English Learners’ Strategies of Learning Reading Comprehension Across Different Genders

Abstract

Indonesian reading is different from English reading. English reading is necessary to understand the meaning of word and the content of the text, usually known as reading comprehension. Therefore, the students need a strategy to make them easier to comprehend what they are reading. So, the researcher conducted a research to know the intensity of the reading strategy used by male and female students in second semester of the English Deparment at University of Islam Malang. This research employed quantitative approach. The population of this study was the second semester students of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of University of Islam Malang in academic year 2020/2021. The sample of this study was 40 students of English education department that consist of 20 male students and 20 female students. The finding showed that the strategy who second semester students often used based on three categories were GLOB (M = 4.22) their background knowledge in reading comprehension, PROB (M = 4.53) their attempted to restore concentration, and SUP (M = 4.19) their read the text repeatedly to find relationships between information. Then, the strategy most frequently used by male students from three categories were GLOB used checking understanding while find new information (M = 4.35), PROB used re-read the text while they lost concentration (M = 4.45), and SUP used to read general information quickly (M = 4.20). Meanwhile, female students in GLOB were used context clues (M = 4.97), PROB used reread text when their lost concentration (M = 4.56), and SUP was return to the text to establish connections between topics (M = 4.21). These findings implied that the students used strategy of getting back to trace to make them focus again, they prefer to reread and utilize their background to ease them understand the text. It is possible to assume, based on the findings, that male and female learners have different techniques of readings. Then, almost the students used reading strategies to their reading comprehension. Keywords: Reading Strategy, Gender Students