IMPROVING THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING INDONESIAN FOLKTALES AT SMPN 3 BALUNG, JEMBER

Abstract

Improving the Eighth Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement of Narrative text by Using Indonesian Folktales at SMPN 3 Balung, Jember; Novandra Ramadhani Prabowo; 100210401088; 2014; 62 pages; English Language Education Study Program, Language and Arts Department, the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Jember University.

Language is one of the most important and valuable part of human life since it is used as a means of communication. Every country has its own language to communicate each other. English becomes one of the international languages that have wide influence in communication around the world. In Indonesia, English as a foreign language is taught to the students starting from elementary school as a local content subject, while from Junior High School up to university level as a compulsory subject. Based on one of the teaching objectives, the students should master four language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. Reading as one of the language skills presented in the teaching learning activity takes an important role in language skills. Sometimes, the students seemed uninterested in reading English text and confused in comprehending paragraph and text. In this case, Indonesian folktale was selected to help the students to improve reading comprehension achievement since Indonesian folktales are fun and memorable. Thus, it could help the students in comprehending the text easier. This classroom action research was intended to improve the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement of narrative text by using Indonesian folktales at SMPN 3 Balung Jember in the 2013/2014 academic year. The research subjects were the students of class VIII-A at SMPN 3 Balung Jember in the 2013/2014 academic year. This class was chosen because based on fact finding in the preliminary study by classroom observation and interviewing the English teacher that class had problem in reading skill. Classroom Action Research with cycle model was

xiii applied in this research. This classroom action research had been done in two cycles. Each cycle was employed in three meetings including reading comprehension test. There were four stages of activities in each cycle, namely planning the action; implementing the action; observing and evaluating; and analyzing the data and doing reflection of the action. The process evaluation was conducted by observation that was done in each meeting to observe the students’ participation during the teaching learning process. The product evaluation was conducted at the end of each cycle by administering reading comprehension test. Based on observation, the percentage average result of the students’ participation during teaching and learning process in cycle 1 was 55.11%. It means that the action in cycle 1 did not achieve the success criteria of this research. Further, the observations were continued to the cycle 2. Moreover, the percentage average result of the students’ active participation increased 23.81% from 58.44% in cycle 1 to 82.25% in cycle 2. It means that the use of Indonesian folktales could improve the students’ active participation during teaching learning process of reading activities. Based on reading comprehension test, the percentage result of this research showed that the improvement of the students’ reading comprehension test in cycle 1 that got scores ≥ 72 was 50 % or only 14 students of 28 students. It means that it had not achieved the success criteria of this research. So, the actions were continued to the cycle 2. In cycle 2, the percentage result of the students reading comprehension test was 78.57% or 22 students of 28 students in cycle 2. It means that the percentage result of the students reading comprehension achievement improved 28.57% from 50% in cycle 1 to 78.57% in cycle 2. Therefore, the criteria of success of this research that was 75% had been achieved and it proved that the use of Indonesian folktales in teaching reading comprehension was helpful to improve students’ reading comprehension achievement of narrative text.