TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION USING COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH AT THE
SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF SMP ISLAM CIPANAS CIANJUR
SITI RUKOYAH
sweety@yahoo.com
English Education Study Program Language and Arts DepartementSekolah Tinggi Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan
(STKIP) Siliwangi Bandung
ABSTRACT
The objective of this research entitled “Teaching reading comprehension using communicative approach at the
seventh grade students of SMP Islam YAPIP Cipanas Cianjur” was to find out whether or not communicative
approach method can increase the students reading ability. This research applied a quantitative method and one
group pretest–posttest design. The population of this research was 30 students of the class at SMP Islam YAPIP
Cipanas Cianjur in academic year 2012-2013 and the sample was entire population. The instrument used in this
research were reading test. The data of this research was collected by giving reading test to the students sample.
The collected data were analyzed using t test formula. The results of data analysis showed that: mean score of
pretest was 20,1, mean score of posttest was 23,3, the t observed was 5,24 and the t critical values with degree of
freedom (df ) 29 and significant level at 5% was 2,05. Based on the data analysis, the alternative hypothesis of
this research was accepted, because the t observed was bigger than t table (5,24>2,05). It also meant that the
teaching reading comprehension using communicative approach was effective to increase students reading
ability.
Key words : Teaching reading comprehension using communicative approach
approach and students achievement in reading with a
conventional method.
A. BACKGROUND
English is a compulsory subject along with the
others. Using English as communication tool, it
means that the teaching and learning activities should
be focused on language elements (Vocabulary,
structure and Pronunciation) in their classroom
activities.
Reading is one of the Language Competences, where
generally there are four language competences;
listening, speaking, reading and writing. The writer is
interested in this field and wishes to try to analyze
about students’ achievement in reading skill.
According to Moyle (1987:7) Reading is the most
complex process involving the use of many skills and
abilities but one of these abilities, namely language
facility reserves a special attention. If reading is to be
meaningful and enjoyable then we must be certain
that the words which the student is called upon to
read are words within his own vocabulary.
The students still are not very interested in reading,
so the writer tries to find out the appropriate ways to
increase the students reading text ability. Many kinds
of methods and approaches are used in teaching
reading, such as communicative approach and
grammar translation method, but in this case the
writer emphasize on the use communicative approach
and compared the result of students’ achievement in
teaching of reading by using the communicative
B. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.Definition of Teaching
According to brown, (2000:7) “ Teaching is showing
or helping someane to learn how to do something,
providing with knowledge, cousing know or
understand.”
2. Definition of Reading
According to Moyle (1968:25) “ Reading is one of
the strategies employed to encourage the readers with
the expectancy to anticipate the author’s thoughts”
3. definition of Teaching Teading
Teaching reading can be an orduous task as it
often difficult to know how to improve student’s
skill. One of the most obvious , but i have found
often unniticed, points about reading is that there
are different type of reading skill.
4. Communicative Approach
According to Haycraft (1978:65) “Communicative
Approach is an approach to foreign or second
language teaching which emphasizes that the goal of
language learning is communicative competence”
According to haycraft (1978:65) “Communicative
competences is an ability not only to applied the
grammatical rules of a language in order to from
grammatically correct sentence, but also to know
1
when and where to use these
whom.”
sentence and to
1. Description of Data
The table shows the results of the students scores
at pretest and posttest
C. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research Design
Research design which was used in this study one
group pre test and post test
In this design, the subject of the pre test and post test
were the same. The writer computed the average
score of pretest and posttest to see whether this
technique gave significant result to increase of
students reading comprehension, then the average
score pre-test and post-test were compared. The
sceme of one group pre-test and post test design can
be seen as follows:
O1→ 𝑥 →O2 (Hatch & Farhady, 1982:115)
2. Research Method
This is a quantitative research, which relies data
based
on
computation
and
measurement.
“Quantitative research methods are used to examine
questions that can be answered by collecting
statistically analyzing data that are in numerical
form.”(Crowl, 1996:10). The data measured are in
the form of numbers.
The method of the research is pre-experiment. Preexperiment is the simplest form of research design. In
pre-experiment either a single groups are observed
subsequent to some agent or treatment presumed to
cause change. It was meant to find out the level of
significance of the treatment communicative
approach on students’ achievement in her research.
The test was given to the students twice, before
treatment and after treatment to measure the
influence or benefit of the treatment in teaching
reading.
The population may be all the individuals of a
particular type or more restricted part of that group.
The population in this study was the students of
seventh grade at SMP Islam YAPIP Cipanas Cianjur.
In the academic year 2012/2013 which was of one
classes and class consisted of 30 students.
No
Class
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Total
X
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
18
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
21
21
21
22
22
22
23
24
24
24
603
Y
21
21
21
21
21
21
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
23
23
23
24
24
24
24
24
24
24
25
25
25
26
27
27
27
699
D=
(X-Y)
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-4
-4
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-4
-4
-4
-4
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-3
-96
D2 =
(X-Y)2
9
9
9
9
9
9
16
16
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
16
16
16
16
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
9
312
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
Student
10
14
15
24
26
9
11
8
20
23
25
27
5
1
17
30
12
29
6
7
13
28
4
19
21
3
2
16
18
22
From the table above, we can see that the summation
of pre-test is 603 and the mean of pre-test is 20,1.
Meanwhile, the summation of post-test is 699 and the
mean of post-test is 23,3. The difference between the
scores of one person
is -96 and the squared
difference between the scores of one person is 312.
To find out the mean of differences (MD) between
variable X and Y, the writer used the formula:
D
N
 96
MD  
30
MD  -3,2
MD  
D. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this research, after the writer have done
observasition and research at SMP Islam YAPIP the
result score obtained from the pretest and posttest,
the writer took seventh grade for teaching reading
comprehension
The last calculation is determining the result of t
observation (to) of the test with formula:
2
to 
Introducti,on to Research Method. Australia:
Longman Ltd
MD
SE MD
 3,2
0,61
to  5,24
To determine if the t value is statistically significant,
it is first necessary to determine how many df there
are. The writer calculated the df as follow
to 
Crowl, Thomas K. (1996). Fundamentals of
Educational Research, Second edition. The
college of staten island: City university of New
York.
df  N  1
Haycraft, John. (1978). An Introduction to English
Language Teaching. USA: Longman Ltd.
df  30  1
df  29
Moyle, D. (1968) The Teaching of Reading. USA:
Word lock Education
E. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, H. Douglash. (1987). Principles of
Language Learning and Teaching.New jersey:
Prentice Hall. Burn. Robert B. (1991).
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