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conversation between teacher and students, as shown
in the following conversation.
Teacher : Aswatama iku anake Begawan ...?
: Aswatama is the child of Begawan ...?
Students : Solo
: Solo
In the above dialogue, the teacher asked open ended
question about Aswatama who the son of Begawan Durna
is. But some students answered Solo, while Solo is the
name of the city and Bengawan Solo is the name of the
famous river in that city. Some students answer
spontaneously because they think that begawan
(ascetic/noble) is tantamount to bengawan (river) and this
shows that they have not been able to understand what
they read. Students’ mistaken also shown in the dialogue
below.
Teacher : Kembang iku bisa kanggo talirasa
duhkita utawa sungkawa, contone nak ana pralaya, ana
wong menehi kembang tulisane turut berduka cita utawa
turut “berbela....”?
: Flowers can be a sign of grieving or
condolence, for example if there is death, there are people
who give flowers that say sorrow or “berbela ....”?
Students : bangsa
: nation
The dialogue shows that students also do not understand
what they have read. In the text there is already a sentence
that flowers can use for a sign of grief or condolence
(berbela sungkawa). Some students, however,
spontaneously answer about the nation's defense (berbela
bangsa) because it is a phrase they often hear.
Teacher : Punden iku panggonan sing dianggep
kramat dening “para ...”?
: Punden is a place that is considered
sacred by “para ...”?
Students : gapit
: gapit
In the above conversation the teacher actually
meant is para warga (community). But a student
responded with para gapit (division), while other
students just silent. This indicates that the student
only reveals what he thinks spontaneously without
being able to relate with the content of the text.
Other students also do not understand the question
of teachers because they just silent to hear the
answer from his friend.
The next difficulty faced by students is the
difficulty in determining the main ideas, themes,
conclusions, and moral values of the reading.
Students have difficulty determining the underlying
idea because students do not understand the contents
of the reading, so that students only write one
sentence contained in the text without thinking
whether it is the main idea or just explanation.
Furthermore, when asked to determine the theme,
students tend to write the theme according to the title
of reading. For example, when students read the text
entitled Tradhisi Nyadran, most students replied that
the reading theme is "tradhisi nyadran", not
"tradition" or "culture". Students are also less able to
make inferences from the content of the reading.
When asked to make a conclusion student tend to
write down what they understand from the text or
what they remember, and not the essence of the
passage. And only few students that have been able
to determine the moral values of reading such as
honesty, love of the homeland, and so forth.
3.2 Factors Causing the Difficulties
There are several factors causing the lack of
students’ understanding to the Javanese text. First,
Javanese language used by students every day is
different from what they find in textbooks. Javanese
lessons is much more complex with the subject
matter that they rarely hear.
Second, students are accustomed to reading
Indonesian texts and rarely read Javanese texts.
There are many differences in the writing and
pronunciation of Indonesian with Javanese. Students
often read Javanese with pronunciation as in
Indonesian, for example kencana is read kencana (a
read like u in word "subject"), when it should be
read "kencono" (o read like o in the word "wrong").
These difficulties in reading technique has a bad
effect on their reading comprehension.
Another factor is the existence of speech level in
Javanese, namely ngoko 'low' and krama 'high'
which enable its speakers to show intimacy,
deference, and hierarchy among the society
members (Laksana, Suarsa, and Budiarsa, 2013).
Four from eight Javanese language texts used in this
study contain Javanese krama. Although in those
text krama does not dominate but this still makes the
students feel frustrated. Krama is usually used to
speak with older people or talk to respected people.
Krama is also used in certain traditional ceremonies,
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
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