THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING SNAKES AND LADDERS GAME TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTSÂ’ SIMPLE PAST TENSE ABILITY AT THE TENTH GRADE OF SMA ISLAM BATU

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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING SNAKES AND LADDERS GAME TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SIMPLE PAST TENSE

ABILITY AT THE TENTH GRADE OF SMA ISLAM BATU

THESIS

BY:

DEVI ASTRI WARDININGTYAS 201210100311262

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG

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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING SNAKES AND LADDERS GAME TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ SIMPLE PAST TENSE

ABILITY AT THE TENTH GRADE OF SMA ISLAM BATU

THESIS

This thesis is submitted to meet one of the requirements to achieve Sarjana Degree in English Education

BY:

DEVI ASTRI WARDININGTYAS 201210100311262

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH MALANG

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Letter of Authenticity

The undersigned:

Name : Devi Astri Wardiningtyas

Student ID number : 201210100311262

Program of Study : English Department

Faculty : Faculty of Teacher Training and Education

I declare that the work presented in this thesis was carried out by myself and does

not incorporate without acknowledgement any material previously submitted for a

degree of diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge this thesis does

not contain any materials previously published or written by another person except

where due reference is made in text.

Malang, May 3rd_{, 2016}

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MOTTO AND DEDICATION

MOTTO

“this is my story, it’ll go the way i want it ……

or i’ll end it here!”

(FINAL FANTASY X)

DEDICATION I dedicated this thesis to:

My beloved Father

My beloved Mother

My beloved Sister

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Alhamdulillahirobbil’alamin, the researcher would like to give the best gratitude to Allah SWT for the blessing and the love, so the researcher could have finished this thesis. Next, my prophet Muhammad SAW, the any representative word to thank you.

In this opportunity, the researcher wants to say her great gratitude to her mother (Sri Sulastri Almh.) and her father (Waryo) for their love, supports, and pray that never end. Other thanks go to her sister (Farah Vidya Ayu Wardani) for their supports, prayers and attention of my thesis progress.

Gratitude is also given to both of my advisors, Drs. Jarum, M.Ed. and Puji Sumarsono, S.Pd., M.Pd. who always give their suggestion, time, energy, patient, support, and also attention to the completion in finishing this thesis.

Special thanks to all of my best friends: Indro, Dessy, and Dela for their pray, suggestion, idea, time to listen and help me to solve my difficulties in doing this thesis. Moreover, the researcher also would like to thank to Drs. H. Robby Harmono the headmaster of SMA Islam Batu, and Ichwan Helami, S.S, the English

teacher of SMA Islam Batu for allowing me to conduct the research in that school.

Malang, May 3rd , 2016 The Researcher,

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses background of the study, statement of the problem,

the purposes of study, significance of the study, scope and limitation, and definition

of the key terms.

1.1 Background of the Study

It is widely known that English is an International language which is used

as a means of communication for people all over the world. English is the first

foreign language in Indonesia. It is taught from Kindergarten, Elementary School

as local content subject, Junior, and Senior High School until to University as

compulsory subject. Despite the fact that learning English is important, many

people are motivated to learn this language for their own needs, business purposes,

occupation, getting a good position in a company and others.

Since this language has been taught in school, some problems arose

concerning with English subject, especially English grammar. Students have to

learn, remember, and apply the formula in the sentences. To solve this problem, the

teacher should give students motivation in learning grammar, do a research to the

students’ difficulties in grammar, make a good grammar test and have a good

teaching strategy in grammar, etc.

Based on the previous study conducted by Nuzulia Mega Jayanti and

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students to be active and facilitate them for having fun in learning English

especially speaking activities.

According to Langelling and Malarcher (2000: 42), in terms of affective

aspect, games can encourage creative and spontaneous use of language, promote

communicative competence, and motivate the students by providing fun and

interesting activities. It supports the result of the try-out of the small group that

ninety percents of the students were motivated and they participated actively in

Grammar activities using the board game. Furthermore, by playing the snakes and

ladders game in grammar activities in groups, students can learn how to cooperate

each other. By deciding the answer together, they would work cooperatively and

think together what the right answer was. From the result of the try-out of the snakes

and ladders game, each team worked cooperatively. This is supported by the

statement from Sugar (2002: 8) that games improve teamwork. Because games are

real-time activities that bring students into teams, they train students in the rules of

working together as a team and underscore the value of team collaboration. In

addition, (Schwartz, 2012) also states that there are many studies that state the

beneficial effects that game playing can bring in teaching and learning of English

Language. He states that “the more people play, the more positive emotions are

generated, which in turn makes play easier and thus helps to generate even more

positive emotion. Besides, according to Musilova (2010), “teaching grammar

through games is a successful and effective approach”.

One advantage to using games is that it is an effective way in language

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chance for real communication (Deesri, 2002). Moreover, real communication

provides students making classmates’ relationship. Students can be familiar by

classmates by exchanging their feelings while playing games, they can feel

comfortable in their classroom. Therefore, the writer is going to apply a new

technique in developing student understanding by using snakes and ladder game in

learning grammar especially in the material of “simple past tense”.

Based on the observation in the Magang 2 in SMA Islam Batu, the writer

found that grammar is the major complicated problem in English learning. In

general, the students’ problem in learning English grammar is learning tenses.

Besides, they are confused in applying the use of adjectives, nouns, and infinitives.

In addition, the students are not interested in learning formula or guidelines, for it

must be remembered and needed so much time to learn it. By using snakes and

ladders game, the writer hopes the students will be able to understand about

grammar. Hopefully, this technique will motivate the students to make a group,

competition, discussion and of course they having fun with study while playing

Based on the problem above, the writer decides that it is necessary to conduct

quantitative experiment research at this school to make the students interested in

grammar and help them to understand English grammar well. By using snakes and

ladders game, the writer hopes that this technique is able to improve student’s

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1.2 Statement of the problem

1. Does the technique using snakes and ladders game in teaching simple past tense at the tenth grade of SMA Islam Batu improve the student’s simple

past tense ability?

1.3 Hypothesis

 H1 : Technique using games “snakes and ladders” in teaching simple

past tense at the tenth grade of SMA Islam Batu will improve the student’s simple past tense ability.

 Ho : Technique using games “snakes and ladders” in teaching simple past tense at the X grade of SMA Islam Batu will not improve the student’s simple past tense ability.

1.4 Significance of the study

The result of this research is expected to be useful for:

1. Further Researcher

This study is expected to give new knowledge to the further researcher to

do better action research of teaching and learning.

2. Students

This study is expected to develop student understanding in the materials of

“simple past tense” by fun game.

3. English teacher

This study is expected to give an input in order to use the various techniques

in teaching English grammar.

1.5Scope and limitation

In this research, the scope of this study is to limit the students’ ability in

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research was applied on the tenth grade of SMA Islam Batu. The researcher decided

to shape the student’s simple past tense ability because of the limited time, money,

and etc. In addition, it was impossible if the researcher shape the student’s grammar

ability because it was a wide field of study. Therefore, the researcher decided to

shape the student’s simple past tense ability.

1.6 Definition of the key terms

In order to avoid misunderstanding between researcher and the reader, the

researcher state definition of each key term, they are:

1. Game

According to Wright,et.al in her book Game for language learner “ the word

game means an activity which is entertaining and engaging , often challenging, and

an activity is which the learners play and usually interact with others.

2. Snakes and Ladders

Frederick Augustyn in his dictionary states that snakes and ladders or chutes

and ladders are a classic children’s board game. It is played by two or more players

on a playing board with numbered grid squares. On a certain square on the grid a

numbers of “ladders” connecting two together, and a number of snakes or chutes

also connecting squares together. Beside in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary definite that “snakes and ladders ; a children game played on a special

board with picture of snakes and ladders board on it. Players move their pieces up

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3. Grammar

Crystal (2004) says, “Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to

express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor

the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use language. It can help

foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available

in English. Additionally, it can help everyone, not only teachers of English, but

teachers of anything for all teaching grammar is ultimately a matter of getting to

grips with meaning.”

4. Simple Past Tense

According to Betty Schrampfer Azar (1894: 24), “simple past is one particular

time in the past. It began and ended in the past”. It means that simple past is an

action or event that is reflected the history in the past time.

5. Technique

As states in Jck Richards and Theodore Rodgers (1982, 1986) technique is

any of a wide variety of exercises, activities, or tasks used in the language classroom

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING SNAKES AND LADDERS GAME TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE STUDENTSÂ’ SIMPLE PAST TENSE ABILITY AT THE TENTH GRADE OF SMA ISLAM BATU

Letter of Authenticity

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION