Vocabulary is an important aspect in English language learning. Mastering vocabulary in English language learning is the basic need to reach a good achievement of the target language. An Elementary school teacher should know the techniques and method to find out an effective way in teaching vocabulary. Since English is a new lesson in Elementary school, therefore, the teachers should have new innovation to encourage students’ motivation. In this study, teaching English vocabulary through crossword puzzles was presented as a media in teaching. This media was used to enrich students’ vocabulary mastery and to get rid of a monotonous media used by teachers.
The objective of the study was to find out the effectiveness of using crossword puzzles to enrich the students’ vocabulary mastery. To achieve the objective of the study, the writer conducted an experimental research. The subject of the study was grade five of SDI Istiqomah Ungaran. The total number of the students was 93 who were divided into two groups, called control and experimental groups.
In doing the research, the five steps have been done. Firstly, survey was given to all students. The second step was treatment. Treatment was given to the experimental group by using crossword puzzle as a media in teaching vocabulary and the control group was given treatment by using a text book. At the third step, post test was given to both groups. The next step was giving questionnaire in experimental group. After getting, the data showed that the distribution was not normal, therefore the writer used nonparametric test (Mann Whitney U test) to analyze the data.
The result of the analysis showed that there was a significant difference. It was supported by the significant difference in the result of post test between control and experimental group. Based on the statistical analysis, it can be seen that sig (2 tailed) 0.000 < 0.05. It is concluded that H1 was accepted. So, crossword puzzle could be an effective media to enrich students’ vocabulary mastery.