COHESIVE DEVICE RECOGNITION SKILL- BUILDING EXERCISES: A WAY TO HELP STUDENTS IMPROVE THEIR READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT Stephanus Sukamto1 Abstract: This study was designed to investigate the possibility that there might be a signijicallt improvemem 011 the studellts' reading comprehensioll achievemellt following the treatmem through Cohesive Device Recognitioll Skill-Building Exercises. It was conducted ullder the principles of the one group pretest-posttest (repeated-measures) design. 4 J students of Economics Education of FKIP-Ullila attending English as a general subject were chosen as the subjects. These studellts were introduced andtrailled with the skill and encouraged to firstly recognize the cohesive devices employed in the texts, then classify their types andfimctions across the sentences and paragraphs, alld finally to check their comprehe1lsion about the texts on hand. As the design suggests, this research admillistered pretest and posttest as the main instruments in collectillg the data. The data were analyzed using Repeated Measures-Matched T-test. The result shows that t-observe (6./79) is higher thall Hable (2.704) which means that there is a significant improvement on the students' reading comprehellSion achievement following the treatment. This seems to suggest that this technique wor.ked well and was found effective in this stud)~ Since the study was c01lducted to an intact class and even though the test allows us to generalize, the design of the study precludes such generalization. Therefore, further study illvolving randomly selected and ra1ldomly assigned subjects would certainly provide more i1l1eresti1lgfindings. Key words: recognition skill, cohesive devices, reading comprehellSion. Drs. Stephanus Sukamto, M.A. is currently a lecturer at the English Study Program ofFKIP(TeacherTraining and Education Faculty), University of Lampung. He got his M.A. from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. UK. S. Sukamto, Cohesive Device Recognition Skills-Building Exercises 49 Education Study Program. They constituted a class. In other words, the study was conducted to an intact class, meaning that the subjects of this study were not randomly selected and randomly assigned. This would also mean that even though the test allows us to generalize, the design of the study precludes such generalization. Therefore, further study involving randomly selected and randomly assigned subjects would certainly provide more interesting findings. Nevertheless, it could be suggested that those who are interested in applying this Cohesive Device Recognition Skill-Building should be encouraged to make use of more varied activities and exercises in order to get more significant and convincing findings. Furthennore, considering that mastery of textual features (including cohesive ties) is crucial in reading comprehension, it could also be suggested that reading teachersl1ecturers should include classroom instruction on the cohesive devices of English (grammatical and lexical cohesive devices), and their functions across sentences and paragraphs. Such instruction can make students aware of how ideas in a text are unified by the cohesive elements. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anthony, H.M., P.O. Pearson, and E. Raphael. "Reading Comprehension: A Selected Review". In Linguistics/or Teachers. By L.M. Cleary and M.D. Linn (eds.). New York: McGraw-Hili, 1993. Chapman, L.J. "Confinning Children's Use of Cohesive Ties in Text: Pronouns". In The Reading Teacher. 1979: Vol. 33, No.3: 317 - 322. Cohen. A .• et al. "Reading English for Specialized Purposes: Discourse Analysis and the Use of Student Informants". In TESOL Quanerly, Vol. 13, 1979: 551 - 564. Cooper. M. "Linguistic Competence of Practiced and Unpracticed Non-mature Readers of English". In Reading in a Foreign Language. By J.C. Alderson and Urquhart (eds.). 1984: 122-135. Dallmann, Martha, Roger L. Rough, Lynette Y., C. Chang. and John J. Deborer. The Teaching o/Reading. 4'" edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Inc .• 1974. Goodman, Kenneth S. "Psycholinguistic Universals in the Reading Process". In Psycholinguislics and Reading. Edited by Frank Smith. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1973. so Celt, Volume7, Number I, July 2007: 37-50 Halliday. M.A.K. and R. Hasan, Cohesion i" English. London: Edward Arnold. 1976. Hatch. Evelyn and Anne Larazaton. Design and Statistics for Applied Linguistics. Boston: Heinle and Heinle Publishers, 1991. Lougheed. Lin. Regetlts Pretltice Hall TOEFL Prep Book. New Jersey: Regents Prentice Hall. Englewood Cliff. 1992. Steffensen. Margareth S. "Changes in Cohesion in the Recall of Native and Foreign Texts". In Interactive Approach to Second Language Reading. Edited by Patricia Carrel. et, al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988. Susser. Bernard and Thomas N. Robb. "EFL Extensive Reading Instruction: Research and Procedure". In JALT Journal, Vol. 12, No.2. November 1990. William. R. ''Teaching the Recognition of Cohesive TIes in Reading a Foreign Language". In Reading in a Foreign Language. Vol. I. No. I. 1983: 35 - 53. FURTHER READINGS Brown, G and Yule, G Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983. McCarthy, M. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. McCarthy, M. and R. Carter. Language as Discourse. London: Longman, 1994. SaJkie. R. Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. 1995. Sukamto, Stephanus. "A Comparison ofGrammaticaJ and Lexical Cohesion in British and Indonesian English-Language Newspaper Reports". Unpublished Dissertation. Newcastle upon Tyne: The University of Newcastle upon lYne, 1997. Sukamto, Stephanus. "Identifying Cohesive Devices in Authentic & Simplified Texts and Its Implication for Language Teaching". In Aksara. Vol. 2. No.2. Oktober 2001. logo: