THE EFFECT OF NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER TECHNIQUE ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING DESCRIPTIVE TEXT BY THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMAN 1PERCUT SEI TUAN.

THE EFFECT OF NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER TECHNIQUE
ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT IN READING DESCRIPTIVE
TEXT BY THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT
SMAN 1PERCUT SEI TUAN

A THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

By:

SANTA MUTIA MANIK
Reg Number: 2113321046

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2016

DECLARATION


Except where appropriately acknowledged, this thesis is my own work, it has
been expressed in my own word and has not been previously submitted for
assessment.
I understand that this paper may be screened electronically or otherwise for
plagiarism.

Medan,

May 2016

Santa Mutia Manik
Reg No. 2113321046

ABSTRACT
Manik, Santa Mutia. 2113321046. The Effect Of Numbered Heads Together
Technique On Students’ Achievement In Reading Descriptive Text By The
Tenth Grade Students At SMAN 1 Percut Sei Tuan. A Thesis. Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan. 2016
This study deals with the effect of Numbered Heads Together (NHT) Technique on
students’ achievement in reading descriptive text. The problem of the study is to find

out whether Numbered Head Together Technique significantly affects students’
achievement in reading descriptive text or not. This study was conducted by using
experimental design. The population of the study was the students of tenth grade of
SMAN 1 Percut Sei Tuan in the academic year 2014/2015, there were 4 parallel
classes of grade X. There were two classes selected to be sample. The Experimental
group (X-2) was taught by applying NHT Technique, while the Control group (X-3)
was taught by applying conventional technique. The data of the study was obtained
from the students’ scores of reading test. There were two kinds of test used in this
study. They were pre-test and post-test. The data were analyzed by applying t-test
formula. After analyzing the data, the result of the study showed that t-observed
(3.57) was higher than t-table (1.999) (t-observed > t-table) at the level of
significance of p=0.05 and the degree of freedom (df) = 58. It can be concluded that
applying NHT Technique significantly affects students’ achievement in reading
descriptive text, or in other words, the null hypothesis is rejected , therefore the
alternative hypothesis is accepted.

Key Words : Students’ Achievement, Reading Comprehension, Descriptive Text,
NHT Technique.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all, the writer would like to express her deepest gratitude goes
toAlmighty Lord Jesus Christ forhis uncountable blessing, never ending love,
strength and guidance to the writer during her study. It is just another blessing from
God to the writer so the writer can finish this final project, as the requirements to
obtain the S1 Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan at English Department, Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
In the process of doing this thesis, many people have given their participation
such as their support, motivation and many kind of things. Therefore, the writer
would like to express her gratitude and special thanks to :















Prof. Dr. Syawal Gultom. M.Pd., the Rector of State University of Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the Dean of Faculty of Languages and Arts.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the Head of English ad Literture
Department.
Dra. Meisuri, M.A., the Secretary of English Department..
Nora Ronita Dewi, S.S., M. Hum., the Head of English Education Study
Program.
Drs. Muhammad Natsir, M.Hum her Academic Advisor
Drs. Willem Saragih Dipl., Appl., M.Pd., her Thesis Consultant I
Indra Hartoyo,S.Pd., M.Hum., her Thesis Consultant II
Dra. Masitowarni Siregar, M.Ed., Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A., Ph.D and
Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum., her Thesis Reviewers.
All the Lecturers of English Department who have taught, guided, and
advised her throughout the academic years.
Eis Sri Wahyuningsih, M.Pd., the Administration Staff of English and

Literature Department for giving information in completing the thesis.
Muliadi, S.Pd., M.Si the Head Master of SMAN 1 Percut Sei Tuan, for his
supports to the writer so the writer could do the research.
Esimah Sipayung, S.Pd the English Teacher of SMAN 1 Percut Sei Tuan for
the support and guidance along the research.

ii











Her gorgeous parents Elson Manik and Merti Situmeang, for giving
everything I need, support, prayers and all the advices especially in the time of

completing this thesis. Thanks for unconditionally love and this thesis
dedicated for her parents.
Her dearest sisters Natalia Febrina Manik, Kristi Adelita Manik and her
youngest brother Fajar Deardo Manik.
Her uncle and aunt Drs. Saur Situmeang, M.Pd and Sumasni Sinurat,
S.Sos., her grandmother Rosta Simatupang for giving support and many
advices during the study period in the university. And also for my family who
cannot be mentioned one by one.
All of her friends from Extention C 2011 for the togetherness throughout the
four years and also her friends in PPLTSMAN 1 Parapat.
Her struggle friends Sarah, Nomita, Ratna, Putra, Jetti and Tutwuri who
always support to explain about thesis and her close friends Benedicta
Saragih and Desra Purba for giving support and pray from the distance.
Her brother and partner Permadi Pasaribu for our togetherness throughout
this year, laugh, tears, for sharing everything and for sparing the time to
handle everything I need.
Her lovely friends (Weirds) Putri Ester Tarigan and Sylvia Suzanna Br
Peranginangin for our togetherness throughout the five years, for being my
sisters in this big city and for your help to pass all my troubles in completing
the thesis. I am waiting you come to my home. Love you girls.

The writer realizes that, this thesis still has the paucity, she warmly welcomes

any suggestions and advices that will improve the quality of this thesis. She hopes
that this thesis will be useful for those who read it and feel interested in the field of
this study.

Medan, Juni 2016
The Writer,

Santa Mutia Manik
RegNo. 2113321046

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pages
ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. vii
LIST OF APPENDICIES ....................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study ................................................................... 1
B. The Problem of the Study ......................................................................... 4
C. The Objective of the Study ....................................................................... 4
D. The Scope of the Study............................................................................. 4
E. The Significance of the Study................................................................... 4
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Theoretical framework ............................................................................. 6
1. Reading ............................................................................................... 6
2. The Purpose of Reading ....................................................................... 7
3. Reading comprehension ....................................................................... 9
a. Students’ achievement in reading comprehension ........................... 9
b. Factors affecting reading comprehension ........................................ 10
c. Levels of reading comprehension.................................................... 11
4. Cooperative learning ............................................................................ 14
a. Numbered Head Together (NHT)................................................... 15

1) The Steps of Numbered Heads Together Technique .................. 16
2) The Advantages of Numbered Heads Together.......................... 17
3) The Disadvantages of Numbered Heads Togehter ..................... 18
b. Genre of the Text .......................................................................... 18
1) Types of Genre ........................................................................ 18
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2) Descriptive Text ...................................................................... 20
B. Relevant Studies ....................................................................................... 23
C. Conceptual Framework ............................................................................ 24
D. Hypothesis ............................................................................................... 26
CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A. Research Design ....................................................................................... 27
B. Population and Sample ............................................................................. 28
1. The Population .................................................................................... 28
2. The Sample .......................................................................................... 28
C. The Instrument for Collecting Data .......................................................... 29
D. The Procedure of the Research ................................................................. 30
1. Pre-test ................................................................................................ 30
2. Treatment ............................................................................................ 30

a. Teaching Presentation for Experimental Group .............................. 31
3. Post-test ............................................................................................... 33
E. Scoring the Test ....................................................................................... 33
F. Validity and Reability .............................................................................. 33
1. Validity of the Test .............................................................................. 33
2. Reability of the Test............................................................................. 34
G. Technique for Analyzing theData ............................................................. 35
CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH FINDING
A. The Data .................................................................................................. 37
B. Data Analysis .......................................................................................... 38
1. Reliability of the Test .......................................................................... 38
2. Data Analysis by Using t-test Formula................................................. 40
C. Testing Hypothesis ................................................................................... 41
D. Research Finding ..................................................................................... 41
E. Discussion ................................................................................................ 42
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
v

A. Conclusion ............................................................................................... 44
B. Suggestion................................................................................................ 44

REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 46
APPENDIX

................................................................................................... 48

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Pages
Table 2.1. The Example of Descriptive Text .............................................................22
Table 3.1. The Design of the Research ......................................................................27
Table 3.2. Table of Spesification ...............................................................................30
Table 3.3. Teaching Procedure of Experimental Group (NHT Technique)...............32
Table 4.1. The Results of t-test Calculation...............................................................41

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Pages
APPENDIX A. The Reliability oh the Test ...............................................................48
APPENDIX B. The Result Score of The Experimental Group .................................41
The Result Score of The Control Group ..........................................53
APPENDIX C. The total score of pre-test and post-test of Experimental group......55
The total score of pre-test and post-test of Control group ...............57
APPENDIX D. The Calculation of the test...............................................................59
APPENDIX E. Percentage Points of the t-distribution............................................60
APPENDIX F. Reading Comprehension Test .........................................................61
APPENDIX G. Lesson Plan......................................................................................72

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. The Background of the Study
English is very important and related to various aspects of life of human
beings. English has become a global language. Realizing that many reference
materials are written in English
and how important this language is, reading becomes one of the most
important skills to be acquired during a language course. Grabe and Stoller (2002:
1) explain that without reading, the opportunities for improving one’s life are
limited.
In teaching reading the teacher should realize that the goal of reading
process is comprehension. Westwood (2008: 31) defines that reading
comprehension is an active thinking process through which a reader intentionally
constructs meaning to form a deeper understanding of concepts and information
presented in a text. In fact reading is not as easy as people think. Teaching reading
nowadays is directly faced to some problems. When students read, they do not
have the ability of drawing meaning from the text and interpret the information
appropriately. Many students faced to some problems to comprehend reading text.
Without comprehension, reading would be empty and meaningless.
Nowadays, in teaching reading the teacher usually orients to the students’
vocabulary and pronunciation. This activity does not give any opportunity to
comprehend a text or it cannot give contribution to make the students read text
effectively. In addition, reading has many kinds of text such as narrative,

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descriptive, recount, report, and procedure. In this research, the writer chooses
descriptive text which is purposed to describe thing, person, or place. Based on
the writer’s experience in Teaching Practice (PPL), the writer found that the
students’ scores in reading descriptive text were very low because during teaching
reading , most of students were just asked to read the reading text, translate it into
Indonesian and discuss the content and finally they were asked to answer some
questions based on the text. Most of them had difficulties in searching the
meaning of the text. And when the writer gave them a picture and asked them to
explain that, the students failed in reading because they faced some difficulties ,
such as lack structure and lack of vocabulary.
Based on the writer’s observation in SMAN 1 Percut Sei Tuan, by
interviewing the teacher and some students, it is concluded that the students still
had insufficient skill in reading and got many difficulties in comprehending a
descriptive text. Students are not able to convey the ideas clearly and fluently.
They do not have any idea at all when confronted on one topic to be described
because they lack of vocabulary and poor structure. Besides, after looking at the
students’ English scores for the mid semester in academic year 2014/2015 of
grade X, the writer found that there was only 35% (14 students) who scored 75
point from the total number of students (40 students). The Minimum Criteria
Mastery (KKM) is 75.
These problems are caused by the teacher’s technique which is used in
teaching process unattract the students’ interest and liveliness in the learning
process. Most of teachers of English still use conventional technique in teaching

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reading. The conventional technique is regularly done by giving questions to the
students and which the answers are contained in the passage. Consequently, the
students are not interested and bored in reading. These problems should be solved
by the teacher because it will give negative impact on the students’ ability and
motivation to achieve the reading target. Sadoski (2004: 26) concludes that if the
students have a motivation in reading, they will be interested to read and to
respond effectively.
Thus, the teacher should consider an effective technique as a solution to
improve the students’ achievement in reading. The solution is by using
cooperative learning. Cooperative learning refers to a variety of teaching
techniques in which students work in small groups to help another learn academic
content. The writer focuses on Numbered Head Together (NHT) Technique to
solve the problem above. There is a previous reseacher who conducted research
using this technique. Nathasa (2012) applied NHT on teaching writing descriptive
text. She says that this technique significantly improves the students’ achievement
in writing descriptive text. Teaching writing descriptive text and teaching reading
descriptive text have different skills in teaching learning process. Sheri (2012)
defines that receptive skills include understanding when you listen and when you
read, you receive the language and decode the meaning to understand the
message. Productive skills are speaking and writing. You use the language that
you have acquired and produce a message through speech or written text that you
want others to understand. That is why the researcher wants to apply this
technique in teaching reading descriptive text to find out whether Numbered

4

Heads Together Technique also significantly affects students’ achievement in
reading descriptive text.

B. The Problem of the Study
Based on the background of the study, the research problem is formulated
as follows: “Does Numbered Head Together technique significantly affect
students’ achievement in reading descriptive text ?”

C. The Objective of the study
In relation to the research problem, the objective of the research is to
investigate the effect of NHT Technique on the students’ achievement in reading
descriptive text.

D. The Scope of the study
The Scope of this study is limited on investigating the tenth grade students
of SMAN I Percut Sei Tuan in second semester. This study focused on students’
achievement in reading descriptive text by applying Numbered Heads Together
Technnique.

E. The Significance of the Study
The findings of this study are expected to be useful
Theoretically for :
1. The readers who are interested in conducting further study related to the
improvement in reading descriptive text through Numbered Heads
Together .

5

Pratically for :
2. The teachers to be creative in applying various techniques so that the
students are interested in reading descriptive text.
3. Students to overcome the problem in reading and to improve their ability
in reading descriptive text after they apply Numbered Heads Together

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

A.

Conclusion
Based on the result of the data analysis and discussion, the researcher

concludes that use of NHT Technique affects the students’ achievement in reading
descriptive text, since the score of the students who were taught by using NHT
Technique is higher than that using Conventional Technique. Therefore, the
formulated hypothesis “The students’ achievement taught by using NHT
Technique in reading descriptive text is higher than those taught by Conventional
Technique” is accepted. This shows by applying NHT Technique significantly
affects students’ achievement in reading descriptive text This is approved by the
data analysis results in which the tobserved (3.57) is higher than ttable (1.99) at the
level of significance (P) 0.05.

B.

Suggestion
Based on the conclusion above, the researcher gives some suggestions for

those who are interested in teaching reading as follows:
1. English teachers are suggested to use NHT Technique in their teaching
learning process, especially in teaching reading descriptive text because
it can help student understand and get the meaning of the material more
easily in which by using NHT the students work in group to discuss and
solve the problem which is given in the text.

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2. Other researchers, who want to study more about NHT Technique, this
research could be advisable reference in conducting similar language
skills reading with different genre.

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