This study is based on the importance of grammar. Grammar is important to learn because correct grammatical sentences should be used to communicate with other people in order to make the meaning clear, but in fact the students’ understanding in learning grammar is low. It is caused by several factors. One of them is there are no tenses in Indonesia language system. In this research, the researcher used flashcard to improve students’ understanding on present continuous tense. The researcher focuses on present continuous tense because most of students were confused in differing simple present tense and present continuous tense. The researcher used flashcard because flashcard as one of teaching media is an interesting aid in teaching to activate the students in learning process and most of them are interested. Based on the problems above, this research was done to answer the following questions: (1) How is the implementation of flashcard in teaching Present Continuous Tense? (2) How is students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tenses before the use of flashcard? (3) How is students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tenses after the use of flashcard? (4) How can flashcard improve students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tense? The purposes of this research are: (1) To describe the implementation of flashcard in teaching Present Continuous Tense. (2)To find out students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tenses before the use of flashcard. (3) To find out students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tenses after the use of flashcard. (4) To identify the improvement of students’ understanding on Present Continuous Tense.
This study is a classroom action research that was done in four cycles. The researcher used test and observation to collect the data. To analyze the data, descriptive quantitative analysis is used; it is to present the result of study in the form of descriptive explanation. Statistic analysis is used to analyze the data about the improvement of students’ understanding on present continuous tense.
Result of the study shows that the use of flashcard in teaching present continuous tense at the seventh grade of MTs YAMIDA Grobogan in The Academic Year of 2009/2010 can improve students’ understanding. This finding successfully can be seen from the result of students’ average score and good responses. The result after getting all of the treatment using flashcard, the students’ achievement average score increased in line with the increase of the students’ achievement average score in each cycle. Students’ average score at the pre cycle is 5.03, first cycle is 6.02, second cycle is 7, and the third cycle is 8,5.
The result of this study is helpful information for English teachers in teaching grammar.