Language learning attitudes and reading comprehension achievement at a private junior high school: a correlational study

The attitudes of learners influence their ability to acquire English as a foreign language. In terms of its impact on learners, a good attitude leads to successful learning, whereas a negative attitude leads to failure. During the preliminary study, the researcher found that those who were eager to learn could do the reading test well. On the other hand, the students who were not welcome to English had difficulty to understand and finish the test. Therefore, the research aimed to investigate the relationship between language learning attitude and reading comprehension achievement. This research was conducted at the seventh-grade students at a private junior high school in East Java, Indonesia. The population of this study was 153 students and the sample taken was 43 students. The method used in this research was quantitative method with correlational design. The instruments used to gather the data were language learning attitude questionnaire and midterm examination as reading comprehension test. Both scores were analyzed and calculated using statistical procedure of Pearson Product Moment correlation. The result showed that there was a moderate positive correlation between language learning attitude and reading comprehension achievement (rxy = +0.349). The hypothesis testing showed that p-value (0.022) was less than the level of significance (0.05) which means that H0 was rejected and Ha was accepted. The research findings indicated that there was a correlation language learning attitude and reading comprehension achievement of the seventh-grade students.