This study is based on the important of grammar. Grammar is important to be studied because when communicate with other people we should use correct grammatical sentences, but in fact the students’ motivation in learning grammar is low. It is caused by several factors such as there are some tenses in English but Indonesian language system just has pattern of sentence, it means there are no tenses in Indonesia language system. In this research, the researcher used song lyrics to improve students’ understanding on present perfect tense. The researcher focus on present perfect tense because most of students confused in differing simple past tense and present perfect tense. Te researcher used song because song as one of teaching media which was familiar with our life and most of students are interest with it. Based on the problems above, this research was done to answer the following questions: (1) How is the implementation of song to improve students’ understanding on present perfect tense? (2) How can song lyrics improve students’ understanding on present perfect tense? The purposes are: (1) To describe the implementation of song to improve students’ understanding on present perfect tense. (2) To identify the improvement of students’ understanding on present perfect tense using song lyrics.
This study is a classroom action research that was done in four cycles. The researcher used test and observation checklist 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 perfect tense.
Result of the study shows that by using song lyrics in teaching present perfect tense at the eight grade of MTs Matholibul Huda Jepara in The Academic Year of 2009/2010 can improve students’ understanding. 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 song lyrics, 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 5.9, first cycle was 7.1, second cycle was 7.9, and the third cycle was 8,4.
The result of this study is expected to be information for English teachers in teaching grammar.