The Implementation of Flashcards

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CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDING AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter the writer will present the research result and all of the research processes. Every cycle of action research will be described in this part. There were two cycles implemented on this research. The writer divided this chapter into two big parts, those are: the implementation of flashcards and the students’ improvement.

A. The Implementation of Flashcards

1. Cycle 1 a.

Planning This action research was conducted to improve students’ writing skill at SMK BOPKRI 1 Yogyakarta. To solve the problem, first of all the writer did the planning process. In this process, the writer prepared everything she needed to conduct the first implementation. As it is explained before that the writer did an observation to identify the main problem occurred in the classroom; based on the observation, the writer found that students’ writing skill is the main problem. The planning conducted to solve the problem was based on the observation. To solve the problem, the writer used flashcards to improve students’ writing skill. During this research, flashcards will become the main learning media. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 30 After that the writer starts to make better treatments to solve the problem, especially in writing. In this step, the writer prepared all things that she thought it can help students to improve their writing skill. When deciding the method and the learning media, the writer considered some important aspect such as students learning style, grade of the students, and things they needed to improve students’ learning enthusiasm and the theory which can solve the problem. The writer realized that as a teacher, she has to be creative in teaching so that the students can enjoy the learning activity. Finally, after the writer passes the steps above, she decided to use flashcards as the main learning media to improve students’ writing skill. The reason why the writer chose flashcards is because by using flashcard as a learning media it will help students easier to imagine the story by seeing the picture on it, so the students can write anything more easily. After the writer decided the best way to be implemented in a classroom, the writer planned the learning activity. The writer organizes the learning material based on the curriculum, and she considers about the students’ indicator also. That is happened in conclusion also, the writer organizes activity in the classroom based on the curriculum too but using flashcards to improve students’ writing skill. The writer always connected the curriculum while teaching writing with the materials used. In the first implementation, the writer will use a set of flashcard which is consisting of five pictures and when the cards are in the right order, they can be made as a simple short story. The flashcards will be flashed by the writer using drilling method. And the students will make a story based on the picture on PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 31 the flashcards or they can make by themselves, but the story or paragraph must use the topic given. For the implementation of the action will be explained on the next part. Table 4.1 Design of first cycle’s implementation No. Activities 1. 2. 3. Pre-Activity a. Building background knowledge: Learners are listening teacher’s explanation about degree of comparisons without flashcards. b. Learners are doing the pre-test. Whilst activity a. Pre-writing: Learners are asked by the teacher to state the words based on the flashcards stuck in the blackboard. b. Pre-writing: Learners are asked to state the words on the flashcards by using drilling technique. c. Writing activity: Learners are given an example of comparison paragraph and asked to make their own paragraph post-test by the teacher. Post Activity a. Make sure that learners can make a good paragraph using the learning media given: Summarizing what learners have learnt. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 32

b. Acting and Observing

The second step of first cycle on this research is acting and observing. In this step the writer only did one thing in one time. And the other was done by the writer’s partner, on this case the English teacher of SMK BOPKRI 1 Yogyakarta. When the writer did the implementation, the writer’s partner was observing. Both things above did in the same time. Firstly, the writer will explain about the implementation of the action. The implementation of the action of the first cycle was conducted on the 5 th of May 2011. The implementation was 90 minutes each on every Thursday. At the first implementation, the writer decided degree of comparison as the sentences pattern. The writer used this topic because it was included on the curriculum of SMK and it was not too difficult to connect between the curriculum and the flashcard as a learning media in writing. Before the writer taught the students, she prepared everything that she needed including the flashcards. Firstly, the writer explained the degree of comparison using old-fashionale way of teaching after that she gave the students pre-test using degree of comparison to measure the students’ writing skill before the implementation of action. After the pre-test finished, then the writer started the implementation of action. The writer taught the students with the topic of degree of comparison but by using the real flashcards. At the first time, the writer stuck the flashcards on the blackboard in sequence. After that, the writer asked the students to state the verbs existed in the flashcards one by one until the end. And then, the writer flashed the flashcards to the students using drilling method and asked the students to mention PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 33 the verbs which were stated before. Then, after the writer finished flashing the cards, she asked the students to make a good comparison paragraph based on the picture given or based on their own idea. At the end, the paragraphs they made were used by the writer as a post-test of the first cycle. Secondly, the writer will explain about observation. The observation was done at the same time with the implementation but it was done by the English teacher of SMK BOPKRI 1 Yogyakarta as the writer’s partner. When he did the observation, he brought an observation sheet consisted of some question about the students’ reaction while the writer taught them. The result from the class observation was quite interesting: almost all of the students paid attention and they are very active. They were interested in the topic and with the new way of teaching the writer suggested. They were very actively answering the questions. If the result of observation is converted into percentage, the result is that 80 students were paying attention for the writer’s explanation and all of them followed all of the activities, 20 students did nothing or busy with their own activity maybe because the situation was so cold. The result of the implementation in the first cycle was different from the result before the implementation of first cycle is done. Before the writer did the implementation of first cycle, almost all of the students were not interested with the topic even when they were asked to make a paragraph. But, after the writer did the implementation, most of the students were interested with the classroom activity. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 34 The observation result: In the first implementation, almost all students were not ready to follow the classroom activity. It happened until the pre-test. However, when the flashcards were shown to the students, they seemed very interested and paid attention to the writer, but there were some students who were still busy with themselves. The students who followed classroom activity can develop their idea and made a good paragraph. The result of interview: The writer realized it is not enough to conduct the research if she just relies on the observation’s result as the data to answer the research question. That is the reason why she conducted an interview. The writer interviewed three students. The interview was conducted to support the result of observation. The explanation of the interview’s result will be explained below. First of all, the writer needed to know about the background of the students. Two students came from low-end family and they did not have any awareness to study and to think about their education. For them, education is not important because their parents were not well-educated. The other student came from middle family. He came from well-educated family background, but he have low awareness of education, and him way of thinking affected by their friends. Secondly, the writer would like to know about students’ motivation in learning something. In this part, the writer found similar answers from the three students. The answer itself was not exactly the same, but the writer concluded that it has same meaning. The students do not have any motivation to learn something. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 35 They were not interested to learn anything. They thought that they did not need anything to learn. And then, the writer needed to know about the students’ experience in their learning activity, especially in English. First two students answered that they did not have any favorite subject in the school. They thought that they like to play and sleep more than studying something. One students said that they liked TIK Information Technology and Communication, they liked this subject because they liked browsing the internet. The writer then asked the students some questions to know their experience in learning English. In this part they had the same answer; they did not have any interesting experience in learning English. They thought that English was not interesting because they did not know the meaning of the words. Since the writer interviewed some students who did not follow the activity, she needed to know the reason why they did that. The result of this interview can also help the writer to conduct the improvement in the next cycle. In this part, the students said that they did not like English. They said that they liked the learning media given by the writer, but the students still thought that they did not like English. It made the students do not care about the classroom activity. Table 4.2 Summary of acting and observing No Lists of summary 1. The writer implemented the action appropriate with the design PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 36 No Lists of summary 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. planned. The writer implemented the action and her partner observed the students. The partner observed students’ behavior while the action implemented. More than a half of all students active in the classroom. To support the observation result, the writer conducted an interview. The writer interviewed passive students.

c. Reflecting

1 Result of Reflection After the writer finished with the implementation of action of first cycle the writer collected the data to make a reflection. The writer made a reflection based on the result of the observation and the interview which were done after the implementation of first cycle. When the writer collected the data from the interview, she asked the students who did not pay attention in the classroom and the students who did not make the assignment given. The result from the interview was not surprising the writer, because the students said that they were too lazy to study English and they felt sleepy. The students were lazy to study English because they thought that English will not be useful in their daily life. After the writer got the result, the writer thought that she had to improve the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 37 technique when teaching writing, so that the students could be more interested and enthusiastic in every class activity. Based on the observation and the result of the pre- test and post- test, the implementation in the first cycle can answer the question research but has not optimal yet because there is still 20 students who did not pay attention and did not follow all of the activity. Even though the method and learning media are interesting, the writer needs to improve them to gather more students’ attention. And the 20 students, who did not give their attention, will be interested in the classroom activity. The conclusion of pre-test and post-test is that the implementation of action can improve students’ writing skill. The reason why the writer said that statement is because the results of pre-test and post-test are very different. In the result of pre-test, almost of the students did the assignment, but they cannot develop their idea. But in the result of post-test they are able to make a better paragraph and they can develop more their idea. This reflection’s result will be made to make an improvement. And the improvement will be explained below. 2 Summary of Reflection Table 4.3 Summary of reflection No. List of Summary 1. The writer conducted the reflection based on the previous step. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 38 No. List of Summary 2. 3. 4. 5. In this part, the writer analyzed the data gathered from the previous step. The writer found that there are 80 students were interested in the learning media given. The students, who paid attention to the learning activity, can finish the assignment by themselves. The writer analyzed data from the interview to make an improvement for the second cycle.

d. Improvement

After the writer did all of the steps in the first cycle, the writer arrange an improvement to be implemented in the second cycle. The improvement made based on the reflection. The improvement used to make a better implementation in the second cycle. As we know that in the first cycle there were some students who were not following the classroom activity. The writer tried to get their attention and improve their writing skill. To get the students’ attention, the writer will improve the method used in the implementation of second cycle. The writer tried to cover the weaknesses from the first cycle. The writer believes that if the weaknesses covered, the research will be succeeded. The writer recommendation for the next researcher in conducting the first cycle is preparing everything well so that the next researcher can handle unpredictable situation happended in the classroom. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 39 Conclusion of the first cycle: The conclusion of the first cycle is the research has not optimal yet. This statement made based on the observation sheet’s result. The writer said that it has not optimal because there are still some students who did not give their attention. However, almost all of the students gave their attention and they can develop their idea to make a good paragraph. The writer believes that the students have a good imagination, but they do not know how to develop it into a good paragraph. The improvement happened when the writer teach the students using flashcards, because the flashcards was so interesting. The writer planned to make a better implementation in the second cycle. The implementation of the second cycle will be explained after the recommendation for the next researcher when doing the first cycle.

2. Cycle 2

a. Planning

In this second cycle step, the writer did the implementation on 12 th Mei 2011. The implementation was 90 minutes. In this second cycle implementation, the writer did not need to identify the problem anymore because the main problem have found in the beginning of the first cycle. The planning on the second cycle will cover the weaknesses of the first cycle, but still based on the theory used. In this part, the thing that the writer will do is just begin to make a plan about the improvement in the second cycle. The most important thing that will be improved in second cycle is about the technique while using the method when the writer PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 40 teaching writing. The writer improved the method because as the writer’s explanation in the first cycle reflection, there are some students who did not pay attention and busy with their own activity. In the second cycle, the writer will use the same method like in the first cycle but she adds a new technique. The technique is a competition. The writer chooses competition because she thinks that this technique will arouse students’ enthusiasm and students’ attention to follow all of the activity. The writer will also change the picture on the flashcards, so the story will be different with the first cycle. In the first cycle, the writer made a story about holiday to the beach and the sentences pattern used is degree of comparison. But, in the second cycle, the writer will make a story about the family activity and the sentences pattern used is a present continuous. In the second cycle, the writer still connected the topic with the curriculum which is used. The reason why the writer change the picture and the writing topic is because the she wants to make sure that the students really understand even the topic and picture is changed, the writer will also wants to make the result from the research valid. The explanation about the implementation will be explained below. Table 4.4 Design of second cycle’s implementation No. Activities 1. Pre-activity a. Building background knowledge: Learners are listening teacher’s PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 41 No. Activities 2. 3. explanation about the sentence pattern that will use to make a paragraph. Whilst activity: a. Pre-writing: Learners divided into two groups. b. Pre-writing: Learners state the verbs based on the flashcards stuck on the blackboard. c. Pre-writing: Learners have to make a good sentence as quick as possible based on the flashcards flashed by the teacher. d. Writing activity: Learners read the example of paragraph given and asked by the teacher to make their own paragraph. Post-activity a. Make sure that the learners can make a good paragraph using the learning media given: Summarizing what learners have learnt.

b. Act and Observing

The act and observing on this second cycle is almost same with the first cycle. The writer did the implementation and the writer’s partner did the observation in the same time. In this second cycle, the writer did the same implementation but, she makes an improvement while using the method, in this research drilling method. The writer will explain about the implementation first. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 42 In conducting the implementation of the second cycle, the writer decided to use present continuous as the sentences pattern. But, she use family activity as the story on the picture on flashcards. In the beginning of the class, the writer asked the students to make a group which is consists of 10 students, so there were two big groups in the classroom because there will be a group competition. After the writer divide students into two big groups, she sticks the flashcards on the blackboard for a while; the writer asked the students to state the verbs like in the first cycle. After that, the writer asked the students to join with their group. When the students join to their group, the writer takes the flashcards from the blackboard, and then she told to the students about the rule of the competition. The rule is when the writer choose the cards and drill it fast, the two groups have to make a sentence orally using a present continuous based on the activity on the picture. The fastest group which can make the sentence will get 1 score. The group who got the biggest score will be the winner. Then, after the competition has finished, the writer asked the students to make a good paragraph using the picture on the flashcards or their own idea. The paragraph must be in present continuous. The result from the assignment is used by the writer as the students’ post-test. Second, is about the observation. The observation on this second cycle is done by the writer’s partner; he is the English teacher of SMK BOPKRI 1 Yogyakarta. The implementation and the observation did in the same time. When the writer’s partner did the observation, he brings the observation sheet. There are some questions here. The English teacher observes the students’ characteristic, the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 43 students’ behavior, the students’ attention and all of the change of the students’ which is happened while implementation. The result of the observation is very good. There are 93 students follow all of the activity, there are so attractive while join the competition. They can make a right sentence even the writer drill the flashcard so fast. And only 7 students who did not pay attention and did not follow the activity well. The result of observation: In this second implementation, the writer found that almost all students were ready to follow the classroom activity. They were very interested to the learning media given by the writer. Some students who did not follow the first implementation follow the activity in the second cycle. The writer thinks that the improvement really helped to grasp students’ attention. Especially when the writer conducted the quiz, the class became very crowded, but they busy with the quiz. However, there was one student who did not pay attention. He was busy himself and sometimes, he slept in the classroom. The result of interview: In the second cycle, the interview’s questions are simpler than the first cycle. This interview conducted to get the students’ point of view from the learning media, and also to get students’ opinion about the improvement. The result of the interview might support the data, and help the writer to know whether the improvement worked or not. Same with the result of the first interview, this writer asked the students who did not pay attention to the classroom activities. The writer found that they like PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 44 the implementation in the second result. The students said that the second implementation has better activities than the first. However, they did not follow the classroom activities because they still thinks that they do not need to learn English and they do not like English because they do not understand the language. Table 4.5 Summary of acting and observing: No Lists of summary 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The writer implemented the action appropriate with the design of the second cycle. The writer added some improvement to make students more active. The writer invited the students to be more active. The writer saw some improvements from the students. Almost all students are active. Same with the first cycle, the writer also conducted interview.

c. Reflecting

1 Result of Reflection The reflection on the second cycle is made by the writer based on the interview result and the observation result. After the writer conducted the implementation, she interviewed some students who are not following and join the classroom activities. There are 7 students who did not follow the activities. The students said that they did not follow because they do not want to study anymore, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 45 they feel lazy and they do not care about their future anymore. Based on the interview result, the writer thinks that the learning media is already interesting but if the students have the kind of behavior, the writer needs a longer time to do the research. If the writer can conduct a longer research, the writer believes that she can help the students since the writer can make a better approach. The result of the observation will be explained below. The result of the observation is almost perfect, because the students were ready to follow all of the classroom activities and the students can also follow the activities and they are able to reach the indicator. These statements can be concluded that the second cycle implementation was success. In this second cycle can be seen that the implementation went well. In the second cycle, the students can make a good story or paragraph after the writer flash the flashcards to the students and they are also able to use present continuous tense in their paragraph. The writer thinks that the improvement works well because the students’ result from the post-test is increasing. In the second cycle, the students became more active because of the improvement. From the result above the writer concluded that the result of the implementation can answer the research question. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 46 2 The summary of Reflection Table 4.6 Summary of Reflection No. List of Summary 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. The writer found that the improvement worked. Almost all students gave their attention and followed the learning activity. More than 90 of the students. The students were very active. The writer found that there was one student who was busy with himself. The reflection in this second cycle made to conduct a better implementation for the next researcher.

d. Improvement

This research finished at the second cycle. However, this research still needs some improvement. The improvement need to be done because as the time goes by the students will also change their way of thinking and different students may have different learning style. This research might be answer the research questions, but it still needs to improve since there are some students who still need more guidance, so that they will have a spirit to study again. The improvement in this cycle used to every researcher who wants to conduct a research in the same field. In this cycle, the improvement might be in the time on the research. The time in conducting the research need to be improved since the writer need to do a PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 47 better approach. If the writer did a better approach, she believed that the research will get a better result. As we know that when a better approach conducted, the writer will know everything that students need in their learning activity and other things that they need to reach the indicator. The writer hopes for the next research which is done by the next researcher will do a better research and get a better result. From the implementation on the second cycle, the writer can conclude that the implementation was successfully done. The number students who followed classroom activity are increasing. The writer saw that almost all students became more active and they can develop their idea into a good paragraph. In the second cycle, the improvements from the first cycle were really help the writer to answer the research questions. The writer done the improvements as planned before, and the students seemed more interesting and they became more active.

3. Conclusion of the First Cycle and the Second Cycle

From the implementation which was done, the writer will explain about the both result. The result from the first cycle is not too different with the result from the second cycle. The writer will explain about the result of the first cycle and the result of the first cycle on the next paragraph. First, the result of the first cycle is quite good. Quite good because 80 students are paid attention to the writer when she conduct the implementation and 20 students who are busy and did not paid attention to the writer. The reason of the 20 students was about they are too lazy to learn English because they think PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 48 that English is not useful in their daily life. From the result of pre-test and the post-test in the first cycle, generally they can make a good story or paragraph. Before the writer conduct the implementation they feel difficult to find and develop the idea, but after the writer conduct the implementation the students can make a better story or paragraph because the picture on the flashcard and the drilling method help them more when finding the idea. Second, the result of the second cycle is very surprising. In the second cycle there are 93 students who are paid attention and follow all of the activity in the classroom. And there are only 7 students who did not join and did not follow the classroom activity. The reason why the 7 students did not want to join the activity is because they did not have spirit to study anymore, they feel lazy, and they do not even care about their final result whether they will pass the examination then go up to the next grade or even failed. The most interesting time when the writer conducted the implementation is when the competition of two big groups begins. The students are so attractive to join the activity. They can make good sentences using present continuous based on the activity on the picture orally. And from the post-test result, the score of the students are better from the first cycle. The students can make a better story or paragraph after the writer conduct the second implementation. They can develop more their idea because they learn writing with a new-way and it is interesting. From the result above, it can be seen that the implementation can answer the research question. By using flashcards as the learning media in writing it can improve students’ writing skill. Although it is not 100 students who are follow PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 49 the activity, but the result from the beginning until the end of the research is going better and the students can increase their writing skill. And from the good result, the writer can say that this research is success.

B. The Students’ Improvement