A thesis improving students’ reading comprehension through Think-pair-square (A Classroom Action Research Conducted at the Tenth Grade of SMA N 1 Gondang in the Submitted to the Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sebelas Maret University to fulfil

Oleh :
Astika Lusiana Afriyanti - X2207031 - Fak. KIP

This thesis is to find out whether the use of think-pair-square improves the students’ reading comprehension and to identify what happen to the class when think-pair-square is implemented in teaching reading of the tenth grade students of SMA NEGERI 1 Gondang in the academic year of 2010/2011. Related to the purposes of the study, the research design used in this study was action research. The subject of the study was the students of class XE of SMA Negeri 1 Gondang in the academic year of 2010/2011. There were 35 students as the subject. The action research was conducted in two cycles from April 4th until May 5th 2011. The research data are collected by using techniques of observation, interview, field note, photographs, and tests (pre-test and posttest). The result of the action showed that after the researcher conducted the actions, the students’ reading comprehension improved as shown in the result of both the observation on the students activity during the actions and their pre-test and post-test mean scores. The improvement of the students’ reading comprehension includes 1) the students could identify and catch the main idea of text; 2) the students could determine the specific information, either implicitly or explicitly; 3) the students could analyze the generic structure of texts; 4) the students could infer and grasp meaning or words; 5) the students could determine references. The class became enjoyable and interesting, the students more active, cooperative, and communicative in teaching and learning process. From the reading comprehension test, the students’ pre-test mean score was 4.7, increasing to 6.5 in the first post-test and increasing to 7.3 in the final post-test. Therefore, it can be concluded that teaching reading by using think-pairsquare can improve the students’ reading comprehension. Think-pair-square can be applied in teaching learning process. Hopefully, by applying think-pair-square, the students can achieve the optimum reading comprehension. The researcher hopes that what the researcher had done will give the English teachers inspiration to conduct think-pair-square in their classroom.