Improving the Seventh Grade Students’ Vocabulary Achievement

Abstract

This research was intended to improve the seventh grade students’ vocabulary achievement through English songs at SMP Negeri 11 Jember in the 2014/2015 academic year. A Classroom Action Research was used by the researcher in this research to overcome the problems faced by the students in learning English due to the lack of vocabulary. The subjects of the research were chosen by using purposive method. The students of class VII-A were taken because they had the lowest mean score of the previous English midterm test. The data collection methods of this research were vocabulary achievement test, observation in the form of checklist, documentation, and interview. This research was conducted in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of two meetings and a vocabulary test. The target minimum score of this research is based on the English minimum requirement score at the school, that is 72. The average results of observations in Cycle 1 showed that 65.8% of the students were categorized as active students during the teaching learning process of vocabulary through English songs and it increased to 82% in Cycle 2. Moreover, the result of vocabulary achievement test proved that there were 23 students of 38 students (60.5%) could achieve the target minimum score of this research in Cycle 1, and it increased to 81.6% or 31 students in Cycle 2. Based on the research finding above, it was found that the use of English songs could improve the seventh grade students' vocabulary achievement.