concentrate on the task. Arnold and Brown, cited in Sengupta, state anxiety is quite posibly the affective factor that can hinder
students’ comprehension ability.
11
It interferes the reader’s working memory which is very important for processing and storing information.
Consequently, students are difficult to store and recall the information in their short-term memory.
Moreover, anxiety plays an important role in the second language acquisition. MacIntyre and Gardner, cited in Brown, state
that foreign language anxiety has a negative effect on the language learning process.
12
A study that had been done by Shameem Rafik- Galea and Zuhana Mohd. Zin in 2010 showed that there was a
significant correlation between anxiety and academic reading performance among 218 Malaysia first year students taking English as
a second language. I t indicated that the higher level of students’
anxiety, the lower their grades.
13
The finding seems to strengthen the researcher ’s assumption
that anxious students are having dificulties in dealing with some task in reading comprehension. In addition, anxiety appears because
students have poor ability such as lack of vocabulary, lack of background knowledge, etc. For instance, students feel worry about
misunderstanding the structures or worry about inferring meaning from its context, so they feel uncomfortable and unconfident that it
can stimulate the anxiety. This situation will reduce their concentration which means can influence their reading comprehension
performance.
11
Anupama Chakrabarti and Madhumala Sengupta, Second Language Anxiety and Its Effect on achievement In The Language, Vol 12 : 8 August 2012,
p.52
12
H. Douglas Brown, Principles of language learning and teaching, New York : Addison Wesley Longman, inc, 2000 p. 151
13
Zuhana Mohd. Zin and Shameem Rafik-Galea, Anxiety and Academic performance among Malay ESL learners, Journal of Pan-Asia Pasific
Association of Aplied Linguistics, 2010 Pp 41-58
Based on the explanation above, the researcher thinks that the
psychological order also has effect for students’ reading comprehension. Therefore, the researcher is interested to do a research
of relationship between students’ anxiety and their achievement in reading comprehension.
B. The Limitation of the Study
There are many factors that can influence students’ reading comprehension such as background experience, language ability,
thinking ability, and affection. Affection includes personal interst, motivation, attitude, beliefs, and feelings. However, the researcher
limits the study only on the affection which includes feeling in the aspect of anxiety; this is because anxiety seemingly has an important
role in the second language acquisition. In addition, the researcher also limits the reading text focusing on descriptive text.
C. The Formulation of the Study
The researcher formulates the research question as follow: “Is there any relationship between the anxiety and the achievement in
reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMPIT An- Nawawi Al-Bantani Bogor
?”
D. The Objective of the Study
The objective of the study is to find an empirical evidence whether or not
the students’ anxiety has any relationship with their achievement in reading comprehension.
E. The Significance of The study
The result of the study is expected to give some benefits not only theoritically but also practically to:
- Teacher The teacher can enrich the concepts and knowledge about
anxiety and reading comprehension in order to create a comportable learning situation. It is believed that a comportable
situation can help students to feel relax when they study in the classroom.
- Researcher The researcher can fulfill requirement for the Degree of
Strata 1 S-1 in English Education Department and she also got many knowledges about the anxiety and reading comprehension.
- Other researchers The other researchers can use this research as a reference
for further reserch which is similar in the case of study. - Readers
The reader can made this research as a source of reading to add their knowledge about anxiety and reading comprehension.
7
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Reading Comprehension
1.
The Understanding of Reading Comprehension
Reading is one of various ways to know condition and development of knowledge in the world. It is because of the term
“reading is the window of the world”. By reading, people can obtain new knowledge and information which is not only around them but
also around the world. So the more we read the more we get information that contributes a great advantage in our life, such as
gaining success in school for student. The understanding of reading is conveyed by Smith and
Robinson, who state that reading is an active process to understand the author’s message.
1
It means that reading is not only to get the information from the text passively but also to process it in mind to
understand the meaning and deal with the writer ’s wishes to
communicate in the text. Moreover, comprehension is the essential part of reading.
This is the important thing that needs to be paid attention during reading activity. Savage and Mooney state that comprehension is the
ability to get meaning and understand the written language.
2
It means that when readers do the process of reading, they do not only read the
text but also understand the meaning of written text. Reading comprehension, according to Brassell and
Rasinski, is the ability to take information from written text and to
1
Nila Smith and H. Robinson, Reading Instruction for Today’s
Children, Second Edition, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1980, p. 6
2
John F. Savage and Jean F Mooney, Teaching Reading to Children with Special Needs, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc, 1997, p.29
demonstrate knowledge or understanding of that information.
3
Comprehension occurs when a reader is able to get the information that is presented in written text. It means that reading comprehension
is not a passive activity. Reading comprehension requires reader’s action that involves the use of the existing knowledge that the reader
has on the topic of the text as well as the text itself in order to create meaning.
According to Snow, reading comprehension is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through
interaction and involvement with written language”.
4
It means that the core of successful reading comprehension is the ability to understand
and construct information. Based on the definition above, the writer sums up that
reading comprehension is an active process which needs both the reader’s eyes and brain to get the information from the author’s
message. The reader also needs to comprehend, interpret, and respond to text according to what heshe has already known.
Moreover, compre hension requires the reader’s thinking
ability. It is important for a teacher to introduce the student to the types of thinking process that take place as heshe reads. The
following are the three levels of comprehension from lowest to highest a student needs to experience when reading any textbook.
2. Level of Reading Comprehension
Students learn to read gradually from the easiest to the most difficult one. With the better reading skill, they likely will be able to
make better progress and attain better achievement in their study.
3
Danny Brassell Timothy Ransiski, Comprehension That Works, Oceanus Drive: Shell Education, 2008, p.15
4
Chaterine Snow, Reading for Understanding : Toward a Research and Development Program in Reading Comprehension , RAND, 2002, p. 11
