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184 

 

 
ELT FORUM 6 (2) (2017) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

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

 
 

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PBX (PASSIVE BOX) 

IN TEACHING PASSIVE VOICE  
True-Experimental Study of Eleventh Grade Students of 

SMA N 1 Kudus in the Academic Year 2016/2017 

 

Vikit Fadila Rohmah, Laurentius Elyas Nugraha  
 

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

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in October 

2017  
Approved in November 

2017 Published in 

December 2017 
________________  
Keywords: PBX (passive 
box), passive voice, senior 
high school students 
  
____________________ 

 
Abstract  
___________________________________________________________________ 
According to the English teachers of SMAN 1 Kudus especially those who teach the eleventh graders, 

learning passive voice becomes hard for students when they need to transform the active into passive voice 

because they are stuck in the formula of passive voice in different tenses. This study aims to find out the 

significant difference between the group who learns using PBX (Passive Box) and that who learns without 

using PBX (Passive Box). This study uses true-experimental design. The experimental group is asked to 

learn passive voice uses video and PBX (Passive Box) while the control group only uses video. To know the 

result of the study, the gathered data in post-test are computed using Independent Sample t-test in SPSS 

where the result can be seen from the Levene’s Test. The result shows that PBX (Passive Box) is effective for 

students to learn passive voice. Therefore, PBX (Passive Box) can be used as an additional medium in 

learning passive voice for Senior High School students. 

 
 © 2017 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

  


 Correspondent Address: ISSN 2252-6706 
B3 Building FBS Unnes  

Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229  

E-mail: unnes_english@yahoo.com   

 

 

 

 

 



V. Fadila Rohmah & L. Elyas Nugraha / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (2) (2017) 

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INTRODUCTION 

Grammar is one of the language components that is important to be taught to the 

students if they want to communicate in English well. Having knowledge of grammar, they 

can arrange sentences correctly so that people can understand what they mean. In other 

words, their sentences should be grammatically correct. The main purpose of teaching 

English grammar is to provide the students with the basic knowledge of constructing group of 

words that can be identified into subject and predicate and it has a complete meaning.  

The passive voice is an important grammatical structure that appears in every form of 

written and spoken English. Knowledge of this construction is vital for reading and writing 

English in everyday life. 

According to Hornby (2010: 1663), voice is the form of a verb that shows whether the 

subject of a sentence performs the action (the active voice) or is affected by it (the passive 

voice). If the subject of a sentence performs the action of the verb, the verb is said to be in the 

“active voice”; for example: I stopped, I bathed. On the other hand, if the subject is acted 

upon by the verb, the verb is said to be in the “passive voice.” There are two ways of casting a 

verb in the passive in English so as to cause the subject to be acted upon its verb:  The first 

and foremost way is using a form of the verb to be and the “past participle” of the lexical 

verb: the window was broken (Palmer, 1980:190). 

In this study, the passive voice formula is summarized in a table. A table means 

arranging data in rows and columns. Tables can be used to summarize experiments, describe 

the inclusion criteria, give background information, and present results (Durbin, 2004:1235). 

Choosing table as the media to convert passive formula into passive box is one way to make it 

easier for students to understand passive form. 

Many students still have difficulties in learning the passive voice. As said by Parrot 

(2004:294), “Learner may fail to recognize a passive construction, thinking that the subject of 

a sentence is the agent when it is not, auxiliary verb (e.g. was), and distinguishing the past 

tense form and the past participle are the same e.g. attacked (but not bit/bitten).” 

According to English teacher of eleventh graders at the SMA N 1 Kudus, the problems 

faced by the students in learning passive voice are those: first, they find it difficult to identify 

the form of passive voice; second, they find it difficult to find the form of verbs; and they find 

it difficult to change active voice into passive voice. Passive voice in English has be + past 

participle (regular and irregular verbs), while their first language does not have such rules. 

Thus, choosing Passive Box as an additional media in teaching passive voice makes the 

students easier in applying the formula of passive voice whether changing active into passive 

voice or passive into active voice.  

In this study, I would like to describe the passive voice mastery of SMA N 1 Kudus 

students, the implementation of PBX (Passive Box) in teaching passive voice at the eleventh 

grade students of SMA N 1 Kudus in the academic year 2016/2017, and to describe the 

students‟ score of passive voice material reacting to the implementation of PBX (Passive 

Box). 

METHODOLOGY OF THE RESEARCH  

The design of this study is true-experimental because it provides completely adequate 

controls for all sources of internal invalidity. It represents no compromise between 



V. Fadila Rohmah & L. Elyas Nugraha / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (2) (2017) 

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experimental design requirements and the nature and reality of the situation in which a study 

is undertaken (Saleh, 2012:128). Here, I used post-test only control group design. According to 

Saleh, it is the potentially most useful true design. 

In this study, a test is chosen as the instrument. Test is defined as a series of questions 

or exercises use to measure skill, knowledge, intelligence, ability, and attitude of an individual 

or a group (Arikunto, 2006:223). The instrument which is used in this study is objective test. 

An objective test item is one for which there is a specific correct response. It is in form of 

short-answer items. There are two parts which is used in the instrument, they are: completion 

item and modifying active sentence into passive form. 

The completion item is used to check whether students are able to use passive voice in 

a sentence or not. The instruction which is given in this part is “Make passive voice by using 

the word in the bracket. The tense of the passive voice is the same as the tense of the word in 

the bracket.” While „modifying sentence‟ is used to check the students‟ mastery in changing 

active sentence into passive sentence. The instruction which is given in this part is “Change 

the underlined sentence/phrase into passive voice.” Collecting data method is the way that 

can be used by the researcher to collect the data. I used the objective test items since it is easy 

to score and administer. In scoring the objective test, each correct answer is counted one 

point. Moreover, the data are collected through observation and test. Here are some methods 

to find the significance of the test between experimental and control group. 

Try out Test 

Trying out the test is necessary since the result can be used to measure the validity, the 

reliability of the test, and it can be carried out in either a small scale or a large one (Arikunto, 

2006: 223). The try out test is used to find out whether or not the instrument is proper enough 

to be tested in the real test. There are 35 test items in try out test. 

After conducting the try out, the data are analyzed to find out the validity and 

reliability. The test which is invalid and not reliable is not used. To calculate the validity of 

each item, I used Pearson Product Moment Correlation which is applied in SPSS. Where in 

Pearson the correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) (Uyanto, 2009: 222-226). 

Moreover, to measure the reliability test, I used Cronbach formula which is applied in SPSS. 

Where the reliability coefficient is 0.7, so the test is said reliable if the Cronbach alpha is more 

than 0.7 (Uyanto, 2009: 286-289).  

According to Arikunto (2006: 210), the item difficulty of the test is classified into 3 

levels; difficult, medium, and easy. If the test and an item measure the same ability or 

competence, we will expect that those who have a high overall test score will have a high 

probability of answering the item correctly. Thus, a good item should discriminate between 

those who score high on the test and those who score low on the test. 

Treatment 

Control group is taught passive voice using video while experimental group is taught 

using video and PBX (Passive Box). 

Post-test 

A post-test is a measure on some attribute or characteristic that is assessed for 

participants in an experiment after a treatment (Creswell, (2008:301)). Thus, the post-test is 

given after the students get the treatment. Post-test only uses some item questions of try out test 

which are valid and reliable. 

RESULT AND DISCUSSION 



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In this research, I used Pearson Product Moment Correlation which is applied in SPSS to 

calculate item validity. From 35 test items, I found 21 test items which are valid and take 20 

of 21 of those items for control and experimental groups‟ test items. After finding of the item 

validity, I check the reliability of those items by using SPSS. From the output of SPSS, I 

found that the reliability coefficient in Cronbach’s alpha column is 0.733 whereas the test is said 

reliable if the Cronbach alpha is more than 0.7 (Uyanto : 2009). Therefore, the test which wass 

used for control and experimental groups was reliable. In addition, for degree of item 

difficulty, I found that the test items that I used contain easy, medium and difficult items. 

Moreover, the test items contain the result of the discrimination powers as easy, good, 

moderate, excellent, difficult and worst. 

After getting the treatment, the students were given posttest. The activity of the test was 

conducted on January 9 and 11, 2017. It was attended by 73 students where 36 students of 

control group and 37 students of experimental group. In this activity the students had to do 

the same test with 20 items. Here is a chart showing the score of experimental and control 

group. 

 

Diagram 3.1 The Post-test Result of Experimental and Control Groups 

According to the English teacher of SMAN 1 Kudus especially who teaches the 

eleventh graders, the students when learn passive voice usually get difficulties in transforming 

the tenses. Moreover, when they know the form/tense which is used in the sentence, they 

often open their notes because they still get confused with the formula. Therefore, the 

implementation of PBX in teaching passive voice is really helpful which can be seen from the 

reaction of control group when they face passive voice exercises that they often ask about the 

formula than the experimental group. It also can be said that teaching passive voice uses PBX 

makes learning process more effective because the students can use their logic to memorize 

the passive voice formula, and they do not spend much their time to recall the formula by 

seeing their notes. 

The different form of be in all tenses make me aware of how important that the students 

are able to memorize all the “be” form and applied them in a sentence correctly. That is the 

reason why I use PBX (Passive Box) where the passive voice formula is summarized in a 

table. In addition, using a table can make the students gain the information fast and easily. To 

check whether PBX (Passive Box) can be used as a medium in learning passive voice or not, I 

bring this case to an experimental study. In this study, there are two groups: 37 students in the 

experimental group and 36 students in the control group. Both of them learn passive voice 

76

78

80

82

84

86

88

Experimental Group Control Group

86.08 

[VALUE] 

T H E  M E A N  S C O R E S  O F  P O S T - T E S T  



V. Fadila Rohmah & L. Elyas Nugraha / Journal of English Language Teaching 6 (2) (2017) 

188 

 

through video but only the experimental group get PBX (Passive Box) concept after watching 

the video. Both of these groups also get the same exercises and the same post-test item.  

Based on the observation, the students in the experimental group feel that PBX really 

helps them in constructing the active sentence into passive voice sentence. They can think the 

passive form fast and understand how to apply the content in PBX easily. One of the students 

in experimental group says that PBX is really helpful when they get confused in changing the 

form of be in a sentence without changing the tenses. Meanwhile, the students in control 

group get difficulty whenever they get modal (such as will) and be which have to be transformed 

in passive voice. They are confused of how to change the form of be whether it is still be or in 

form of is, am, are, was, and were. Instead of seeing this phenomenon, I also did an Independent 

Sample t-test to know whether the difference score between the two groups is significant or not.

  Levene's 

Test for 

Equality of 

Variances t-test for Equality of Means 

  

F Sig. T df 

Sig. (2-

tailed) 

Mean 

Difference 

Std. Error 

Difference 

95% Confidence 

Interval of the 

Difference 

  Lower Upper 

Score 
Equal 

variances 

assumed 

1.452 .232 
-

3.143 
71 .002 -5.94219 1.89069 

-

9.71212 
-2.17226 

Equal 

variances 

not 

assumed 

  

-

3.126 
60.837 .003 -5.94219 1.90078 

-

9.74324 
-2.14115 

Table 3.1  Independent Samples Test 

In addition, the Independent Sample t-test shows that the difference between the 

experimental group and control group is significant which can be seen from the Levene‟s test 

more than 0.05 and the p-value less than 0.05. Therefore, the students who learn using PBX 

(Passive Box) master passive voice better than the students who learn without PBX (Passive 

Box). 

CONCLUSIONS 

1. Some problems faced by the students when converting an active sentence 

into a passive are: 

a. The different form of be in different tenses, 

b. The difference of object and adverb,  

c. The difference of present perfect and past tense. 

2. PBX (Passive Box) can improve students‟ understanding in learning passive 

voice. In fact, using PBX (Passive Box) can help the students to recognize 

the different form of be in passive voice because the difference of be form is 



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189 

 

summarized in a table. The students also get easier when they have to 

change the verb because using PBX (Passive Box) teaches the students that 

all of the verbs which are needed in passive voice after be is past participle 

(V3). The significant difference that PBX (Passive Box) really helps the 

students in learning passive voice can be seen from the post-test result. 

3. The result of the study shows that after the treatment there is a significant 

difference of students‟ achievement in learning passive voice using PBX 

(Passive Box) and students who only learn by using video. This is shown 

from the significant difference between the two means (experimental and 

control groups). Mean of the post-test of the experimental group is 86.08 

while the control group get 80.14. It shows that there is a significant 

difference between the two means where the mean of experimental group is 

higher than the mean of control group. This difference which can be seen 

vividly seems inappropriate if only a judgment, so it needs to be tested using 

statistical analysis which in this study I use SPSS. In SPSS, I use Independent 

Sample t-test. Levene's Test for Equality of Variances of Sig. whether in assumed 

and not assumed is more than 0.05 which is meant that the equal variances 

assumed is fulfilled. Because of the Levene’s Test result shows that the 

assumption of two variances are the same is fulfilled. Therefore, I move on 

to p-value (2-tailed) which is 0.002 where it is less than 0.05 which is meant 

that the difference between two variables are significant. It can be concluded 

that there is a significant difference between experimental and control 

groups. In short, implementing PBX (Passive Box) in teaching passive voice 

gives more effective result than only using video. 

4. Teaching passive voice by implementing PBX (Passive Box) to the eleventh 

year students of SMAN 1 Kudus gives some contributions. The 

contributions of PBX (Passive Box) are as follows. 

a. PBX (Passive Box) guides the students with more attention and 

understanding in doing passive voice exercises. 

b. PBX (Passive Box) helps the students to memorize how to convert 

kind of tenses with different be form into passive voice. 

c. PBX (Passive Box) teaches the students how useful of using table in 

summarizing all of the passive voice formula. 

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