Improving students’ pronunciation skill through reading cinquain poetry: A Quasi experimental study at first grade of SMPN 17 Bandung

Generally, pronunciation almost never becomes the focus of the teaching learning activities in the classroom. The syllabus guides the teacher to deliver kinds of text: such as descriptive, narrative, rather than kinds of English literature (such as poetry). Consequently, students are not familiar with the poetry as subject in English lesson. The research was conducted in SMPN 17 Bandung. The objective of this research is to know (1) students’ pronunciation skill before being taught by reading cinquain poetry at first grade of SMPN 17 Bandung, (2) students’ pronunciation skill after being taught by reading cinquain poetry at first grade of SMPN 17 Bandung, (3) the influence of reading cinquain poetry on students’ pronunciation skill at first grade of SMPN 17 Bandung. The method used in this research is quasiexperiment. The researcher used the one-group pre-test-post-test design. It means that the researcher justmeasures one group with a pretest, implemented a treatment manipulation, and then measured the same variable, as was measured with the pretest, with a posttest. The population of this research is all the first grade of SMPN 17 Bandung which consisted of 367 students. The samples involved in this research were 36 students of class VII-E. The result of analysis for students’ pronunciation skill can be drawn that the mean score of pre-test is 64.4 and the mean score of post-test is 76.7. It means that the students’ English pronunciation skill after being taught by reading cinquain poetry is better than the students’ English pronunciation skill before being taught by reading cinquain poetry. Moreover, the statistical analysis of t-test show that the t countis 6.32 and t tableis 2.36. It means that t count is higher than t table and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted and the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected. Based on the result of the data above, it can be concluded that reading cinquain poetry is a good method to improve students’ English pronunciation skill (which focused in vowel sounds). There is significantinfluence of reading cinquain poetry on students’ English pronunciation skill. Therefore, it is clear that reading cinquain poetry in improving students’ English pronunciation skill is suggested. The researcher hopes the research will be useful for language teachers, administrators, curriculum developers, and others interested and involved in the study of teaching, to involve poetry (cinquain) as a teaching learning material in improving students’ pronunciation. Reading poetry (cinquain) can help and motivate the students to add knowledge in pronunciation