Improving students` vocabulary retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

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xiv ABSTRACT

Virnandi, Dud y. 2008. Improving Students’ Vocabulary Retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

English learning is very essential in this modern era. One of the important factors for the improvement of English mastery is vocabulary mastery. In this research, the fifth grade students of elementary school in PPA OI-743 Petra Yogyakarta could not memorize English words optimally. The problem occurred when they were only able to memorize below 10 out of 15 English words. Considering the phenomenon, the writer tried to search for an effective strategy to teach English words toward the fifth grade students of elementary school in PPA OI-743 Petra as it is formulated in the research question. What is the teaching strategy that is appropriate to improve the vocabulary learning achievement of the fifth grade students in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center?

The writer applied Classroom Action Research (CAR) method in this research. The method allowed the writer to apply any strategy which was considered effective to teach English words. In order to evaluate the strategy used in the research, the writer used Triangulation Matrix and weekly quizzes as data gathering techniques.

To answer the research question, the writer used pictures as the strategy to teach English words. It had been proven from the first and the second result of the weekly quizzes that pictures were able to improve students mastery on English words. Thus, it could be concluded that the strategy (using pictures) worked effectively since it could improve the achievement of the fifth grade students of PPA OI 743 Petra in learning English vocabulary.

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xv ABSTRAK

Virnandi, Dudy. 2008. Improving Students’ Vocabulary Retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

Pembelajaran bahasa Inggris sangat penting di zaman modern ini. Salah satu faktor penting dalam peningkatan penguasaan bahasa Inggris adalah penguasaan kosa kata. Didalam penelitian ini, siswa kelas lima sekolah dasar di PPA OI-743 Petra Yogyakarta tidak mampu mengingat kosa kata bahasa Inggris secara maksimal. Permasalahan muncul ketika mereka hanya mampu mengingat dibawah 10 dari 15 kosa kata bahasa Inggris. Dengan mempertimbangkan hal ini, penulis mencoba untuk mencari sebuah strategi yang efektif untuk mengajar kosa kata bahasa Inggris ke anak-anak kelas lima sekolah dasar di PPA OI-743 Petra seperti yang sudah dirumuskan di pertanyaan penelitian ini. Apa strategi pengajaran yang efektif untuk meningkatkan pencapaian pembelajaran kosa kata anak-anak kelas lima sekolah dasar di PPA OI-743 Petra?

Penulis menerapkan metode Classroom Action Research (CAR) di penelitian ini. Metode ini memberikan kesempatan kepada penulis untuk menerapkan strategi yang dianggap efektif untuk mengajar kosa kata bahasa Inggris. Untuk mengevaluasi strategi yang digunakan didalam penelitian ini, penulis menggunakan Triangulation Matrix dan kuis mingguan sebagai teknik pengumpulan data.

Untuk menjawab pertanyaan penelitian ini, penulis menggunakan gambar sebagai strategi untuk mengajar kosa kata bahasa Inggris. Hal ini sudah dibuktikan dari hasil kuis mingguan pertama dan kedua bahwa gambar mampu meningkatkan penguasaan kosa kata bahasa Inggris. Oleh karena itu bisa disimpulkan bahwa strategi (menggunakan gambar) yang sudah dipilih berfungsi dengan efektif karena strategi ini mampu meningkatkan pencapaian anak-anak kelas lima PPA OI-743 Petra dalam pembelajaran kosa kata bahasa Inggris.

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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION IN OI 743 PETRA CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT CENTER

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree

in English Language Education

By Dudy Virnandi

Student Number: 031214084

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA

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LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma : Nama : Dudy Virnandi

Nomor Mahasiswa : 031214084

Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul :

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY RETENTION IN OI 743 PETRA CHILDREN DEVELOPMENT CENTER

beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya di Internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupaun memberikan royalty kepada saya selamA tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

Demikian pernyatan ini yang saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta

Pada tanggal : 10 March 2008 Yang menyatakan

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STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

I honestly declare that the the sis I wrote does not contain the works or parts of the works of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the bibliography, as a scientific paper should.

Yogyakarta, 15 February 2008 The Writer

Dudy Virnandi 031214084

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am so grateful to my dearest Lord Jesus for His blessing. His gracious love shines on me through many people around me by whom I have been given care, encouragement, assistance, and accompaniment. I would like to say my very best thanks to these beloved people.

My biggest gratitude goes to my major sponsor, F.X. Ouda Teda Ena, S.Pd., M.Pd., for his advice and guidance through the process of writing of this thesis, for endowing me his time to read and to correct it, and for his fatherhood in sharing his knowledge with me. Undeniably, I have received so much from him. His patience, friendliness, and care have comforted me in improving my writing through every thesis consultation I had with him.

I would also like to thank to my co-sponsor, Made Frida Yulia, S.Pd., M.Pd., for patiently furnishing my thesis with her precious suggestions and for encouraging me through the writing process of this thesis. Her interest in details has improved my thesis and has changed it into a better one. I have learned many things related to grammar and the mechanics of formal writing from her.

My thankfulness goes to my beloved father, mother, brothers, and sister. They have become my motivation in accomplishing this thesis. I would like to thank them for their concern, encourage ment, prayer, and accompaniment.

I am also grateful to all my friends, for supporting me with their sincere friendship. I feel very happy with their criticism and suggestions toward the thesis I wrote. Their criticism and suggestions have been very helpful for the

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accomplishment of my thesis. It is my prayer to my gracious Lord to bless all who have so kindly supported and fostered me through all this time.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page TITLE PAGE………...… APPROVAL PAGES ………...…… STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……… ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ………..… TABLE OF CONTENTS ………. LIST OF FIGURES ………...…… LIST OF TABLES ……… LIST OF APPENDICES ……….………...… ABSTRACT ………..…… ABSTRAK ………

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background ……… 1.2 Proble m Formulation ……….………

1.3 Problem Limitation ……… 1.4 Research Objective ……… 1.5 Research Benefits ……… 1.6 Definition of Terms ………

CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Theoretical Description ……… 2.1.1 Teaching English as a Foreign Language ……… 2.1.2 Vocabulary ……… 2.1.2.1 The Meaning of Vocabulary ……… 2.1.2.2 The Importance of Vocabulary ……….… 2.1.2.3 Vocabularies Proposed in the Curriculum ………. 2.1.2.4 Approaches to Vocabulary Learning ……….... . i ii iv v vii x xi xii xiii xiv 1 3 4 4 5 5 8 8 9 9 10 12 12

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2.1.2.5 Techniques of Vocabulary Teaching ……… 2.1.2.6 Pictures in Vocabulary Teaching .. ……….

2.1.2.7 Vocabulary Selection ……… 2.1.3 Children Language and Learning ………. 2.1.3.1 Children as Active Processors ………... 2.1.3.2 The Principle of Children Language Learning ……….. 2.1.3.3 The Principle for Teaching English to Children ……….… 2.1.4 Elementary School Students ……… 2.1.4.1 Fifth Grade Students ………. 2.1.4.2 The Students’ Characteristics in Learning ……… 2.2 Theoretical Framework………

CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Method ……… 3.2 Research Participants ……….. 3.2.1 Research Subject ……….. 3.2.2 Research Setting ………... 3.3 Research Instruments ……….. 3.4 Data Gathering Techniques ………. 3.5 Data Analysis Technique ……… 3.6 Research Procedure ……….

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 Research Findings ……… 4.1.1 The Implementation of the Chosen Strategy …….

4.1.1.1The First Cycle ……….... 4.1.1.1.1 Clarifying Vision …….………. 4.1.1.1.2 Articulating Theories ……… 4.1.1.1.3 Implementing Action and Collecting Data ……… 4.1.1.1.4 Reflecting and Planning Informed Action ……… 4.2.2 The Second Cycle ………

14 14 17 17 17 18 20 22 22 23 24 29 30 30 31 31 32 33 35 38 38 40 41 42 45 47 48

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4.2.2.1 Implementing Action and Collecting Data ……… 4.2.2.2 Reflecting and Planning Informed Action ……… 4.3 Discussions ……… 4.4 Other Findings ………

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusions ……… 5.2 Suggestions ….………...

BIBLIOGRAPHY.……….….

APPENDICES ……….

49 50 50 52

54 55

57 59

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

2.1 The Relation in Communication Process (Wenden and Rubin, 1987: 80).. 21 3.1 The Action Research Cycle (Sagor, 2005: 96) ……… …. 36 4.1 The Relation in Communication Process (Nation, 1990: 10) .……….….. 44

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

3.1 Triangulation Matrix: Three ACR Questions (Sagor, 2005: 96)….. . 34 4.1 The Weekly Quiz Scores of the Subject ..………. 51

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Page

Appendices Cover ……….. 59

Appendix 1. Triangulation Matrix: Three ACR Questions ……… 60

Appendix 2. Triangulation Matrix Data ………..………... 61

Appendix 3. Learning Designs …..………... 68

Appendix 4. Weekly Quizzes ..……….…….. 74

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xiv ABSTRACT

Virnandi, Dud y. 2008. Improving Students’ Vocabulary Retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

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xv ABSTRAK

Virnandi, Dudy. 2008. Improving Students’ Vocabulary Retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. Yogyakarta: English Language Education Study Program, Sanata Dharma University.

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1 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This research is conducted in order to investigate a strategy to improve students’ retent ion in their vocabulary mastery. To achieve the goal of the research, there are some important points which will be discussed in this chapter. They are background of this research, problem limitation, problem formulation, research objective, benefits, and definition of terms.

1.1 Background

One way to improve the prosperity of under average family is by donating the fund through social foundations with expectation that they deserve to obtain a better life. This fund comes from foreign people or local people. They donate their money through social foundations whether they are formal or informal. PPA OI 743 Petra is one of the social foundations which are registered in the local government as Children Development Center. It deals with children’s development. It helps the children to develop their religious, moral, attitude, behavior, health, and cognitive aspects. Moreover, the chance for the students to develop themselves is facilitated by some interesting and educative programs. One of the programs to facilitate students’ learning is by giving an English course toward the children. This program is provid ed for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and tenth grade students. Among the classes, a problem occurs in the fifth grade class. They have difficulties in memorizing the vocabularies they learn.

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After the researcher ha ve been teaching in this foundation for about one year, the researcher find that students are weak in their vocabulary mastery.. Based on the researcher’s observation, the students face difficulty in memorizing the vocabulary of the previous meeting. Only one third of students of the fifth grade are able to memorize some of the words but two third of the students are not able to memorize English words they learn. Moreover, students are not accustomed to memorizing the written form effectively, so even though they are able to memorize the sound of the words, it is sometimes difficult for the m to write the written form of the vocabulary.

The reason for being interested in the lexical dimension of language is the fact that most people language is largely a matter of words. Stubbs (1986: 99) puts it as quoted in Exploring the Second Language Mental Lexicon written by David Singleton, “When people think of language, they think almost invariably of words.” It has been the concern of the researcher to be able to teach the students effectively, especially in their learning of vocabulary because as it is quoted in Singleton (1999: 9) “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (Wilkins, 1972: 111).

Considering the situation of Children Development Center and the importance of vocabulary mastery, the researcher realizes that it is an important task to improve the mastery of vocabulary of the fifth grade students. Since the theories of children learning mentions that students have the capability of memorizing the vocabulary items effectively in Elementary level. Nation (1990) mention that in this age students are still equipped with fresh mind to memorize,

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their mind is still developing, their brain is still functioning maximally and they are motiva ted to study. In spite of the difficulties which might appear in the class, the researcher believe that by choosing or even constructing an effective strategy, students will be able to learn English words effectively.

Since there is no curriculum of English available in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center, the researcher hover the chance to choose and to apply any useful strategy for the learning of the students. This opportunity brings the researcher to adopt and to do a research in the researcher’s class without being afraid of any inconvenience or objection from the chairman of the foundation. This foundation is considered as Non-Government Organization; hence, it gives freedom to the researcher to set his learning as the researcher desired.

In this research, the researcher tries to investigate any beneficial strategy for the improvement of students’ retention in their vocabulary mastery. The track of finding or even constructing a strategy which is appropriate with students’ characteristics is considered from the previous actions taken by the researcher. The researcher is aware that some strategies do not function for the students of OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The researcher hopes that this research will establish an appropriate strategy to teach English words toward the students who face difficulties in memorizing English words they learn.

1.2 Problem Formulation

This research is going to answer the formulated problem as it is mentioned below.

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What is the teaching strategy that is appropriate to improve the vocabulary learning achievement of the fifth grade students in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center?

1.3 Problem Limitation

It is the responsibility of a language teacher to understand the difficulties faced by the students in their achievement in English vocabulary learning. Moreover, students in the age of Elementary school level are considered capable to obtain good memorization of English words. Based on critical period theory, young learners learn language better than adult s.

As it is mentioned that students tend to forget the English words they learn previously, the critical period theory has influenced the researcher to search for a strategy which is effective to teach English words to the fifth grade students in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The concern of this research is how to improve students’ retention in their English vocabulary learning. Therefore a strategy is looked for the teaching of English words in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

1.4 Research Objective

The objective is to investigate a teaching strategy which is appropriate to improve the achievement of the fifth grade students in their vocabulary learning in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

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1.5 Research Benefits

This research is expected to bring beneficial effects toward both the teacher and the fifth grade students of Elementary school level in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The benefits of this research are first, it is aimed to give a good view related to the process of retention that occurs in English vocabulary learning in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

Second, the result is expected to help the fifth grade students of Elementary school level in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center in their English learning. By providing an effective strategy, it is expected that they are able to increase their achievement in their English words learning.

Third, it will ease the ir formal English teacher in their formal study. The students of the fifth grade of Elementary school level in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center have been educated effectively in their vocabulary learning. They are expected to do better in their English formal study.

1.6 Definition of Terms

In order to support the reading of this report, some definitions are provided to help the reader to comprehend some difficult terms.

1. Vocabulary

Hornby (1989: 1471), in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, defines vocabulary as (1) total numbers of words that make up language; (2) (body of) words known to a person used in particular book, subject; (3) list of words with their meanings. In this research, vocabulary is regarded as word that makes up

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language. They can stand-alone or together. They may be different in meaning from each other.

2. Learning strategies

Wenden and Rubin (1987: 71) define learning strategies as techniques, approaches, or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and to recall of both linguistic and content area information. In this research, the researcher bases the success of the research on the learning strategy which is used to teach English words. They participate as the main factor to solve the problem formulation of this research.

3. Cognitive

As it is quoted in Wenden and Rubin (1987: 72), in Brown and Paliscar’s point of view, cognitive strategies are directly related to a specific task and learning objective and may not be applicable to different types of learning task. The researcher uses cognitive strategies hence they are suitable with the research

4. Retention

Bauman (1980: 35) explains retention as an active process requiring learning. In this study, retention is focused on the active process of memorizing the English words. It uses required learning which is effective to improve students’ achievement in learning English vocabulary.

5. Triangulation Matrix: ACR Three Questions

In order to collect the data in this research, the researcher records the teaching using Triangulation Matrix: Three ACR Questions. The form of Triangulation Matrix: Three ACR Questions is adopted from Sagor (2005: 96) in

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his book entitled The Action Research Guide Book. Sagor explains The Triangulation Matrix as a tool designed to recount the data which occur in the teaching and learning process. It is like a journal. It records written data from the research.

6. Children Development Center OI 743 Petra

It is one of the social foundations in Yogyakarta that deals with children. It is located in Jl. Ireda MGL/ 1039 Yogyakarta 55152. The programs are funded by foreign people and local people. The head office of this foundation is located in Bandung, West Java. In this place, the research is conducted. This foundation facilitates children with development programs to develop their religious, moral, attitude, behavior, health, and cognitive aspect. The cognitive aspect includes English mastery which is the main focus of the research.

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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This research is conducted to investigate the appropriate strategy to improve the achievement of the fifth grade students in their English vocabulary learning in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. Thus, the researcher bases the research on theories in language teaching and learning. The theories are used to search for an appropriate strategy in teaching English vocabulary toward students of the fifth grade of elementary school in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center in their English vocabulary learning.

2.1 Theoretical Description

2.1.1 Teaching English as a Foreign Language

As the rapid growth of advanced communication system, world seems to be shrinking very rapidly. It happens as the international barriers break down and people can more easily come into contact with other cultures and languages through travel, communication or new technology. Brewster et al. (2002: 1) state this so-called globalization of the world is a modern and sometimes controversial trend which looks as though it may be here to stay, at least for the time being.

The growing trend of using English as an international language has led into introduction of English language learning by many children all over the world. Brewster et al. (2002: 1) mention that pressure to introduce early English learning has often come from parents who strongly believe learning English as the

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language skill will benefit their children greatly by giving them more opportunities to gain economic, cultural or educational advantages. As it is explained by Brewster et al. (2002: 1) that

Governments and private schools all over the world have decided to introduce English at primary level, because there is a strong “folk” belief, a sort of ‘act of faith’, that young children learn language better and more easily than older children. This means there is a wide spread belief that there are definite advantages to introducing language learning early in life which outweigh the disadvantages.

Therefore, English teachers might ask their selves whose language they teach, for what purpose and what their relationship with English, do they consider it to be foreign, second or native language. The term “foreign” is also used to distinguish the teaching of English in an area where there is an exposure toward English with an area where the access to English is almost impossible. Indonesian students are foreign language learners in which exposure toward native speaker of English is almost impossible to be daily meeting exposure. On the contrary, students face non-native English speakers in their English learning. It is why, the need of a very qualified strategy of teaching is necessarily required to help students learning.

2.1.2 Vocabulary

2.1.2.1 The Meaning of Vocabulary

Hornby (1989: 1471), in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, defines vocabulary as (1) total numbers of words that make up language; (2) (body of) words known to a person used in particular book, subject; (3) list of words with their meanings. In this study, vocabulary is regarded as a word that makes up

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language. They can stand-alone or together. They may be different in meaning from each other.

According to Nation (1990: 31), “Learner’s vocabulary is divided into two groups, active and passive.” Active vocabulary is the vocabulary that the learner should use in speaking and writing. While passive vocabulary is words the learner needs to recognize in listening and reading. Speaking vocabulary is words used to communicate someone’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas to others. Writing vocabulary is words that the children use to express their thoughts on paper. As Nation (2002: 6) proposes

All words are created equal. Some occur much more frequently than others and are thus more useful for learners. This knowledge is very important pre-requisite for planning a vocabulary program, and for making day-to-day decisions about how to treat particular words.

Nation (2002: 6) divides vocabulary into four major groups. They are 1) High frequency words, 2) Academic words, 3) Technical words, and 4) Low frequency words. In this research, the researcher is going to use the high frequency words as the vocabularies which are frequently used in the English vocabulary teaching. This selection will help students to expose themselves with daily English words and to give them more exposure toward their needs of certain words related to their daily life.

2.1.2.2 The Importance of Vocabulary

Harris (1997) says in his book, Land Marks in Linguistic Thought, that human needs language to communicate their thoughts. Human knowledge consists of ideas or thoughts. Word as a mark or a sign of language is the vehicle of human

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communication. It records the thoughts or ideas and drives them into others’ mind. Taylor (1990: 1) states:

In order to live the world, we must name it proposes another evidence of the importance of word. Names are essential for the construction of reality for without a name it is difficult to accept the existence of an object, an event, a feeling. Naming is the means whereby we attempt to order and structure the chaos and flux of existence, which would otherwise be an undifferentiated mass. By assigning names, we impose a pattern and meaning which allow us to manipulate the world.

She (1990: 1) mentions in foreign language teaching, vocabulary has for a long time been a neglected area. It happens because pride of place has been given to “structures” or latterly “function”. Course books have provided little guidance other than word list, so that apart from turning to the specialized supplementary material, such as dictionary workbooks, teachers have been hard to satisfy their students’ demand for “words”. Happily, this situation has changed in the opposite direction. Nowadays many of newer course books include word study section. Nation (1990: 2) argues

The fact that simply increase learners’ vocabulary without giving attention to putting this knowledge to use may not be effective, but getting learners to do language task when their vocabulary is inadequate for the task is a frustrating experience.

Finally, giving attention to vocabulary is unavoidable. Even the most formal communication directed approaches to language teaching must deal with the need of vocabulary as one important factor in the success of English language teaching.

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2.1.2.3 Vocabularies Proposed in the Curriculum

The goals of Indonesian government in teaching English to the fifth grade of elementary school are able to listen, to read, to pronounce, and to write some English words; the students have functional skill in sentences and English utterances dealing with student’s environment and student’s school (GBPP, 1994: 6). Those goals are related to English vocabulary teaching. The Indonesian government lists English in its curriculum and inside of it; there are English words for the fifth grade students.

2.1.2.4 Approaches to Vocabulary Learning

Nation (1990: 2) divides vocabulary learning into direct learning and in-direct learning. He defines the meaning of in-direct vocabulary learning as the learners do exercises and activities that focus their attention on vocabulary. Some examples of those activities are word-building exercises, guessing words from context when it is done as class exercises, learning words in list, and vocabulary games. On the contrary, indirect vocabulary learning is defined as the learners’ attention is focused on some other features, usually on the message that is conveyed by a speaker or a writer. Krashen (1981) as it is stated in Nation (1990: 2) believes that certain conditions must be applied for such learning to occur. First, the learners must be interested in understanding the message. Second, the messages should contain some items that are just outside the learner’s present level of achievement. Third, the learners should not feel worried or threatened by their contact with the foreign language.

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Vocabulary teaching can fit into a language learning course in any of four ways. Nation (1990: 4) explains those four ways from the most indirect to the most direct as follows.

1) Material is prepared with vocabula ry learning as a consideration. The most common examples of this are the preparation of simplified material and the careful grading of the first lessons of learning English.

2) Words are dealt with as they happen to occur. This means that if an unknown word appears in a reading passage, the teacher gives some attention to it at the moment it causes a problem.

3) Vocabulary is taught in connection with other language activities. For example, the vocabulary of reading passage is dealt with before the learners read the passage.

4) Time is spent either in class or out of school on the study of vocabulary without an immediate connection with some other language activities. For example, time is spent on learning spelling rules or on activities like dictionary use, guessing words, the use of word parts or list learning.

The method in vocabula ry learning is “grading” (Nation, 1982). It means the grades in learning vocabulary are constructed based on many factors, such as time needed to learn, number of words to be learned, the difficulty of words and the repetition of the words. These factors should be the consideration for choosing the appropriate strategy in vocabulary learning.

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2.1.2.5 Techniques of Vocabulary Teaching

There are two general techniques in foreign vocabulary learning, namely “receptive and productive learning” (Wallace, 1991: 21). Receptive learning makes the students able to recall the translation of foreign word when the foreign word has been seen or heard. For example, the teacher says the word ‘red’, the students hear the word and are able to remember the meaning in their first language.

Productive learning supports the students to produce the foreign word by speaking and writing. It requires more time than receptive learning. For productive learning, “saying the words aloud brings faster learning with better retention” (Wallace, 1991: 29). For instance, the teacher shows a picture of an elephant and asks the student to word in English. It can be concluded that based on the techniques, the research deals with receptive and productive learning. First, students need to be able to recall translation of the word and second, the students are required to speak the word in oral way and to write the word in script form.

2.1.2.6 Pictures in Vocabulary Teaching

If learning is to take place, it usually involves the collaboration of two people. They are teacher and learner. The teacher cannot do it all alone and most learners find the difficulties of doing it alone overwhelming. Wenden and Rubin (1987: 71) state that learning strategies are techniques, approaches or deliberate actions that students take in order to facilitate the learning and to recall of both linguistic and content area information. As it is quoted in Wenden and Rubin

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(1987: 72), Brown and Paliscar (1982) classify general learning strategies as metacognitive or cognitive. Their point of view, metacognitive strategies involve thinking about the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring for learning while it is taking place and self-evaluation of learning after the learning activity. Metacognitive strategies can be applied virtually all types of learning task whereas cognitive strategies are more directly related to a specific task and learning objective and may not be applicable to different types of learning task.

Based on the above explanation, the researcher proposes the cognitive strategies, thus, they involve manipulation or transformation of material to be learned; in other words, learners interact directly with what is to be learned (Wenden and Rubin, 1987: 72). Cognitive strategies can vary in the amount of leaners’ interaction or transformations involved; greater involvement is thought to result in increased learning.

Quoted in Wenden and Rubin (1987), Brown and Paliscar (1982) divide cognitive strategies into several kinds. They are repetition, resourcing, directed physical response, translation, grouping, note taking, deduction, recombination, imagery, auditory representation, key word, contextualization, elaboration, transfer, and differencing.

In the connection between learner’s strategies and vocabulary learning, Nation (1990: 51) explains that the meaning of words can be communicated in many different ways. They are by demonstration or pictures: (1) using an object, (2) using a cut-out figure, (3) using gesture, (4) performing an action, (5) photographs, (6) blackboard drawing or diagrams, and (7) pictures from books.

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The other way is through verbal explanations. They are (1) analytical definition, (2) putting the new word in defining context, and (3) translating into another language

Nation (1990: 52) draws the relation in communication process as in Figure 2.1, the relation in communication process.

Encoding Decoding

Figure 2.1 The Relation in Communication Process (Wende n and Rubin, 1987: 80)

In vocabulary teaching information source may be the teacher’s brain. Transmitter can be many things—for examples, the teacher’s voice (if giving a verbal explanation), the teacher’s hands (if drawing or pointing to a picture), the teacher’s body (if giving a demonstration), and a real object (if the teacher shows it to the class).

In this research, the researcher uses one type of cognitive strategies which is called imagery. In this research, learning vocabulary could be done with demonstrations and using pictures. Nation (1990: 53) explains all strategies are well applied to condition in which it does translate the idea from the information source. He also suggests that English language teachers could help their learners to grasp the concept by varying the situation in which it is demonstrated and by giving verbal definition as well as nonverbal one. In this case, Wenden and Rubin (1987: 77) state that imagery is used by relating new information to visual concepts in memory via familiar easily retrievable visualizations, phrases or

Information Source

Information Destination Receiver

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locations. Those visual concepts are suitable and helpful for students’ strategy in memorization of English words.

2.1.2.7 Vocabulary Selection

It is important to decide the kind of vocabulary and the amount of English words which are going to be used for vocabulary teaching. This information should be provided in the curriculum. In the local 1994 content curriculum, there is no syllabus for the 2nd and 3rd grades of Elementary School level. In the research the researcher selects the English words, determines number of the words to teach and makes lesson plans for English words teaching.

Lado (1964: 119) states “the teacher needs to rely on certain criteria of vocabulary selection in order to meet the needs of various goals and conditions.” In the vocabulary selection, teacher should recognize the criteria of vocabulary for his/her students. He/she should understand the objective which will be achieved, learners’ level, background of the students, needs of learning, and learning source.

2.1.3 Children Language and Learning

2.1.3.1 Children as Active Processors

Lindfors (1980: 176) clarifies the term “imitation” in children language learning that children reformulate (rather than repeat) the input sentence according to their own language system, if it is beyond the bounds of their rule system. Thus, their imitation may omit elements or recognize elements, though it will generally retain the input order of elements. Children apparently imitate primarily

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those structures, which are accounted for by the underlying rule system they already posses. The child as active language processor and hypothesis builder is a more powerful explanation of language acquisition than the child as an imitator. From the above explanation, we recognize that children construct their information in their brain, as the learning of language takes part. Lindfors also proposes that children learn from the simpler syntactic unit of language to the more complex one. Word is a simple syntactic unit which can help the children to communicate their idea to be understood by other people in their surroundings.

2.1.3.2 The Principle of Children Language Learning

The children ability to learn a language is different from adult’s ability. The children have their own principles in learning a language. Hudelson (1991: 2) states four basic principles of children language learning, they are learning by doing, learning in social contexts, learning with experimenting and using the language, and learning through social interaction. Here are the explanations for each principle.

1) Learning by doing

Hudelson (1991: 2) proposes that “children learn through hands-on experiences and through manipulation of objects in the environment.” He (1991: 2) states that “children in primary or elementary school settings generally learn by doing.” This means that the children have to be actively involved in the learning process. Hudelson proposes that in language class, “children need to be actively involved in activities when language is taking part and to use the language in

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accomplishing the meaningful task” (Hudelson, 1999: 20). Therefore, teacher is necessary to encourage the children to use the language in the meaningful tasks. 2) Learning in social context

Vygotsky’s work related to language learning postulates that “children learn in social context, in groups where some members know more than other” (Hudelson, 1991: 2). From this principle, it can be concluded that besides learning through hands-on experiences, children also need to use the language in interacting with other children and adult. In the English Foreign Language learning, it is suggested that teacher uses English as much as possible.

3) Learning with experimenting and using the language

“First and second language acquisition occurs through learners figuring out how the language works, through learners making and testing out hypotheses about the learning” (Hudelson, 1991: 2). This means that learners need to be given chances to use the language as much as they can. While using the language, children will make mistakes. Making mistakes is natural and inevitable part in language learning” (Hudelson, 1991: 2). The teacher should not punish the children who make mistakes but he should correct the mistakes.

4) Learning through social interaction

“Language acquisition occurs through social interaction and through having to use it with others in authentic communication setting” (Hudelson, 1991: 2). Therefore, children have opportunities to talk with each other using the language. By talking to each other, the learner will obtain language input from others.

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Children have their own characteristics in learning a language. It is important for the English teachers of Elementary school to know the children’s principles in learning a language. Those principles will help the teacher in creating pleasant and enjoyable teaching learning activities.

2.1.3.3 The Principle for Teaching English to Children

The way of teaching children in elementary school is different from adult’s way. Brewster (2004: 39) explains the ten principles for teaching young learners. The principle s may give direction and guidance to teach language to children effectively.

Here are the ten principles of teaching young learners: 1) Starting where the child is

Children in the classroom have experience of life, knowledge about their world and at least one language. The teaching material and activities should relate to their world and experience.

2) Encouraging social interaction

Brewster states “learning is an interactive process” which involves both teacher and students in sending and transmitting the message. Primarily, children are active participants in the classroom. Therefore, the teacher should encourage students to interact with others, as language is a means of social interaction.

3) Supporting negotiation of meaning and collaborative talk early

The teacher provides the chance for the students to exchange their ideas or opinions to train the students in negotiating meaning and collaborative talk.

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4) Allowing the children to be active

The teacher guides the students to be active in learning process by giving challenging materials and asking them to take a risk in learning. The teacher should allow the children to encounter challenges and risks. The challenges and taking the risks will train students to become independent, motivated, and succeed to progress.

5) Pitching input within the zone of proximal development

It is explained before that the children need to encounter challenges and to take risks in their language learning. The teacher can give the children language input beyond their linguistic level to give them opportunity for challenges and risks. The challenges and risks can be led to the successful learning.

6) Introducing language at discourse level

Children obtain pleasure when studying a new language through stories, songs, and play. Those are examples of activities to introduce language at discourse level. Those are examples of how learners can be exposed to comprehensible, meaningful language at discourse level.

7) Planning meaningful and purposeful activities within a clear familiar context The teacher should tell the students the purposes of doing an activity. Therefore, they know what activities that can support and foster themselves to be more independent. This can be done by introducing pair work and group work, the use of dictio naries and reference materials. The familiar context will enable teacher and learners to do meaningful activities.

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In teaching learning process, the teacher is required to facilitate the students all the time by giving them chances to study by themselves. This will make the students more independent.

9) Developing a supportive, non-threatening, enjoyable learning environment The teacher should create comfortable learning atmosphere in the class to support the learning activities. The enjoyable environment can be created by valuing all learners as individuals, supporting challenges and risks, working on relevant and interesting topics, doing meaningful and purposeful activities and also discipline.

10)Testing and assessing in the way that we teach

The teacher conducts the test and assessment to know the development of students’ ability and the progress they make in their learning.

2.1.4 Elementary School Students

The fifth grade students of Elementary school are the subjects of this research, their characteristic s including how they learn, the principle of children language learning and also the principle of teaching English to children will be discussed.

2.1.4.1 Fifth Grade Students

Pieget’s stage theory postulates that children’s progress through stages (Hudelson, 1991: 2). They are the sensor motor period, the pre-operational period which typically spans from age of two to the age of 6 and 7, the concrete

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operational period which extends from about 6 to 7 to 11 or 12, and the formal operational period which continues from approximately 11 to 12 through adulthood or old age. The fifth grade students are in the concrete operational period.

This includes the fifth grade students of elementary school. They are considered in the intermediate grade because they are in the last three year. Their development characteristics found in this period are physical, intellectual, emotional, and social aspect. Curiosity is an indicator of their cognitive development. They are interested in learning all kinds of thing and they want to know as many facts as possible.

2.1.4.2 The Students’ Characteristics in Learning

The thoughts of children of elementary school age develop gradually and stay calm in normal condition. They are the very stage of learning (Kartono, 1979: 140). Children have unique attitudes toward learning something because they know not necessarily in what they know.

The nature of children’s learning depends on the stage of cognitive development they have reached (Kartono, 1979: 140). In addition, memory of children of 8 to 12 years reaches the highest and greatest intensity. The ability to learn by heart is the strongest competency.

Scott and Lisbeth (1993: 3-4) identify some general characteristics of children that are related to their capability as follows:

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2. They can tell the differences between fact and fiction. 3. They ask questions all the time.

4. They rely on the spoken word as well as the physical world to convey and to understand meaning.

5. They are able to make some decisions about their own learning. They have definite vie w about what they like and they dislike doing

6. They have a developed sense of fairness about what happens in the classroom and begin to question teacher’s decisions.

7. They are able to work with others and to learn from others.

From those descriptions above, it is crucial to know how they learn. It becomes a great guidance in choosing a strategy to increase students’ vocabulary retention.

2. Theoretical Framework

Vocabulary mastery is turned out to be an essential key to the success of English teaching and learning. Harris (1997) states that word as a mark or a sign of language is the vehicle of human communication. In addition, vocabulary is essential to construct reality (Taylor, 1990). Without name, it is hard to accept the existence of an object, an event or a feeling. Thus, the high frequency vocabularies are chosen as they are mostly used vocabularies. Therefore, students are expected to be more aware of the meaning of English words they learn. These the English words are more applicable, hence, the learners could easily recall the words and use them in simple communication using English. This selection will

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help the students to expose themselves with daily English words and to give them more exposure toward their needs of certain words related to their daily life.

Nevertheless, in local context as in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center, it is arduous for learners in the fifth grade of Elementary school to master English vocabulary. These students are from under average socioeconomic background. Some of students are still able to memorize some of the words but some are not. However, most students are not accustomed to memorize effectively. Even though, they are able to memorize the sound of the words, it is sometimes difficult for them to write into right spelling.

As a result of the research objective that is to find an appropriate strategy to teach English vocabulary in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center, some principles must be taken into consideration. Firstly, words of daily life communication will vary in nature; according to Brooks (1962), “Learner’s vocabulary is divided into two groups, active and passive.”

Active vocabulary is the vocabulary that the learner should use in speaking and writing. While passive vocabulary is vocabulary the learner needs to recognize in listening and reading. This research covers both vocabularies. This fact is supported by Nation (2002: 6). He proposes all words are created equal.

The second, in order to be aware of student’s way of learning, the researcher comes up with ten principles of teaching children in elementary school. Brewster (2004: 39) explains the ten principles for teaching young learners. The principles may give direction and guidance to teach language to children effectively the ten principles of teaching young learners. They are (1) starting

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where the child is, (2) Encouraging social interaction, (3) Supporting negotiation of meaning and collaborative talk early, (4) Allowing the children to be active, (5) Pitching input within the zone of proximal development, (6) Introducing language at discourse level, (7) Planning meaningful and purposeful activities with in a clear, familiar context, (8) Helping learners to become more independent and autonomous, (9) Developing a supportive, non-threatening, enjoyable learning environment and (10) Testing and assessing in the way that we teach.

The third, the researcher recommends direct learning toward English words. Nation (1990: 2) defines direct vocabulary learning as the learners do exercises and activities that focus their attention on vocabulary. Some examples of those activities are word-building exercises, guessing words from context when it is done as a class exercise, learning words in list and vocabulary games.

The fourth, the researcher considers the learning of vocabulary which is done in 743 OI Petra Children Development Center as productive learning. Productive learning supports the students to produce the foreign word by speaking and writing. It requires more time than receptive learning. For productive learning, “saying the words aloud brings faster learning with better retention” (Wallace, 1991: 29). For instance the teacher shows a picture of an elephant and asks the student to write the English word. By being productive and direct toward the English words, learners are provided with the supporting atmosphere to ease them in their vocabulary learning.

The fifth, the research suggests “grading” (Nation, 1982) as the strategy in vocabulary learning. It means the grades in learning vocabulary are constructed

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based on many factors. The examples of the factors are time needed to learn, number of words to be learned, the difficulty of words, and the repetition of the words.

The last, the researcher proposes the cognitive strategies as the learners involved in manipulation or transformation of material to be learned; in other words, the learner interacts directly with what is to be learned (Wenden and Rubin, 1987: 72). Cognitive strategies can vary in the amount of learner’s interactions or transformations involved; greater involvement is thought to result in increased learning. Quoted in Wenden and Rubin (1987), Brown and Paliscar (1982) divide cognitive strategies into several kinds. They are repetition, resourcing, directed physical response, translation, grouping, note taking, deduction, recombination, imagery, auditory representation, key word, contextualization, elaboration, transfer, and differencing.

In this research, the researcher uses imagery as the strategy to teach vocabulary. Here are some alternatives of imagery strategy through demonstration or picture. They are (1) using an object, (2) using a cut-out figure, (3) using gesture, (4) performing an action, (5) photographs, (6) blackboard drawing or diagrams and (7) pictures from books. As a specific strategy which is used in this research, the researcher chooses pictures as the media in teaching English words to the fifth grade students in 743 OI Petra Children Development Center.

To wholly conclude, this research views that vocabulary mastery is an essential key to successful English mastery. Thus, appropriate strategy must be thoroughly elected, particularly for teaching young learners that is 743 OI Petra

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Children Development Center learners, who are in the fifth grade of Elementary school.

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CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter discussed the methodology of the research. In this research, there were six points which were going to be explained. They were method of the research, research participants, research instruments, data gathering techniques, data analysis technique, and research procedure.

3.1 Method

The research used CAR (Classroom Action Research) during the process. As it was cited in Sagor (2005: 1), “action research is a disciplined process of inquiry conducted by and for those taking the action. The primary reason for engaging in action research is to assist the actor in improving or refining his or her actions.” In this research, the researcher investigated an appropriate teaching strategy to improve students’ achievement in their English vocabulary learning in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

In this case, treatment was given by the researcher to improve the results of learners’ vocabulary retention. The treatment influenced participants’ achievement in their English vocabulary learning. The treatment dealt with control toward students’ retention capability in their English language learning. The results of the treatment could be seen as numeric and word data. In order to gather pure natural numeric data inside the class, the researcher proposed to use a test as the measurement device of students’ achievement in their vocabulary learning.

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Hughes (1989: 9) stated that there are four types of test; they are proficiency test, achievement test, diagnostic test, and placement test. Since the research was aimed to observe the progress of the student after the treatment, achievement test was considered appropriate to be applied. As it was stated in Hughes (1989: 10) that

Achievement tests are directly related to language courses, their purpose being to establish ho w successful individual student, groups of students, or the course themselves ha ve been in achieving objective. They are two kinds: final achievement tests and progress achievement test. Based on the goal of the research that was to observe progress of the students, the researcher used progress achievement test. In the meantime, the researcher used journal during the treatment period to collect the word data as the main source of the research data. The journal consisted of important questions related to students’ progress in their retention of English vocabulary learning. It was called Triangulation Matrix. These two data gathering techniques helped the researcher to maintain validity and reliability of the data.

3.2 Research Participants

3.2.1 Research Subject

The subjects of this research were students of the fifth grade of Elementary School in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. These subjects were chosen based on some considerations. The first, the students cooperated easily in the research. Second, they tended to be active in following and joining the lesson. In addition, English course program was provided in the main program of OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. This program is provided for the fifth, sixth,

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seventh, and tenth grade students. Among those grades, only the fifth grade students faced difficulties in learning English vocabulary. This problem became the main issue which established the research question.

3.2.2 Research Setting

Considering the availability of the subjects of the research, the researcher determined OI 743 Petra Children Development Center as the main place for conduc ting the research. English course program was designed to help students to improve their English achievement in their formal school. The subjects attend ed the English course program once in a week. For the fifth grade, the class was scheduled on Sunday. The class used to be in an open space class. The place was large and appropriate for any teaching activities. This research was held on April up to May. The first research was conducted on April 23rd, 2007 and reviewed on April 30th, 2007. The second research was conducted on May 21st, 2007 and reviewed on May 28th, 2007.

3.3 Research Instruments

Data gathering was designed to investigate students’ achievement in their English vocabulary mastery. Therefore, Sagor (2005: 108) suggested that the researcher had to take some notes that related to the actions of teaching and the students’ responses during the vocabulary learning. Journal was one of the techniques to record student’s progress. The class changed rapidly hence to the use of a certain strategy for vocabulary teaching. The researcher recorded the

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changes which occurred in teaching and learning process as an evaluation toward English vocabulary teaching strategy. In order to obtain the data, the researcher also used a test as a tool for data gathering. The test was in the form of an achievement test. The achievement test was weekly quiz. It was used to measur e student’s achievement in their English vocabulary learning.

3.4 Data Gathering Technique s

Data in this research were collected from the weekly progress report journal of the researcher. It was called Triangulation Matrix. During the teaching process, the researcher gathered the data of the progress of students in their English vocabulary learning. At the end of class, the data were carefully evaluated and used to determine the success of the strategy which was used in the research. It was necessary to record the progress and the changes that were made by the students.

Another data gathering technique which was used to provide the data was a test. It measured students’ achievement in their English vocabulary learning. The test consisted of questions that were related to English vocabulary of the previous topic. The previous topic was given a week before the test. The achievement test was a weekly quiz. The weekly quiz was used as the data gathering technique to collect data. Based on the weekly observation and the quiz result the researcher could evaluate the result of the strategy which was used for to teach English words.

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3.5 Data Analysis Technique

The data of the research were numeric and word data. They were taken from the treatments, which were given by the researcher. This treatment was aimed to solve students’ difficulty in English vocabulary learning in OI 703 Petra Children Development Center. Treatment provided the result, which was required for data analysis. This research chose weekly journal and weekly quizzes as the data gathering techniques to observe the improvement of students’ retention in their vocabulary learning. Accordingly, the results of weekly observation and quiz were the result of the research. They measured progress of students’ retention in their English vocabulary learning.

In order to be able to observe the progress of the students, the researcher set up standard of the amount of the vocabulary items. The standard was thirteen English words out of fifteen English words, which were used in the English vocabulary learning. From the standard amount of the vocabulary which was used, the researcher was able to measure students’ vocabulary retention from their weekly quizzes scores. The calculation of the numeric data used the following formula:

Note: Mn : Mean (an indicator of central tendency of the sources set) The Mean was counted using the formulation below:

Mn = X = S X N _

Note: X : the range point S X : the sum of all score N : the number of samples

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As professional, the researcher expected the result of data which could influence decisions on teaching and learning to be both valid and reliable. Therefore, the researcher also used a data gathering technique, it was a weekly journal to collect the word data. Sagor (2005: 93) stated the strategy used most frequently by action researchers was called Triangulation Matrix. Table 3.1 was the example of Triangulation Matrix which was used by the researcher:

Table 3.1 Triangulation Matrix: Three ACR Questions (Sagor, 2005: 96)

Research Question Data source 1 Data source 2 Data source 3 What did I actually

do?

What changes occurred with our priority

achievement targets? What was the relationship

between the actions taken and changes in performance on the achievement targets?

The table was adopted from Sagor (2005: 96) in his book entitled The Action Research Guide Book. The Triangulation Matrix was designed to recount word data which occurred in the teaching and learning of vocabulary. It was in the form of journal thus it only recorded word data.

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3.6 Research Procedure s

1. The first action was to choose the place of the research.

2. The researcher asked the letter of permission from Sanata Dharma University to conduct a research and delivered it to OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

3. The researcher formulated the problems that appeared in the class and based on the improvement of the students, the researcher picked-up the most crucial problem to be solved. It was done as identifying the focus of the research. Considering the use of the research next in the future, the topic chosen was more on application of certain strategy in language teaching.

4. The researcher took sample of research subjects.

5. The researcher constructed an observation to investigate the major problem in student’s vocabulary retention and to establish the achievement targets in learning English vocabulary.

6. The researcher analyzed the observation data and selected achivement target. 7. The researcher established assessment criteria and based the action on theories

in language learning.

8. In order to achieve the goal of the research, the researcher formulated and determined the research question.

9. The researcher chose and created the data gathering technique s (data-collection plan) which were used to collect the data.

10.The researcher determined the strategy which was used in the research based on the observation towards students’ conditions and toke an action

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11.The researcher decided the schedule of English teaching and conducted the teaching.

12.The researcher observed the teaching process toward progress based on the strategy which was used for teaching English vocabulary.

13.The researcher conducted weekly quizzes as tools to measure students’ retention in the ir English vocabulary learning. The last step was analyzing the data, revising theories of actions, and formulating the final report for future action.

The above procedures referred to the Action Research Cycle proposed by Sagor. The figure was adopted from Sagor (2005: 96) in his book entitled The Action Research Guide Book.

Figure 3.1 The Action Research Cycle (Sagor, 2005: 96)

Stage 1: Clarifying Vision

Stage 3: Implementing Action and Collecting Data Stage 4:

Reflecting and Planning Informed Action

Stage 2: Articulating Theories

Identify a focus

Establish assessment criteria Select achievement targets

Develop a theory of action Plan future action

Revise theory of action

Analyze the data

Take action Create a data-collection plan

Determine research question

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In order to check the validity and reliability of the research, the researcher consulted the research to experts. They were the sponsors of the researcher. All steps and plans that were used in this research were consulted and revised based on the sponsors’ suggestions.

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38 CHAPTER IV

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this chapter, the researcher discussed on the implementation of a certain strategy to teach English words, discussion, and other findings. The process of English vocabulary teaching could be observed in the section of implementation of the chosen strategy. Hence to obtain the results of the research, the data of English words teaching were processed and analyzed in discussion section. In addition, there were other impacts of the use of the chosen strategy. The researcher recorded the impacts of the chosen strategy in the findings sections as additional information.

4.1Research Findings

4.1.1 The Implementation of the Chosen Strategy

Two cycles had been conducted in order to search for an appropriate strategy to improve English words retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The second cycle was aimed to verify the first cycle since the first cycle proved that the strategy of the first research had been successful in improving students’ retention in memorizing English words they learned. The cycles were the Action Research Cycles proposed by Sagor (2005: 96) in his book entitled The Action Research Guide Book.

The first cycle was conducted on April 23rd, 2007 and reviewed on April 30th, 2007. The second cycle was conducted on May 21st, 2007 and reviewed on

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May 28th, 2007. The class was conducted for one hour. It started at 16.00 p.m. and finished at 17.00 p.m. The place was in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The subjects of this research were the fifth grade students of elementary school.

The class consisted of 20 students and 5 students were chosen as the subjects of the research. They were selected with the consideration that the students were at the same level and had similar characteristics. The researcher chose three girls and two boys. This proportion was based on the number of the total students who were observed. The students consisted of 20 students with the number of the class was dominated by girls. The class consisted 2/3 of girls and 1/3 of boys.

Dealing with the learning activities inside of the class, the researcher had set the lesson plans for the meetings. In the class, the researcher provided the students with exercises. They were written and oral exercises. The researcher drilled the students orally to pronounce the English words correctly. It was done as an oral exercise. Then for the written exercise, the researcher proposed the use of fill- in-the blanks practice. The class was ended by reviewing the English words.

The written and the oral exercises were used to help students to practice the language they learned as mentioned by Hudelson (1991: 2) that “first and second language acquisitions occur through learners figuring out how the language works through learners making and testing hypothesis about learning.” It meant that learners required chances to practice the language as much as they could. It was

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also supported by the principle for teaching English to children theory in which the researcher should start where the child was and supported negotiation of meaning a collaborative talk early. In an oral practice, students were facilitated with the chance to exchange their ideas or opinions to train them in negotiating meaning and collaborative talk.

Wenden and Rubin (1987: 71) stated that “learning strategies are techniques, approaches, or deliberate actions that the students take in order to facilitate the learning and recall both linguistic and content area information. ” Based on the effectiveness of imagery to retain memory, the researcher considered picture as an appropriate strategy to improve students’ retention in learning vocabulary. This strategy was proven to be effective enough in improving students’ mastery in their English vocabulary learning.

4.1.1.1 The First Cycle

The first cycle applied pictures as the chosen strategy. The first cycle consisted of clarifying vision, articulating theories, implementing action (collecting data afterwards), and reflecting (planning informed action afterwards). The first research was conducted on April 23rd, 2007 and reviewed on April 30th, 2007. The place was in OI 743 Petra Children Development Centre. The research subjects were the fifth grade students of elementary school.

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4.1.1.1.1 Clarifying Vision

In the initial stage of clarifying vision of the research, the researcher identified a crucial problem that occurred in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The identification led into the focus of the research. This research focused on a strategy that was appropriate to teach English words toward the fifth grade students of OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The students could not memorize the English words they learned. The percentage of the words that they could memorize was only 50% out of 100%. The result was considered poor thus it was important to be solved. In the first cycle, the researcher had chosen pictures as the strategy to teach English words.

The second stage, the researcher selected achievement target. The students were expected to be able to memorize 80% out of 100% English words they learned. During the research, students were given fifteen English words in each meeting. From those fifteen English words, students were expected to memorize fourteen English words. If during the process students could achieve the target, they were considered successful in their English vocabulary learning.

The third stage was establishment of assessment criteria. In this research, the researcher established the assessment criteria for the strategy which was used to teach English words. The assessment criteria of English words teaching should measure effectively students’ achievement in their English vocabulary learning. The assessment criteria should be able to measure the effectiveness of pictures in English vocabulary learning. Based on the criteria, the strategy worked if it could improve students’ retention in their English words learning in OI 743 Petra

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Children Development Center. Out of fifteen English words, students used to be able to memorize five up to six words. Therefore, the strategy should facilitate the students to achieve fourteen words out of fifteen English words.

4.1.1.1.2 Articulating Theories

This research was based the research on theories of children language and learning, theories of ten principles of teaching young learners, and theories of English language teaching. These theories were used as references in achieving the objective of this research problem formulation question. The theories were used as a guidance to search for an appropriate strategy to teach English vocabulary.

The theories of children language learning were used to investigate student’s ways of learning a language. Hudelson (1991: 2) stated four basic principles of children language learning. They were learning by doing, learning in social contexts, learning with experimenting (using the language), and learning through social interaction. These theories were adopted in the research to support the teaching of English vocabulary. Students were facilitated to experience learning English words through social context in which they were involved in simple conversation. It facilitated the students to memorize the English words by applying the words they learned from the given pictures and by using the ir interaction with their classmates with the given pictures. The activities were proven to be effective as it was mentioned by Hudelson’s theories of four basic principles of children language learning. The above theories supported selection

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of a strategy that was used to teach English vocabulary and construction of lesson plans.

Theories of ten principles of teaching young learners helped the researcher to adopt his teaching based on students’ age. The principles gave direction and a guidance to teach language to children effectively. They are (1) starting where the child is, (2) encouraging social interaction, (3) supporting negotiation of meaning and collaborative talk early, (4) allowing the children to be active, (5) pitching input within the zone of proximal development, (6) introducing language at discourse level, (7) planning meaningful and purposeful activities with in a clear familiar context, (8) help ing learners to become more independent and autonomous, (9) developing a supportive, non-threatening, enjoyable learning environment and (10) testing and assessing in the way that we teach. The above theories were applied in this research and used to help the researcher to teach English words. Each point of these theories facilitated the researcher to explain English words and to conduct the teaching.

The last theories were English language teaching. The theories explained that the meaning of words could be communicated in many different ways. They were by demonstration or pictures and by verbal explanation. Demonstration or pictures were conducted by using an object, using a cut-out figure, using gesture, performing an action, photographs, blackboard drawing or diagrams, and pictures from books. Verbal explanation could be done by analytical definition, putting the new word in defining context and translating into another language. The relation in communication process was shown as in Figure 4.1.

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Figure 4.1 The Relation in Communication Process (Nation, 1990:3)

Encoding Decoding

In this research, the information source to teach English words was the teacher’s brain. The transmitter was the teacher’s voice when the teacher gave a verbal explanation, the teacher’s hands when the teacher drew or pointed to a picture, the teacher’s body when the teacher gave a demonstration and a real object when the teacher showed it to the class.

The researcher used one type of cognitive strategies which was called imagery. Imagery could be done by demonstrations and using pictures as it translated the idea in the information source. In addition, English language teachers could help their learners to grasp the concept. It was done by varying the situation in which it was demonstrated and by giving verbal definition as well as nonverbal one in learning English vocabulary.

The above explanation stated that imagery was used by correlating new information to visual concepts in memory via familiar easily retrievable visualizations, phrases or locations. Those visual concepts were suitable and helpful for students in memorization of English words. They were used to choose a strategy to teach English words.

Information Source

Information Destination Receiver

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4.1.1.1.3 Implementing Action and Collecting Data

The first stage of implementing action and collecting data in the research was determination of research question. The question was formulated as “What is the teaching strategy that is appropriate to improve the achievement of the fifth grade students in their vocabulary learning in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center?” Thus, the research focused on a strategy that was effective to teach English words.

The second stage, based on the research question, the researcher started to create a data-collection plan. Data collection plan which was used were Triangulation Matrix and weekly quizzes. The Triangulation Matrix was used to collect the qualitative data which became the main source data of the research. The Triangulation Matrix was a journal. These data collection plans were used to record the process of applying the chosen strategy to teach English vocabulary. The data were words. All of changes and progress of students were recorded in details. Weekly quizzes were given in order to measure students’ achievement in their English vocabulary learning and to pursue the initial standard. The initial standard was the strategy worked if it could improve students’ English vocabulary retention. It meant that students were required to be able to memorize up to fourteen out of fifteen English words.

The third stage, the researcher took actions. They were selecting the topics of teaching, choosing a strategy to teach English vocabulary, and applying the chosen strategy. During the implementation of the chosen strategy, the researcher observed the progress of the students, whether the chosen strategy worked

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effective or not. In order to record students’ progress and to measure students’ achievement, the researcher used Triangulation Matrix and weekly quizzes.

The first research was conducted on April 23rd, 2007 and reviewed on April 30th, 2007. The class was conducted for one hour; it started at 16.00 p.m. and finished at 17.00 p.m. The place was in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center. The subjects of this research were the fifth grade students of elementary school. The class consisted of 20 students and 5 students were chosen as samples. 5 students were selected because they were considered as an appropriate number that could represent the total number of the class. They were selected based on the consideration that the students were at the same level and the y had similar characteristics. The researcher chose three girls and two boys. This proportion was based on the number of the students. The students consisted of 20 students and the numbers of the class were dominated by girls. The class consisted 2/3 of girls and 1/3 of boys.

Dealing with the learning activities inside of the class, the researcher had set the lesson plans for the meetings. In the class, the researcher provided the students with some exercises. They were written and oral exercises. The researcher drilled the students orally to pronounce the words correctly. It was done as an oral exercise. Then for the written exercises, the researcher applied the use of fill- in-the blanks practice. The class was ended by reviewing the English words.

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L E ARN I N G D E SI GN

RESEARCH IN PPA OI 743 Petra

School : PPA OI 743 Petra Subject : English

Skill : Writing, Speaking

Topic : Food

Day/ Date : May 21s t and 27th 2007

Time Allotment : 1x 60’ minute/ meeting Number of students : 20 Students

Standard Competency

Students are able to communicate in both written and spoken language fluently, accurately, appropriately in an interaction discourse and /or monolog.

Basic competencies

Students are able to memorize the vocabularies of foods as many as 13 out of 15 English words.

Students are familiarized with the real live conversation spoken through the use of a simple expression being thought for asking about food.

Achievement Indicators

Students are able to memorize 13-14 out of 15 English words orally. Students are able to write 13-14 out of 15 English words.

Learning Activities

Students Teachers

What students should do?

• To listen to teacher’s explanation

• To response to teachers’ question

• To note the information needed

• To be active inside the class

• To listen and to watch the video carefully

How to facilitate?

• Introducing the new materials playing the player

• Reviewing the lesson

• Controlling, organizing, and managing the class well

• Give time to the students to finish their work inside the class

• Giving encouragement towards students’ effort

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Time allotment

Teacher’s activities Student’s activities

10’ Teacher greets the

students

Teacher asks the students to pray together

Teacher asks the students the previous lesson they have learned

Students respond teacher’s greeting Students pray together

Students respond to teacher’s questions.

40’ Teacher arouses students’

understanding about kinds of foods

Teacher introduces the English words of kinds of foods by using pictures Teacher drills the students orally in how to pronounce the words correctly

Teacher provides the students written exercise in forms of fill in the blanks Teacher discusses and reviews students’ understanding towards new words

Students give their opinions about kinds of foods

Students pay attention toward the explanation

Students follow the drilling process of pronouncing the words

Students do the exercises

Students answer actively teacher’s questions

10’ Teacher asks the students

to pray together Teacher greets the students

Students pray together

Students respond to teacher’s greeting

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Teacher asks the students the previous lesson they have learned

Students respond to teacher’s questions.

Teaching Aids: § Blackboard

§ Cut-out pictures of hobbies

Evaluation:

§ Students’ participation during the class

§ Students score o n exercises

Source:

§ Start with English 2

Himawan. 2004. Start with English 2. Jakarta: Erlangga.

Teacher

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MY HOBBY

a. Hiking f . Chess k. Fishing

b. Music g. Swimming l. Paint ing

c. Foot ball h. Ping pong m. Basket ball

d. Volleyball i. Video game n. Badmint on

e. Dancing j . Cycling o. Playing music

14 13

15 11

4 5

9 8

3 2

Appendix 4. Weekly Quizzes

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FOOD

a. I ce cr eam f . Meat k. Noodles

b. Veget ables g. Biscuit l. cheese

c. Fr uit s h. Soup m. Fr ied f ish

d. Rice i. Eggs n. Fr ied chicken

e. Cake j . Br ead and j am o. Br ead and but t er

13 14

12 8

11 10

2 3

7 4

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Improving students` vocabulary retention in OI 743 Petra Children Development Center.

L E ARN I N G D E SI GN

MY HOBBY

Appendix 4. Weekly Quizzes

FOOD

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