IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACHIEVEMENT BY APPLAYING TIC-TAC-TOE GAME.
IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY
ACHIEVEMENT BY APPLAYING TIC-TAC-TOE GAME
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for
the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
RINI SUSANTI
Registration Number 209121037
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is aimed at fulfilling one of the requirements for the degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts,
State University of Medan (UNIMED).
All praise and gratitude unto Allah Swt, the Almighty and Merciful who
has given the great affection and guidance in finishing her thesis “Improving the
Students’ Vocabulary Achievement by Applying Tic-tac-toe Game.” His mercy
and peace are for the prophet Muhammad S.A.W who has brought us from the
darkness to the lightness that is Islamic values of the Holy Qur’an to people all
over the world.
The writer also would like to say thanks for many special people around
her who supported within the process of working on this thesis. They are:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., the rector of State University of
Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the dean of languages and arts faculty
State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the head of English Department,
Rika, S.Pd. M. Hum., the secretary of English Department and
Dra. Masitowarni, M.Ed., the head of English Education Department,
thank you for the wise and assistance in managing all the administrative
process requirements.
Dr. Zainuddin, DIPL.TEFL,.M. Hum., her thesis advisor and Drs. Johan
Sinulingga, M.Pd., her academic advisor who has consciously guided her
in the entire process of the thesis writing with all of the constructive
comments, which helped her makes this thesis more perfect.
Her family especially Her parents (S. Purba and B. Br Bangun), her
sister and her brother ( Rina Astuti Br Purba and Dedi Arianto Purba),
thank you very much for every prayer, financial support, sacrifice, moral
support, and far apart contribution.
Her classmate, especially Tian, Winda, Defri, Dayfreeri, Ellis, Orli, Ika,
Eryca, Henny, Dini, Nila, Puspita, Ida and Bernard and all Education
Department class B, thank you for encouragement and motivation.
Her boarding home Family (Kak Fitri, Malem, Rona, Mamay, Elis,
Erwin, Doni and Andri) thank you for the motivation and advice.
Ma’am Euis and for all of those who supported the writer during
completing this thesis, thank you for the participation.
ii
Finally, the writer admits that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Any
constructive comments from the readers will make this writing can provide a
valuable contribution and the writer invites all of the readers to give more
suggestions.
Medan, July 2013
The writer
iii
ABSTRACT
Susanti, Rini. 2013. Improving the Students’ Vocabulary Achievement by
applying Tic-tac-toe Game. A Thesis English Department, Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This study deals with improving the students’ vocabulary achievement by
applying Tic-tac-toe Game. The subject of this study was grade VIII1 2012/2013
students of SMP Negeri 1 Payung, desa Batukarang. The total number of the class
is 36 students. This study applied classroom action research which consisted of
two cycles. Three meetings were for first cycle and two meeting for second cycle.
The data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively. The data were
qualitatively collected from questionnaires sheet and observation sheet, while
quantitatively from the scores of vocabulary tests; orientation test, test I, and test
II. The writer analyzed the data quantitatively through vocabulary tests to know
how significant the applying of tic-tac-toe game in improving the students’
vocabulary achievement. After analyzing the data, it was found that there was an
improvement of students’ vocabulary achievement. It was proven by the
increasing of the mean score of the students’ vocabulary scores in each test where
mean score of the first test was 56.94, the second test (test I) was 69.30 and the
third test (test II) was 80.14.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Appendices
i
ii
iv
vi
vii
viii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1
1
4
4
4
5
A The Background of the Study
B. The Problem of the Study
C. The Objective of the Study
D. The Scope of the Study
E. The Significance of the Study
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Framework
1. The Nature of the Vocabulary
2. The Acquisitions of Vocabulary
3. The Types of Vocabulary
a. Traditional Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
b. Contemporary Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
c. Kinds of Vocabulary Meaning
4. The Assessment of Vocabulary
5. Board Games
6. Kinds of Board Games
7. The Nature of Tic-tac-Toe Game
8. The Advantages of Tic-tac-toe Game
9. The Disadvantages of Tic-tac-toe Game
10. Teaching Vocabulary using Tic-tac-toe Game
B. Conceptual Framework
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
B. The Subject of the Study
C. The Instruments of Collecting Data
D. The Procedure of Collecting Data
1. The First Cycle
2. The Second Cycle
E. Method and Technique in Collecting Data
F. Method and Technique of Analyzing Data
iv
6
6
6
7
8
8
9
12
14
15
16
18
20
22
22
23
27
27
28
29
30
31
36
40
41
CHAPTER IV: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS
A. Data
B. Data Analysis
1. The Quantitative Data
2. The Qualitative Data
3. Research Findings
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION
45
45
45
45
50
52
A. Conclusion
B. Suggestion
53
53
54
REFERENCES
55
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Contemporary Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
10
Table 3.1: Steps of Action in First Cycle
36
Table 3.2: Steps of Action Research in Second Cycle
32
Table 3.3: The Criteria of the Students’ Vocabulary Achievement
43
Table 3.4: The Specification of the Vocabulary Test
44
Table 4.1: The Students’ Vocabulary Test Scores
46
Table 4.2: The Percentage of Students who got Score 70 above
49
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: The Relation of Vocabulary through Language
9
Figure 3.1: The Method and the Procedure of Collecting Qualitative and
Quantitative Data
30
vii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Observation Sheet
Questionnaire Sheet I
Questionnaire Sheet II
Lesson Plan I
Lesson Plan II
Lesson Plan III
Lesson Plan IV
Orientation Test
Test I
Test II
The Students’ Answer of Questionnaire Sheet I
The Students’ Answer of Questionnaire Sheet II
The Students Answer of Orientation Test
The Students’ Answer of Test I
The Students’ Answer of Test II
The Result of Vocabulary Test
viii
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Language plays an important role in human life to communicate, to
express the ideas, feeling and desire even spoken and written individually,
nationally, and universally. The essence of language is human activity- activity on
the part of one individual to make himself understood, and activity on the part of
the other to understand what was in the mind of the first. The fundamental
function of language is a means of communication.
A study of language includes the four skills, namely listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. Those skills will be difficult to achieve if vocabulary can’t
be mastered because vocabulary is one of the basic elements in achieving
language skills. In other words, vocabulary as one of the language components
and as supporting elements to the mastery of the four skills is very important in
learning language.
The statement above reveals that the importance of vocabulary affects the
students’ mastery of the fourth language skills. In other words, reading, listening,
writing and speaking skill cannot be separated from vocabulary.
However, based on the researcher’s experience during the Field
Experience Practice (PPL) in SMP 1 Berastagi, the vocabulary achievement of
students particularly was very poor. It was seen that the students had a poor
achievement in vocabulary which result in their poor performance in English
language skills. Poor vocabulary achievement of students could also be seen from
1
2
the number of vocabularies that they mastered, was very low. Moreover, the
junior high school’ students should acquire approximately 2.000-3000 words per
year, or about 6 to 8 new words per day (Anderson & Nagy, 1992).
Poor
achievement of English vocabulary caused the students found learning English
was hard and unattractive.
Moreover, vocabulary is one of linguistic features, which influences the
communicative competence. Carter and Nunan (2001: 42) write the English
teachers learn to ignore the significance of vocabulary in their teaching of
speaking or communication performance. In fact the use of suitable vocabulary
can cancel out structural incorrectness. Based on authenticity, recently
methodologist and linguist have increasingly turned their attention to vocabulary,
learning stressing, and their importance in language teaching and reassessing
some of the ways it is thought and learnt. It means that vocabulary plays a very
essential task in language teaching.
Teaching or learning vocabulary is not easy. It constitutes a significant
educational enterprise; one must make an effort to understand whole, to repeat,
accurately and to use the whole range of known language in conversation or
written composition.
However, many English teachers in the schools taught English subject
without paying any attention to vocabulary itself. The others fact, the teachers
kept teaching and learning as a monotonous process. The teacher spoke formally
in front of the class, gave some explanations, read some information from the
books, showed the materials and asked the student to translate some text.
3
It caused the students feel bored. Students did less participation in the
class activity and did not have wide chance to call out what they had learnt. These
fact influenced students’ vocabulary achievement. It can be measured from the
indicators of learning and competency standard that students reached in each
material. The students’ result of reading test in comprehending the text that was
given by teacher was bad. Many students failed in answering the questions
because their vocabulary achievement was very weak.
Therefore, there must be way out of overcoming this problem. There are
many things can be done to solve this problem. One of those things is tic-tac-toe
game. Tic-tac-toe game is one of creative technique to attract the students’ interest
in learning activity. Tic-tac-toe game is one kind of board games. Tic-tac toe is a
game that is played on the board, paper, or slate which has a structure that features
three rows and three columns each. Then, students are asked to discover a
relationship in three lexical items in a diagonal, vertical or horizontal row.
Tic-tac toe game is very useful to attract students’ attention in learning and
can improve students’ vocabulary achievement. Tic-tac-toe game plays an
important role in creating an effective teaching learning process. Tic-tac-toe
makes students’ learning become fun, attractive and enjoyable.
Considering the importance of the above fact, therefore the research is
highly motivated in investigating conduct a research on “Improving students’
Vocabulary Achievement by Applying Tic-tac-toe Game” in SMP N 1 Payung at
eighth grade.
4
B. The Problem of the Study
In line with the background of the study, the problem of the study is
formulated as follows:
Is the students’ vocabulary achievement significantly improved by the application
of Tic-tac-toe game?
C. The Objective of the Study
In relation to the problem, the objective of the study is to investigate
whether the application of Tic-tac-toe game can significantly improve the
students’ vocabulary achievement.
D. The Scope of the Study
To limit this study the writer only focused on the application of Tic-tac-toe
Game in improving students’ vocabulary achievement in reading text term which
is taken from Junior high School’ textbook.
E. The Significance of the Study
Findings of the research are expected to be useful for theoretically and
practically.
1. Theoretically, the findings are useful to enlarge horizon in the teaching
learning process. In addition, the findings can be references for further study.
2. Practically, the findings are expected to give benefit for the teachers,
researchers, students, and institution.
a) For teachers, this finding will be directly help the teachers to apply tic-tactoe game in teaching learning process.
5
b) For researchers, this finding is hopefully can be operated in conducting
further research/study for obtaining better result.
c) For students, it is expected to help the students learn vocabulary in a good
and enjoyable way through tic-tac-toe game.
d) For institution, it can useful to develop the teaching learning technique for
increasing motivation in further.
53
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the result of the data which had been analyzed qualitatively and
quantitatively, the researcher concluded that there was a crucial problem that
happened in Indonesian junior high school students related to the students’
achievement in learning English especially learning English vocabulary. It wasn’t
a new problem that the vocabulary achievement of most of junior high school
students particularly was very poor. A poor achievement in vocabulary influenced
the result in their poor performance in English language skills. Poor achievement
of English vocabulary caused the students found English learning was hard and
unattractive.
The problem also came up from the English teacher in that school. Most of
English teacher in that school taught English without paying any attention to
vocabulary itself. So the students had no idea on how actually to learn English
vocabulary. The others fact, the teachers kept teaching and learning as a
monotonous process. The teacher spoke formally in front of the class, gave some
explanations, read some information from the books, showed the materials and
asked the student to translate some text.
The implementation of Tic-tac-toe Game is simple and easy for students to
understand and really helped the students to have a good achievement in English
vocabulary. Based on the results of the data analysis, the application of tic-tac-toe
game could improve the students’ vocabulary achievement of the eighth grade
53
54
students in SMP N 1 Payung in the academic year 2012/2013. The improvement
could be seen from the students’ mean score in orientation test, test I, and test II.
Moreover the application of Tic-tac-toe game also could effectively
improve the students’ motivation and improved the students’ interest in learning
English. This improvement had been proven by the result of observation sheet and
the questionnaires sheet.
B. Suggestion
In relation to the conclusion above, there were some suggestions about the
application of Tic-tac-toe game:
1. For teachers, tic-tac-toe game contributed significant improvement to the
students’ vocabulary achievement, and then it is suggested to be applied
in the teaching learning process.
2. For students, it can help the students to learn vocabulary in a good and
enjoyable way.
3. For institution, it can useful to develop the teaching learning technique
for increasing motivation in further.
However, in implementing this Tic-tac-toe game, the teacher may find the
problem in managing the class because in this activity the students compete each
other and it may make the situation in the class becomes crowded. That’s why the
teacher should be able in manage and control the class as well as possible.
55
REFERENCES
Anuthama. 2010. Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary. Journal of NELTA. Vol 15,
No 1-2 (2010).
Beck, József. 2008. Combinatorial Games: Tic-Tac-Toe Theory. Australia:
Cambridge University Press.
Buckby, Michael. 1994. Games for Language Learning. Australia: Cambridge
University Pres.
Chang and cogswell. 2008. Using Board Games in the Language Classroom.
Monterey Institute of International Studies: Hilton Harlem Suite, April 3 rd,
2008 2:00-2:45 PM
Clark and Clark. 1977. Psychology and Language. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc.
E. Pedersen, Roger. 2003. Game Design Foundations. USA: Wordware Publisher
Inc.
Harmer, Jeremy. 1988. How to Teach English, an Introduction to the Practice of
English Language Teaching. England: Longman.
Hornby A. S. 1995. Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. London:
Oxford University Pres.
Koprowski, Mark. 2006. Games for Recycling Vocabulary. The Internet TESL
Journal, Vol. XII, No. 7, July 2006 http://iteslj.org/Techniques/KoprowskiRecylingVocabulary.html.
P. Hinebaugh, Jeffrey. 2009. A Board Game Education. New York: Rowman
Littlefield Publisher.
Pikulski and Templeton, 2004:6. Foundations of Learning and Teaching
Vocabulary. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Rinvolucri, Mario. 1984. Grammar Games, cognitive, Affective and Drama
Activities for EFL Student. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Routledge. 2005, The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in the Primary
School. New York: Driscoll and David Frost.
Tankersley, Karen. 2005. Literacy Strategies for Grade 4-12. Virginia USA:
ASCD.
55
56
Templeton and Pikulski. 1999. Building the Foundations of Literacy: The
Importance of Vocabulary and Spelling Development. Copyright © 1999
Houghton Mifflin Company.
The Internet TESL Journal : Vocabulary Teaching: Effective Methodologies.
Naveen Kumar Mehta naveennmehta(at)yahoo.co.in The Institute of
Chartered Accountants of India.
Thornbury, Scott. 1998. How to Teach Vocabulary. England: PEARSON
Longman.
http://www.sekolahoke.com/2011/10/game-for-english-language-teachingtic.html/17th of February 2013/20:15:11
http://marifa.hct.ac.ae/files/2011/07/The-Effects-of-Using-Games-to-ReinforceVocabulary-Learning /21st of February 2013/18:05:38
ACHIEVEMENT BY APPLAYING TIC-TAC-TOE GAME
A THESIS
Submitted to Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for
the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
RINI SUSANTI
Registration Number 209121037
ENGLISH AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
2013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis is aimed at fulfilling one of the requirements for the degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan at the English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts,
State University of Medan (UNIMED).
All praise and gratitude unto Allah Swt, the Almighty and Merciful who
has given the great affection and guidance in finishing her thesis “Improving the
Students’ Vocabulary Achievement by Applying Tic-tac-toe Game.” His mercy
and peace are for the prophet Muhammad S.A.W who has brought us from the
darkness to the lightness that is Islamic values of the Holy Qur’an to people all
over the world.
The writer also would like to say thanks for many special people around
her who supported within the process of working on this thesis. They are:
Prof. Dr. Ibnu Hajar Damanik, M.Si., the rector of State University of
Medan.
Dr. Isda Pramuniati, M.Hum., the dean of languages and arts faculty
State University of Medan.
Prof. Dr. Hj. Sumarsih, M.Pd., the head of English Department,
Rika, S.Pd. M. Hum., the secretary of English Department and
Dra. Masitowarni, M.Ed., the head of English Education Department,
thank you for the wise and assistance in managing all the administrative
process requirements.
Dr. Zainuddin, DIPL.TEFL,.M. Hum., her thesis advisor and Drs. Johan
Sinulingga, M.Pd., her academic advisor who has consciously guided her
in the entire process of the thesis writing with all of the constructive
comments, which helped her makes this thesis more perfect.
Her family especially Her parents (S. Purba and B. Br Bangun), her
sister and her brother ( Rina Astuti Br Purba and Dedi Arianto Purba),
thank you very much for every prayer, financial support, sacrifice, moral
support, and far apart contribution.
Her classmate, especially Tian, Winda, Defri, Dayfreeri, Ellis, Orli, Ika,
Eryca, Henny, Dini, Nila, Puspita, Ida and Bernard and all Education
Department class B, thank you for encouragement and motivation.
Her boarding home Family (Kak Fitri, Malem, Rona, Mamay, Elis,
Erwin, Doni and Andri) thank you for the motivation and advice.
Ma’am Euis and for all of those who supported the writer during
completing this thesis, thank you for the participation.
ii
Finally, the writer admits that this thesis is still far from being perfect. Any
constructive comments from the readers will make this writing can provide a
valuable contribution and the writer invites all of the readers to give more
suggestions.
Medan, July 2013
The writer
iii
ABSTRACT
Susanti, Rini. 2013. Improving the Students’ Vocabulary Achievement by
applying Tic-tac-toe Game. A Thesis English Department, Faculty of
Languages and Arts, State University of Medan.
This study deals with improving the students’ vocabulary achievement by
applying Tic-tac-toe Game. The subject of this study was grade VIII1 2012/2013
students of SMP Negeri 1 Payung, desa Batukarang. The total number of the class
is 36 students. This study applied classroom action research which consisted of
two cycles. Three meetings were for first cycle and two meeting for second cycle.
The data were collected qualitatively and quantitatively. The data were
qualitatively collected from questionnaires sheet and observation sheet, while
quantitatively from the scores of vocabulary tests; orientation test, test I, and test
II. The writer analyzed the data quantitatively through vocabulary tests to know
how significant the applying of tic-tac-toe game in improving the students’
vocabulary achievement. After analyzing the data, it was found that there was an
improvement of students’ vocabulary achievement. It was proven by the
increasing of the mean score of the students’ vocabulary scores in each test where
mean score of the first test was 56.94, the second test (test I) was 69.30 and the
third test (test II) was 80.14.
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Appendices
i
ii
iv
vi
vii
viii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
1
1
4
4
4
5
A The Background of the Study
B. The Problem of the Study
C. The Objective of the Study
D. The Scope of the Study
E. The Significance of the Study
CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Framework
1. The Nature of the Vocabulary
2. The Acquisitions of Vocabulary
3. The Types of Vocabulary
a. Traditional Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
b. Contemporary Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
c. Kinds of Vocabulary Meaning
4. The Assessment of Vocabulary
5. Board Games
6. Kinds of Board Games
7. The Nature of Tic-tac-Toe Game
8. The Advantages of Tic-tac-toe Game
9. The Disadvantages of Tic-tac-toe Game
10. Teaching Vocabulary using Tic-tac-toe Game
B. Conceptual Framework
CHAPTER III: RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
B. The Subject of the Study
C. The Instruments of Collecting Data
D. The Procedure of Collecting Data
1. The First Cycle
2. The Second Cycle
E. Method and Technique in Collecting Data
F. Method and Technique of Analyzing Data
iv
6
6
6
7
8
8
9
12
14
15
16
18
20
22
22
23
27
27
28
29
30
31
36
40
41
CHAPTER IV: DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS
A. Data
B. Data Analysis
1. The Quantitative Data
2. The Qualitative Data
3. Research Findings
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSSION AND SUGGESTION
45
45
45
45
50
52
A. Conclusion
B. Suggestion
53
53
54
REFERENCES
55
v
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Contemporary Perspective on Types of Vocabulary
10
Table 3.1: Steps of Action in First Cycle
36
Table 3.2: Steps of Action Research in Second Cycle
32
Table 3.3: The Criteria of the Students’ Vocabulary Achievement
43
Table 3.4: The Specification of the Vocabulary Test
44
Table 4.1: The Students’ Vocabulary Test Scores
46
Table 4.2: The Percentage of Students who got Score 70 above
49
vi
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: The Relation of Vocabulary through Language
9
Figure 3.1: The Method and the Procedure of Collecting Qualitative and
Quantitative Data
30
vii
LIST OF APPENDICES
Observation Sheet
Questionnaire Sheet I
Questionnaire Sheet II
Lesson Plan I
Lesson Plan II
Lesson Plan III
Lesson Plan IV
Orientation Test
Test I
Test II
The Students’ Answer of Questionnaire Sheet I
The Students’ Answer of Questionnaire Sheet II
The Students Answer of Orientation Test
The Students’ Answer of Test I
The Students’ Answer of Test II
The Result of Vocabulary Test
viii
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. The Background of the Study
Language plays an important role in human life to communicate, to
express the ideas, feeling and desire even spoken and written individually,
nationally, and universally. The essence of language is human activity- activity on
the part of one individual to make himself understood, and activity on the part of
the other to understand what was in the mind of the first. The fundamental
function of language is a means of communication.
A study of language includes the four skills, namely listening, speaking,
reading, and writing. Those skills will be difficult to achieve if vocabulary can’t
be mastered because vocabulary is one of the basic elements in achieving
language skills. In other words, vocabulary as one of the language components
and as supporting elements to the mastery of the four skills is very important in
learning language.
The statement above reveals that the importance of vocabulary affects the
students’ mastery of the fourth language skills. In other words, reading, listening,
writing and speaking skill cannot be separated from vocabulary.
However, based on the researcher’s experience during the Field
Experience Practice (PPL) in SMP 1 Berastagi, the vocabulary achievement of
students particularly was very poor. It was seen that the students had a poor
achievement in vocabulary which result in their poor performance in English
language skills. Poor vocabulary achievement of students could also be seen from
1
2
the number of vocabularies that they mastered, was very low. Moreover, the
junior high school’ students should acquire approximately 2.000-3000 words per
year, or about 6 to 8 new words per day (Anderson & Nagy, 1992).
Poor
achievement of English vocabulary caused the students found learning English
was hard and unattractive.
Moreover, vocabulary is one of linguistic features, which influences the
communicative competence. Carter and Nunan (2001: 42) write the English
teachers learn to ignore the significance of vocabulary in their teaching of
speaking or communication performance. In fact the use of suitable vocabulary
can cancel out structural incorrectness. Based on authenticity, recently
methodologist and linguist have increasingly turned their attention to vocabulary,
learning stressing, and their importance in language teaching and reassessing
some of the ways it is thought and learnt. It means that vocabulary plays a very
essential task in language teaching.
Teaching or learning vocabulary is not easy. It constitutes a significant
educational enterprise; one must make an effort to understand whole, to repeat,
accurately and to use the whole range of known language in conversation or
written composition.
However, many English teachers in the schools taught English subject
without paying any attention to vocabulary itself. The others fact, the teachers
kept teaching and learning as a monotonous process. The teacher spoke formally
in front of the class, gave some explanations, read some information from the
books, showed the materials and asked the student to translate some text.
3
It caused the students feel bored. Students did less participation in the
class activity and did not have wide chance to call out what they had learnt. These
fact influenced students’ vocabulary achievement. It can be measured from the
indicators of learning and competency standard that students reached in each
material. The students’ result of reading test in comprehending the text that was
given by teacher was bad. Many students failed in answering the questions
because their vocabulary achievement was very weak.
Therefore, there must be way out of overcoming this problem. There are
many things can be done to solve this problem. One of those things is tic-tac-toe
game. Tic-tac-toe game is one of creative technique to attract the students’ interest
in learning activity. Tic-tac-toe game is one kind of board games. Tic-tac toe is a
game that is played on the board, paper, or slate which has a structure that features
three rows and three columns each. Then, students are asked to discover a
relationship in three lexical items in a diagonal, vertical or horizontal row.
Tic-tac toe game is very useful to attract students’ attention in learning and
can improve students’ vocabulary achievement. Tic-tac-toe game plays an
important role in creating an effective teaching learning process. Tic-tac-toe
makes students’ learning become fun, attractive and enjoyable.
Considering the importance of the above fact, therefore the research is
highly motivated in investigating conduct a research on “Improving students’
Vocabulary Achievement by Applying Tic-tac-toe Game” in SMP N 1 Payung at
eighth grade.
4
B. The Problem of the Study
In line with the background of the study, the problem of the study is
formulated as follows:
Is the students’ vocabulary achievement significantly improved by the application
of Tic-tac-toe game?
C. The Objective of the Study
In relation to the problem, the objective of the study is to investigate
whether the application of Tic-tac-toe game can significantly improve the
students’ vocabulary achievement.
D. The Scope of the Study
To limit this study the writer only focused on the application of Tic-tac-toe
Game in improving students’ vocabulary achievement in reading text term which
is taken from Junior high School’ textbook.
E. The Significance of the Study
Findings of the research are expected to be useful for theoretically and
practically.
1. Theoretically, the findings are useful to enlarge horizon in the teaching
learning process. In addition, the findings can be references for further study.
2. Practically, the findings are expected to give benefit for the teachers,
researchers, students, and institution.
a) For teachers, this finding will be directly help the teachers to apply tic-tactoe game in teaching learning process.
5
b) For researchers, this finding is hopefully can be operated in conducting
further research/study for obtaining better result.
c) For students, it is expected to help the students learn vocabulary in a good
and enjoyable way through tic-tac-toe game.
d) For institution, it can useful to develop the teaching learning technique for
increasing motivation in further.
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
A. Conclusion
Based on the result of the data which had been analyzed qualitatively and
quantitatively, the researcher concluded that there was a crucial problem that
happened in Indonesian junior high school students related to the students’
achievement in learning English especially learning English vocabulary. It wasn’t
a new problem that the vocabulary achievement of most of junior high school
students particularly was very poor. A poor achievement in vocabulary influenced
the result in their poor performance in English language skills. Poor achievement
of English vocabulary caused the students found English learning was hard and
unattractive.
The problem also came up from the English teacher in that school. Most of
English teacher in that school taught English without paying any attention to
vocabulary itself. So the students had no idea on how actually to learn English
vocabulary. The others fact, the teachers kept teaching and learning as a
monotonous process. The teacher spoke formally in front of the class, gave some
explanations, read some information from the books, showed the materials and
asked the student to translate some text.
The implementation of Tic-tac-toe Game is simple and easy for students to
understand and really helped the students to have a good achievement in English
vocabulary. Based on the results of the data analysis, the application of tic-tac-toe
game could improve the students’ vocabulary achievement of the eighth grade
53
54
students in SMP N 1 Payung in the academic year 2012/2013. The improvement
could be seen from the students’ mean score in orientation test, test I, and test II.
Moreover the application of Tic-tac-toe game also could effectively
improve the students’ motivation and improved the students’ interest in learning
English. This improvement had been proven by the result of observation sheet and
the questionnaires sheet.
B. Suggestion
In relation to the conclusion above, there were some suggestions about the
application of Tic-tac-toe game:
1. For teachers, tic-tac-toe game contributed significant improvement to the
students’ vocabulary achievement, and then it is suggested to be applied
in the teaching learning process.
2. For students, it can help the students to learn vocabulary in a good and
enjoyable way.
3. For institution, it can useful to develop the teaching learning technique
for increasing motivation in further.
However, in implementing this Tic-tac-toe game, the teacher may find the
problem in managing the class because in this activity the students compete each
other and it may make the situation in the class becomes crowded. That’s why the
teacher should be able in manage and control the class as well as possible.
55
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