Chapter 4
Analysis and Discussion
This chapter presents and discusses the analysis of the data and findings obtained from the administrations of the vocabulary tests. The vocabulary tests are
based on the objectives and research question of the study, which are to investigate students’ vocabulary improvement in using narrow reading to learn the English
language vocabulary. This chapter reveals the data analysis, following the research question. Firstly,
it includes the answer for the research question, which is the students’ vocabulary improvement after learning using narrow reading, including the explanation about the
findings of the tests results.
A. Vocabulary Improvement
The data obtained from the pre-test and the post-test are arranged in tables. The discussion starts with a comparison between the pre-test and post-test results
followed by the analysis for the details in each test.
1. Vocabulary Test Result
The following discussion was based on the vocabulary tests which were designed to gain information on the participants’ knowledge of English language
vocabulary. All vocabulary items were selected from The Jakarta Post newspaper which was selected with the same topic, about Antasari Azhar’s case.
Table 2 Comparison between Pre-test and Post-test result. 2.a Pre-test result
Subject Number of
Questions Students heard about
the words at least once in their lives
Students could mention the
meaning of the words
Students could apply the
meaning in a sentence
Student 1 20
Prosecutor no. 2, attorney no. 3, hit
men no. 6, deputy no. 7, mastermind
no. 18, blackmail no. 19 =6
None None
Student 2 20
Prosecutor no. 2, alleged
no. 13,
testify no.
20, prominent no. 12,
blackmail no. 19 =5
None None
2.b Post-test result
Subject Number of
Question Students heard about
the words at least once in their lives
Students could mention the
meaning of the words
Students could apply
the meaning in a sentence
Student 1 20
Verdict no.1,
prosecutor no. 2, attorney no. 3, graft
no. 4, dossier no. 5, hit men no. 6,
deputy no.
7, indictment no. 8,
supreme court no. 9, jeopardy
no. 10,
procurement no.
11,prosecution 12, alleged
no. 13,
prominent no. 14, premeditated no. 15,
mitigating no. 16, undermine
17, Verdict no.1,
prosecutor no.2, attorney
no.3, graft no. 4, hit men
no. 6, deputy no. 7,
indictment no. 8, jeopardy
no. 10, procurement
no. 11, prosecution
no. 12, alleged no.
13, prominent Verdict
no.1, prosecutor
no.2, attorney
no.3, graft no. 4, hit
men no. 6, deputy no.
7, indictment no. 8,
jeopardy no. 10,
procurement no. 11,
prosecution
mastermind 18,
blackmail 19, testify no. 20 =20
no. 14, premeditated
no. 15, mitigating no.
16, undermine no. 17,
blackmail no. 19, testify no.
20 =16 no. 12,
alleged no. 13,
prominent no. 14,
premeditated no. 15,
mitigating no. 16,
undermine no. 17,
blackmail no. 19, testify
no. 20 =16
Student 2 20
Verdict no.1,
prosecutor no. 2, attorney no. 3, graft
no. 4, dossier no. 5, hit men no. 6,
deputy no.
7, Verdict no. 1,
prosecutor no. 2, attorney
no. 3, graft no. 4, hit men
no. 6, Verdict no.
1, prosecutor no. 2,
attorney no. 3, graft no.
4, hit men
indictment no. 8, supreme court no. 9,
jeopardy no.
10, procurement
no. 11,prosecution 12,
alleged no.
13, prominent no. 14,
premeditated no. 15, mitigating no. 16,
undermine 17,
mastermind 18,
blackmail 19, testify no. 20 =20
indictment no. 8, supreme
court no. 9, jeopardy no.
10, procurement
no. 11 prosecution
no. 12, alleged no.
13, premeditated
no. 15, mastermind
no. 18, blackmail no.
19, testify no. 20 =15
no. 6, indictment
no. 8, supreme court
no. 9, prosecution
no. 12, alleged no.
13, premeditated
no. 15, mastermind
no. 18, blackmail no.
19, testify no. 20
=13
Table 2.a and 2.b showed that the students improved after being exposed to narrow reading. The first participant in the pre-test the first participant only heard 6
words out of 20 words. In the post-test she improved by 14 words in terms of familiarity with vocabulary words. The second participant significantly improved the
number of vocabulary after the post test; in the pre-test the second participant only knew 5 words out of 20 words and yet in the post-test he became familiar with all the
20 words occurring in selected narrow reading materials. In the next stage of both the pre-test and the post-test, students were asked to
predict the meaning of the words by supplying English synonyms or in Indonesian equivalents. The first participant in the pre-test could answer nothing of the questions
and could not give any meaning of the words in the questions out of 20 questions. However, in the post-test the first participant could supply the meanings 16 numbers
out of 20 numbers of questions. Likewise, the second participant who could not answer anything in the pre-test, in the post-test he could supply the meaning of 15
words out of 20 questions. Next, I would explain about the words which were used in the pre-test and post-test.
The vocabulary pre-test consisted of 20 vocabulary words with three variants of questions totaling 60 questions. The first variant asked the students whether they
had heard about the words at least once. They could answer it with ‘Y’ for yes and ‘N’ for no. Then, the second variant of question asked the students to guess the
meaning of the words, in English synonyms or in Indonesia equivalent. Then, the third variant of question asked the students to use the word in a sentence.
Appendix C gives the detail about the words, it shows the information about the meaning of the words and the frequency of the words. The frequency of the words
was obtained by using a corpus program and the meanings of the words were generated from Webster’s Online Dictionary with Multilingual Thesaurus
Translation .
2. Pre-test Result
