ABSTRAK

This study focuses on the use of authentic materials to improve students’ participation.  This research was carried out at vocational high school in Surakarta. The goals of this study are, (1) to describe the use of authentic materials in classroom, (2) to describe the use of authentic materials in improving students’ participation. The researcher adopted Classroom Action Research which requires some steps, namely planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. The participants are 36 students. The methods of collecting the data are observation, interview, and document analysis. The research found that the use of authentic materials was effective. The steps are opening, main activity, and closing. The other finding is that the use of authentic materials was effective in improving students’ participations. The improvement of students’ participation was shown when the students’ are actively participating in teaching-learning process. The mean score of students’ participation increased on each cycle. In preresearch, the mean score was 2.63. It increased in cycle 1 into 3.3 and 4.6 in cycle 2. It means that authentic materials can improve students’ participation because of its interesting contents.
 
Keywords: authentic materials, students’ participation, learning activity