THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE STUDENTS’ KNOWLEDGE OF SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE AND THEIR ABILITY IN READING COMPREHENSION AT THE EIGHTH YEAR STUDENTS OF SMPN 1 PALIMANAN KABUPATEN CIREBON

AMIMA : The Correlation Between the Students’ Knowledge of Simple Present Tense and Their Ability in Reading Comprehension at the Eighth Year Students of SMPN 1 Palimanan. English is used more as an international language for communication and it is learnt by many people in the world. People, especially the students have to learn English, because of some reasons. In its curriculum, it is one of the main school subjects that have to be learnt by all students from elementary school to university. In the process of teaching and learning English, the one important thing is how a teacher carries out the English instruction includes in teaching grammar, especially about the simple present tense and reading comprehension. In this case, the many students have difficulty in doing grammar, many of those who do not understand the grammar structure pattern, especially those in the simple present tense and the ability with reading comprehension. The aims of research done by the writer in this thesis are to find out the students knowledge of simple present tense, to find out the students‟ ability in reading comprehension, to find out if there is correlation between the students‟ knowledge of simple present tense and their ability in reading comprehension at the eighth year students of SMPN 1 Palimanan. The techniques of collecting data used by the writer is test. In doing research, the writer uses quantitative approach. It means that the data being obtained are presented by numbers and then interpreted by using statistical analysis. By analyzing the data, the writer concludes that the mean score of the students‟ knowledge of simple present tense is 6.70 (a good score), and the mean score of the students‟ ability in reading comprehension is 6.27 (a sufficient score). And there is a positive and significant correlation of X variable and Y variable. It is caused by the calculation of t test is 4.19 and it is bigger than t table of 5 %b is 2.021 (4.19 > 2.021). It means that the research hypothesis is acceptable. Based on the test of hypothesis that is done the writer got “t” value 4.19. it is bigger than from t table. Degree of freedom (df) = N-2, df = 44-2 = 42, so that got t table 2.021, therefore t count > t table 4.19 > 2.021, it means that there is positive and significant correlation between the students‟ knowledge of simple present tense and their ability in reading comprehension at the eighth year students of SMPN 1 Palimana