CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

This chapter discusses the research method applied in this research. It

consist of kind of the research, design of the research, subject of the research, area

of the research, procedure of the research, the criteria of success, research

instrument, and validity of the test.

3.1 Kind of the Research

According to Elliot (1991:69), Action Research might be defined as the

study of social situation with a view to improve the quality of action within it.

Arikunto (2010: 132) states that a classroom action research is an approach to

improve the quality of teaching learning process. Arikunto (2010: 128-129) also

states that the purpose of the classroom action research is to improve the quality

of teaching learning process and to solve the students’ problem.

3.2 Design of the Research

The classroom action research with cycle model is chosen as the research

design since this research is intended to improve the students’ pronunciation by

using tongue twister. This research is conducted collaboratively between the

researcher and the English teacher. Furthermore, Kemmis and Mc Taggart in

Arikunto (2013: 137) explain that there are four stages of activities in each cycle.

They are planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. If the results of the

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first cycle does not achieve the target score, the action is continued to the second

cycle. The design of this action research is illustrated in the following diagram.

Figure 3.1 The Design of Classroom Action Research

Planning

Cycle 1
Reflecting Implementing

Observing

Planning

Reflecting Cycle 2 Implementing

Observing

?
(Adapted from Kemmis & Mc Taggart in Arikunto 2013: 137)

The diagram shows that there are four stages in each cycle. They are

planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. The planning is made by

considering the finding obtained from preliminary study. Then, teaching learning

process is conducted and the English teacher will observe it. Then, the result of

the observation is analyzed to evaluate wheter the action in the cycle is sucessful

or not. If the result of the cycle does not achieve the target score, the action is

continued to the next cycle until a success is reached.

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3.3 Subject of the Research

The subjects of the research are taken from the eleventh grade students of

SMA Muhammadiah 3 Jember in 2015/2016 academic year. The researcher

chooses students of XI IPA 4 because they have problem in pronunciation. There

are thirty five students in the class.

3.4 Area of the Research

This research will be conducted at SMA Muhammadiyah 3 Jember. Some

reason are considered in choosing this school as the area of the research. First,

based on the English teacher information, the students of SMA Muhammadiyah 3

especially in XI IPA 4 had problems in pronunciation. Second, the school

principal gave permission to the researcher to conduct this classroom action

research at the school.

3.5 Procedure of the Research

Based on the research design, the actions of the research are implemented

in four stage, they are planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. Before

starting this research, the researcher must do of preliminary study. The step of the

research is formulated as follows:

3.5.1 Preliminary Study

This research was conducted at the eleventh grade students of SMA

Muhammadiyah 3 Jember in the 2015/2016 academic year on May 3rd– 30th, 2016.

To begin the research, the researcher held the preliminary study.

The methods of preliminary study used observation and interview the

English teacher to know students problem in pronunciation. In this preliminary

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study, the researcher asks some questions about the activities in teaching and

learning process. Observation held in the class during the teaching and learning

process.

In the preliminary study, the English teacher asked the students to read a

text for the test. It was found the average of their pronunciation is 51 or 28.57%

students who got score ≥75. It means that students’ pronunciation was bad and

need to improve.

So, according the English teacher interview and the result of students’

score in preliminary study. It was found that some students cannot pronounce well

and cannot concentration to the teacher explanation. Based on those problems, the

researcher wants to conduct the research to improve students’ pronunciation by

using tongue twister.

3.5.2 Planning

Before the action implemented, some activities are done by researcher and

the English teacher as the preparation of the action in order to make the research

run effectively. These are activities consist of: designing the lesson plans, and

preparing the materials and media.

1. Designing the Lesson Plan

The lesson plan is intended to improve the students’ speaking especially

pronunciation ability. The researcher and the English teacher construct the lesson

plan for the action in the cycle 1 and cycle 2. There are 6 meetings, include the

test in the third meeting and sixth meeting. The activity in the lesson plan is

created to build an effective and enjoyable classroom situation, such as individual

tongue twister, pair tongue twister, etc. Those activities are expected to make the
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students have motivation, interest and they will not shy in learning English,

especially pronunciation.

2. Preparing the Instructional Materials and Media

The materials that are used in this research are based on the materials that are

taught to the eleventh grade students. The researcher and the English teacher will

use students’ handbook and video as a media.

3.5.3 Implementing

Implementation is realization of some actions that has been planned

before. This classroom action research is possibly carried out in several cycles,

but the further cycle will be done if the previous cycle has not reached the target

average score of the students’ pronunciation. The actions of the cycles are

implemented during the school hours as it is written in the schedule of the English

subject. Each cycle is done in three meetings. In the implementation, the

researcher teaches pronunciation by using tongue twister as the action in order to

improve the students’ pronunciation.

In the first meeting, the researcher explains about tongue twister. Then, the

researcher show tongue twister phrases or sentences and ask students to read. The

researcher read tongue twisters and ask the students to follow. Then, the

researcher ask students to repeat and increase their speed. After that, the

researcher ask the students to make group in pair. The researcher give a tongue

twister card to each groups with different sounds and ask the students to practice

with their pair.

In the second meeting, the researcher continued the activities in the first

meeting and reviewed the material by asking some questions to the students about
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tongue twister to know whether or not they still remembered about tongue twister.

If there were some students who still forgot and did not understand about it, the

researcher could remember the students again by re-explaining about tongue

twister briefly. And then, the researcher show of tongue twister phrases and

sentences. Then, ask the students to read and repeat it. After that, the researcher

show a video of tongue twister and the students watch and listen how to read

correct tongue twister. Then, the researcher give different tongue twister for each

students and ask to practice to read. After that, the researcher ask to students to

read their tongue twister and ask to increase their speed.

3.5.4 Observing

Observations means an activity to observe the result or the effect of the

actions that are done by the students. In this research, observation of the actions

are very important to control the students’ activities concerning with the

application of teaching word pronunciation using tongue twister.

Observation in this research is intended to evaluate the teaching and

learning process, the product and the evaluation of the teaching. In this research,

the researcher interview the English teacher about students’ pronunciation

problem and ask the score of the students. Then, the researcher collected the data

of the students. After that, the researcher and the English teacher will use checklist

in the cycle to note the students’ activities in teaching and learning process of

pronunciation. Observing is focused on the indicators of the participation of the

students’ active as passive involvement actively and passively in the teaching and

learning process of pronunciation.

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The indicators here are the students’ participation in doing pronunciation

practice, the students’ participation in asking question, answering question, and

the students’ participation in reading tongue twister or text.

3.5.5 Reflecting

The reflection is conducted after doing observation. The aim of reflection

is to reflect descriptively the results of the action in the cycle. The data are

collected from testing pronunciation. The reflection is intended to know the

strength and weakness of the cycle. The reflection is done by the researcher and

the English teacher.

The collected data from the students’ pronunciation test in the cycle are

analyzed quantitatively. After that, the results of the data are analyzed to answer

the research problem. The formula is as follows:

n
E= x 100
N

Where:

E =The percentage of the students who scored ≥75

n = The number of the students who scored ≥75

N = The total number of students

(Adopted from Ali, 1998: 186)

3.6 The Criteria of Success

The criteria of success is used to know whether the implementation of the

action achieves the target or not. The criteria of success is designed to assess
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students’ pronunciation by using tongue twister. It is designed to determine

whether the action throughout the cycle has already been successful or not. The

target score of pronunciation is 75. The actions will be successful if more than

75% of students achieve the target score. For active participation, the target active

participation is 75%. The action will be successful if more than 75% students

active during teaching and learning process by checklist number 3 of 4 aspects

fulfilled. Meanwhile, if the students cannot achieve the target score and active

participation in cycle, the action will be continued to the next cycle.

3.7 Research Instrument

3.7.1 Pronunciation Test

Test is used as the primary research instrument in this research. Test is a

set of question or exercise used to measure skill, knowledge, intelligence, and

aptitude of an individual or group (Arikunto 2006: 127). Test is used to measure

the students’ pronunciation achievement by reading a text. McMillan (1992: 114)

states a test is an instrument that present to each subject a standard set of questions

that require the completion of a cognitive task. Hughes (1996: 9) also states there

are four types of test, namely: proficiency test, diagnostic test, achievement test,

and placement test. In this action research, achievement test is used to know how

successful the individual students have achieved the goal of the teaching learning

process of pronunciation.

Achievement test is used in this research in order to know how successful

the individual students have achieved the goal of the teaching learning process in

achieving the subject. In this research, typical performance testis given in each
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cycle after the actions given. The test item are construct based on indicator and all

words occurred in the test are taken from the compulsory book used by students.

In this research, the test is reading aloud. The students are asked to read

paragraph. The students pronounce the words individually. The students’

pronunciations are recorded. Then, the result of pronunciation is evaluated based

on indicators. The scoring of test is as follow:

Table 3.1 Scoring Rubric of Pronunciation Test

Points Criteria

1 ( Poor ) Frequent phonemic errors and foreign

stress and intonation pattern that
cause the speaker to be unintelligible.

2 ( Fair ) Frequent phonemic errors and foreign

stress and intonation pattern that
cause the speaker to be occasionally
unintelligible.

3 ( Good ) Frequent phonemic errors and foreign

stress and intonation patterns, but the
speaker is intelligible.

4 ( Excellent ) Occasional non-native pronunciation

errors, but the speaker is always
intelligible.

(Brown 2004: 148)

3.7.2 Observation Checklist

Observation that is done in this research is to measure the students’ active

participation in teaching and learning process. The researcher use checklist paper

as the instrument in the observation. The requirement of the students’ active to be

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involved in the teaching and learning process is 75%. Doing pronunciation

practice, asking question, answering and reading tongue twister or text are the

indicators of active students. Meanwhile, never doing pronunciation practice,

asking question, answering and reading tongue twister or text are the indicators of

passive students. The students are considered as the active students when they

fulfill at least four indicators. The instrument used in this method is checklist

paper.

Table 3.2 Observation Checklist Paper

NO Name Indicators Active Passive

1 2 3 4

Notes:

1. Doing pronunciation practice

2. Asking question

3. Answering question

4. Reading the text

3.8 Validity of the Test

According to Arikunto (2010:11) an instrument will be valid if it measures

accurately what it is attended to measure. Validity is the degree to which a test

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measures what it claims to be measured (Brown 2004: 22). In this research, the

researcher uses content validity because the test item is based on the curriculum.

This test is valid because the materials are constructed based on curriculum of

2013.

Table 3.3 The Syllabus of Curriculum of 2013

Competency Standard Test

4. Menganalisis fungsi Mengeksplorasi

social, struktur teks, dan
unsur kebahasaan dari  siswa mencari beberapa text
teks biografi tentang biografi tokoh terkenal dari
tokoh terkenal, sesuai berbagai sumber.
dengan konteks  Siswa berlatih menemukan
penggunaannya. gagasan utama, informasi
rinci dan informasi tertentu.
 Siswa melengkapi rumpang
dari beberapa teks bigrafi
tokoh terkenal.
 Siswa membaca teks
biografi tokoh terkenal
dengan menggunaka
unsur kebahasaan yang
tepat.

3.8.1 Reliability of the Test

According to Arikunto (2010: 221) reliability is how far the test or

instrument can be dependent upon. This means, when the researcher gives the test

to the students the result of the test must be the same or almost the same as the

result of another score. Arikunto (2010: 212) states that reliability is consistency

and dependability of the test. In other words, reliable is consistency or carefulness

of a certain instrument of evaluation. The test is reliable if it can be trusted,

consistent, stable and productive. To know whether the test item reliable or not,

the researcher use SPSS version 16.

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The calculation of reliability is 0.709. It means that the reliability of the

test is “High Correlation”. So, the test is reliable.