1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Most students in Malaysia have always had problems in their English subjects.

However, I noticed that the matter has been getting worse especially in the last few years. This has been further proven by the fact that there are little or no improvements at all in the grades of students who sat for their PMR English papers in the previous years. After magnifying the problem, I realized that this phenomenon is due to the governments decision to introduce critical thinking type of questions in the KBSM English syllabus. Students seem to have difficulties in answering critical thinking type of questions even among those with high level of proficiency in English.

1.2 Statement of Problem Students have been introduced to critical thinking type of questions which has been integrated in the KBSM English syllabus not too long ago. However, I noticed that problems constantly occur when they are answering these types of questions even among the students who have high level of proficiency in English. Critical thinking type of questions can be narrowed down to several different types for example giving opinions, analyzing, evaluating and etc. I focus this research particularly to questions that requires the students to give opinions particularly in Paper 2 PMR.

1.3 Research Questions I came up with several research questions for this particular research that we have decided to carry out. 1. What are the factors that cause students with high proficiency level in English to have difficulties in answering giving opinion type of questions? 2. How effective are the treatments in helping students to answer questions that require them to give opinions?

2.0 METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH 2.1 Participants of the research For this research, I had selected one class of form 1 students. All of the subjects are intermediate level students who had been diagnosed to have problem in answering opinion-type of question. All of the subjects had achieved moderate grades in their previous English tests based from the interview with their teacher. They usually get 50 and above for their English tests.

2.2 Instruments and treatments I decided to do research on secondary students that have difficulties in answering giving-opinion type of question. After the students being identified, I planned to do treatment 1 where the students will be given clues and examples of answers that they could use while answering giving-opinion type of question.

Action 1 The students were given exercises that require them to give opinion on. It seemed that the students were clueless at first. Teacher gave clues and provided examples of good answers to the students.

Observation 1 During the initial stage of the treatment 1 process, I found that the students seemed clueless and passive. After given examples and clues on how to answer the questions, some changes of attitudes were detected. I also gave input on how to answer giving-opinion type of question. When the students listened to the clues, they began to generate ideas related to the topic and then they became more attentive as the treatments went on. They began to absorb the clues and examples given and then, after another exercise was given, they started to use and apply the good examples that the teacher had provided before. Although the students showed some progress, I realized that the improvement that they show was merely through imitation. Later I found out that students can come up with ideas but still have problems in elaborating them. Although they could come out with some ideas, I realized that these students tend to merely imitate what I had taught them earlier and they were still not able to come out with their own ideas. It seemed that these students not only have problem to expand their ideas but they also have problems in producing the correct words for their answers. This problem seemed crucial and I believe that with more exercises, these students can perform better. As for my own reflection, I realized that I need to give more focus on students weaknesses on vocabulary and grammar. As for the next treatment, I planned to incorporate with some elements of grammar and vocabulary.

Plan 2 After identifying the arising problems, I gave the students another treatment and for this time around I use drill and practice technique and I integrate grammar and vocabulary elements. Action 2 I drilled the students with giving opinions-type of question. Few questions were given to the student to make them familiar and at the same time, I gave a list of appropriate words that could be used by the students in answering the giving-opinion type of question. This time the students can come up with their own ideas without copying from the examples given by me before, but still have problems in elaborating them. While answering, it seemed that the students still have problem with the vocabulary and how to choose the correct words in order to express their ideas and thought well. The students also had problem in expanding their ideas and I think that this situation happened due to their weaknesses in vocabulary and sentence structure. They also showed some improvement as now they already know how to come out with the appropriate ideas but the main problems were how they would elaborate the ideas and put it in the correct sentence structure. Reflection 2 It seemed that the exposure that I gave on grammar and vocabulary items were still not enough as our objective of the study to enable students to give opinion in correct sentence structure still yet to be reached. The limitation of my study is that I only focus on how to train the students to give ideas while answering giving-opinion type of question and I paid less attention on other language components such as grammar and vocabulary. Although I was aware of this problem, this nothing much that I could do as I dont have enough time to focus on other components but as I gave these students treatments, I tried to incorporate some of grammar and vocabulary elements.

Action 3 In the third and the last treatment, the students were asked to do a group discussion. I gave a topic and in a group, they need to discuss among themselves to answer all the questions. They were also required to write down their answers so that they could practice to put their ideas into writing. I observed the students and gave hints about the correct vocabulary and corrected tem if they make mistakes in term of grammar and sentence structure.

From what I had observed, these students will help each other to answer the question and they tend to be more energetic while discussing. The students now were able to write down their ideas and with some helps from the teacher, they could write with correct sentence structure. The students showed some positive improvement and it seemed that all the treatments that I gave them had benefited them. Reflection 3 What I can conclude from my observation is that the students did show some promising improvement and they were able to give ideas and elaborate them clearly, but they still have problems in sentence structure although the trouble was not that prominent. From there, I could say that these students actually need more practice on grammar and sentence structure but as this research focus on the ability to answer givingopinion type of question, most of the treatments given were to help them to come out more ideas and be more critical. I was not able to teach them on other areas such as grammar since the treatments were conducted in literature class but I hope that if one day I could conduct this kind of research again, I would be able to vary the treatments so that the students could improve not only in giving opinion technique but in other techniques as well.

3.0 CONCLUSION It is suggested that a research seeking the solutions regarding the problems faced by students in answering the giving opinion type of question would be valuable. In this way, I am able to identify the solutions and treatments that can be done in order to overcome the problems among the students. Due to this, the research might look at the treatments given to the students that might bring to the improvement of the students ability to answer the giving opinion type of question. For instance, the teacher may apply the treatments in the classroom teaching in order to trigger or sharpen the students skill in answering that type of questions. From the research conducted, I have identified three treatments that are able to improve students skill in answering the giving opinion type of question. First of all, the giving cues and trigger students to think is a form of warming up for the students to trigger their thinking processor. This treatment approved to be efficient in triggering students to come up with their own ideas and thoughts. Besides that, it is good in modeling the students with good answering techniques. The second treatment, which is drilling is also best serves to enhance students ability in answering this type of questions. To certain extent, this technique is also applicable in teaching the students to answer any type of question requires the use of high level of thinking skill. Lastly, discussion or group work activitys effectiveness in expanding the skills and knowledge could not be deniable. This is reflected on the outcome produced in this research. The discussion activity is obviously able to trigger the students to think spontaneously besides sharing and exchanging knowledge or ideas about the discussion topic given to them. For this research, the focus was on the problems faced by the students in answering the giving opinion type of question. Due to this, there might be some elements that were neglected throughout this research project. For the future research project, I would like to suggest an action research could be conducted regarding students problems

in answering the other type of critical thinking skill, such as problem solving based of question. It is hoped that the results obtained from this research could be applicable for the teachers in the classroom.

KAJIAN TINDAKAN

HOW TO HANDLE CRTICALTHINKING TYPE OF QUESTIONS

BY: SITI WARDAH SALIM