Diah Kurniati, 0201617013 (2021) THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MNEMONICS FOR TEACHING BASIC ENGLISH COMMUNICATION (BEC) TO THE EIGHTH GRADE INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED STUDENTS WITH DIFFERENT PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT LEVELS (THE CASE AT SMPLB N PURWOSARI KUDUS). Doctoral thesis, UNNES.

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Abstract

One of the challenges the English teacher faces when teaching English to intellectually disabled students relates to the students' specific characteristics, which may become obstacles during the teaching-learning process. They have low cognitive functioning, are easily distracted, and have difficulties remembering the information they have already learned. Therefore, to cope with this challenge, the teacher should use appropriate strategies that can improve the students' memory and attention. One of the strategies is by using mnemonic strategy. This study aimed at exploring the implementation of conventional strategy, picture mnemonic strategy, and grouping mnemonic strategy for teaching Basic English Communication (BEC) to intellectually disabled students. It also explains the levels of home-based parental involvement of intellectually disabled students in BEC learning. Further, this research investigates the effectiveness of conventional strategy, picture mnemonic strategy, and grouping mnemonic strategy for teaching BEC to intellectually disabled students. Finally, it explains the interaction of conventional strategy, picture mnemonic strategy, grouping mnemonic strategy, and students' HBPI levels on students' BEC. The method of the study was an embedded mixed-methods design. The participants were nine eighth-grade, C-class intellectually disabled students of SMPLB N Purwosari Kudus in the academic year of 2019/2020, the English teacher, and the student's parents. The data were obtained through classroom observations, questionnaires, interviews, and tests. Non-parametric statistics such as the Friedman test, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and the Mann Whitney test were used to analyze the data, aided by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 22. The results show that the implementation of conventional strategy for teaching BEC to intellectually disabled students was categorized as a fair category. Meanwhile, picture mnemonic and grouping mnemonic implementation were categorized as very good. Moreover, the Man Whitney analysis results reveal that the eighth-grade intellectually disabled students’ HBPI levels were classified as a low category. The results of the Friedman and Wilcoxon analysis indicate that conventional strategy was not effective for teaching BEC to intellectually disabled students. However, both picture mnemonic and grouping mnemonic were found to be effective. Finally, the results also indicated that students' BEC scores taught using conventional, picture mnemonic, and grouping mnemonic strategies dealing with the interaction of HBPI levels were significant and not significant. Based on the findings, this study offers some recommendations. First of all, it recommends that English teachers, particularly those who work with special needs students, implement mnemonic strategies in their classes. Secondly, it recommends that parents be actively involved in their children's education. Finally, the third recommendation is given to further researchers interested in conducting a study in the same field to explore the effectiveness of picture and grouping mnemonics that interact with other moderator variables.

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