IMPROVING THE XI-MIA STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF NARRATIVE TEXTS ADAPTED FROM THE INTERNET AT SMAN RAMBIPUJI JEMBER

Abstract

English is used in all aspects of life including education. English is used as a medium to explore science and technology in educational field. Today English has affected many sectors in the world, ranging from social, culture, economic and science. For example, in science, most of the previous discoveries are written in English. It deals with the position of English as international language. Thus, the next scientist must be able to use English to learn about the previous discoveries and communicate with other scientists from other country to find the discoveries in the future. Therefore, the need to master English well to compete in the international sector is required. People need to study English intensively to master the English well. In Indonesia, English is taught as a compulsory subject in Junior and Senior high schools. This classroom action research was intended to increase the eleven grade students’ reading comprehension achievement and active participation by using materials of narrative text adapted from the internet at SMA Negeri Rambipuji Jember in April 2014/2015 academic year. According to the English teacher’s explanation, the students had difficulties in comprehending the words, sentences, paragraphs, and the whole text. The problem is the students not always understand the word meaning. This information was strengthened by the result of the pre-test given to XI-MIA 3, which showed there were only 16 out of 35 students had obtained the passing grade of English subject that was 70, while other 19 students got below the score requirement. Second, the students had less motivation in reading class in teaching learning process. According to the information from the English teacher, students’ active participation in teaching learning process was only 41% of 35 students. Materials taken from the Internet were commonly used in teaching learning process. In addition, nowadays, technology is very close to our live. It can be concluded that the materials from internet especially in reading totally give much beneficial effects for the students who learn English as a foreign language. The strengths of reading materials from the internet are: accessible, variety of media, up-to-date information access, navigation, and low cost. This research was done collaboratively with the English teacher. This research was done in one cycle. The cycle covered four activities, they were planning the action, implementing the action, class observation and evaluation, and reflection of the action. The cycle was conducted in two meetings. The supporting data were from interview with the English teacher and the observation. The mean score of the students’ reading comprehension achievement test was 79.22. Then, the percentage of the students’ active participation was 80%. It means that the students’ reading comprehension achieved the minimum target that was 70 as minimum target for the average score of students’ reading comprehension achievement and active participation. In summary, the use of reading material adapted from the Internet was able to help the students to improve their active participation in the reading teaching learning process as well as their reading comprehension achievement.