Background of the Study

commit to user 1 HAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

In learning a new language, one thing that can be forgotten is vocabulary. It is part of language that must be learnt in learning new language. River in Nunan, 1995: 117 states that without an extensive vocabulary, someone will be unable to use the structure and functions we may have learned for comprehensible communication. It is one of the reasons why vocabulary should be taught. Coady and Huckin 1997: 5 say that Vocabulary is central to language and of critical importance to the typical language learner. Beside that they say vocabulary is how many words one must know be able to recognize automatically irrespective of vocabulary context in order to be able to use the higher level processing strategies with success. Someone must have a lot of words to be able to communicate with the others in societies. The persistence of communication depends on how much vocabulary that someone has. Someone will be able to speak fluently if they have enough vocabulary, for example at the junior high school level. The students of this level should be conducted entirely in English. If the students have limited vocabulary, they will not be able to understand what is being explained by the teacher. At intermediate level, the vocabulary lesson includes many words for things and persons in the learners’ daily lives. The students learn a large number of English commit to user 2 words which can now be used by the teacher by defining new vocabulary. In this case the teacher should master other words which are usually used in daily activities. It makes the student easier to understand the teacher’s explanation if the teacher uses vocabulary already known. Besides that the teacher needs skill in composing simple English, because much of the intermediate vocabulary cannot be demonstrated through actions or shown through pictures. However we can usually show the meanings by putting them into English explanation where the other words in the sentences are already known.At level of intermediate, textbooks generally provide help in teaching words for special aspects of life among native speakers of English. Short stories that show what people do and think and say in those situations really helps student in learning new words and encourage the students to think about the reading selection. In the process of teaching and learning vocabulary, there are many problems found. It could be from the teacher or from the students. Based on interview done by the researcher to the teacher of SMP Negeri 4 Widodaren, the students’ achievement in learning English is still low; it can be seen from the score of the students in the last exercise. The mean score is 6.37. The score is under the standard score of KKM Bahasa Inggris English standard score in SMP 4 Widodaren, which is 6.5. Besides that the students have difficulties to memorize the word, so they have limited vocabulary. As foreign language learner the students must have about 3,000 vocabularies. But in fact most of the eighth grade students of SMP 4 Widodaren only master vocabulary less than 1,000 vocabularies. This condition is caused by some commit to user 3 factors; the students have no motivation in memorizing new words, the students cannot pronounce the words correctly, and some time they do not understand or confuse when the teacher introduces new word. The low achievement of students’ vocabulary mastery in SMP Negeri 4 Widodaren is a result of the major problem. Firstly in teaching vocabulary, the teacher still uses teacher-centered approach. Teacher-centered approach is a kind of approach in which the teacher has important rules and does not allow the students to be active in teaching learning process. It means that the students have no freedom to explore their idea and feeling, so they often feel bored in the class. Secondly, the teacher never uses a media that can help the students master more vocabulary. The same problem in learning vocabulary is also faced by the eighth grade student of SMP 4 Widodaren. It can be indicated from their English score, it is still low. Furthermore, the interview done in the eighth grade student of SMP Negeri 4 Widodaren show that they have difficulty in mastering vocabulary. Most of them think that English is a difficult subject, especially in memorizing vocabulary. One of the students says that English is difficult subject because in learning English she must memorize new words that unfamiliar and it makes her confuse or difficult to understand. Beside that she says that the learning process make her bored, because the activities is just memorizing words without implementing in real activities. To overcome those problems, the teacher should present the English lesson as interesting as possible. Beside that the teacher should choose the appropriate method. According to Richards and Rodgers in Brown, 1994: 48 method is an commit to user 4 umbrella term to for specification and interrelation of theory and practice. Besides that Brown 1994: 51 says that method is the generalization of set of classroom specifications for accomplishing linguistic objectives. It means that method tend to be primarily concerned with teacher and student roles and behaviors secondarily with such features as linguistic and subject -matter objectives, sequencing, and materials. Teaching English successfully is not just a question of method Haycraft, 1978: 6. A various method in teaching process is needed. The method should be interesting and it is should related to ‘who’ and ‘what’, is being touch. Every teacher develops their method in teaching vocabulary. She tries out different techniques and refines those that suit her and the subject matter she is dealing with. To avoid boredom in learning vocabulary, the teacher should use interesting method. One of methods that can be used is suggestopedia. According to Lazanov in Richards and Rodgers, 1988: 100 suggestopedia is a specific set of learning recommendations derived from suggestology. Suggestopedia claimed as a dramatic learning process. It is based on the characteristics of suggestopedia; the decoration, furniture and arrangement of the classroom, the authoritative behavior of the teacher, and the main characteristic of suggestopedia is the use of music trough teaching learning process. Music can be used for therapy; it is to facilitate the establishment and maintenance of personal relations, to bring about increased self-esteem trough increased self-satisfaction in musical performance, to use the unique potential of rhythm to energize and bring order, and the last one to relax learners in learning process. commit to user 5 Based on the reason above, the writer is interested to formulate a research entitled “ Improving Students’ Vocabulary Mastery Through Suggestopedia a Classroom Action Research on the Eighth Grade Student of SMP Negeri 4 Widodaren in Academic Year 2010 2011.

B. Problem Statement