27 learning process was carried out from 7.00 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. every Monday, from
7.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 7.00 a.m. to 11.15.am. every Friday and from 7.00 a.m. to 12.50 p.m. every Saturday. The
school had total 24 English hours. It was handled by two English teachers.
2. Class Setting
This study was conducted in class X Accountancy 2, SMK Putra Tama Bantul. It was conducted from February 2013 to April 2013. This study was
conducted in the 2
nd
semester of academic year 2012 2013. The duration of the English lesson was a hundred and twenty five minutes on Thursday and forty five
minutes on Friday per class hour.
C. Research Participants
The total number of students in class X Accountancy 2 was twenty four. They had difficulties in composing short functional English texts. They had
difficulties in applying the elements, knowing the meaning of new words, organizing ideas, and applying the tenses used in an informal memo and an
informal invitation letter. Moreover, they felt bored in learning writing those short functional English texts.
D. Research Instruments and Data Gathering Technique
This section presents the instruments of this study. The researcher employed six instruments to obtain the data. The six instruments are observation
28 checklists, field notes, questionnaires, interviews
, students’ written texts, and students’ reflection sheets.
1. Observation Sheets
The observation sheets helped the researcher and observers to observe the
researcher’s and students’ activities in the English teaching learning process in
classroom. According to Best and Khan 1986, observation sheet provides list of statements that are observed during the English teaching learning process.
Observation sheets were also done by co- observers who helped the researcher to obtain the information Elliot, 1991. In this study, there were two co- observers
who are two English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University students.
2. Field Notes
The result of the field notes is used to support the data resulted from the observation checklist. The field notes helped the researcher reflect the
implementation of classroom action research. Moreover, it helped the researcher implement the next implementation better. Those statements are supported by
Fraenkel and Wallen 2008
who states “In educational research, this usually
means the detailed notes researchers take in the educational setting a classroom or a
school as they observe what is going on …” p. 506. Therefore, the researcher and the English teacher wrote the students’ activities and conditions
during the English teaching learning process.
29
3. Questionnaires
A questionnaire is a quick and simple way to obtain rich information about aspects of classroom and teaching method Hopkins, 2008. In this study, the
researcher distributed the questionnaires to all students of class X Accountancy 2 in the preliminary study and in the end of each cycle of games implementation.
The purpose of the questionnaire was to obtain information from the students themselves whether games helped them improve their writing skill in composing
an informal memo and an informal invitation letter. The researcher employed two types of item responses mentioned by Burns 1999, namely close-ended items
and open- ended items. In the preliminary study, there were thirteen numbers of close- ended items and three numbers of open-ended items. In the end of each
cycle, there wereeleven numbers of close- ended items and five numbers of open- ended items.
4. Interviews
The interviews helped the researcher obtain more information from the students
’ opinion. Gall et al. 2007 state that interview “involves asking a series
of structured questions and then probing more deeply with open-form questions to
obtain additional information” p. 246. In the preliminary study, the interview
was conducted to the English teacher in order to obtain more data on
the students’
difficulties in composing short functional English texts. There were four main questions in interviewing the English teacher. The interview was also conducted
to ten students whose answers in the questionnaire really supported the study. The
30 interview was conducted to ten X Accountancy 2 students of SMK Putra Tama
Bantul in the end of the second cycle.
It aimed to know the students’ further
opinion of games implementation whether games could improve their writing skill in composing short functional English texts. There were eight main questions used
to interview the students.
5. Students’ Written Texts
The students’ written texts were the individual written texts in which the
students compose an informal memo and an informal invitation letter. The
students’ written texts were used to obtain more information on the improvement of students’ writing skill in composing an informal memo and an informal
invitation letter. Those statements are supported by Burns 1999 who states that
the students’ written texts help the researcher assess the students’ progress in
writing.
6. Students’ Reflection Sheets
The s
tudents’ reflection helped the researcher reflect the action of each
cycle of this study. It also helped students reflect what they had got from the lesson of those days. There were four open- ended questions in the
students’
reflection.
The students’ reflection was distributed to all of X Accountancy 2
students in the end of each cycle.
31
E. Data Analysis Technique
The researcher aimed to answer the problem formulated and relate the theories in Chapter II. Then, the researcher used the data triangulation. Data
triangulation was proposed by Elliot and Adelman as cited in Hopkins, 2008. It involves comparison of two or more methods of data collection in the study of
some aspects of human behavior Hopkins, 2008. Therefore, the data triangulation was important in order to make the data more accurate and valid.
In order to observe whether the students got improvement in writing skill after implementing games in learning writing an informal memo and an informal
invitation letter, the researcher used the
students’ drafts and revised written texts
as the main data. The researcher used a specific rubric from some sources which was designed by the researcher and the English teacher to measu
re the students’
writing skill in composing an informal memo and an informal invitation letter see Appendix Q. Then, the researcher used the result of
students’ drafts and revised
written texts to see whether the students made a good improvement. The data will be presented in two ways: percentage and description. The
researcher presented the students’ answer in the questionnaire in percentage.
Then, the researcher described the data while answering the problem formulated based on the percentage.
The stude
nts’ answers in interview would be the further information about
the data. The researcher used field notes to describe the activities happen during the implementation process. In order to make the data more objectives, the
researcher compared the data from field notes with the data from the observation
32 checklists: whether some cases
were supported by the observer’s observation or
not.
The researcher used the students’ reflection to be the additional teacher’s
reflection in the end of each cycle. It would indicate what went well and what did not in implementing the games. Therefore, the teacher could make improvement
in implementing games in the next cycle.
F. Research Procedure
