THE EFFECT OF USING NURSERY RHYMES TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY AT SEVEN GRADE OF SMP ATTHAYYIBAH

This final project is an experiment research. In this study, I limit the discussion by stating the following problem: “How is the students‟ achievement in learning English vocabulary by using Nursery Rhymes?” The aims of the research is to find out whether teaching vocabulary using Nursery Rhymes is effective to improve the students‟ achievement. It is expected that the result of the study can enrich the teacher‟s strategy in teaching vocabulary through Nursery Rhymes especially for junior high school students. The subject of the study was the students of SMP Athayyibah. There were 60 students‟. There were three steps in this experiment research. The first step of the activity was the pre-test. The second step of the activity was action which consisted of four activities. In the first activity, the teacher performed Nursery Rhymes in front of the class. The theme of the first activity was sing twinkel-twinkel litle star. In the second activity, the teacher performed Nursery Rhymes about body language. In the third activity, the teacher performed Nursery Rhymes about translate word to word. In the last activity, the teacher performed Nursery Rhymes about things in the classroom. The third step of the activity was giving post-test. Based on the data analysis, it can be seen that there is significant difference in the result of the students‟ pre-test and post-test. The average achievement of the students‟ pre-test was 56.63% and 96.19% in the post-test. The main factor affecting this improvement was the students‟ interest in the Nursery Rhymes given. It can be proved from the post test and pre-test. Therefore, it can be suggested that the use of Nursery Rhymes can be an alternative way to teach vocabulary, especially to improve the students‟ mastery in vocabulary. This result hopefully would motivate language teachers to use Nursery Rhymes in teaching English in the classroom, especially when teaching English vocabulary to elementary school students.