The particular dialect or language that a person chooses to use on any occasion is called a code Copyright © 2020 The Author IDEAS is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License Issued by English study program of IAIN Palopo 647 IDEAS Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, Linguistics and Literature ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) Volume 8, Number 2, December 2020 pp. 647 – 657 Students’ Perception towards the Use of Worksheet as Helping Tools in Semantics Class Sri Damayanti 1, Irwan 2, Jusriati 3 yanthie_uncok@ymail.com 1Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Cokroaminoto Palopo, Indonesia 2SMA Negeri 6 Palopo, Indonesia 3Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Muhammadiyah Palopo, Indonesia Received: 10 September 2020 Accepted: 24 November 2020 DOI: 10.24256/ideas.v8i2.1570 Abstract The writer set the problem of this research such as how is the students’ perception toward the use of worksheet as helping tools in semantics class? and what are the advantages of using a worksheet? The aim of this study is to describe the students’ perception of the use of worksheets as helping tools in semantics class and to find the advantages of using it. The subject of this research is the fifth-semester students in the English Department at the University of Cokroaminoto Palopo. The method of this study is a descriptive study. The procedures of collecting data are giving questionnaires and interviews and then the writer analyzed the data by adopting Matthew B. Miles and A. Michael Huberman's pattern. There were three steps; data reduction, data display, and conclusion. After that, the writer tabulated the gained data in making the description of the data. The result of this study shows; (1) Students are giving positive and good perception on the use of worksheet as helping tools in semantics class and (2) The advantage of using the worksheet as helping tools in teaching semantics are; it helped the students in understanding the question and answering the question easily, it also helped them in remembering the past material by using the worksheet and it gave them some motivation to learn English Semantics. So, it can be concluded that the use of worksheets as helping tools in semantics class got a positive response from the students and it also gave them some advantages. Keyword: Semantics Class; Students’ Perception; Worksheet as Helping Tools mailto:yanthie_uncok@ymail.com Sri Damayanti, Irwan, Jusriati Students’ Perception toward the Use of Worksheet as Helping Tools in Semantics Class 648 Introduction It is very important to understand about a semantics theory because semantics is a subject that studies the meaning in a sentence. Sometimes there are some mistakes in understanding a meaning in a sentence. It is due to various things such as the use of language, drawing raw conclusions, misperceptions and so on. Semantics is one of the subjects taught at the fifth semester students of English department at University of Cokroaminoto Palopo University. But even though as one of the compulsory courses, it does not close to the possibility that after studying it students are able to understand well what semantics is and what are the important roles of semantics in communication. One of the problems encountered as a teacher in semantics is the difficulty of students in defining and distinguishing each term in semantics. So that when they are taught they understand very well about it but when they are going to do an exam they will have difficulty to distinguish between one term with another. With these problems, the lecturer tries to apply a testing model that is useful to provide an overview to them so that it can help in remembering the explanations of the questions given by the lecturer during the exam. There are many worksheets with different media for testing in semantics class, such as printed worksheet that contains text and pictures that provide students interesting picture. The research here is focused on the use of worksheet as helping tools that provided an overview of material in semantics so it can help in remembering the explanations of the questions given by the lecturer during the exam. Semantics is one of linguistics branches which relates with meaning. As study of a meaning in a language known as semantics. It deals with the expression of linguistic objects such as word, phrases and sentences. It does not pay attention to the syntactical arrangement or pronunciation of linguistic object. Katz (1972 : 1) states that, “Semantics is the study of linguistic meaning. It is concerned with what sentence and other linguistics object express, not with the arrangement with their syntactic parts or with their pronunciation. As we know semantics has developed and become worthy study because of two factors namely First, meaning is strictly connected with communication. A certain meaning can be delivered through communication. It plays an important role in human life. Second, the process of human attempts to comprehend the nature of meaning involves the mental ability by the use of reasoning and perception. Leech (1989 : IX) states that, “Semantics is central to the study of communication; and as communication becomes more and more crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and more pressing. Semantics is also at the centre of the study of the human mind-thought process, cognition and conceptualization.” Discuss about the scope of semantics as a study of the linguistics meaning. It is not concerned with what sentences and other linguistics object expressed. It is IDEAS, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 2020 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 649 not concerned with the arrangements of syntactic parts, or with their pronunciation. Semantics could cover more extensive areas, from structure and function of language as well as the interrelationship with other discipline. There are at least two major approaches to the way in which meaning in language is studied, each of which is often very influential in determining which fact of meaning are relevant for semantics The first is linguistics approach, it concern with the way in which meaning in a language is structured. The second is philosophical approach, it investigates the relation between linguistics expression, such as the words of language, and person, things, and events in the world to which these words refer. Katz (1972 : 11) said that theory of semantics concerns with the semantics structure of natural language in general. It is not a theory which concerns with the semantic structure of any particular language and it does not concern with individual’s meaning. Hence semantics scopes down its attention to the sentence meaning as a part of linguistic system rather than utterance meaning. Leech (1969 : 5) says “The aim of semantics is to explain and describe the meaning in natural language. To make our starting point in ordinary usage more explicit, we may even say that the goal of semantics is to explain what underlies the use of the word means and related term (sense, nonsense, signify, ambiguous, antonimy, synonymy, etc) in English and other language.” From Leech’s opinion it can be concluded that semantics should be able to give more explanations and define any expressions in language. semantics also should be able to define their meaning properties and relation. Worksheet is one of learning tools are needed to support the learning process by using scientific approach. In this study, students worksheet selected as learning tools which can be as helping tools for them in answering the questions. Darusman, (2008: 17) states that students worksheet is a sheet contains guidelines for students to carry out the activities programmed. It includes instructions, guidance and understanding questions so that students could widen and deepen their understanding of the material being studied. Therefore, it can be considered that students worksheet is a source of learning which forms of sheets containing briefly material, learning objectives, the instructions do the questions and a number of questions that must be answered students. In addition, Sutiasih (2009) explains that student worksheet is a series of tasks laid out in the form of questions. By answering these questions, students are able to master the materials they studied. The function of student worksheet for students is to make students easier to understand the subject matter studied. Meanwhile, according to Ladyawati (2009), student worksheet is a series of tasks with questions that make students in working on and get it done. Preparation of student worksheet intended to provide ease of students in understanding the material taught in the learning process. In this study the researcher tries to apply a worksheet contains some clues Sri Damayanti, Irwan, Jusriati Students’ Perception toward the Use of Worksheet as Helping Tools in Semantics Class 650 with purposes to help students in answering the tasks or questions. This idea was born of a conclusion drawn in connection with the purpose of creating a worksheet that is to facilitate understanding of the material to be tested so that students will better master the material. Perception provides a useful view of the world, where useful means being able to interact safely and effectively within the environment Perception is a biological process because to be perceived any information about events in the world, it must be registered by the sensory nervous system. There are two kinds of perception they are positive and negative perception. Positive perception is when someone sees something or the world in a positive way, usually, someone with positive perception will bring many positive things to come in their life and they always feel happy and enjoy their life. While negative perception is a negative point of view of a person towards something or the world that they see. Someone with negative perception usually sees the world in a pessimistic way, so they will not enjoy their life. Students’ Perception In the world of teaching and learning, students' perceptions are very crucial because lecturers need to take students' preferences into consideration before they come up with teaching materials and lessons. Apart from that, lecturers also need to consider students' prior knowledge even though it can be a challenge to the lecturers. This process is the same when lecturers are setting question papers. They need to know the objectives of the lessons because in evaluating students' knowledge, they need to make sure that students have knowledge of the subject matter which is related to the issue of test validity. Students have different perceptions when their Lecturers use different approaches and methods in classes. Students’ perception is a process of students’ behavior towards the information about an object in the school environment, especially in the classroom through by their sensory system, so students can give meaning and interpret the object being observed. The research questions of this research are: (1). How is students’ perception of the use of worksheet as helping tools in semantics class? (2). What are the advantages of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class?. Then, the purpose of this study was to get information about students’ perception of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class at fifth-semester students of Cokroaminoto Palopo University. And to know the advantages of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. Method This study used a descriptive qualitative study. A descriptive method was chosen because this study aims at providing insight into the case of students' perception of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. This study was conducted in Cokroaminoto Palopo University on 8th January 2020. It consists of classroom observation in Semantics Class in the fifth semester students, The first two weeks were used for classroom observation, the next two weeks for giving and IDEAS, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 2020 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 651 collecting the questionnaire. The participants in this study is all of students in Class 5A with the total 35 students. In deciding the sample, purposive sampling was used, in which the researcher select 5A as sample because she is the semantics lecturer in this class. So it will be easy for her to observe the classroom and take the data. There are three main instruments used in this study. The first one is class observation. This type of instrument is used to know the accuracy between the teacher’s and students activity in the classroom. It also seen the students reaction during the teaching and learning process. The next instrument used is questionnaire. There are 7 questions of yes/no question that are tested to know the validity of the test, and whether the invalid ones. The results of the test are expected to represent their perception of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. The students are asked to read each of available statements and put cross () related to their feeling of the used of worksheet with helping tools model. The next instrument is interview. Interview is used to support the questionnaire because there are a lot of factor that can affect the students’ perception of the used worksheet as helping tools. There are 7 questions for the interview and it’s according to the focus of the research about students’ perception of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. To avoid confusion from respondents, the interview used Bahasa Indonesia. Techniques that the researcher used in gaining data are: Observation, as a scientific method, observation can be interpreted as monitoring and note-taking systematically the phenomena that being investigated. Through this observation, the researcher can obtain information in terms of situation and condition of learning in semantics class. Interview, Interview is data collecting technique by way interviewing selected individual as a respondent. Furthermore, it is the direct face to face attempt to obtain the reliable and valid measures in the form of verbal responses of a respondent. The interview is conducted following the result of the questionnaire with grouping the students into a certain type of perception. The researcher interviews a number of students who have achieved the highest score and the lowest score of the questionnaire. Questionnaires a number of questions used to obtain information from respondents in terms of their personality or things. In this study, used Miles and Huberman concept of analyzing the data. There are some components that build up model of analyzing the data: 1) Data reduction According to Miles and Huberman, data reduction is referred to the process selecting, focusing and transforming the data. In reduction data, the writer has to choose which aspect of the data that appeared in interview transcription. 2) Data display Data display is the second phase’s Miles and Huberman model of qualitative data analysis. This phase provides an organized and assembly of data information that permits for conclusion drawing. Sri Damayanti, Irwan, Jusriati Students’ Perception toward the Use of Worksheet as Helping Tools in Semantics Class 652 3) Conclusion drawing and verification Conclusion drawing includes stepping back to consider what analyzed data mean and to assess their implication for the research question. In this phase, the writer drew meaning from the data in a display. Results Data that presented in this research is data from a questionnaire that were spreading to students at the Fifth semester about students' perception of using worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. Questionnaire contains 7 question that students have to answer it by giving checklist () to the answer that suitable to their feeling. Below is the result of the questionnaire. Table 1. Result Data of the Questionnaire No Statements Alternative Answer Total Yes No 1 Is a worksheet with a helping tools model help in understanding the problem? 35 - 35 2 Does the worksheet as helping tools displayed help you in answering questions? 35 - 35 3 Is there a difference in the activity in working on the helping tools model worksheet with the conventional model? 35 - 35 4 Did your understanding increase by seeing the clue displayed on the worksheet? 35 - 35 5 Is the clue contained in the worksheet easy to understand? 35 - 35 6 Did the worksheet help you remember material in the questions? 35 - 35 7 According to you, is there a difference in the results of the exam with the worksheet as helping tools or not? 33 2 35 The collected data from the questionnaire will be served by using analysis statistic descriptive by using the formula: P = 𝐹/𝑁 × 100 The purpose of data processing above is to give detail explanation. To make it easier in analyzing data from the questionnaire, below are the tabulation data from IDEAS, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 2020 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 653 the questionnaire and the detail explanation from the table. Table 2. Tabulation Data from the Questionnaire No Statements Alternative Answer Total Yes No 1 Is a worksheet with a helping tools model help in understanding the problem? 100% 0% 100% 2 Does the worksheet as helping tools displayed help you in answering questions? 100% 0% 100% 3 Is there a difference in the activity in working on the helping tools model worksheet with the conventional model? 100% 0% 100% 4 Did your understanding increase by seeing the clue displayed on the worksheet? 100% 0% 100% 5 Is the clue contained in the worksheet easy to understand? 100% 0% 100% 6 Did the worksheet help you remember material in the questions? 100% 0% 100% 7 According to you, is there a difference in the results of the exam with the worksheet as helping tools or not? 94% 6% 100% Table 2 shows the percentage of the answer frequency by the students. It can be described that point 1-6 shows that all of students agreed that worksheet as helping tools helm them in answering the questions. While the difference happened in point 7, where there 6% students who said there is no difference in the results of the exam with the worksheet as helping tools. Based on this case, it can be concluded that the students have the positive perception toward the use of worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. The interview is used to support the answer from the questionnaire that the learners filled and to know learners’ perceptions about the use of Worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. The interview consisted of 7 questions. And from the interview the researcher found the same thing with the questionnaire data result that most of students in this class had positive perceptions of the use Worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. They think that through this worksheet model could help them to answering the question easily. Make them more relax, and the important thing is the can get some clues related to the Sri Damayanti, Irwan, Jusriati Students’ Perception toward the Use of Worksheet as Helping Tools in Semantics Class 654 question from the worksheet. They like to use worksheet with this model because it can help them in remembering the materials that is tested. It can be seen from the following result: “Worksheet helping tools ini sangat membantu dalam mengingat materi” “Karena adanya clue tersebut saya jadi memahami tentang apa yang ditanyakan” “Because it is giving more explanation” “Bisa membantu mahasiswa untuk mengulang apa yang sudah diajarkan” “Dapat membantu untuk mengingat kembali apa yang telah diajarkan” “It helps us to remember about the lesson” As conclusion of the first interview result is most of them agree that this worksheet can help them in answering the questions given. Next, they stated that using this worksheet assist them easily to answer and understand the questions purposes. “Lebih cepat dipahami” “Ini adalah salah satu worksheet yang memudahkan mahasiswa” “Very helping us and make me easy to answer” “Sangat bagus dan lebih gampang” Additionally, some of them suggest to lecturer to use this worksheet in another time because they think that thorough this worksheet their score will be improve. “Dalam pengerjaan soal lumayan lancar, karena soal yang diberikan tidak bertele-tele” “Nilai saya akan meningkat dari bisanya karena lebih memudahkan saya untuk mengingat materi” “Saya harap hasil ujian saya lebih baik” “We can remember more by using this, so basically our result will be better” But there is a view of them who think that there is no difference in their score after using this worksheet model with conventional model. “This worksheet just show some clues, so we doesn’t easy to understand what they mean” “Dengan menggunakan worksheet model ini pikiran kita instan, tidak ada waktu lagi untuk memperbaiki” Some of them perceived that it will be negative, they were unhappy to use this worksheet model. But most of them perceived that the use of the worksheet is apply in all of daily test. IDEAS, Vol. 8, No. 2, December 2020 ISSN 2338-4778 (Print) ISSN 2548-4192 (Online) 655 Discussion Based on findings of the research result, it shows the result of the questionnaire and the interview that the students agreed about their easier understanding and answering the question when the lecturer used worksheet as helping tools in semantics class. They also agreed that using worksheet as helping tools can help them in remembering the subject. Moreover, they stated that by using worksheet as helping tools they felt more interesting in learning the subject and they didn’t get bored during the test. This finding is supported by Darusman, (2008: 17) who states that students worksheet is a sheet contains guidelines for students to carry out the activities programmed. It includes instructions, guidance and understanding questions so that students could widen and deepen their understanding of the material being studied. Therefore, it can be considered that students worksheet is a source of learning which forms of sheets containing briefly material, learning objectives, the instructions do the questions and a number of questions that must be answered students. Furthermore, the finding of this study also is line with the statement of Sutiasih (2009) that student worksheet is a series of tasks laid out in the form of questions. By answering these questions, students are able to master the materials they studied. The function of student worksheet for students is to make students easier to understand the subject matter studied. In addition, this study also supported by Ladyawati (2009), who stated that student worksheet is a series of tasks with questions that make students in working on and get it done. Preparation of student worksheet intended to provide ease of students in understanding the material taught in the learning process. Conclusion it can be concluded that students’ perception on the use of worksheet as helping tools in semantics class is positive. The advantage of using worksheet as helping tools in teaching semantics are; it helped the students in understanding the question and answering the question easily, it also helped them in remembering the past material by using the worksheet and it gave them some motivation to learn English Semantics References Bulut, T & Durak, S. (2002). The Difference between the Perceptions of ESL Classroom teaching/learning activities in a South African context. Tesol Quarterly, 32 (1), 82-105 Gay, L.R. (1981). Educational Research: Competencies for analysis and Aplication. Colombus Ohio:Charles E.Merill Publishing Company. Guntur, L., & Pordanjani, S. (2019). 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