English has been taught as a local content in school. In fact, English has not been successful yet. It can be proved that most of students’ achievements or marks in English are not satisfactory or event it’s very low at school. It might be caused by the students’ environment. Contextual teaching and learning approach motivates students to make connections between knowledge and it applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning requires. The problem of this research is “How can contextual teaching and learning improve reading comprehension on the eighth grade students’ of SMP Muhammadiyah 09 Watukebo-Ambulu in the academic year 2009/2010?” The design of this research is classroom action research; the Research subject in this research is VIII C students at SMP Muhammadiyah 09 Watukebo-Ambulu in the academic year 2009/2010. The result of the research shows that the use of contextual teaching and learning can improve reading comprehension. The increasing can see from the changing of the students’ behaviour in the teaching and learning process and from their score. The changing of behaviour including activeness, dare, independent, and the reach of score increasing step by step. The increasing also shows in the students’ score before conducting the research and after conducting the research. The research results also shows that the changing of the students’ behaviour in the teaching and learning process. They are more have spirit in accepted the lesson, more discipline, more active to presented their task and asking question. It means that the use contextual teaching and learning, can improve the students reading comprehension. Based on the findings above, some suggestions can be proposed for English teachers and other researchers to use Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) as the an alternative approach in teaching reading to improve the students’ reading comprehension since it is interesting and useful for the students in learning reading. For the next researchers, it is suggested that they can be used as a reference or input to conduct other researcher dealing with a similar area or study by using different research approach or design.

English has been taught as a local content in school. In fact, English has not been successful yet. It can be proved that most of students’ achievements or marks in English are not satisfactory or event it’s very low at school. It might be caused by the students’ environment. Contextual teaching and learning approach motivates students to make connections between knowledge and it applications to their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and engage in the hard work that learning requires. The problem of this research is “How can contextual teaching and learning improve reading comprehension on the eighth grade students’ of SMP Muhammadiyah 09 Watukebo-Ambulu in the academic year 2009/2010?” The design of this research is classroom action research; the Research subject in this research is VIII C students at SMP Muhammadiyah 09 Watukebo-Ambulu in the academic year 2009/2010. The result of the research shows that the use of contextual teaching and learning can improve reading comprehension. The increasing can see from the changing of the students’ behaviour in the teaching and learning process and from their score. The changing of behaviour including activeness, dare, independent, and the reach of score increasing step by step. The increasing also shows in the students’ score before conducting the research and after conducting the research. The research results also shows that the changing of the students’ behaviour in the teaching and learning process. They are more have spirit in accepted the lesson, more discipline, more active to presented their task and asking question. It means that the use contextual teaching and learning, can improve the students reading comprehension. Based on the findings above, some suggestions can be proposed for English teachers and other researchers to use Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) as the an alternative approach in teaching reading to improve the students’ reading comprehension since it is interesting and useful for the students in learning reading. For the next researchers, it is suggested that they can be used as a reference or input to conduct other researcher dealing with a similar area or study by using different research approach or design.

http://digilib.unmuhjember.ac.id/gdl.php?mod=browse&op=read&id=umj-1x-faishayuus-2773