The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code Copyright © 2019 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo Students’ Ability in Understanding Simple Past Tense Through Whisper and Write Game Opik Dwi Indah opik.dwi_indah@yahoo.com Cokroaminoto Palopo University, Indonesia Received : 11 September 2019 Accepted: 25 November 2019 Abstract This research applied pre-experimental research. The research aimed at finding out whether whisper and write game can increase students’ ability in understanding simple past tense or not. The population of this research was the second grade students of Informatics Department at Cokroaminoto Palopo University. The researcher used purposive sampling technique in determining the students as sample. The sample was class 2F which consisted of 35 students. The instrument of the research was written test. The result shows that the mean score of the posttest is higher than mean score pretest (71.31 > 44.51). Meanwhile, P-Value is 0.00 and α is 0.05. It shows that P-value is smaller than α (0.00 < 0.05). It means that null Hypothesis (H0) is rejected and alternative Hypothesis (H1) is accepted. So, there is significant difference between the result of pretest and posttest after giving the treatment in teaching simple past tense by using whisper and write game. It can be concluded that whisper and write game can increase students’ ability in understanding simple past tense. Keywords: whisper and write game, simple past tense. Introduction In Indonesia, English is very important to be learned because it is one of International languages. Nowadays, it has been taught from Junior High School until University. It means that the students have learned English for seven years. Even though all the students in Indonesia have studied English for long time, some of them still face difficulties in learning English which have four skills namely speaking, listening, reading and writing. In these skills, mastering about 327 IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 7, Number 2, December 2019 pp. 327– 336 http://u.lipi.go.id/1457703302 mailto:opik.dwi_indah@yahoo.com Opik Dwi Indah Students’ Ability in Understanding Simple Past Tense through Whisper and Write Game of the Second Grade Students of Informatics Department at Cokroaminoto Palopo University the structure especially the tense is really needed. Beside vocabulary, tense is one of the most problems that are always faced by the students when they want to learn about English. They are difficult to master it because they do not know the formula. Moreover, they sometimes feel confused about what tense to be used because they also do not know the function of each tense. That is why, there are many mistakes they always do in productive skills like writing and also speaking. In solving that problem, a teacher/lecturer should find a good and appropriate method or technique for example applying a media. The purpose of that media as method in teaching and learning process is to help and facilitate the students in catching and understanding the lesson easily. Related to this research, the use of media to teach tense is hoped can bring benefit and important role to increase students’ ability in understanding the tense such as the formula and also its function in order they can master it. Then, it can also arouse students’ attention, interest and motivation. A learning media to be applied was game. The researcher used a game as her method in teaching is to avoid the students being bored and tired, because monotonous activities or strategies of a teacher/lecturer in teaching will make the students get bored and tired in studying. So, she used an alternative method to solve the students’ problems and to make teaching and learning process being interesting and more effective through a game called whisper and write game as her method to teach tense. Therefore, she focused to research about students’ ability in understanding tense especially simple past tense through that game. Collins (l990:20) states that tense is the verb form which shows whether you are referring to the past, present, or future. While Harianto et. al (2003:230) explain that tenses is the change of verb forming in a sentence that causes of the change of time or adverb of time. Then, Azar (2003:25) explains that the simple past is used to talk about activities or situations that began and ended in the past. Example: yesterday, last night, two minutes ago, in 1990. Using Whisper and write game in teaching and learning process hoped can motivate the students to learn. So, they would have attention to the material that the researcher had presented. It can also avoid student’s feeling of boredom. Therefore, the use of media as teaching method is very useful to help a teacher/lecturer in reducing that students’ feeling. Brown, et. al (2001) also states that using a variety of media will increase the probability that students will learn more, retain better what they learn, and improve their performance of the skills they are expected to develop. Based on this, Whisper and write game is kind of media called kinesthetic media because it needs movement of body. Whisper and write game is categorized into kinesthetic media. This game is fun and also challenging because it is done in teamwork and in race. It can 328 IDEAS, Vol. 7, No. 2, December 2019 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) use to practice students’ skill in memorizing the words, sentence or review old ones. This is an oral game that makes the students improve their listening, speaking and writing skills. According to Rahmad in Imlayani (2017:12-14), whisper race game is a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of player until the last player, then the last player write down the message. In this game, writing the message is difficult because the message that writes by the last member often unsuitable with the right message which uttered by the first one. Errors typically accumulates in the retellings, so the statement uttered by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly from the one uttered by the first. The reason for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections and that some players may deliberately alter what is being said to guarantee a changed message by the end of the line. That is why, the students always change the position in a line of each group. Meanwhile, according to Zulianti in Imlayani (2017:13), whisper race game is a good method in teaching English. The use of whisper game in learning English makes the students easier to memorize English vocabulary. The goal of this game is to pass a “message” from one team member to another as fast and quietly as possible. This game can be adding the students’ knowledge about vocabulary and also improving their speaking and listening skill. Relates to this, the researcher assumes that this game not only can be used to improve students’ vocabulary, but also it can be used to teach another subject such as grammar. In this research, she used this game to improve students’ ability in understanding simple past tense. So, she used and developed this game from the vocabulary to the sentence about the definition of simple past tense, its function and also the example. Those all are the materials to be taught through this game. Communication not only can be done in spoken but also in written. Nation (2009:112) states that writing is an activity that can usefully be preferred for by work in other skill of listening, speaking and reading. This preparation can make it possible for words that have been used receptively to come into productive used. In this game, the researcher modified the material from word to sentence. So the students are required to memorize someone’s message and retell it correctly. After that the last person has to write it based on what they have heard. Whisper race game also has some benefits. One of them is to maintain good relationship among students especially build good cooperation and communication in a group. In this case, the students build communication through whispering. Besides that, this game can train the student’s skill especially listening and speaking skill. Moreover, Lewis and Bedson in Imlayani (2017) argue that the aim of whisper race game is vocabulary revision, any phrase or sentence which needs practice. While, they also mention that whisper race game needs a large. 329 Opik Dwi Indah Students’ Ability in Understanding Simple Past Tense through Whisper and Write Game of the Second Grade Students of Informatics Department at Cokroaminoto Palopo University Here are the procedures of applying whisper and write game in this research: 1. First, the researcher divided students into some groups. 2. Then, she asked the students to make a line based on their group. 3. She gave instructions about how to play and the rules of the game. 4. The researcher prepared list of sentences to be used as material in the game. 5. Before started the game, she would show the sentence to the first person of each section when the game was over because they had to change their position. Then, she also practiced that first person about the pronunciation of that sentence in order they can whisper and tell the correct sentence in one minute. 6. Next, the first student of each group started to memorize that sentence in order they can remember it when they were whispering to the second person. The time was given was only one minute to memorize it. 7. The students started to play the game and the researcher supervised them. 8. The process of the game was the first person whispered the message to the second person, then second person whispered the same message of what she/he had heard from first person to third person and so on until to the last person. 9. The last person had to write down that message of what she/he had heard correctly. 10.About the time, the researcher gave three minutes for them in doing the game. 11. The researcher evaluated the students’ work. 12.The group who got many correct written/answers in the paper would get point and would be the winner. The winner got rewards. And the group who got little point would get punishment. The punishment was they had to translate those sentences. Based on the background above, the researcher was interested to conduct this research. In this case, she wants to increase her students’ ability in understanding about simple past tense through Whisper and Write game. Hopefully, it can stimulate and motivate her students in studying English especially simple past tense. Research Method This research applied pre-experimental research and it was conducted for eight meetings. It is aimed at finding out the effectiveness of using whisper and write game to increase students’ ability in understanding simple past tense. The 330 IDEAS, Vol. 7, No. 2, December 2019 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) population of this research was the second grade students of Informatics department of Cokroaminoto Palopo University. In this research, the researcher used purposive sampling technique. The researcher chose one class as the sample which consists of 35 students. It was class 2F. The researcher chose that class because she taught English there. So, she knew her students’ ability in understanding about tense in that class was still low. Instrument that was used to collect the data was written test and it was applied in pretest and posttest. The researcher conducted the treatment in six meeting. To calculate the mean score, standard deviation, and test of significance the researcher used SPSS program 20.0 version. Results 1. Classification of Students’ Score Table 1. The students’ Score Classification of Pretest and Posttest No Classification Score Pretest Posttest Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage 1 Excellent 96-100 0 0% 0 0% 2 Very Good 86-95 0 0% 0 0% 3 Good 76-85 0 0% 7 20% 4 Fairly Good 66-75 0 0% 21 60% 5 Fair 56-65 4 11.43% 7 20% 6 Poor 46-55 7 20% 0 0% 7 Very Poor 0-45 24 68.57% 0 0% Total 35 100% 35 100% Based on table 1, in the pretest, there were 4 students (11.43%) classified into fair category, 7 students (20%) classified into poor category and 24 students (68.57%) classified into very poor category. Moreover, no students got excellent, very good, good and fairly good category. While in the posttest, there were 7 students (20%) classified into good category, 21 students (60%) classified into fairly good category and 7 students (20%) classified into fair category. In this section, there were no students who got excellent, very good, poor and very poor category. 2. The Mean Score and Standard Deviation of Pretest and Posttest Table 2. The Students’ Mean Score and Standard Deviation of Pretest and Posttest Variable Mean Score Std. Deviation Pretest 44.51 8.258 Posttest 71.31 6.018 The result shows that there is different mean score between pretest and 331 Opik Dwi Indah Students’ Ability in Understanding Simple Past Tense through Whisper and Write Game of the Second Grade Students of Informatics Department at Cokroaminoto Palopo University posttest where the mean score of the posttest is higher than the mean score of the pretest (71.31 > 44.51). It means that the students’ score increase after giving treatment using whisper and write game. 3. Test of significance (t-test ) and hypothesis Table 3. Paired Sample Test of Pretest and Posttest Variable Sig. (2-tailed) α Pretest-Posttest .000 0.05 The value of t-test of the students’ ability (P-Value) is 0.000 while the alfa (α) is 0.05. It shows that P-value is smaller than α (0.00 < 0.05). It means that null Hypothesis (H0) is rejected and alternative Hypothesis (H1) is accepted. It shows that there is significant difference between the result of pretest and posttest after giving the treatment in teaching simple past tense by using whisper and write game at Cokroaminoto Palopo University. Based on that data above, it can be concluded that whisper and write game can increase students’ ability in understanding simple past tense. Discussion After calculating and analyzing the data, the researcher represents the discussions based on the findings. This section aims at describing the students’ score result before and after applying whisper and write game in teaching tenses especially simple past tense. The researcher found that this game is one of the appropriate method in teaching grammar because the students can know the material from what they have heard and automatically saved in their memory because the message that they have to send must be knew and understood well. To make it happen, they must memorize the message. But in this part, they did not only use the usual method like memorizing vocabulary. Here, they were given a different method than before namely whisper game. Through this game, it is hoped can give good contribution and solution for the students who have low ability in mastering grammar. Then, by this game, it can give different atmosphere in learning in order they felt happy, excited, challenging and also competitive among groups. Before they were given whisper and write game, it was really different. As previous information, they have learnt English especially tenses since they were at junior high school. But, their ability in understanding that material is still low. It can be proven by the students’ score in the pretest. It shows that there were many students got low score because most of them were in very poor category. But, after giving treatment their score was increased into fairly good category 332 IDEAS, Vol. 7, No. 2, December 2019 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) and no more students got very poor. Based on this result, the researcher can described that their ability in understanding simple past tense have improved through whisper and write game. By using Whisper and Write Game, the researcher is able to motivate her students to learn and pay attention to the material that the researcher had presented. It can also avoid student’s feeling of bored. It can be proven by the findings in table 3 where in the result of posttest found that no more students got very poor and poor. It means that this game give good contribution for them in understanding the material especially simple past tense. It can be concluded that their ability in understanding simple past tense is increase through whisper and write game. The use of the whisper and write game can help the students in learning English grammar especially simple past tense. The students can be easier to understand the material because the material was presented by applying a game and not lecturing which can make them felt bored. Moreover, it also can grow the solidarity and sported among students particularly in a group. When implementing whisper and write game, it shows that the students were more active because all students in each group took a part in the game. Besides, students were more active to ask the researcher if they do not understand about how to play that game. Even though in the beginning of game, they felt nervous and still confuse about the material of simple past tense that they have to memorize, but they tried so hard to reduce it by memorizing the sentence as many as they can and correctly. Because the lesson was presented differently which is not lecturing but in a race, so it can motivate and boost them to win the game. And that finding of this research related to Brown, et. al (2001). He stated that using a variety of media will increase the probability that students will learn more, retain better what they learn, and improve their performance of the skills they are expected to develop. According to Rahmad in Imlayani (2017:12-14), whisper race game is a game played around the word, in which one person whisper a message to another, which is passed through a line of player until the last player then the last player write down the message. In giving treatment, the researcher started the class by greeting the students and checking students’ attendance. Then the researcher began the teaching learning process by giving the students a simple question to know the students’ responses and explore the extent to which students’ knowledge of the material being taught. They did not seem bored in joining English lesson. Meanwhile, this game can give new atmosphere for the students in studying English. The data proved that using whisper and write game in teaching simple past tense can make the students of Cokroaminoto Palopo University enjoy class situation. It is because they study in a group and play a game. Lewis and Bedson in Imlayani (2017) have stated the advantages and also the disadvantages of whisper and write game. Based on the result of this 333 Opik Dwi Indah Students’ Ability in Understanding Simple Past Tense through Whisper and Write Game of the Second Grade Students of Informatics Department at Cokroaminoto Palopo University research, the researcher gave additional information about the advantages and disadvantages of this game. And relates to those experts’ statement about the disadvantage of this game, the researcher also faced same problem when did this game. Here are some advantages that researcher found after applied whisper and write game such as: 1. It can improve their understanding in mastering English grammar and make them be interested, felt not bored and happy because of new atmosphere when they studied the material. 2. Then, it can make a good relationship, make them be solid team and build a trust to other especially in their group. It can be proven when they did the game. Before they started to play, they supported to each other especially for the first student who wanted to start the game. They trusted and hoped that their friend can memorize well and send the message by whispering clearly and correctly. 3. Other advantage is it can be used to practice student’s memory in memorizing the materials. 4. Moreover, the disadvantages of this game are: 5. It needs a large room. If the classroom is small, it is difficult for the students to move. When applied this game, the classroom was not large, so it disturbed their movement because the space of each group was too close. 6. If the class or outside of the class is too noisy, it is hard for the students to listen the message clearly and correctly. Absolutely, they will send wrong message to other members. When applied this game, the outside of that class was little crowded because of other students who had passed in front of the class. So, it made some students catch the wrong message. Moreover, they spent much time to catch that message. 7. Then, if the class was crowded, the students felt difficult to apply this game because it needs full of attention and concentration in memorizing the material because they have to send the message to their friend correctly. When did this game, some of them did not memorize well because they lost their concentration. So, they sent the wrong message. In teaching simple past tense by using whisper and write game, the researcher found that the students seemed enthusiastic and confident. Even though the researcher faced some troubles but this game still can make the students felt happy and comfortable to study English because the researcher tried to solve the problem. For example, to solve the space, the researcher changed the technique in the next activity. She did not make all the groups presented, but one by one with the same time for each team/group in front of the class. So, it can reduce students’ problem to move well. Based on the discussion above, the researcher can conclude that whisper 334 IDEAS, Vol. 7, No. 2, December 2019 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) and write game can give good contribution for the students in studying English grammar because it can improve their ability in understanding simple past tense. It can be proven by the mean score of pretest and posttest. The mean score of pretest is 44.51, while posttest is 71.31. It shows that the mean scores have significance different before and after did the treatment. It can be concluded that the students’ ability in understanding simple past tense increase from very poor to fairly good category. Conclusion and Limitations The result of this research shows that the mean score of the posttest is higher than mean score pretest (71.31 > 44.51). Meanwhile, the value of t-Test of the students’ ability (P-Value) is 0.000 and the alfa (α) is 0.05. It shows that P-value is smaller than α (0.00 < 0.05). So, the null Hypothesis (H0) is rejected and alternative Hypothesis (H1) is accepted. It means that there is significant difference between the result of pretest and posttest after giving the treatment in teaching simple past tense by using whisper and write game at Cokroaminoto Palopo University. 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