Problems of the Research

79 integratedly with teaching reading comprehension. It was also found that most of the students were not active in the vocabulary class. In addition, by conducting an informal interview with the English teacher of the eighth grade at SMPN 5 Lumajang on August 20 th , 2014, it was known that the students’ vocabulary achievement of grade VIII was still under the passing grade at the school, that was 75. From the information, it was revealed that VIII B had mean score of 74.98, VIII C mean score was 70.87, VIII D mean score was 70.15, and VIII E mean score is 69.75. In addition, VIII A had the lowest mean score of the vocabulary test given by the teacher among the five existing grade eighths in SMPN 5 Lumajang. That was 67.45. Furthermore, the students of VIII A had difficulties to find the meaning of the words, and memorizing the English words. To solve the problems of the students in VIII A in learning vocabulary, the researcher and the English teacher agreed to use Crossword Puzzles in teaching learning process of vocabulary because Crossword Puzzle has the following strengths. Crossword Puzzles can stimulate students’ interest in learning vocabulary, make students relaxed and free from stress in the teaching and learning process, can motivate students in learning vocabulary, can increase the students’ vocabulary, helps the students to think and study English words and memorize the words indirectly and easily Karim and Hasbullah, 1986:2.53. Therefore, a classroom action research entitled Improving VIII A Students’ Active Participation and Their Vocabulary Achievement by Using Crossword Puzzles at SMPN 5 Lumajang was conducted.

1.2 Problems of the Research

Based on the background above, the problems of the research were formulated as follows. 80 a. Could the use of Crossword Puzzles improve VIII A students’ active participation in the teaching learning process of vocabulary at SMPN 5 Lumajang? b. Could the use of Crossword Puzzles improve VIII A students’ vocabulary achievement at SMPN 5 Lumajang? 3. Objectives of the Research Based on the research problems, the objectives of this research could be formulated as follows. a. To improve VIII A students’ active participation in the teaching learning process of vocabulary by using Crossword Puzzles at SMPN 5 Lumajang. b. To improve VIII A students’ vocabulary achievement at SMPN 5 Lumajang by using Crossword Puzzles. 3. Significance of the Research It was expected that the finding of this research to give important contribution to the following people. 1. The English Teacher The English teacher can use the finding of this research to enrich the use of technique in teaching English, especially in teaching vocabulary which can enhance the students’ active participation in learning vocabulary and enlarge their vocabulary by using Crossword Puzzles. 81 2. The Students The result of this research is expected to motivate students to improve their English, especially in their vocabulary achievement by using Crossword Puzzles. Besides, it is hoped that the result of this research can be used as a guide for the students to enlarge their vocabulary dealing with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs more easily by using Crossword Puzzles. 3. The Future Researchers It is expected that the result of this research could be used by future researchers as a source of information or a reference to conduct further research dealing with the use of Crossword Puzzles in the vocabulary teaching learning process by using the same or different research design with different subjects at different schools. For example, improving students’ vocabulary achievement by using Crossword Puzzle.

1.5 Limitation of the Research