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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the writer discusses about background of the study, previous study, statements of the problems, objectives of the study, limitation of the study and benefits of the study. 1.1 Background of the Study English is an important means of communication, which is used by many countries in this world. It plays an important role as an international language. This is why the Indonesian government chooses English as the first foreign language to be taught in schools (Ramelan, 1992 cited in Royanti, 2007:1). There is several language components involved in language learning; they are: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc. Keith folse state in his article, The Underestimated Importance of Vocabulary in Foreign Language 1

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the writer discusses about background of the study, previous study,

statements of the problems, objectives of the study, limitation of the study and

benefits of the study.

1.1 Background of the Study

English is an important means of communication, which is used by

many countries in this world. It plays an important role as an international

language. This is why the Indonesian government chooses English as the first

foreign language to be taught in schools (Ramelan, 1992 cited in Royanti, 2007:1).

There is several language components involved in language learning;

they are: vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, etc. Keith folse state in his article,

The Underestimated Importance of Vocabulary in Foreign Language Classroom

argue that vocabulary is one of the most important components in learning a

foreign language and foreign language curricula must reflect this.

Vocabulary has a significant role in language. Basically, learning a

foreign language is a matter of learning vocabulary of that language. Research has

shown that vocabulary knowledge plays a critical role in students’ literacy

development (Scott, Jamieson-Noel, & Asselin, 2003). Wilkins (1972:8) stated

that without grammar very little can be conveyed; without vocabulary nothing can

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be conveyed. Thus, it can be concluded that learning vocabulary is important as

the basic need to encounter a new language.

Vocabulary is taught in many different ways. Based on a study

conducted by Rosmayanti (2008), in most Indonesian English language class most

teachers used conventional teaching method in teaching vocabulary. The teachers

only give the students a non-stop drilling memorization practice. This types of

learning can sometimes make the learners frustrated when they have to memorize

a list of new words at once. Therefore, the “look and remember” way of

vocabulary learning seems not to be effective for the learners of English language.

Cited in Nurhasanah’s paper (2006), studies conducted by Beck, Mc

Keown and Kucan (2002) shows that provided dictionary definitions and asked

brief questions about the words indicated 63% of students’ sentences were judged

to be “odd” (Miller and Gildea, 1985), 60% of students’ responses were

unacceptable (Mc Keown, 1993), and students’ frequently interpreted one or two

words from s definition as the entire meaning (Scott & Nagy, 1989).

In the first case study in Indonesia, that type of vocabulary learning

makes the students bored and less motivated. The students are unlikely to be

successful at learning unless they enjoy the process. In the second case,

memorization may feel burdened when they cannot remember the list of words

given. Therefore, teacher needs strategy to avoid this kind of problem by creating

activities which is interesting and worth doing, especially in this case is

vocabulary learning lesson to encourage the students.

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One of the best activities in teaching and learning vocabulary is through

a game. According to Nguyen Ti Huyen (2003) games have been shown to have

advantages and effectiveness in learning vocabulary in various ways; First, games

bring in relaxation and fun for students. Thus help them learn and retain new

words easily. Second, games usually involve friendly competition and keep

learners interested, thus create the motivation for the learners. Third, vocabulary

games bring real word context into the classroom and enhance students’ use of

English in a flexible, communicative way.

One of popular games named crossword now has been beneficially used

in teaching learning process. Jones (2007) stated that crossword solving, involves

several skills including vocabulary, reasoning, and spelling skills.

From the explanations above, the writer thinks that crossword puzzle

game might be a solution for the vocabulary learning problems. The researcher

will conduct a Classroom action research as a learning therapy.

In this research, the researcher will implement Crossword puzzle game

in vocabulary learning of the second grade students of MTS Darul Ulum

Purwogondo to know whether the Crossword puzzle game improves the students’

vocabulary mastery or not and to investigate how the students respond toward the

implementation of this game.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

Considering the background of the study above, the problem statements are as

follows:

1. Does the use of Crossword puzzle game significantly improve the students’

vocabulary mastery?

2. What are the students’ responses toward the use of Crossword puzzle game

in improving their vocabulary mastery?

1.3 Objective of the Study

Based on the problem statement, the writer states the objective of the study as

follow:

1. To find out whether the use of Crossword puzzle game improves the students’

vocabulary mastery or not.

2. To find out the students’ responses toward the use of Crossword puzzle game

in improving their vocabulary mastery.

1.4 Limitation of the Study

In this research the writer focused on:

1. The improvements of the students’ vocabulary mastery taught by using

Crossword puzzle game.

2. The students’ responses toward the use of Crossword puzzle game in

improving their vocabulary mastery.

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1.5 Significance of the Study

This research has some advantages as follow:

- The results of this research are expected to give alternative activity to the

teachers to use Crossword puzzle as one of good activities in improving

students’ vocabulary mastery.

- The most significant contribution of this study is to provide the description of

Crossword puzzle game and vocabulary learning which will show the

implementations of Crossword puzzle game in improving vocabulary mastery.

- The findings from this study can be used by the teachers to improve the

quality of teaching learning process especially in teaching and learning

vocabulary.

1.6 Operational Definition

- Vocabulary: a list of words, usually in alphabetical order and with

explanations of their meanings, less complete than dictionary (Paul P,

1978:1229).

- Crossword Puzzle game: a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a

square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the

white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which

lead to the answers (Binta A, 2010:6)

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITETERATURE

This chapter consists of some theories related to Vocabulary and Crossword

puzzle suggested by some linguists, review of previous study and the theoretical

framework.

2.1 Vocabulary

Vocabulary is a list of words, usually in alphabetical order and with

explanations of their meanings, less complete than dictionary (Paul P, 1978:1229).

There are many ways to study vocabulary, according to Mr. Cheung (2010) there

are eleven interesting ways to study vocabulary, they are:

1. Written Repetition - copy the word and/or its definition a number of times

on paper.

2. Oral Repetition - Read the word and its definition aloud a number of times.

3. Art - Draw a picture next to the word.

4. Visualization - Imagine an image with the word or first letter.

5. Association - Make up a story about the word(s), or associate an idea or a

part of the word with it's meaning.

6. Dramatization - Act out the word physically.

7. Word Parts - Use prefix and suffixes to help id the meaning of the word.

8. Music - Write a rap or song about it.

9. Computers - Type the word and its definition into a computer.

10. Write a story about the words.

11. Using game - Quiz each other with a partner.

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2.2.1 Teaching Vocabulary Through Games

According to Ghada Sari (2009) Learning vocabulary through games is

one effective and interesting way that can be applied in any classroom. In this

paper I suggest that games are used not only for mere fun, but more importantly,

for the useful presenting, practice and review of vocabulary to improve the

learners' communicative competence.

Language learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating.

Constant effort is required to understand, produce, and manipulate the target

language. Games have proven to have advantages and effectiveness in learning

vocabulary in various ways:

Games bring in relaxation and fun for students, thus help them learn and

retain new words more easily.

Games usually involve friendly competition and they keep learners

interested.

Vocabulary games bring real world context into the classroom and enhance

students' use of English in a flexible, communicative way.

Games are highly motivating and they give students more opportunity to

express their opinions and feelings.

Games add diversion to the regular classroom activities," break the ice",

but they are also used to introduce new ideas.

(Ghada S, 2009)

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The role of games in teaching and learning vocabulary cannot be denied.

However in order to achieve the most from vocabulary games, it is important that

suitable games are chosen. Whenever a game is to be conducted, the number of

students, proficiency level, cultural context, timing, learning topic, and classroom

settings are factors that should be taken into account.

Suggested games:

Ambiguous picture: draw a small part of a picture. Ask the students what it is

going to be. Encourage different opinions. Do not confirm or reject their ideas.

Add a little more to the drawing and ask the question again. Build your picture in

about four stages.

Association: start by suggesting an evocative word:" storm", for example. A

student says what the word suggests to him or her-it might be "dark", and so on

round the class. You might start with any other word or use an item of vocabulary

the class has recently learnt.

Crosswords: ask a student to write a word of not more than five letters in the

middle of the board, for example, "melon". The letters should be written clearly

and separately. Now think of a word which shares one letter with the word on

board. Give students a clue to your word. For example," I like reading them". If

somebody guesses: books" he or she writes the word so it crosses the first word

and shares a letter. The students now take over.

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2.2 Crossword Puzzle

Crossword Puzzle game is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of

a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the

white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead

to the answers (Binta A, 2010:6)

Crossword puzzles are the world's most popular word game. The first

crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were a far cry

from what appears today in US newspapers, derived from word squares, groups of

words that can be read across or down. These appeared in children's books and

various periodicals. In the United States, however, the puzzle evolved to become

a serious adult pastime. During the height of the crossword craze in the 1920s,

people lost their jobs and marriages were destroyed due to the addictive nature of

these new puzzles.

The first known crossword puzzle was created by Arthur Wynne for the

eight-page comics section of the New York World. Usually, the page featured

word squares, hidden words and connect-the-dots exercises. However, Wynne

wanted to try something different. He sketched a diamond-shaped grid (without

black squares) and wrote the word "fun" (the name of the comics section) across

the top of the square.

There are three different types of crossword puzzles: freeform or criss-

cross crossword puzzles, American-style crossword puzzles and cryptic

crossword puzzle. (http://puzzles.about.com/od/crosswords/p/crosswords.htm)

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2.3 Review of Previous study

The previous study was done by Rindi Risanah Yulidesti, entitled;

Implementing Crossword Puzzle to Improve The Vocabulary Achievement of the

Fourth Graders at SDN 1 Tapen, Bondowoso.

This study used collaborative classroom action research. The researcher

together with the EFL teacher designed the lesson plans and set the criteria of

success. The EFL teacher collaborator acted as the observer during the teaching

and learning process. The research was conducted in one cycle since the result of

the fourth graders' vocabulary quiz have achieved the criteria of success and the

students could actively participated during the implementation of the crossword

puzzle in the first cycle.

The first cycle consisted of two meetings and covered planning an

action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting on the

observation. The subjects were 34 fourth grade students of SDN 1 Tapen,

Bondowoso in academic year 2009/2010 that consisted of 19 males and 15

females.

The instruments that were used to collect the data were observation

sheets, field notes, vocabulary quiz, and students' questionnaire. The materials

were selected on the basis of the words' frequency of occurrence. In this selection

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by frequency of occurrence, the researcher counted the number of items that

occurred in the textbooks that they used in the class. The vocabulary materials

taught were grouped into three parts of speech, namely noun, verb, and adjective.

The topic of the materials was Home Activities that was divided into

Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous Tense. In this study, the researcher

expected more than 17 (>50% of 34 students) scored equal to or above the SKBM

of 70 and actively participated in the implementation of crossword puzzle.

The result of this study shown us that Crossword Puzzle effectively

improved the fourth graders' vocabulary achievement. At the end of the

implementation, more than 17 students (>50% of 34 students) had reached the

SKBM and actively participated in the implementation of crossword puzzle.

2.4 Theoretical framework

According to Mr. Cheung (2010) there are eleven interesting ways to

study vocabulary, they are:

1. Written Repetition - copy the word and/or its definition a number of times

on paper.

2. Oral Repetition - Read the word and its definition aloud a number of times.

3. Art - Draw a picture next to the word.

4. Visualization - Imagine an image with the word or first letter.

5. Association - Make up a story about the word(s), or associate an idea or a

part of the word with it's meaning.

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6. Dramatization - Act out the word physically.

7. Word Parts - Use prefix and suffixes to help id the meaning of the word.

8. Music - Write a rap or song about it.

9. Computers - Type the word and its definition into a computer.

10. Write a story about the words.

11. Using game - Quiz each other with a partner.

According to Ghada Sari (2009) Learning vocabulary through games is

one effective and interesting way that can be applied in any classroom. In this

paper I suggest that games are used not only for mere fun, but more importantly,

for the useful presenting, practice and review of vocabulary to improve the

learners' communicative competence.

Language learning is a hard task which can sometimes be frustrating.

Constant effort is required to understand, produce, and manipulate the target

language. Games have proven to have advantages and effectiveness in learning

vocabulary in various ways:

Games bring in relaxation and fun for students, thus help them learn and

retain new words more easily.

Games usually involve friendly competition and they keep learners

interested.

Vocabulary games bring real world context into the classroom and enhance

students' use of English in a flexible, communicative way.

Games are highly motivating and they give students more opportunity to

express their opinions and feelings.

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Games add diversion to the regular classroom activities," break the ice",

but they are also used to introduce new ideas.

(Ghada S, 2009)

Crossword puzzles are the world's most popular word game. The first

crosswords appeared in England during the 19th century. They were a far cry

from what appears today in US newspapers, derived from word squares, groups of

words that can be read across or down. These appeared in children's books and

various periodicals. In the United States, however, the puzzle evolved to become

a serious adult pastime. During the height of the crossword craze in the 1920s,

people lost their jobs and marriages were destroyed due to the addictive nature of

these new puzzles (http://puzzles.about.com/od/crosswords/p/crosswords.htm).

Based on data of the previous study, the use of crossword game

significantly improved the students’ vocabulary mastery. The data shown us that

more than 17 students (>50% of 34 students) had reached the SKBM and

actively participated in the implementation of crossword puzzle

2.5 Action Hypothesis

Based on the statement of the problem, previous study and the

theoretical framework, the writer proposes an action hypothesis that crossword

puzzle as media of teaching significantly improve the students’ vocabulary

mastery.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

This chapter focuses on the research design, the object of the study, role of the

researcher, procedure of data collection, and procedures of data analysis.

3.1 Research Design

Regarding to the main aims of the study, classroom action research is

used to find out the answers of the mentioned research questions. Classroom

action research is research that is done by a person (teacher) which aims to

improve teaching learning process in his/her classroom (Kemmis&McTaggart,

1988:6, as cited in Nunan, 1992).

This research will also employ descriptive qualitative research method.

Verma &Beard (1981:57) states that descriptive method of research is primarily

concerned with portraying the present, while according to Mc Milan&

Schumacher descriptive design simply describes an existing phenomenon by using

numbers to characterize individuals or a group (1989:33). Qualitative research is

the research method aimed to observe people and their environment, interact with

them and attempt to understand their language and point of view about their

surrounding (Nasution, 2003:5).

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3.2 Subject of the Research

The subject of research are 2nd grade students of MTs. Darul Ulum

Jepara. The subjects are chosen since they experienced vocabulary learning

problems. The participant of the class consists of 20 students.

3.3 Research Procedure

Action research consists of cycle. According to Kemmis & McTaggart,

there are four basic steps in the action research. They are planning, acting,

observing and reflecting.

1. Planning

- Determining the appropriate strategy; using crossword puzzle game as the

solution to the students’ vocabulary problems.

- Designing the instructional media intended. The crossword puzzles are made

in pieces of A3 papers (in the first cycle) and a flash game of crossword

puzzles in the second cycle.

- To collect the data on the attitudinal factors of the students the researcher

design three instruments; observation checklist, interview, field note.

- To collect the quantitative data, the researcher designed a vocabulary test.

2. Acting

In this stage, the researcher must obey the planning but should make the

process of teaching and learning natural. The teacher does the teaching as usual

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without creating a different atmosphere among the students. So, they do not think

that they are being the subject of research.

The research will be conducted two meetings each cycle, and the time is

90 minutes/meeting. The schecule is shown in table 1.

Table 1 Activities Schedule:

Date Meeting Cycle

July 9, 2012

July 12, 2012

July 16, 2012

July 19, 2012

1

2

1

2

1

1

2

2

In the first meeting, the students will be taught by using cross word

puzzle as media of teaching. They will be asked to answer the simple questions

and fill the blanks in the puzzle. They should be competitive in this game, and they

are asked to open their dictionary if they don’t know the meaning of the words in

the puzzle. Here, they will remember the list of words naturally. In the second

meeting, the students will be asked to do tests that already prepared by the

researcher.

3. Observing

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There are two main aspects of the effect of implementing the crossword

puzzle in vocabulary learning that will be observed. First is the vocabulary score

that could be seen from the score of the tests. Second is the process of learning

using crossword puzzle in the classroom. The present of the researcher is

important for the sake of an objective feedback.

4. Reflecting

In this stage, the researcher will analyze all of the data from the

vocabulary tests, observation, interview and field note; and then the researcher will

compare the data with the criteria of success:

- The research is completed when 75 % of the students achieve minimally 75 in

their vocabulary test score.

- The research is completed when 75 % of the students highly motivated toward

the use of crossword puzzle in their vocabulary learning in the classroom.

If the students’ score in vocabulary test do not achieve the goal in the

first cycle, the researcher will conduct the second cycle. The procedures of the

second cycle are same with the procedures of the first cycle, but the researcher will

use a flash game of crossword puzzles as media to make the learning process more

interactive.

3.4 Data Collection

The data will be gathered by using some instruments as follow:

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a. Observation is used to gain a description of how well the game work in

vocabulary learning process and to the students’ responses toward the

use of “crossword” game in improving students’ vocabulary mastery.

b. Interview is used to gain students’ perception toward the use of

crossword puzzle in improving their vocabulary mastery.

c. Field notes are used to know the instructional activities in the class

during the implementation of crossword puzzle in vocabulary learning

obviously in written form.

d. Test is used to measure students’ improvement of vocabulary learning.

3.5 Data Analysis

The qualitative data will be obtained from the result of observation,

interview and field notes. The gathered data will be analyzed descriptively. The

analysis of is to find out how the crossword puzzle is used in the class to improve

students’ vocabulary mastery and the students’ responses toward the use of

crossword puzzle. To support the descriptive data, the result of test will be used to

measure the students’ improvement in vocabulary mastery.

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REFERENCES

Folse, S.K., (2004) The Underestimated Importance of Vocabulary in The Foreign

Langauge Classroom. Taken from: CLEARNews Fall 2004. [27 Agustus 2010]

Gairns, R and Redman, S. (1986) Working with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Jones, Kerry (2007) Building Vocabulary Skill. Retrieved from:

http://vocabulary.co.il/blog/learning_vocabulary/teaching-with-crossword-

puzzles/ [28Agustus 2010]

Moras, S., (2001) Teaching Vocabulary to Advanced Students: A Lexical Approach.

Retrieved from www.telus.net/linguisticsissues/teachingvocabulary.html [27

Agustus 2010]

NN. Crossword-Wikipedia, the Free Enclycopedia. Taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CrosswordUSA.svg24 [24 July 2010]

Nurhasanah, Iin. (2006) The Implementation of The Clarifying Routine Technique in

Improving Students’ Vocabulary Mastery. A Research Paper in FPBS UPI

Bandung: unpublished.

Susilowati. (2007) A Descriptive Study on the Vocabulary Mastery of The Eleventh

Year Students of SMA Negeri 2 Surakarta Academic Year 2007/2008. Retrieved

from:http://one.indoskripsi.com/judul-skripsi/pendidikan-bahasa-inggris/

descriptive-study-vocabulary-mastery-eleventh-year-students-sma-negeri-2-

surakarta-ac [24Juli 2010]

Ur, Penny. (1991) A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

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Wright, A., Betteridge, D., and Buckby, M., (1983) Games for Language Learning.

Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

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