CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents background of the study, statement of the problem,
purpose of the study, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the
study and definition of key term.
1.1. Background of the Study
There are many lists of the
areas of knowledge which every first language and second language learner must
acquire. One of them is Lexicon or vocabulary. In foreign language, it plays an
important role. In order to communicate well in a foreign language, students
should acquire an adequate number of words and should know how to use them
accurately Bandura & Schunk (1981).
If we say about learning a
foreign language, it will be better at the first time the student should learn
the vocabulary of it, because without mastering vocabulary they will find some
problems in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. According to Hornby
(2000:1447), “Vocabulary is a list of words with their meaning especially
important for learning a foreign language”. It means that vocabulary mastery is
important for learning a foreign language.
Vocabulary is one of the
important components of English, so the English teacher has responsibility in
establishing the meaning of vocabularies in the students’ mind. It is not easy
to be done. Sometimes, the students have difficulties in using language. They
try to memorize a certain number of words and their meanings, they will forget
it. Finally, they will be bored and they just have less attention and
motivation to learn it.
Students realize in the
importance of vocabulary in foreign language learning, but they tend to learn
it passively due to some factors. The first factor is that the students learn
through the teacher’s explanation for meaning or definition, spelling,
pronunciation and grammatical function which makes the student bored. The
second one is that vocabulary learning as knowing a primary meaning of new
words. The students usually only acquire new vocabulary through new words given
by teachers or textbooks (Postovsky (1981).
The students only transfer
second language into first language and vice versa. When they got an English
text, they translate the word, one by one. And the other problem is the
students cannot use the language in real context. Therefore, it needs strategy
to help students learn language, especially vocabulary to be more interesting
and worth doing. The teacher also needs to create a method or an activity that
can stimulate the students to be active, not passively learn by heart
(Brassell, Danny & Leena Furtado 2008).
Vocabulary is the central of
language teaching and learning. It plays an important role in the four language
skills, which gives contribution to the learners to perform or practice their
skills better. It means that by mastering the vocabulary, the learners will be
facilitated to produce so many sentences in spoken or written one. It is
impossible for the learners to perform their English well if their vocabulary
is very poor.
Therefore vocabulary mastery
must be on the first priority in English language teaching and learning.
Without mastering the vocabulary, the learners will be difficult to master the
language skills. Vocabulary is one basic component to be mastered. It is
reasonable, remembering that the four language skills need knowledge of words
because they will get nothing without vocabulary. The large the students master
vocabulary the better they perform their language.
Nowadays, English has been
introduced in Junior High School Curriculum as the School Local Content
Decision. There are many schools which have involved this subject as one of
their local contents. Although it is taught in Junior High School, the students
are expected to acquire language competence including listening, speaking,
reading and writing. Because the general objective of teaching English in the
second grade of Junior High School is to prepare students have competitive
value in this global era and to introduce English (Enhancing English as a
Second Language Students’ Vocabulary Knowledge, Retrieved on June 26, 2009).
Teaching English in Junior High
School especially vocabulary, the teacher has some problem there are two
difficulties. First, the students have difficulty in memorizing the vocabulary.
For example, when the teacher asked the students to read the text, the students
stopped it, because they are shy and do not know how to read the word
correctly. Second, the students were just silent or answered the teacher’s
questions by using mother tongue instead of using target language when they
answer the question because the students and the teacher seldom use English in
teaching learning process. The student’s vocabulary at the second grade of MTS PSM TANJUNGANOM NGANJUK are very
limited, they feel bored and less motivated in learning English.
In this case, the students have
low motivation since they think English is difficult to learn. They also think
that the language is not important for living in the daily life. It is seen
that the people around them do not speak in English. It also makes them shy to
speak in English, and they are afraid of making mistakes while speaking using
the language. Then, English teacher speaks English rarely in the classroom. It
does not motivate the students to imitate the habit of speaking English at
school. The teaching media is not always suitable with the teaching material
and method, so that it makes the students difficult to master the vocabulary,
then they can not make good and meaningful sentences in written and oral form.
Therefore, English is a new
subject to the students of Elementary School, the teacher should make English
interesting to the students and they can enjoy it. In this research, the
researcher used games in teaching
learning process. According to Rachmadi (2002:75) pictures are very useful and
effective media in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching. They can be
used to teach all language skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and
writing. Pictures can also be used to teach structure, vocabulary, and cultural
content.
They prefer to speak Indonesian or Javanesse languange to their teacher or
friends. For the slow learners it’s difficult for them to memorize the
materials and needs more time in understanding and accepting the materials.
Beside, they needs explanation in understanding the instruction when the test.
The researcher found the students of second grade at MTS PSM TANJUNGANOM
NGANJUK got low score 50 until 55. So, the researcher want to increase students
vocabulary using games.
They think that English is very
difficult to learn. The students are easy to memorize and accept the materials
but they forget them easily. Sometimes they prefer playing or chatting to doing
or paying attention to the materials. One of the possible causes of this
problem is that the teacher still uses the conventional method in teaching the
materials. The teacher just explains the materials and then gives exercise in
written from. There is no variation or other teaching media used by her. The
only teaching media are text book and blackboard.
This method makes the students
sometimes feel bored and sleepy, especially when it is taught in the last
session. The other cause is that the students never practice the language whether
when they are in the classroom or at home. They are afraid of making mistakes
when they speak English.
One of the activities of
teaching and learning vocabulary which is believed to be the best way of
teaching and learning vocabulary is through game. Games help and encourage many
learners to sustain their interest and work. Games also help the teacher to
create contexts in which the language is useful and meaningful. The students
want to take part and in order to do so must understand what others are saying
or have written, and they must speak or write in order to express their own
point of view or give information.
There are so many games that can
be applied by teacher concerning to how to improve the students’ vocabulary
mastery, such as the alphabet game, the word guessing game, word search and so
on. These kinds of activities help both teacher and students in the process of
teaching learning. Teacher is able to create a situation in which the language
or the vocabulary will be used. However, in order to achieve the most from
vocabulary games, it is essential that suitable games are chosen. In addition,
teacher’s attention, creativity and ability are needed.
By seeing the advantages of
using these games, the researchers try to apply the game for the researcher
observation. The teacher uses “word search” game as one of the activities to
improve the students’ vocabulary mastery.
In this research, the researcher
tries to find out the use of “word search” game in learning vocabulary. The researcher will investigate how the
teacher implements “word search” game, to figure out the reasons behind the use
of the game and to get a description about teacher’s and student’s perceptions
on the use of the game.
Considering the reason above,
the researcher wants to give a solution especially in to improve the students’
vocabulary mastery, so that later the students will be able to speak in English
well. The solution is by teaching vocabulary using Word Search. It gives much
opportunity for the students to practice and repeat the sentence pattern and
vocabulary. Beside, the Word Search is a kind of games that will make the
teaching learning process more attractive than before. The students will feel
fun, relaxed and enjoyed, and they will memorize the vocabulary in different
way. Based on the background above, the researcher would conduct a study to
improve the vocabulary mastery of the students using Word Search.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Based on the background of the
study, researcher wants to find out the use of games in improving vocabulary
mastery of English students. The problem of the study as follows: How can word search games improve the students’ vocabulary mastery
of the second grade students’ at MTS PSM TANJUNGANOM NGANJUK?
1.3 The Objectives of the Study
The successfulness of the
teaching learning process of the vocabulary mastery in the classroom depends on
the process of the interaction between the teacher and the students. The
degrees of the interaction in the classroom are influence by some factors such
as the materials, the method of the teaching and the environment of the class
that motivates the students to learn. Therefore, the objectives of the study
are:
To describe how the games can
improve the students vocabulary mastery of the second grade students at MTS PSM
TANJUNGANOM NGANJUK.
1.4 Significance of
the Study
The results of this study are
expected to give contributions, to the teacher to use “word search” game as one
of worth doing activity to improve the vocabulary.
The most significant contribution
of this study is to provide a description of “word search” game and the
vocabulary teaching learning, which will show the implementations of “word
search” game in vocabulary learning.
The findings from this study can
be used both of teacher and school board as a consideration to improve the
quality of teaching learning especially in vocabulary teaching.
1.5. Scope and Limitation of
the Study
There are many ways to teach vocabulary and it is
not possible for the researcher to tell all of the techniques. So, the
researcher makes limitation as follows:
a) The
study will apply the games technique especially cards in increasing vocabulary
mastery to the needed students.
b) This
study focuses on the simple vocabulary specially vocabulary of fruits and
vegetables, animals, number, and family. It’s done actively by the needed
students of the second grade MTS PSM TANJUNGANOM NGANJUK.
1.6. Definition of
Key Term
To blowing wrong opinion about
the term in this proposal thesis some definitions are solved as follows:
a) Improving
: Becoming or making better
(oxford, 1991:209). This research
is focused to improve the students’ vocabulary using games.
b) Vocabulary
Mastery : Vocabulary
mastery is how far students could acquire many words with their meaning
successfully and the total
number of words in language or words known to a person or the list of words
with their meaning or the back of a book for teaching a foreign language
(oxford, 1991:461).
c) Games
: Games are fun and nearly can be made
enjoyable, games as tactics to teaching vocabulary mastery. Games help bring
the classroom closer to the real world, no matter how contrived they may be.
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