations are practical introductions to the ideas that understanding meanings takes precedence over decoding of letters in either basal reading or advanced reading. Therefore, bottom-up model can be applied to both basal readers and mature/skilled readers when they are taught Reading Comprehension.
In bottom-up models of the reading process according to Harris and Sipay (1980) is that reading is basically a translating, decoding, or encoding process, in which the reader starts with letters (or large units), and as she/he attends to them, begins to anticipate the words they spell. As words are identified, they, then, are recorded to inner speech, from which the reader derives meaning in the same way as in listening.
Top-Down Model
Marzano et al. (1987:50) state, “The top-down model of reading deals with the emphasis on having the student (a) recognize that reading is a process of obtaining meaning, and (b) utilize his or her knowledge of the world and of information in print to extract meaning.” Based on this quotation, it can be said that to comprehend a printed page, the students rely on their background knowledge connected to the content of what they are reading is called top-down model.
In relation to all mentioned above, the central option of top-down model is focused on a search for meaning or process of matching the information in the text to the reader’s knowledge base on the basis of the top-down model that assumes that reading begins at the schema level and works down to the letter level. In terms of schemata related to top-down models, Anderson (in Singer and Ruddell, 1985) states that in schema-theoretic terms, a reader comprehends a message when he is able to bring to main a schema that gives a good account of the objects and events described in the message. In other words, the top-down model calls for activating schemata and applying them when setting expectations for reading and making reference. It helps the student overcome ambiguities or select between alternative possible interpretations of the incoming data.
Interactive Model
The interactive models of reading suggest that readers process a text by using information prepared concurrently from several different sources, and that they can shift deficiency at one level by drawing on knowledge at other levels, namely: higher level processes refer to the processes of understanding a text from schema level – discourse level – syntactic level – word identification level – phonemic level – letter recognition. In contrast, the lower level refers to the processes of understanding a text from letter recognition to schema level. These sources are seen separately in bottom-up and top-down processes (Nunan, 1991).
The reading process involves a complete set of interaction between a reader and a text to derive meaning. A model representing this process assumes that ‘top-down’ or’ conceptual driven’ processing works simultaneously and in conjunction with ‘ bottom-up’ or ‘data driven’ processing to provide a sort of multiplicity of force that jointly determines what readers perceive (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Basically, an interactive model of reading assumes that a reader uses both bottom-up and top-down strategies when reading. The top-down process needs to activate schemata and uses them when setting hopes for reading and makes inferences. The reader’s aims and expectations greatly influence what is read and chosen for reading. In contrast, bottom-up processing appears when the reader reads the text and then searches for structures (schemata) within which to fit the next information. The reader searches information from the bottom-up, replacing the earliest expectations with new ones written in the text (Robert et al., 1987).
Likewise, Sweet and Anderson (1993) state that on the basis of interactive process of reading, the reader arranges meaning by combining text information with information, which is already in memory. The interactive model assumes that the information the reader provides and the information on the text influence each other concurrently to produce comprehension. As the reader feels concrete the information from the text, she/he remembers a number of sources of knowledge like the awareness of letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns, knowledge of word meaning, knowledge of syntactic possibilities and language patterns, and memory of the preceding text. The sources interact to help the reader to collect information about the textual input, connect meaning to it, and combine it with what has appeared before. Thus, the reader is able to construct the larger meaning of the text.
Reading Strategies
Obviously, there is no single strategy of reading since reading varies as a function of who is reading, what she or he is reading, and why she/he is reading. It can be said that the reader’s purpose may be the most urgent decision of the reading process. A reader who skims a passage for the main point reads differently than someone who is attempting to memorize a passage, or another reader who is reading for entertainment. To carry out this purpose of reading, some strategies of reading are presented below.
Intensive Reading
Under the heading ‘reading strategies’ Spiro et al. (1980) include carefully planful control of activities in which the activities deal with clarifying the goal of reading, that is, understanding the task demands explicitly/implicitly, identifying the aspects of a message that are important, giving attention to the primary content area, monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether the ability to comprehend is appearing, involving review and self-interrogation to decide whether the goals are achieved, picking the true action up when failures in comprehension are discovered, and detecting the obstacles.
To be able to do all what have been stated above, the students are advised to use a particular reading strategy called intensive reading. This strategy provides students with linguistic information about how a text conveys meaning so that the students can use that information in order to understand not only the text under careful inquiry, but any text of their investigations may demand them to cope with since all information in a text is signalled linguistically.
Nuttall (1982:23) states, “The aim of intensive reading is to arrive at a deepest and detailed understanding of the text: not only what it means, but also of how the meaning is produced.” Based on this strategy, the reader (student) is trained to respond the plain sense of words and sentences, and to review their uses, to follow relationships of thought between sentences and paragraphs, and to combine information in the text with her/his own knowledge and/or experience.
In addition, Rivers (1980:278) states, “Intensive reading will provide a basis for explaining difficulties of structure and for extending knowledge of words (vocabulary). It will also provide material for developing greater control of the language in speech and writing.” Bearing in mind the idea of this strategy as a basis for extension of active knowledge of the language, the main purpose of the intensive reading in conjunction to most comprehension lessons is to help students understand the text through the knowledge of vocabulary since good vocabulary and good reading go hand in hand. Unless readers (students) know the meanings of words, they will have difficulty in understanding what they are reading.
Being able to understand the text, readers (students) must be able to master and understand literal and implied meanings of sentences, paragraphs, and larger textual units. They should relate the meanings of the text to their prior knowledge and experience (Ronald et al., 1979).
Through intensive reading strategy, students are directed to answer the plain sense of words and sentences; to recognize the words and/or sentences uses (implications), to follow connections of thought between sentences/paragraphs, and to integrate information in the text with their own previous experiences and/or knowledge. Plain sense refers to essentially factual, deep and surface meanings; words/sentence implications deal with inference deduced information, emotional suggestion and figurative usage; connections of thought concern with sentences and paragraphs and summarizing (Mackay et al., 1979).
Pertaining to what Mackay et al. state above, it can be said that a student at advanced reading through intensive reading strategy, particularly at the university level, needs the ability to recognize and relate series of ideas. Therefore, she or he needs some guidelines for distinguishing ideas and determining relationships. She or he has to recognize the forms as tools for bringing ideas as well as facts in a logical sequence.
Questioning Strategy
Another reading strategy is called ‘questioning strategy.’ Harry and Ruddell (1985) state that grouping and/or pairing students for formulating and asking each other questions resulted in more comprehension than studying alone.” They continued commenting that questions have the function of transferring information from short to long term memory. As students learn the types of questions to ask in a particular subject area and as they acquire background information and frame work for content comprehension, they can ask their own content-relevant questions.
With respect to what have been stated above, Rubin (1982) states that one way to facilitate comprehension from text during reading is to engage students in selves-interrogation strategy as one model of reading strategy. This strategy leads the student to an active comprehension which involves reacting to a text with questions and seeking answers with subsequent reading. In short, this kind of reading strategy encourages the student to (a) set purposes for study, (b) identify and underline important segments of the material, (c) ask questions which require comprehension of the text to be correctly answered, and (d) think of possible answers to the questions (Harry and Ruddell, 1985).
Likewise, Kauchak and Eggen, 1998) state that questioning strategy of Reading Comprehension is used to train students finding out what they know and what they do not know, how they think about the topic through at least three functions of questions: 1) assessing current understanding, 2) increasing learner motivation, and 3) guiding new learning. Firstly, interactive questioning is a useful strategy for informally assessing students’ current understanding of the topic they are reading. Secondly, effective questions increase the learner’s motivation because they engages students, challenge their thinking, and pose problems for them to consider. Thirdly, questioning strategy is concerned with the instructional function which focuses on the role that questions play in helping students interrelate new ideas and integrate new learning with their current understanding.
Reading Comprehension
Perhaps a good starting point for the term ‘reading comprehension, is concerned with its definitions. ‘Reading Comprehension’ is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities (Rubin, 1982). Based on this definition, it can be said that Reading Comprehension needs readers (students) to use their cognitive and linguistic abilities while processing a text, which has particular structural organization. These three elements: the cognitive ability of the reader, the linguistic ability of the reader, and the structural organization of the text are closely related to the complex intellectual process.
Although Reading Comprehension definition is different in many ways, it can be argued that Reading Comprehension is an interactive process. It is the result of an interaction between reader resources and text data. According to Singer and Ruddell (1985) reading comprehension is the process of selecting and verifying conceptual schemata to account for the situation to be understood.
Based on the definition above, it can be said that Reading Comprehension is the process of remembering which involves the process of selecting and providing an exact shape of schemata to explain about the memorial fragments discovered. In other words, schemata are the widest organizational files used to keep information, which play a basic role in the reading process.
Furthermore, Rumelhart (1980) states that schemata are fundamental elements upon which all information processing depends. Schemata are used in the process of rendering sensory data (in terms of linguistics and non-linguistics), in getting back information from memory, in organizing actions, in determining aims, in allocating resources, and, widely in directing the stream of processing in the system.
On the basis of Rumelhart’s opinions mentioned above, it can be said that a schema theory is basically a theory about knowledge – a theory about how knowledge is presented and about how that representation facilitates the use of the knowledge in certain ways in which all knowledge is wrapped into units called schemata. These schemata are data structures for representing the general concept in memory about knowledge of all concepts such as underlying objects, situations, events, sequence of events and actions. In short, schemata play some main roles in comprehending things, and affect students’ abilities to comprehend or interpret a text (Flood, 1984).
Another opinion about the process of Reading Comprehension stated by Spiro et al. (1980) is that the process of Reading Comprehension involves such things as abstracting the main ideas, understanding sequences of events, knowing the author’s purposes, and drawing inferences. Based on these opinions, it can be argued that reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities, which are concerned with word meanings and reasoning with verbal concepts.
In line with the above abilities, students can comprehend a text through recalling experiences and meanings with the graphic symbols. They understand a text by interpreting words in the context and selecting the meaning that fits the context. They are able to comprehend a text by giving meaning to units of increasing size (the phrase, clause, sentence and paragraph). They comprehend a text by making inferences, by recognizing the author’s purpose, and by recognizing literary and semantic devices (Rubin, 1982).
Levels of Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension involves thinking in which the levels of Reading Comprehension can be distinguished on the basis of the hierarchy of thinking. Therefore, the various levels of comprehension are obviously classified into some categories. Each category is cumulative in that each builds on the others.
Each expert introduces different levels of Reading Comprehension but she/he comments them in the same purpose. For instance, Durkin (1978) presents ‘three levels of comprehension such as 1) literal comprehension, 2) interpretative or inferential comprehension, and 3) critical reading. Whereas, Harris and Sipay (1980) classify four levels of comprehension, e.g.: (a) literal comprehension, (b) interpretation which refers to the probing for greater depths of meanings, (c) critical reading which means the evaluating and passing of personal judgment, and (d) creative reading which starts with an inquire and goes beyond implications derived from the text. Likewise, Nuttall (1982:32) states, “there are five levels of comprehension, viz.: (1) literal comprehension, (2) reorganization or reinterpretation, (3) inference, (4) evaluation, and (5) personal or creative response.” Another expert, Rubin (1982) presents four kinds of comprehension level, i.e.: (a) literal comprehension, (b) interpretation, (c) critical reading, and (d) creative reading. While, Spiro et al. (1980) introduce three levels of comprehension, e.g.: literal comprehension, interpretative (or inferential), and critical reading.
Literal Comprehension
Literal comprehension is the retrieval from written discourse of what is explicitly stated. Often, explicit has to do with detail (Durkin, 1978). As stated by Harris and Sipay (1980) literal comprehension is the simplest level of comprehension and the one that makes the least demands on reasoning. Research indicates that questions calling for literal meaning are the kinds most frequently asked by elementary school teachers.
Likewise, Rubin (1982) states that literal comprehension represents the ability to achieve a low-level type of understanding by using only information that is explicitly stated. Answers to literal questions simply demand that the students recall from memory what the text says. Whereas, Nuttall (1982) comments that literal comprehension deals with questions whose answers are directly available in the text. Questions of this kind could often be answered in the words of the text itself. In other words, the answers of literal query are stated explicitly in the text.
Accordingly, Spiro et al. (1980) state that literal comprehension refers to word meanings, context clues, sentence meanings, and paragraph organization – the ability to derive explicit meanings from a text. Whereas, Carnine et al. (1990) state that literal comprehension is in the simplest written comprehension exercise since in the literal comprehension exercises, the answers are directly stated in passage, and it is usually used for basal readers or low level readers of reading comprehension.
Interpretative Comprehension
Interpretative comprehension actually means the same as inferential comprehension. Based on this category, students read to find out what the author says and means, and how to use the idea (Singer and Ruddell, 1980). On the basis of this category of Reading Comprehension, it can be said that in making inferences or interpretations readers go beyond surface details and ‘read between the lines’ to obtain information logically.
When students read, certainly, they develop ideas from exact information they have before. Concrete details in what they read provide the basis of their previous knowledge. Sometimes not every bit of information is easily apparent or clearly stated; therefore, students have to build upon with their own knowledge and prior experience in order to understand something fully.
Rubin (1982) states that interpretation (inference) is the next step in the hierarchy. This category demands a higher level of thinking ability because the questions in the category of interpretation are concerned with answers that are not directly stated in the text but are suggested or implied. In other words, interpretive or inferential comprehension involves several reading skills: (1) determining word meaning from context, (2) finding main idea, (3) reading between the lines or drawing inferences, (4) drawing conclusion, (5) making generalization, (6) recognizing analogies.
Likewise, Nuttall (1982) states that interpretation or inference is considerably more difficult than that the literal comprehension is, because its questions need students to understand the text well enough to work out its implication. Its questions oblige the students to read between the lines. It suggests students to consider what is implied but not explicitly stated.
Further, Wiener and Bazerman (1988) state that inference or interpretation is a process by which a reader (student) uses indications to collect information. In making inferences, the student goes beyond surface details and “reads between the lines” to gain information logically. By this level of Reading Comprehension, it can be said that when the student reads, obviously, she or he develops ideas from the precise information she or he has before her/him. Factual details in which she or he reads prepare the basis of her/his knowledge.
In line with what has been stated above, it can be commented that when making inferences/interpretation, a student has to be cautious not to step too far beyond the information at hand. Otherwise, her/his inferences might be incorrect. To avoid being wrong in making inferences, the student’s inferences must be based on valid, available information, not simply unclear predictions or guesses.
Another comment stated by Spiro et al. (1980) under interpretive or inferential reading, the authors include: reaching conclusions, drawing inferences from what is read, identifying purposes, anticipating outcomes, recognizing the main idea, and making generalisation.
Critical Reading (Evaluation or Judgments)
As stated by Spiro et al. (1980) critical reading is also called judgment reading or evaluation reading that is concerned with recognizing the diversity between facts and opinions, recognizing the logic of arguments, and judging the appropriateness of arguments and conclusions. In addition, Rubin (1982) states that critical reading is at a higher level than the other two categories such as literal and interpretive comprehensions since it involves evaluation, the making of a personal judgment on the accuracy, value, and truthfulness of what is read.
In line with what has been stated above, it can be stated that before students are asked to read critically, they must be able to distinguish between facts and opinions. They must recognize that facts are statements that tell what really happens or really is the case. They must understand that a fact is based on direct evidence. Further, students must also know that opinions are statements of belief, judgment, or feeling. In essence, they must recognize that opinions show what a person thinks about a subject in which solid opinions, of course, are based on facts.
Harris and Smith (1986) state that critical reading is the ability to apply relevant criteria in examining a selection. It is the judgment of the truthfulness, validity, and value of what is read, based on criteria or standards developed via previous knowledge and experience. Further, critical reading involves analysis and judgment in evaluating written material through which the reader interprets the writer’s message accurately.
In addition, Carnine et al. (1990) present several steps used in the critical reading process that can be regarded as essential component skills: (1) identifying the author’s conclusion; (2) distinguishing fact from opinion; and (3) determining the truthfulness of fact. In terms of identifying the author’s conclusion, the students should be able to select the main idea and list supporting details from the passage that guide them to draw conclusion. In terms of distinguishing facts from opinions, the students should recognize that when a person says something that obviously happened, she/he really states a fact but when she/he feels, thinks, or believes that something has happened, actually, she/he expresses an opinion.
Creative Reading
Harris and Sipay (1980:495) state, “Creative reading may be described as going beyond understanding of the reading matter to arrive at the new ideas or conclusion.” Whereas, Rubin (1982:108) states, “Creative reading uses different thinking skills to go beyond literal comprehension, interpretation, and critical reading levels. In creative reading, the reader attempts to involve with new or alternative solutions to those presented by the writer/author.”
Harris and Smith (1986) state that creative reading primarily deals with combining the reading experience into the knowledge and feelings of the reader and with producing a response unique to each individual. It fosters different thinking whether the results are stated orally, in writing, through motion or via an art form.
Referring to what have been mentioned above, creative reading deals with the divergent thinking that has to do with various different ways of viewing things, looking beyond the actual new ideas or alternative solutions with which readers (students) are encouraged to attempt solving the problems in many different ways. In other words, creative reading helps students to recognize that divergent thinking needs that students may go beyond the truth and that they seek alternate ways to overcome problems. Further, Harris and Smith (1986) state that creative reading fosters different thinking whether the results are orally, in writing, through motion or via an art form. It primarily deals with combining the reading experience into the knowledge and feelings of the reader and with producing a response unique to each individual.
Components of Reading Comprehension
The process of Reading Comprehension involves a complex set of interaction between a student and a text to derive meaning. This process incorporates several important interactive components of Reading Comprehension which play an urgent role in understanding a printed page, for instance, syntactic knowledge, lexical knowledge and text structure knowledge which are wrapped in one package called “language knowledge.” As stated by Singer and Ruddell (1985:766), “Language knowledge includes lexical, syntactic, and text structure knowledge necessary to the understanding and production of language.”
Furthermore, Singer and Ruddell (1985) continue stating that reading is a linguistic process and needs language knowledge if the reader/student is to form a representation of the text. This process makes use of the reader’s syntactic, lexical, and text structure knowledge. These components of reading play important roles in comprehending a text since if they are absent in the reader’s knowledge, the reader cannot rend or comprehend messages in a text.
Syntactic Knowledge
The development of syntactic knowledge is a process that begins very early and directly influences the comprehension of the text. The knowledge of syntax permits the reader to compile messages into larger units than single words. Thus, with improving syntactic knowledge, the reader develops the ability to divide words into larger meaningful segments (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Syntax is the essential means by which learners can specify the designed relation among words. Thus, it serves combination not only by disambiguating the referents of the words but also by defining the new relations among them (Spiro et al., 1980). Based on this statement, it is clear that syntactic knowledge is a primary proportion of linguistic competence in general in which Reading Comprehension requires a syntactic awareness because if the reader does not have the important competence to organize written material into syntactic constituents, both memory and comprehension for the material will suffer.
Additionally, another role of syntax in language processing is to start with the means of language that allows a message to be presented only in sequential fashion the reader’s knowledge of, and expectations about, syntax helps her/him to integrate the meaning of the sequential representation of the information. If the sequential information is not expressed in a familiar structure, the reader has difficult case interpreting it (Marzano et al., 1987).
On the basis of what have been stated above, the students must recognize several aspects of syntax. First, they must know how single words are combined to form larger syntactic units, for examples, a noun and a verb to form a sentence, a determiner, an adjective and a noun to make a noun phrase. Second, they must master simple syntactic rules, namely those used to generate the passive or the negative, which modify the order of the constituents or introduce auxiliary verbs or function words where necessary. Third, they must recognize how single syntactic rules are integrated to generate complex sentences.
Furthermore, another role of syntactic knowledge is to help students parse the meaning of the sequential representations of the information. If the sequential information is not presented in a familiar structure, the students have difficulty interpreting it (Robert et al., 1987). Based on this premise, syntactic knowledge must be taught to the students because it helps students organize information into units of meaning larger than the word. It helps them parse the meaning of the sequential representation of the information.
Lexical Knowledge
The learning of a lexical word involves learning the set of relationships into which it enters with other words in the language, which is called its ‘sense of relationships’: incompatibility, synonymy, antonym, hyponymy, polysemy, and so on. In relation to this set of relationships, Singer and Ruddell (1985) state that the lexical knowledge is concerned with the knowledge of vocabulary and word meanings. It is very important to the reading process.
Based on the statement stated above, the problems of comprehending a written material are usually caused by the lack of understanding the words in a text. Therefore, the learning of Reading Comprehension course must always be related to the semantic approach in which vocabulary also play important roles because to be able to comprehend or interpret a written text, a reader must have a lot of vocabulary and background knowledge (schemata) of semantic.
Text Structure Knowledge
The text structure knowledge is an important part of language knowledge. It deals with the general forms of oral and written text on the basis of the form of structure schemata (Singer and Ruddell, 1985). Based on this quotation, it can be said that to understand printed materials, the reader must make a wide variety of inferences based on schemata that represent the reader’s knowledge of relevant non-linguistic information. In short, understanding text requires an analysis at many different levels and requires the interplay of linguistic knowledge and schemata-based knowledge of the world.
Considering to what have been mentioned above, the schemata students have, obviously contain the “previous information/experiences.” These schemata (background knowledge) are used to interact with ‘new information/experiences’ as readers are reading. Likewise, schemata also play several important roles in comprehending a text since they help students process the text at a deeper level.
Bearing in mind the text structure knowledge, students are expected to be able to recognize the text whether it is narrative or expository because these two terms are obviously different each other. The students must be able to know the probable structure of the text and form expectations for the structure of the content. They must recognize that the narrative text can have characters, story telling, characters’ problems and goals, episode, attempt to overcome problems and resolution, while the expository text has divergent expository structures namely: cause and effect patterns, descriptive and informational patterns, problem and solution pattern, and comparison and contrast patterns (Singer and Ruddell, 1985).
Further, other characteristics of organizational design also contribute to complexity of expository materials such as cause-effect relationships, comparison and contrast are common in expository materials, especially in science and social studies textbooks. It is clear that expository reading is chopped by headings and subheadings; references to glossaries, pronunciation keys and graphic aids.
Factors Affecting Comprehension
The success or failure in comprehending a written text actually depends on many factors. These factors are classified into several categories: (a) linguistic knowledge, (b) psychological factors, and (c) instructional text.
Linguistic knowledge refers to the reader’s ability to handle effectively the language components of the text – this is syntax, semantic, pragmatics and discourse. All together, these linguistic elements influence comprehension in reading. Therefore, the students must master these elements before the written materials are offered to comprehend.
It is widely admitted that when a reader is reading a printed text, she/he has at least three types of information available in the act of reading. The first two are syntax and semantic clues, which the reader uses in anticipating the content. She or he then uses the third type of information, graphic representation. She or he uses whatever graphic clues she or he needs for meaning, and she or he then checks the accuracy of her/his reading by the sense it makes.
As Flood (1984) states that semantic and syntactic knowledge refer to knowledge of word meanings in the context of various structures, for instance, comprehension of the sentence. “The cat killed the mice” needs knowledge of the meaning of each morpheme in the sentence (cat, kill, -ed, mice) and the relation between morphemes (the modifies cat and mice; the cat is the subject and the mice is the object; -ed modifies kill).
The psychological factors deal with students’ motivation, attitudes, and interest. Thus, motivation is the term used to describe what energizes a person and what directs her/his activity. In other words, the word motivation is used to describe a desire, need, or desire to do something. It can be applied to behaviour in a wide variety of situation. Further, one use of the concept of motivation is to describe a general tendency to struggle to particular types of goals. In this sense, motivation is often seen a relatively stable personality characteristic (Slavin, 1997).
In line with the statement above, the motivation of students is very essential because motivation can serve as both an objective in itself and a means for further achievement of other educational objectives. As a tool, motivation becomes one factor affects in learning to comprehend the text. In short, motivation determines whether students will gain the knowledge, understanding, or skills that we want them to have. As stated by Singer and Ruddell (1980) motivation is an inherent and inseparable dimension of thought, in the sense that it is part of the ongoing process of intellectual activity which influences in reading. Likewise, Robert et al. (1987) state that motivation is a key component of reading process. It is responsible for much of the performance relative to reading.
It is necessary to comment here that motivation and attitudes are closely interrelated in the sense that motivation is strongly influenced by attitudes. If the certain attitudes are present in a particular situation, then students are motivated; if these attitudes are absent, then students are unmotivated (Robert et al., 1987).
In conclusion, the students’ attitudes toward something consist of their feeling for or against what they imagine that thing to be. So an attitude involves emotion (feeling), directionality (for or against), an object (the something), and cognitive elements (what the students imagine the object to be). If a student likes language in terms of the reading subject, it means she or he gets pleasure out of being involved in activities that represent language (the reading subject) for her/him. She or he is likely to seek out activities toward which positive attitudes are held. In essence, attitudes, like motives, arouse and direct purposeful activity.
Furthermore, students with an interest in the reading subject tend to pay much attention to it. These students probably feel that it makes a difference to them, and that is why they want to become fully aware of its character. They enjoy dealing with it either for what it can guide to or for its own sake. Their attention level is high, their work output is sustained or supported, and their satisfaction is great. Their interest can refer to selection of stimuli or attending to something. Thus, it is possible to say that the reading comprehension subject will simply not be noticed and not be attended to unless interest in the object, event, or ideas is present.
In line with the category of the instructional text, Reading Comprehension instruction tends to focus on helping all students to be more active as they read, activate their schemata and knowledge about particular topic(s) in reading passage (Sweet and Anderson, 1993). Likewise, a primary purpose of reading instruction is to enable the students to gain meanings from written language (Harris and Sipay, 1980).
The main goal of the statement above can be achieved if the text selected for reading instruction can create students’ interest to read, and are suitable to the students’ level both in the vocabulary contents and structural complexity of the texts. Further, for the development of comprehension, students must be motivated and encouraged to read a great deal. This will only be possible if the subject matter provided is of real interest to them and suitable for their age level.
Being able to achieve the idea of what have been mentioned above, a lecturer/teacher of English must consider the selection of texts for receptive skills work. She or he must filter the reading texts for use in the English language class, which represent the kind of the text by which the students are required to read for information in the course of their studies. She or he selects the text taken from the specific area of the field upon which the students are engaged. She or he chooses the texts that should be one aimed at neither a broader nor a narrower readership than the students represent. After she or he selects the texts from the particular area of the field upon which the students are engaged, she or he must filter the texts that should be no more advanced than students’ knowledge of the area.
Summary
The belief about learning is that cooperative behaviour is stimulating not only socially but also intellectually and, hence, learning tasks should be associated with student activities for developing students’ communication and social skills through group discussions. In other words, learning is essentially a social process then using group for learning is more likely to be effective than if it is limited to more individualistic approaches. Based on this belief, there are more reasons for using groups when the goal is to learn about group processes, to develop the skills necessary in working with others in problem solving or planning, to obtain an understanding of the difficulties which can arise in groups, or to develop self-confidence via expressing and defending one’s own ideas.
A further reason for using group work in education is that this process of collective enquiry provides students for a society based on democratic principles. Not only do students learn better in this way, not only does group work reflect more realistically the way knowledge is generated, but also learning in group work helps develop individual to be able to live and work participate and to support a society based on those ideas.
Learning through group work involves more than an exchange of ideas and information. In a certain design, the relationships defined between students of each group will affect how much is learned and the quality of learning. However, more than that, these develop social processes inevitably form the part of the students’ experiences of the activity through at least three types of group work namely, small groups, and a pair work (peer, dyad and trio).
Group work is based on the cooperative learning theory in terms of Learning Together theory. Learning Together theory itself shares the ideas that students work together to learn and are responsible for their teammate’s learning as well as their own, and so does group work.
Reading is a process of gaining meanings of words in a text in which at least three primary processes play roles in comprehending the text. The important processes are classified into bottom-up, top-down, and interactive processes. The processes may reflect the strategies of reading such as intensive reading.
Being able to do what have been mentioned above, readers (students) must recognize other elements of Reading Comprehension that can help them understand a text through the components of reading comprehension, e.g. syntactic, lexical, and text structure knowledge. The students who do not have knowledge of these components will get difficulties or trouble in learning the reading comprehension course because those components are the basic tools of reading comprehension in understanding the text.
Further, the components of Reading Comprehension mentioned above, can be achieved through several levels of Reading Comprehension, such as literal comprehension, interpretive/inferential comprehension, critical (evaluation or judgment) reading, and creative reading. These levels are obviously important categories, which lead students to improve their English in comprehending the text. The students’ knowledge of Reading Comprehension can be observed and evaluated through these levels since these levels are generally involved and applied in examining how far students achieve Reading Comprehension course.
A number of factors affecting comprehension are linguistic knowledge, psychological factors, and instructional text. The linguistic knowledge refers to syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and discourse. The psychological factors deal with motivation, attitudes and interest. The last factor is the instructional text, which helps students to activate their schemata and knowledge about special topic(s) in the reading passage. In short, the success or failure in comprehending the written discourse basically depends on those factors mentioned above. Therefore, students must pay much attention to them and simultaneously master them.
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