INTRODUCTION

This first chapter emphasizes the explanations of why the researcher conducted this study. It is
discussed through some subchapters including the background of study, identification of the
problem, limitation of the problem, formulation of the problem, objectives of the study, and
significant of the study.

A. Background of the Study

English has been considered as an essential language to be learnt in orderto meet the
communication needs in this globalization era. Taking into account the benefits of English,
Indonesia has organized English to be taught in formal school as a compulsory subject. As stated
in standard of content by Kemendikbud 2013, the teaching of foreign language, specifically
English, is aimed to develop students’ ability to communicate with world society. Therefore, it is
taught in different kind of grade levels. The teaching includes the teaching of the four skills,
listening, speaking, reading, and writing and each of the micro skills.

Vocabulary is one of crucial aspects to support those skills. As stated by Richards and Renandya
(2002), vocabulary is a core component of language proficiency and provides much of the basis
of how well learners speak, listen, and write. The vocabulary mastery will affect someone’s
ability in using the language either in spoken or written form. In listening skill, to be able to
understand someone utterance, people should know what the meaning of words and sentences
being said. Therefore, they know the intention of the utterance and are able to react either
through action or answer it using spoken utterance, which here, they have to use words to do
that. Additionally, to be able to understand what people is reading, they should be able to
understand the meaning that is being conveyed through the written words. And as what needed in
speaking, people should be able to arrange words to convey meaning in writing. Moreover, they
should be able to spell the words and write them down. Although arranging words is not the only
way in conveying meaning because there are also paralanguage and context which assist, but in
languages, vocabulary will be the most crucial aspect. As stated by Wilkins quoted by Thornbury
(2002), “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be
conveyed.” It tells us that if someone wants to be able to convey meaning they need vocabulary.
Although someone has known sentence structure but if he/she does not mastery vocabulary,
he/she will remain unable to say or write anything and the grammar knowledge will be useless.
Thus, by improving the vocabulary, it will be a basic for someone to communicate what is in
their mind using the targeted language.

In English, there are about 2000 most frequently used words that will be very useful to support
someone to be able to do communication in daily life. As have been stated by Thornbury
(2002:21) that “Moreover, a passive knowledge of 2000 most frequency words in English would
provisde a reader with familiarity with nearly nine out of every ten words most written text.”
When someone already acquire the 2000 most frequency words they will understand almost 90%
of the native speaker. Along with the statements above, Nation (2003) argued the importance of
high frequency words, particularly in terms of conducting a course. He stated that “The high
frequency words are small enough group to be reasonable goal for two or three years course”. It
means that at the initial learning of English the group of words is the most important one to be
considered acquired by the students.

As a matter of fact, the researcher assumed that the students’ learning vocabulary development,
especially junior high school students, is somewhat causing apprehension. After the observation
had been done during the teaching practice (PPL) around July to September 2013, the researcher
found out that students of grade VII of SMP N 2 Srandakan were still considered having
difficulties in vocabulary mastery. Thus, the researcher decided to do further action to overcome
those problems by doing deeper research in this final task. She conducted re-observation and
found out the similar problems still happen. She found out some evidences related to that. Once,
there were still a lot of words that the students do not know the meaning. They asked a lot of
words’ meaning during the teaching learning process. One of the problems was that they were
having difficulties in understanding the instructions they found in the text book or tasks they
were doing. The verbs used on the instructions were quite unfamiliar for them. Another problem
also found during the activities in classes.

They were not enthusiastic while doing task in the teaching learning process because they have
difficulties in understanding what they read or listen. They tend to do productive activities by
imitating the example because they have limited vocabulary knowledge. Then, most students
also did wrong interpretation of meaning of words in the sentences. They rarely realized that
meaning changes based on context surrounding it. They also made mistakes about where to put
the words. Usually, students thought that they did not know the meaning of the words they
actually know. It was related to their knowledge of word family. They also frequently miss-spell
words when they were writing, and miss-pronounce when they were speaking.

Other problems was related to the teaching method, teacher usually only use monotonous
traditional method that is to translate words isolation from English to Indonesian. In the
beginning of each meeting the teacher wrote ten words on the board and the students were asked
to translate it to Indonesia. The students sometimes found it difficult and they also discourage in
learning vocabulary. The students were also rarely given chances to practice the words that had
been given in other activities. They learn the words naturally at the different opportunity of
teaching-learning. Therefore, they merely knew the words meaning and forgot the words easily.
Therefore, based on the problems, the researcher concluded that, the students of grade VII in
SMP N 2 Srandakan still have problems in different kind of aspects of vocabulary knowledge.

The researcher has done literature review about the way to overcome the problems. There are
some ways that can be used to solve vocabulary problems. The first alternative is that we use
silent extensive reading of graded readers to improve vocabulary from meaning-focused input
(learning through listening and reading) as has been stated by Nunan (2003:142). The second
alternative is by using some vocabulary games. Like has been proposed by Harmer (2007: 289,
350) there are Got It!, and Call my bluff, games that suitable for Grade VII of Junior High
School. There are also other vocabulary games proposed by other experts. And, the last way
suggested by the researcher is using variations of crossword puzzle. Considering some other
constrains related to facility (unavailable of graded readers, classroom chairs and table) and
principles in vocabulary teaching that is allocating specific class time but not overwhelming the
essential parts of the course (Harmer : 2007, Nunan:2003, and Brown:2001) , the researcher and
collaborator decided to use crossword puzzle to help the students to improve their vocabulary
mastery. As has been stated by Soeparno (1980:73), a crossword puzzle is a kind of games done
by filling the blank form presented with letters forming words as the answer of the question
given. The game aims to train vocabulary mastery. Another expert, Harry Dhand (2008: 55-56)
explained different kinds of benefits for using crossword puzzles included, it is as a fun and raise
students’ motivation, it can be easily made by the teacher and even the students themselves,
encourage the use of dictionary and can be used for different types of classroom activities.

However, taking into account some of the guidelines for communicative treatment of vocabulary
instruction stated by Brown (2001:377) as follows, 1.) Allocate specific class time to vocabulary
learning. 2.) Help students to learn vocabulary in context. 3.) Play down the role of bilingual
dictionaries. 4.) Encourage students to develop strategies for determining the meaning of words.,
the crossword puzzles will be modified using contextual sentences, the use of dictionary, and
interesting group work. Thus, by using the crossword puzzles technique, the researcher and the
collaborator expects the students to have pleasure atmosphere in learning English and help them
to improve their vocabulary. This action is also expected to be able to solve the problems of
teaching methods, students’ low motivation and confidence, and the problem of vocabulary
mastery (spelling, meaning and contextual words using).

B. Identification of the Problems.

According to the second observation has been conducted, the researcher classified the problems
into four. The problems related to the students, the teacher, the teaching and learning, and the
facilities.

a. Related to the students

Firstly, the problem encountered in the classroom is related to their pronunciation and spelling of
words. The students themselves confessed that they still have difficulty in pronouncing and
writing words correctly. It is also reinforced by the teacher’s statement that mostly students
encounter problem in speaking because their pronunciation are awful. Secondly, the students’
ability in acquiring meaning of words is considered low. The students’ knowledge about words is
limited to knowing their forms and meaning. They said that they are confused about two similar
words. They gave examples of words “talk” and “talked”. It means that their knowledge related
to word families need to be improved. Moreover, their ability related to meaning itself caused
worry. They are confused in interpreting word meaningbased on the contexts which surround it.
For instance, the meaning of word “free” which they were debated about, if it means “costing
nothing” or “not controlled”, from the utterances stated by one of them.

Thirdly, there are rare occasions for students to practice using the words they have recognized.
According to the teachers’ statement, the words they have already known will only be used when
needed in another occasion, mostly when they move to the other materials. Therefore, it leads to
another problem that is their ability in using words appropriately. It is proven when they were
doing speaking activities in classroom observation. They express the functions they already
learnt but the researcher and collaborator hardy understand what the student’s intended to say
because of their awful sentence structure. More or less, the problems above are caused by some
limitation found related to the teacher.
b. Related to the teacher
First, the teacher uses isolation word translation method that contributes to some problems
above. She asked the students to memorize word list she had given in the beginning of the
semester. Then, in every beginning of lessons, they did 5 minutes words translation exam. It
causes problems related to the meanings based on the context, grammar characteristics, and word
usage in appropriate way.

Second, in the teaching and learning process the teacher rarely uses media or interesting
activities. The teacher stated that because of her limitation in operating computer, the media she
sometime uses only pictures, and realia sources. She also tends to depend on the textbook and
LKS provided from the school. Interesting learning activities like games also rarely
implemented. Those situations contribute to the students’ attitude toward the lesson.
Third, the teacher mostly speaks Indonesian and Javanese language during teaching and learning
process. It shows that the teacher herself is not able to give sufficient input of English to the
students.

c. Related to the teaching and learning.

Once, the teaching and learning is teacher-centered and monotonous. This situation is reflected
in the activities which mostly are dominated by teacher’s explanation. Moreover, the activities
are dominated by answering questions from the teacher or doing assignment from the text book
and LKS. Then, the lesson’s time is not properly managed. Almost half of provided time is spent
only on the presentation (introduction of the material). Therefore the other teaching and learning
stages are ignored. Next, the students are having some problems related to their motivation in
the classroom. The male students are more active in answering questions and giving opinion than
the female students. Sometimes, they also discourage because of the vocabulary test. They said
that it was a difficult task and got bad marks a few times. At last, there were only some of the
students who can use dictionary appropriately. They only used dictionary sometimes because of
their laziness and do not bring their dictionary.

d. Related to the facility.

The school provides some facilities to support the lessons but still does not optimal. It provides
LCD, but the teachers should bring it from the administration room to their class, and prepare it
themselves. Therefore, it needs some considerations to use that. Then, the school also provides
dictionaries to support English teaching and learning, nevertheless, there are only 10 dictionaries
and mostly used by the students of the eighth grade.

C. Limitation of the Problems

Based on the identification of problems above, the researcher found so many things to be solved.
However, it is impossible for her to solve all of the problems. Therefore, this study is limited to
the implementation of crossword puzzles to improve the first grade students’ vocabulary mastery
of VII D of SMP N 2 Srandakan. The collaborators and the researcher decided to use crossword
puzzles to solve the problem due to some reasons. First, the teacher is quite old (59 yearsold)
therefore the use of it is aimed to provide variations in teaching-learning. Second, crossword
puzzle has been proven helpful to improve someone’s vocabulary mastery, although it is still at
the level of remembering. So, there are some additional activities made to handle that. Third,
there are some variations of crossword puzzle that are possible to be implemented to avoid
boredom and raise the students’ motivation.

D. Formulation of the Problems

In reference to the background of study, identification of problems and limitation of problems,
the researcher problem is formulated as: How could crossword puzzles be implemented to
improve the students’ vocabulary mastery of grade VII of SMP N 2 Srandakan ?

E. Objective of the Study

Based on the formulation of the problem above, this study is aimed to improve the vocabulary
mastery of VII D graders of SMP N 2 Srandakan through the use of crossword puzzle for their
teaching and learning process.

F. The Significance of the Study

The researcher selected the strategy above in consideration that it will give advantages for some
related research members who were involved, as elaborated
below.
a. The students
It is expected that the students improve their vocabulary mastery through the use of the
variations of technique. Therefore, they learn English easier and become more motivated in the
English class.
b. The teacher
It is expected that the teacher will enrich her knowledge of how to vary and improve her ability
in conducting classroom teaching and learning by using the technique. As the result, it increases
the teaching learning quality in facilitating the student in learning English.

c. The researcher
This study gave the researcher an experience of conducting a teaching and learning research
which basically important for the development of the researcher’s competences. This research
gave opportunity for the researcher to apply what had been earned from academic learning and
gave contribution to solve real problems in the field. Moreover it will also give advantage to
another researcher who takes the same topic to use this research as a reference to conduct
the research.