THE USE OF NUMBERED HEADS TOGETHER TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING

ABILITY
1. Background of the Study
English as an international language is used to communicate and interact with
other people in the world which has different background nation and language.
English has important roles in every life aspect. It also affects the education in
Indonesia. English became one of foreign languages taught in Indonesian schools.
Indeed, English is a subject taught from elementary school to university.
Indonesian government has a priority in English to be developed and learned. They
establish the objective in learning English based on the students’ grade. The purposes of
English in SMP/MTs such as students are able to develop their competence in
communication in written and oral way to achieve the functional literacy; they also have
an awareness of the nature and importance of English to improve the nation's
competitiveness in the global society; develop their understanding of the
interrelationships between language and culture.

To achieve those teaching English purposes above, students were taught

four basic language skills in English like listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In
this research, the writer focuses in reading skill. Being able to read English is important
because there are many kinds of books and information on the internet in English. By
reading, students are not only get the information or pleasure but also can get new
vocabulary that can be used in writing, speaking and listening. According to Harmer
(1996:190) “reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brain. The eyes
receive messages and the brain then has to work out the significance of these
messages”. In other word, reading is a process transferring information from the text
then our brain will process it and conclude what the text tells about.

There are some common problems that the teachers find with teaching reading
such as learners lack of motivation, teachers are uncertain as how they should carry out
the language preparation teachers are unsure about selecting and devising reading related
activities. This fact indicated that students’ motivation and teacher’s preparation are very
important to be considered.
 By looking this fact, English teachers are expected to always think and variation
of teaching strategy in reading. In this case, the writer is going to discuss one variation in
teaching strategies namely Number Head Together (NHT) Technique.
Numbered Heads Together (NHT) is another small group learning method using
student teams. NHT is similar to STAD because heterogeneous groupings of students are
used (Bawn. S. 2007 : 43-44). Arrangement of four students per learning team, with each
team counting off from one to four is the beginning of Numbered Heads Together. There
is one high achieving student, one low achieving student and two average achieving
students on a learning team.
Based on the problems above, the researcher interested in conducting the study
entitled “The Use of Numbered Heads Together to Improve Students’ Reading Ability”.
2. Problem Statements
Based on the background above, the question is formulated as follows:
1. How is the students’ proficiency in literal comprehension of the paragraph in the
text through Number Head Together (NHT) Method?
2. How is the students’ proficiency in summarizing the text through Number Head
Together (NHT) Technique?
3. Purposes of the Study
Based on the problem statement above, the objective of the research are:
1. To find out how the improvement of the students literal comprehension through
Number Head Together (NHT) Technique.
2. To find out how the improvement of the students interpretive comprehension
through Number Head Together (NHT) Technique.
4. Significance of the Study
The significance of the research is expected to be useful information to the
English teacher, English students and those who concern about the language learning
process. It is hoped that the learning strategy will be considered as a better strategy to
improve the students’ comprehension in reading.
5. Scope of the Study
This research will focus on the study to improve the students’ reading
comprehension through Number Head Together (NHT) Technique at the eighth grade
students of SMP NW Kalijaga. Literal comprehension here covers main idea, sequence
details and interpretative comprehension in summarizing.
6. Definition of the Key Terms
1) Reading Ability
Reading ability is capability of the readers in understanding the meaning of the text.
2) Numbered Heads Together
Numbered heads together is a cooperative learning strategy in which students
work together to ensure that each member of a group knows the correct answer to
problem or question asked by the teacher.
7. Research Method
In this chapter, the researcher explains the parts of research method. Those are:
Research design (quantitative approach, quasi-experimental), population and sample (the
eighth grade, it consist of two classes), saturated sampling technique, instrument of the
research , techniques of data collection (pre-test and pos-test), and techniques of data
analysis (descriptive analysis, standard deviation, inferential analysis).