THE EFFECT OF USING WEBBING TECHNIQUE ON GRADE-8 STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT SMP NEGERI 5 TANGGUL JEMBER
Abstract
English  as  the  foreign  language  in  Indonesia  is  considered  as  a  compulsory 
subject for Junior High School and Senior High School  students. Based on the 2006 
Institutional  Level  Curriculum  of  Grade-8  students  of  SMP,  there  are  four  language 
skills that should be mastered, namely reading, listening, writing, speaking skill, and 
there are three language components namely vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. 
Reading  plays  important  roles  in  English  teaching  learning,  because  many 
references are written  in English. Generally,  Indonesian students still  have difficulty 
in comprehending reading texts. The students’ problems come from the  fact that the 
conventional technique they usually use  in  learning reading can not be used to solve 
or answer it. The students need to be effective reading. Therefore, the English teacher 
needs  to  select  an  appropriate  technique  which  helps  students  to  solve  their 
ineffectiveness in comprehending reading text.  
This  research  was  experimental  research.  The  aim  of  this  research  was  to 
know  whether  or  not  there  was  a  significant  effect  of  using  webbing  technique  on 
students reading comprehension achievement at SMP Negeri 5 Tanggul Jember. The 
area  of  this  research  was  SMP  Negeri  5  Tanggul  Jember.  This  school  was  chosen 
because  the  previous  researchers  have  never  used  webbing  technique  as  a  technique 
in this school. Besides, webbing technique has never been used as a teaching reading 
technique  in  English  teaching  learning  in  this  school  especially  in  teaching  reading comprehension. The population of this research was grade-8 students of SMP Negeri 
5 Tanggul Jember in the 2010/2011 academic year. The research respondents were 79 
students,  they  consisted  of  experimental  group  and  control  group.  The  experimental 
group  (VIIIB)  consisted  of  38  students  who  were  taught  reading  comprehension  by 
using  webbing  technique,  while  the  control  group  (VIIIA)  consisted  of  41  students 
who  were  taught  reading  comprehension  by  using  conventional  technique  question-
answer and lecturing. 
The primary data of this research were collected from students’ score of 
reading comprehension test while the supporting data were gained from the interview 
and documentation. The primary data were analyzed by using  independent sample t-
test. The result indicated that the use of webbing technique had a significant effect on 
reading  comprehension  achievement  of  the  grade-8  students  at  SMP  Negeri  5 
Tanggul  Jember  in  the  2010/1011  academic  year.  It  was  proven  by  the  value  of 
significant column of t-test table by using SPSS which was 0.001 it meant that 0.001< 
0.05. Thus, the formulated alternate hypothesis (Ha) “the use of webbing technique 
has  a  significant  effect  on  grade-8  students  reading  comprehension  achievement  at 
SMP Negeri 5 Tanggul Jember” was accepted. To know how far the effectiveness the 
researcher needs to analysis DRE (Degree Relative Effectiveness). The result showed 
that  DRE  was  13.12%.  It  means  that  the  effectiveness  of  webbing  technique  on 
students reading comprehension achievement was better 13.12% from the mean score 
of students reading comprehension that used conventional teaching technique. 
Therefore,  it  could  be  stated  that  the  use  of  webbing  technique  significantly 
affected  the  grade-8  students  reading  comprehension  achievement  at  SMP  Negeri  5 
Tanggul  Jember.  Based  on  the  result  of  this  research,  the  English  teacher  was 
suggested  also  to  use  and  apply  webbing  technique  in  teaching  reading  to  make 
students comprehend the reading narrative text efficiently, completely and accurately 
and  the  students  became  more  effective  readers.  Moreover,  the  future  researchers 
were  suggested  to  conduct  a  further  research  dealing  with  similar  topic  in  different 
research design, different skill or different reading material.
