THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING CROSSWORD PUZZLES TO INCREASE ENGLISH VOCABULARY MASTERY OF THE SECOND GRADE STUDENTS’ OF SMP N 2 AMBAL IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR OF 2012/ 2013

Abstract

English is an international language. It is useful as communication tool to make interpersonal relationship, search for informations, exchange informations, and enjoy esthetics of foreign language and the culture. In Indonesia, it has been stipulated by the government as compulsory subject in Junior High Schools. One of the components in learning English is vocabulary. Students will experience difficulties in learning English if they lack vocabulary mastery. In fact, the students of Junior High School still lack vocabulary, and experience difficulty to memorize the vocabulary because the teachers use conventional method in teaching vocabulary. Nowadays, some innovations in English learning emerge for teaching vocabulary. One of them is Crossword Puzzles media. The objective of this research is to find out whether teaching vocabulary by using Crossword Puzzle is effective for Junior High School students or not. This research is an experimental research which has been conducted on the second-grade students of SMP N 2 Ambal in the academic year 2012/2013. In this research the researcher took 52 students as the samples. The researcher took class VIIIA, which consists of 26 students as experimental group, and class VIIID, which consists of 26 students as control group. The test consists of 30 items as instrument of the research. It is a multiple choices reading test. The researcher had given pre-test before she taught the students vocabulary by using Crossword Puzzles, and the researcher gave post-test after she had taught the students vocabulary by using Crossword Puzzles media. Stasistically, the researcher analyzed the data by using t-test. The result of this study shows that there is significant effect of using Crossword Puzzles to teach the students vocabulary, since it was found that the result of t-value is 2.99, the degree freedom (df) is 50 and the level significance of t-test table is 5% (0.05) It shows 2.05. It is proven by the result of t-test sample related that the t-value is higher than t-table. The research findings indicated that using Crossword Puzzles as media to increase vocabulary is effective for Junior High School students, especially SMP N 2 Ambal. Therefore, the researcher suggests that English teachers of Junior High School need to use Crossword Puzzles as media to teach students vocabulary in the classroom. By using this media, the students are not bored in learning English, and their vocabulary mastery increases because they are easier in memorizing the vocabularies than by using the common method in teaching vocabulary.