IMPROVING THE FOURTH GRADE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACHIEVEMENT AND ACTIVE PARTICIPATION BY USING ENGLISH CHILDREN SONGS AT SD MUHAMMADIYAH 01 KENCONG IN THE 2012/2013 ACADEMIC YEAR

Abstract

SUMMARY Improving the Fourth Grade Students’ Vocabulary Achievement and Active Participation by Using English Children Songs at SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong in the 2012/2013 Academic Year; Anggia Dewi Permata Sari, 050210491031; 2013; 38 pages; English Language Education Study Program of Language and Arts Department of the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of Jember University. Consultants: 1. Dra. Siti Sundari, M.A 2. Drs. Sudarsono, M.Pd Vocabulary is one of the English components that has an important role in learning English. If the students’ lack of vocabulary, they will be difficult to communicate each other, exchange their ideas and do not understand what the other says. Based on the preliminary study at SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong, it was found that the fourth grade of SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong still had difficulties in memorizing new vocabularies. Their difficulties were caused by lack of knowledge of vocabulary or their unwillingness to find the meaning of words by using a dictionary. Beside that, the problem faced by the teacher in the class is the students were still pasive in joining the class. Classroom activities were still teacher centered, based on the teacher information. This passive situation occured because the students might feel bored with the classroom situation. It can be proved from the students’ score that only 57,5 % of the students who got 60 or more while the minimum requirement standard score for English of the school is 60. Additionally, only 50 % of students were active in the learning process. Therefore, this class was chosen as the research subject of this research. Considering the problems above, this research was undertaken to overcome the students’ problem by using English children songs. English children songs could help students memorize the words easily since the words in English songs are xiv frequently repeated so that the students will be familiar with the vocabulary used. This means that the English songs were able to arouse the students’ motivation and improve the students’ vocabulary achievement. The Classroom Action Research with the cycle model was applied in this reseach. The action reseach was carried out to improve the students’ vocabulary achievement by using English children songs at SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong. This classroom action research consisted of cycle, in which each cycle covered the stages including: planning of the action, implementation of the action, class observation and evaluation, and reflection of the action. This research was done collaboratively with the English teacher of SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong. Each cycle was conducted in two meeting. The primary data about the students’ vocabulary achievement were gained from the test done in each cycle in the third meeting. Meanwhile, the supporting data were gathered from interview and documentation. The reflection was done based on the findings during the implementation of the actions and compared to the criteria success, including (1) at least 70% of the research subjects get score ≥ 70, (2) at least 70% of the students were actively involved in the teaching learning process of vocabulary using English children songs. The result of the action in the first cycle showed that In addition, there was 75 % or 30 students of 40 students had scores at least ≥70. Concerning with this activeness, based on the classroom observation it was found that there were 29 students or 72,5% in meeting 1 and 75% or 30 students of 40 students in meeting 2 who were actively involved in the teaching learning process of vocabulary in cycle 1. In other words, the results of the action in the first cycle achieved the target of this research. Therefore, the action was stopped. Finally, it could be conclude that the use of English children songs could improve the fourth grade students’ vocabulary achievemnent at SD Muhammadiyah 01 Kencong. Therefore, the English teacher was suggested to use English songs as an alternative media in teaching vocabulary.