Conceptual Framework LITERATURE REVIEW

31 hand, the control group perceived that word list was a tedious strategy to teach English vocabulary. Therefore, flashcard is suggested as the media to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. In conclusion, these studies on using flashcard to improve students’ vocabulary mastery showed positive results. Students who received flashcard as their treatment indicated an improvement in their vocabulary mastery than those who did not.

C. Conceptual Framework

As explained in the literature review, vocabulary as the foundation of a language plays an important role for the language learners to be able to understand and communicate in the target language. In the teaching and learning process of a language, ideally, the teacher gives the students an adequate vocabulary knowledge in order to make the students be able to comprehend and express their idea without hesitation. In relation to giving the students vocabulary knowledge,the teacher should present the new vocabulary within some interesting learning activities, so that they can motivate and engage the students. One of the ways that can gather students’ interest into the classroom activity is using flashcard. Flashcard can be used to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. It can be implemented in many ways, and can be adjusted to the group of words that the students’ need to know. Flashcard makes the teaching and learning process less boring for the students, because it is eye-catching and motivating. 32 The previous studies show positive results of the use of flashcards in improving students’ vocabulary mastery. Flashcards are chosen to make the variety in the language teaching and learning. Since the teaching and learning process for grade eight students at MTsN Godean are rarely using such teaching aids, therefore, the researcher attempts to improve students’ vocabulary mastery by using flashcards.

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Type of the Study

This study was conducted through action research. Action research is a part of a major change in education. It is connected to the ideas that the teacher makes research in his own classroom to reflect the teaching and learning process involving the teacher himself Burns, 2010: 2. It attempts to find the solution of the problems and implement actual actions in improving a condition by showing the cause-effect relationship between the actions and the results . Burns 2010: 2 states that the main aims of action research is to identify the problems in class then try to bring changes or improvements of the problems deliberately. Rapoport as cited in Hopkins 2008: 47 explains the purpose of action research is to help both joint collaboration’s goals in the social science study within an acceptable ethical framework and the problematical situation of the people’s practical concerns. The aim of this study was to solve students’ problems related to vocabulary mastery. In this research, the researcher collaborated with the English teacher. The researcher conducted this research based on Kemmi s and McTaggart’s model of action research in Burns 2010: 7-9. These steps are planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The processes can be seen on the figure 5. 33