Improving students’ vocabulary through Noughts and Crosses Game (PRE EXPERIMENTAL)

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the introduction consists of background, problem statement, objective of the research, significant of the research and scope of the research.

A. Background

There are four language skills namely: listening, speaking, writing and reading. To achieve the four skills, it is important to master language components namely: vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.

 One of the language components that holds an important role is vocabulary. We can see that in speaking skills, the student cannot speak English because they have limited vocabulary. In reading and listening skills, the student cannot understand what they read and listen, because they lack vocabulary. Wilkins in Widiastuty (1997 : 111) states that the fact is without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed.

Vocabulary is one of the important things in learning English. Learning vocabulary for young learner is fundamental because the ability of students to learn English especially to read as well as to comprehend the subject is determined by vocabulary competence if the learners have no or lack vocabulary and the ability to communicate and to convey their need could not be established.

Beside that, vocabulary is one of the important elements in building up English. It is impossible to express our ideas, emotion, feeling, and desire without vocabulary. The mastery of vocabulary becomes very essential for the students to learn a language, whether as a second language or as a foreign language. Rita (1994) states that the main factors faced by students in comprehending a text is the lack of vocabulary .

The English teacher should have challenging task to find ways to motivate students to learn English. Teaching vocabulary has been presented in so many method and techniques, and should be taught in various ways so that the students can be interested in learning it.

One of the strategies in improving the students’ vocabulary is playing game. Playing game is a good way in teaching vocabulary. This is not a new method. It has been around and used for a long time. Playing game is considered very effective and teachers indirectly add an element of fun or relaxation in vocabulary practices. The purposes are to make the material are more interesting, enjoyable, and challenging and especially introducing new vocabulary.

One of the games that will be practiced here is Noughts and Crosses game. The Noughts and Crosses game is one of the techniques in teaching vocabulary. There are many reasons why games are very important in teaching vocabulary. Carrier in Widiastuty (2008: 2) summarizes other reason for including games in the language class is to create a communicative game so the students can improve both the speaking skill and vocabulary mastery.

This game will be applied to the second year students to improve their vocabulary in learning English because they have fun and relax. Beside that, if we want to make students more interest in learning English, they should have strong motivation. Adelman and Taylor in Rosmiati (1990 : 2) stated that if the students are motivated to learn something he or she can do much more than anyone would have predicted was possible. Converecely, if the students are not particularly interested in learning something, result of learning may not even close capability. Therefore, they are not worried and fearful to express their idea, thought, and opinion.

Harmer in Widiastuty (2008: 3) provides some strategies in teaching vocabulary. He states that using game in teaching vocabulary is keeping the classroom surviving and life atmosphere.

The change of classroom situation is very essential to avoid the learners from being stressed and frustrated. Based on the items, it is possible to use Noughts and Crosses game in order to increase the young learners’ mastery of vocabulary. In related to the explanation above, the researcher is interested in conducting a research under the title “Improving students’ vocabulary through Noughts and Crosses Game”.    The researcher assumes that this technique will be interesting because the student will????????????????????????