THE USE OF AUTHENTIC READING MATERIALS TO IMPROVE THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT SMP ISLAM WALISONGO MAYANG

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve class VII-D students’ participation and their reading comprehension achievement by using authentic reading materials at SMPI Walisongo Mayang. This class was chosen because the students in that class had difficulties in learning reading. Additionally, based on the result of the preliminary study done before conducting this research, only 10 students (28.57% of the students) got the score of 75 or higher while 25 students (71.42% of the students) got the reading score less than 75. According to the English teacher, only some students were active during the reading class. In this research, the researcher used authentic reading materials in teaching reading to the students because the researcher believed that authentic reading materials could improve the seventh grade students’ reading comprehension achievement score. According to Tella (2002:73) authentic texts can be motivating because the language used is for real life purpose. In this research, the researcher used the reading materials from brochures, newspapers and magazines. It was intended to help the students to improve their reading comprehension achievement. This research was conducted on February 2nd - February 17th, 2016. The action was done in one cycle, the cycle was done in two meetings and the reading comprehension achievement test was done in the third meeting. In this classroom action research, the researcher taught reading by using authentic reading material to the students in two meetings and did the observation collaboratively with the English teacher during the teaching learning process of reading.