A CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ READING INTEREST AND THEIR LEXICAL KNOWLEDGE OF COLLOCATIONS TOWARDS THEIR READING ABILITY

Abstrak

Abstract

The objective of this research is to identify a correlation between students’ reading interest and their lexical knowledge of collocations towards their reading ability. This study was particularly aimed at: 1. to identify students’ responses in reading interest, 2. to identify students’ lexical knowledge of collocations, 3. to describe students’ ability in reading and 4. to correlate if there is a significant correlation between students’ reading interest and their lexical knowledge of collocations towards their reading ability. The design of this research was correlational research. Population of this research was 88 students of second year students of English Department of Bung Hatta University. In choosing the sample, the writer used Cluster random sampling.

In relation to the objective, data to study were collected through questionnaire, lexical knowledge of collocations test and reading test. The questionnaire was used to find out the students’ response in reading interest. The lexical knowledge of collocations test was used to measure student’s knowledge in lexical collocations. The reading test was used to find out students’ ability in reading. Then the data are correlated by using the formula to find out a correlation or not.

The result of analyzing data of this study indicated a significant correlation between the students’ reading interest and their lexical knowledge of collocations towards their reading ability. More than half of the students (63.33%) had interest in reading. Then, 20% students had high knowledge in lexical knowledge of collocations, 66.67% students had moderate knowledge and 13.3 of students had low knowledge. In reading ability found that 33.33% students had high ability in reading, 36.67% students had moderate ability in reading and 30% students had low ability in reading.

Keywords: Reading interest, lexical knowledge of collocations, reading ability