An Analysis of the Second Year Students' Difficulties on Reading Analytical Exposition Text at SMA Negeri 9 Pekanbaru

Abstract

This research was aimed to find out the difficulties of students on reading understanding analytical exposition text. This research is descriptive quantitative research. The population of this research was the second-year students of SMA Negeri 9 Pekanbaru, then for the sample choose one class by using clustering-random-sampling. This research used a reading test and questionnaire as the instrument. The results of this study indicate that there are difficulties for students to understand analytical exposition text based on 8 (eight) indicators, namely finding the main idea, finding factual information, finding, references and inferences, finding vocabulary, identifying the social function, identifying the generic structure and identifying language features of analytical exposition text. The results of the research data indicate that students have difficulty in identifying the social function (56%) was categorized as high level, difficulty in identifying generic structure (54%) was categorized as medium level and difficulty language features of the text (54%) was categorized as medium level. Then, the questionnaire data showed that the students have problems in difficulty level of text, difficulty in reading interest, and lack of review material. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the second-year students of SMA Negeri 9 Pekanbaru have difficulty on reading analytical exposition text, and it is recommended for the students to learn and practice more about analytical exposition text, and for English teachers are suggested to give more detailed explanation and exercises about analytical exposition text.