CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
In English language teaching,
there are four language elements namely: structure, vocabulary, pronunciation
and spelling. Those elements are though in order to develop the students’ skill
in the language learning. One second of them should be noticed is pronunciation
is considered difficult element method that can be applied in learning
pronunciation.
The researcher has
observed that in junior high school students are lack of pronunciation while
Nurhayati (2008:1), states that the pronunciation means knowledge of knowing to
produce word which is very essential in oral communication. When speakers
mispronounce some words or phrases, people can be misunderstanding. To reduce
it, the teacher must equip the learner with English certain degree accuracy and
fluency in understanding, responding and in expressing him self in the language
in speech in other the learners communicatively in using the language.
The specific
characteristic of English learners who categorized as a good and successful
oral skill developer is those who have a good pronunciation of English consonant
and English vowel. A good pronunciation of English consonant and English vowel
suggested is a consonant and vowel of pronunciation that sounds like native
speaker. Therefore, it is necessary for English learners to have a good
pronunciation to support them to be good speaker (Nurhayati, 2008).
Due to the problem above, most of the result indicates that the students
have low ability in pronunciation included the students of the second year SMP
Negeri 15 Makassar. Based on the researchers’ observation, she got that the
students still have much difficulty when they are asked to pronounce especially
English vowels. Besides that, based on the students’ mean score is still low.
There are many interesting media
that can be applied to serve the pronunciation in the class; one of them is
Homophone Games. With the reason that games offer students a fun-filled and
relaxing learning. After learning and practicing new vocabulary, students have
the opportunity to use language in a non-stressful way (Uberman, 1998:2).
Games also motivate students to
introduce an element of competition into language-building activities. This
provides valuable impetus to a purposeful use of language (Prasad, 2003). In
other words, these activities create a meaningful context for language use.
Most students who have experienced game-oriented activities hold positive
attitudes towards them (Uberman, 1998:2).
Homophone Games are a natural
follow on from the homophone dictation and can be used to help the students to
practice and remember homophones (Editor, 2000). A homophone is a word that is
pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be
spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of “rise”). So
that they are pronounced the same but have different meanings. A homophone is a
type of homonym, although sometimes homonym is used to refer only to homophones
that have the same spelling but different meanings (Wikipedia, 2010).
Based on the explanation above the
researcher would like to take a class action research under the title of
“Improving the Students’ Pronunciation through Homophone Games (A Classroom
Action Research at SMP Negeri 15 Makassar)”.
B. Problem Statements
Based on the
background above, the researcher formulates the research questions as follow:
1.
How is the improvement of the students’ pronunciation of
English long vowels through Homophone Games?
2.
How is the improvement of the students’ pronunciation of English
short vowels through Homophone Games?
C. Objective of the Study
The objectives of
the study are as follow:
1.
To find out the improvement of the students’ pronunciation
of English long vowels through Homophone Games.
2.
To find out the improvement of students’ pronunciation of
English short vowels through Homophone Games.
D. Significance of the Study
It is expected that the finding of
the study will be significant information for teachers of English in general
and for the teachers of English in SMP Negeri 15 Makassar in particular.
E. Scope of the Study
The scope of the study is limited
on the application of Homophone Games in improving the students’ pronunciation,
focused on the students’ English long vowels and English short vowels.
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