An Analysis of The Third Year Students’ Ability at English Departement of Bung Hatta University Padang to Comprehend a Recount Text.

Abstrak

Reading is one of four basic languages  skills that should be mastered by someone who learns a language. According to Hornby (2005), reading is defined as the activity of somebody who reads.  Reading is the window of the world. It is necessity not only for the students or the people in formal education, but also for all the people in all ages, status, professions.

The aim of this research was to find out the ability of the third year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University to comprehend a recount text. The population of this research was the third year students at English Department of Bung Hatta University. The number of sample was 32 students. It was choosen by using total sampling technique because the number of population was less than 100. The instrument used to get the data was reading test. The researcher found reliable index of the test was .99 It means that the test was reliable.

The result of the data analysis showed that the ability of the third year students to comprehend the recount text at Bung Hatta University was moderate (68.75%). Specifically, the ability of the students to comprehend orientation of recount text was moderate (87.5%). The ability of the students to comprehend events of recount text was moderate (62.5%), and the ability of the students to comprehend reorientation was moderate (71.87%) .

Based on the findings above, the researcher concluded that the third year students’ ability to comprehend recount text was moderate. Based on this conclusion it is suggested that the lecturers find and implement the more effective techniques of teaching reading and give more exercises to the students. Besides, the students are suggested to improve their ability by doing more exercises relating to the generic structure of recount text.

Keywords : reading, Narative Text, comprehension questions