Improving reading comprehension using descriptive text related to the local culture at the second grade of SMA Negeri 14 Bandar Lampung

Abstract

This research was aimed to find out whether there is significant difference after the implementation of descriptive text related to the local culture toward students’ reading comprehension and to investigate how the students’ appraisal after the implementation. Adapting quantitative approach, this research was conducted through one group pre-test and post-test design. The result showed that there was significant difference of students’ reading comprehension after they were taught through descriptive text related to the local culture concerning the gain of their score from the first to the second test. It could be seen from the computation that the significant value of the test were lower than alpha (0.00<0.05) while the t-value (9.342) was higher than t-table (2.0322). It was also revealed that students had a positive appraisal after the implementation. It could be seen from the computation that frequency of students above 70% with range frequency (70-100%) who had a high appraisal were 25 and the frequency of students under 55% with range frequency (1-54%) who had a low appraisal were 6. Most of the students accepted the implementation of descriptive text related to the local culture. Thus, local culture can be used as reading material in teaching and learning English. The students have a good score after implementation and they also enjoyed the activities and learning process of reading that has been provided.