INVESTIGATING STUDENTS' DIFFICULTIES IN COMPREHENDING ENGLISH READING TEXT

Abstract

This research aims to discover the most difficult aspect of reading comprehension, especially in descriptive text, encountered by the tenth-grade students of SMA Negeri 2 Sigi and the contributing factors to this difficulty. This research employs a mixed method, where the test and interview are used to collect the data. The subject of this research is students of class X IPA 1 at SMA Negeri 2 Sigi in the academic year 2022/2023. The test was given to 25 students and consisted of 15 questions divided into five types: main idea, locating references, understanding vocabulary, making inferences, and detailed information. Then, the researcher interviewed three students by giving them ten questions. The results of the test show that the most difficult aspect encountered by the tenth-grade students of SMA Negeri 2 Sigi is understanding vocabulary, while the results of the interview show that there are two factors that cause students’ difficulties in comprehending the text, namely internal and external factors. Internal factors are a lack of reading strategies, limited stock of vocabulary, and lack of student interest, while the external factor is the students’ environment.