A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON THE CLASS X-2 STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY THROUGH NARRATIVE TEXTS TAKEN FROM THE INTERNET AT SMAN 11 SURABAYA

Abstract

SUMMARY

A Descriptive Study on the Class X-2 Students’ Vocabulary Mastery Through Narrative texts Taken from the Internet at SMAN 11 Surabaya; Sapto Margono, 080210401073; 2012:61 pages; English Education Program of Language and Arts Education Department, the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Jember University.

Vocabulary is the component that must be mastered first by the students because vocabulary is the basic skill or the bridge to learn the language skills and other language components. The students who learn English as a foreign language, generally, have difficulty in learning English, especially in vocabulary. Their problems are usually caused by their inability in retaining memorizing and pronouncing the English words that they have learnt. In addition, their grammar often interferes with L2 because they are quite different from the grammar of their mother tongue. Therefore, the English teacher is expected to be able to cover the students’ problems in vocabulary by helping students learn in conducive situation. One of the strategies that can be used and applied by the English teacher is giving variety of texts especially those taken from the Internet. The research design applied was descriptive quantitative. This research was not intended to verify the hypothesis, but to describe the students’ mastery of vocabulary that covered large and small vocabulary. The teaching of vocabulary was done through narrative texts by the English teacher. The research area of this research was determined by using purposive method. SMA Negeri 11 Surabaya was chosen as the research area because of some reasons. First, the teacher frequently gives materials from the Internet. Second, a research with the same topic had never been conducted at the school before. The respondents of this research were class X-2 students of SMA Negeri 11 Surabaya in the 2012/2013 academic year that was determined purposively. The primary data of this research were gained from the students’ score of the test on vocabulary. While, for the supporting data were gained from the xiv interview with the English teacher, observation, and documentation. There are two English teachers taught in the X

th grade. The researcher conducted the interview with one of the teacher who frequently uses the Internet as the resource of materials for the teaching English. Based on the scores of vocabulary test, the X-2 students at SMA Negeri 11 Surabaya in the 2012/2013 academic year were categorized “good” with the mean score 74.3. The conclusion was supported by the result of the students’ vocabulary of each indicator as follows: a. The students large vocabulary mastery was categorized as “Good” category. b. The students small vocabulary mastery was categorized as “Good” category. Based on the data analysis about the students’ vocabulary mastery test, their scores were range from 56 up to 82. The highest score was 82 and the lowest score was 56. There was one student who got the lowest score (56) and there were 3 students who got the highest score (82). The score which frequently occurred was 80 and there were 7 students who got score 80. Further, there were 10 students (26.3%) who belonged to “Excellent” category (80-82), and there were 21 students (55.2%) who belonged to “Good” category (70-78). Moreover, there were 6 students (16.7%) who belonged to “Fair” category (62-68), and one student (2.63%) who belonged to “Poor” category (56). Beside the data analysis about vocabulary mastery test, there were data analysis about the students’ large and small vocabulary mastery test. The scores of the students’ large vocabulary mastery ranged from 60 up to 85. There were 6 students (15.7%) who belonged to “Fair” category with score 60-67, and 24 students (63.2%) belonged to “Good” category with score 71-78. “Good” category was the most frequent score on large vocabulary, and the last category was Excellent. There were 8 students (21.1%) who belonged to “Excellent” category with score 82-85. xv Furthermore, the score of the students’ small vocabulary mastery was range from 40 up to 86. There was one student (2.6%) who belonged to the “Failed” category with score 40, and 8 students (21.1%) who belonged to “Poor” category with the range of score from 50-59. Further, there were 7 students (18.4%) who belonged to “Fair” category with the score of 63-68. There were 10 students (26.3%) who belonged to “Good” category with the score of 72-77. The last category was excellent. There were 12 students (31.6%) who belonged to “Excellent” category with the score of 81-86. The mastery indicator of the large vocabulary was higher than the small vocabulary. It was because that the English teacher often taught large vocabulary than small vocabulary to the students and also the teacher asked them to find the meaning of some difficult and new words to the students. Based on the result of this research, the teacher is recommended to use materials taken from the Internet more frequently as the teaching materials, especially in teaching vocabulary and it is taught integratedly with other language skills, such as reading, writing, and speaking to make the students more interested in learning English and practice their pronunciation ability and the teacher should apply more various techniques or text types to make them more enthusiastic in learning English. Further, the students are suggested to read texts taken from the Internet to increase their vocabulary and practice their pronunciation ability. Moreover, the future researchers are suggested to conduct a further research dealing with a similar topic by using different research design such as a classroom action research or an experimental research, in different research area to improve the students’ vocabulary mastery.