Page 177 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2020

According to empirical studies, students’ language skills were enhanced through
project-based activities (e.g. Hajrulla, 2014; Kerdpol, 2016; Marwan, 2015; Simpson, 2011;
Syed Faiz Zaidi, 2014; Yiying, 2015). Hajrulla (2014) also posits that languages are learnt more
effectively when they are used to solve problems. Hence, PBL which requires the students to
solve real-world problems may help students’ reading skills. Substantiated by Yiying's (2015)
study, the participants perceived that not only their reading, writing, and speaking skills
improved but also vocabulary knowledge and translation skill because they used these skills to
acquire, analyse, and synthesize information as they worked on their project.

English reading comprehension. MUET is a high-stakes examination and its results
are employed as benchmark in determining the pre-university students’ proficiency level in
Malaysia (Rethinasamy & Chuah, 2011). There are four skills which are assessed in MUET
namely, reading, listening, writing and speaking. Among these four components, reading has
the heaviest weighting (40%) because university students are expected to read more (Lee,
2004). Therefore, reading plays a central role in the Malaysian educational curriculum as
Alderson, Clapham, and Wall (1995) have mentioned that heavier weighting on a particular
language component shows that it plays a central role in the curriculum or to the concept of
proficiency.
Nevertheless, many students dislike reading as they claimed reading is boring and
therefore they scored low in reading comprehension because of poor understanding of long
sentences and face many unfamiliar words. According to the analysis of Malaysian
Examination Council (2015), the number of Band 5 and 6 scorers in MUET (800/3) Reading
were less than 7% and 0.7% respectively from March 2012 paper to Nov 2014. In addition, the
number of candidates who obtained Band 6 in MUET Reading plunged from 4.57% in 1999
(when the test was introduced) to a mere 0.09% in 2011.

PBL-online. Researches have proven that integrating PBL with online learning helps
to enhance teaching and learning process and improve the students’ performance (e.g. Jadhav,
Mulla, & Jadhav, 2017; Marwan, 2015). A fairly recent study by Jadhav et al. (2017) shows
that blending online learning with PBL was very effective to reduce gap in education quality
where 97% of groups acquired basic knowledge. Besides face-to-face workshops in Jadhav et
al. (2017) study, the participants were also provided with online discussion forum and video
tutorials before they sat for an online test and competed in the robotic competition.
In Marwan's (2015) action research, it comprises of three projects that must be done by
his students – first project was to train writing skill by writing mails in English, the second
project was to hone speaking skills through videotaping their conversational activities and the
third project was to practise speaking in group discussions and reading brochures. He reported
that PBL brought positive changes in teaching and learning and the students were highly
motivated to learn. Noticeably, the PBL designs in his study encouraged all the students to use
internet to locate for materials.

NiE. Many researchers also have commended on using newspaper as materials in
classroom (e.g. Kaplan International College, 2013; Kunek, 2002; Pennsylvania State
University, 2008) Newspaper is chosen as materials in this study as it gives latest news and
information in details and undeniably, newspaper is an effective way of using current authentic
material for mastering a language. According to Newspaper Association of America
Foundation (2012) newspaper can be used to enhance skills in reading, writing, listening,
speaking, maths, social studies and science. It is also claimed that critical thinking can be
employed and developed through using newspaper in learning (Buitrón & Arcos, 2009; Dass

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