CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 The Definition of Vocabulary Vocabulary in a language is one of the most vital aspects to be mastered by the students of English. An explanation about vocabulary and its function in language teaching is necessary. Vocabulary is defined as all the words recognized and understood by a particular person, although they are not necessary to be used by him. According to Oxford Learners Pocket Dictionary, Vocabulary is: (1) all the words that a person knows or uses; (2) all the words in a language; (3) list of words with their meanings, especially in a book for learning a foreign language. From the definition, it can be concluded that vocabulary is a number of word or a bunch of words that should be familiar with someone and have in his/her mind. In other words, vocabulary is the words capacity of someone when he or she is writing or reading a text, or when he or she is expressing own ideas in practical oral communication. So, it would be impossible for one who does not have enough vocabulary to communicate his ideas as clearly as he would like either in oral or written. Usually vocabulary is quite important in practicing oral communication but we found some students have limited vocabulary in improving their English. They cannot enlarge any vocabulary because they rarely read some materials in English. It is obstacle faced by the students who learn English. Besides that, vocabulary is important in practicing listening, speaking, reading, and writing. And vocabulary is a set of words known by a person or other entity or that are part of a specific language.

The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all word that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing new sentences. For instance, curse is a regular part of vocabulary of native English speakers but imprecate is not, even though the two words are synonym. The richness of a persons vocabulary is popularly though to be a reflection of their intelligence or education level. According to Collier (1991: 1), when a student has mastered the fundamental grammatical patterns of language, his next task is to master its vocabulary, or at least that of its vocabulary that he need. It is obvious that vocabulary is very important in learning a language, especially English, because the English vocabulary is extremely large and varies as well. Therefore, it is highly essential for English teachers to help their students in mastering vocabulary. Norbert (1992:177) gives the definition of vocabulary as follows. Vocabulary is a basis of a language: it is very important to be mastered first. We cannot speak well and understand written materials if we do not master it. Norbert states that no matter how successfully the sound of the foreign language is mastered, without words to express the wider range of meanings, communication in a foreign language just cannot happen in any meaningful way. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1992: 450) defines vocabulary means all the words that someone knows, learn of uses, or the words that are typically used when talking about particular subject or a list of words with the explanations of their meanings in a book for learning foreign language. In English, vocabulary is considered a very important aspect beside the four

10 language skill for the student in studying English language. Without having sufficient vocabulary, it is impossible to communicate effectively in English. According to Langan (1993:451), a good vocabulary is a vital part of effective communication. A common of words will make you a better speaker; listener and students who work to improve a limited vocabulary, they are more successful at school. From the above quotation, it is known that vocabulary is the vital part of our activities. It included all the words we normally use in our daily activities of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The vocabulary has determiner ones problems and difficulties in developing the language skills if they do not have enough vocabulary. In line with this Alkhufaishi (1994:42) says that, vocabulary is one of the major confronting EFL (English Foreign Language) learners. By mastering vocabulary they can communicate them ideas as they would like to, and they can grasp the transmitted ideas. They can read the columns of a newspaper or popular magazine or even understand news broadcasted through radio and television. Based on the Alkhufaishis argument, the researcher sees that whatever we want to say we use words. So if we have poor vocabulary, we will also have poor ideas and difficult in speaking, writing, reading and listening comprehension. Such condition will be the handicap for us at school or college, on the job, at home or elsewhere. Therefore, only by word we can express our ideas accurately. It would be impossible for one who does not have enough vocabulary to communicate his ideas as clearly as he would like either in oral or written, vocabulary plays an important role in language acquisition. In other words, we cannot isolate the vocabulary from

that four language skills. Without having rich vocabulary, it is difficult in language acquisition. Smith (1995:71) noted that among all basic aspects of foreign language which should be mastered by the students in teaching process, vocabulary in considered as the most important one. Without mastering vocabulary it is impossible to use the foreign language. The fact shows that, although the student could read the text with the pronunciation and grammatical correctly, they could not understand the material read and they were not able to express the main ideas of the text that reading. Learning vocabulary does not mean learning word separately. Words should be learned in context because a word has different meaning in different context. In fact, word is separation frequently do not match with the proposed meaning. The meaning of the word will depend on the context. McCharty (1994:16) said that vocabulary consist of the words that is used confidently by knowing their meaning and usage. So, we should know the meaning of the word and the use of the word in context because the meanings of the word depend on the context. Therefore, the student must have sufficient words in order to understand easily what they have read and listened in English. Increasing the size of ones vocabulary, also called vocabulary building, is generally considered to be an important part of both learning a language and improving ones skills in a language in which one is already proficient. Therefore the school students are often taught new words, informally referred to vocabulary words, as a part of a particular unit or lesson in their learning material or subject matter. 2.2 The Importance of English Vocabulary

12 A good mastery of vocabulary helps the learners to express their ideas precisely. By having many stocks of word learners will be able to comprehend the reading materials catch other talking, give response, speak fluently and write some kind of topics. On the contrary, if the learners do not recognize the meaning of the words use by those who address them, they will be unable to participate in conversation, unable to express some ideas, or unable to ask for information. Considering the important of vocabulary role in learning foreign language, the mastery of this element should be ensured and develop. Otherwise, the vocabulary mastery of the children will be limited and consequence of it is that they will find difficulties in learning the skills of the language. Therefore, schools have a task to teach vocabulary to their students (Carol in Margaretha, 1997:01). Although a considerable amount of vocabulary, learning is associated with primary language learning in early years. The acquisition of most the vocabulary characteristic of an educated adult occur during the years of schooling, and infects one of the primary task of the school as far as language learning in concerned, as to teach vocabulary. Based on the explanation above, learning vocabulary is considered as a basic task to learners. Those who have lack of vocabulary cannot express their ideas clearly either in oral or written communication and they cannot read an English book which the students want to read. For that reason, vocabulary plays as significance role in learning a foreign language, including English. The researcher aggresses that we cannot neglect teaching vocabulary to young learners in teaching English. With limited vocabulary the students are hardly

to express the idea clearly as they want. Many experienced instructors know how importance the vocabulary is. Krakowian (1994:18) aggressed that communication oriented teaching the most presses concern for the learners is the need to master an adequate foreign language vocabulary. Pieter (1995:26) noted that one of the big problem is learning a foreign language when reading materials written in that language is a lot of difficult words so that the students do not understand what they read about a language relation and how they are realized, but this would be like exhibiting the skeleton remained of the dinosaur and believing that one had actually encountered the creature. Language is not dry bones. It is a living, growing entity, clothed in the fresh of words. In addition, Alkhufaishi (1992:42) also states about the importance of vocabulary, there general agreement that the possession of large number of vocabulary item is necessary to success in social, professional, and intellectual life; that vocabulary is a vehicle for thought, self-expression, and communication. Based the statement above, we have assumption that success in learning foreign language depends very much on the mastery vocabulary. Without sufficient vocabulary of the target language, the students face a lot of difficulties and problems in developing the language skills. The words mastery is to enable the learners to convey any of language skills. In another word, vocabulary can be a key of success of language learning. Introducing or teaching new vocabulary is not an easy task. White (1998: 9) states that learning vocabulary is not a simply process of memorizing a number of words, but if teacher can provide in a good technique, teaching vocabulary can be achieved.

14 Furthermore, this situation will encourage, motivate and release them from boredom and shyness; Haggard (1996:340) states that English instructor should encourage her learners to study vocabulary eagerly by providing an enjoyable atmosphere. Related to this statement, the researcher thinks that matching words and picture is enjoyable technique in teaching vocabulary. The teacher needs to create and establish the students motivation by a technique. 2.3 Some Effective Techniques in Teaching English Vocabulary In teaching and learning process, the teacher is not only use suitable method for teaching learning language, but also use techniques to make his teaching more interesting. In order the students can understand and more active in teaching and learning process. Technique is special method or system used to accomplish something or subject learning. In teaching vocabulary, the teacher also uses techniques to enlarge vocabulary and develop it for the students. Technique is used by the teacher depends on teachers skill. According to Sumardi (1990: 13), Technique depends on the teacher, his imagination, creativity and composition of class. The certain problematic can solve by various kind of technique e.g. to solve the students pronunciation, e.g. /p/ in word pot, the teacher can ask to the students to imitate and repeat what the teacher pronounced. If the technique fallen, the teacher can use the other technique, e.g. show the instrument of articulation picture and show what happen with it in process of pronunciation /p/, that are two lips closed followed by explosion and sound cord not vibrate using tape record, radio, disk, closed circuit, television, wall charts, flash card etc, in teaching language are example of techniques.

Many techniques can be used in teaching English vocabulary depend on the teacher skill, such as: 2.3.1 Word Formation

To enlarge the vocabulary capacity of the students, the teacher can use word formation technique, the teacher teach word formation, that are root and suffixes to help the students know affix addition to root word and use of word in sentences. According to Pieter (1992:5), Affixes are a part of morphological study that belongs to grammar. An affix is a letter or sound or group of letter or sound which is added to word, and which change the meaning or function of the word Based on the statement, every word that added with affix will change the meaning or function of word, e. g.: Verb Compose Employ Educate Manage Settle Adjective Slow Clear Noun Composition Employment Education Manager (a person) Settlement (a place) Adverb Slowly Clearly etc. (Pieter, 1992:15)

Besides that, the word that added by an affix, such as prefixes, infix and suffix. The word which added with prefix can change the word has negative meaning.

16 Possibility Responsibility Believe Like 2.3.2 Using Picture Impossibility Irresponsibility Disbelieve Dislike, etc. (Pieter, 1992:15)

Using picture is one of the techniques in teaching vocabulary. Picture can help make meaning clear and correct misimpression. Smith (1997: 183) states A very simple and effective way of vocabulary teaching technique that is using picture to reinforce vocabulary range. 2.3.3 Using Dictionary

Using dictionary is important in teaching vocabulary to know the meaning, spelling, pronunciation of word. If the students read a text, they will find the difficult word. They can look up the dictionary to know the meaning of the word. According to Closky (1991:220) The dictionary is a valuable tool. To take the advantage of using it, you need to understand the main kind of information that a dictionary give about the word. Based on the statement, the dictionary gives the information about spelling, syllabication, pronunciation, part of speech and meaning.

2.3.4

Word Games

Game is one of the techniques in teaching vocabulary. The teacher can give the students game in teaching and learning process of vocabulary, e.g. puzzle, using

card or picture, etc. Smith gives idea for building vocabulary in the intermediate grade students which connected with word games as below: 1) Play descriptive games; take word such as tree. List all the word that could be used to describe a tree green, tall, stately, taught, smooth leafy, twisted. 2) Make matching game with new word in one column and meaning in the other. 3) Play guessing games, such as: I am thinking of a word that mean a large tank or well in which water is kept. It begins with a c and ends with a d (secure the letter on the board after it guessed). 4) Use picture cards with word cards to match a child/student who has a picture must find the child/student with the matching word, and then they sit together to study spelling word or for some other paired activity (Smith, 1997:202). Beside the technique above, there are still many techniques that can be used by the teacher in teaching and learning vocabulary, it depends on teacher skill. The success of teaching always depends on the technique that is used by the teacher. The teaching and learning of English vocabulary will meet the success if the teacher uses the suitable technique in teaching. 2.4 The Characteristic of Children as Learners

Slattery and Willis in Bahri (www.maselbahri.blogspot.com) stated that there are some characteristic of children as learner: a. They are developing quickly as individuals; it means that they have difference in language acquisition. b. Learn in a variety of ways, for example; by watching, by listening, by imitating and by doing things. It means children learn their knowledge through what they see, heard in their surrounding and then imitate it and imitating by doing things (children learn by doing). c. Are not able to understand grammatical rules and explanations about language. Children are not understanding about the rule of language, they only imitate what they are seeing and hearing. d. Try to make sense of situations by making use of non-verbal clues. Children will do imitate, it means learning by doing. e. Talk in their mother tongue about they understand and do this helps them learn. It means they use their mother tongue to understand everything. f. Can generally imitate the sounds they hear quite accurately and copy the way adults speak. It means they do imitation, memorization, practice and over learning, what the people are said. g. Are naturally curious. They have strong willingness to know what they see and hear in their surroundings. h. Love to play and use their imagination. It means they are learning while playing. i. Are comfortable with routines and enjoy repetition. It means they need habit

9 to learn. j. Have quite a short attention span and need variety. Because they are learning while playing, it is needed many ways to make them understand what the teacher means.

2.5 The Ways How Teachers Can Teach Children. Dynne (2001:68) stated several ways that can be implemented by the teacher in teaching English vocabulary to the children. They are as follows: a. Make learning English enjoyable and fun-remember you are influencing their attitude to language learning. (Lower as affective filter). It means teacher has to try in order to students are having fun in learning (learning by playing). Remember teacher is influencing their attitude to language learning, b. Do not worry about mistakes. Be encouraging make sure children feel comfortable, and not afraid to take part. It means teacher does not blame directly to students, teacher must give support to students while repair their mistakes, c. Use a lot of gestures, actions, pictures to demonstrate what you mean. It means teacher has to try to accompany his/her explanations with media in order to students understand easily. Dont force the students to use the language directly, just give them examples by gestures, d. Talk a lot to them in English, especially about things they can see. Teacher must teach them by using English, especially about anything in their surroundings,

e. Play games, singsongs, say rhymes and chants together. It means teacher has skills in playing games, singsong etc to make them enjoy and interest in learning, f. Tell simple theories in English, using pictures, acting with different voices, g. Do not worry when they use their mother tongue. You can answer a mother tongue question in English, and sometimes recast in English what they say in their mother tongue. It means if the students use their mother tongue, the teacher translate to English and repeat again, again and again to make them always remember what teacher means, h. Constantly recycle new language but do not be afraid to add new things or to use words they will not know. Teacher gives new language while remember the last topic, i. Plan lesson with varied activities, some quiet, some noisy, some sitting, some standing and moving, it means teacher must demonstrate his teaching with several activities (mobilling teaching), sometimes teacher sit, stand up in front of or behind the students. 2.6 The Use of Games in Language Learning. To increase the vocabulary we need media to be used. One of them is game. The definition of game is an activity that you do to have some fun (Hornby, 1995:486). Games can make the students more focus in learning, because they do not feel that they are forced to learn. Games can lower anxiety, thus making the acquisition of input more likely (Richard, 1988:147). They are highly motivating and entertaining, and they can give shy students

11 more opportunity to express their opinion and feelings (Hansen, 1994:118). They also enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign Language which are not always possible during a typical lesson. Games can be media that will give many advantages for teacher and the students either. The useful of games are attract the student to learn English because it is fun and make them want to have experiment, discover and interact with their environment (Lewis, 1999:47). Other useful of games are: Games add variation to a lesson and increase motivation by providing a plausible incentive to use the target language. For many children between four and twelve years old, especially the youngest, language learning will not be the key motivation factor. Games can provide this stimulus. The game context makes the foreign language immediately useful to the children. It brings the target language to life. The games make the reason for speaking possible even to unenthusiastic children. Through playing games, students can learn English while children learn their mother tongue without being aware they are studying; thus without stress, they can learn a lot. Even shy students can participate positively.

Based on the statements above, it is known that using game in teaching vocabulary can give the differences to the lesson that is being taught in the classroom to the students. The games also can give motivation the students in learning English

vocabulary. The game context makes the foreign language immediately useful to the children. They can practice the language they find through the games in their daily life interaction. 2.7 Improving Students Vocabulary through Matching Words And Pictures There are many ways in teaching English vocabulary. One of them is by using matching words and pictures. Matching words and pictures is one of the aids in teaching English vocabulary. Its function is to make students easy to study the words and their meaning. Most of students claim that a game they play is interesting if they comprehend it. They always complain when the English teacher ask them to memorize the words because they spend much time to accomplish it. Most of them always spend the time on looking up of the meaning of the words in dictionary. As a result, it makes them bored. There are many sachems that tell about how to learn this vocabulary. Actually, if they want to learn the vocabulary, in many times, this problem will be overcome in learning. We have to be diligent to open dictionary if we find the words which is not familiar to us. We can write the vocabulary into our notebook, and then it can be memorized. As a result, we will be able to group what we read without spending many times working up the words in dictionary. However it is a fact of life that every person who wants to learn a language, the dictionaries are nice places to visit, but no one to live there particularly for foreign language students. We can say that dictionaries are vital things from which we can get great number of words. We believe that the role of vocabulary is to comprehend the text and the pleasurable reading depends on one having an automatically vocabulary upon any

13 reading situation. When someone wants to read the text, he/she should have a large number of vocabularies and it must be used automatically because it will support him/her group a text well. Furthermore, the ability of recognizing the vocabulary is the important thing in reading. Moreover Jeremy (2000: 35) verified that it is obvious that the ability to understand the target language depends on ones knowledge of vocabulary. According to him, if someone has knowledge of vocabulary, he/she will be able to learn about the language easily. And all concepts or ideas those are written in the language can be understood well. Improving students vocabulary through matching words and pictures give a lot of advantages to the students. It can motivate the students in learning English vocabulary. The teacher can divide students into several groups. Then the teacher distributes the picture cards to the students. Word cards are also distributed to the students. Then they have to match the picture and the words that have been given. Hadfield (2008:8) stated that another technique that can be used by the teacher in this game is pairwork matching game. In playing this game, firstly the teacher could divide the class into pair. Then secondly, the teacher gives each pair a set of picture cards and a set of word cards. The students should use the picture cards first. They have to spread cards out, picture-side up, so that they can see all of them. Afterwards, they should then take turns to pick a card up and name the picture. They can check their answer by looking on the back. If they are right, they can keep the cards, if not, they must put it back. The object of this part of the game is to collect cards by naming the pictures correctly. The player who has collected most

cards at the end is the winner. As a conclusion, it is known that the game context makes the foreign language immediately useful to the children. It brings the target language to life. The games make the reason for speaking possible even to unenthusiastic children. Finally, the students need more vocabulary in their series but it would not be easy for them to increase their vocabulary. Matching words and pictures should be one of alternative ways to improve elementary students vocabulary acquisition. 2.8 The Advantages of Matching Words and Pictures Games Matching words and pictures game can make the classroom a lively place through the use of attractive wall displays, displays of students work, etc (Hansen, 1994:126). Language classroom is noisy with the language (English) is good because it will make the classroom more alive in English (practice). Matching words and pictures game also can motivate students to want to learn English by using interesting and enjoyable learning activities. E.g., project work, games, drama. It means learning by playing. This game also create warm and happy atmosphere where teacher and pupil enjoy working together. Teacher arranges good atmosphere in classroom and make the students interested (Lewis, 1999). He added that it can help students to develop personal reasons for learning English vocabulary. For example by encouraging out-of -school class activities, e.g. pen friends, project, reading story books. Other advantages of matching words and pictures are stated by Slattery and Willis (2001:68). According to them, this game is a welcome break from the usual routine of the language class. Some advantages of this game are as follows:

15 a. The game is motivating and challenging. b. Learning a language requires a great deal of effort, so this game will be a media in teaching English vocabulary to the students. c. The game helps students to make and sustain the effort of learning English vocabulary. d. The game provides language practice in the various skills: speaking, writing, listening and reading. e. It encourages students to interact and communicate. f. It also creates a meaningful context for language use. g. This kind of game is categorized as vocabulary games. Vocabulary games bring real world context into the classroom, and increase students use of English in a flexible, meaningful and communicative way. h. The game also involves friendly competition and keeps students interested in learning the language. i. Games can help them (children) learn and hang on to new words more easily. The other opinion about the advantages of the matching words and pictures game as educational media for teaching vocabulary to the children quoted by Nation (2006:68) in the following: 1. The matching word and pictures games make learning fun so your class and children are willing participants and not just there because they have to be, 2. Playing this game has a purpose to it, an outcome, and in order to play students have to say things they have a reason to communicate rather than just repeat things back mindlessly. Therefore, they want to know and learn

more, 3. Students get to use the language all the time during the games, 4. The game involves a lot of repetition, and repetition is the mother of skill, it can be boring, but thanks to this game, it is fun. 5. How do you expect your class or children to remember vocabulary if they never use it? Repetition is the mother of skill. 6. The game lends themselves perfectly to quick bursts of revision. By using the games, the teacher can revise a massive amount of vocabulary and grammar in a few minutes. 7. The philosophy of encouragement incorporated into this game allows all students, including the less good ones, to gain in confidence. Usually this doesn't just mean they get better at a subject, but in all subjects. This makes everybody, including teacher, more motivated and optimistic, and the teacher can really make a difference by helping the students have more self-esteem so they succeed in all areas of life. 8. This game is often used as short warm-up activities or when there is some time left at the end of a lesson. Derived from the quotation above, it is known that using game in teaching English vocabulary can give the differences to the lesson that is being taught in the classroom to the students. The games also can encourage the students in learning English vocabulary. The game context makes the foreign language immediately useful to the students. They can practice the language they find through the games in their conversation.