JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching https://e-journal.undikma.ac.id/index.php/jollt Email: jollt@undikma.ac.id DOI: https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v%vi%i.6758 January 2023. Vol. 11, No.1 p-ISSN: 2338-0810 e-ISSN: 2621-1378 pp. 61-71 JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 61 SPELLING BEE GAMES TO INCREASE STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY AT THE ISLAMIC-AFFILIATED MIDDLE SCHOOLS: AN ACTION RESEARCH 1*Wiki Tedi Rahmawati, 1Yunita Mutiara Harahap 1English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Alwashliyah, Medan, Indonesia *Corresponding Author Email: weeqeefun@gmail Article Info Abstract Article History Received: October 2022 Revised: December 2022 Published: January 2023 Spelling bee game can be considered as a method to teach vocabulary mastery for junior high school using a game. The students not only memorize the words abut also can spell and pronounce them correctly. There are problems faced by the students particularly the seventh grade students of this research location such as the difficulty to understand the form of English words and to pronounce them. The objective of this research was to solve those problems in order to increase the students’ mastery of vocabulary by applying spelling bee game. The research method used was a classroom action research by fulfilling planning, acting, observing, and reflecting in each cycle. It was accomplished in two cycles since the determined achievement was not obtained in the first cycle. The subject involved was 35 students of grade seventh. Qualitative data were gathered by administering interview, observation, and questionnaire while quantitative data were obtained from students’ vocabulary mean score. The qualitative data analysis from questionnaire showed that there was increasing of positive responses (23.97%) while observation and interview showed that the students were more motivated in engaging the teaching-learning process through spelling bee game. The quantitative data analysis showed that there was increasing on students’ vocabulary mastery seen from the increasing of mean score from 25.07% in orientation test to 88.57% in post-test cycle II. There were 31 students in post-test cycle II passed the criteria. Thus, the criteria of success were achieved. It can be concluded that using spelling bee game can be an alternative method to increase the vocabulary mastery in an enjoyable and fun atmosphere. Keywords Vocabulary mastery; Games; Spelling Bee; How to cite: Rahmawati, W.T. & Harahap, Y.M. (2023). Spelling Bee Games to Increase Students’ Vocabulary Mastery at the Islamic-Affiliated Middle Schools: An Action Research, JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, 11(1), pp. 61-71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v%vi%i.6758 INTRODUCTION The teaching of English aiming to perform good skills by mastering vocabulary encountered problems (Rachmaida & Mutiarani, 2022). Students still have difficulties in understanding English because lack of vocabulary (Chonnia & Izzah, 2022), difficulty in composing sentences (Kenza-Tacarraoucht et al., 2022), difficulty in determining verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverb (Habibi et al., 2022) as well as difficulty in pronouncing or spelling the correct words (Buana & Irawan, 2021). These problems are performed by English students at the seventh grade students at MTs YP AL-Azhar Medan. Through preliminiray observation, those problems were caused by the monotonous learning strategies or techniques in teaching vocabulary. The teacher only asked the students to memorize the vocabulary such as the changes of the noun class particularly the verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The fact that students cannot share their thoughts well or they do not accustom to listen, speak, read, and write commonly is caused by the limited vocabulary mastery. https://e-journal.undikma.ac.id/index.php/jollt http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1366476729&1&& http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1524725326&1&& mailto:abc@edu.ac.id Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 62 The problems concerning vocabulary mastery and difficulties also have been researched by many other. Sari (2017) in her research explained the problems faced by the students during certain circumstances such as reading or listening that the students did not know the meaning of English vocabulary because they did not know the words. While Nurjida (2018) elaborated from the result of interview before conducting the research that the students were not interested in learning English because they did not have many vocabularies. This condition was due to the the students’ laziness of memorizing the vocabulary. What they have learned today, eventually they forget the days then. In addition, Waffa (2017) stated that the students lack of vocabularies because they felt bored and did not interested in learning vocabulary. She found that the teacher only gave the students list of vocabularies to be memorized. Jusnining (2019) also found that most of the students in her research school were lack of vocabulary because they were only taught to translate words or sentences from texts and did not have the chance to understand the words. Nurpitasari and Mayasari (2018) described their research problems based on observation. They found out the symptoms that caused the students’ difficulties in vocabularies like most students were still weak of vocabulary, lazy to memorize and could not memorize new English words, and difficulties to mention the English words. Some studies conducted by Taufiqurrahman (2020) also identified the students’ diffculties in learning vocabulary such as difficulties in spelling the words and difficulties in deciding the word meaning and using words appropriately, while Rohmatillah (2014) elaborated the difficulties faced by the students based on her research result such as difficult to pronounce the words, difficult to write and spell, difficult to understand inflections because of the different grammatical form, difficult to choose appropriate meaning of the words, confused to use the word based on the context, and confused whith idiomatic expression. The fact that there are still problems and difficulties faced by the students, means that it is necessary to think of a better method to overcome it (Fatiani et al., 2021). Based on the problems and difficulties revealed by previous researcher and this current research, it is seen that the pronouncing or spelling the English words appear in every research. There is certainly differences in spelling and pronouncing English words. It is important to understand both to avoid misunderstanding (Jupri et al., 2022). Other than that, the ”memorizing technique” is still ”considered” as the easiest way for vocabulary mastery. In addition, students usually are lazy to look up a dictionary for the spelling or pronouncing. Difficulties concerning the meaning relates with the understanding that word may have different meaning; it depends on the use of the words. Thus, the mastery of vocabulary in English means a must if the teacher wants the students master the English productive skills and receptive skills. Mastering vocabulary in learning foreign language is an essential point in order to be able to communicate foreign language, particularly English. Carmelya (2020) stated that vocabulary is another important aspect beside the four language skills in language learning. Aniza, Wangi, and Wageyono (2021) also concluded the same idea that English is very important in interlingual communication in order to communicate fluently with foreign people. Thus, vocabulary is essential and important component or aspect in learning foreign language, particularly English, in order to be fluent in the skill competencies such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Sari (2017) explained that vocabulary mastery can be a measurement of students’ understanding in English; thus, mastering English means must master vocabulary. Ramadan (2011) wrote that there are nine essential factors to be considered when teaching advanced vocabulary. First is the meaning. It is important to catch the meaning of the words clearly and to ensure your students understand it correctly by asking questions. Second is the part of speech. Students must know whether a word belongs to a verb, a noun, an adjective, or an adverb in order to use it effectively. Third is pronunciation. This factor can Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 63 be problematic for learners of English because sometimes it is different of how a word is written and how it is pronounced. Forth is the spelling. Spelling also can be difficult in English relates with the problem of pronounciation. Fifth is the unpredictable grammatical patterns of English words such as the regular and irregular singular-plural form or the the regular and irregular verb. Sixth is the connotations meaning that the word may have. Seventh is the situations whether the words are used in formal, informal, regular, or neutral situation or in speech or writing only. Eighth is the realtion of the words with other such as synonyms, antonyms, lexical sets, etc. The last is using collocation to describe things. It is important to highlight these nine essenial factors to students to prevent mistakes in usage later. It is clearly stated in the Curriculum 13 that the Basic Competency (Kompetensi Dasar) states that the first grade students are expected to be able to express meaningful ideas in term of functional text and simple short essay in the form of descriptive and procedure to interact with people in their nearest environment. Thus, the pure purpose of the curriculum is students can master the four English language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). In order to master the skills, the students need to master the vocabulary. In addition, mastering vocabulary is indeed crucial when learning English. The learners need to know the words and understand the meaning and the function as well as the usage. To increase or improve students’ mastery of vocabulary becomes the responsibility of the teacher. As elaborated above, mostly the students feel bored when they learn vocabulary. Nurjida (2018) stated that the students’ feelings toward a learning process will influence their achievement. Thus, the teacher needs to consider the atmoshere when teaching. It is clearly seen that the cause of students lack of vocabulary mastery due to the the same old way of teaching the vocabulary. Giving list of new words, writing down the words on notebook and look for the meaning in the dictionary, listening to the teacher’s explanation of the words, memorizing the words are the common ways of the teacher’s instruction in class. As Bakhsh (2016) mentioned that teachers are responsible for finding out interesting and attractive ways to teach and motivate their students. Therefore, teacher needs a certain method to teach as well as entertain the students during teaching learning. To overcome those problems described above, the teacher needs a particular method to ensure the mastery of vocabulary goes well. Teaching through games is one good choice. Rohmawati (2015) in Aniza, Wangi, and Wageyono (2021) stated that teaching vocabulary through games can help students improve their vocabulary and other language skills. Games can create a fun and relax environment. Games also help the students to learn and enjoy the material at the same time. Games also provide students with interesting, challenging, and enjoyable classroom situation which can give contribution to the comprehending of vocabulary given (Aniza, Wangi, and Wageyono, 2021). In addition, Bakhsh (2016) stated that games are important and useful because not only they are fun, but also they create the desire to communicate and create predictability. Spelling bee game is one method that can be implemented to teach vocabulary mastery. Some previous researches have been conducted such as by Waffa (2017), Nurpitasari and Mayasari (2018), Jusnining (2019), and Haeri (2019). They all applied spelling bee game to increase the vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade or second year students of junior high school. These researches are in line with the subject of this current research. Mcmillan (2012) in Jusnining (2019) stated that spelling bee is a competition in which students are asked to spell the words as well as the sounds of a buzz. While Ningrum and Pusparini (2020) wrote that spelling bee is a game to spell English vocabulary. Spelling bee is a puzzle language game that has not been explained with exact words. Waffa (2017) added that in spelling bee, students recieve clues, such as defenition, pronunciation, class word, and sentence example to answer or to spell the word correctly. It is a complicated thinking process because students need to think carefully of the words intended. While Rahayu (2009) in Sari (2017) wrote that Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 64 spelling bee game is an activity in which participants compete with each other and they are asked to spell words or form words with the correct letters in correct order. This research aimed to increase the students’ vocabulary mastery by applying spelling bee game. As quoted from Zaim (2014) in Carmelya (2020), there are three reasons to increase and develop students’ vocabulary. First, the key to communicate is mastering the vocabulary. For some people, the reason to learn vocabulary of new language is to be able to communicate. Second, comprehending the vocabulary allows the skills develoment of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Third, the more one knows the words, the more one will learn vocabulary to look for the meaning. Therefore, considering the problems experienced by the students of seventh grade at MTs YP AL-Azhar Medan and by referring to the previous researches with the same problems and difficulties, it was decided to conduct the the research of applying spelling bee game to increase the students’ vocabulary mastery. RESEARCH METHOD Research method reflects strategies, processes, or techniques applied by the researcher to collect the data or any evidence found during research implementation to be analyzed later (Rahmawati, 2022). By selecting, preparing, and administering suitable method, then a research can be implemented in order to obtain accurate data. This research was implemented using a Classroom Action Research (CAR). There were several procedures arranged and implemented. In CAR, the research design needs to be carried out in cycle which should be made in a minimum two cycles. Each cycle includes the phase of planning, action, observation, and reflection. Here are the arrangements made for each stage. Planning This phase was the preparation phase before conducting the CAR such as preparing lesson plans, designing the steps to do the research, developing learning materials to be delivered, developing learning media to be used, preparing research instruments for the data collection such as observation sheets, interview sheets, questionnaire sheets, and preparing questions to be given during orientation test and post-test. Action In this phase, actions were designed to be conducted during the research such as: greeted and invited students to pray together before starting the lesson; checked the student's attributes and attendance; gave apperception; gave orientation test (first meeting); explained material about the vocabulary and using spelling bee game (second meeting); provided vocabulary related to the lesson; divided the students into several groups to start spelling bee game; gave students the opportunity to ask questions; and conducted a question and answer session and then give a post-test (last meeting). The teaching procedures using spelling be game in the class during the action phase were adapted from the steps conducted by Aniza, Wangi, and Wageyono (2021) and Haeri (2019). The students were divided into two groups by the teacher. Then, the teacher showed envelopes containing different words to spell. Next, the envelopes were given to the spokeperson and the spokeperson gave the envelopes to the pronouncer. The pronouncer read the word to be spelled slowly and clearly with formal pronunciation. The pronouncer said a sentence containing the word to be spelled. The other students in the group as the speller listened carefully to the pronouncer. They can request to repeat the word if necessary. Whenever the speller already understood the word, then she/he pronounced it, spelled it, and said the word again loudly to be heard by the judge. Each speller was given 30 seconds to spell the word. The judge determined whether the word correctly spelled or not. The speller can say “pass” if she/he cannot spell the word and move to the next word. The speller remained in the game if she/he spelled correct word and eliminated if the spelling was wrong. Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 65 The judge can pronounce the correct spelling of the word. After that, the pronouncer read a new word to the next speller. When the speller left only two persons and one speller misspelled a word, the other speller must spell the word correctly and spell one more word to be the winner of the spelling bee. Observation Observation is one of the instruments in data collection. It integrated and observed the teaching and learning process during the implementing of the research concerning spelling bee game. Observation was necessary to record whether there were obstacles or problems during the learning process in order to provide solutions. Reflection During this phase, all the information gathered during the previous phases is reflected. If problems are still found or the goal is not achieved, then, it is need to continue to the next cycle until the problem can be solved. Actions taken in reflection were decided from the data obtained in the classroom. It was a phase whether to continue to cycle II or not based on planning, action, and observation which have been conducted. Data Collection Data collection technique is a way of taking data from data sources (Sutoyo, 2021). In this research, the data collection used observation, interview, questionnaire and tests which have been prepared as the research instruments to collect the data. Observation is a direct on going activity conducted during action research. Observation is a process that complex, as a process composed of various biological and psychological processes as stated by Sugiyono (2013) in Sutoyo (2021). Here, the observation was used to gather data related with the use of spelling be games, the interaction of teacher and students, the teacher’s performance during teaching-learning, the class situation and the students’ response concerning the teaching vocabulary by using spelling bee game. There were two types of observation. First was the participant observation who took part in the activities of the group being studied in the same way that its members do and being observed. Second was the non-participant observation or passive observer who watched and listened to the group's actions and drew conclusions. Interview is a data collection technique that is important to gather information. Interview is a direct conversation of certain questions using a planned question and answer format. In this research, the interview was prepared with a structured list of questions in order to exchange ideas and as a source of information. Interview to the teacher was done before conducting cycle I and after implementing the research. The questionnaire was conducted before and after the teaching of spelling bee game. The preliminary questionnaire and post- questionnaire were conducted. The questionnaire was conducted to obtain the data indicating students’ motivation in learning English vocabulary. The test is a tool or procedure used to know or measure something in certain atmosphere, which is done in a certain way and the rules that have been determined (Sutoyo, 2021). The test administered in this research was used to collect data of students' English vocabulary mastery in the form of orientation test and post-test. Orientation test was administered before the implementation of spelling bee game while post–test was given at the last meeting of the cycle to check the students’ increasing of vocabulary mastery after using spelling bee game. Data Analysis Data analysis in this research was divided into two categorize: qualitative data and quantitative data. Qualitative data were obtained by administering interview, observation, and questionnaire while quantitative data were obtained from students’ vocabulary score of orientation test and post-test. The test consisted of 25 multiple choices for each cycle. In Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 66 scoring vocabulary test, the range was from 0-100 by counting the correct answer. The correct answer was given 4 point while the wrong answer was given 0. There were 35 students of seventh grade participated in the research. This research was completed within two cycles. Each cycle contained four steps: planning, action, observation, and reflection. Before the cycle I begun, an orientation test was administered to identify the basic knowledge of the students about vocabulary mastery. Cycle I was conducted in four meetings including orientation test. Cycle II was conducted in three meetings. In every last meeting of each cycle, the students did the vocabulary post-test. The Qualitative Data Analysis Observation was carried out to the teacher and students, the situation and the problems or obstacles found during teaching learning process. Observation sheet was used to observe the students’ activities during teaching and learning process such as the students’ behavior. In teaching-learning process by using spelling bee game they felt enjoy and motivated to memorize and learning English vocabulary. It was seen from their enthusiastic and interested during the teaching learning process and the increasing of their understanding and memorizing from their score. The questionnaire was conducted before and after the teaching through spelling bee game. The students’ answer showed that there were differences responses before and after the implementation of spelling bee game. The questionnaire had ten questions which revolted in three categories; they were the students’ response about teaching-learning process, the result of the students’ vocabulary learning activities, and the solution of the problems in vocabulary. The first category was the students’ response about teaching-learning process in learning English vocabulary. The questionnaire result before conducting spelling bee game showed 94.3 % students were motivated in the teaching-learning process. Students’ understanding about English lesson showed that 85.7% of the students understood the teacher’s explanation. It meant that most of the students liked English vocabulary lesson, even though they didn’t master English vocabulary yet. This positive response of liking English achieved by Megawany (2020) that 93% of the students liked to learn English lesson even though the students never used spelling bee game vocabulary lesson. The second category was the result of students’ vocabulary achievement. 51% of the students were not satisfied with their score in vocabulary. Most of the students who were not satisfied with their score were higher than those who were satisfied. Only 34.3% students could answer the teachers’ question about vocabulary material. It can be drawn that most of the students hadn’t reached a good score. The last category concerned the solution of the problem in vocabulary learning. First, there were so many students who didn’t ask their teacher if they had difficulties. It was about 94.3%. It indicated that the students were not actively involved in the teaching-learning process and they were shy and not interested in the lesson. They did not ask their difficulty in understanding the materials. Second, students said that their teacher did not implement the suitable method to solve the difficulties in learning vocabulary. About 31.4% students answered that their teacher’s method could not help them to memorize new vocabulary easily. In addition, 40% students said that their teacher gave exercises to develop students’ ability in vocabulary. In the contrary, about 71.4% could not do the task easily. It meant that most of them faced the problem in vocabulary and thought the method used could not help them in developing their vocabulary because not all of the words were given by the teacher. So that, they hard to do the task. Last, 28.6% of students stated that they had rich vocabulary. It meant that most of students’ ability in vocabulary was still low. After implementing spelling bee game, the students’ questionnaires response showed positive. The questionnaire had fifteen questions which revealed in four categories: the students’ response about teaching learning process, the result of the students’ vocabulary Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 67 learning activity, the solution of problems in vocabulary, and the last was the students’ responses about spelling bee game. The data analysis indicated that 97.1% students responded positive about teaching learning process. It indicated that all of the students were interested in the teaching-learning process through spelling bee game. Regarding students’ motivation in learning vocabulary through spelling bee game, the result showed that 60% of the students understood the teachers’ explanation while the comparison between learning through spelling bee game and usual way, about 94.3% of students agreed that it was better to learn vocabulary through spelling bee game. The second category was the result of students’ vocabulary achievement. The data indicated that 97.1% of students were helped in retaining their vocabularies through spelling bee game. The students felt that the spelling bee game could solve their vocabulary problems easily by using spelling bee game. The students’ score also increased after implementing the spelling bee game and their vocabulary was enriched by spelling bee game. The third category regarding the solution of the problem in vocabulary learning showed about 32 students or 91.4% said that the teacher gave them an opportunity to ask their difficulties in vocabulary. It indicated that all of students were actively involved in the teaching-learning process. The last category asked the students’ response about spelling bee game. The students were asked about their feeling in learning vocabulary through spelling bee game. The result indicated that 100% students agreed that they felt better in learning vocabulary through spelling bee game. They said spelling bee game is suitable to be implemented in teaching-learning process of vocabulary. They felt more understand the vocabulary easily and they liked learning vocabulary through spelling bee game. The students also felt that spelling bee game facilitated their vocabulary learning. It meant that they agreed spelling bee game helped them in retaining their vocabulary since they could remember both their previous vocabulary and the new vocabulary easily. Interview to the teacher was done before conducting cycle I and after implementing the research. The teacher’s answer showed that there were differences before and after the implementation of the method. The teacher felt satisfied with the improvement made by the students on vocabulary mastery through spelling bee game. The teacher also was motivated to use spelling bee game because it could facilitate the students in retaining their vocabulary. The Quantitative Data Analysis The quantitative data were taken from the result of the test given to the students. Cycle I was completed within four meetings including orientation test on the first meeting. On the last meeting, the students were given post-test. Cycle II was completed within three meetings and on the last meeting, the students were also given post-test. The data were taken from the test given to students on orientation test during the first meeting in cycle I and on the last meeting of each cycle. Based on the result of each meeting and the test in every cycle which had been conducted, it was found that the students’ score kept increasing. The students’ mean score increased from the orientation test, post-test cycle I until post-test cycle II. The orientation test was conducted as the preliminary test administered before conducting the treatment aiming to identify the students’ prior competence and problems in vocabulary. In orientation test, there were 25 questions, consisted of 15 questions in multiple choices and 10 questions of matching. The mean score of orientation test was 64.91 (25.7 %). There were only 9 students out of 35 students who got the score above the Minimum Mastery Criterion or so called the Kriteria Ketuntasan Minimal (KKM) meanwhile the other 26 students were below that criterion. It was concluded that the students’ vocabulary mastery of seventh grade students was still very low. This situation also was experienced by Megawany (2020) that her pre-test analysis result showed that the average score was 51.7 which meant the quality of the students’ vocabulary mastery was still poor before giving treatment. It was categorized as poor. Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 68 In the post-test of cycle I of this current research, the students’ score increased. The mean score of the class increased to 75.02 (57.14%) which there were 20 students who passed the KKM. In post-test cycle II, the students’ mean score increased more. It was 86.62 (88.57%). More than 50% students increased their vocabulary by using spelling bee game at the end of cycle II meeting. The students’ mean score in post-test cycle 1 was higher than the orientation test. The post-test cycle II was higher than the post-test cycle I. Based on the result of the students’ vocabulary mean score, there was increasing of 62.87 % of students’ mean score from the students’ vocabulary achievement in cycle I to the students’ vocabulary achievement in cycle II. The increasing mean score from cycle I to cycle II could determine that they showed progress of mastering vocabulary through spelling bee game. The same achievement also proved by Megawany (2020). Most of the students were better to memorize the list of vocabularies fluently with a good spelling after being treated by spelling bee game. The mean score of post-test was 79.3; thus, it could be seen that students’ vocabulary mastery was in a good category. It can be seen that the students in this current research also experienced increasing score of vocabulary mastery by applying spelling bee game. The improvement can be measured by the difference mean score of orientation test, post-test cycle I, and post-test cycle II. Before receiving the treatment, most of the students did not pass the KKM but after receiving the spelling bee game treatment, they showed increasing score in mastering vocabulary. RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION In term of quantitative data analysis, the finding of the research proved that spelling bee game can increase students’ vocabulary mastery. It can be seen from the increasing of the students’ mean score from orientation to the post-test of cycle II. The students’ mean score in orientation test was 64.91. After given the treatment of spelling bee game, the mean score increased to 75.02 in post-test cycle I. Then, it was decided to continue to cycle II and obtained the students’ mean score was 86.62 in post-test cycle II. It passed the KKM (75) as the criterion of success. Below table shows the quantitative data description. Table 1 The Data of Test Result No. Cycle Mean Percentage (%) 1. Orientation test 64.91 25.07 2. Post-test cycle I 75.02 57.14 3. Post-test cycle II 86.62 88.57 The mean of students’ score in the post-test cycle II was the highest. Therefore, it could be concluded that the students’ vocabulary mastery by using spelling bee game increased from 64.91 to 86.62. From the table above, the result showed the increasing of the students’ score from the orientation test to the post-test cycle I and from post-test cycle I to post-test cycle II. In the orientation test, the students who passed the KKM were 9 students out of 35 students. In post-test cycle I, the students who got score up to 75 or passed KKM were 20 students out of 35 students. In post-test cycle II, the students passed KKM 75 were 31 students out of 35 students. The increasing from orientation test to the post-test cycle I was about 32.07% and the increasing from post-test cycle I to post-test cycle II was about 31.43%. Seeing from data provided in above table about the test of vocabulary mastery, it can be concluded that the students’ vocabulary mastery obtained greater percentage at the end of cycle II after being taught using spelling bee game compared with the percentage of orientation test that obtained before conducting the research of spelling bee game. As stated previously that one factor caused the students lacking of vocabulary mastery is the same old way of teaching the vocabulary. A monotonous method or technique or Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 69 strategy implemented by the teacher. The students are rare of using game in class to master the vocabulary. In terms of qualitative data analysis, the research findings showed that the students response were positive. The questionnaire result showed that the implementation of spelling bee in the teaching-learning process increase the students’ mood and atmosphere. It could be seen from the mean of pre-questionnaire was 62.53% and the mean of post-questionnaire was 87.8% which increased about 25.27%. Observation data also showed that the students were more active and participated in the class activity. They engaged in conducting the spelling bee game where they learn to spell and pronounce the English words and not only to memorize them. The result of interview with the English teacher also showed positive responses after the implementation of spelling bee game in teaching vocabulary since it could be an alternative method to be used in teaching vocabulary. The findings in this research also reflect the previous research concerning the spelling bee game to increase the vocabulary mastery. As Megawany (2020) found that spelling bee game was able to assist students to personalize their learning vocabulary and it was an effective way when the students tried to solve problems of vocabulary that have no specific right answers. It was proved quantitatively by the development of the pre-test mean score from 51.7 to 79.3 in post-test and the T-test value (8.14) was higher than t-table value (1.699127). Aniza, Wangi, and Wageyono (2021) also proved that it teaching English vocabulary using spelling bee game was effective and gave remarkable progress for students. It was proved by the analysis of T-test (12.09) compared to T-table (2.036). The results showed there was a significant difference between teaching vocabulary using spelling bee game and without spelling be game. Qomariyah and Nafisah (2020) also concluded the same result that spelling bee game affected in vocabulary achievement. During the teaching- learning, the students felt more interested in learning vocabulary using spelling bee game than before knowing this game. The students thought that this game was very useful which lead them to response positive. Nurpitasari and Mayasari (2018) also added their research resulted that spelling bee game was effective to increase students’ mastery of vocabulary by calculating the post-test score and conducting T-test. It showed that T-test was higher than T- table (6.18>2.69). Summing up of all previous research findings and this current research, it can be concluded that spelling bee game are able to increase the students’ vocabulary mastery particularly the spelling and pronouncing of the words. The students also feel more motivated and enthusiasm in mastering the English words. Spelling bee game is considered effective and fun in vocabulary practice since the intention of using game in teaching is to create interesting, enjoyable and challenging material in order to introduce new English vocabulary. The students are not only asked to memorize the words, but also to speak the words in correct spelling and pronunciation. In addition, they also develop the understanding of using the word class and the meaning in sentences. CONCLUSION After conducting a classroom action research on the seventh grade students of MTs YP Al-Azhar Medan, it can be concluded that spelling bee game can increase the students’ vocabulary and can help them to remember and keep their vocabulary stored in their memory. There are three evidences concerning this. First, relate with the students’ mean score. There were 88.57% who passed the KKM on post-test of cycle II; thus, it achieved the criteria of success. Second, the questionnaire result showed that the implementation of spelling bee game obtained positive responses from the students in the teaching-learning process. It could be seen from the mean of pre-questionnaire was 62.53% and the mean of post-questionnaire was 87.8%. Third, the result of interview with the English teacher showed that the teacher Rahmawati & Harahap Spelling Bee Games to Increase ……….. JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, January 2023. Vol.11, No.1 | 70 gave positive responses after the implementation of spelling bee game in teaching vocabulary since it could be an alternative way to be used in vocabulary mastery. Spelling bee game also can enhance the vocabulary mastery while learning new words. REFERENCES Aniza, G.H., Wangi, W., Wageyono. (2021). The Effect of Spelling Bee Games to Students’ Vocabulary Mastery. LUNAR (Language and Art), 5(1), 194-202 https://ejournal.unibabwi.ac.id/index.php/lunar/article/view/1465/979 Bakhsh, S.A. (2016). 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