Background of the Study

to improve the result of teaching reading. By using interaction-based activities in the classroom, the problems can be solved.

B. Identification of the Problems

Based on the co-observation, there were some problems in the reading teaching and learning process of grade VIII A students at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta. 1 Many of the students had low reading comprehension ability. The students did not have good reading comprehension skills such as recognizing grammatical word classes, getting the meanings of the words, and using reading techniques and strategies. To get the meaning of the unfamiliar words, they tended to rely on their teacher translation and the dictionary. They also had difficulties in answering some questions related to the text even some of them did not understand the main idea of the text because they had low mastery of vocabulary. 2 There were no interactions between the teacher and the students In the teaching and learning process, the teacher just gave them the text and asked them to answer the questions of the text. The teacher let the students do what they wanted instead of paying attention to her. This made the students bored and lazy to participate in the teaching and learning process, so they were usually busy with their own activities such as chatting with their friends, drawing something in their book, or reading another book like novels. It looked like the teacher and the students do what they wanted to do instead of learning about English in the right way. From the puzzling situation above, it is necessary to find the ways to overcome the problems to improve the quality of teaching and learning process.

C. Limitation of the Problem

From the identification, there are many problems found in teaching and learning process especially in reading class. However, in order to make the research study feasible to carry out, more specific problems were needed to condense plenty of the riddles found in the classroom. The main problem were no interactions in the classroom activities. Furthermore, the interaction-based activities is effective activity to improve the students’ reading comprehension. Based on these reasons, a research study was conducted by focusing on improving the reading comprehension of grade VIII A students at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta. Interaction-based activities is expected as the relevant solution to solve the problems.

D. Formulation of the Problem

The problem of the research study is formulated as follows: How can interaction-based activities improve the reading comprehension of grade VIII A students at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta in the academic year 20132014?

E. The Objective of the Study

This research study is aimed at improving the reading comprehension of grade VIII A students at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta in the academic year 20132014 through interaction-based activities.

F. Significances of the Study

The research study using interaction-based activities to improve the students’ reading comprehension is expected to give some theoretical and practical significances for the following parties:

1. Theoretical Significances

Theoretically, this research study provides beneficial and referential contributions of the way to improve the students’ reading comprehension through interaction-based activities.

2. Practical Significances

This research study has practical significance for: a. The researcher’s personal improvement in conducting his role as a teacher, b. the English teacher and the colleague development as the research collaborators, c. the improvements of grade VIII A students at SMPN 6 Yogyakarta as the research subjects, and d. SMPN 6 Yogyakarta where this research study took place. 7

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

A. Review of Related Theories

1. The Nature of Reading

a. Definition of Reading

There have been discussions about reading definitions among the experts. Johnson 2008:3 defines reading as an activity of using texts to get comprehension and the meaning of the texts. Nuttal 1987 defines the reading is the activity of understanding the meaning of text through interpreting in some purposes. To comprehend the texts, readers extract the information from the printed texts and make use their skills as well Grellet, 1981, in Hedgecock 2009:15; Urquhart Weir, 1998 in Grabe, 2006:13. From the nature of its activity, reading is considered as an interactive activity. It describes a dynamic relationship between texts and the readers Hedge, 2007:188. The readers strive to make sense of it. The term ‘interactive’ also refers to the interplay among various kinds of knowledge that the readers employs in comprehending text. Furthermore, Birch 2002:4 considers reading as an interactive activity in three ways: 1 The different processing strategies, both top and bottom, along with the knowledge base, interact with each other to accomplish the reading. 2 The readers’ mind interacts with the written text so that the readers can understand the message 3 The readers’ interacts indirectly with the writer of the text across time and space because it is the writer who is communicating the information to the readers, but it the readers who must grasp the information from the writer.