Improving Students’ Vocabulary Mastery Through Bingo Games

This research was aimed to improve the vocabulary mastery of students through Bingo Game. This research was an action research study. The place of the research was at SDK Petra Madiun, East Java, Indonesia. The subject of the research was fourth grade students of SDK Petra Madiun, consisting 30 students. It was done in two cycles. The researcher did some steps for each cycle. They were planning, action, observation, and reflection. The data were collected by using test, observation, and interview. Furthermore, the data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. It was compared between the scores of pre test (before implementing Bingo game) and post test (after implementing Bingo game). The research findings showed that vocabulary mastery of most students improved after Bingo Game was used in the teaching and learning process. It was indicated by the increase of the mean of students’ vocabulary score in the pre-test and post-test (67.22 to 80.57). The students’ involvement and classroom interaction during the implementation of the game improved. It was showed by students’ enthusiasm during the game. They tried to be the first winner and raised their competitiveness among them. In addition, the implementation of Bingo Game and the complementary actions were successful to help the students memorize and understand new words easily. In conclusion, the students’ vocabulary mastery improved through the implementation of Bingo Game. Article History Received: 10-06-2020 2 Revised: 18-08-2020 Published:.03-03-2021 2017


Introduction
Mastering English vocabulary is much needed to learn more about English. Without having proportional English vocabulary, the students will get great deal of difficulties in using English, both written and orally. Vocabulary mastery is the complete knowledge or great skill to comprehend and to apply stock of words of a language with their meaning might use which is differentiated according to person, class or profession (Gardner, 2010).
Based on the pre observation, the researcher found some problems of teaching vocabulary in fourth grade students of SDK Petra Madiun, consisting of 30 students, as indicated by the following indicators: The traditional method was usually used by looking for difficult words, finding the meaning in the dictionary and memorizing the words. They were lazy to memorize the unfamiliar words that they heard or read in the text. They had difficulties in understanding or comprehending the meanings of unfamiliar words and memorizing new words. They had low vocabulary mastery. The students could not master the competency because they ddi not have enough vocabulay (Tri Dharma, 2017).
The class activities depended on text book and LKS (Lembar Kerja Siswa), so that the lesson did not run effectively and often made both students and teacher get bored with the lesson and unmotivated to learn.Also, the students had low participation in English class.
Moreover, some teachers of elementary students only delivered the material without using media (Qomariah, Permana, Nafisah, 2016).
Those problems must be solved because it could be difficult for students to continue to the next level or grade. They also had low motivation in learning English because they thought English was difficult. Furthermore, they had boredom in English class. The students could not pronounce the word correctly. The students tended to pronounce the letters of the words; the students found difficulties in spelling the words.The students did not pay attention during teaching learning process. Some students were passive. The smart students were dominant in joining class activities. Some students also created a joke, made noise and disturbed the others.
The problems faced by the students were caused by some factors that may come from the students, the teacher, media, or technique used inteaching learning process: (1) The teacher played less attention to teaching vocabulary. (2) The teacher used the conventional method in teaching the materials. There was no variation or other teaching media used by her. There was also no handbook or LKS (Lembar Kerja Siswa). The students took a note all the time. The only teaching media was whiteboard. (3) The students assumed that English was a difficult subject, especially in memorizing and pronouncing the words.
Bingo Game can be used as one of interesting activities to review their vocabulary during the lesson. It can attract the students" attention and their involvement in the teaching and learning process. Students can learn how to work and cooperate as a group and also learn how to appreciate each other. Bingo Game can create an enjoyable environment. Students can enjoy fun and joyful learning. Bingo Game can help students revise their vocabulary and recalling something that happened in the game. It may help students remember the language connected with it.
Considering the problems in mastering vocabulary encountered by the students above, the researcher proposes a teaching technique of using Bingo games in teaching vocabulary as a solution. Bingo Game is a game for the whole class that encourages students to study and review their vocabulary words. There are some reasons why the researcher chooses Bingo Game as the media to improve their vocabulary mastery.
Bingo games are the word game that consists of picture and word card. Bingo games are the effective way to teach vocabulary. According to Finch (2002) vocabulary Bingo game is an effective way to help students review vocabulary words as well as learn new words. This activity uses sight-word recognition by allowing students to match the correct word with picture. In addition Bingo game is an ideal tool in assessing and teaching English especially vocabulary (Gardner, 2010).
This game is very interesting and may stimulate the activity of the students in the class. According to Kavaliuskiene (2006), students can make Bingo cards by dividing a piece of paper into five rows and five columns or four rows and four columns (depending on the command of the teacher) with one free space box where students can determine the position of their free space box. All vocabularies and definitions are written on strips of paper and put in a container. Caller pulls the strip from the container, then read the definition; check the word from the list. They will write the correct answer according to the column of numbers or objects that definition read out by thecaller. Gordon (2005) says the first group to get Bingo wins the game. A bingo card looks much like an un-filled crossword puzzle with filled and blank squares. Each sub-game is completed when a participant who has filled in all blank squares calls out "bingo".The bingo card can also easily be made using Microsoft word. Select the Tables option on the menu bar at the top of the page. Select Insert, then Table, and identify that you want four columns and four rows. Designate the center box as "free". Add spaces in each row of the table to make room for students to write the words.
Thus, it can be concluded that Bingo games are kinds of word game which consist of card instruction which is designed and created to perform and enjoy activity restricted by rules where the player to be the winner. It aims as a tool in assessing and teaching English especially vocabulary. It is hoped that by playing Bingo games, the students can feel fun, relaxed and enjoyable, and they can memorize the vocabulary in different way. It makes the teaching-learning process more attractive. The objective of this research is to identify whether bingo game can improve students' vocabulary mastery or not

Research Method
The research method used in this study was Classroom Action Research (CAR). The subject of the research was fourth grade students of SDK Petra Madiun, consisting 30 students. The definition of CAR based on Hopkin (1993) is "Action research is a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants (teacher, students or participants, for example) in social (including educational) situation in order to improve the rationality and justice of (a) their own social or educational practices; (b) their understanding of these practices; and (c) the situations (and institutions) in which these practices are carried out." In order to achieve the purpose of study, there are several steps that would be applied in action research. Each step has five stages: planning, actions, observations, reflection; and revised of planning (Hopkins, 1993). Techniques of collecting data are test, observation and interview. Meanwhile, technique of analyzing data is done as by computing the students' correct answers and calculating the students' score on written test.

Finding and Discussion
After implementing Bingo game, the researcher got some results dealing with both vocabulary mastery and class situation. The results are presented in the presents the students' improvement in vocabulary mastery. Before action, it was shown that the students had problem in vocabulary mastery. The students' mean score of pre-test did not pass the passing grade that was 60. After the implementation of Bingo games in cycle 1, it was found that the students got improvement in their mean score, although there were only two indicators that fulfill the passing grade. The two indicators improved through some treatments that were conducted by the researcher: (a) The researcher used procedures in play Bingo games; the researcher asked the students to match the word with the picture in Bingo card. The students could match and pronounce the word with the picture correctly. It means that the students could memorize the meaning of words easily through Bingo games. (b) Aspect of using the words could be reached through giving clues by the researcher to the students from the picture in Bingo card. The researcher gave clues or simple sentence to tell the means of the picture. By using this way, the students felt fun and motivated them to learn vocabulary with correct pronunciation In the first cycle the researcher still found some weaknesses of vocabulary aspects and students' motivation. Some weaknesses of vocabulary aspects are: (a) the students' ability in pronunciation was still low, most of students still pronounced the words incorrectly.; (b) the students were poor in spelling such as they wrote as they sounded the words out. The weaknesses of students' motivation are: (a) some students were still passive; (b) the smart students still dominant in joining class activities; (c) some students still disturbed the teaching learning process by making a joke, they spoke aloud when they make a joke.
The problems that still happen in the first cycle caused by some factors related to teaching and learning process in the case of vocabulary mastery and motivation: (a) the researcher was less in drilling the students so they have not gotten yet into the habitual of pronouncing the English words; (b) the students were still strange with English letter; (c) the researcher were less in giving spelling exercise; (d) the researcher found difficulties in managing the class.
The researcher prepared two meetings for the next cycle.In this cycle the researcher as the teacher used different topic in accordance with the material in the school. The researcher revised the next action plan to overcome the problems that appeared in the first cycle. In cycle two, the researcher would focus on how to make all students to be more active, to keep their enthusiasm, and to improve the students' ability on pronunciation and spelling. The researcher used different strategy: (a) the researcher would give more activity to practice students' spelling; (b) the researcher would change the group work into individual work; (c) the researcher also gave more activity to practice the students' pronunciation; (d) the researcher would point the students who were still passive and motivated them to be confidents in answering or giving opinion; (e) the researcher would control the students who liked to disturb the lesson or create a joke in the classroom by admonish them strictly using positive admonish and forced them to respond the activity more so that they were active in positive way.
Then, after cycle 2, the finding showed that the score of the students' vocabulary mastery increased. Almost all vocabulary mastery indicators scores fulfilled the passing grade of each indicator. From the improvement, it can be seen that the students' vocabulary mastery was improved by Bingo games. Bingo games gave students chances to explore their knowledge or vocabulary related to the topic. The use of bingo games can be used effectively to improve the students' vocabulary mastery through some stages: (a) Pictures, pronunciation and motor processing in bingo games technique are used to support memorizing process and helpanchor words in the long term memory. It becomes more long lasting when words were repeated often enough. (b) Imitating the teacher as a model or native speaker can help students learn pronunciation easier. (c) Other types of bingo games (spelling bingo game) can cover the spelling practice. It helps students spell the words easier and more fun. (d) Giving clue of the picture in bingo card is stated for introducing the word use.
The second finding is the students' motivation improved. The students' motivation improved through some treatments that were conducted by the researcher: (1) The researcher used colorful pictures which were changeable to keep the students' focusing. (2) the researcher used many types of Bingo games such as picture Bingo, word Bingo, and spelling Bingo which were designed with colorful cartoon pictures (3) The researcher gave more attention to the passive students through point them to answer the questions. (4) The researcher gave admonish strictly to the students who were always made a joke.
After implementing this research, the students show a good response toward Bingo games. It can be seen from their participation. The teaching learning process showed that their participation improved. The improvement could be seen in their behavior. The students became happy and enthusiastic during teaching learning process.All the students were ready in the class when the teacher entered the students actively answer teacher's questions. The students were more active in teaching learning process. Bingo games created fun learning situation, therefore it either made the students enjoyed and became more involved in learning vocabulary. In other words, Bingo games reduced the students' anxiety in learning and increased learning motivation. The competition in Bingo games could stimulate and encourage them to participate in the activity since naturally they would to beat with other teams.
Another support is proposed by Doff, Adrian (2010), he states: Bingo Games can enhance learning by enabling learners to take responsibility for reviewing, organizing, and consolidating existing knowledge and material; understanding its basic structure; filling in the gaps; finding additional meanings, and reformulating knowledge into new conceptual frameworks. Also, In Bingo Games, students are engaged in active learning, not passive learning. For example, when using bingo games, the students are working cooperatively and following the procedure, actively asking each other questions, responding, correcting mistakes, and providing feedback. Active learning has been shown to be more effective in promoting student achievement as opposed to simply watching and listening to the teacher (passive learning) (Lewis, Michael and Hill, Jimmie, 2007).
Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that teaching vocabulary through Bingo games improved their motivation. The interactive and light-hearted medium of a Bingo game can provide motivation for study and enhance learning by the students. It is also supported by the research finding from Yeni Kristiyana (2014) entitled Improving Students' Vocabulary Mastery through Bingo Games to Elementary School Students. The result of the research showed that Bingo games are the appropriate method that can improve students' vocabulary mastery and students' motivation in learning English. The improvement can be seen from the result score of pretest and post test. The mean score of pretest was 44.26 while the mean score of post test in cycle one increased up to 67.22 and increased to 80.57 in cycle two. The improvement of students' motivation during the teaching learning process also gives positive contribution. The students become more active and enthusiastic in learning process. Teaching vocabulary through Bingo games can decrease the boredom and it also raises the students' participation, activities, and interaction in teaching learning process.
Meanwhile, based on the research conducted by Amalia (2015). The result shows that the students' vocabulary mastery improve from cycle 1 until cycle 2. In precycle, the average of students' vocabulary score is 64.51, in cycle 1 the average of students' vocabulary score is 73.74 and in the cycle 2 of the students'vocabulary score is 83.69. Also, the students can understand and memorize the vocabulary easily.

Conclusion
The research findings showed that vocabulary mastery of most students improved after Bingo Game was used in the teaching and learning process. It was indicated by the increase of the mean of students' vocabulary score in the pre-test and post-test (67.22 to 80.57). The students' involvement and classroom interaction during the implementation of the game were improved. It was showed by students' enthusiasm during the game. They tried to be the first winner and raised their competitiveness among them. In addition, the implementation of Bingo Game and the complementary actions were successful to help the students memorize and understand new words easily.

Suggestion
Having concluded the result of the research, the researcher would like to propose some suggestions for the teacher, the students, the school and other researcher. For the teacher, she/he can use Bingo games in teaching in order to make the students more motivated, attractive and active in joining the lesson. It is important to the teacher to create an enjoyable situation of teaching learning process in order to make them eager to improve their English. For the student, they should be more discipline in time in order that the teaching learning process using bingo games can start and finish on time. They should be more confident when giving or answer the question. The students also should improve their cooperation when doing task in group. Then for the school, it should support English teachers to improve their teaching quality. It can be done by providing facilities that support the teaching and learning process. The school also should provide handbook for the students in order to help students easier to learn. It is also to manage the time easily. Finally, for other researcher, it is expected that the findings of this study will be used as an additional reference for further research in different context which will give valuable contribution to teaching and learning English.