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1991, the researcher usually used the time to check the students’ understanding
and summarize the materials being studied. The researcher reviewed the materials and asked the difficult things which were faced by the students in the teaching and
learning process. Those were the summary of the lesson plan which was implemented in the
first cycle. Before using the flash cards, the researcher and the teacher had to discuss the learning materials, learning activities, and the assessment. Afterwards,
the researcher and the teacher also knew about the steps of using flash cards in teaching the students about the past forms of irregular verbs.
b. Acting and Observing of the First Cycle
The researcher had an important role to carry out the implementation of flash cards in the classroom action research. The researcher was also helped by his
partner to observe what was happening during the teaching and learning process. In this step, the researcher was going to explain the details of events in pre
activity, whilst activity, and post activity in order to have the description towards the process of flash cards implementation.
1 Pre Activity of the First Cycle
In the beginning of the class, the researcher found that most of the students in VIIIB class were busy with their own activities, such as walking around the
class, talking to their friends, and even sleeping. Then, the researcher greeted the students and asked them to be more serious in the teaching and learning process.
Before starting the activities, the researcher asked the students to pray based on their own religion. After that, the researcher reviewed a little bit the materials
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about the recount text given in the previous meeting. The researcher reviewed the materials further about the past forms of verbs in the recount text. He also told the
indicators which were going to be achieved in the meeting see Appendix 6. In order to make the students enthusiastic in joining the lesson, the researcher gave
an ice breaker to lift the students’ spirit.
Next, the researcher explained about the strategy which was used in the teaching and learning process as brief as possible. The researcher explained in two
language s, the students’ native language and English as the target language. It was
expected to make the students have some ideas about what they had to do. He also provided some teaching aids to help the students know what they were going to
demonstrate through implementing flash cards. Tafani Filma 2008: 82 say that, “media provides teachers and students with creative and practical ideas”.
When the researcher asked the students to be more serious joining the lesson, he found the students paid more attention. There were many students who
showed their curiosity about the name of the strategy which was introduced by the researcher. The students listened to his explanation carefully about flash cards.
Most of the students gave a positive response in pre activity. However, the students looked enthusiastic to know further about the implementation of flash
cards.
2 Whilst Activity of the First Cycle
After giving a brief introduction about the flash cards which were going to be implemented, the researcher gave a handout about a recount text. In order to
start whilst activity, the researcher asked one of the students to guess what the
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story in the text was about. The researcher checked t he students’ ability about the
language feature which was used in the recount text. It aimed to review the students about recount. Then, the researcher started the activities by showing the
flash cards to the students in which each card consisted of four regular or irregular verbs with its past forms. In the meeting, the main activities were focused on the
implementation of flash cards. After that, the researcher explained the procedures of teaching the past
forms of verbs using flash cards. The researcher asked the students to make a group which consisted of six or seven people. Then, the students in each group
practiced the flash cards with the instruction given by the researcher. The instruction was one student read four verbs in a card and then hisher friend who
sat next to himher should be paid attention. It was because heshe had to guess the past forms of the verbs which were read by the reader with the correct
pronunciation. For instance, student A said Fly, and student B who sat next to student A should guess the past forms and past participle of Fly which was Flew
and Flown. Besides, the other students in the group had to listen and pay attention to the performances which were being done by their friends.
The researcher asked all of the students to do it until they had done all of their roles in asking their friends and answering what their friends asked in each
group. The researcher did not ignore the students who practiced flash cards and pronounced the verbs incorrectly. He automatically guided them in the activities
by asking them to repeat it, so that the students could know the correct pronunciation and the steps in practicing the flash cards. The researcher helped the
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students when they faced difficulties in practicing the flash cards and pronouncing the verbs. Besides, the researcher wrote the irregular verbs in a whiteboard in
which most of the students felt difficult in practicing and pronouncing it. The pronunciation of each verb was explained clearly by the researcher. Then, the
students repeated what the researcher said. The researcher did not also forget to give some exercises in filling the past forms of irregular verbs in the blanks in a
recount text before having the test. The teaching and learning process in this cycle could run well. The
students paid serious attention when the material was explained. They practiced it both individually and collectively in a group. Any mistakes that happened were
tolerable. Finally , to check the students’ understanding in the first cycle, the
researcher evaluated them by giving a test. There were 20 sentences of filling in the blanks which should be done by the students. From 37 students, the researcher
classified the test scores into three categories. They were the highest score, medium score, and lowest score. The highest score was 95, medium score was 80,
and lowest score was 70. The test scores of the students could be seen in the table below.
Table 4.3 The Results of the Test in the First Cycle No
The number of students Score
1 4
95 2
3 90
3 8
85 4
9 80
5 10
75 6
3 70
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From the table above, it could be seen that the students’ test scores
increased. T he average of the students’ result in the test of the first cycle is 81.3. It
means that the results are higher than the results of the test in the preliminary study. The students have passed the passing grade provided by the school which is
70. Therefore, it can be concluded that the first cycle is successful to do. Based on the evaluation, some students made mistakes when they practiced to guess the past
forms of irregular verbs. In this step, when explaining the procedure of using the flash cards in
learning the past forms of verbs, the researcher observed that most of the students looked enthusiastic in learning it. They also paid attention from the beginning
until the end of the explanation of procedure of using the flash cards. However, only some students who answered the researcher’s question while the researcher
asked the students. Afterwards, the students were enthusiastic in discussing the worksheet about choosing the correct past forms of verbs in a recount text. The
interaction between students and students was done well when they were asked to do an exercise in pairs. Nevertheless, the teacher still found
the students’ difficulties which were about lack of vocabulary. It could be proven when they
did not understand about the meaning of some difficult words, such as obey and punish see Appendix 7.
Those were the description of learning activities in whilst activity. It could be concluded that there were good interaction between the teacher and the
students and a good interaction between the students and the students.
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3 Post Activity of the First Cycle
After doing the whilst activity which consisted of explaining the procedure of using flash cards in learning the recount text, doing a worksheet, and doing a
test, th e researcher checked the students’ understanding again. The researcher
asked the students collectively by reviewing what the students had learnt in the whole meeting. Some students told him that the strategy of using flash cards was
very interesting for learning the past forms of irregular verbs see Appendix 7. According to Charles 2009: 123, flash cards are especially useful for
memorizing vocabulary words and their definition. In fact, they needed extra time to be more fluent in applying the strategy of
flash cards. The researcher then advised them to practice intensively at home by making the simple flash cards like what they had done in the teaching and
learning process. After that, the researcher gave the students an opportunity to ask the difficult things which made them confused. They might be ashamed to ask
something when they had to say in English. In the end of the class, as a closure, the researcher asked the students to pray together based on their own religion.
When the researcher conducted the research, his partner also helped him observe the students
’ behavior and researcher’s performance in the teaching and learning process through the field notes see Appendix 7.
c. Reflecting of the First Cycle
