Reinforcing Vocabulary Through Scrabble Game : An Experimental Study at the first year of SMPN 2 Ciputat
REINFORCING VOCABULARY 'fl:-IROUGH
SCRABBLE GAME
(An bxperimental Study at the First Year of SMPN 2 Ciputat)
A "Skripsi"
Presented to the Faculty ofTarbiyah and Teachers Training
in a partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of S.Pd. (Strata l) in English Language Education
By:
ｫｬ｡ｳｩｦｾ＠
: ............. ,............ ,............. .
IMAM PRIBADI
NIM: 103014026955
DEPART!VIENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHERS TRAINING
SY ARIF HIDAY ATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
JAKARTA
PEPPUSTAJ
a) First, there are the "function words'" those words which, although
some of them may have also full-word meaning content, primarily or
largely operate as means of expressing relations of gr:mmrntical structure.
These include so-called auxiliaries: prepositions, conjunctions,
16
Evelyn I-latch and Cherryl Bro\\'11, Voc:abula1:i-'. Sen1antics, and Language education
(Carnbridge: Can1bridge University Press, 1995), p. ! .
i
7
'lang Zhihong, ''Learning \Vords'-, English 'Teaching Forun1, vol. 38, No. 3, July, 2000,
p. 18-2 I
18
AM. Zainuri. Vocabulm:i· I, (.Jakm1a: UIN Syarifl-lidayatullah. 2003), p. 13
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) th.rough, 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, so that; (comparison) as
... as ... than: (concession) although, condition unless.
Interrogative particles: who, whose, which, what, when, where, why, how,
articles 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 pronouns: I, me, us, you, he, him, she, her, they, them, our,
your, his, its, their, mine, ours, yours, theirs, the indefinites, any
(one/body/thing/where); and the negative; none,, no body/lhinglwhere;
quantity or number each; both, all, some, any, few, many, several, much,
one, ones, llvo, etc
Other substitutes include; do (yes, I do), lhink, say, !ell, seem, appear,
hope, believe, fear, guess. and the word so.
c) The third kind of vocabulary item consist of those that are distributed
in use according to such grammatical matters as the presence or absence of
a negative; some (I have some), any (I don't have any), 100, eirher,
already, yet,, etc.
d) The fourth group is of '·content" words in English, these content words
fall into three classes; class I, the words for things; such as; hat, stone,
water, paper, knife, food, blood, etc.
The fourth group is of content words becomes the larges and the meanings
can be looked up in the dictionary.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude that in a sentence
there are content words that their meanings can be found in a dictionary and
empty words that have grammatical meaning.
3. What Do Students Need to Know?
a: Meaning 20
The first thing to realize about vocabulary items ｩｾ［＠
that they frequently
have more than one meaning. The word 'book' for example, obviously refers to
something you use to read from - (a written work in the form of) a set of printed
pages fastened together inside a cover, as a thing to be read, according to one
learner's dictionary. But the same dictionary then goes on to list eight more
meanings of book as a noun, two meanings of book as a verb and three meanings
where 'book' +preposition makes phrasal verbs. So it can be said that the word
'book' sometimes means the kind of thing you read from, but it can also mean a
number of other things.
When a word is come across, then, and tried to decipher its meaning it is
needed to look at the context in which it is used. If a woman is in a theatre arguing
at the ticket office and saying 'But I booked my tickets three weeks ago· it will
obviously understood a meaning of the verb 'book' which is different from a
policeman (accompanied by an unhappy-looking man at a police station) saying to
his colleague. 'We booked him for speeding.' In other words. it is needed to
understand the importance of meaning in context.
There are other facts about meaning too. Sometimes words have meanings
in relation to other words. Thus students need to know the meaning of 'vegetable'
as a word to describe any one of a number of other things -
ｾＮｧ＠
carrots, cabbage,
potatoes, etc. 'Vegetable' has a general meaning whereas ·carrot' is more specific.
The meaning of a word can be understood like 'good' and in the context of a word
like 'bad'. Words have opposite (antonyms) and they also have other words with
similar meanings (synonyms) - e.g. 'bad' and 'evil'. Even in that example,
however, one thing is clear: words seldom have absolute synonyms, although
context may take them synonymous on particular occasions. As far as meaning
ｔＮｮｯＭＱｾ＠
20
Jeren1y Harn1er, The Practice of English Language Teaching ne1v edition, (London:
JQ()l) n 1.;;r,
goes, then students need to know about meaning in context and they need to know
about sense relations.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude:
- Many English words have more than one meaning
- Sometimes words have meanings in relation to other words (by looking at the
context in which it is used) such as antonyms and synonyms, general and
specific meaning, etc.
So, to know a meaning needs to know meaning in context and sense relations.
b. Word Use21
What a word means can be changed, stretched or limited by how it is used
and this is something students need to know about.
Word meaning is frequently stretched through the use of melaphor and
idiom. It is known that the word 'hiss', for example. describes the noise that
snakes make. But stretching its meaning describes the way people talk to each
other ('"Don't move or you're dead," she hissed.') that is metaphorical use. At the
same time it can be talked about treacherous people as snakes ('He's a real snake
in the grass·). 'Snake in the grass' is a fixed phrase that has become an idiom like
countless other phrases such as 'raining cats and dogs', 'putting the cat among the
pigeons', 'straight from the horse's mouth', etc.
Word meaning is alco governed by collocation - that is which words go
with each other. In order to know how to use the word 'sprained' needs to know
that whereas it can be said 'sprained ankle, 'sprained wrist' and cannot be said
'sprained thigh' or sprained rib. It can be said a headache, stomachache or
earache, but cannot be said a throatache' or a legache.
Using words are often only in certain social and topical contexts. A saying
is governed by the style and register it is in. To tell some one about getting angry
is needed to choose carefully between the neutral expression of this fact (I'm
angry) and the informal version ('I'm really pissed off). The latter would
21
T
ｲＮｮｾ＼＾＠
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching new edition, (London:
1OQ1 \
n
1 .::;r,;_ J t;,,'7
certainly seem rude to listeners in certain contexts. At a different level can be
recognized that two doctors talking about an illness will talk in a different register
than one of them who then talks to the patient in question - who has never studied
medicine.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude:
- Words use frequently are metaphor and idiom from word meaning
- There is a collocation that is which words go with each other in word meaning
- There are style and register words such as formal and informal words.
So, it's better for us to recognize metaphorical language use, know how words
collocate, and understand stylistic and topical contexts words and expressions.
c. Word Formation22
Words can change their shape and their grammatical value. too. Students
need to know facts about word formation and how to twist words to fit different
grammatical contexts. Thus the verb 'run' has the participles 'running· and 'run'.
The present participle 'running' can be used as an adjective and 'run' can also be
a noun. There is a clear relationship between the words ·death". 'dead', 'dying'
and' die'.
Students also need to know how suffixes and prefixes work. How lo make
the words potent and expensive opposite in meaning? Why it is prefaced one with
im- and the other with in-? There are two kinds of suffixes in English, inflectional
and derivational.
The inflectional suffixes are the ones to lean in studying of gamma: the -s
or - es ending of the verbs with the subject of the third person singular; the -ing
ending on the verb forms; the --ed of the past tense of the verbs; the -s that makes
noun plural, the --er that makes adjective comparative, and so forth. On the other
hand, derivational suffixes change the meaning of the base in some important
way, or else change into a different word class. They turn nouns into adjective,
adjective into verbs, nouns of one type into nouns of another type, and so on.
verbs are followed by a bare infinitive without 'to'. When students don't have this
kind of knowledge they come up with erroneous sentence which all teachers
instantly recognize, e.g. 'He said me to come;, 'I must to go' etc. It should be 'I
must go• without adding 'to' after modal auxiliaries.
There are many other areas of grammatical behavior that students need to
know about: what are phrasal verbs and how do they behave? How are adjectives
ordered? What positions can adverbs be used in? Without this knowledge can it
really said that students know vocabulary items such as 'look up' (as in a
dictionary), 'tired' and 'worn' or 'greedily'?
In this section is that knowing a word means far more than just
understanding (one of) its meaning(s). Somehow our teaching must help students
to understand what this knowledge implies both in general and for certain words
in particular. By being aware students will be more receptive to the contextual
behaviour of words when they first see them in texts, etc. and they will be better
able to manipulate both the nlmeanings and forms of the word.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude that there are many
words are countable and uncountable noun, singular and plural that can change
according to their grammatical patterns.
It can be summarized "Knowing a word' in the following way:
I
ｉｾ＠
Meaning in context
. MEANING.
Sense relations
ｾｍ･ｴ｡ｰｨｯｲ＠
,.-----j
WORDS
Ｏ
ｉｗｏｒｄｕｓｅｾ＠
Collocation
Style and register
IWORD FORMATION ｾ＠
Parts of speech
Prefixes and suffixes
Spelling and pronunciation
Nouns: countable and
uncountable. etc.
WORD GRAMMMAR :------.._Verb complementation
phrasal Yerbs, etc.
Adjectives and adverbs
Positions. etc.
D.
Reinforcement
1. Reinforcers
A reinforcer is an event which controls behavior. Consequences or
reinforcers may be positive (things a person will try to get or retain) or negative
(things a person will try to avoid or escape). Reinforcers may be used to increase
(reinforce) or decrease (punish) a behavior. A reinforcer may be either presented
or withdrawn to influence the strength of behavior. Thus, there are four distinct
methods of influencing a behavior by presenting or withdrawing positive or
negative reinforcers. The process of reinforcement always results in an increase or
strengthening of behavior. Punishment always results in a decrease or weakening
r
punishment. Negative reinforcement, withdrawing something unpleasant after a
behavior, has the effect of increasing or accelerating the behavior it follows.
Punishment, withdrawing something pleasant or presenting something unpleasant
after a behavior, has the opposite effect of decreasing or decelerating the behavior
it follows. 26
Positive Reinforcer
(something you will work to get)
Positive Reiriforcement
Effect: Increase or strengthen behavior which produces reinforcer; acceleration of
behavior.
Example
Behavior: Child begins assigned seatwork.
Consequence: Teacher smiles at child and remarks, "Good, I see you've started!"
If the child's initial effort at doing his assigned work is consistently given
immediate attention and praise by the teacher, the promptness with which he
begins his work will likely increase.
Negative Reinforcer
(something you will work to avoid)
Punishment
Effecl: Decrease or weaken behavior which produces reinforcer: deceleration of
behavior
Examyle
Behavior: Child destroys paper other children.
Consequence: Teacher points at child and shouts "NO!"
If the teacher is generally positive, controlled, and soft-spoken in his interaction
with the child, but consistently points at child and shouts "no!" when he begins to
destroy another child's paper, child's destruction of papers will likely decrease.
ｾﾷｰ｟ｲｮ､＠
26 Gerald Wallace and Ja1nes M. I
SCRABBLE GAME
(An bxperimental Study at the First Year of SMPN 2 Ciputat)
A "Skripsi"
Presented to the Faculty ofTarbiyah and Teachers Training
in a partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of S.Pd. (Strata l) in English Language Education
By:
ｫｬ｡ｳｩｦｾ＠
: ............. ,............ ,............. .
IMAM PRIBADI
NIM: 103014026955
DEPART!VIENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION
FACULTY OF TARBIYAH AND TEACHERS TRAINING
SY ARIF HIDAY ATULLAH STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY
JAKARTA
PEPPUSTAJ
a) First, there are the "function words'" those words which, although
some of them may have also full-word meaning content, primarily or
largely operate as means of expressing relations of gr:mmrntical structure.
These include so-called auxiliaries: prepositions, conjunctions,
16
Evelyn I-latch and Cherryl Bro\\'11, Voc:abula1:i-'. Sen1antics, and Language education
(Carnbridge: Can1bridge University Press, 1995), p. ! .
i
7
'lang Zhihong, ''Learning \Vords'-, English 'Teaching Forun1, vol. 38, No. 3, July, 2000,
p. 18-2 I
18
AM. Zainuri. Vocabulm:i· I, (.Jakm1a: UIN Syarifl-lidayatullah. 2003), p. 13
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) th.rough, 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, so that; (comparison) as
... as ... than: (concession) although, condition unless.
Interrogative particles: who, whose, which, what, when, where, why, how,
articles 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 pronouns: I, me, us, you, he, him, she, her, they, them, our,
your, his, its, their, mine, ours, yours, theirs, the indefinites, any
(one/body/thing/where); and the negative; none,, no body/lhinglwhere;
quantity or number each; both, all, some, any, few, many, several, much,
one, ones, llvo, etc
Other substitutes include; do (yes, I do), lhink, say, !ell, seem, appear,
hope, believe, fear, guess. and the word so.
c) The third kind of vocabulary item consist of those that are distributed
in use according to such grammatical matters as the presence or absence of
a negative; some (I have some), any (I don't have any), 100, eirher,
already, yet,, etc.
d) The fourth group is of '·content" words in English, these content words
fall into three classes; class I, the words for things; such as; hat, stone,
water, paper, knife, food, blood, etc.
The fourth group is of content words becomes the larges and the meanings
can be looked up in the dictionary.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude that in a sentence
there are content words that their meanings can be found in a dictionary and
empty words that have grammatical meaning.
3. What Do Students Need to Know?
a: Meaning 20
The first thing to realize about vocabulary items ｩｾ［＠
that they frequently
have more than one meaning. The word 'book' for example, obviously refers to
something you use to read from - (a written work in the form of) a set of printed
pages fastened together inside a cover, as a thing to be read, according to one
learner's dictionary. But the same dictionary then goes on to list eight more
meanings of book as a noun, two meanings of book as a verb and three meanings
where 'book' +preposition makes phrasal verbs. So it can be said that the word
'book' sometimes means the kind of thing you read from, but it can also mean a
number of other things.
When a word is come across, then, and tried to decipher its meaning it is
needed to look at the context in which it is used. If a woman is in a theatre arguing
at the ticket office and saying 'But I booked my tickets three weeks ago· it will
obviously understood a meaning of the verb 'book' which is different from a
policeman (accompanied by an unhappy-looking man at a police station) saying to
his colleague. 'We booked him for speeding.' In other words. it is needed to
understand the importance of meaning in context.
There are other facts about meaning too. Sometimes words have meanings
in relation to other words. Thus students need to know the meaning of 'vegetable'
as a word to describe any one of a number of other things -
ｾＮｧ＠
carrots, cabbage,
potatoes, etc. 'Vegetable' has a general meaning whereas ·carrot' is more specific.
The meaning of a word can be understood like 'good' and in the context of a word
like 'bad'. Words have opposite (antonyms) and they also have other words with
similar meanings (synonyms) - e.g. 'bad' and 'evil'. Even in that example,
however, one thing is clear: words seldom have absolute synonyms, although
context may take them synonymous on particular occasions. As far as meaning
ｔＮｮｯＭＱｾ＠
20
Jeren1y Harn1er, The Practice of English Language Teaching ne1v edition, (London:
JQ()l) n 1.;;r,
goes, then students need to know about meaning in context and they need to know
about sense relations.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude:
- Many English words have more than one meaning
- Sometimes words have meanings in relation to other words (by looking at the
context in which it is used) such as antonyms and synonyms, general and
specific meaning, etc.
So, to know a meaning needs to know meaning in context and sense relations.
b. Word Use21
What a word means can be changed, stretched or limited by how it is used
and this is something students need to know about.
Word meaning is frequently stretched through the use of melaphor and
idiom. It is known that the word 'hiss', for example. describes the noise that
snakes make. But stretching its meaning describes the way people talk to each
other ('"Don't move or you're dead," she hissed.') that is metaphorical use. At the
same time it can be talked about treacherous people as snakes ('He's a real snake
in the grass·). 'Snake in the grass' is a fixed phrase that has become an idiom like
countless other phrases such as 'raining cats and dogs', 'putting the cat among the
pigeons', 'straight from the horse's mouth', etc.
Word meaning is alco governed by collocation - that is which words go
with each other. In order to know how to use the word 'sprained' needs to know
that whereas it can be said 'sprained ankle, 'sprained wrist' and cannot be said
'sprained thigh' or sprained rib. It can be said a headache, stomachache or
earache, but cannot be said a throatache' or a legache.
Using words are often only in certain social and topical contexts. A saying
is governed by the style and register it is in. To tell some one about getting angry
is needed to choose carefully between the neutral expression of this fact (I'm
angry) and the informal version ('I'm really pissed off). The latter would
21
T
ｲＮｮｾ＼＾＠
Jeremy Harmer, The Practice of English Language Teaching new edition, (London:
1OQ1 \
n
1 .::;r,;_ J t;,,'7
certainly seem rude to listeners in certain contexts. At a different level can be
recognized that two doctors talking about an illness will talk in a different register
than one of them who then talks to the patient in question - who has never studied
medicine.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude:
- Words use frequently are metaphor and idiom from word meaning
- There is a collocation that is which words go with each other in word meaning
- There are style and register words such as formal and informal words.
So, it's better for us to recognize metaphorical language use, know how words
collocate, and understand stylistic and topical contexts words and expressions.
c. Word Formation22
Words can change their shape and their grammatical value. too. Students
need to know facts about word formation and how to twist words to fit different
grammatical contexts. Thus the verb 'run' has the participles 'running· and 'run'.
The present participle 'running' can be used as an adjective and 'run' can also be
a noun. There is a clear relationship between the words ·death". 'dead', 'dying'
and' die'.
Students also need to know how suffixes and prefixes work. How lo make
the words potent and expensive opposite in meaning? Why it is prefaced one with
im- and the other with in-? There are two kinds of suffixes in English, inflectional
and derivational.
The inflectional suffixes are the ones to lean in studying of gamma: the -s
or - es ending of the verbs with the subject of the third person singular; the -ing
ending on the verb forms; the --ed of the past tense of the verbs; the -s that makes
noun plural, the --er that makes adjective comparative, and so forth. On the other
hand, derivational suffixes change the meaning of the base in some important
way, or else change into a different word class. They turn nouns into adjective,
adjective into verbs, nouns of one type into nouns of another type, and so on.
verbs are followed by a bare infinitive without 'to'. When students don't have this
kind of knowledge they come up with erroneous sentence which all teachers
instantly recognize, e.g. 'He said me to come;, 'I must to go' etc. It should be 'I
must go• without adding 'to' after modal auxiliaries.
There are many other areas of grammatical behavior that students need to
know about: what are phrasal verbs and how do they behave? How are adjectives
ordered? What positions can adverbs be used in? Without this knowledge can it
really said that students know vocabulary items such as 'look up' (as in a
dictionary), 'tired' and 'worn' or 'greedily'?
In this section is that knowing a word means far more than just
understanding (one of) its meaning(s). Somehow our teaching must help students
to understand what this knowledge implies both in general and for certain words
in particular. By being aware students will be more receptive to the contextual
behaviour of words when they first see them in texts, etc. and they will be better
able to manipulate both the nlmeanings and forms of the word.
From the descriptions above, the writer can conclude that there are many
words are countable and uncountable noun, singular and plural that can change
according to their grammatical patterns.
It can be summarized "Knowing a word' in the following way:
I
ｉｾ＠
Meaning in context
. MEANING.
Sense relations
ｾｍ･ｴ｡ｰｨｯｲ＠
,.-----j
WORDS
Ｏ
ｉｗｏｒｄｕｓｅｾ＠
Collocation
Style and register
IWORD FORMATION ｾ＠
Parts of speech
Prefixes and suffixes
Spelling and pronunciation
Nouns: countable and
uncountable. etc.
WORD GRAMMMAR :------.._Verb complementation
phrasal Yerbs, etc.
Adjectives and adverbs
Positions. etc.
D.
Reinforcement
1. Reinforcers
A reinforcer is an event which controls behavior. Consequences or
reinforcers may be positive (things a person will try to get or retain) or negative
(things a person will try to avoid or escape). Reinforcers may be used to increase
(reinforce) or decrease (punish) a behavior. A reinforcer may be either presented
or withdrawn to influence the strength of behavior. Thus, there are four distinct
methods of influencing a behavior by presenting or withdrawing positive or
negative reinforcers. The process of reinforcement always results in an increase or
strengthening of behavior. Punishment always results in a decrease or weakening
r
punishment. Negative reinforcement, withdrawing something unpleasant after a
behavior, has the effect of increasing or accelerating the behavior it follows.
Punishment, withdrawing something pleasant or presenting something unpleasant
after a behavior, has the opposite effect of decreasing or decelerating the behavior
it follows. 26
Positive Reinforcer
(something you will work to get)
Positive Reiriforcement
Effect: Increase or strengthen behavior which produces reinforcer; acceleration of
behavior.
Example
Behavior: Child begins assigned seatwork.
Consequence: Teacher smiles at child and remarks, "Good, I see you've started!"
If the child's initial effort at doing his assigned work is consistently given
immediate attention and praise by the teacher, the promptness with which he
begins his work will likely increase.
Negative Reinforcer
(something you will work to avoid)
Punishment
Effecl: Decrease or weaken behavior which produces reinforcer: deceleration of
behavior
Examyle
Behavior: Child destroys paper other children.
Consequence: Teacher points at child and shouts "NO!"
If the teacher is generally positive, controlled, and soft-spoken in his interaction
with the child, but consistently points at child and shouts "no!" when he begins to
destroy another child's paper, child's destruction of papers will likely decrease.
ｾﾷｰ｟ｲｮ､＠
26 Gerald Wallace and Ja1nes M. I