IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY USING FLASHCARDS

Vocabulary is one of the important elements in teaching English. Based on pre-research, the fourth grade students of SD Negeri II Watuagung in the academic year of 2011/2012 had problems in mastering vocabulary. It could be seen from two indicators: first, their vocabulary score was low. Second, the students did not have motivation during teaching-learning process. To overcome the problems, classroom action research is used. It implemented flashcards as the media. The aim of this research is to improve students’ vocabulary mastery and students’ motivation using flashcards. There are two cycles of action. In each cycle, the procedure of the research consists of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. In collecting the data, the researcher used qualitative and quantitative methods. The technique of qualitative data was interview, observation, document analysis, and test. For the quantitative data, the data are analyzed by finding and comparing the mean scores in pre-test and post-test (descriptive statistics). Based on interview, observation, analyzing the document, and test result, the students made improvement in vocabulary mastery. The students can learn vocabulary more easy than before. When flashcards are used, in the first and the second cycle, students are active and enthusiastic in joining learning activity. The tests score results shows an improvement of the students’ achievement. The students’ mean score in the pre-test is 45.70, in post-test 1 is 70.52, and in post-test 2 is 80.13. It can be concluded that teaching English vocabulary by using flashcards as media does improve the students’ vocabulary mastery. The result of the research implies that English teachers need to choose the appropriate media in teaching vocabulary; one of them is flashcards. Key word: vocabulary, flashcards, classroom action research