




































Putri Anggraeni, et al / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

1 

 

 
ELT FORUM 6 (1) (2017) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 
 

THE USE OF 20-SQUARES: ADD ONE MORE 

WORD AND WORD CLAP GAMES TO TEACH 

VOCABULARY 

A Quasi Experimental Study at the Seventh Graders of 

SMPN 5 Magelang in the Academic Year 2015/2016 

 

Afrilita Mardiana Putri, Djoko Sutopo, Dwi Anggani Linggar Bharati 
 

English Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia  

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in June 

2017  
Approved in July 2017 

Published in August 2017 
________________  
Keywords: 20-Squares: 
Add One More Word, 
Word Clap, Vocabulary, 
Quasi-Experimental    
Research  
  
____________________ 

 
Abstract  
___________________________________________________________________  
The study has objectives to find out whether 20-Squares: Add One More Word can be used in teaching 

vocabulary to the seventh graders of SMPN 5 Magelang and to find out whether there is a significant 

difference of the use of 20-Squares: Add One More Word and Word Clap Games in the students’ 

vocabulary achievement. The subjects of this study are two classes of seventh grade of SMPN 5 Magelang. 

One class serves as the control group and one class as the experimental group. This is a quasi-experimental 

research by using non-equivalent control group design. The instrument used is tests. The result shows that 

20-Squares: Add One More Word improves the students’ vocabulary mastery. The result of t-test analysis 

shows that the experimental group get better achievement than the control group. In the pre-test, the 

average score of the experimental group is 63 and the control group is 62.67. In the post-test, the  average  

score  of  experimental  group  is  81,17  and  the  control  group  is 70,67. The result of the t-test is 3.895 

and t-table is 1.67. It means that the t-value is higher than t-table (3.895 > 1.67). Therefore, it can be 

concluded that 20-Squares: Add One More Word can be used as an alternative way in teaching 

vocabulary. 
 

 © 2017 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

  


 Correspondent Address: ISSN 2252-6706 
B3 Building FBS Unnes  

Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229  

E-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com  



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

2 

 

INTRODUCTION 

Language takes an important part in social relationship among human beings. People need 

language to express their feeling, thought and desire. People use language to communicate properly 

with others in many fields and places. One of the languages that are most widely spoken in the 

world is English. As cited by Harmer (2001:1), although English is not the largest number of native 

or „first‟ language speakers, it is widely used by many people all over the world as their „second‟ 

language. People have to master it well since it is one of the most widely spoken languages in the 

world. 

Regarding to the importance of English, it has accordingly been chosen as the first foreign 

language to be taught in some schools in Indonesia (Ramelan, 1992:6). As stated in School Based 

Curriculum (2006:36), the purposes of English language  teaching  are  to  develop  students‟  

competence  in  spoken  and  written communication and to reach the informational literacy level.  

Vocabulary is one of the most important components that has to be firstly learnt because 

people could not express what they want if they do not have enough vocabulary. “Without grammar 

very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Thornbury, 2002: 13). 

People can still understand what others try to convey by any vocabularies although the grammar is 

incorrect.  

Dellar and Hocking in Thornbury also quotes (2002: 13): 

If you spend most of your time studying grammar, your English will not improve very much. 

You will see most improvement if you learn more words and expression. You can say very little 

with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words! 

 

Based on the writer‟s experience in her internship in the Junior High School, most of the 

seventh graders found difficulties in acquiring new vocabulary since they have not got English 

subject in their elementary school. 

Teaching vocabulary for beginner students is different from teaching vocabulary to 

intermediate or advanced students. They have different characteristics, attention, and ability. By 

doing so, teacher should choose an appropriate technique in teaching vocabulary to those different 

levels of students. Teachers are expected to be creative to create enjoyable activities in order to make 

the students attract the learning. . If the teachers can not attract the students to enjoy the learning, it 

might be difficult to reach the goal of the lesson.  

Teaching vocabulary to the beginners should be more fun than teaching to intermediate and 

advanced students because a monotonous teaching technique can make students get bored easily. 

Based on the explanations above, one of the problems is the students feel anxious, afraid, and bored 

because teachers still use the same monotonous teaching technique to teach vocabulary.  

This problem existed in the seventh graders of SMPN 5 Magelang in the academic year of 

2015/2016. Most of them got bad marks in doing shopping list midterm test. Thus, to overcome the 

problem, the writer tried to help them to learn shopping list lesson by using 20-Squares: Add One 

More Word.  

20-Squares: Add One More Word is a kind of vocabulary game in which students are divided 

into and work in groups. Each group consists of 4 students. Each two students in a group will be 

given a piece of paper that consists lists of words in 20 squares. Every square contains three words 

which have the same type, for example: a group of fruit (apple, orange, grape,..., etc.), a group of 

flower (jasmine, rose, tulip, . . .etc.). Then, students have to try to add one extra word (in the same 

type) to three that are already given in every square. This game has purpose to ease the students 

learn vocabulary by grouping the words.  



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

3 

 

The writer chooses 20-Squares: Add One More Word because the game is practical and 

simple to be applied in class. The game is also suitable to teach English vocabulary for beginner 

students because this game is a kind of word grouping that will ease the students in learning new 

words. This game can also build students‟ self-confidence because this game is played in groups. The 

writer expects that by using 20-Squares: Add One More Word, students can memorize new 

vocabularies easily and enjoy the learning. 

This issue motivates the writer to conduct a research on the students‟ vocabulary achievement 

to the seventh graders in SMPN 5 Magelang. The writer is interested in conducting a research to 

find out the student‟s achievement in learning shopping list lesson by using 20-Squares: Add One 

More Word game. 

 

METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH 

This study uses a quasi-experimental as the research design. According to Creswell (2009: 

154), quasi-experimental is a form of experimental research in which individuals are not randomly 

assigned to groups. In this study, non-equivalent control group design was used. A non-equivalent 

groups design includes an existing group of participants who receive a treatment and another 

existing group of participants to serve as a control group. The subject of this study was seventh 

graders of SMPN 5 Magelang in the academic year 2015/2016. The writer divided the subject of the 

study into two groups, VII H assigned to experimental group and VII G  as control group. During 

the treatment, students in experimental group used 20-Squares: Add One More Word in teaching 

vocabulary, while students in control group used word clap game. 

In order to collect data about students‟ vocabulary mastery improvement between the two 

groups and to compare the effectiveness of two games in improving students` vocabulary mastery, 

the writer used vocabulary test as a main instrument. 

The research design of the study can be described as follows: 

 

R 01 X 02 

R 03 Y 04 

in which, 

R :  respondents, 

01 : pre-test for the experimental group 

02 : post-test for the experimental group 

03 : pre-test for the control group 

04 : post-test for control group  

X  : treatment using 20-Squares: Add One More Word 

Y : treatment using Word Clap  

 

In this study, the writer divided the subjectS of the study into two groups, an experimental 

group and a control group. Before and after the experiment, both groups were given pre-test and 

post-test of vocabulary knowledge. Both groups took pre-test (01) and (03) to check the equivalence 

between the two groups before getting the experiment. During the experiment, the experimental 

group was taught by using 20-Squares: Add One More Word (X), while the Word Clap (Y) was 

performed to the control group. After the experiment, the same post-tests (02) and (04) were 

administrated to investigate whether any significant differences in learning vocabulary between the 

two groups.  



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

4 

 

The result of test was analyzed using t-test formula to make sure whether there was a 

significant difference between pre-test and post test of the experimental and control groups and to 

know which strategy was more effective to improve students` vocabulary mastery. However, the 

standard deviation should be computed before counting the t-test. The formula of standard deviation 

is as follows: 

 

 

 

 

In which, 

s  = standard deviation of both groups 

n1  = students amount of experimental group 

s1 = standard deviation of experimental group 

n2  = students amount of control group 

s2  = standard deviation of control group 

To find out the t-value of the significant difference between the two means of the pre-test and 

post-test, the formula is as follows:    

 

 

 

 

 

In which, 

t  = t-value 

s  = standard deviation of both groups 

X1  = mean of experimental group 

n1 = students amount of experimental group 

X2  = mean of control group 

n2  = students amount of control group   

 

RESULT AND ANALYSIS 

 
Pre Test Findings 

The writer first gave pretest to control and experimental classes. In the instrument of pretest, 

there were 20 multiple choice items about vocabulary related to Shopping List. In doing the test, the 

writer gave 40 minutes to complete the test. Based on the result of the pretest, the total scores of the 

experimental group is 1890 and mean score of this group was 63.00. Different from the experimental 

groug that the total scores of pretest in control group was 1880 and the mean score was 62.67. The 

result of pretest in control group was slightly different from the experimental group. So, the writer 

concluded that two groups had equal level vocabulary mastery before getting the treatment, 

therefore, the experiment could be continued. 

 

Implementation of the Experiment 

After conducting pretest to both classes, VIIG and VIIH as control group and experimental 

group, the next step is giving treatment. The control group, VII G was taught using Word Clap Game, 

t = 
  ̅̅̅̅     ̅̅̅̅

 √
 

  
 
 

  

 

 

s =√
(    )  

  (    )  
 

          
 

 



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

5 

 

and the experimental group, VII H was taught by using 20-Squares: Add One More Word. Both classes 

were taught with the same topic and materials: Shopping List, but different in learning technique.  

 
First Treatment 

The first treatment for the control group was done on May 23th, 2016, while the first 

treatment of the experimental group was conducted on May 27th, 2016. After teaching about the 

material, the writer gave 20-Squares: Add One More Word game in the experimental group and Word 

Clap Game in the control group. The writer told the students how to play the games in short 

explanation. After playing the game, the writer reviewed about the vocabulary that had been taught 

related to the material. 

Second Treatment 

The second treatment for the control group was conducted on May 30th, 2016 and the second 

treatment of the experimental group was performed on June 3rd, 2016. The writer asked the students 

some questions about the material which had been learned in the previous meeting. The writer asked 

them to explain the difference between countable and uncountable nouns in items of shopping list. 

The writer‟s purpose was to check whether students still memorized the material which they had 

learned in the previous meeting or not. 

After several minutes in repeating the previous material, they were given singular and plural 

material, then the writer administered the games related to the material. The students were excited 

playing the games. The game proved that the competition atmosphere made students put much 

effort and explored all their ability in order to win the game. 

  

Third Treatment 

After conducting two times treatments, the writer conducted the last treatment. The treatment 

for the control group was conducted on June 6th 2016 and the treatment of the experimental group 

was performed on June 10th, 2016. In this last treatment, the students were still excited to play the 

game. They were always asking for the next games. 

The writer then reviewing the last two materials that have been learned in the previous 

meeting. Afterwards, the writer gave the last games treatment to the students. The students were still 

excited to play the game. After playing the game, the writer reviewed the three materials in the 

treatments. 

Post Test Findings 

After the treatments were conducted, the writer gave the posttest for both groups on June 13th, 

2016. The purpose of the posttest is to find out the students‟ improvement in vocabulary mastery 

after receiving the treartments.  

Based on the posttest result, the total score of experimental group was 2435, whereas total 

score of control group was 2120. The experimental group got mean score 81.17 while the control 

group got mean score 70.67. It meant the students‟ improvement of experimental group was higher 

than control group. In rather simple observation, there was a significant difference in vocabulary 

mastery between students of experimental group and control group after getting the treatment by 

using 20-Square: Add One More Word.  Based on the post test results, it can be concluded that 20-

Square: Add One More Word was more effective to improve students‟ vocabulary mastery than Word 

Clap. 

 

Mean Scores Differences between Pre Test and Post Test of Experimental Group and Control 

Group 



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

6 

 

The significant difference of the experiment could be seen through the difference of means 

scores in two groups.  

the mean score of the pretest of the experimental group 

    
    

  
 

= 63 

the mean score of the pretest of the control group 

    
    

  
 

= 62,67 

the mean score of the post test of the experimental group 

    
    

  
 

= 81,17 

the mean score of the post test of the control group 

    
    

  
 

       = 70,67 

The results above showed that the mean score of the pre-test in the experimental group was 

63. Meanwhile, the mean score of the post test was 81,17. The percentage of the students‟ 

improvement of this group was 18,17%. Therefore, there was a significant improvement between the 

pretest and the post test scores achieved by the students of the experimental group.  

The mean scores of control group also showed an improvement. It was 62,67 in the pretest 

and 70,67 in the post test. In this group, there was less improvement than the experimental group. 

The improvement was only 8%. It means that the difference mean score on the experimental group 

was higher than in the control group. In short, the writer concluded that there was better 

improvement of the experimental group‟s achievement after they received the treatment by using 20-

Square: Add One More Word to teach vocabulary. 

The clear comparison of mean scores between two groups can be seen in the following table: 

Mean Scores Comparison 

 

Group Pre-test Post-test Progress 

Experimental 63 81,17 18,17% 

Control 62,67 70,67 8% 

 

Table 3.1 Comparison of mean scores between two groups 

The table above demonstrated that there were improvements in both groups. However, the 

progress of the experimental group which was taught by 20-Square: Add One More Word was higher 

than the control group which was taught using Word Clap Game. Then, the results were tested by 

using t-test to prove the significant improvement of both groups. 

T-Test Statistical Analysis 

The result of the t-test becomes the quantitative proof whether there is a significant difference 

of the pre-test and post-test between two groups or not. The following is the result score of posttest 

between both groups: 

 Experimental Group Control Group 



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

7 

 

 

Hypotheses : 

Ho : 1 = 2 

Ha : 1 = 2 

Ho is accepted if tvalue < ttable 

Before analyzing the scores by using t-test formula, firstly, the standard deviation should be 

counted. The formula of standard deviation is as follows: 

s =√
(    )  

  (    )  
 

          
 

In which, 

s  = standard deviation of both groups 

n1  = students amount of experimental group 

s2
1 = variance of experimental group 

n2  = students amount of control group 

s2
2  = variance of control group 

To find out the t-value of the significant difference between the two means of the pre-test and 

post-test, the formula used is as follows:    

t = 
  ̅̅ ̅̅     ̅̅ ̅̅

 √
 

  
 
 

  

  

In which, 

t  = t-value (t-test) 

s  = standard deviation of both groups 

X1  = mean of experimental group 

n1 = students amount of experimental group 

X2  = mean of control group 

n2  = students amount of control group 

 

The computation of standard deviation of post test scores was as follows: 

   √
(     )       (     )      

         
 

 

         

After getting the standard deviation score, then t-test formula was applied in order to find 

tvalue. Next, tvalue was consulted with ttable. If the number of participants of both groups were 30 

students, dk = 30+30 - 2 = 58 and significance level (α) =5%, so ttable was 1,67. Based on the criteria, 

if tvalue exceeded ttable (tvalue > ttable), it meant that there was a significant difference in vocabulary 

mastery between students of experimental group and students of control group. On the contrary, if 

tvalue was less than ttable  (tvalue< ttable), the vocabulary achievement between experimental and control 

groups were not significantly different. 

Σ (the total score) 2435 2120 

N 30 30 

Mean 81,17 70,67 

Variance (s2) 94,2816 123,6782 

Standard deviation (s) 9,71 11,12 



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

8 

 

From the computation above, it can be seen that standard deviation of post test scores was 

10.4393. Next, the standard deviation was applied in t-test formula to get tvalue. The computation of 

tvalue by using t-test formula was as follows: 

         
 ̅    ̅ 

 √
 
  
 
 
  

 

         
            

       √
 
  
 
 
  

 

              

- 2 = 58, t(0.95)(58) = 1,67 

 

 

   

 

 

        1,67 3,895 

Based on the computation above, it showed that there was a significant difference on post test 

result between experimental and control groups because tvalue exceeds ttable (3,895 > 1,67).  

 Since t value > t table, the null hypothesis (Ho) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) that 

there is a significant difference in vocabulary achievement between the students who were taught by 

using 20-Square: Add One More Word and those who were taught by using Word Clap, is accepted. It 

means, teaching vocabulary by using 20-Square: Add One More Word is more efffetive to improve 

students’ vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade of SMP N 5 Magelang in the academic year of 

2015/2016 than Word Clap Game. 

The result proved that the working hypothesis or the alternative hypothesis (H1) “There is 

significant effect in the use of 20-Squares: Add One More Game to teach vocabulary” is accepted. 

  

CONCLUSIONS 

20-Square: Add One More Word was well-accepted by the students. During the activity, they 

looked active and enthusiastic. 20-Square: Add One More Word enriched the participants‟ vocabulary. 

It was proven by the participants‟ improvement of vocabulary knowledge after the treatment of 20-

Square: Add One More Word. The result of t-test analysis showed that the experimental group got 

better achievement than the control group. In the pre-test, the average score of the experimental 

group was 63 and the control group was 62.67. In the post-test, the  average  score  of  experimental  

group  was  81,17  and  the  control  group  was 70,67. The result of the t-test was 3.895 and t-table 

was 1.67. It means that the t-value was higher than t-table (3.895 > 1.67). It can be concluded that 

20-Squares: Add One More Word is effective to be used as a vocabulary teaching technique and it can 

be used as an alternative way in teaching vocabulary. 

Furthermore, based on the data findings and analysis, the  writer  concludes  that  there  is  a  

significant  difference  in  the  students‟ achievement  of  their vocabulary mastery  between the 

experimental and the control  groups  after  they  got  the  treatments.  In  addition,  the t-test 

analysis resulted the students‟  improvement  in  mastering  vocabulary  has  been  determined which  

suggests  that  20-Square: Add One More Word is an effective  technique which contributes to the 

students‟ vocabulary mastery.  The treatment  given  to  the  experimental  group  affects  the  

students‟  vocabulary mastery. It  can be applied easily in  the  teaching and learning process  and 

make the students  participate  in  the  learning  activities  actively. 

Ho accepted 
area 



A. Mardiana Putri & D. Sutopo & D. Anggani Linggar Bharati / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (1) (2017) 

9 

 

 

REFERENCES 

Creswell, John W. 2009.  Research Design 3rd edition: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods 

Approaches. USA: SAGE Publicatio ns, Inc.Ramelan, H. 1994. Teaching and Learning Language. 

Semarang: IKIP Press. 

Depdiknas. 2006. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) untuk SMP/MTs. Jakarta: Depdiknas. 

Harmer, J. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching.  Cambridge: Longman. 

Thornbury, Scott. 2002. How to Teach Vocabulary. England: Longman. 

 


