The background of the study in this research is the students still have difficulties in understanding the vocabulary. The teacher still uses conventional methods; the teacher only translates the words and monotone, so the students are easy to get bored. To improve the students’ understanding, teacher can use Pictorial Story as teaching aid to help the teacher in teaching learning process.
The problem of this research can be stated as follow:
1. How is Pictorial Story implemented to improve students’ understanding on English vocabulary at the Fourth grade of SDN 01 Mulyoharjo?
2. How high does Pictorial Story affect students’ understanding on English vocabulary at the Fourth grade of SDN 01 Mulyoharjo?
The objectives of this study are (1) to describe how Pictorial Story is applied in teaching English vocabulary, (2) to investigate a significant effect of using Pictorial Story as medium to teach English vocabulary.
The study was conducted at SDN 01 Mulyoharjo Jepara in the academic year 2010/2011. The subject of this study was the students of fourth graders in class IVA. The number of the subject was thirty three. The design of research that used was classroom action research. This research conducted pre-cycle, and three cycles in classroom action research.
The techniques which were used to collect the data are observation, test, and interview. In the pre-cycle, the teacher uses conventional method. The teaching learning process in cycle 1 until cycle 3 in classroom action research, the teacher introduces the words by using Pictorial Story, gives some quiz and achievement test.
In this research, the researcher analyzed the result from observation and achievement test from each cycle. In the pre-test, the average of the students’ achievement was 57,4. In the first cycle there are about 64% or many of students joined the class, and the average of the students’ achievement was 64,7. In the second cycle there are about 74% or almost majority of the students joined in the class, the average of the students’ achievement was 71,8. In the third cycle there are 80% or majority of students joined the class, the average of the students’ achievement was 75,7.
Based on the result of the analysis, the researcher can conclude that the use of Pictorial Story is recommended for the English teacher, especially for elementary school teachers to attract the students’ interest and to improve their knowledge in learning English.