| dc.description.abstract | Semantic Mapping is a teaching technique that has been developed by Johnson &
Pearson in 1978 to improve reading comprehension. The objective of this research
was to improve the second year student’s literal reading comprehension achievement
at SMP Negeri 1 Tapen Bondowoso in the 2006/2007 Academic Year. The reading
comprehension achievement in this research covered the students’ word, sentence and
paragraph comprehension. To achieve the research objectives, the classroom action
research was chosen as the research design. The subjects of this research were the
students of class VIII C that was determined purposively. They were chosen because
their reading comprehension achievement was the lowest among the five existing
classes of the second year students (the mean score was 59.27 that was categorized as
“poor”). This research was done in two cycles, in which each cycle covered four
activities namely: preparation of the action, implementation of the action, observation
and evaluation, and reflection of the action. Each cycle was conducted in two
meetings. The main data about the students’ reading comprehension achievement
were collected by using reading comprehension test after the actions in each cycle.
The result of the mean score of reading comprehension achievement in cycle 1 was
71.03 or “good” score category but only 48.48% of the students who achieved “good”
score category. It means the action in cycle 1 had not achieved the target of this
research and 75% of the students got good score category, scores in the range 70-80
of each indicator; word, sentence, and paragraph comprehension). Therefore, the
actions were continued in cycle 2 by revising the teaching technique. The results of
the mean score of reading test by using semantic mapping in cycle 2 was better
M=75.27 than in cycle 1 M=71.03(both are in “good” category); and 75.76% of the
students got good score category of each indicator. It means the action in cycle 2 had
achieved the target of this research. Based on the results, it could be concluded that
the use of semantic mapping could improve the second year students’ reading
comprehension achievements in two cycles. Hence, it is suggested to the English
teachers to use semantic mapping technique to improve the students’ reading
comprehension achievements. | en_US |
