APPLYING VISUAL ART (PICTURE) TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT SMP NEGERI 21 MAKASSAR

ABSTRACT Harisnawati. 2017. Applying Visual Art (Picture) To Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension of Eighth Years Students’ at SMP Negeri 3 Makassar. A Thesis. English Department, Faculty of Languages and Literature, State University of Makassar (supervised by Mansur Akil and Munir). This research aimed at finding out to what extent the application of visual art (picture) improve reading comprehension of the eighth year students of SMP Negeri 21 Makassar. In order to achieve the objective of this research, this research used a pre-experimental design. The population of this research was the eighth year students of SMP Negeri 21 Makassar in academic year 20017/2018 covering classes with the total number of students is 270. The researcher used cluster random sampling technique; the sample was class VIII-A which consisted of 20 students. The reason for taking these classes as the sample is based on suggestion and recommendation of the English teacher of SMPN 21 Makassar that the class has higher motivation in learning reading comprehension, yet they lack of using their reading comprehension as well. The data were collected through the pre-test and post-test. The experimental class was taught by using Visual Art (picture). The data were analyzed using SPSS. The result of pre-test and post-test showed there is a significant improvement. It was proven by the mean score of the students’ experimental post-test (81.75) is higher than the mean score of the students pre-test was (43) and T-test value of post test is 0.02 which was smaller than (α) = 0.05. Therefore it is concluded that Applying Visual Art (picture) to Improve Students Reading Comprehension of eighth grade student at SMP Negeri 21 Makassar