Then some effects happened to the students. They became passive and silent, and got bored easily during the teaching and learning process. In addition,
the students became less motivated and seemed reluctant in responding to the teacher’s questions.
Based on the result of my interview with the teacher, she said that she have made the lesson plan for every meeting. But, she could not follow the lesson plan
precisely. Thus, the teaching and learning process did not run effectively. In addition, the teacher seldom gave activities to improve their vocabulary mastery
even practice students’ pronunciation and check their spelling. The feedback on both pronunciation and spelling were also rarely given. Thus students still
mispronounced some words and sentences. Furthermore, they were also afraid of making mistakes because of their lack of vocabulary.
After analyzing the cause of the problems, we continued the discussion and determined that the problems related to the students’ personality needed to be
solved as soon as possible since communicative approach is students-centered approach. To solve these problems, we could start with the teacher. Starting to
change the teacher’s ways of teaching was the first effort to solve the problems. So we agreed to use games supported by various activities to stimulate students to
be confident, interested and excited in learning the language and also materials from many sources that were suitable with the curriculum and students’ needs.
The teacher also needed to create a good atmosphere so that the students could learn comfortably without feeling anxious and afraid of making mistakes.
B. Report of Cycle I
1. Planning
After determining the most important and feasible problems to be solved, the researcher determined some actions to solve the problems. The actions were
focused on improving the students’ vocabulary mastery through games. Based on the result of the discussion with the collaborator in a democratic and dialogic
atmosphere on February 13
th
and 19
th
2016, the action plans of the first cycle that would be performed are presented as follows.
a. Applying vocabulary cards game to teach vocabulary
The use of vocabulary cards game in the classroom as learning activity could attract the students’ attention and their involvement in the teaching and
learning process. Besides interesting and fun, game also have some advantages as stated on the literature review chapter 2. The researcher would apply vocabulary
cards game in the end the class or in the production stage. The game would be played in large group in every meeting of cycle 1. The vocabulary cards that the
researcher would give to the students were different from the students’ vocabulary cards. The researcher made her own vocabulary cards, she added picture in the
front side of the vocabulary cards to be more interesting. Through the vocabulary cards game, there would be more opportunity for
the students to practice new words orally. And the most important point was that this game would help the students memorize and understand new words easily in
an interesting way.
b. Using classroom English during the teaching and learning process
During the actions, the researcher acted as the teacher in the class. The English teacher and researcher planned to use classroom English in the teaching
and learning process to make the students more familiar with English. The researcher planned to use English at the class for several functions such as to greet
the students, to explain the materials, to give the instructions, to give feedback, and also to end the lesson. Based on the observations and some interviews before
the actions, the students said that they could not understand the teacher’s explanations when she used English all the time during the teaching process.
Therefore, the researcher planned to use Indonesian translation in some difficult aspects such as giving instructions and explaining the materials so that
the students could understand. It also aimed at improving the students’ vocabulary because through the classroom English they would also learn new words and
expressions.
c. Giving feedback to the students
The aimed of giving feedback the students’ pronunciation was certainly to make the students have better pronunciation. Furthermore, this plan also would
help the students not to be afraid of making mistakes of pronunciation when they spoke and make them confident to speak with correct pronunciation. The
researcher planned to give feedback on students’ pronunciation in every meeting
of cycle 1. When the researcher found mistakes or errors, the first thing that the researcher had to do was showing the incorrectness by some ways that let the
students know their mistakes then got it right by the students. In other word, the
researcher planned to give feedback on the stu dents’ pronunciation in the form of
oral and not immediate feedback. It meant the feedback would be given to the students after they finished. When the students were performed, the researcher
listed some mistakes errors pronunciation that the students made in a note then correct them through discussion session. By doing this, the students would not
feel disturbed, so that they were not afraid or not confident to speak up.
d. Asking the students to work in pairs and in groups
The researcher planned to use games for the teaching and learning process during cycle1. The vocabulary cards game would be played in large groups and
practiced playing vocabulary cards game in pairs. There are some reasons why group works would be implemented in the teaching and learning process. Group
works could exercise the students’ ability in a team work. Then the students would learn how to appreciate others’ opinion in a team. And the most important
point was the students would be more confident and more active involved in the teaching and learning process. Considering the advantages of grouping activities,
the researcher emphasized the activities more on the improvement of mastering vocabulary for the students.
e. Giving the students practice for making vocabulary cards
Before the students go to the production stage, they have to do some practices first. The researcher planned to provide them some activities to practice
making their own vocabulary cards. In this stage, the students would practice identifying procedure text of making vocabulary cards, especially for students.
