STUDY ON CORRELATION BETWEEN SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ MASTERY IN PAST TENSE AND THEIR ABILITY TO COMPREHEND NARRATIVE TEXT AT SMPN 31 PADANG

Abstrak

This research was aimed at finding out the correlation between mastery in past tense to the ability to comprehend narrative text at SMPN 31 Padang. Population of this research was second year students at SMPN 31Padang. The members of population were 157 students. The researcher took a class as the class sample by using cluster random sampling and all the member of the class became the sample of this research. The class selected as sample class was VIII.5, and the sample members were 30 students. The hypothesis in this research was there is a significant correlation between second year students’ mastery in past tense and their ability to comprehend narrative text at SMPN 31 Padang. To test the hypothesis, a statistical analysis was used. In collecting the data, the researcher used the multiple choice test to measure both grammar mastery and reading comprehension. In analyzing the data, the researcher used Pearson’s coefficient correlation to known the correlation between past tense mastery and reading comprehension ability by using SPSS program ver. 15 for windows. After analyzing the data, the researcher found that, the value of coefficient correlation was 0.404 and it was significant correlation. The coefficient correlation was categorized as having low correlation. It means past tense had low influenced toward comprehending narrative text. In other word, the increasing score on past tense connected with an increase score in comprehending narrative text. Dealing with the conclusion of this research the researcher has suggestion for the teacher should consider the complexity of grammar of text in relation to the students’ grammar mastery. In order to improve the students’ reading ability, they should make efforts to increase their mastery in grammar since complexity of texts is partially caused by the grammatical structure used to construct the texts.