Filling up the questionnaire
34 Referring to the Johnson‟s procedure for experimental research, with a one
group pretest-posttest design after selecting the subject, the researcher went to the next step that was the pretest. The pretest was carried
out to measure the subjects‟ initial ability in guessing several words‟ meanings and the part of speech based on
the context namely guessing meaning from context without using any procedure or technique. In order to know the students‟ ability before using the guessing
meaning from context procedure, the researcher decided to make two questions in each number. They were not provided with possible answers, so the students were
asked to guess the meaning based on the context and to know the part of speech. The questions were compiled by the researcher from a number of exercises from
the students‟ handbook entitled, “When English Rings a Bell”. In addition, there were 15 questions for the pretest that took place on Wednesday, 13
th
April 2016 and lasted for 30 minutes.
Thereafter, the subjects were exposed to the technique of guessing meaning from context procedure for four meetings excluding the pretest and posttest, and
were given some exercises. The researcher only got 30 minutes for the first meeting of the experiment. It happened because of miscommunication between
the researcher and teacher. The teacher gave permission for the first meeting on Wednesday 13
th
April 2016 at the same time there was a tryout from one of the institution. Unfortunately, the researcher took 30 minutes first for having pretest.
The next day the researcher began the research by asking the students how they learn vocabulary. One of the students answered by writing the unknown word and
memorizing words. Then the researcher continued asking about parts of speech. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
35 The students were able to mention verb, noun and adjective, but they did not
know what an adverb is. Based on the questionnaire result, the learning process showed that basically the students understand all of the part of speech. But they
had some difficulty to differentiate between adverb and adjective. That is why the researcher gave some explanation about the use of parts of speech. The
experiment continued with a slide show presentation on how guessing meaning from context procedure should be done. Following the presentation, the students
were given a group assignment in which they were required to guess the meaning of the words found in the reading of recount text. The students did this by having
discussion while the researcher went around the class and helped them do the assignment.
The first steps of the guessing meaning from context procedure were difficult steps for some students. According to Nation 1990,p.162 this procedure
starts with the learner focusing on the unknown word and determining the part of speech of the word. Afterwards, they have to look at the clause or sentence
containing the unknown word and decide the words that modify or go with the word. Moreover, there are 11 of the students said that they had difficulties in these
steps. There were three reasons: first it was because they did not understand the meaning of the unknown word. Second, the students did not memorize the parts of
speech itself. Therefore, those cases made the students confused determining the parts of speech noun, verb, adverb, and adjective.
In the second and third steps of the procedure, the students were required to observe the relations of the unknown word to the others word in the context which