CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter present the discussion of some issues related to the topics of

the study. They are background of the research, the problem of the research,

objective of the research, the operational definition, significance of the research

and scope of the research.

1.1 Background of the Research

Language, the most usable tools for human that ever exist in this world, in

order to communicate or even transferring informations without any supporting

devices that available before. English language, for example, is one of the

languages used by many people in the world to communicate with others. That is

why English has been approved as one of the international language. According to

Crystal (2003:110), English is used as the media in the world’s knowledge. It is

not only used for transferring information for any field or study, science,

technology, academic, and many others, but it is also used an international

communication.

In Indonesia, especially English language is learned as a foreign language.

It is taught as a compulsory subject from junior high school up to the university

level. It is also taught as a local content subject for elementary school level.

Learning English language, As the basic of understanding for learning English

language, the meaning could be usefull in every aspect to teach English language.

1
 2

Vocabulary has one great role developing the language knowledge areas for the

learners and so many reasearchers has turning their attention to use it as

developing tools for language learners Al- Qahtani (2015:22).

Vocabulary is one of the language components that is very important in the

teaching learning process. Wilkins in Thornbury (2005:13), states that someone

will gain more improvement in learning a language if they learn more words and

expressions. He also says that without vocabulary, there will be no information

gained. In other words, vocabulary excessively needed in order to communicate

and to express our ideas to others. Similarly, Thornbury (2005:23) states that

learner needs either to learn a lot of words or to remember them. When the

students need to explain their ideas in the class, they need to put appropriate

vocabulary to make the audiences can understand what they are going to present

in the class. On the other hand, the students find some difficulties to express their

ideas if they do not have sufficient vocabulary. Consequently, to deliver such

information, the students must have sufficient collected vocabulary.

From the result of the preliminary study by observing and interviewing the

English teacher and class preliminary test, it was found that the seventh grade

students of SMP Negeri 1 Ambulu Jember in 2018/2019 academic year

experienced difficulties in Vocabulary Mastery, and lack of participation through

every meeting, especially VII B class. It was known that VII B class had the

lowest average score that achieve the standard score than the other classes. The

standard score of reading in vocabulary components is 70. In that class the

 3

average score of the student is 60. Besides, the English teacher said that the

students’ active performance in the teaching learning process was still low, she

also said that there were only 45% of students who were active. The teacher said

“the students still had some problems in vocabulary mastery, and it affect the

student’s capabilities in comphrending the text. They could not comprehend the

meaning of texts, sentences, and word because of their capabilities in mastering

the vocabulary and lacks of vocabulary knowledge”. It was shown by the

students’ average score of English that under the score of vocabulary test in level

of the school. The teacher said that the students did not enjoy to read english texts

because she never used media or any technique to teach reading skills. So, it

explin that in classroom activitie the teacher only explained the lesson before

asked the students to do the exercises from Lembar Kerja Siswa/LKS (Students’

Worksheet).

In other word, in daily practice of teaching reading, the teachers should

make great efforts to solve the problem of students' mastering vocabulary. She

should try not only use the English textbook and students worksheet (LKS) in

teaching reading but also some materials from any other informations or readable

materials that will increase students’ vocabulary. However, this effort still need to

be enriched since the students’ vocabulary mastery could be achieved as max as

the student can get. Therefore, giving various materials was not the only way to

overcome the problem. Teacher could use instructional strategies to improve

vocabulary mastery of the students.

 4

In this case, teachers in the language teaching, especially the teaching of

English as a foreign language plays important roles as the designers of the

materials, practice, and test. They mostly spend much time on deciding the

appropriate teaching methodology for greater effectiveness in students’ during the

teaching learning process.

Extensive Reading would be a best way to enhance the vocabulary

knowledge. According to et. al in Kargar, (2012: ), more words can be learnt from

getting the students to spent time on silent reading of interesting books than

controlled introducing number of new words in each class. As the basic of the

procedure in Extensive Reading, by reading lot of interesting passage, student

would be able to improve their vocabulary mastery.

Based on the above problem, the researcher wanted to overcome this

problem by using a new strategy that had rarely being used by the English teacher.

Extensive reading approach as an alternative strategies. Therefore, it was

necessary to conduct a research entitled “Improving students’ vocabulary mastery

by using extensive reading approach at seventh grade students of SMPN 1

Ambulu Jember in 2018/2019 academic year”.

1.2 Problem of the Research

Based on the above background, the research problems were formulated as

follow:

1. How can the use of extensive reading to improving the students’ vocabulary

mastery of the VII B grade students of SMPN 1 Ambulu Jember in 2018/2019

academic year ?
 5

2. How can the use of extensive reading to improving the students’ active

participation of the VII B grade students of SMPN 1 Ambulu Jember in

2018/2019 academic year ?

1.3 Objective of the Research

Based on those research problem, the objectives of the research can

formulated :

1. To improve the students’ Vocabulary Mastery of the seventh grade students of

SMPN 1 Ambulu Jember in 2018/2019 academic year by using extensive

reading.

2. To improve the students’ active participation of the seventh grade students of

SMPN 1 Ambulu Jember in 2018/2019 academic year process by using

extensive reading.

1.4 Operational definition of the key terms

It is necessary to define the terms used in the title operationally to avoid

misunderstanding between the writer and the readers. The terms that are necessary

to be defined operationally are vocabulary mastery and extensive reading.

1.4.1 Vocabulary Mastery

Vocabulary Mastery is a term in linguistic to understand and comphrehend

meaning and use of words, by referring to the Vocabulary Test which consist of

noun words, verb words, adjective words, and adverb words, which in this

research only focusing on verb components ( regular verb, irregular verb, ordinary

verb and auxiliary verb).

 6

1.4.2 Extensive Reading

Extensive Reading (ER) is an approach to second language reading. When

learners read extensively, they read very easy, enjoyable books by reading text,

comprehending the text, discussion the text, retelling the text, and seeking

unknown word meaning from the text. By using this approach, the students will

read the descriptive text that being used by looking forward to lesson plan, the

students will choose the descriptive text by themselves and comprehend the use of

every word.

1.5 Significance of the Research

The result of this classroom action research were expected to give

important informations and improvement for the researcher, the english teacher,

the students, and the future researcher in teaching and learning aspect.

1.5.1 Theoretical Significance

The result of this research is useful for English teacher as reference to

encourage them to use extensive reading approach in teaching reading to improve

students’s vocabulary mastery and students’ active participation.

1.5.2 Practical Significance

The result of this research will be useful for the researcher, the students

and the future researcher, in order to use it in teaching learning process to improve

vocabulary mastery and students’s active participation in studying english. In

addition, they can have new learning experience by using extensive reading
 7

approach in process of reading that can help them to increase their vocabulary

mastery.

1.5.2.1The Researcher

The results were useful to increase the researcher’s knowledge and

experiece about doing a research which focus on the importance of extensive

reading strategy in teaching vocabulary mastery.

1.5.2.2The Students

The results of the research are expected to provide the students an

experience in learning by extensive reading to improve their vocabulary mastery

and active participation, especially in comprehending word usage of the text and

gain the informations through understanding the meaning of the word.

1.5.2.3 Future Researchers

The findings of the research could be used as reference or a resource to

conduct a further research by using extensive reading strategy on vocabulary

mastery.

1.6 The Scope of the Research

The research focuses on improving vocabulaty mastery by using extensive

reading. The subject of the research is the VII B grade students of SMPN 01

Ambulu Jember in the 2018/2019 Academic year.