The Use of Nursery Rhymes to Improve the Eighth Grade Students’ Vocabulary Achievement and Active Participation

Abstract

This research was a classroom action research. The objectives of this study were to improve the eighth grade students’ vocabulary achievement and active participation by using nursery rhymes at SMPN 8 Jember. Based on the preliminary study conducted by the researcher in the form of informal interview with the English teacher, it was known that the students still had lack of vocabulary. The English teacher claimed when she gave the students a text and ask them to find the unfamiliar words, most of the students almost found 90% unfamiliar words. After doing the informal interview, the researcher did a vocabulary test and observation. From the results of the vocabulary test to know the students’ ability, it was found that the VIII-F students could not reach the minimum standard requirement score for the English subject that was 75. There were only 4 students who got ≥ 75 and 26 students who got ≤ 75. Besides, from the observation, it was known that during the English class when the English teacher asked them to memorize new words most of the students could not memorize it, most of them often forgot the meaning of the words that they had learnt before. Due to the problems above, the researcher decided to use nursery rhymes to improve the students’ vocabulary achievement and their active participation. This research was done collaboratively with the English teacher in one cycle. The data of this research were obtained from the vocabulary test and the observation in the form of checklist. The results of the vocabulary test in Cycle 1 had achieved the criteria of success in this research was that 80% of the students got score ≥75. The percentage of the criteria success was taken from the standard minimum score of the school. Therefore, the results of the vocabulary test showed that the percentage of the students who achieved the target minimum score was 90%. The mean score of vocabulary test increased from 68.23 to 81.83. The results of observation showed that there was an improvement from meeting 1 to meeting 2 in Cycle 1. In Meeting 1, the students who were categorized as active students were 76.6% or 23 students and in Meeting 2, the students who were categorized as active students were 86.6% or 26 students. The average results of the students active participation in Meeting 1 and Meeting 2 were 81.65%. The percentage of the students’ active participation in Cycle 1 had achieved the target score of the research that was 80%. From both of the results of the students’ vocabulary achievement and the students’ active participation, it can be concluded that the use of nursery rhyme helped the students’ to improve their vocabulary achievement and active participation