Improving the Fifth Year Students’ Vocabulary Achievement Through English Children Songs at SDN Baratan 1 Jember

Abstract

Vocabulary is one of the language components which are crucial in language learning. It helps the students to communicate well and to master the four language skills namely listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Based on the preliminary study at SDN Baratan 1 Jember, it was found that the fifth year students of VA faced difficulties in vocabulary, memorizing new words and its meaning. It was proved by the fact that class VA had low average score of vocabulary that was 51.7 whereas the minimum standard score requirement used in that school was 60 and only 35.3% of the students who got 60 or more. Additionally, the students’ participation during the English lesson was not more than 41%. It caused by the way the English teacher gave vocabulary material quite monotonous. The English teacher taught the students entirely based on the material books. The English teacher wrote the new vocabularies completed with their meanings on the blackboard. Furthermore, the English teacher asked the students to memorize the meaning of the new vocabularies. Meanwhile, the English teacher has actually been trying to solve the students’ problem in memorizing new vocabularies by using real things. However, it did not work well; the students were still unable to solve their difficulties in memorizing new vocabularies. Considering the problems above, this research was undertaken to overcome the students’ problem by using English children songs. English children songs could help the students memorize the words easily since words in English children songs are frequently repeated so that the students will be familiar with the vocabulary used. This means that the English children songs were able to arouse the students’ motivation and improve the students’ vocabulary achievement. The Classroom Action Research (CAR) with the cycle model was applied in this research. The action research was carried out to improve the fifth year students’ vocabulary achievement by using English children songs at SDN Baratan 1 Jember. This Classroom Action Research was conducted in two cycles, in which each cycle covered four main stages of activity namely; planning of the actions, implementation of the actions, class observation and evaluation, data analysis and reflection of the actions. Then each cycle was conducted in two meetings. The primary data about the students’ vocabulary achievement were gained from the test done in each cycle in the third meetings. Meanwhile, the supporting data were gathered from interview and documentation. The actions were considered successful if 70% of the students achieved minimum requirement standard score that was 60 and if 70% of the students are actively involved in the vocabulary teaching and learning process using English children songs. From the data of the students’ vocabulary test in the first cycle, it was revealed that the percentage of the students who got score at least 60 was 64.8%. It was considered unsuccessful since the criteria of success were 70%. Before doing the actions in the second cycle, some revisions were made by finding and adapting English children songs that had familiar tune to the students and repeated lyrics and also gave more times from two into three times to sing and act out the songs. Those resulted in the better score obtained which was 76.5%. This means that the actions in the second cycle were successful. The similar thing happened to the students’ participation during the vocabulary teaching and learning process conducted in two cycles which showed improvement. In the first cycle the average result of the students’ active participation in the both meetings was 61.8% then it turned into 77.9% in the second cycle. This meant that the actions in the second cycle had met the standard requirement of product and process evaluation that was 70%. Based on the result above, it could be concluded that the use of English children songs could improve the fifth year students’ vocabulary achievement at SDN Baratan 1 Jember. Then, it was suggested to the English teacher to use English children songs as a variation in teaching vocabulary and to improve the result of the students’ vocabulary achievement.