Background of the Study

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

As everybody knows, all countries in the world use English as an international language. It plays an important role in every aspect of human life such as communication, education, science, and technology. English is mostly used in the world. English is mostly used in scientific fields such as science and technology. There are so many books that are written in English, especially in educational fields, from elementary school to college. Because of the reasons, teaching English should be given from the beginning, it should be given when the students sit in the elementary school or in kindergarten. In Indonesia, English is the first foreign language which is taught formally from the junior high school to the university level. However, nowadays, English is taught in some elementary schools, and even in the lower level such as kindergarten and play groups. It means children are introduced to English earlier. It is hoped that they will learn English more naturally as they learn their mother tongue, besides it will be the basis for the students to learn English in the higher level. According to Halliwel 1992: p. 3, children come to primary school with this ability already highly developed. 1 commit to user 2 A number of elementary schools in Indonesia have begun to introduce English into their curriculum as a local content. It is clearly stated in the curriculum of elementary education. “… pelajaran bahasa Inggris tidak diwajibkan di Sekolah Dasar melainkan sebagai muatan lokal.” GBPP Muatan Lokal SD Bahasa Inggris 1995: p. 1. At elementary school, English is introduced to the students through learning its vocabulary because vocabulary is the most important element that will become the basic competence in order to get other competences like listening, speaking, reading, and writing. If the students have mastered a number of vocabularies required in their level, it will be easier for them to master those elements in English learning. Hardjono defines: “Dari semua aspek dasar bahasa asing yang harus dikuasai siswa dalam proses belajar, aspek kosakata yang paling penting tanpa penguasaannya tidak mungkin orang biasa menggunakan bahasa asing.” 1998: p. 71. It means vocabulary is essential thing that has to be learned by the students in order to master English well. Hatch and Brown 1995: p. 1 state that vocabulary is the foundation to build language which plays a fundamental role in communication. It means that vocabulary is the first priority in learning English. As the basic component of the four language skills, vocabulary has to be mastered by the learners. Vocabulary is the main point to learn English. Without it a student will get difficulty to learn English. In elementary school, vocabulary is the first step to learn English. By knowing commit to user 3 the vocabulary from the beginning the children will get a lot of knowledge and will not get difficulties in mastering language skills. Thus, vocabulary should be on the first priority in the English language teaching and learning. Vocabulary mastery has always been an essential part of English as foreign language. There is no doubt that vocabulary mastery plays an important role in the four language skills. They are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. All four aspects are interrelated. But before students master all aspects, they must master vocabulary first. Vocabulary must not be neglected by anyone who learns English. From the importance of vocabulary above, teachers should give serious attention in teaching vocabulary especially to the children, because it is a crucial thing in learning English. To teach vocabulary in elementary school is not easy. There is a difference between teaching children and teaching adults. Teachers must have extra power to teach them and the children have certain characteristics and need a certain treatment. It is also the first chance of learning a foreign language. So the teacher should find the best or the effective method to teach English vocabulary. To teach English, especially in Elementary School, teachers will face some problems during the teaching learning process. Even though, teachers have their own priority to manage their classroom, as Richards states “teachers have primary responsibility for how they teach; they may assume very different roles within their own classroom 1994: p. 97.” So, teachers should make their classroom more comfortable and interesting, especially commit to user 4 teaching English in Elementary School. Here, problems always occur when teaching English is applied in Elementary School students. This can be proven from pre research in the sixth grade students of SDN Banaran 01 Grogol Sukoharjo. From the pre research, the researcher found that the students’ vocabulary mastery is low. It is because the students get difficulties in mastering vocabulary. They are: 1 the students get difficulties in grasping and memorizing the meaning of the words; 2 they found it hard to spell the words correctly; and 3 they get difficulties in pronouncing the words correctly; and 4 they get difficulties in using vocabulary in a sentence. They are able to use the vocabulary if they know the meaning, how to pronounce, how to spell, and how to use them in a sentence. Knowing the meaning of some words does not merely know its translation in different language. Knowing means understanding how the words are put in different contexts and used differently. For example: good morning. The students not only know that good morning is selamat pagi but they can greet someone in the morning using good morning. How to pronounce can be understood from pronouncing the words correctly. Students can distinguish the slightly different words such as, tree and three. English has more complex pronunciation than Bahasa Indonesia, and it often becomes a problem. How to spell means that the students are able to spell the words. It will be difficult thing when the words are similar to the others. For example: commit to user 5 sea and see. Usually, it is tightly connected with knowing of words. When students understand the word, they will be able to indicate whether to spell sea or see. How to use words is an ability to use or to apply the words either in spoken or written. For example: a student says, “jump to the left” when the teacher says “jump”. In another occasion, the student says: “jump to the chair ”. In this case, of course, the student has already understood how to use the word jump in different contexts. By conducting observation and interview, the researcher found some psychological barriers from the students. They feel shy and afraid to ask the teacher if they find a difficulty. These problems may give a great influence to their learning process. The other reason that causes of the students’ failure is the teacher’s teaching method. Heshe is not creative when teaching the foreign language to children. Sometimes it makes the students get bored and they also feel that the teaching method doesn’t give more chances to them to internalize the words in their memory. In teaching English in Elementary School the method which is used should be communicative and suited to the students’ characteristics as the children. It is aimed to create the teaching learning process which is interesting and comforting to the students so that they can reach the learning goal and English becomes a more attractive subject for them. commit to user 6 From the reason above, the researcher suggests experiential learning method as the solution. Experiential learning method can be used in teaching vocabulary to make the teaching learning process much interesting and fun. It will increase students’ interest in learning process in the classroom, because the circumstances become more interesting. It is suitable with the characteristics of the young learners who like playing and talking about ‘here and now’ so experiential learning can be helpful in teaching vocabulary. Brown states that experiential learning is an especially useful concept for teaching children, whose abstract intellectual processing abilities are not yet mature 2001: p. 238. There are some experiential learning that could be proved effective to apply for the elementary students as “Role Play”, here the students are in groups, and each group must take the topicproblem paper which is prepared by the teacher, and then they do role play with their groups based on the situation from the topicproblem paper they had chosen. Another experiential learning that could be proved effective is “Roulete” The teacher flies a paper plane and when the paper plane lands on one student, heshe must answer the question from the teacher. Then, if the student can answer the question they will get score. Heshe has a chance to fly the paper to hisher friend, and heshe can give a question to his friend. But if the student can’t answer the question, shehe must be punished. From the explanation above, it is not doubtful that the researcher chooses experiential learning because it has some strengths as follows: commit to user 7 a. Helping learners involve actively in the learning process. b. Providing a challenge which encourages learners to stretch themselves in order to answer the question. c. Helping learners to forget they are studying: they lose themselves in the fun activity of the learning process. d. Encouraging collaborative learning: By having active interaction among members of a group, learners are demanded to involve in real communication. Based on the reasons above, the researcher wants to use experiential learning method as the method to improve student’s vocabulary mastery. The researcher is interested in carrying out a study on “Improving Students’ Vocabulary Mastery Using Experiential Learning A Classroom Action Research on the Sixth Grade of SDN Banaran 01 in the Academic Year of 20092010.

B. The Problem Statement