APPLYING KEYWORD METHOD IN IMPROVING VOCABULARY

MASTERY

AHMAD MUSTAMIR WARISEnglish Departement,FTK UIN

AbstactThis study presents about using keyword method in improving the students’ vocabulary of the first year students of English department

The problem statements of the research are: (1) what is the ability of the first year students of English department in learning English vocabulary before using keyword method?, (2) What is the ability of the first year students of English department in learning English vocabulary after using keyword method? and (3) Is teaching vocabulary by using keyword method effective in improving the student’s vocabulary mastery?

The objectives of the research are reflected from the problems are: (1) The ability of the first year students of English department in English vocabulary before using keyword method, (2) The ability of the first year students of English department in English vocabulary after using keyword method and (3) The effectiveness of keyword method in increasing the students vocabulary mastery.

The population of the research is the first year students of English department of UIN Alauddin Makassar, which consist of two groups namely class PBI 3 and PBI 4 consists of 40 students. Furthermore, in collecting the data, the researcher used test, they were pre-test and post-test. The pre-test was used before the treatment and post-test was used after the treatment.

The result analysis of the research shows that, using keyword method is effective in increasing the students’ vocabulary mastery. It can be seen from the mean score between pre-test and post-test. The ability of the students in English vocabulary is higher after they got the treatment than before they got the treatment (8.57>5.39), and the significance difference of the t-test and t-table is 18.71>2.042.

Keyword: keyword method, vocabulary mastery

I. INTRODUCTIONAs one of the international language, the rule of English becomes crucial

nowadays. It plays a main role in information transformation from a nation to others. In Indonesia it has been taught in Elementary School untill University. English is devided into four skills that should be mastered by the students of every level of Schools and Universities.

Learning a language especially English means we will talk about the basic element of it, namely vocabulary. It is the most important one because language consists of sequence of words. People cannot learn a language without learning words. As Allen in Nurhayati (2003) says that vocabulary is an important factor in all language teaching and it influences the achievement of the four language skill.

In addition, vocabulary is a foundation in learning English without vocabulary the students cannot access the knowledge from what they read, the students do not understand what people say because lack of vocabulary, etc. Nirwana (1996:3) states that in learning a foreign language there are two things we really need to know there are: word and how to put them together. Stressing its importance in language teaching and reassessing some ways in which it is thought and learnt. The language

methodologists and linguists have increasingly paid their attention to the teaching of vocabulary. Numerous competing methods of vocabulary acquisition have received a great deal of attention, including the keyword method and the learning of word roots.

According to Atkinson in Susan R. Old (2001), “keyword method is mnemonic technique in which a new word is associated with a similar sounding familiar word, or keyword. A mental image is then formed linking the unfamiliar word to the keyword. For example, if the new word is “celerity”, meaning “speed,” the keyword could be “celery.” A mental image of a piece of celery flying through the air could then be formed”.

Several studies have investigated the characteristics of the keyword method. For example Hall, Wilson, and Patterson in Susan R. Old (2001) suggest that the keyword method is most useful to less experienced learners, such as the young. They also found that keywords provided by the experimenter yielded better recall than when participants were required to create their own keywords. Further, recognizing word roots is an important process in vocabulary learning and teaching roots to students enhances their ability to infer meaning of certain vocabulary, the students who learned roots through the keyword method were just as able, if not more so, to infer meanings from roots as were students in free study and semantic conditions.

II. REVIEW OF RELATED RESEARCHThere are many researches have found that vocabulary is a crucial part of English

and shows how important vocabulary is.The results of the researchers are cited below. - Mukrim (2003:4) made a research application mnemonic device in

English vocabulary subject taught to the first semester of English department state Makassar University found, It that was a good way to teach vocabulary subject to the student.

- Rahimi Hamzah (2006:51) conducted a research. Improving the vocabulary mastery of second year student of SMU IMMIM Makassar through discovery language learning. And result of it is better than conventional technique in learning teaching vocabulary.

- Hasmawaty (2002:24) in her research about the mastery of English vocabulary of the second year student of SLTP 5 Makassar, found that the second year students of SLTP 5 Makassar had low mastery of English vocabulary.

The research finding above show that many ways can help the students to learning vocabulary. In this occasion, the researcher wants to introduce keyword method to students’ vocabulary learning.

B. Some Pertinent Ideas

1. VocabularyHornby (1974) in oxford dictionary says, vocabulary is:

- Total numbers of words that makes a language.- Body of words known to a person or used in particular book, subject.- List of words with their meaning, especially one that accompanies a

textbook in a foreign language. According to Victoria N and David B (1995:1494) vocabulary is a list of words

and often, phrases, abbreviation, inflectional forms, and all the words used by a particular person, socioeconomic group.

Good (1959:642) in dictionary of education state that vocabulary is the content and the function words of language which re learn to thoroughly they become part of child’s understanding, speaking, later reading and writing vocabulary. He also defines vocabulary as the words having meaning when heard or seen even though not produced by individuals him self to communicate with other.

From statement above the writer concludes that vocabulary is the words of a language, which have meaning and function. In some definition, even though they are different sound from each other, but the important point is that vocabulary of words influence people to make up a language.Some classifications of vocabulary are given in the following:

1. Harmer (1991:159) divided vocabulary into two kinds. There are:a. Active vocabulary refers to vocabulary that the students have

learned. They are expected to be used by the student. b. Passive vocabulary refers to what which students will recognize

when they meet them, but they will probably not be able to produce.

2. Scail (1967:57) state that every persons has three types of vocabulary as follows:

a. Active vocabulary: the words we customarily use in speaking and probably run from 5000 to 1000 words.

b. Reserve vocabulary: the words we know but we rarely use in speaking, we use them in writing.

c. Passive vocabulary: the words we recognize vaguely, but are not sure of the meaning, whenever use them in either speaking or writing.

One way to attract the students in introducing the words is by giving a procedure to guess the meaning of the words and also Wallace (1989:30) adds five steps to learn or to achieve vocabulary in mother tongue and the target language as follows:

- There is a felt need.- The learner is exposed to an enormous quantity of his own language with

tremendous scope for repetition of what he learns.- The learner controls his own rate of learning.- The target language is nearly always encountered in appropriated

situation and appropriate context.

- Since the words are learned as they arise out of a felt need in particular situation they usually a clear denotation

.2. The keyword method

Atkinson in Susan r. old (2001) says the keyword method is a mnemonic technique in which a new word is associated with a similar sounding familiar sound, or keyword. A mental image is then formed linking the unfamiliar word to the keyword. For example, if the new word is “celerity” meaning “speed,” the keyword could be “celery.” A mental image of a piece of celery flying through the air could then be formed.

Mastropieri (1988) Keyword is a mnemonic device that uses both auditory and visual cues to enhance the learning of information about the word meanings. From the definition above the writer, conclude that keyword is learning vocabulary through the root of word.

Levin in Robert j (1990:222) says the keyword method is a mnemonic strategy that helps students to learn new information by associating it to interactive visual images for later recall.

The purpose of keyword method is to improve college students` ability to learn a foreign language and helping the less able students to memorize or learn word easily by using similar sounding words in their mother tongue. Hall, Wilson, and Patterson in Susan R. Old (2001) suggest that the keyword method is most useful to less experienced learners, such as the young. They also found that keywords provided by the experimenter yielded better recall than when participants were required to create their own keywords.

In teaching keyword method the teacher has two options to apply it in the class, they are:

- unrelated keywordEach new word is accompanied by a more familiar word, or “keyword” and a sentence but the keyword does not have related root meaning with the word.

- root related keywordEach new word is accompanied by a more familiar word, or “keyword” that has related root meaning and a sentence with the word.

III. METHOD OF THE RESEARCHIn this research the writer will use pre-experimental design. Pre-experimental

method involved one group pre-test design. the design is formulated as follow: X1 -------------- O ------------------X2

Notation: X1: Pre-Test O: Treatment X2: Post-Test

The object of the research is the first year student of English Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching faculty UIN Alauddin Makassar. It consists of teen groups, which were classified into five classes, PBI 1, PBI 2, are fused in one class and PBI 3, PBI 4 are fused in one class, ect The sample of the research is the first year students of English Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Faculty UIN Alauddin Makassar, where the researcher took one of the classes as sample, namely class PBI 3 and PBI 4 which consist of 40 students; in implement the method just 34 students were present.

In this research the researcher used purposive sampling technique, because this research was just an experiment, which was to apply the keyword method in order to know the effectiveness of it in teaching vocabulary. The location of the research was at English Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Faculty UIN Alauddin Makassar. It is on Jl. Sultan Alauddin Makassar No. 63 Makassar, South Sulawesi. The research was held on April 2007.

The instruments of the research that had been used were divided into three activities, they are 1) Pre-Test, The pre-test was given to find out the initial ability of the students before presenting the materials in the keyword method. 2)Treatment, Treatment was given before the students do the post-test.. 3) Post-Test, Post-test was given to find out the improvement of the students after presenting the materials through the application of keyword method, the students do the post-test after getting the treatment.

In collecting data, the writer followed the steps below: First, the writer gave pre-test to know the students vocabulary ability before giving the treatment, by using keyword method. Second, the writer gave post-test, but before giving post-test, the writer gave treatments fourth meetings. In the treatment, the writer taught the students using keyword method, the writer explained, what keyword method is?

In analyzing the data collected through the pre-test and post test, the researcher used the procedure as follows: 1. The data collected through test is analyzed by using the classification as

follow:a. 9,6 to 10 classified as excellent`b. 8,6 to 9,5 classified as very goodc. 7,6 to 8,5 classified as goodd. 6,6 to 7,5 classified as fairly goode. 5,6 to 6,5 classified as very fairf. 3,6 to 5,5 is classified as poorg. 0 to 3,5 is classified as very poor (Depdikbud, 1985:6)

2. Rate percentage of students` score

Notation: P = the percentage of the student respondF = the frequency of the student respondN = the total number of sample

3. Discover the mean score, the writer applied the formula:

Notation: = Mean score ∑X = the sum of all score

N = the total number of sample4. Finding out mean of difference score by using the following formula:

Notation: = The differences of mean score N = The total number of sample∑ = The sum of all scores

(Gay, 1981 : 332).5. Finding out the significant difference between the students pre-test and post-test by

using the following formula:

Notation: = the mean of the difference score = the sum of all score N = the total number of sample t = test of signification difference (Gay, 1981: 331)

The formula is explained about the significant between pre-test and post-test. The aim of the formula is to answer the question of problem statement, to know whether the keyword method effective or not in improving the memorizing ability of the first year students of English department of Tarbiyah Faculty UIN Aladdin Makassar.

IV. FINDING AND DISCUSSIONA. Finding

The data were collected by test. The test was done twice. The first is pre-test before the treatment was given and the second was post-test after the treatment was given.

1. The classification of the students’ score before the treatment is presented in table I bellow:

Table I

The rate percentage of the students’ score before the treatment was given(Pre-test)

No Classification Frequency Percentage

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.

ExcellentVery GoodGoodFairly GoodFairPoorVery Poor

00088126

00023.5323.5335.2917.65

Total 34 100%The table I shows that before the treatment was given, there were 8 (23.53%) out

of 34 students in fairly good classification, 8 (23.53%) of them were in fair classification, 12 (35.29%) of the students were in poor classification, and 6 (17.65%) of the students were in very poor classification. It can be conclude that before the treatment, the students’ knowledge was still low about vocabulary.

2. The classification of the students’ score after the treatment was given. The result of the post-test as follow:

Table IIThe rate percentage of the students’ score after the treatment was given

(Post-test)No Classification Frequency Percentage

1.2.3.4.5.6.7.

ExcellentVery GoodGoodFairly GoodFairPoorVery Poor

315142000

8.82%44.11%41.18%5.89%000

Total 34 100%Table II shows that, after the treatment was given there were 3 (8.82%) out of 34

students in excellent classification, 15 (44.11%) of them were in very good classification, 14 (41.18%) of the pupil were in good classification, and 2(5.89%) of the students were in fairly good classification. It can be conclude that after the treatment the students’ knowledge about vocabulary was in very good classification.

Table I and II indicated that, there were different score of pre-test and post-test. In the pre-test the students’ knowledge was poor in vocabulary and after the treatment the students’ knowledge was very good in vocabulary.

3. The students’ mean score of tests (pre-test and post test) is presented as follow:

Table IIIThe mean score of the students’ tests (pre-test and post-test)

Type Of Test Mean ScorePre-TestPost-Test

5.398.57

Table III shows that the mean score of the students’ pre-test was 5.39 and the mean score of the students’ post-test was 8.57. It describes that the mean score of the students pre-test and post-test were different.

To know whether or not the difference of the mean score is statically difference at the level of significance. The statically analysis of pre-test and post-test is presented as follow:

Table IVThe t-test of the students’ knowledge

Variable T-Test Value T-TableX1 __ X2 18.71 2.042

Based on the table above, the value of t-test was higher (18.71) than the value of t-table (2.042). It means that the there is a significance between the result of the students pre-test and post-test.

B. Discussion

Apropriate with the analysis of the data obtained from the students’ pre-test, the means score is 5.39. It can be concluded that the students’ vocabulary is still low. While, the students’ vocabulary based on post-test is 8.57. It means that the students’ post-test is higher that students’ pre-test.

Relating to the result above, it indicates that after giving the treatment by using keyword method, the students had better achievement of vocabulary. This can be seen through their score of pre-test and post-test (8.57>5.39).

The result of t-test showed that the value of the t-test (18.71) is higher than the value of the t-table (2.042). It means that keyword method is effective in improving the students’ vocabulary.according to the result the researcher concludes that the first year students of English Department of Islamic state university of Alauddin Makassar have better ability on vocabulary after having treatment through keyword method.

V. CONCLUSSION AND SUGESTIONAgreeing with the result presentation of the research and the discussion of the

data analysis, the writer concludes that Before the treatment was given the students’ knowledge was still low about vocabulary, it shows by the result of the rate percentage of students` score in pre-test (table I). After the treatment was given their knowledge about vocabulary improve by seeing students` score in post-test (table II).The mean score of the students’ pre-test was 5.39 and the mean score of the

students’ post-test was 8.57 (table III) and the result of t-test showed that the value of the t-test 18.71 is higher than the value of the t-table 2.042 (table IV), It means that keyword method is effective in improving the students’ vocabulary.

By seeing that result, the research should give some suggestions for the English teachers, the students themselves, and the next researchers.For the English teachers, they should implement keyword method in teaching process and give more the material of vocabulary to the students in order to intensify the students’ achievement in English vocabulary. The teacher also should ask the students to keep memorizing vocabulary and stimulate the students to memorize vocabulary. For the students, The students should implement keyword method in learning process and keep memorizing vocabulary. For the next researchers, They are expected to make a thesis of English vocabulary with other forms and the researcher can develop keyword with other kinds of techniques.

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