The Results from the Interviews

strategies are more highly developed than indirect strategies to learn vocabulary through the puzzles. 1 Compensation Strategy This study defines compensation strategy as vocabulary learning strategies allowing learners to retrieve words despite of their often large gaps in knowledge. The compensation strategy which was applied by the learners is guessing intelligently. a Guessing Intelligently The employment of guessing intelligently obtains nearly a very high score with 3.23. It describes that the students‘ guessing skill was highly developed during the process of vocabulary learning through the puzzles. In other words, learning vocabulary th rough online crossword puzzles may boost learners‘ skill in guessing words using linguistic clues such as word parts and word forms in order to complete the puzzles. It is in line with Oxford 1990 : 49‘s definition of guessing intelligently which refers to a strategy which uses linguistic clues such as seeking and using language-based clues in order to guess the meaning of words. A student stated that learning vocabulary through the puzzles could sharpen his guessing skill. Furthermore, another student claimed that he usually employed guessing the meaning of the words before he conducted other strategies while he was completing the puzzles. By looking at the book given or translate it to some app. I know so many words. It sharpen my guessing skill. Open-Ended Questionnaire —App.4- Q1.41 I usually guess what‟s the meaning of the word. If I failed, I‟ll check the dictionary whether my spelling‟s wrong or maybe that‟s not the right meaning. I can memorize the words easily. Open-Ended Questionnaire — App.4-Q1.25 The statements describe that a student used a book or another source to guess the words or their meanings, while another student did not need any reference to guess them, but if he failed guessing he decided to look up the words to a dictionary. Accordingly, it had been the most common strategy applied by the learners to learn vocabulary using the puzzles since the use of this strategy encouraged them to learn vocabulary even though they conducted various ways to guess the words and their meanings. Further description of how the learners conducted guessing intelligently is illustrated by an experience of a learner who related his knowledge of words such as derivative or word form to guess the words correctly. When I was in senior high school I learnt about derivative focusing to the changes of a word to a verb, noun, and so on. It made me know that this form of the word was noun, while that form was for the verb. The word „surround‟ and „surrounding‟ could represent the example of derivative. Another example is just like a noun and an adjective. Thus, I counted the number of the boxes, and then I thought about the proper letters for the boxes which were still blank. Student B-interview-B13 To conclude, the statement shows that the learners apply guessing intelligently as they guess the words by counting the boxes needed to complete and relate with the clues such as the possible word forms using the letters they have. Thus, it may stimulate them to activate their vocabulary knowledge related to the words they used in the puzzles. It is similar to Gu and Johnson‘s 1996 cognative strategy such as guessing which allows learners to activate background knowledge or to use linguistic items. 2 Memory Strategies The students applied three kinds of memory strategies: a creating mental linkages, b employing action, and c reviewing well. In this study, memory strategies refer to vocabulary learning strategies encouraging learners to store and retrieve new words. The implementation of those strategies may be combined between association and kinesthetic. The use of memory strategies achieves a high score with 2.93 which was the average score of the use of those three different categories creating mental linkages, employing action, and reviewing well. a Creating Mental Linkages Creating mental linkages shows a high score with 3.04. It means that this strategy is fairly implemented while learning vocabulary using the puzzles. This strategy is possibly applied into two ways. First, it involves memorizing new words by grouping them into meaningful unit. The word list arranged in sequence based on their alphabetical order has helped learners to memorize them more easily and also makes learners easier to find the words needed to learn. It is also possible to group the words because they share similar or the same meanings. It implies Oxford ‘s 1990: 40 creating mental linkages. She defines those kinds of strategy as grouping. Students who implement this strategy tend to classify words into meaningful unit to remember by reducing the number of discrete elements such as grouping words based on type of words, topic, and so on. The implementation of this strategy obtains a high score with 2.92. It shows that this strategy is sometimes applied by most of the students during the learning process. The second way is by associating with any other information already in the memory. It is as what Oxford 1990:41 claims that this strategy can be applied by associating or elaborating such as relating new words of target language to concepts already in memory, or relating a piece of information to another in order to create associations in memory. The use of this kind of strategy obtains a high score with 3.16. It describes that this strategy is fairly common to be implemented by the students to learn vocabulary using the puzzles. Online crossword puzzles may allow the learners to have wide chances to explore their creativity in learning vocabulary particularly in memorizing and retrieving new words. One of the students considered the words he learnt were unique and he felt excited to learn them, while another student tried to categorize the words to high frequency and low frequency words to memorize the words more easily. I learnt carefully because I was not good at vocabulary, but with crossword puzzles it became fun and very enjoyable. I have memorized some words that I‟ve never known before and it was exciting because the words were unique. Learnt with crossword puzzles has eased a lot. Open- Ended Questionnaire —App.4-Q1.24 I still in progress, the puzzles are help me well to remember some strange words.Open-Ended Questionnaire – App 4-Q1.57 Thus, it proves that students may classify the words based on their uniqueness and low frequency words in order to memorize those words more easily. It is similar to Schmitt‘s 1997:207 memory strategies. He claims that learners may associate words with their coordinate or group words together to study them. Some students applied this strategy while guessing the words in the puzzles. After completing all of the easier words in the puzzles, a student tried to complete the remaining empty boxes of the puzzles by recalling the words which