THE EFFECT OF USING PICTURE SERIES ON READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMPN SUKORAMBI IN THE 2011/2012 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

This Experimental Research was intended to investigate whether or not there is a significant effect of using picture series on reading comprehension achievement of the eighth grade students at SMPN Sukorambi Jember in the 2011/2012 Academic Year. Specifically, this research also identifies the variables of reading comprehension as the supporting information such as, word comprehension, phrase comprehension, sentence comprehension, paragraph comprehension and text comprehension. The research participants were the eighth class students that were determined purposively by consulting to the eight grade English teacher. The area of this research, SMPN Sukorambi Jember, was chosen purposively because the use of picture series has never been applied in teaching learning process reading comprehension in this school. The primary data of this research were collected from the students‟ score of reading comprehension test. Meanwhile, documentation and interview with the English teacher were used to get the supporting data. The primary data were analyzed by using t-test sampling formula with 5% significant level. The results of statistical computation of reading comprehension achievement in general indicated that the statistical value of t-test was higher than that of t-table (3.59 > 2.00), and the degree of freedom (df) was 86 (60 is the nearest range). It meant that the null hypothesis was rejected, while the alternate hypothesis was accepted. Then, the result of Degree of Relative Effectiveness (DRE) was 9.73%. It meant that the degree of relative effectiveness of using picture series in teaching reading comprehension was 9.73% more effective than teaching reading without media picture series. Specifically, the results of the computation of word comprehension achievement, phrase comprehension achievement, and text comprehension achievement indicated that the statistical value of t-test was higher than that of t-table; word comprehension achievement (2.11 > 2.00), phrase comprehension achievement (2.91 > 2.00) and text comprehension achievement (2.33 > 2.00) for Df 86. It meant that the null hypothesis was rejected, while the alternate hypothesis was accepted. It means that “there is a significant effect of using picture series on the eighth level students‟ reading comprehension achievement at SMPN Sukorambi Jember”. But, on the sentence comprehension and paragraph comprehension the value of t- test was lower than t- table with the significant level of 5%, sentence comprehension (1.25 < 2.00) and paragraph comprehension (1.57 < 2.00) with Df 86. Based on the results, the null hypothesis (ho) was accepted and the alternate hypothesis was rejected. It means that “there is no significant effect of using picture series in students‟ sentence comprehension achievement and paragraph comprehension achievement on eighth level of SMPN Sukorambi Jember”. As supporting information, it can be said that the results of sentence comprehension and paragraph comprehension in this research contradict with the theoretical framework of picture series which picture series is easy to identify general information. In conclusion, it can be concluded that the use of picture series can improve the students‟ reading achievement. Therefore, the English teachers should use picture series as a media in teaching reading comprehension. For the future researchers, this research results is needed to be a useful reference to do a further research with the same topic in different designs.