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IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY ACHIEVEMENT IN
READING RECOUNT TEXT THROUGH
ANAGRAM TECHNIQUE
*Maimunah
**Bachtiar
Abstract
This study concerns with improving students vocabulary achievement in reading recount text through anagram technique. The objective was to investigate improvement of students’ achievement in vocabulary by applying anagram technique. This research was conducted by using action research method. The subject of the study was grade VIII students of SMP SWASTA PEMBANGUNAN GALANG totalling to 29 students. They were taught vocabulary by anagram technique. The instruments for collecting data were quantitative data and qualitative data (observation sheet and questionnaire sheet). Based on the test score of quantitative data, students’ score kept improving in every evaluation. In the orientation test the mean was 43, 2, in the cycle I test the mean was 55, 6. In the cycle II test the mean was 67.2. The percentage of orientation test was 10, 34%, cycle I test was 24, 13% and cycle II test was 86, 20%. The finding of the research showed that applying anagram technique significantly improved students’ vocabulary achievement. The qualitative data show that the students were more interested and motivated on vocabulary achievement through anagram. It is suggested that teachers should apply anagram technique as one of methods to improve students’ achievement in vocabulary.
Key Words : Vocabulary Achievement, Anagram Technique, Test, Data, Classroom Action Research
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Introduction
Background of the Study
Learning vocabulary of foreign language is very important. Without
learning the basic vocabulary of foreign language, no one will successful in that
language. If we can use the basic vocabulary and realize its function, we may have
learned it for comprehensible communication. Although some teachers may think
that vocabulary learning is easy, learning new vocabulary items has always been
challenging for the learners (Nemati 2009).
Vocabulary is an essential one for students as their first step to go on
studying English. Vocabulary is important because word carries the content of
what we want to say. The more words we know the more we are able to
communicate and we can say a lot with words.
Stahl (1999) stated that there are four types of vocabulary which must be
known and mastered for any skills, such as reading, listening, writing, and
speaking.
Based on the statement above, vocabulary in reading is one of the
important problems for the student in learning English. And theoretically,
according to Stahl (1999) vocabulary in reading is all the words he or she can
recognize when reading.
In fact, not all the students are able to master all the vocabulary when they
are reading. Based on the writer’s experience in Teaching Practice Program
(Praktek Pengalaman Lapangan: PPL) at Junior High School, it was found that
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many students’ got many troubles in learning English because they had poor
vocabulary. Most of them were not interested in learning vocabulary and they do
not also give their full attention in the task and without that attracting and
interesting the process of teaching vocabulary can’t run well. This situation
happened because the methodology or the strategy which is used maybe not
suitable. The teacher usually teaches vocabulary especially to reading
comprehension by using the technique that focused in the text, read and memorize
every word. The students feel that they are forced and they would get bored. In
this case, and sometimes they still do not understand when they read a text,
teacher should make variations and choose a suitable technique in teaching
vocabulary in order to make the students to be interested. For that reason, the
teacher ought to know their media in teaching process to make the lesson more
interesting and inspiring. For this purpose, learning vocabulary by using the
technique can be one alternative in teaching learning process.
On the observation that was done by the researcher in grade VIII Junior
High School at SMP Swasta Pembangunan Galang, from 29 students it is found
that there are only 9 students could pass the passing grade (KKM) and 20 students
still could not pass the passing grade which is made by the teacher, the score of
the passing grade is 65. Moreover, it was happened because of many reasons. First
of all, when the students ordered to open the dictionary to find the meaning from
difficult word or a new word, there was only three or four students’ did it and the
rest of the students’ were lazy to open their dictionary and just waiting until their
friends got the meaning from that word. They afraid of making mistakes, being
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laughed at by his or her friends and having lack of confidence in their ability. And
the other problem was come from the teaching technique that used by the teacher,
because the teacher’s technique used in teaching vocabulary is not interesting or
monotonous. She/he usually gives many words to the students’ and asks them to
open their dictionary to find the meaning of those words, after finding the words,
they forget. So when the teaching learning process takes place, the students’ did
not give attention and feel bored. Here is the datum of the students’ who could not
pass the passing grade.
Table 1.1 Students who could not pass the KKM
No Students Initial Name Score KKM
1 AF 60 65
2 AW 50 65
3 CC 60 65
4 LH 60 65
5 MT 60 65
6 ML 50 65
7 NI 55 65
8 PL 60 65
9 SKD 55 65
10 SN 60 65
Based on the statement above, it can be concluded that the skill of a
reading in using a language is determined by his mastery of vocabulary. A wide of
vocabulary of the language opens bigger possibility to reader to be master in using
the language.
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To make the students to be inspired in studying English especially
vocabularies, the teacher must involve students and control the class. The teacher
ought to use some technique such as Anagram and use some new words to help
the students learn more and make the students fell interested to learn new
vocabulary for junior high school. The students know about the new words by
using Anagram. The topic must be selected according to the knowledge of the
students. Since the students may not use a lot of logical analysis it is important for
teacher ought to emphasize the use of memory and mimicry.
According to Collins (2003) Anagram technique is a type of word play, the
result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or
phrase, using all the original letters exactly once’ for example orchestra can be
rearranged into carthorse. Someone who creates anagrams is called an
anagrammatist. The original word or phrase is known as the subject of the
anagram. According to Richard, (2010) an anagram is the rearrangement of the
letters of a word, name, phrase, sentence, title, or the like into another word or
phrase. All the letters of the name or phrase must be used once and only once.
This is the basic rule anagramming. The best anagrams are meaningful and relate
in some way to the original subject. They can be opposite, funny, rude, satirical or
flattering.
Anagrams are in themselves a recreational activity, but they also make up
part of many other games, puzzles and game shows. The jumble is a puzzle found
in many newspapers in the United States requiring the unscrambling of letters to
find the solution. Cryptic crossword puzzle frequently use anagrammatic clues,
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usually indicating that they are anagrams by the inclusion of descriptive term like
“confused” or “in disarray”.
According to Barus (2010: 13) Anagram is a good technique in
teaching vocabulary. There are many ways in applying anagram to the
students, such as:
1. The students form other word from the key word given. For example:
a. Grandmother = mother, other, her, ear, etc
b. Learning = earn, lean, liar, etc
c. Reader = dear, read, ear, red, etc
d. Handsome = dome, hand, some, name, etc
e. Weather = her, tea, hat, eat, etc
2. The students rearrange the letters in bracket after that fill in each
blank with theappropriate anagram to complete the sentence. For
example:
Thecare bfiaueilu idouyl
Pnhuis shlcoo
a. Please speak loudly, so I can hear your voice
b. You are very beautiful wearing that gown
c. My English teacher is very friendly
d. The teachers will punish us if we don’t do our homework
e. My school is in front of my house
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3. The students omit one or some letters of the key word and transpose
rest. For example:
a. Key word : perceive
Defenition : got or accept something
New word : receive
b. Key word : apple
Defenition : whiter than usual because of illness; not bright
New word : pale
c. Key word : adore
Defenition : look at and understand something written
New word : read
d. Key word : blame
Defenition : food that is eaten
New word : meal
e. Key word : label
Defenition : having the power to do something
New word : able
4. The students transpose the letters of theword and form another word by
using thoseletters exactly once based on the defenition. For example:
a. Note
Defenition : quality of a sound or voice
Word : tone
b. Name
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Defenition : the explanation or defenition of something
Word : mean
c. Rail
Defenition : people who tells lies
Word : liar
d. Earn
Defenition : a short distance
Word : near
e. There
Defenition : the number after two
Word : three
5. The students match the scramble word on the left to its arrangement on the
right
a. Acdr Flower
b. Eflowrs Gift
c. Fg i t Card
d. Aehrt Chocolate
e. Accehloot Heart
Research Question
Based on the background of the study, the research of problem is
formulated as the following: “Is the students’ vocabulary achievement in reading
recount text improved if it is taught by applying Anagram technique?”
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Conceptual Framework
Learning a language means learning its vocabularies. Vocabulary is one of
the basic elements in mastering English. Vocabulary is a breath of language,
because without vocabulary proficiency, the students automatically cannot obtain
the four skills of English, such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing. In
teaching a subject matter, the teacher should have a technique to increase the
students’ achievement especially vocabulary in reading.
In obtain the four skills of language, teacher must use an effective
technique in teaching vocabulary. Anagram is considered as an effective,
enjoyable and interesting way to teach vocabulary because it can give the students
enjoyment or challenge in studying language and encourage them to look
carefully at words, students can practice to form other words from the given clues,
match words with defenition, provide spelling practice, show the students how the
letters of many words can be manipulated to form other words, emphasize the
importance of letter position in relation to word meaning.
It is clear that anagram is an interesting way of learning to increase one’s
vocabulary, anagram can motivate and encourage the students’ interest learning
vocabulary. Anagram will help the students to develop and enrich their stock of
vocabulary. It is designed to avoid the students felt bored that can stop them in
learning English. Therefore, teaching and learning process through anagram is
aimed to improve students’ vocabulary achievement in reading.
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Research Method
This study applied Classroom Action Research (CAR). Small – scale
classroom research implemented by teachers and directed at improving learning
outcomes is called action research (Thornburry, 1995:139). Action Research as
the research design used in social and education sciences, primarily used for social
science or reality. According to Wallace (1998:1), action research is defined as the
systemic collection and analysis of data relating to the improvement of some area
of professional field. The purposes of action research are to improve the quality of
studying practice, to find solution and to solve the problem.
The action research can be implemented for teaching and learning process
in the classroom therefore; the action research used in the classroom is called
Classroom Action Research (CAR). Classroom action research referred to
classroom, investigation applied by researcher, perhaps teachers, who looked
critically at their own teaching, and the quality of education.
Result and Discussion
Research findings were taken from the quantitative data and
qualitative data. The quantitative data were taken by applying anagram technique
and it was taken from students’ score in cycle I test and cycle II test where was
better than the orientation test. So, it could be concluded that the students’
vocabulary improved by applying anagram technique.
The qualitative data were taken from observation sheet, questionnaire
sheet and interview sheet which were shown in Appendices. From the data, it
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could be concluded that the students felt interest to study vocabulary by applying
anagram technique.
Conclusion and Suggestion
Conclusion
After analyzing the data, it is found out that the students’ vocabulary
achievement improved from the orientation test to the cycle II test. It means that
there was an improvement toward students’ vocabulary achievement by applying
anagram technique. It was shown from the improvement of the mean of the
students score namely the mean of orientation test was 43,3 , the mean of the
cycle I test was 55,6, and the mean of the cycle II test was 67,2. It can be stated
that the score continuously improved from orientation test to cycle II test.
Therefore, it could be concluded that Anagram Technique can improve students’
vocabulary achievement. Beside the mean of the score, there was percentage of
the students who got the score above 65. In the orientation test, there was 10,34%
(3 students), in cycle I test was 24,13% (7 students) and in cycle II test was
86,20% (25students). It means that there was an improvement of the students in
their vocabulary about 13,79% compared with the first test. And for the second
test with the last test were 62,07 %.
Suggestions
The result of this study shows that the uses of anagram technique enlarge
or improve the students’ number of vocabulary. And from the research that had
done, the writer has some suggestion. The following suggestions are offered:
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1. For the English teacher; they are suggested to consider anagram
technique in teaching vocabulary because by using this technique the
students can be more enjoyable in memorizing the words and they will
be able to remember the word easier for long time.
2. For the students; they are suggested to follow anagram technique to
practice their vocabularies regularly and know the meaning of the
words. It will improve and enlarge the number of their vocabulary and
also make them easier to understand what their teacher said.
3. For all the readers; they are suggested to consider anagram technique
because it can improve vocabulary knowledge and they may use the
information in this research as a useful input teaching-learning process
especially for teaching vocabulary.
References
Barus, Rina H. (2010). Improving Students’ Vocabulary Achievement through Anagram. Unpublished Thesis. Medan: State University of Medan.
Block, Collins, C. & Mangieri, J. (2006). The Effects of Powerful Vocabulary for Reading Success on Students’ Reading Vocabulary and ComprehensionAchievement. Journal of Reading Behavior, 1, 2963-005.
Nemati, Azadeh. (2009). Memory Vocabulary Learning Strategies and Long-Term Retention. Academic Journal, 1 (2), 014-024.
Pardiyono. (2007). Pasti Bisa! Teaching Genre – Based Writing: Metode Mengajar Writing Berbasis Genre Secara Efektif. Yogyakarta: ANDI.
Richard, J.C and T.S. Rodgers. (1998). Approach and Method in Language.
Stahl, S. A. (1999). Vocabulary Development. Cambridge, MA: Brookline.
Thornbury, Scott. (2003). How to Teach Vocabulary. USA. Cambridge University Press.
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Wallace, Michael J. (1998.) Action Research for Language Teachers. United Kingdom:Cambridge University.
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