purposeful teaching of grammar is viewed vital to master the target language so that

grammar, either directly or indirectly, is taught in almost all levels of education.

acquire the four language skills. To realize it, he or she should master the language

components, i.e. vocabulary and pronunciation and the system of operating these skills

and components, i.e. grammar. Without grammar mastery, it will be difficult to use the

language appropriately in appropriate situations.

is tenses. However, most EFL learners, whose mother tongue does not belong to the Indo-

European family, find tenses difficult. The major reason is that the languages not included

in the Indo-European family, particularly in the Germanic groups have only the concept

of time but not tenses, while English has both time and tenses. Muhsin (2016) stated that

found that the students continuously committed errors in using the simple present tense.

Most of them seemed to misunderstand why some sentences must use auxiliaries, is, am,

and are instead of auxiliaries do and does. I always encountered erroneous sentences they

produced like *My father is work in the office, *We are not study in the classroom, and

*He sweep the floor every morning. Many of them were also confused in determining

which subjects of sentences should use auxiliaries do and which ones should use does.

What is more, my trials to enable them to avoid such errors by explicitly explaining

related rules and analyzing the errors they committed seem fruitless.

the explicit grammatical rules instruction does not work well for students at their level of

visual means for teaching tenses to young EFL learners is flashcards. Flashcards are cards

on which words or phrases or sentences are printed with or without pictures. Cross (1991)

defined a flashcard as a simple picture on a piece of paper or card, which is probably the

most widely visual aids in language teaching. To make them have higher positive effects

on students' visual learning process, the words and the pictures in flashcards need to be

printed clear and colorful. They can be used for any subjects, and for many students using

flashcards is a fun way to learn new vocabulary and grammar (Gelfgren, 2012). Some

previous studies (Widyarini, 2008; Nadziroh, 2010) revealed that flashcards are effective

to develop students’ vocabulary. Another study (Hartono, 2018) revealed that flashcards

use of flashcards improve the third graders’ mastery of the simple resent tense at Permai

Elementary School, Jakarta? (2) How does the use of flashcards improve the third graders

at Permai Elementary School, Jakarta? This action research can hopefully shed light on

the way and the benefits of using flashcards in young learners’ EFL classrooms.

The simple present expresses habitual or everyday activities, events or situations. The

events or situations exist now, have existed in the past, and probably will exist in the

classroom and Indonesia consists of more than 17,000 islands.

verb conjugation, verb form, and verb function. These three elements can be very

challenging for most EFL learners, especially if they still have limited knowledge about

language structure. Therefore, the teaching tenses to primary school students might not

be the same as teaching them to adults. EFL primary school students have less proficiency

and knowledge about English tenses. Therefore, teachers have to be more creative in

teaching them. There are many ways to improve students' mastery in the simple present

tense, and one of them is by using flashcards. Male (2018) stated that the use of flashcards

as a media can be effectively used in teaching grammar. Also, if used appropriately,

without pictures Kasihani (2007) defined flashcard as cards measure A4 papers amount

to 30 to 50 cards and every card contains a picture and name of the picture. Additionally,

Halliwel (1992) defined flashcards as a kind of card contains pictures, words, instructions

that are arranged in various combinations.

teaching, using flashcards can be a fun way to learn vocabulary, vocabulary, and

grammar. They can also be used to facilitate reading, discussion, role play, and quiz

(Gelfgren, 2012). Thus, these media can effectively help English teachers to present

learning materials in various ways of learning and teaching activities. They also help

Joklova (2009) posited that “The picture is used in a more meaningful and “real-life

communicative‟ way than being just displayed for students to say what they can see. This

will probably have a greater impact on the retention of a piece of vocabulary again and

also subsequently on the ability to use it in communication” (p. 19). Pictures do not only

bring images of reality but also present fun element in the class (Hill, 1990).

young learners are interested in something unique and colorful. That's why the use of

visual aids such as pictures, charts, and flashcards is highly recommended in the teaching-

learning process. The study of Cuban (2001) indicated that 1% of what is learned is from

the sense of taste, 1.5% of what is learned is from the sense of touch, 3.5% of what is

learned is from the logic of smell, 11% of what is educated is from the logic of hearing

and 83% of what is learned is from the sense of sight. Studying with visual media is

effective, enjoyable and interesting to young learners.

teaching process” (p.143). In this study, the investigated teaching context or the action

implemented is the teaching of the simple present tense by using flashcards.

plan, action, observe, and reflect. In details, the 14 steps described by Pardede (2019)

were followed in the implementation. During the implementation, quantitative and

qualitative data were collected to see whether flashcards could increase third-grade

students' mastery of simple present tense and how the process takes place. The

quantitative data was the students’ pre-test and post-test scores, and the qualitative data

were collected through observation and a questionnaire.

reflection. In the planning step, I designed the lesson plan, flashcards, pretest, posttest,

observation sheet, and question items for the questionnaire. The action step referred to

the application of the entire planned activities. To guarantee its effectiveness, the

observation assisted by the teacher-collaborator was conducted. The data obtained

through the tests, observation, and a questionnaire were then evaluated in the reflection

phase. With the teacher-collaborator, the results of the reflection have done to trace the

effectiveness and success of the action implemented. The effectiveness consisted of the

strengths and weakness of the flashcards and the students’ mastery of the simple present

tense as measured by the tests and percentage of the achieved success criterion.

score of the class pretest is 36.93. It is very far below the Standard Minimum Criteria

(SMC), i.e., 75 points.

Table 1

before the action research is shown in Table 2. The table, which recapitulates the students'

responses to the questionnaire administered soon after they took the pretest, shows that

the majority of them disliked learning English and thought the simple present tense was

uninteresting. They also thought the learning activity, i.e. listening to the teacher's lecture

did not help them master the tense.

Activities" The first session was not very conducive yet, because some students seemed

uninterested in the flashcards. According to the observer, the students sitting in the back

rows could not clearly see the words and pictures on the flashcards. She suggested the

researcher prepare flashcards containing bigger fonts and pictures in the following

sessions. Based on this suggestion, the flashcards I used in the next sessions were about

21X29.7 cms, i.e. by using A4 paper. In the second, third and fourth sessions, the students

tended to become more interesting and more involved in the learning activities. The cycle

was ended by asking the students to do the posttest of cycle 1.

Table 3

This step was carried out to plan the topics most important to solve identified through the

analysis made on the results of the posttest of Cycle 2. In this step, I also prepared the

flashcards with readable and colorful fonts and pictures, and the sentence printed in each

students.

Based on the action plan, four sessions of teaching using flashcards were implemented.

The procedure employed was similar to the one used in the first cycle. The same

to observe the learning process in every session. Second, data were collected through the

cycle posttest and the post-action questionnaire. The questionnaire employed was the

same as the pre-action questionnaire, but the items concerning the teacher’s lecturing

were replaced by the use of flashcards in the learning process.

were much higher than the scores in the posttest of Cycle 1. Only 13.3% of the students

got the score with a very good category, one-third (66,67%) got a good category, and the

rest 20% still got low category. The mean score of the class was now 75. Since the means

score had reached the Standard Minimum Criteria (75 points), the action can be ended.

Table 5

The findings above reveal that flashcards were effective to improve the third

graders’ mastery of the simple present tense at Permai Elementary School Jakarta. This

answers the first research question, “Does the use of the use of flashcards improve the

third graders’ mastery of the simple resent tense at Permai Elementary School, Jakarta?”

Compared to their learning achievement when they were taught by listening to the

teacher’s lecture, learning the simple present tense using flashcards enabled them to

achieve higher learning results.

The answer to the second research question, “How does the use of flashcards

improve the third graders at Permai Elementary School, Jakarta?” can be related to the

effectiveness of using the flashcards to improve the students’ learning achievement. The

learners. The third graders involved in this study are young learners. They learn through

visual means. Since flashcards are bright, illustrative and colorful, they can have a

positive impact on the visual learning process of the students. Being young learners, they

are also imaginative and flashcards permit them to make associations. When they were

shown the sentence She wakes up at 5.00 every morning with a picture in a flashcard, the

students were facilitated to associate the sentence with the picture. They were also

allowed to relate the English sentence to their own experience. Showing the students a

flashcard with the sentence She does not wake up at 5.00 every morning and another

flashcard with the sentence Does she wake up at 5.00 every morning? The students could

compare the differences of positive, negative and interrogative sentences using the third

managed to increase the achievement of the third graders at Permai Elementary Schoo in

learning the simple present tense. As shown by the increase of the mean score of the tests

successively administered before the action research implementation, at the end of Cycle

1 and the end of Cycle 2. The means score of these tests were 36.69, 65.73, and 75.00

respectively. Besides the increasing mastery, the use of flashcards also changed the

students’ attitudes from mainly negative to mainly positive. The mean score of the

students' positive response to the statements in the pre-action survey is 20.4% (See Table

2). In the post-action survey, the mean score of the positive response increased to 83.89%

(See Table 5).

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