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Reflecting on the findings in the first meeting, the researcher found that adverb was the part of speech that required more attention than the other parts of
speech which were more familiar to the students. The familiarity was shown by the fact that they wrote higher number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The adverb was
limited to a small number of adverbs of time, such as ‘yesterday’, ‘tonight’, and ‘tomorrow.’ It was clear that adverb had higher level of difficulty for most of the
students. Based on this reflection, the researcher decided to focus more on teaching adverb in the following meeting.
In addition, the field notes written by the observer showed that the students were eager to join the activities provided by the researcher. They were enthusiastic
and welcoming. The real classroom teacher did not observe the activities.
2. The Implementation of Word Games in Cycle Two
The second meeting was conducted on May 14
th
, 2012. Having planned the meeting based on the reflection on the previous meeting, the researcher focused more
on introducing as well as establishing the kinds of adverb and the words or phrases which could be categorized into adverbs. First of all, the researcher asked the students
to write down the adverbs that they could recall on their vocabulary list. After gathering the pre-implementation vocabulary list, the researcher tried to elicit the
students’ responses on the kinds of adverb they had known. The researcher asked the students about what kinds of adverb they knew and wrote down the results on the
whiteboard. Then, the researcher asked the students to give examples of words which
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could be categorized into adverb of manner, adverb of time, adverb of place, and adverb of frequency. These adverbs were the ones that the students were mostly
aware of. The researcher then divided the class into seven groups. Each group consisted
of four to five people. The game used in this meeting was called “Find the Answers” see Appendix 6. In this game, the students had to identify several adverbs which
could be found in a reading passage entitled “My Family’s Story” see Appendix 6. Then, the researcher distributed a reading passage to each group and asked the
students to identify the adverbs they could find in the reading in fifteen minutes. This type of game was chosen to make the students feel more relaxed because the meeting
was conducted on the last course hour. At this time, based on the preliminary observation, the students had difficulties in focusing on the lesson because they
wanted to go home as quickly as possible. To solve this problem, the researcher chose the game which was short and less energy-consuming.
After fifteen minutes, the students were asked to write down the adverbs they had found in the reading passage. They were not asked to exchange their work or
check the other group’s work as they did previously, so that they would have more chances to study and establish the adverbs that they had found themselves. After
finishing the group work, they had to write down the adverbs they found in their personal vocabulary list given after the implementation of the game. This technique
required the students to repeat writing the adverbs, which would help them memorize the words and internalize their meanings and parts of speech.
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Reflecting on the results that the researcher had gathered, the students were able to find more adverbs and score better, but the average score for the meaning part
was lower. The researcher found that some students chose not to write down anything in the meaning column because they wanted to go home sooner. Even though the
researcher did not allow them to go home before the regulated time, some students still insisted that they wanted to go home earlier than usual.
In order to avoid bias, the researcher had asked for help from another observer, different from the one observing in the first meeting. The observer had to
record the activities as well as the students’ responses and behavior during the implementation. The real classroom teacher decided that she would not observe the
teaching and learning activities because she assumed that the students would not act naturally if they realized that they were being observed by their own teacher.
The results in Table 4.3 show that even though the mean score which the students achieved after the implementation of the game was higher compared to the
pre-implementation score, they scored lower in the meaning part after the implementation. The words that they mistook the most were adjectives such as
‘unhappy’, ‘angry’, and ‘funny.’ However, they improved in getting used to supplying prepositions preceding nouns to form adverbs, such as ‘for my parents’,
‘with the neighbor’s children’, and ‘in a certain way.’ These types of adverbs could be easily found in the text. It explains why the score for the words section as
presented in Table 4.3 is significantly higher in the post-implementation column.
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Table 4.3 Students’ Scores in Cycle Two Pre-Implementation Post-Implementation Student
Pre-Implementation Post-Implementation
Words Meaning
Average Words
Meaning Average
1 14
20 17
12 18
15 2
4 20
12 15
11 13
3 4
17 10.5
9 16
12.5 4
4 3
3.5 5
12 8.5
5 5
19 12
12 2
7 6
13 6.5
16 9
12.5 7
4 8
6 14
12 13
8 5
8 6.5
6 12
9 9
6 18
12 10
16 13
10 9
19 14
10 16
13 11
11 17
14 13
16 14.5
12 5
18 11.5
11 15
13 13
11 20
15.5 8
12 10
14 5
17 11
15 14
14.5 15
10 11
10.5 15
14 14.5
16 9
16 12.5
13 18
15.5 17
3 18
10.5 8
17 12.5
18 9
9 9
12 16
14 19
8 17
12.5 15
14 14.5
20 3
5 4
7 5
6 21
9 19
14 11
16 13.5
22 6
16 11
13 6.5
23 6
8 7
14 15
14.5 24
14 20
17 14
14 14
25 13
15 14
17 14
15.5 26
8 15
11.5 8
16 12
27 5
20 12.5
10 17
13.5 28
6 8
7 16
6 11
29 8
15 11.5
4 2
30 12
13 12.5
12 16
14 31
7 8
7.5 9
4.5
Average 7.6
14.1 10.9
11.4 12.2
11.8
