Using authentic materials to improve the students’ passive voice mastery (a classroom action research in the first grade students of the english department of teacher training and education faculty Nusantara PGRI Kediri University in the academic year 200

Oleh :
Yunik Susanti - - Sekolah Pascasarjana

ABSTRACT USING AUTHENTIC MATERIALS TO IMPROVE THE STUDENTS’ PASSIVE VOICE MASTERY (A Classroom Action Research in the First Grade Students of EnglishDepartment Teacher Training and Education Faculty Nusantara PGRI Kediri University in Academic Years 2007/2008). Surakarta: English Department, Graduate School, Sebelas Maret University. This action research is done to improve the students’ passive voice mastery. The problem highlighted in this research is the low of the students’ passive voice mastery, that is caused by ;(1) The monotonous materials used by the teacher; (2) The monotonous teaching technique used by the teacher; and (3) Lack of practice in applying the lesson that has been taught. The research is conducted in two cycles from June 2008 to January 2009.The procedures of the research consist of identifying the problems, planning the action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting the result of the research. In collecting the data, the researcher used tests, interview, observation, and questionnaire. The tests are in the form of pretest and posttest. In this research, the researcher acts as a teacher who conducts the action research in the classroom and she is helped by the collaborator. The data that are got are in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data are the result of interview and questionnaire, and field notes. The quantitative data are the students’ test scores. In analyzing the data, she uses data reduction, data display, and verification for the qualitative data, and t-test for Non Independence for the quantitative data. The researcher also compares the students’ pretest and posttest to justify the significance of the result. The result of the research shows that authentic materials can improve the students’ passive voice mastery. The improvement of the students’ passive voice mastery could be recognized from the improvement of the tests scores, the mean score for the pretest is 66.44, then the mean score of the posttest after cycle 1 was 69.8, the score for the posttest after cycle 2 was 77.59. Based on the result of the t-test for non independent scores, the t-obtained in cycle 1 (to 7.555) is higher than t-table (tt 2.779), and in cycle 2 the t-obtained (to 8.020) is higher than the t-table (tt 2.779) at the degree of significant α=0.05. It can be concluded that there is significant difference between them, so authentic materials improve the students’ passive voice mastery. From the result of the interview and questionnaire 80% students explained that they have better understanding on the forms and the use of the passive voice. From the result of field notes analysis and also the students’ tasks it can be concluded that the students’ ability to understand the forms and the use of the passive voice get better. There are some benefits of implementing authentic materials in teaching passive voice, they are: the texts that are rich of example of passive voice help the students to recognize the various forms of passive voice. So it is easier for the students to figure out the forms of the passive voice. The texts provide the context in which passive voice is used, the clear setting of the topic gives clear explanation about the use of the passive voice. Furthermore, the students know the use of passive voice in the daily life. The materials add the students’ vocabulary knowledge. The topics related to the students’ daily life are interesting. The new variations of the materials provide new circumstances for learning, so the class is not boring anymore. On the other hand, it can also be found the weaknesses of using authentic materials in teaching passive, they are: The texts that are rich of examples of passive voice are usually long, so it will take a lot of time to discuss the content of the texts. Sometimes the texts contain many new difficult vocabularies, so the students get difficulties in understanding the content of the texts. The next weakness is it needs much time in selecting appropriate texts which will be used in the class. So it needs to look for the other sources other than from the newspaper or magazines. Based on the results of the research above it is suggested that the teacher should use the other materials, not only the course book, in teaching language points, because it is proved that using the authentic materials can improve the students’ passive voice mastery. The teacher should be creative and selective in finding and making the materials. Students should add their knowledge and skills in English by finding the forms of the grammar aspects in the other sources except their course book, in order to have better understanding of the application of what they study in the class in their daily life. Other researchers are hoped to do a further research about the use of authentic materials in teaching the other aspects of grammar, especially the aspects that need the understanding of the context, for example the tenses, gerund, etc.