The correlation between discourse quality and readability of the english reading texts used in the State Islamic Senior High Schools (MAN) Jombang

According to Boaz (in Samsuri, 1988:52) “the basic unit of language is sentence”. Nowadays discourse is the biggest nit of language. It must have message in it. However, people often misunderstand in catching the message because they ignore the position of discourse. Therefore, the position of discourse is very important. Consequently, it is very important to investigate the discourse quality of a language. Furthermore, the position of readable text is also important to understand a language. In this case, it is called as readability of the text.

This research aims to investigate the discourse quality of English reading texts and readability used in the state Islamic senior high schools. Besides that, the purpose of this research is also to investigate the correlation between discourse quality and readability of the English reading texts used in the state Islamic senior high schools Jombang.

The hypothesis of this research is (1) if the English reading texts have good quality, the readability of the texts will be good too and (2) if the English reading texts do not have good quality, the readability of the texts will not be good too.

The data sources of this research is English texts which are taken from some books used in the state Islamic senior high schools Jombang. There are ten state Islamic senior high schools in Jombang, while the researcher takes only five schools as sample. In determining the sample, he uses cluster sampling. The sampel covers five areas, they are MAN Rejoso Peterongan which represents schools in east area, MAN Denanyar which represents schools in west area, MAN Tambak Beras which represents schools in north area, MAN 5 which represents schools in south area and MAN Jombang which represents schools in center area. The researcher uses 4 books from those schools and 12 texts from those books. Furthermore, the data of this research is sentences which are taken from the data sources.

The result of this research is as follows: the average score of discourse quality is 87, 2. It means that the discourse quality of the texts is in good level. Then, the average score of readability is 54, 16. It means that the readability is in fairly difficult level. The last is H0 is received and H1 is refused. It means that there is no significant correlation between discourse quality and readability of the English Reading texts used in the state islamic senior high schools Jombang.

For the next researchers who concern to the readability, it is suggested that they investigate other factors which have correlation with readability of the text.

The factors which can be investigated are diction or word choice, grammar and word formation by using different method and in different area or even in the larger area in order to have better result. It is also suggested for the materials developers in order that they consider both discourse quality and readability of the text in developing the materials of the English.