In teaching vocabulary at first grade of SMA Kartika X-1, the teacher teaches the students traditionally. The teacher asks the students to read a text in the textbook
together. Then, the teacher asks the students to look up the words in dictionary to check the meaning of the word and to ask them to memorize that vocabulary. And
sometimes, the teacher asks the students about that vocabulary and they do not remember it. This teaching strategy cannot help the students to reinforce their
vocabulary. This strategy influences the teaching of vocabulary which causes many
problems. The teacher also has difficulties to teach the materials in a large class. The
main problem is the way to manage it. During the teaching hours, the teacher makes the students pay attention to the materials given to them and also to their friends‟
performances in front of the class. It needs hard work for getting students attention without giving them an interesting activity for more than one hour.
Based on the problems above, the writer tries to give a solution for the teacher to implement an English teaching strategy which can motivate and give more
opportunities for the learner to contribute in English teaching process that is playing scrabble game.
This strategy is designed to create students‟ interests to learn with pleasant. In playing scrabble game activity, the game played with two to four players
with the players using their vocabulary to create words. Scrabble allows players to use any word in the English language except for words that are capitalized which
need hyphens, abbreviations, prefixes or suffixes. Using scrabble game in teaching vocabulary will encourage the students to reinforce their vocabulary that they have
stored in their brains. These types of activities are extremely effective in the foreign language classroom.
Based on the problems above, it encourages us to think how to manage classroom activities to be an active class so that the students can participate actively
in the teaching and learning process and then we can achieve the objective of English
learning. So, in presenting this paper the writer has the title : The Reinforcement Students‟ Vocabulary Through Scrabble Game at Tenth Grade of SMA Kartika X-1.
B. Limitation and Research Question
The writer limit s the research in discussing reinforcing students‟ vocabulary
through scrabble game. The subject of study is students of the tenth grade of SMA Kartika X-1.
The writer proposal question. Can scrabble game reinforce stu dents‟
vocabulary ?
C. Objective of Study
This Classroom Action Research CAR is conducted in order to get an easy way to reinforce
students‟ vocabulary by playing scrabble game.
D. Significance of Study
The writer hopes this research will give significant advantage in reinforcing vocabulary for students who reads his research paper. He also hopes that it will be
useful for the English teacher in SMA Kartika X-1 especially in teaching vocabulary, so that the teacher can manage classroom activities effectively.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Vocabulary
In learning a new language, first thing we hoped to have is some vocabulary because it is an important element in the language besides other elements. Whether
we need to understand every word in a text depends on why we are reading that particular text. Unless the students understand about this, they may find the
vocabulary load of some of the text rather daunting, or when we want to speak, listen or write, we need vocabulary.
1. Definition of Vocabulary
There are some definitions of vocabulary given by experts; it is impossible, how ever, to discuss all of them in this chapter. Therefore, the writer only chooses
several of them that in the writer‟s opinion are very important to talk about. Vocabulary is
the total number of words that make up a language.
7
Harimukti Kridalaksana says “vocabulary is a component of language that maintains all information about meaning
and using words in a language.”
8
And in Webster‟s Dictionary, vocabulary is defined as follows:
a. A list of collection of words and phrases usually alphabetically arranged
and explained or defined
7
A S. Hornby, Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1985, p.
956
8
Harimukti Krisdalaksana, Kamus Linguistik, Third Edition Jakarta, PT. Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 1993p. 27
b. A sum or stock of words employed by a language group individual or work
or in relation to a subject scope of language c.
A list of foreign language textbook of the words and phrases taught or used.
If we look it up in the Oxford Advance Dictionary, we find that; 1. Vocabulary can simply be defined as the total number of words that make up a
language. 2. range of words know to or used by a person, class, or profession.
9
“Vocabulary is central to language and critical importance to the typical language learner”.
10
“Vocabulary is central to both a system and the use of language. Words are pronounced and written and organized into sentences and other grammatical
combi nations, being the fundamental units of meaning.”
11
From some opinions given above, it seems that vocabulary is a total number of words used by a person, class, profession in communication.
9
Penny Ur., A course in Language Teaching: Practice and Theory, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 60
10
Kevin Eyrand, Gillian Giles, Susan Koenig, and Fredika L Stoller, “the word wall approach”, English Teaching Forum, Vol. 38 no. 3 July 2000, p. 2
11
John Algeo, the Cambridge History of: The English Language, Vol IV 1776-1997 Edited by Suzanne Romaine.
2. Kinds of Vocabulary Items
Knowing a word is needed to understand the meaning of a sentence. There are two kinds of words: full words and form words. A.M Zainuri says:
Full words and form words are often known as a content word and an empty word. For instance: the boys will play golf tomorrow. From the example, it can be
classified: boys, play, golf, are included in full words category or content words. Meanwhile the, and will, are included in form words or empty words. A word whose
meaning is expected to be found in a dictionary is a word which is included in full words or content words. Form words or empty words are included in grammatical
category and have grammatical meaning.
12
Furthermore Fries explains vocabulary items have four kinds that are classified into four groups as follows:
13
s a. first, there are th
e “function words” those words which, although some of them may have also full-word meaning content, primarily largely operate as
means of expressing relations of grammatical structure. These include so- called auxiliaries: prepositions, conjunctions, interrogative particles, and a
miscellaneous group consisting of the words for degree, for generalizing, the article, etc. the important auxiliaries are; be, have, do, may, might, can
could, will would, shall should, must, ought to. The important preposition-adverb most frequent used: at, by, for, from, to,
of, on, and with, behind, in front of, over, under, above, below, beside, between, beyond, around, place, direction through, into, out of, toward,
away from, up, down, across time, before, after, during, since, until,
comparison like, different, as…as, …than. The important conjunction; and, that, which, if, as, but, so, who, when, while,
what, where, most frequently used; time after, before, until, cause for, because, since, purpose
in order that; comparison as …as than: concession although, condition unless.
Interrogative particles: who, which, what, whose, when, where, why, how, article the, a, an, degree words more, most, the generalizing particle ever, and
special uses of there, it, and one whether; conclusion therefore. b. the second
kind of vocabulary items consists of the “substitute” words: the personal pronoun: I, me, us, you, he, hem, she, her, they, them, our, your, his,
its, their,
mine, ours,
yours, theirs,
the indefinites,
any onebodythingwhere; and the negative; none,, no bodythingwhere;
12
A.M. Zainuri, Vocabulary I, Jakarta: UIN Syarif Hidayatullah,2003, p. 13
13
Charles C. Fries, Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language Ann Arbor: the university of Michigan Press, 1970 p.38
