Improving the Eighth Grade Students’ Simple Past Tense Achievement and Their Active Participation by Using Numbered Heads Together Technique at SMPN 1 Jelbuk

Abstract

This classroom action research was conducted collaboratively by the researcher and the English teacher to improve the eighth grade students’ simple past tense achievement and their active participation by using Numbered Heads Together technique at SMPN 1 Jelbuk. The interview as the preliminary study with the English teacher of the eighth grade students was conducted in SMPN 1 Jelbuk. The result showed that the eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Jelbuk, especially VIII-A class, still experienced problems with their structure, especially Simple Past Tense. There was only 38% students was achieving the standard requirement score of English that was 76. It means that the students’ simple past tense achievement was still low. Therefore, the NHT teaching was used in this research because it was one of cooperative learning types that could improve the students’ simple past tense achievement and their active participation. The data in this research were collected by administering simple past tense achievement test after the action and having observation in the class in each cycle during the implementation of the action. The research design was Classroom Action Research (CAR) with cycle model. Each cycle consisted of four stages of activity; they were planning the action, the implementation of the action, observation, and evaluation. This research was conducted in SMPN 1 Jelbuk. The eight grade students of SMPN 1 Jelbuk, especially VIII-A class, were the research subjects of this research. The results of the data analysis showed that teaching structure, especially Simple Past Tense, by using Numbered Heads Together technique in two cycles was able to improve the eighth grade students’ simple past tense achievement at SMPN 1 Jelbuk. The average percentage of the students’ simple past tense achievement in Cycle I was 69.23% of the students who achieved the standard requirement score that was 76. Meanwhile, the average percentage of the students’ simple past tense achievement in Cycle II was 76.92% of the students who achieved the standard requirement score that was 76. It means that there was improvement from the first cycle to the second cycle as much as 7.69% of the percentage of the students who got scores of 76. Besides that the Numbered Heads Together technique was applicable to the eighth grade students in improving the students’ active participation at SMPN 1 Jelbuk. In cycle I, the percentage of the students’ active participation increased from 38.4% of the students in the first meeting to 57.6% of the students in the second meeting. The results of the observation in cycle I had not achieved the criteria of success required in this research yet. This result became reference to conduct cycle II. Then, the percentage of the students’ active participation in cycle II increased from 76.92% of the students in meeting 1 to 80.76% in meeting 2. Based on the results of the observation in cycle II, it could be concluded that the use of Numbered Heads Together technique could improve the students’ active participation in teaching learning process. Based on the results of this research, the use of NHT technique in the teaching learning process especially Simple Past Tense could improve the students’ simple past tense achievement and their active participation during the teaching learning process. Therefore, the English teacher was suggested to apply the NHT technique as an alternative technique in teaching structure.