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their subject. By watching or touching the real objects, students will find it easier to know the detail or characteristics of objects. So, the students can differentiate one to other different
things. These statements are also proven in the interview with Miss Debora and Rosa. It is shown from the interview below:
Extract 1 interview with Miss Debora, February 23, 2012. April 30, 2012
“It depends on the theme, for example if the theme is “Things in the garden”
automatically we invite the students to move around in the park and see what we can find there. For example: there are a
nts and the students said “I see some ants.” It depends, on the previous semester semester I; the theme was “Transportation”. We
rented a public transportation and on the way we travelled around and asked the students what they saw or found. So, the students could see the three dimensions and
made them easy to remember the words”
Extract 2 interview with Miss Rosa, April 30, 2012
“The students did an experiment about “transportation” and reported the result to
the teacher. So, the students knew directly what they learned at that time. It made the
students easy to remember the words.” From the teachers’ explanation, I conclude that it was easy for students to remember
because they experienced the new vocabulary in a specific place. So it is like having vacation but also learning some important things. According to Gower, et. al., 2005 teachers should
prepare real things rather than only give wordy explanations and discussions when they will introduce vocabulary words, games can make the teaching-learning activity interesting. The
quote above means that use of the real things can help the teacher to teach the students by representing the real objects and it makes the students easy to learn and remember the new
words. That is why the teachers are preferred to reduce the explanation and give more concretereal example.
The situation above was also strengthened by my teaching practicum experience. The students were really happy and add their knowledge of vocabulary in the environment. I
asked the students to go out from the classroom and told about the real objects in the place where they stayed. The result by using this technique was students were enthusiastic and easy
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to grab the information given by the teacher. This technique is really good and fun to teach vocabulary for the beginner especially children.
5.2. Picture Strip Story - Using Picture
This is the transcript of the observation:
8. Teacher
: The next task, I will give you a small piece of paper. There are five pictures. Ada lima gambar disini. What you have to do is you cut the pictures.
Dipotong. Kemudian perhatikan match the words with the pictures. Gambarnya ditempel bedasarkan garis-garis yang ada tulisannya
. “Take a bath” oh…berarti saya harus mengambil gambar orang yang sedang mandi. Dipotong
terus tempel di kotak. Is it clear? Sudah jelas?
Students
: Sudah Miss.
Teacher
: Coba Daniel ini tadi ada gambar, gambarnya diapakan tadi?
Students
: Dipotong.
Teacher
: Dipotong ditempel disesuaikan dengan apa Nathan?
Student
: Kotak Below is the transcript of the interview with the teachers:
Extract 1 interview with Miss Debora, April 30, 2012
“Teaching vocabulary using pictures is a good way to attract students’ attention and
visualization. By patching the pictures on the wall, the students will recognize the
spelling and remember the words.” Further information was also delivered by Miss Rosa, her opinion was as follows:
Extract 2 interview with Miss Rosa, March 2, 2012
“Teaching vocabulary using pictures also used for creating a conversation. The
students were also coloring or drawing the picture by themselves.It will interest the students. The students are eager to involve in the activiti
es.” From my observation, the students were really enthusiastic when cutting and patching
the pictures based on the vocabulary given by the teacher. They also patched the pictures with the meaning on the wall so while they sat or played in the class they still remembered the
vocabulary through pictures.
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This result was also proved by Wright 2007 pictures as a visual representation of mind and affect students in learning a language. It can motivate the students to learn
something new and pay attention in a lesson. So, teaching vocabulary using pictures is a good way to make children understand and
easy to follow the vocabulary lesson. They study and have fun with the activities from the teachers.
Additional information and the result of techniques used by the teachers
Based on my observation and interview I have found nine techniques which are used to teach vocabulary for the first graders at Laboratorium Elementary School. Besides that, I
also found some other important and interesting findings from my interview with Miss Debora and Rosa. The findings are as follows:
1. The use of language while teaching English for the first graders.
I have done five observations at Laboratorium Elementary School and when the teachers taught English for the first graders, the teachers used mixing language Indonesian-
English. It is shown from the transcripts of the interview as follows:
Extract 1interview with Miss Debora, February 23, 2012
“For introduction, in the first time when
introduce vocabulary I use mixing language Indonesian and English. Maybe in the first time, the use of Indonesian is bigger than
English. Because there are some students graduated from kindergarten which has special basic of English so they did not have any difficulties. But, there are also some
students graduated from different kindergarten, their kindergarten do not use bilingual. So, to make it fair for all students and solve this problem, in the first
teaching actually used Indonesian but also mix wit
h English.”
Extract 2interview with Miss Rosa, March 2, 2012
“Both o
f the languages are used here Indonesian and English because in this school is using bilingual. So, the background is not full of English because every student has
different background. And then for the language use, if it is new theme or material so the teachers here are using fifty-fifty. The teachers are using Indonesian and English
then translate it, it seems like that. Then, for the next meeting the use of Indonesian will decrease so 80 and 20 with stages.
