IMPROVING THE TENTH YEAR STUDENTS’ ACTIVE PARTICIPATION AND READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING PICTURES IN SERIES AT SMAN RAMBIPUJI, JEMBER

Abstract

This classroom action research was conducted to improve the tenth year students’ active participation and reading comprehension achievement by using pictures in series at SMAN Rambipuji, Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year. The subjects of this research were the students of class X2 chosen using purposive method. Based on the preliminary study it was known that class X2 had problem in reading. It was proven by the score of reading comprehension in daily test. The mean score of their reading test was 70 and there were only 15 students (45%) of 33 students who got 75 or higher. Further, they also lacked motivation. Based on the observation in the classroom, the students seemed to be unhappy and bored when the teacher asked them to read the text. For those reasons, the researcher and the English teacher collaboratively conducted this research to overcome the problems by using pictures in series in teaching reading of narrative text. The primary data of this research were collected by doing observation and administering a reading comprehension test. The collected data were analyzed statistically. The actions were implemented in two cycles in order to achieve the criteria of success of this classroom action research. The result of observation in two meetings of cycle 1 showed that 69.86% of the students joining the classroom actively participated in the teaching and learning process. It did not achieve the research target yet, 75% or more of students joining the class actively participated in the teaching and learning process. In addition, the result of the reading comprehension test in cycle 1 did not achieve the research target too that was the mean score at least 75 and it was achieved by at least 75% of the students. The mean score of the students’ reading comprehension test in cycle 1 was 75.03. However, the percentage of the students who got score at least 75 was only 69.69%. Therefore, Cycle 2 was conducted by revising the weaknesses found in cycle 1. The results of the actions in cycle 2 showed improvement. The students’ active participation improved from 69.86% in cycle 1 to 81.49% in cycle 2. The mean score of the students reading’ comprehension achievement test improved from 75.03 in cycle 1 to 79.39 in cycle 2. The percentage of the students who got score 75 or higher also improved from 69.69% in cycle 1 to 78.78% in cycle 2. Thus, all research targets had been achieved in Cycle 2. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the use of pictures in series could improve the tenth year students’ active participation and reading comprehension achievement of narrative text at SMAN Rambipuji, Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year. Thus, the English teacher is suggested to use pictures in series as the media in teaching reading of narrative text and the students should be actively involved in the process. Further, future researchers are also suggested to use the findings of this research as a reference or source to conduct further research dealing with the use of pictures in series in teaching reading with some innovation and creativity.