Reflecting Classroom Action Research Cycle 1

individualized learning were worksheets completion, self-selected resources task completion, and teacher-student discussion. 1 Worksheets completion The first activity of applying the learned concepts would be executed through worksheets completion. In this activity, the teacher would provide worksheets containing twenty-five sentences with an underlined word in each sentence. The students’ task would be determining the correct meaning of the underlined words by crossing one option provided below the sentences. A reading passage of report “Water Politics in the Middle East and North Africa” would be delivered to each student. Most, but not all, of the target words asked could be found in the reading passage. Thus, it was expected that the students could make use the text as a reference to accomplish the task given. 2 Teacher-student discussion Right after the students completed the worksheets, the teacher would ask the students to write down their answer in the blackboard. Later, the students and the teacher would discuss it together. During the discussion, the students would also be given chances to ask questions related to it. 3 Self-selected resources task completion In this activity, the students would try to find a text of report which could be taken from magazine, newspaper, articles in the internet, etc. Then they should read it, select any unknown words, and try to find the meaning of those words by applying contextual guessing strategy. The teacher would not provide anything to the students. Thus, they would have to plan and prepare it by themselves. It was expected that the activity of self-selected resources task would not only help them understand the learned learning strategy but also it would help them learn to have autonomy in learning. Meanwhile, the teaching and learning activities that would be involved in the student-student interaction were pair-work, which would be executed through worksheets completion, and teacher-students discussion. Each of them will be elaborated below: 1 Pair-work In this activity the students would still perform the same activity. That was completing a set of tasks on finding the meaning of unknown words by guessing. In the meantime, the assignment would not be performed individually but in groups of two. The students would be suggested to work with another student sitting next to them. 2 Teacher-student discussion Teacher-student discussion was the activity in clarifying and discussing the exercises performed previously by the students. The teacher would point one group to come in front of the class to present the result of their work. A member of the group would read the sentences followed by the target word and the guessing. Then, they would ask their friends’ opinion about their guessing. The presenters should be able to explain how they could come to such kinds of guessing. At last, the classroom action research cycle 2 would be closed by reviewing the materials learned and evaluating their learning since the first up to the last meeting. In reviewing the learned materials, the students and the teacher would summarize together what had been discussed thus far. Meanwhile, the results of students’ vocabulary learning through the implementation of contextual guessing strategy would be evaluated by performing a vocabulary test. The teacher would provide forty target words to be guessed in the test-paper. The students should complete it in thirty minutes. In carrying out the vocabulary test, the class would be divided into two groups of students; each group consisted of eighteen students. While the first group was performing the test, the other group would be asked to wait outside. The detailed teaching and learning activities of the classroom action research cycle 2 was presented in appendix 5.

b. Acting

The second phase of the classroom action research was implementing the plan that had been formulated in the real teaching and learning processes. The opening activity of the classroom action research cycle 2 was reviewing the materials discussed in the first classroom action research cycle. The materials learned were reviewed by asking and answering questions. The teacher delivered a number of questions either on the theories of contextual guessing strategy or the implementation of the theories to define the meaning of unknown words. This activity was advantageous to check how far the students had understood the lesson and to determine which part of the learning that needed more elaboration. The main activities consisted of individualized learning and student-student interaction. The teaching and learning activities that were included in