A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON READING COMPREHENSION ABILITIES OF THE SECOND YEAR OF SMUN 2 TUBAN IN THE 1999 / 2000 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

The Basic Course Outline of the Teaching Program of the 1994 English curriculum states that the teaching of English covers reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills that should be taught integratedly with the main focus on the reading skill. The general problem of this research is " To what extent are the second year students' reading comprehension abilities at SMU Negeri 2 Tuban in the 1999 / 2000 academic year?". The number of respondents was one class (37 students) or 15,6 % of the population, The primary data were collected by using reading comprehension test. The supporting data were collected from interview and documentation. The collected primary data were analyzed statistically by using the percentage formula. The results showed that on the average, the second year students' reading comprehension abilities was 69,72 % or more than enough; their literal reading comprehension abilities were 81,35 % or good, and their inferential reading comprehension abilities were 58,10 % or enough. The results suggest that the students' literal reading comprehension abilities were better than their inferential reading comprehension abilities. lt means that they still bad problems with inferential reading comprehension questions, therefore, this skill need to be improve.