This research was aimed to know students’ perception on reading
Jakarta Post Texts. This research was conducted in eight semester students at
English Language Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah
Purwokerto. Fifty five (55) students were taken as sample in this research. To
know the students perception on reading Jakarta Post Texts, two instruments
were used: questionnaire and interview. The results showed that the students
had positive perception on reading Jakarta Post Texts.It was proven with high
percentage of each indicator.Based on research findings, the questionnaire
results showed aptitude has the highest percentage among the other with
96,36%, interest (92,27%), motivation (91,82%), relationship between
teacher and students (91,81%), relationship between students (87,27%),
intelligence (78,18%), teaching method (77,27%) and attention (37,27%).
High percentage also was supported by result of interview. Almost of
students said that Jakarta Post did not only increase their vocabulary but also
it also developed their grammar. Even though some students still had
difficulties in understanding the Jakarta Post texts, but they tried to guess the
meaning by using dictionary. They also felt that Jakarta Post was very
interesting because many topics they could read. Majority of the students also
said that Jakarta post was one of the media that could improve their English
skill, especially comprehending the texts. However, most students read
Jakarta Post because of reading assignment, but some of them still kept
reading Jakarta Post to update the news.