1 THE STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN READING AT URBAN AREA AND AT REMOTE AREA Masruddin IAIN Palopo Abstract This research is aimed at 1) finding out the ability of students in reading descriptive text of the second year students at SMPN 1 Limbong as remote area school and SMPN 1 Baebunta as urban area school. 2) finding out whether there is a significant difference between the ability of students at urban and at remote area school in their competencies in reading descriptive text. In this research, the writer applied descriptive method. The sample of the research were 50 students at SMPN Limbong and 50 at SMPN Baebunta. The instrument of this research was reading test. It consisted of 3 reading descriptive text with 15 questions. The results of the research shows that the mean score of students in SMPN 1 Limbong was very- different with their mean score in SMPN 1 Baebunta. The mean score of SMPN 1 Baebunta was 5.06 while the mean score of SMPN 1 Limbong was 3.11. Furthermore, it can be seen from the t test result which shows that the result of t-test was greater than t-table. The value of t table was 2.02. while the t test was 7.46. it means that t-test was greater than t-table or 7.46> 2.02. This is indicated that to ≥ tt so, null hypothesis (ho) is rejected and alternative hypothesis (hi) is accepted, therefore in can be said that there is a significance different between the students’ achievement at SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta. This research proves that the urban area school is better than the remote area school in reading descriptive text achievement. Keywords: Reading, Descriptive Text. INTRODUCTION One of the factors that contribute to the students’ achievement in studying is facilities especially in reading. The main facility that can support reading namely books collection in the library as source in reading. SMPN 1 Limbong is one of the Junior High School in remote area. It is far from the city. In addition, the facilities are very limited include the reading book collection in the library. In reality, when the writer did observation before in SMPN 1 Limbong, and the researcher found that students still got difficulties in reading a text. They sometimes cannot understand the information from English sources. So that, the writer want to do a research about the difficulties in reading English text, because the writer wants to improve students’ knowledge in reading English text. Reading 2 also has the value of helping students to learn by expressing their own thought and making them familiar with language pattern and ways of using language effectively. As one of important parts in English, reading is needed to be mastered, because reading can help the learners of English to understand the language. Reading is a key when we want to get some information from English book, magazine, newspaper, internet, study science and technology and many other sources. In addition, reading is a source of getting information. No one, can get many information without reading, by reading, the students can improve their vocabularies, understand and some other aspects. In Junior High School curriculum, one of the important skills is understand a reading text. The students are demanded to be able to answer correctly the question about a reading text. In National Examination, this kind of reading questions always appears as parts of English National Exam. Therefore, the competence on reading included descriptive text is very needed to be improved. Baharuddin (1994:9) states that reading means one-way process, consisting simply of the recording of symbols from one person to another through the medium of writing or printing. Then, Simanjuntak (1988:17) states that reading is a process of putting a reader in a cognitive primarily process, which means that the brain does most of the work. Reading is also a skill which must be developed by means of extensive and continual practice. Romipez (1995: 12) states that reading can include a broad range of text types. These text may come from literary general such as plays, short stories, essay, poems, and novels. It often involves the act of reconstructing meanings sent by a writer at a remote time and place. Reading is an activity between the readers and the writers. The writer send his ideas in the written symbols and then the reader catches the idea in it. Reading is an active cognitive process of interactive with printing and monitory comprehension to establish meaning. Rootledge and Kegan (1980: 89-90) describe reading is complex skill, that is to say that it involves a whole series of lesser skill. And they say that reading is essentially an intellectual skill the paper by the way of the formal elements of language let us say the word as sound, with the meaning which those word 3 symbolize. Grellet (1981: 7) defines reading is constants process of guessing, because what one brings to the text is often more important that what one finds in it. In oxford learner’s dictionary, Hornby (1995: 1053) defines reading as an action of a person who reads. In addition, Walker (1996) defines that reading is an active process in which readers shift between sources of information (what they know and the text says), elaborate meaning and strategies, check their interpretation (revising when appropriate), the use context to focus their response. It means that reading activity needs a comprehension to interpret (read between the lines) messages from the written text. Then, in this research, the writer compares the remote area school with the urban area with more facilities namely SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta. SMPN Baebunta is one of the schools that has more facilities. It is located in the urban area. In addition, it is easy to get this school from the city. METHOD In this research, the writer applied descriptive method. I used to describe the ability of students in finding specific information from descriptive reading text. Population of this research was the second class students of SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta In this research the writer took 50 students from each schools. In SMPN 1 Limbong, the writer took all population as sample. So, the writer applied total sampling. It means the total sample from SMPN 1 Limbong was 50 students. While at SMPN 1 Baebunta the writer took 50 students. The instrument of this research was reading test. It consisted of 3 reading descriptive text with 15 questions. This instrument used to describe the ability of second class students in understanding reading text at SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta. The data of this research was collected through procedures: The writer explained to the students what they are going to do, the writer distributed the test to the students, the students did the test for 90 minutes. the writer collected the students’ answers. 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION After doing the reading test to both schools namely remote area school at SMPN 1 Limbong and urban are school at SMPN 1 Baebunta, the result of the test can be seen at the following table: Table 1 The Students’ Mean Score Component SMPN 1 Limbong (Remote Area) SMPN 1 Baebunta (Urban Area) Mean 3.11 5.06 The table 1 indicates that the mean score of students in SMPN 1 Limbong was very different with the mean score in SMPN 1 Baebunta. SMPN 1 Baebunta > SMPN 1 Limbong = 5.06 > 3.11. The following table shows the classification of students’ score in both SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta: Table 2 Rate Percentage of Students’ Score in Limbong (X1) No. Classification Score Frequency Percentage 1. Excellent 9.6 – 10 - - 2. Very good 8.6 – 9.5 - - 3. Good 7.6 – 8.5 - - 4. Fairly good 6.6 – 7.5 - - 5. Fair 5.6 – 6.5 32 64% 6. Poor 3.6 – 5.5 17 34% 7. Very poor 0 – 3.5 1 2% Total 50 100% The table 2 shows that in reading test, the number of students taken as sample in the research there were 1 student (2%) got very poor score, there were 17 students (34%) student got poor score, most of the students at Limbong, namely there were 32 students (64%) got fair score. It means that all the students’ reading competence was still low, because just no one student got fairly good, good, very good and excellent. 5 Table 3. Rate Percentage of Students’ Score in Baebunta (X2) No. Classification Score Frequency Percentage 1. Excellent 9.6 – 10 - - 2. Very good 8.6 – 9.5 1 2% 3. Good 7.6 – 8.5 3 6% 4. Fairly good 6.6 – 7.5 5 10% 5. Fair 5.6 – 6.5 6 12% 6. Poor 3.6 – 5.5 28 56% 7. Very poor 0 – 3.5 7 14% Total 50 100% Table 3 shows that the score of students in SMPN Baebunta, in which we can see from the table above that some students have got expected score. There were 3 students (6%) got good score, there was 1 student (2%) students got very good score, there were 6 students (12%) got fairly good score. However there were still 28 (56%) students still got poor and there were still 7 (14%) still got very poor score. T-test and t-table Value Component t-Table t-Test t-value 2.02 7.46 Based on table, the result of t-test was greater than t-table. t-value above compared with t-table for certain real level α = 0.05 by the degree of freedom n-2. The value is 2.02. it means that t-test was greater than t-table or 7.46> 2.02. From the result above, the writer give interpretation that “to” is bigger than “tt” (to > tt”). This is indicated that to ≥ tt so, null hypothesis (ho) is rejected and alternative hypothesis (hi) is accepted. Therefore in can be said that there is a significance different between the students’ achievement at SMPN 1 Limbong and SMPN 1 Baebunta. This research proves that the urban area school is better than the remote area school in reading achievement. Based on the result of test that has been described above, it can be proved that the students ability in reading comprehension is significantly different between the remote area school and the urban area school. The achievement of students in SMPN 1 Baebunta is greater than the students’ achievement at SMPN 1 Limbong. The means score shows that the mean score of students in SMPN 1 6 Baebunta is bigger than mean score of students at SMPN 1 Limbong. It is also supported by the test that has been done by the researcher. In remote area, the facilities are very limited. While one of the factor that can motivate the students in learning include in learning English is facilities factor. The facility that is closely related to reading namely books. In remote area the collection of books in the library is very limited. The students do not have many materials to be read. The books do not well prepared by the government. Therefore, it is hard for the students at SMPN Limbong to find the current issue books especially in English Materials. They just can get the old books at the library in limited numbers. In addition, especially for descriptive paragraph, they are still difficult to understand since they seldom to find the sources that contained some vocabulary related to the current topic in English. This factor makes the students at remote have low motivation. If a student doesn’t have motivation, it will influence the achievement in learning. As Basri wello (1999) states that “Motivation: Intrinsic motivation has been found to correlate strongly with educational achievement". Clearly, students who enjoy language learning and take pride in their progress will do better than those who don't. Extrinsic motivation is also a significant factor. ESL students, for example, who need to learn English in order to take a place at an American university or to communicate with a new English boy/girl friend are likely to make greater efforts and thus greater progress. In SMPN 1 Limbong, since their motivation is low, their achievement is also low. While in SMPN 1 Baebunta some students have high motivation, they can get good achievement. In addition, Some other factors that contribute to the students’ achievement is the teacher’ instruction and the curriculum application. Both of this factors contribute significantly toward to learning process. In (http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/factors.htm) states that external factors are those that characterize the particular language learning situation. For ESL students in particular it is important that the totality of their educational experience is appropriate for their needs. Language learning is less likely to place if students are fully submersed into the mainstream program http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/factors.htm 7 without any extra assistance or, conversely, not allowed to be part of the mainstream until they have reached a certain level of language proficiency. Clearly, some language teachers are better than others at providing appropriate and effective learning experiences for the students in their classrooms. These students will make faster progress. The same applies to mainstream teachers in second language situations. The science teacher, for example, who is aware that she too is responsible for the students' English language development, and makes certain accommodations, will contribute to their linguistic development. In fact, based on the interview with the head master in SMPN Limbong, in remote area include in Limbong, most of school are lack of qualified teacher include English teacher. In addition, the application of curriculum also is still far from the expectation. Many teachers do not have enough skill in teaching. Therefore, this study proves that in remote area the teacher’s quality should be developed. Then, the application of curriculum should be improved include in teaching reading for national examination. Then, based on the classification of students scores, it is found that no one students from SMPN 1 Limbong who can achieve fairly good, good and very good. While in SMPN 1 Baebunta, there were some students can achieve fairly good and good score. This indicates that the reading ability of students in urban area is better than in remote area. Some reading aspects cannot be achieved by students such as their knowledge on some topics and their skill in language , motivation and their purpose in reading. CONCLUSION The students’ ability in reading comprehension is significantly different between the remote area school and the urban area school. The achievement of students in SMPN 1 Baebunta is greater than the students’ achievement at SMPN 1 Limbong. The means score shows that the mean score of students in SMPN 1 Baebunta is bigger than mean score of students at SMPN 1 Limbong. It is also supported by the test that has been done by the researcher. Based on the writer’s observation in the school, most of students in SMPN 1 Limbong are lack of 8 background experience since they do not have enough sources to be read and they seldom get some information about some topics. In addition, the language ability of students at SMPN 1 Limbong are low. They don’t have many vocabulary. Then the motivation of students there are also very low. Furthermore, they just read when they were asked to read in the class. Those aspects are different with the students in SMPN 1 Baebunta. Related to the factors above, it can be said that those factors were still less in SMPN 1 Limbong. 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