Language Features Comprehension in Reading Text and Problem Encountered by English Teacher

: Language Features Comprehension in Reading Text and Problem Encountered by English Teacher. Objectives: This research aimed to measure the frequency of language features comprehension in reading text and describe the problem encountered. Methods: This research used a survey involving 97 participants from senior high school English teachers purposively clustered from the population attending a professional in-service training program. A questionnaire consisting of 12 items with four options was used to measure the frequency of language features comprehension. The option to categorize the frequency was never, seldom, often, and always. Besides employing the questionnaire, an interview was also applied to explore the problem encountered by the English teachers when they administered their instructions. Findings: Based on the computation, it was found that the frequency of language features comprehension of reading text surveyed through this research was 57.04% and distributed relatively into the Often Category, in which the category scale was 50%-75%. The comprehension frequency’s mean score and standard deviation were 62.07 and 19.23. Conclusion: Despite the frequency and category, the interviewed participants asserted that they needed to be aware of the language features when linguistically termed vocabulary and morphology.


 INTRODUCTION
The setting of this research was an online professional teacher training program activity, both synchronous and asynchronous, managed through a learning management system (LMS). Online education during the pandemic was reported to be challenging and beneficial (Ozdamli & Karagozlu, 2022), and the participants of the training this research investigated experienced the same. Online learning and COVID-19 in higher education (Azizan et al., 2022) require familiarization with the internet and technology (IT). That experience and situation were more or less alike for the participants and professional training host. The participant, in particular, had successfully adjusted the demand to be an IT familiar.
Social media in higher education, like the professional training program, was reviewed to be used during the COVID-19 Pandemic (Balushi et al., 2022). As the object of this research, the training program participants were observed to be skilled in using social media to equip their instruction during the online teaching practice. In terms of the quality of e-learning service delivered through the LMS, in line with Kastiro et al. (2022), impressed no different from conventional learning service. Apart from the challenges and benefits of the online professional training in which the participants had passed and secured their professional titles, there was a detail that needed to be completed. It was the language features of reading texts that had been comprehended seldom.
As mandated by Curriculum 2013, English as a foreign language (EFL) in Indonesia is learned and taught integrative with reading text. It is a text-based approach to teaching English. It is noted that comprehension of a reading text as a trajectory of the Curriculum 2013 covers language features for their instructions and assessments. Moreover, the context of this research is reading text, and its language features comprehension. It is intended to measure the frequency of language features teaching and learning implementation by senior high school English teachers.
The language features comprehension in reading text deal with vocabulary and morphology. All words in the reading text are vocabulary, but words with lexical and grammatical meaning are morphology. The forms in words and the words in phrases, clauses, and sentences are morphology. They are set into paragraphs to create reading text. The language features in this research are forms of the function and content words with their structures and grammatical attributes in English reading text.
Reading text comprehension generally consists of the main idea, supporting sentence, reference, vocabulary, details, and inference. For fictional texts, additional comprehension component includes setting, character, plot, and value or moral message. To add more, vocabulary comprehension alone comprises the subcomponent of spelling, pronunciation, synonyms, antonyms, meaning, content words covering lexical and grammatical categories, and translation or glossing. The meaning, the most incorrect conception, is always perceived as translation or equivalence. It is not the translation. It deals with morphology and semantics.
The content word is the word with an open class category or part of speech: noun, adjective, verb, and adverb. It also morphologically covers the root or base and its formation extension involving free and bound morphemes. The morpheme refers to word formation and process. A morpheme is a form or morph, and the process, for example, is affixation, compounding, and acronym. In English reading, text comprehension is both instruction and assessment; the vocabulary with the form and grammar dimension is briefly called language features.
In the English reading text, the language features are apparent as comprehension to master the reading skill. Hence, the language features are grammatical and morphological words. The grammatical word, for instance, is the conjunction, while the morphological words are complex words that are derivational, inflectional, and compounding altogether with their semantic meanings.
It was observed during the in-service teacher professional training program activity that the comprehension element in teachers' teaching instruments generally included the generic structure of the text. The generic structure is mainly understood as the body of text. The mandatory comprehension element like the main idea, supporting sentence, spelling, pronunciation, details, inference, and language features were scarcely included as assessment or evaluation in the lesson plan (LP). Observing how the assessment was arranged and administered in the LP during the training, it is important to survey the frequency of one of the comprehension elements, language features. It aimed to evaluate EFL teaching and learning with an integrative textbased reading approach.
It was assumed that the comprehension of the language features had been administered. Yet, this research measured the frequency of comprehension. This research question is, "What was the frequency of comprehension of language features by senior high school English teachers attending the professional training program?" The additional question is, "What problems did the teachers encounter when administering the language features comprehension of the reading texts?" Moreover, the research aimed to determine the frequency of comprehension of language features by senior high school teachers and its frequency distribution. Furthermore, the research was also intended to explore the problems encountered when the language features of the reading texts were comprehended. Finally, the language features comprehension of reading surveyed were 12 text types, namely Procedure, Recount, Narrative, News Items, Descriptive, Report, Analytical Exposition, Spoof, Hortatory Exposition, Explanation, Discussion, and Review.
The language features are categorically wide-ranging, from lexical to phrase, up to syntax and semantics (Luong et al., 2020). It also includes addressing, tone, spelling, and punctuation (Tur, 2019). Even more, phrasal complexity, like premodifying adjectives, post-modifying prepositional phrases, and nominalizations, is also involved in language features (Parviz et al., 2020). Moreover, the branch of applied languages, like the way a Youtuber speaks, can also be studied for its language features in terms of lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, empty adjectives, precise color terms, intensifiers, super-polite forms and emphatic stress (Indra et al., 2019). For the context of this research, the language features covered lexical elements and spelling regarding the correctness of irregular verbs and noun plurality spelling.
The language features in the reading text are features of form and meaning. The form is the word with its element consisting of a phoneme or phoneme sound, morpheme, or series of morphemes in a word, phrase, clause, sentence, or paragraph. Each element has lexical and grammatical meanings. Thus, the form and meaning as a language feature in a reading text is one entity (Dawson et al., 2021). It is said so because a word and its morpheme as a form are related to meaning (Manova et al., 2020). Therefore, the morpheme is the minimal unit in a word that has meaning, that is, lexical and grammatical. That is why the morpheme is not the same. One morpheme is always different from the others (Coch et al., 2020). They have different functions, forms, and meanings. Furthermore, for this research context, the language features included forms (regular and irregular verbs and nouns) and the meaning the forms signify (like plurality for nouns and tenses for verbs).
The core of language studies is form and meaning. Word and morpheme as a feature of the form is enormous scope (Denham et al., 2018b). They can be studied by form, process, class, or category. Its studies are always integrated with meaning since word or morpheme relates to meaning (Denham et al., 2018a). Although the meaning is only lexical and grammatical, linguistically, studying meaning can enter segments of sound, phoneme sounds, morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs.
Morphologically, the language features are related to inflectional word formation to signify number or plurality (Goodwin Davies & Embick, 2020). Moreover, it is related to derivational word formation for nominalization (Dronyakina & Starykh, 2020). Furthermore, the language features are actually about the morphological consciousness (De Freitas et al., 2018), or morphological awareness and students learning achievement (Metsala et al., 2019), and morphological consciousness and reading comprehension (Levesque et al., 2017).
In addition, the studies of the effects on morphological awareness and their relations to language features, to mention some, are the frequency of morphemes in academic words (Lane et al., 2019) and the effect of teaching in morphological awareness towards literacy achievement (Carlisle et al., 2010). Another study on language features in morphological consciousness is the dynamic of learner morphological awareness assessment for EFL context (Hamavandi et al., 2017). In line with the language feature studies listed above, this research was on the dynamic of language feature comprehension in the 12 EFL reading texts.
The language features of reading text comprehension are vocabularies consisting of function and content words. The function word is a grammar word or attributes, while the content word is lexical and grammatical categories. Word type or part of speech is the lexical content word, and the tenses the morphological word signifies are grammatical. The conjunctions, linking, or connective words are function words. The nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are lexical categories, while the tenses, numbers, possessions, and comparisons, are the syntactic model of morphology. Words in phrases, clauses, and sentences are also the syntactic model of morphology. Moreover, the sources of text types and language features were elaborated as excerption from 6 Modules, namely English for Public Information (Saefurrohman, 2019b), English for Personal Communication (Listiani, 2019), English for Social Communication (Wahyukti, 2019), English for Entertainment (Istikharoh, 2019), English for Practical Use (Saefurrohman, 2019a), and English for Academic Context (Suwartono, 2019).

 METHODS
This research was descriptive, a research that asks what is going on with research issues (Broadhurst et al., 2012). It asked what was going on with language features of English reading texts and its problems encountered when the teachers administered their instruction with comprehension. Since the research evaluated the implementation of language features comprehension of reading texts, therefore, it is evaluation research (Muryadi, 2017). It evaluated the frequency of language features and described the problems encountered when the features were comprehended.
The method applied for this research was a survey and intended to measure the frequency of language features comprehension and categorize the frequency. The type of survey was a cross-sectional survey (Creswell, 2012). It surveyed the language features comprehension found in the 12 text types. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire, that was, closed-ended type (Iwaniec, 2020). It was a self-made questionnaire on the frequency of the language features created based on the 12 texts in Table 1 above. The questionnaire was designed by using Google Forms, then distributed to the professional training program participants via WhatsApp Group. Moreover, the questionnaire with 12 questions based on the text types used as an instrument for data collection is in Table 1 as follows:  (Lowie & Seton, 2013), the options of the questionnaire to choose by participants was Never, Seldom, Often and Always. By this research context, the options were also used to categorize t he frequency. Meanwhile, the interval and frequency category are as in the following Table  2: Table 2. Text types and language features excerption Besides employing a questionnaire as research instrument, an interview guide was also used to collect the data. It is a list of questions (Ahmad, 2012) asked in an interview. This interview guide outlined essential issues becoming the problems of language features comprehension of reading texts. The interview guide was semistructured, and the interviewees were ten research participants volunteered, based on availability and readiness, to share their teaching experience. The interview was conducted via WhatsApp.
The participant of this research was 97 English teachers of senior high school from 17 provinces. They were from Gorontalo, North and South Sulawesi; West, South, Central, East, and North Kalimantan; Aceh, Lampung, Riau, Riau Archipelago; Maluku, and North Maluku; West, Central, and East Java; Yogyakarta; and West Nusa Tenggara, the participants of in-service teacher professional training program of batch 2020 and batch 2021 hosted by Tanjungpura University. The participants were selected by purposive-cluster sampling from 967 population of the training program. Since the 12 text types are only used as reading material for senior high school level, thus the criteria for sampling selection were high school English teachers. Teachers of other different subjects and Junior high school English teachers who attended the training program were not included to participate in the research.
Since the survey intended to measure the frequency, the data collected using questionnaire was analyzed by adapting the relative frequency distribution formula (Glen, 2022), as in the following: In which, f is frequency of option, nf is population multiplied by frequency of option.
Meanwhile, the mean and standard deviation used to validate the questionnaire option was computed using MS Office 16 Excel.

 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The data collected by implementing a survey was aimed to find out the frequency of language features comprehension by senior high school teachers. The frequency of language features by reading text type, mean, and standard deviation is set out in the following Table 3: The data in Table 3 explicitly -answering the first research question formulated-, shows that the frequency of language futures comprehension of the 12 English reading texts was mostly Often, that was 57.04%. The cumulative mean score, as seen in Table 3, was 62.07 while the standard deviation was 19.23. The standard deviation is low, and implies the option frequency of the questionnaire was clustered around the frequency category. The language features of Procedure Text based on the questionnaire option was comprehended Often, that was, 47 by the count or 48.45% by the category. Moreover, the mean and standard deviation of option in respect were 61.21 and 24.04. The language features of the text are imperative, action verb, and connective words (Saefurrohman, 2019b). Furthermore, the Recount Text was also comprehended Often for its language features. It was 62 by the count or 63.92% by the category. The questionnaire mean option of this text was 68.94 while the standard deviation was 15.97. The language features of this text is pronouns and nouns, past action verbs, adverbial phrases, and adjective (Listiani, 2019).
The language features of Narrative Text is noun phrases, adverbial phrases, simple past tense or verb past, and adjective phrases (Listiani, 2019). Unlike the two previous texts, this Narrative Text, based on Table 3, was comprehended Always by the research participant. It was 45 by the count or 46.40% by the category. The mean of option of this text was 71.52, and the standard deviation was 19.45. The language features of News Items Text are action verbs, passive sentences, and adverbs in the passive-voice or passive sentence (Saefurrohman, 2019b). This text was also comprehended Often. The questionnaire option was 42 by the count or 43.3% by the frequency.
In addition, the mean and standard deviation of the option were 59.92 and 24.82.
The Descriptive Text, as seen in Table 3, was comprehended Often by the participant. It was 52 by the count or 53.61% by the category. The mean and standard deviation of questionnaire option of this text was 66.37 and 19.52. The language features of this text is attributive classifiers in the nominal and simple present tense (Wahyukti, 2019). Furthermore, the Report Text was also comprehended Often. By the count, it was 57, or by the category, it was 58.76%. The mean and standard deviation of questionnaire option of this text type were 65.08 and 18.79. The language features of this text comprise general nouns, present tense, and technical terminologyi.e., oxygen and hydrogen (Wahyukti, 2019).
The calculation in Table 3 above shows that the Analytical Exposition Text was also comprehended Often by the participant. The language features of this text consist of qualification word (i.e., usual, probably), linking word (i.e., firstly, however, on the other hand, therefore), and compound (Suwartono, 2019). The frequency of comprehension was 47 by the count or 48.45% by the category. Meanwhile, the mean and standard deviation were respectively 63.79 and 8.44. The Spoof Text, like analytical exposition text, was also comprehended Often by the research participant. It was 47 by the count or 48.45% by the category. This text type frequency option mean and standard deviation were 58.63 and 23.66. The language features of this text type are connectives-i.e., first, then, finally, adverbial phrases of time and place-i.e., in the garden, two days ago, and simple past tense-i.e., He walked away from the village (Istikharoh, 2019). Table 3 above evidenced that the research participant comprehended the Hortatory Exposition Text Often. The language features of this text type include words that qualify statements-usually, probably, and words that link arguments-firstly, however, on the other hand, therefore, and present tense, compound, and complex sentences, and modal auxiliary-can, may, should, must (Suwartono, 2019). The count of the comprehension was 67 and the category was 69.07%. The mean and standard deviation of questionnaire option in respect were 58.63 and 19.52. Like hortatory exposition text, the Explanation Text was also comprehended Often by the participant. The count, category, mean and standard deviation of questionnaire option, as read in Table 3, were coincidentally similar to hortatory exposition text. The language features of this Explanation Text consist of general and abstract nouns, action verbs, simple present tense, passive voice, the conjunction of time and cause, noun phrases, complex sentences, and technical language (Suwartono, 2019).
As read in Table 3 above, the Discussion Text was comprehended Often by the participant. The comprehension frequency was 72 by the count or 74.23% by the category. Its mean and standard deviation of questionnaire option were 57.34 and 17.9. Moreover, the language features of this text type comprise general nouns, to be or verbs-i.e., is, are, think, feel, hope, believe, and additive connectives-i.e., addition, furthermore, besides, and contrastive connectives-i.e., although, even, if, nevertheless, and causal connectives-i.e., because, because of, and modal auxiliary-i.e., must, should, and adverbial manner-i.e., hopefully (Saefurrohman, 2019a). Moreover, the Review Text was also comprehended Often by the participant. The count of comprehension frequency was 62 or 63.92%. The mean and standard deviation of this text questionnaire option were 54.77 and 19.07. The language features of this text type include adjectives, clauses, and metaphor (Suwartono, 2019).
The results indicate that the claims expressed through options chosen of the questionnaire are not really in line with the observation made during in-service teacher professional training program activity. Based on observation during the training, the language features of the reading text were rarely comprehended as instruction and assessment applied in the teaching instrument. Anyhow, the claim as a result of questionnaire was relatively Often. The reading text types mostly comprehended Often by research participants as seen in Table 3 was Recount, Hortatory Exposition, Explanation, Discussion, and Review.
Although the frequency of language features comprehension of English reading texts was by Often category, -as to refer to the second research question formulated-, this research also administered interview to explore the problems encountered by the teachers. For the interview result presented in this section, IP means Interviewed Participant, and the number put in the IP is the chosen list order of the interviewed participant.
The first issue outlined in the interview was "What do you know about language features in English reading texts?" The following is the better response to represent interviewed participants of the question outlined: IP7: "It is like grammar or structure; sometimes we see it as a conjunction, or article, or part of speech, or verb type, or noun type. It is also like a phrase, verb phrase, or noun phrase. It is very common to us to see language features in reading texts." The above reply to the question was evident about the language features of the reading texts. Grammar or structure means tenses and verbs in sentences. Verb type refers to regular or irregular verbs or verb-1 for present tense, verb-2 for past tense, and verb-3 for perfect tense. Moreover, when the interviewee said the noun type, it comprised abstract or concrete and countable or uncountable nouns.
Furthermore, the second issue interview was, "In reading texts, you often find conjunction word and article. Are you aware that they are theoretically or linguistically called function words?" Here is the most appropriate response representing interviewed participants' reply to the question: IP6: "No. I am sorry to say that I am not aware of that. I do not know that. I have never seen books or handbooks that we used to teach have ever discussed or highlighted that function word. When we studied in university, we were told that function word, but I did not really master the word category. Now I understand that this function word is functional or attribute words to grammar or structure in sentences or paragraphs." The third issue interviewed was similar to the second issue, but it was on the content word. The question outlined was, "Like conjunction or article that is actually function word, are you now aware that verb type and noun type, or part of speech, the grammar or structure you mentioned are theoretically or linguistically called content word, or morphological words?" Below is the relevant reply to respond to the question. It represents interviewed participants: IP3: "No, not really. We know the word is a verb, noun, adjective, and adverb. We know that verb-1, verb-2, and verb-3 deal with grammar or structure in sentences, but I am not aware that the verbs are morphology, that the nouns (regular and irregular, plural and singular nouns) are morphology." The above two replies are certain that the interviewees are familiar with language features terminology, but when it is expressed into categories, they do not recognize the function or content word. Although the two are distinct, it this clear to IP3 that verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverb is the lexical word. It is also brighter to this interviewee that verb-1, verb-2, and verb-3 are grammatical words.
Furthermore, the fourth issue outlined was "You have fulfilled the questionnaire about this language feature. What do you think you can do to comprehend it when you teach your students reading texts?" The following is the best representation of interviewed participants to reply to the question outlined: IP10: "I have to tell you frankly that I admit it is not easy to comprehend the reading text in terms of language features you said. Fulfilling a questionnaire is one thing but comprehending the language features of the reading texts is a different thing. We only know that all words are vocabulary. I know that you intend to make vocabulary and morphology or morphological words in reading texts easy to comprehend, but I think we lack mastery on what function word is, what content word is, or what lexical and grammatical word is. It is understandable when you describe or illustrate it, but the terminology is different when we comprehend the reading texts. It is just called language or language features. I do not think it will be easy to catch by the students. Even for me, it is still unfamiliar." It is evident that IP10 was unfamiliar with and lacks mastery of function words, lexical words, and grammatical words. Finally, it is the last issue outlined to gather information on problems encountered by English teachers in language features comprehension of the reading texts. The issue outline was "Now, after completing the questionnaire I circulated, and after recognizing the description or illustration about vocabulary and morphology, or function and content word, how frequently have you ever comprehended the language features in reading texts? If not frequently, why? What is your reason?" Here is the most proper reply from IP8, representing the interviewees: IP8: "I cannot answer your question precisely, but I have ever comprehended the language features in the reading texts. Nevertheless, the comprehension of language features in reading texts is sometimes not the focus because it requires detailed steps. For instance, when a conjunction or action verb is comprehended, you have to check its definition and examples on the internet, provide the lists, and then ask the students to search within the text; then, we validate students' search results with the list found from the internet. So, it is very often that these language features' comprehension is ignored or skipped. The curriculum requests too many demands of teaching materials or units to complete within only 2 lesson hours a week." From IP8's above response, it is concluded that the language feature comprehension of the reading texts was somehow and limitedly implemented during the teaching and learning process. Yet, its implementation is not the focus since the teaching and learning activities duration is only 2 lesson hours a week.
Moreover, the comprehension of language features of Procedure Text to apply in the teaching-learning process that covers students' authentic experience is provided as a proposition to duplicate by English language teacher as in the following example: How to fix a stuck zipper While zippers are mostly reliable, they do break or get stuck sometimes. When this happens, you may be frustrated and fear that you'll need to replace the entire item. However, you can try to fix a zipper in various ways so you don't have to replace the item. There are some types of equipment you need to fix a broken zipper. They are: -Laundry soap -Water -Cotton ball or swab -Dish Here's how you fix a stuck zipper with laundry soap as lubrication.
• Pour a small amount of detergent into a small dish.
• Pour a small amount of water into the same dish.
• Dip a cotton ball or swab into the mixture.
• Use the saturated cotton ball to coat the teeth in the solution.
• Place the cotton ball down and gently attempt to unzip the zipper. It may only move a little. If this is the case, return the slider to its original position. Repeat until the zipper is unstuck.
The language features of the Procedure Text above can be comprehended by providing a student worksheet using a table of two columns.
The first column is used to put the list of language features of the procedure text. The second column is functioned for students to list the examples of the language features found in the text. The second column must be left empty for space for students to complete. Nevertheless, the second column of the following Table 3 for the language features and their examples picked from the Procedure Text is completed or fulfilled as comprehension example: The language features in Table 3 above indicate tenses of present and future, lexical words that are verb and adverb, and function words that are conjunction and modal. Teaching and learning at the senior high school level should be gradually and consistently implemented by contextualizing lesson study or teaching material into students' authentic daily life experiences and environments. To contextualize, it requires analysis competence. The analysis is the lowest order below the evaluation and creation in the higher-order thinking skill method, abbreviated HOTS method (Aryana et al., 2018). The better technique suggested to teach the comprehension of the Procedure Text above is by looking up the definition and example of each language feature online, then assigning students to identify and list them all from the text based on the definition and examples looked up online.

 CONCLUSIONS
The initial assumption that the language features had been comprehended is by some means proper to this research result. The survey using a questionnaire was distributed to find out the frequency and category of language features comprehension in English reading texts by the English teachers of senior high school. The questionnaire result signifies that the proportion of frequency is 57.04%, and the frequency category is Often. Nevertheless, it is somewhat opposed to the observation made during the professional training program that the language features of reading text were infrequent to comprehend. The problem encountered by the participant was function word and content word that is lexical and grammatical.
Although the frequency of language features comprehension explored by this research is Often based on the category, this research impliesbased on the interview-, the need of language features comprehension of the reading text more frequently. The comprehension will sharpen students' analysis and familiarize creation as cognitive domain competencies.
Despite the research participants who come almost from across Indonesia, the findings of this research do not really represent the frequency of language features comprehension of reading texts for all Indonesian English teachers. The scope and limitation of this research are only senior high school English teacher who participated in the in-service teacher professional training program hosted by Tanjungpura University for batch 2020 and 2021. Therefore, the frequency of comprehension and discussion is not generalizable to all teachers.