APPLYING WEBBING STRATEGY IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION

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INTRODUCTION
Reading is an essential factor that influences one's activity in communication.
Reading is not only learning to read but also understanding the meaning of every sentence contained in the reading text. Reading is an interactive process between the text and the reader's processing strategies and background knowledge. In every language learning, 2 | e-Journal of ELTS | Vol. 11 No. 1 | May 2023 | 1-10 reading plays an important role that becomes a way for someone to get knowledge and new information.
Reading comprehension is a process to recognize or identify text, then recall the contents of the text. Mertosono, Erniwati, Hastini, and Arid (2020) State, "Reading Comprehension is the process of gathering information from a text to construct meaning using readers' background knowledge." Reading comprehension can also be meant as an activity to make a sequence of descriptions or organize the body of the text, and can be evaluated as well as to respond to what is expressed or implied in the text. Reading comprehension is an important part that students should master.
Teaching reading for comprehension is not as easy as flipping hands. It needs effort because, during the reading activity, the reader finds the vocabulary meanings and grammatical features and deeply comprehends the text. Hence, in teaching reading, the teacher has to be concerned about the materials used. Even though students are expected to comprehend the reading text, many students still have problems in reading class. The goal of teaching reading for junior high school, as stated in the curriculum 2013, is that the students are expected to understand the purpose, structure, and linguistics elements of the descriptive text, spoken and written, in the form of a fable, short and straightforward: Based on the preliminary observation, the researchers found some problems faced by the students in reading. The reading skills of the grade eight students at SMPN 1 Sojol are still lacking, especially their ability in literal level of comprehension was not good enough. They were confused in comprehending the information in the text. Two reasons caused this problem. First, students found translating the words in the text difficult without using the dictionary. Second, students were not interested in English rather than other subjects, making them lazy to practice reading. The researcher wants to help the students develop their reading skills using webbing strategy.
Webbing is one of the activities of cooperative methods which can solve this problem. The students can share the difficulties in understanding the reading text by webbing. Better comprehension and understanding of the text are very important for the students because they can answer the questions correctly and understand what the text tells about. Four or five students always use this method to write simultaneously on a large piece of paper or the board, providing the main concept and bridges representing Applying Webbing Strategy in Teaching Reading Comprehension … | 3 the relationship between ideas in a concept. The Webbing strategy aims to make students happier and more fun, and they will not be bored while reading and comprehending class.
This means that teaching reading encourages the student's cooperation in expressing ideas, sharing ideas, asking, and explaining to each other in a group so that the reading comprehension learning process will achieve better results. That is why a new strategy or method is needed to develop the student's reading comprehension to overcome the above problems. Based on the background above, the researcher is interested in conducting research to improve reading comprehension using webbing strategy.

METHOD
In conducting this research, the researcher uses quasi-experimental research as the research design. Quasi-experimental research is a research design where two classes will be compared to prove the hypothesis. Those classes are the control class and the experimental class. Both classes are distributed pre-test and post-test. The experimental class gets a treatment, while the control class does not. The two classes will get the same form of pre-test and post-test A population is the total number of subjects the researcher wants to study-the population of this grade eight students of SMPN 1 Sojol. There were fourth parallel classes, eight A, eight B, eight C, and eight D. Each class had 23-27 students; therefore, the total number of students in SMPN 1 Sojol was 98. The sample is a chosen part of a population that is the object of the research. Thus, the researchers must determine a sampling technique to limit the object of the research and efficiently conduct the research.
In relation to the population above, the researchers chose two classes as the sample of the research from the selective population. They were eight D in the experimental class (group) and eight A in the control class (group).
In selecting the data, the researchers used a test as an instrument. The test consisted of a pre-test and post-test given to both experimental and control groups. In analyzing the data, the researcher used statistical analysis. At first, the researcher computed the individual scores of students by using the formula proposed by Arikunto

FINDINGS
In presenting the data, the researcher analyzed the data taken from the pre-test and post-test. The post-test was conducted to determine the progress of students' reading comprehension after the treatment. Furthermore, the purpose of the post-test was to compare the result of the student's reading comprehension achievement between the experimental and control groups. The data analysis above showed that the researcher found that the experimental and control groups' mean scores differed. The mean pre-test score in the experimental group was 28.4, and the control group was 36.1. The mean score post-test in the experimental group was 60.2, while the mean score of the post-test in the control group was 51.4. Furthermore, the highest post-test score in the control group was 65, and the lowest was 40. The data indicated that none of the students passed the minimum passing grade. Thus, the mean post-test score in the experimental group was higher than the mean score in the control group. The researcher concludes that the improvement of the experimental group is more significant than the control group. It means that applying webbing strategy can improve students' reading comprehension. After getting the mean 6 | e-Journal of ELTS | Vol. 11 No. 1 | May 2023 | 1-10 score of the pre-test and post-test, the researcher calculated the deviation and square deviation of both classes, experimental and control groups. Based on the calculation, the total deviation score of the experimental group was 785, and the square deviation score of the experimental group was 25952. On the other hand, the total and square deviation scores of the control group were 415 and 8125. The result can be seen in Table 3.

Result of Deviation Score and Square Deviation
Group Deviation Score Square Deviation Score Experimental 785 25952 Control 415 8125 Then, the researcher computed the t-counted values of both groups to find out the significant difference between the pre-test and the post-test using formula from Arikunto (2006). Based on the computation, the t-counted value was 7.8. After that, to determine whether the hypothesis is accepted or rejected, the researcher counted the t-table by applying the degree of freedom (df) = Nx + Ny -2 = 25 + 27 -2 = 50 with a level of significance of 0.05. The researcher found that the t-table value was 2.01. Based on the results, the researcher concluded that the hypothesis of this research was accepted because the t-counted value (7.8) was higher than the t-

DISCUSSION
This research discussed the finding of applying webbing strategy in teaching reading comprehension of grade eight students of SMPN 1 Sojol. This research was conducted using a quasi-experimental research design. There were two classes involved, one experimental class and one control class.
From the result of the pre-test, most of the students could not answer the question.
There were two reasons why the students did not answer the question. First, students did not understand the question. Second, students understood the question, but they did not understand the meaning of the question. After that, the researchers were given the treatment for six weeks, during which the experimental group used the webbing strategy and the control group did not use the webbing strategy. Based on the post-test result, there were improvements in the students' reading comprehension after the treatment. Most of them understand the question given by the researcher. They also understand the meaning of the question given to them. If they have difficulties answering the question, they can ask their friend or the researcher to make it easier to understand. The result of the post-test score proves it showed that most of the students got better scores than before getting the treatment.
This research aims to determine whether applying webbing strategy can improve students' reading comprehension. The description of data collected through pre-test and post-test, as explained in the previous study, shows that webbing strategy positively impacted students' vocabulary mastery. In this case, students' reading comprehension was improved. It can be seen in the rate percentage of students' scores on pre-test and post-test. The students' scores have improved after using webbing strategy in the class.
Webbing strategy was often more attractive because they reflected real life. The application of webbing strategy enabled the students to understand using word use and the meaning of words.
This proved that applying webbing strategy can improve students' reading comprehension. The researcher then relates this finding to previous studies. These studies were conducted by Dea Azlina (2021), Tyas and Bindarti (2012), Anshori, Sugeng and Wiwiek (2014), Ahmad Wael (2017). Those studies were effective in improving the student's reading comprehension. In this research, the webbing strategy applied by the researcher was effective because the result of the post-test showed an improvement in the students' reading comprehension.

CONCLUSION
After the researchers conducted the treatment, the students showed their enhancement in reading comprehension. Applying webbing strategy can improve the reading comprehension of grade eight students of SMPN 1 Sojol. Furthermore, this strategy enables students to participate more actively in the learning process while improving their reading comprehension. They can discuss and present their thoughts in front of the class. As a result, the students are interested in reading the text and extracting information from it. Hence, the researcher concludes that applying the webbing strategy can improve the reading comprehension of the grade eight students of SMPN 1 Sojol.