meeting. In reviewing the learned materials, the students and the teacher would summarize together what had been discussed thus far. Meanwhile, the results of
students’ vocabulary learning through the implementation of contextual guessing strategy would be evaluated by performing a vocabulary test. The teacher would
provide forty target words to be guessed in the test-paper. The students should complete it in thirty minutes. In carrying out the vocabulary test, the class would
be divided into two groups of students; each group consisted of eighteen students. While the first group was performing the test, the other group would be asked to
wait outside. The detailed teaching and learning activities of the classroom action research cycle 2 was presented in appendix 5.
b. Acting
The second phase of the classroom action research was implementing the plan that had been formulated in the real teaching and learning processes. The
opening activity of the classroom action research cycle 2 was reviewing the materials discussed in the first classroom action research cycle. The materials
learned were reviewed by asking and answering questions. The teacher delivered a number of questions either on the theories of contextual guessing strategy or the
implementation of the theories to define the meaning of unknown words. This activity was advantageous to check how far the students had understood the lesson
and to determine which part of the learning that needed more elaboration. The main activities consisted of individualized learning and student-student
interaction. The teaching and learning activities that were included in
individualized learning were worksheets completion, self-selected resources task completion, and teacher-student discussion.
1 Worksheets completion The activity of applying the learned concepts was executed through worksheets
completion. In this activity, the teacher provided worksheets containing twenty- five sentences with an underlined word in each sentence. The students’ task was
to determine the correct meaning of the underlined words by crossing one option provided below the sentences. A reading passage of report “Water Politics in the
Middle East and North Africa” was delivered to each student. Most of the target words asked could be found in the reading passage. Thus, it was expected that the
students could make use the text as a reference to accomplish the task given. 2 Teacher-student discussion
Right after the students had completed the worksheets, the teacher asked the students to write down their answer in the blackboard. Then, the students and the
teacher discussed it together. During the discussion, the students were given chances to ask questions related to it.
3 Self-selected resources task completion In this activity, the students had to find a text of report which could be taken
from magazine, newspaper, articles in the internet, etc. Then they should read it, select any unknown words, and try to find the meaning of those words by
applying contextual guessing strategy. The teacher did not provide anything to the students. Thus, they had to plan and prepare the accomplishment of it by
themselves.
Meanwhile, the teaching and learning activities involved in the student- student interaction were pair-work, which was executed through worksheets
completion, and teacher-student discussion. Each of them will be elaborated below:
1 Pair-work In this activity the students completed a set of tasks on finding the meaning of
unknown words by guessing. In the meantime, the assignment did not be performed individually but in groups of two. The students should work with
another student sitting next to them. 2 Teacher-student discussion
In the activity of teacher-student discussion, the teacher pointed a group to come in front of the class to present the result of their work. A member of the
group read the sentences followed by the target word and the guessing. Then, they asked their friends’ opinion about their guessing and they tried to explain it.
At last, the classroom action research cycle 2 was finished by reviewing the materials learned and evaluating their learning from the first meeting up to the
last. In reviewing the learned materials, the students and the teacher summarized together what had been discussed. Meanwhile, the results of the students’
vocabulary learning were evaluated by performing a vocabulary test. The teacher provided forty words to be guessed in the test-papers. The students should
complete it in thirty minutes. The class was divided into two groups of students; each group consisted of eighteen students. While the first group was performing
the test, the other group should wait outside the class.
c. Observing
The second observation was carried out at the end of meeting IV and it was directed to evaluate the teaching practice cycle 2. Based on the overall result of
the second observation, it was concluded that the teaching practice cycle 2 was better than that of cycle 1. The classroom situation was controlled and managed
better than previously. Although there were still students who did not pay attention to the lesson, e.g. talking with other students sitting next to herhim,
more students were actively took part in the teaching and learning process. Nearly all students raised their hands enthusiastically when the teacher asked them to
write down the answer of the exercises in the blackboard. Meanwhile, the teacher’s effort to improve herself was quite successful. The teacher’s explaining
ability; the loudness and the clearness of the voice, and the answering-question ability were increased in the second cycle. All teaching and learning activities that
had been planned could be carried out. Every single activity listed was completely achieved.
However, after examining the result of the second observation, it was recognized that there were still several things that should be noted in the
implementation of contextual guessing strategy in learning new vocabulary to students of XI-Social 1 class of Pangudi Luhur Sedayu Senior High School
Bantul. They were: a
There were students who still tended to translate the text to find the meaning of some unknown words rather than to examine the context. In
other words, some of them still had difficulties in applying contextual guessing in learning vocabulary.
b There were still students who could not accomplish the assignments
because they did not have sufficient vocabulary mastery, even the high- frequency words.
c Implementing contextual guessing strategy to find unknown words from
a complete reading passage was thought to be a quite difficult job for a number of students. They were able to perform contextual guessing
strategy from context well when the target words were presented in sentences or paragraphs specialized for practicing the strategy but not in
wider context e.g. one-page long short story. Either too many amount of unknown words in the reading passage or very limited clues to help the
guessing were recognized as the reasons.
d. Reflecting
Examining all the processes above, it was concluded that introducing and training students to employ contextual guessing strategy in learning new
vocabulary is useful and advantageous. By introducing and training students to employ contextual guessing strategy in learning vocabulary, it was expected that
they could learn vocabulary by themselves and they could be fostered to become autonomous learners. However, it was recognized that mastering contextual
guessing strategy in learning vocabulary needs long process with much practices. It is good that the students have started to use it from now.
