THE USE OF PUZZEL.ORG TO IMPROVE VOCABULARY MASTERY OF THE EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMPN 1 KARANGAWEN

Hidayah, Siti Nur. 2022. “ The use of Puzzel Org. to Improve Vocabulary Mastery
of The Eighth Grade Students at SMP N 1Karangawen”. Final Project, English
Education Study Program, Faculty of Language and Arts Education, Universitas
PGRI Semarang.
Advisor I: Th. Cicik Sophia Budiman, S.S., M.Pd., Advisor II: Dr. AB. Prabowo
KA, M.Hum.
Keywords : vocabulary, Crossword Puzzles, young learners.
Mastering vocabulary is very important thing in language acquisition. This
research was focused at investigating the implementation of crossword puzzles
game in improving students’ English vocabulary mastery at eighth grade of SMP
N 1 Karangawen. The objectives of this research were to find out the result of
students’ vocabulary mastery before and after applying crossword puzzles game
method; and to find out whether to was any significant difference of students’
achievement in their vocabulary understanding who were taught before using
crossword puzzles games and after using crossword puzzles game method.
Crossword puzzle is a game that you have to think about carefully which is
consist of words that written in space in a grid. To achieve the aim of this
research, it used pre-experimental design. This research was conducted at eighth
grade of SMP N 1 Karangawen. The number as sample was 34 students. The data
was gained from pre-test and post-test. The instrument of this research used a
crossword puzzles test on the web. Then the data was analyzed by using t-test
formula in SPSS program to find out the significant difference on students’
English vocabulary mastery before and after applying crossword puzzles method.
The scores result of the data analysis of students’ pre-test showed that the students
still lack of vocabulary. It can be seen from the score percentage which only got
70.3 on pre-test. On the other hand, in post-test, the students’ score increased after
applying crossword puzzles method. The score percentage gained 87.6 which
mean the score category was good.
Based on the calculation by using formulas, the value of t-test was 17.053.
Meanwhile, t-table value at level significance was 2.0345. According to the result,
it can be concluded that t-test was higher than t-table (17.053 > 2.0345). It showed
that there is significant effect of the students’ English vocabulary mastery after
they received crossword puzzles treatment. The main factor affecting this
improvement was the students’ interest in teaching learning process through
Crossword Puzzle Games. Based on this data, the researcher stated that
Crossword Puzzles gives beneficial to students’ in learning English vocabulary.