Learning English involves the mastery of four language skills. They are listening, reading, writing and speaking. Beside it, the learners must learn about the structure of the sentence (grammar), because without these structures it is difficult to make comprehensible sentences. In this research, the researcher used Tic Tac Toe game to improve students’ understanding on simple past tense. The researcher focused on simple past tense because most of students cannot distinguish simple past and simple present in sentence. The researcher used game because every one likes game. Game also one of teaching techniques to solve students’ boredom when teaching and learning process. The objectives of the study are:
1. To describe the implementation of Tic Tac Toe game to improve students' understanding on simple past tense.
2. To find out the improvement of students' understanding on simple past tense by using Tic Tac Toe game.
The subjects of this study were the students of VIII C of MTs Nahjatus Sholihin Kragan Rembang in the academic year of 2010/2011. The number of the subjects was 36 students. This research is a classroom action research. It was done through three cycles. The researcher used documentation, test and observation to collect the data. The researcher used descriptive quantitative to analyze the data. Statistic analysis is used to analyze the data about the result of observation and the result of test on simple past tense.
Result of the study showed that by using Tic Tac Toe game in teaching simple past tense at the eighth grade of MTs Nahjatus Sholihin in The Academic Year of 2010/2011 can improve students’ understanding on it. This successfulness can be seen from the result of students’ average score and good responses by students. The result after getting all of the treatment using Tic Tac Toe game, the students’ average score increased in line with the increase of the students’ achievement in each cycle. Students’ average score from the pre cycle was 5.83, first cycle was 7.58, second cycle was 7.88, and the third cycle was 8,66.
Finally the result of this research showed that students’ understanding improved in each cycle after they were taught using Tic Tac Toe game. It was signed by their improvements of each result test.