The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning to Improve Students’vocabulary Mastery (a Classroom Action Research at the Eighth Grade Students of Madrasah Tsanawiyah Nadlotul Muslimat Surakarta 2009-2010)

Oleh :
Kristiantari - S89030600 -

The research was conducted at Madrasah Tsanawiyah Nadlotul Muslimat Surakarta (MTS NDM); the subjects of the research were 24 students of class B the eight grade in the academic year 2009-2010. The research aims to (1) identify whether and to what extent jigsaw technique improves the students’ vocabulary mastery; and (2) describe the teaching and learning situation when jigsaw technique is administered in the class. The research was an action research which applied jigsaw technique to improve students’ vocabulary mastery. Action research is a study in which a systematic action done by teacher, researchers, or other education practitioners in a certain environment with the purpose of solving the problem or improving things related to educational problems for betterment. The research was done in three cycles, with three meetings consisting of planning, acting, observing and reflecting in every cycle. The researcher used both quantitative (the students’ score of vocabulary mastery test) and qualitative data (the information about the implementation of jigsaw technique and the students’ reactions to the technique. The former data were taken from the vocabulary mastery test; pre-test and post-test of every cycle. The qualitative data were taken from observation, interview and document analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistic. The qualitative data were analyzed using Constant-comparative technique proposed by Strauss and Glasser. The results of the study showed that: (1) Jigsaw technique improves students’ vocabulary mastery in terms of: (a) raising achievement in vocabulary mastery. It can be seen from the improvement of the mean score of every cycle: pre-test: 54.69; cycle 1: 57.50; cycle 2: 67.40; cycle 3: 86.56 , (b) improving students’ pronunciation, (c) improving students’ spelling ability, (d) improving students’ meaning knowledge of the words, also (e) improving students’ usage of the words; and (2) Jigsaw technique improves classroom situation, in terms of creating live teaching atmosphere, increasing students’ participation, reducing teacher and active students domination, and providing bigger opportunities for internalizing new vocabulary The result of the research showed that Jigsaw technique was beneficial to improve the students’ vocabulary mastery and classroom situation. Therefore, Jigsaw technique is very potential to be applied in English class.