| dc.description.abstract | This classroom action research was intended to improve the eighth grade
students’ participation and simple past tense achievement by giving Verbal and nonVerbal
Reinforcements at SMPN 1 Bangsalsari-Jember in the 2012/2013 academic
year. This research began by conducting a preliminary study by interviewing the
English teacher of the eighth grade students of SMPN 1 Bangsalsari on 15th May
2012. It was found that the students of class VIII C had less motivation and had
difficulties in learning tense, especially simple past tense. Moreover, they couldn’t
apply that tense in a sentence and got the difficulties in memorizing the patterns of
that tense. Besides, the students lack of participation in the classroom during the
teaching and learning process of tense. This finding was supported by the English
teacher’s admission and the average score of the students’ grammar test that was 65
while the minimum standard score requirement of the school was 70. About 16
students of class VIII-C got
≥70 in the test and 18 students got < 70. It means that
only 47% of the students achieved the standard score.
This classroom action research was conducted collaboratively with class VIIIC
English
teacher
of
SMPN
1
Bangsalsari.
There
were
four
stages
of
activities
in
this
research,
namely:
preparation
of
the
action,
implementation
of
the
action,
observation
and
evaluation, and data analysis and reflection. The data collection methods that
were used in this research were interview, documentation, previous tense test, and
classroom observation. This classroom action research was carried out in two cycles
and each cycle was conducted in three meetings. The first and the second meetings
were used to do the actions and the third meeting was used to conduct the simple past
tense test.
In the first cycle, it was known that the percentage of the active students was
79.4%. It means that the minimum requirement percentage of the active students in
this reserach (75%) had been achieved successfully. Meanwhile, the students’ mean
score of the simple past tense test in the first cycle was 68.4. The students’ mean
score had not achieved the minimum standard score requirement of SMPN 1
Bangsalsari (70). Moreover, the percentage of the students who achieved
≥70 was
only 67.6% whereas the minimum requirement percentage in this research was 70%.
Dealing with the results, it was necessary to continue the action to the second cycle
by revising some necessary aspects in the first cycle.
In the second cycle, the percentage of the students who were active during the
teaching learning process was 92.5%. It achieved the minimum requirement
percentage (75%) and was higher than the percentage of the active students in cycle 1
(79.4%). Besides, the students’ mean score of the simple past tense test improved
from 68.4 (cycle 1) to 75.15 (cycle 2). The students’ mean score in cycle 2 also
achieved the minimum requirement standard score (70). Meanwhile, the percentage
of the students who got
≥70 was 82.3%. It means that the minimum requirement
percentage of the students who got ≥70 had been achieved in cycle 2. Since all of
research targets had been successfully achieved in the second cycle, the action was
stopped.
Based on the research results from cycle 1 to cycle 2, it could be concluded
that teaching simple past tense by giving verbal and non verbal reinforcements could
improve the students’ participation and simple past tense achievement. Thus, the
English teacher was suggested to use of Verbal and Non verbal Reinforcements in
teaching tenses since it could make the students participate actively in the teaching
learning process of tenses and improve their tense achievement, especially in Simple
Past Tense. | en_US |
