THE EFFECT OF USING NUMBERED HEAD TOGETHER TECHNIQUE ON THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT AT SMPN 2 TANGGUL JEMBER Setya Agustin 58 , Sugeng Ariyanto 59 , I Putu Sukmaantara 60 Abstract. This article is intended to discuss the effect of using Numbered Head Together (NHT) technique at the eighth grade students’ reading comprehension achievement at SMPN 2 Tanggul Jember. Reading is one of the basic skills that are taught to students at junior and senior high school. Reading relates to reading comprehension. It means that a reader should think critically how to understand the text. Through reading activities, the students are expected to be able to comprehend the word, the sentence, the paragraph, and the text meaning. Therefore, a good reading ability is needed to make students master in reading. The use of Numbered Head Together technique in teaching reading is effective, since it lets the students to cooperate with their group by putting their head together to discuss the problem. This research applied a quasi- experimental with posttest only control group design. The research was conducted at SMPN 2 Tanggul Jember with the eighth graders as the research population. Considering the Homogeneity test’s result, the population was homogeneous, therefore the research sample was chosen by using lottery. VIII-B which had 35 students was the experimental group and VIII-C which consisted of 36 students was the control group. The result of the students’ reading comprehension test was calculated by using independent sample t-test through SPSS program. The result of the calculation showed that the use of Numbered Head Together Technique gave a significant effect on the eighth grade student’ reading comprehension achievement at SMPN 2 Tanggul Jember. Key Words : Reading comprehension achievement, Numbered Head Together Technique, Independent Sample t-test. INTRODUCTION As a means of communication, language plays an important role for humans’ life. People use language as a medium for transferring information from the speaker to the listener. Without having language, people cannot express their ideas, thought, and feelings. There are so many languages that are used by people around the world, one of them is English. English is one of the international languages used by many people in the world. Crystal (2003: 6) states that English is spoken in approximately a quarter of the world’s population. In fact, most of the sources of information, including book, science, and technology, are written in English. English is the most widespread medium of communication. It is because of the number and geographical areas of its speakers and 58 Mahasiswa Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris FKIP Universitas Jember 59 Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris FKIP Universitas Jember 60 Staf Pengajar Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris FKIP Universitas Jember