The Use of Pocket Charts to Improve the VII-D Students Tense Mastery at SMPN 1 Rambipuji in the 2008/2009 Academic Year

Abstract

This classroom action research was intended to improve the VII-D students’ tense mastery by using pocket charts at SMPN 1 Rambipuji in the 2008/2009 academic year. It was started by conducting an informal interview with the English teacher of the VII-D students at SMPN 1 Rambipuji. There were five classes at the school. Class VII-D was chosen purposively as the subject of this research because of their lowest mean score in tenses among other classes. Its mean score was 66. Pocket charts were chosen as media that could help the students learning English especially tenses and gave them new learning situation. Pocket charts were suitable for teaching tenses because the students could alter the sentence by moving some words into new positions and they could learn to correct mistakes and vary sentence patterns. This research was done in two cycles in which there were three meetings of each cycle. The first and the second meeting were teaching simple present tense and present continuous tense. The tense test was conducted in the third meeting of each cycle. The score of the tense test and observation were used as the primary data of this research. Meanwhile, documentation and interview were used to get secondary data. In addition, the reflection was done based on the findings during the observation and compared to the successful criteria of the research, they were (1) the mean score of the tense test was in the good category (M > 70) and at least 75% of the students could achieve the good category score; and (2) 75% of the students were actively involved in the teaching learning process. In the first cycle the students’ mean score of the tense test was 71.4 and it was only achieved by 55% of the students (22 students). Meanwhile, the results of the observation showed that 55% of the students (22 students) in Meeting 1 and 67.5 % of the students (27 students) in Meeting 2 were actively involved in the teaching learning process. From the results of the cycle, it could be said that the first cycle did not fulfill the success criteria yet. Therefore, the first cycle needed some improvement. In the second cycle, the results showed improvement. The mean score of the students’ tense test was 80.4. It was achieved by 82.5% of the students (33 students). Meanwhile the results of observation showed that 77.5% of the students (31 students) in Meeting 1 and 82.5% of the students (33 students) in Meeting 2 were actively involved in the teaching learning process. It means that in the second cycle the students’ tense mastery and their active participation in the teaching learning process improved. From the results of Cycle 2, it can be concluded that the use of pocket charts could improve the students’ tense mastery and their active participation in the teaching learning process. Therefore, the teacher was suggested to use pocket charts as alternative way in teaching tenses. It is suggested that the teacher vary their teaching technique by using various media or teaching aids for example by using pocket charts. The students are suggested to encourage themselves to be more active in the learning activities either in class or outside the class to experience something different than they used to have before. Hopefully, it can bring enjoyable situation in learning tenses to improve their tense mastery. The future researchers who have similar problems are suggested to conduct the similar research with the same design in other classes or in other schools to improve students’ tense mastery by using pocket charts