Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL REVIEW
A. Review on Vocabulary
1. The Definition of Vocabulary
In mastering English as foreign language, vocabulary had an important
basic role that links the four skills of language like writing, reading, speaking
and listening all together. Someone cannot communicate effectively or
express his ideas in both oral and written form without mastering vocabulary
first. That is why students should mastering vocabulary.
There are some definitions of vocabulary proposed by some experts. Hatch
and Brown (1995: 1) propose the definition of vocabulary as a list or set of
words for a particular language or a list or set of words that individual
speakers of a language might use. Linse (2005: 121) also declares vocabulary
is the collection of the words that everyone knows. In line with the definition
before, Burns and Broman (1975: 295) stated that vocabulary is the stock of
words used by person, class, or profession
Based on the definition above, it can be concluded that vocabulary is a list
or stock of words in language with their meanings which used by person,
class, or profession.
b. Productive vocabulary
Productive vocabulary is words which people understand, can
pronounce correctly and use constructively in speaking and writing.
Productive vocabulary involves what is needed for receptive vocabulary
plus the ability to speak or write the appropriate time. Therefore,
productive vocabulary can be addressed as an active process, because the
learners can produce the words to express their thought to others.
Hatch and Brown (1995: 368) divided vocabulary learning into two;
intentional learning and incidental learning. They define intentional learning
as being designed, planned for, or intended by teacher or students. And they
define incidental learning as the type of learning that is a by product of doing
or learning something else.
Although those experts have different terms in mentioning the kinds of
vocabulary, but the substance of their explanation have same point of view
that divide the vocabulary into two kinds. They divide the kinds of
vocabulary by the students‘ learning or understanding proccess. The first is
receptive vocabulary or intentional learning vocabulary, the students only
receive thought from the others and cannot produce it correctly. The second is
productive vocabulary or incidental learning vocabulary the students learn a
new word by product of doing or learning something else, they can produce
the words and share their thought to others.
3. Aspects of Vocabulary
In learning vocabulary, Harmer (1991:18) says that there are some aspects
that both the teacher and students should pay attention. Those aspects will
explain bellow;
a. Meaning
The first thing to understand about vocabulary items is an English word
that frequently has more than one meaning. The meaning of a word is depend
on the context in which it is used. Besides that, we should know about sense
relation, sometimes words has meaning correlation to the other words.
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b. Word use
Words do not just have different meanings, however. Word meaning is the
frequently stretched through the use of metaphor and idiom. Besides that it is
also governed by collocation which words go with each other. Besides that we
often use words only in certain social and topical context. Usually we say ased
onthe style and habit of group or society we are in.
c. Word formation
There are lot things that students need to know in learning word formation,
those are;
1. The students need to know about word formation and how twist words to
fit different grammatical context.
2. The students need to know how suffixes and prefixes work. It includes
how to make the words potent and expensive opposite in meaning.
3. The students need to know how words are spelt and how they sound.
4. The students need to know how words are written and spoken and
knowing how they can change their form.
d. Word grammar
Word grammar which is employed by distinguishing the use of words
based on the use of certain grammatical patterns such as noun, verb,
adjective,adverb,etc.
There are many areas of grammatical behavior that student needs to know,
those are;
1. What are phrasal verbs and how they behave?
2. How are adjectives ordered?
3. What position can adverbs be used in?
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Cameron (2001: 74) argues that vocabulary mastery deals with learning
words at the first. Learning words is a process of meeting new words and initial
learning followed by meeting those words again and again, each time
extending knowledge of what the words mean and how they are used in the
foreign language. Besides, Hornby (1995:721) defines mastery as complete
knowledge or complete skills. It means that mastery is a competency to
understand and apply something being learnt. From the definitions above,
vocabulary mastery can be said as a result of learning words by meeting new
vocabulary then memorizing and understanding the vocabulary
In this research, vocabulary mastery was only related to the students‘ problem
as described previously, it is the great skill and knowledge of understanding the
meaning, spelling, pronunciation, and using of words into the forms of phrases
or sentences.
Cameron (2001: 72) also says ―Vocabulary learning can serve as a stepping
stone to learn and use grammar‖.
Nation (1990: 2) has three important reasons regarding to the importance
of teaching vocabulary.
a. The considerable research about vocabulary informing that vocabulary
related to useful words can give the learners in useful skill, especially
speaking.
b. Teacher faced with learners who have small vocabulary.
c. The learners and researchers who see vocabulary are very important in
learning language.
From the statements above, it can be concluded that vocabulary plays an
important role in learning language. The first step that should be known to
learn language is learning vocabulary because it is the basic aspect of learning
any language. Because it is important, teachers should teach vocabulary to
become meaningful and understandable. As a consequence, teachers holds a
responsibility in determining the best technique and media to teach vocabulary
based on the needs and characteristics of the students.
some circumstances than others has been found in work with interactive
video materials. When students have seen an object or an action, their
desire to know the label (word) for it may increase so that, when the word
for it is encountered, it is learned very quickly.
b. Getting a clear image, either visual or auditory or both, for the forms of the
new words.
This step essential to vocabulary learning appears to be the setting
of a clear image—visual or auditory or both—of the vocabulary items. The
importance of having a clear image of the ―form‖ of words becomes
apparent when people think about what happens when people try to
retrieve words. In addition, it also appears when students are asked to give
definitions for words.
c. Learning the meaning of the words.
This step includes such strategies as ―asking native English
speakers what words mean,‖ ―asking people who speak the native
language the meaning of new words,‖ ―making pictures of word meaning
in mind,‖ and ― explaining what the speaker means and asking someone to
tell him English word‖.
d. Making a strong memory connection between the forms and meanings of
the words.
This step includes many kinds of vocabulary learning drills such
as, flashcards, matching exercise, crossword puzzles, etc that strengthen
the form-meaning connection.
e. Using the words.
In this step, word use is essential if the goal is to help learners
move as far along the continuum of word knowledge as they can.
Furthermore, use seems to provide a mild guarantee that words and
meanings will not fade from memory once they are learned.
There are many theories and explanations about technique in teaching
vocabulary. Based on the experts explanation above, technique in vocabulary
teaching can be defined as a systematic composition or innovation to teach
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vocabulary in the classroom to student with the purpose that the vocabulary can
be received, understood, and used well. Those techniques can be determined
into the groups of using media; language forming; teacher‘s body-language;
and learning situation.
In conducting this research, the researcher will use animation video as the
media which is aimed to improve the students‘ vocabulary mastery. Then,
names of transportations and public places are the learning topics that are
discussed using this media. The researcher will use some kinds of oral and
written assessments in order to check the students‘ understanding after
conducting learning process using animation video.
the video segment without the sound and tell students to observe the
behavior of the characters and to use their power of deduction. Then
press the pause button at intervals to stop the picture on the screen and
get students to guess what is happening and what the characters might
be saying or ask students what has happened up to that point. Finally,
video segment is replayed with the sound on so that learners can
compare their impressions with what actually happens in the video.
4. Sound on and vision off activity
This activity can be interesting and useful to play a section of a
video unit and remove the visual element from the presentation by
obscuring the picture so that students can hear only the dialogue but
unable to see the action. Through this activity the students predict or
reconstruct what has happened visually depending only what they hear.
5. Repetition and role-play
When there are some difficult language points in the video unit,
closely repetition can be a necessary step to communicative production
exercises. A scene on video is replayed with certain pauses for
repetition either individually or in chorus. When students have a clear
understanding of the presentation, they are asked to act out the scene
using as much of the original version as they can remember. When
students become confident with role playing and are sure of vocabulary
and language structures, more creative activity can be introduced in
which they are asked to improvise the scene to fit their views of the
situation and the characters they are playing. Role-play involves
students as active participants. As each student plays the assigned role,
s/he becomes more and more involved. This activity also helps students
to better understanding their own behaviour and to be more able to
respond in a positive way to various human relationships. In other
words, role playing is a good communicative activity and true
preparation for real-life situations. It gives a chance to students to apply
what they are learning.
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6. Reproduction activity
After students have seen a section, students are asked to reproduce
either what is being said, to describe what is happening, or to write or
retell what has happened. This activity encourages students to try out
their knowledge. Students will benefit from experimenting in English,
even though it is challenging and mistakes are made. As it seems a bit
difficult to perform, guidance, help and reassurance may be needed.
7. Dubbing activity
This activity can be done when students have the necessary
language competence. In this activity, students are asked to fill in the
missing dialogues after watching a sound-off video episode. It is
interesting and enjoyable for the students to complete a scene from the
video by dubbing.
8. Follow-up activity
It is important that a video presentation should lead to follow-up
activity as the basis for further extended oral practice. Discussion
stimulates communication among students, and it helps to achieve
communicative practice. With this activity students have an opportunity
to develop sharing and co-operative skills.
Using video in learning language can be a very powerful tool to engage
students in the vocabulary learning process as well as provide a benefit to
visual learners. Dealing with teaching vocabulary mastery, some simple
strategies can be used to allow lower level students to be creative in the
classroom using video as a stepping stone to fun and communicative activities.
Considering the ideas above, I was interested to provide procedure of
teaching vocabulary using animation video as follows:
1. Teacher gave some brainstorming questions related to the topic.
2. Teacher played the video without pausing (Active Viewing activity).
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3. Teacher played the video to introduce the words and paused each
picture to teach the meaning of the words (Freeze Framing and
Prediction activity).
4. Teacher played the video again and paused each picture to teach the
spelling of the words (Freeze Framing and Prediction activity).
5. Teacher played video without picture and asked students to write its
name (Sound On and Vision Off activity).
6. Teacher played video and asked students to repeat the words.
7. Teacher played video without sound and asked students to pronounce
words individually (Silent Viewing Activity).
8. Teacher explained how to make simple sentences using the example
on the video.
9. Teacher gave exercise about word use.
10. Teacher gave some oral and written exercises based on the animation
video in group or individually (Students practiced meaning, spelling,
pronunciation, and word use).
Learning English vocabulary by watching animation video is a great
way for the kids to have fun as well as learn. Video provides young learners an
opportunity to acquire new vocabulary and imitate to what they have heard and
have seen. That is why it is a very good way of stimulating young learners in
learning process.
old and the eight to ten years old. Both of them are assumed as the beginner‘s
stage.
From the definition above, it can be concluded that young learners are
children who are in the group of age five to twelve years old. In this research,
young learners are five to twelve years old children who learn English as a
second language in the elementary school.
2. The Characteristics of Young Learners
Young learners are different from the adults. They learn everything
naturally and should be in fun condition. Young learners are unique in doing
and learning something. They have some characteristics that indicate that they
are different from the adult learners. By knowing their characteristics, it is
hoped that the teacher would treat their students well and be able to choose an
appropriate technique of teaching in order to reach the objective of teaching-
learning process.
Harmer (2001: 38) lists the characteristics of young learners as
follows:
a. They respond to meaning even if they do not understand individual words.
b. They often learn indirectly rather than directly – that is they take in
information from all sides, learning from everything around them rather
than only focusing on the precise topic they are being taught.
c. Their understanding comes not just from explanation, but also from
what they see and hear, and crucially, have a chance to touch and interact
with.
d. They generally display an enthusiasm for learning and a curiosity
about the world around them.
e. They have a need for individual attention and approval from the
teacher.
f. They are keen to talk about themselves, and respond well to learning
that uses themselves and their own lives as main topics in the classroom.
g. They have a limited attention span; unless activities are extremely
engaging they can easily get bored, losing interest after ten minutes or so.
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Further characteristics come from Scott and Ytreberg (1990: 3), they
lists some characteristics of young learners as folows:
1. Many children can sustain an interest in an activity. In relation to this
Scott and Ytreberg (1990: 3) state that variety of voice, pace, and
organization will help much in keeping the young learners concentrate on
learning the language;
2. They understand through hands, eyes, and ears. They deal with concrete
things. Scott and Ytreberg (1990: 3) suggest that teachers should not rely on
the spoken words only. The activities for young learners should mostly
include movement and involve senses. Bringing them many teaching media,
making full use of the school and surroundings and demonstrating what the
teacher wants the children to do are much better than just giving them verbal
explanation;
3. They love to play and learn best when they are enjoying themselves. But
they also take themselves seriously and like to think that what they are
doing is ―real‖ work;
4. They are very logical - what you say first happens first;
5. They understand situations quickly than they understand the language
use;
6. Young children are enthusiastic and positive about learning. It is
important to praise them if they are to keep their enthusiasm and feel
successful from the beginning;
7. Young children love to imitate and mime, to act out roles, and do
physically active. Therefore, some activities that involves physical
movement, such as action videos, dramatization, coloring and drawing of
pictures, games, and role playing.
Concerning with the characteristics possessed by children, a teacher
should be able to understand the way young learners learn. Teacher is the key
of the students‘ success in mastering the language. They have a great
opportunity to facilitate the students‘ best learning if they do understand their
characteristics.
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D. Rationale
Vocabulary has important role in learning all language in the world. it will
be the basic competence in order to get other competences such as speaking,
writing, listening and reading. So, vocabulary is the first step to learn and to do. In
productive skills like speaking and writing, the students need words to convey the
idea and meaning. In listening activity, mastering vocabulary can help the
students to get the points of what the speaker‘s says. Meanwhile in reading
activity, having a lot of vocabulary will help the students to understand and gather
information from the passage.
In learning vocabulary, there are some aspects to which both the teacher
and students should give attention, those are : (1) Meaning.Talking about
vocabulary items, it frequently has more than one meaning. It depends on the
context. Besides that, the thing that cannot be forgotten is between a word and
other words have meaning correlation. (2) Word use. Words do not just have
different meanings, however. Word meaning is the frequently stretched through
the use of metaphor and idiom. Besides that we often use words only in certain
social and topical context. Usually we say based on the style and habit of group or
society we are in. (3) Word formation. Vocabulary mastery involves the mastery
on pronunciation (what a word sound like) and spelling (what it looks like). In
teaching the teacher must make sure that the learner has to know how the word is
sounded and how the word is spelled. (4) Word grammar. The teacher needs to
teach the grammar of new word if this is not obviously conversed by general
grammatical rules. A word may have an unpredictable change of form in certain
grammatical context
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captions on it, so the students can easily watch and learn how to spell words
correctly. Furthermore, it enables to support pronunciation. It provides
pronunciation by native speaker. The students can directly hear and imitate how
words should be precisely pronounced. Most of the videos also give the examples
about how to make simple sentences.
Based on the explanation above, teaching vocabulary using animation
video is expected to improve students‘ vocabulary mastery. Students can be
motivated and actively engaged in teaching-learning process through some
activitiesthen teacher plays a part as motivator.
F. Action Hypothesis
Based on the rationale has been described above, the researcher proposes
the action hypothesis: Animation video can improve the students‘ vocabulary
mastery