Hypothesis REVIEW OF RELATED THEORIES

commit to user and most of them still found troubles and difficulties in understanding or comprehending a text, especially in understanding vocabularies, finding main ideas, referents, finding detail information , author‟s purpose, etc. Teacher also had a contribution to students‟ difficulties. The teaching- learning process shown that it was monotonous. The teacher in the school never uses study group or pairs, the way the teacher taught reading was not encouraging students to be active, the teacher dominated the class, and during the lesson, the teacher just reads the written text without knowing whether the students got the information or not. To overcome those problems, the researcher used Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition as an alternative technique. The rational of using this technique was to make the students active in learning. If the students were always active in the classroom, they would be able to do the works effectively. By applying CIRC, students would learn by themselves, learn more, feel more confident, feel more dedicated, enjoy the class, teach each other, and become independent learners. By using CIRC in the teaching and learning, the students can use their own knowledge and share their knowledge with their friends. Besides that, they could interact with each other to solve problems. It would also help weaker students in learning. Related with reading comprehension, CIRC was a teaching method where students could work together in small group to help each other. Based on the explanation above, it can be assumed that CIRC method can improve students‟ reading comprehension.

C. Hypothesis

Considering the theory of Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition in reading comprehension, the hypothesis of this study was: Cooperative Integrated Reading and C omposition can improve the students‟ achievement in reading comprehension ability. commit to user

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. The Setting of the Research

The research carried out at SMP Negeri 1 Matesih in the academic year of 20092010. The school is located on Jl. Matesih-Tawangmangu No. 1. SMP Negeri 1 Matesih uses Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan as the basis of teaching and learning process. Instructional process is done in six days from Monday up to Saturday. The students start to learn at 07.00. This research was conducted for 11 months from October 2009 to August 2010. It included the pre-research, action, and activities after the action or writing the thesis report.

B. The Subject of the Research

The subject of the research was Class VIIIA of SMP Negeri 1 Matesih in the academic year of 20092010. The number of the students was 31. The researcher purposely took the class to be researched because it was very interesting and challenging. The researcher was really curious with the condition and situation in the class, because there was a problem in their reading comprehension. Besides that, the students of Class VIIIA come from different economical background. Most of them come from the average to low economical level. Actually, there were some students who have high ability but they were still passive during the English lesson. The teacher in the school never uses study group or pairs, especially in teaching reading comprehension. The researcher conducted the study through the teaching and learning process by implementing Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition.

C. The Method of the Research

Method is system or way doing something. Every research needs some methods, which depend on the aim of the research and the nature of the topic.