THE EFFECT OF USING A SNAKE AND LADDER GAME ON THE SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS’ TENSE ACHIEVEMENT AT SMPN 2 BALUNG-JEMBER IN THE 2011/2012 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

In Indonesia, especially at SMPN 2 Balung-Jember, there are still many students facing a lot of difficulties in learning English. One of them is to understand and apply English grammar, especially in learning tenses. It happens because English grammar is different from Indonesian grammar. The students tend to get confused and have difficulty in learning tenses. Moreover, based on the interview with the English teacher of SMPN 2 Balung, the teacher usually taught tenses monotonously by explaining briefly then giving exercises based on the students‟ worksheet (LKS). Concerning with the problems above, the researcher tried to apply an interesting way for teaching tenses. Then, the researcher decided to use a game as a technique to teach tense. By using games, the teaching learning process was much more enjoyable, and the students also experienced the dynamic use of the language. A research was conducted to investigate the effect of using a snake and ladder game on the seventh grade students‟ tense achievement at SMPN 2 Balung-Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year. The population of this research was all of the seventh year students of SMPN 2 Balung-Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year. The research respondents were determined by delivering a homogeneity test (a tense test, covering simple present and present continuous tense) to all seventh grade classes. Then, 35 students of grade VII-B were selected as the experimental group that taught tenses by using a Snake and Ladder Game, while 34 students of grade VII-C were selected as the control group that taught tenses by lecturing technique only. After giving treatment for twice, the researcher gave a posttest (tense test), for both groups. The posttest was administered to get the students‟s scores in tense test as the primary of the research. Then, the primary data, the students‟ scores, were analyzed by using the Independent sample T-Test with SPSS. Based on the calculation, the result of this research showed that there was a significant effect of using a Snake and Ladder Game on the seventh grade students‟ tense achievement. It was proved by the value of significant column of t-test table by using SPSS software, and the result was 0.045 which was lower than 0.05 (significant level of 5%). This means that the null hypothesis (H ) formulated: “The snake and ladder game does not have a significant effect on the seventh grade students‟ tense achievement at SMPN 2 Balung-Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year” was rejected, thus the alternative hypothesis: “The snake and ladder game has a significant effect on the seventh grade students‟ tense achievement at SMPN 2 Balung-Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year” was accepted. The research results proved that there was a significant effect of using a Snake and Ladder Game on the seventh year students‟ tense achievement at SMPN 2 Balung Jember in the 2011/2012 academic year. Therefore, it is recommended for the English teacher to use Snake and Ladder Game as an alternative technique in teaching tenses.