21
In the beginning of the class, the teacher will explain the flash cards. If the teacher uses the flash cards to drill the past forms of irregular verbs, shehe should
show them in front of the class, so the whole class can see the cards easily and go through the drill. After the students start to pronounce the past form and past
participle of irregular verbs in the cards, the teacher can start to flash the cards for a second and the students have to tell what the card is. That is why they are called
flash cards.
6. Classroom Action Research
This part presents the discussion of classroom action research. They are the definition, aims, characteristics, and models of classroom action research.
a. Definition of Classroom Action Research
Kemmis and McTaggart as quoted by Nunan 1992: 18 state that action research is a group of activity and a piece of descriptive research carried out by
the teacher in herhis own classroom, without changing the phenomenon under investigation. Meanwhile Harmer 2001: 344 argues that action research is a
series of procedures in which teachers can engage to evaluate the success of certain activities and procedures.
By the definition of classroom action research above, it can be concluded that action research is research carried out by the teacher in the classroom in order
to improve the aspects of the teaching or to evaluate the success of certain activities and procedures in the learning process.
22
b. Aims of Classroom Action Research
Each kind of research must have a goal in order to solve the problem which is being researched. Elliot 1991: 49 states that the fundamental aim of
action research is to improve practices rather than to produce knowledge. Meanwhile, according to Cohan and Manion as cited by Nunan 1992: 18,
“the aim of action research is to improve the current state of affairs within the
educational context in which research is being carried out”. Therefore, classroom action research is used since the aim of the study is to improve the
students’ irregular verb mastery through the flash cards.
c. Characteristics of Classroom Action Research
Kemmis and McTaggart arguments as quoted by Nunan 1992: 19, there are three characteristics of classroom action research. They are: 1 it is carried
out by practitioners for the purpose, classroom teacher rather than outside researchers, 2 it is collaborative, and 3 it is aimed at changing things.
d. Models of Classroom Action Research
In this research, the researcher decides to adopt Kemmis and McTaggart ’s
model 1988: 14. The steps of classroom action research are based on Kemmis and McTaggart model’s, namely planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.
Those four steps are included in one cycle. Therefore, the researcher who conducts classroom action research should follow those steps.
23
B. Theoretical Framework
By looking at the Indonesian curriculum 2006 which is implemented in teaching and learning process, the researcher should be able to understand various
types of recount texts. The researcher decided to use a recount text which became the basic in making the materials in the teaching and learning process. Hammon et
al. 1992 state that a recount text is both spoken and written text. In learning recount, the students must learn the language features of recount. One of them is
simple past tense. Simple past tense is part of the grammar that can be considered to be the most difficult thing that must be learnt by the eighth grade students of
SMP N 3 Klaten. However, grammar learning should be given enough attention and great importance in the classroom as stated by Chen 2009.
Based on the observation, the eighth grade students of SMP N 3 Klaten faced difficulties in understanding the past forms of irregular verbs. It could be
seen that the students could not write the correct past forms of irregular verbs in filling the blanks in a recount text. It became the
teacher’s responsibility to help students master grammar especially the simple past tense.
Knowing the real condition in the class, the researcher used flash cards to improve the
students’ irregular verb mastery. The researcher used a theory of flash cards proposed by Charles 2009. Flash cards are especially useful for
memorizing vocabulary words and their definition, dates in history, and their significance, and picture artwork or other items that they will be responsible for
identifying. In order to apply the strategy of flash cards, the researcher conducted classroom action research
based on Kemmis and McTaggart’s model 1988: 14.
