THE USE OF AUTHENTIC MATERIALS IN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

This study aims to know whether or not the use of authentic materials can improve reading comprehension of the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Palu. This research used a quasi-experimental research design. The research population was the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Palu which consisted of 311 students. The sample was selected by using a purposive sampling technique. The number of the sample was 27 students of class VIII E as the experimental group and 26 students of class VIII K as the control group. The data were collected through pre-test and post-test about reading. The students were assigned some tasks consisting of 10 multiple-choices and 5 essay questions. The result of this research showed the mean deviation score of the experimental group was 14.66 and 5.08 for control group. Therefore, the t-counted value (4.74) is higher than the t-table value (1.66). It is proved that the hypothesis is accepted in which there is development of the students after getting the treatment. It means that the use of Authentic Materials can improve students Reading comprehension. The implication of this finding is that the teachers need to use authentic material as the media in teaching reading.


INTRODUCTION
Reading as one of the four language skills is an interactive process used by the reader to identify and make meaning from a written text conveyed by the author. Grabe and Stoller (2002:13) stated that sometimes we read to get main idea (e.g. skimming a newspaper), we read to find specific information (e.g. scanning for the name, date, and term), and we read to learn new information (e.g. reading to learn), furthermore we read because we are expected to synthesize information from multiple texts in order to take a critical position with respect to that information (e.g. reading to integrate and evaluate information). It means that a variety of ways in language to acquire and understand words in order to get information, ideas, fluency, and motivation. Through reading, the reader will gain benefits such as getting a lot of information, improving their knowledge, solving problems, and increasing new ideas by comprehending a reading passage. In other words, reading is not only an accuracy in pronounce words or sentences, but also identifying and comprehending the writer's intention in a reading passage. So, reading is important because it develops the mind.
In junior high school level, students are introduced to short story or short essay texts. Those kinds of texts are required comprehension. Students are categorized as good readers if they are able to comprehend the information of the texts. Based on preliminary observation and interview to the teacher that has been done by researchers, some of the students did not understand the English text. The researchers found some problems related to their learning process. The first problem was the lack of proper and suitable reading materials provided by the teacher. Second, the students have no motivation and interest in learning a new vocabulary. Third, the students commonly found difficulties in getting information in the text and they were difficult to deduce the meaning, inferring and detect relation, such as main idea, supporting idea and getting clear meaning.
By seeing the problems above, the researchers tried to do an experiment to improve the students' reading comprehension using an appropriate reading materials for the students. The researchers proposed that the use of authentic materials is a good way to attract the students' attention of the lesson and to help the students in comprehending reading text. Authentic materials defined as "real-life texts, not written for pedagogical purposes" (Wallace in Berardo, 2006, p. 61). The sources of authentic materials that can 24 | e-Journal of ELTS | Vol. 1 No. 01 | January-June 2021 | pp. 22-31 be used in the classroom are infinite, but the most common are newspaper, magazine, story book and internet. Authentic materials should be the kind of material that students will need and want to be able to read when travelling, studying abroad, or using the language in other contexts outside the classroom.
The effectiveness of using authentic materials towards students' reading comprehension was proved by Raihan (2017). She examined there was a positive effect in improving reading comprehension by using authentic materials. Another previous research conducted by Cahyani (2015), concerning the use of authentic materials in teaching reading comprehension. The result of her research showed that authentic material is effective to improve students' reading comprehension.
Based on the previous study above, it indicates that the use of authentic materials can significantly improve the students' reading comprehension. This research examined the use of authentic materials in order to know whether or not the result would be the same. All in all the researchers conduct his research by using authentic materials to improve reading comprehension of the eighth grade students at SMP Negeri 1 Palu.

METHOD
This research used a quasi-experimental research design involving experimental group and control group. The researchers gave pre-test and post-test to both groups. The experimental group got treatment by learning reading lesson using authentic materials while the control group was taught by the teacher using existing materials. This research used the research design proposed by Arikunto (2006:78)  To find the result of both of the classes the researchers used statistical analysis.
First, the researchers computed the individual score by applying the formula proposed by Arikunto (2006:308). Second, the mean score of the students in pre-test and post-test computed by using formula recommended by Arikunto (2006:308). Then, the square deviation between experimental and control group computed by using formula designed by Arikunto (2006:276). Last, to get the value of t-counted in order to analyze the effectiveness of the treatment, the researchers applied t-test formula. Arikunto (2006:311). The formula above as follows:

FINDINGS
In presenting the data, the researchers analyzed the data taken from pre-test and post-test. The researchers had given pre-test and post-test to both experimental group and control group. Pre-test was conducted in order to know the students' reading comprehension before they got the treatment. After the pre-test, the researchers conducted the treatment by using Authentic materials in six meetings to the experimental group, while the control group was not. After finishing six meetings, both experimental group and control group were given a post-test. The post-test was conducted in order to find out the progress of students' reading comprehension after the treatment. Furthermore, the purpose of the post test was to compare the result of the students' achievement in reading comprehension between the experimental group and the control one.

Result of the Pre-test and Post-test of Control Group
No.

Individual Score
Pre-Test Post-test  Then, the researchers computed the t-counted values of both classes in order to find out the significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test by using formula from Arikunto (2006). Based on the computation, the t-counted value was 4.74. After that, to determine whether the hypothesis is accepted or rejected, the researchers counted the t-

DISCUSSION
This research aims to find out whether the use of authentic material can improve students' reading comprehension. Based on the result of this findings, the students' levels of understanding were improved by using authentic materials as the teaching media. They can understand the literal meaning of Reading narrative text. The description of data collected through pre-test and post-test as explained in the previous study shows that the use of Authentic Materials gave a positive impact to students' reading comprehension. In this case students' reading comprehension was developed. It can be seen in the rate percentage of students' scores of pre-test and post-test. The students' scores have improvement after using the Authentic materials on the class.
Based on the explanation above, this research finding supports some previous researches. First by Cahyani (2015), the result of her research showed the mean score 13.25 for the experimental group and 7 for the control group. This means authentic material is also effective in supporting comprehension on the students' low achievement. Second is from Desitarahmi (2013), her research showed that the use of authentic materials is effective to improve the students' reading comprehension. The use of these materials is effective when they were used together with authentic tasks which provide communicative activities. After the actions were implemented, the students showed some improvements. They could focus on the lesson and actively participated in the teaching and learning process. They had more interest and motivation in reading. All the various activities made the class atmosphere enjoyable. Lastly, Mannong (2016), the result of her research indicated that the students' reading comprehension achievement in experimental group is higher than the students' reading comprehension achievement in control group. Reading an authentic material text are often more interesting because they reflect real life phenomena. the students have less pressure while reading the text because the text that was given to them was a narrative short text that related to them.
The existence of pictures in the text made the students a lot easier in understanding the text. The application of authentic material made the students were able to understand a text especially narrative text. They also enjoy did the tasks considering their participation in group discussion and individual performance. It is better than the existing material from the packed book that is usually used for the students with unfamiliar text which non authentic.
Furthermore, selecting a proper authentic materials is very important. This is aimed in order for the researchers to deliver a contextual reading material for the students. For eight grader one of the reading materials that often used is narrative text.
The narrative text that used in this research is an authentic material from Disney "365 Story for Boys". The familiarity of the stories with the students' daily life is one of the main reason of using the book. Also in terms of syllabus relevancy, the stories from the book are strongly considered to be relevant with teaching and learning process for the eighth grader in SMP Negeri 1 Palu.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of data analysis, the researchers can safely concludes that the application of Authentic Material on narrative text significantly improves the students' reading comprehension at SMP Negeri 1 Palu. It can be seen by comparing tcounted and ttable, where tcounted (4.74) is much higher than ttable (1.66). It can be seen as well through by comparing the result of the students' pre-test and post-test of both groups. The mean of the post-test of the experimental group has significantly increased to 60.89. There is a significant difference of the mean between the pre-test and the posttest of the experimental group. The result indicates that the mean of the post-test of students' comprehension after the treatment by implementing authentic material method by using narrative text on experimental group is better than the mean of the pre-test before implementing the authentic material.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The researchers give all praises to the almighty God, Allah SWT, for all blessing, mercy, health, and opportunity given to us, so that we are able to complete this research. The researchers also do not forget to thank to the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Palu who have participated in this research.