should teach the most frequent words occurred in academic study, for example Academic Word List from Coxhead 2000. If this principle is applied in teaching
learning process, it can help the learners understand the words and word meanings in mastering academic vocabulary and it is included in explicit learning of
vocabulary. Vocabulary mastery of senior high school students is one of the supporting
factors in learning English as a foreign language. By having substantial vocabulary mastery, the learners will easily follow the lesson, even communicate
by using English well. The learners will be easier in improving their skills in English, such as: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Vocabulary mastery of
the learners will be obviously seen in those four skills, especially in listening and reading. Nation 1990 says that there is close connection between vocabulary
mastery, coverage of the vocabulary in a text, and the ease a learner will have in coping with the language of the text.
The theories about vocabulary assessment by Read 2000 and Palmer 1925 can support the research about the vocabulary mastery of the students in
senior high school. The theories talk about the definition of vocabulary and how to assess vocabulary to the learners. The theories of assessing vocabulary also
give explanation about the appropriate strategies of assessing vocabulary. There are two types of test that are usually implemented in senior high school level.
They are multiple choice type and matching type. Those are included in the easiest test to assess vocabulary since they are easy to be scored by the scorer.
This study uses matching test to measure the students’ mastery of vocabulary, especially academic words.
Senior high school students are in the beginner level and so do vocabulary items they learned in academic study, that is the academic words. The number of
academic words that occur frequently in academic study is about 570 up to 800 words for beginner level. Learning vocabulary in senior high school level is more
emphasized on the form and meaning of the words. In order to measure the students’ mastery of academic words, the researcher will give test to the students
in the twelfth grade. The tests are in the form of matching test and the correct answers of the tests will be scored. The correct answers can be the equivalences of
the students’ mastery of academic words in the beginner level, which is 570 to 800 words from the text coverage in academic study for senior high school
students Nation, 1990. After knowing the students’ mastery of academic words, the correlation between academic word mastery and productive skills will be
analyzed and discussed in the previous chapter. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY
In this chapter will be discussed the methodology of the research including: 1 types of the research, 2 setting, 3 subjects of the research, 4
instrument, 5 data collection, 6 data analysis. Those important things will be explained deeply in each point below.
3.1 Research Method
This research was aimed to help the students and the English teachers to know the students’ mastery of academic vocabulary and its correlation with the
students’ productive skills. Besides knowing their mastery of vocabulary, the students could experience vocabulary tests that had never been had before and
given more knowledge about academic vocabulary items. This research is also aimed to help the English teachers to know the students’ mastery of vocabulary,
so they can make better strategy of teaching English in order to improve the students’ English skills, especially for the next generations.
This research was a kind of descriptive quantitative research. This research is included in correlational study since it discusses the relation between the
students’ mastery of academic words with their productive skills, i.e. whether they have high, substantial, low relation, or can be ignored or no relation Young,
1982: 317 as cited by Sulaiman, 2003: 134. Correlation in this research means one of statistical techniques used to find the relation between two or more
29 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
variables that has quantitative or qualitative characteristics. The correlation measure is divided as follows:
a. 0.70 – 1.00 shows high association degree, b. 0.40 - 0.70 shows substantial relation,
c. 0.20 - 0.40 shows low correlation, d. 0.20 means that the relation is very low or almost no relation between
variables. The reason for choosing a method of the research was based on the characteristics
of the data obtained from the subjects. The data of this research dealt with quantity of academic words mastered by the subjects and the data was gathered
from an instrument, that was in the form of matching test. Therefore, quantitative method was applied to the research data analysis.
According to Olson 1995, quantitative reserach is a research that gather the data by measuring or estimating. Quantitative method also considered that all
the indications observed in the research could be measured and changed in the form of numeral and it was possible to use statistics analysis techniques
Sudarsono, 1988. Quantitative method is aimed to describe an indication quantitatively by using presentation of score which is obtained from the result of
the test. The score obtained from the tests were analyzed. The result of scoring was counted and the scores were the answer to the first problem formulation.
After finding the number of academic words mastered by the twelve grade students, the correlation of academic words mastery with the students’ productive
skills was c PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
3.2 Research Procedure
This reserach was done in SMA Negeri 1 Wonosari and it is located in Gunungkidul
regency. The researcher did some procedures to conduct this research. Firstly, the researcher did library research to gather supporting ideas that
could help the process of problem solving in this research. After doing library research, the researcher made instrument that could be used in the research. For
the third procedure, the researcher got permission to do the research in the institution chosen as the subjects of the research.
The researcher then gave vocabulary tests to the samples on 1 to 12 April 2008, i.e. the twelfth grade students in SMA Negeri 1 Wonosari. On May 2008,
the students did final practice test speaking and writing and the test items were from the teachers. Therefore, the researcher could obtain the result after the tests
were done. After all the data were gathered, the researcher analyzed the data and discussed the data analysis. Finally, the researcher could draw conclusions from
the discussion and give suggestions.
3.3 Subject of the Research
The samples were taken by using cluster sampling and they would be the representative of the population. Cluster sampling was a sampling technique that
was not taken based on individual, but it was based on a group, area, or a group of subjects that naturally gathered in the same area Sukardi, 2003. The subjects of
the research were taken from the population of the twelfth grade students in SMA Negeri 1 Wonosari, Gunungkidul
. There were two different kinds of class in grade PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
