Using Flashcards to Improve Students’ Vocabulary Mastery in SD Hafizh Al-Qurbah Parepare

LETS Journal of Linguistics and English Teaching Studies ISSN (print) : 2715-4408 ISSN (online) : 2715-4416 Homepage : stainmajene.id/index.php/lets Using Flashcards to Improve Students’ Vocabulary Mastery in SD Hafizh Al-Qurbah Parepare Pratiwi Samad Universitas Pohuwatu Abstract Vocabulary mastery is a basic for language skill development especially in learning a foreign language. This research aims to improve learning outcomes in vocabulary teaching through flash cards. The study was conducted from 08 to 17 October 2019 at SD Hafizh Al-Qurbah Parepare with 15 students as respondents. This study uses a classroom action research method consisting of II cycles with stages in each cycle including planning, implementation, observation and reflection. To obtain the data, the researcher implemented the test and observational sheet as the instrument. The result shows that there is a significant improvement shown from the students’ score achieves 76 in cycle I then increase to 83 in cycle II and the students’ activity improves from the observational sheet description. Keywords: Flashcards,Vocabulary 1. Introduction Teaching vocabulary in elementary school becomes the most important part to help the students to comprehend the meaning of every single words they learn. They will not be able to understand the meaning of English if they do not comprehend a simple word of vocabulary which is known as the basic competence to complete the communication. Vocabulary is not only used in speaking but also we used in writing competence. As explained by Krashen in Pratiwi (2017) the natural way of learning is in childhood because the level of sensitivity will be difficult for memorizing the vocabularies which mostly own by the adults. Children can save the lesson in long memory of their brain in which the object of the learning could be seen directly (haniye, 2015). By this explanation, we could explore the way of teaching in giving the students the visual object as the media to help them keep the words easily and naturally. Realizing the students’ difficulties in learning English of SD Hafizh Al-Qurbah Parepare, the researcher who acts as the teacher intends to rearrange the students’ learning achievement in English. Comprehending that this school for further learning is going to use English and Arabic as the up to date languages should be used so that the researcher need to use another strategy to help the students resolve their lack of their vocabularies. The students are still difficult in pronouncing, memorizing and writing the vocabularies because their limitation of mastering the letters of alphabets however they are very motivated students when they we teach them interesting things in the classroom. Some problems also occurred during the process of teaching and learning. The problems were: (1) Students did not pay attention to the lesson; (2) When the teacher gave explanations, students talked to each other, it made the class noisy; (3) Students in Journal of Linguistics and English Teaching Studies 64 the class were passive. These problems happened in the classroom situation should be fixed to increase the students English learning motivation and to enhance the students’ vocabulary mastery. Therefore, the researcher formulates the research question as follows: (1) How is the effect of flashcard in improving the students’ vocabulary mastery?. The researcher is focused on finding out the effectiveness and also the use of flashcard to improve the students’ vocabulary mastery. Teacher should find the best way in teaching English to get the best result. Based on the problems identified, the writer would like to try to provide a suitable media that is expected to help teacher in improving vocabulary mastery. Flashcard is the best way to be used for solving the students’ difficulties in memorizing the vocabularies. According to Cross (1991: 119), flashcard is a simple picture on a piece of card or paper, which is probably the most widely used visual aids in language teaching. It means that flashcard is one of media which can help the teacher to teaching English easily. According to Ur IN Kristiyana et al (2014: 60) vocabulary is the words we teach in the foreign language. It means vocabulary is written or spoken unit of language as symbol of idea in foreign language for the learners. Moreover, Hatch and Brown (1995: 1) stated that vocabulary refers to a list or set of words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual speaker of a language might use. It means that vocabulary as the words of certain language which are used by language speaker in using language. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary of current English (1995:721), the word mastery means complete knowledge; great skill. From this simple definition, the word mastery is tightly related to the complete knowledge, and great skill of something. From those description of vocabulary and mastery, it can be concluded that vocabulary mastery as complete integrated word knowledge (knowing its form, meaning, and use) of certain language. According the definitions above, the researcher concluded that vocabulary is a stock of words in language, written or spoken with the meaning that considered as cultural meaning used by group or individual community because it uses of the people to communicate and interact to other people. In this research, the writer uses “Vocabulary” to teach the students the subject of vocabulary by using flashcards as a media. It is hoped that the students will easy to learn the words and its sounds so that they can express what they feel through its meaning and its pronunciation. The researcher believes that by adding some media in their ways of teaching will improve the students’ activity in following the learning process. According to Haycraft (1978: 102), flashcards can be used for consolidating vocabulary, practicing structure and words order or a variety of games. The use of flashcards is related to the characteristics of elementary school students as children who commonly feel interested in something with attractive shapes and color In the early stage of learning English vocabulary, the learners should learn in contextualized language, which is supported by visual materials and the ability to handle the objects. Visual provides the learners to know the concept of vocabulary. One strategy to enhance young learners’ ability in recognizing word to improve their vocabulary is by using Phonics flash cards. Phonics stands as a method in teaching people to pronounce and read word by learning the sound of the letters. Flash cards is seen as simple, handy and colorful learning tool which contain numbers, letters, object or word which prefer some information for the learners to make them easy and enjoy learning activities. Teng & He (2015) argues Flash cards are a set of cards bearing information, such as words, pictures, or numbers, on either or both sides, used in classroom (...truncated)