TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY USING DIRECT METHOD TO KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AT KUNTUM CEMERLANG SCHOOL BANDUNG

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1 TEACHING ENGLISH VOCABULARY USING DIRECT METHOD TO KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS AT KUNTUM CEMERLANG SCHOOL BANDUNG UNTARI TRI HANDAYANI NIM: ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ARTS DEPARTMENT SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN (STKIP) SILIWANGI BANDUNG ABSTRACT The objective of this research entitled Teaching English vocabulary using Direct Method was to find out whether or not Direct Method can improve students vocabulary mastery This research applied a quantitative method and one group pretest-posttest design The population of the research was 15 the students of Kuntum Cemerlang school of kindergarten in academic year and the sample was entire population The instrument used in this research were pretest and posttest The data of this research was collected by giving pretest and posttest to students sample The collected data was analyzed by using T-test formula The result of data analysis showed that: mean score of pretest was 5,87, mean score of posttest was 7,60 The tobserved was 8,24 the ttable was with degree of freedom (df) 14 and level of significance at 5% (0,05) was 1,761 Based on the data analysis the alternative hypothesis of the research was accepted because the tobserved was higher than ttable (8,24 > 1,761) It is also meant that the teaching english vocabulary using Direct Method was effective to increase student s teaching english vocabulary mastery Keywords: Teaching, Direct Method, Vocabulary A Introduction In the teaching-learning process of English as a foreign language, students must master all of the English skills consisting of speaking, reading, writing and listening Mastering English in the global era is very important English is the most widely used language in international events Many countries use English in their affairs, such as business, politics, education, science and technology, that is why English becomes a very important language It takes a big role in many affairs Due to the important role of English in all affairs, English is taught and learnt in non-english speaking countries, including Indonesia In Indonesia English is the first foreign language Itis taught and learnt merely as one of study subjects in schools It may also be learnt for instrumental purpose that is gaining science and technology, which are mostly written in English To teach vocabulary in kindergarten or elementary school, especially for children, is not easy Teaching children is different from teaching adults We must have extra power to teach them, because the children have certain characteristics and need a certain treatment So we must give the basic vocabulary to them to make them understand English Before continuing to the next step teacher must have preparations to teach the children Teacher will face too many problems when they introduce English to their students However, for the students, they will be given something new and are different from their mother tongue Teachers have been attempting for years to improve children s learning, trying out new ways of teaching that they hope it will be more effective According to Brumfit (1995:7) teacher needs the language Basic competence is essential However, this may pose problems in some educational traditions, especially where foreign rather than second languages are being learnt The teacher also needs competence in primary teaching methodology Vocabulary is central to language and article importance to typical language learner Without sufficient vocabulary, one cannot communicate effectively or express his ideas in both oral and written from It is undeniable that learning vocabulary grows through incidental learning such as through continuous exposure to comprehensible language in reading, listening, speaking and writing exercises (Krashen,1981:361) Thus, meaningful and interesting instruction should of course be organized to 1

2 achieve successful learning (Endang, 2001:73) This research has broader scope and it is impossible for the writer to handle all problems Therefore, the writer limits the scope of the study Here the writer focuses on the developing student s vocabulary by using direct method in kindergarten Kuntum Cemerlang School Bandung B Definition of Teaching There are so many definitions in teaching Teaching is an activity to help somebody learn to do something by giving information about it Besides that, according to Brown (1994:23) teaching is showing or helping something, giving instruction, guiding in study of something, providing with knowledge causing to know and understand Based on Yaxley (1982:92) teaching is about intentional action which leads to changes in belief, value and meaning Teaching is also an intellectual activity It involves thinking, feeling and evaluating/judging Based on those three definitions, we can conclude that teaching help somebody or facilitates someone or group in learning something It is very well known that children (from ages 5-12) are very much orientated in their minds around the here and now and directly visible/perceivable Grammatical rules/ explanations are usually lost on them, as are some what adult notions of what is correct and what isn t They develop well when given plenty of examples and patterns to follow They tend to have a much shorter attention span and need activities that capture their immediate interest They also need much in the way of sensory input - that is, they need to have many or all of their five senses stimulated at once While generally less inhibited than adults in terms of experimenting with new language, they tend to have more fragile egos and can be very sensitive to their peers C Definition of Vocabulary Vocabulary is an essential component of all uses of language (Long & Richards, 1987) Vocabulary is also defined as list of words with their meanings, especially in a book for learning a foreign language According to French in Nasr s book (1975:60) Vocabulary is the number of words which can be learned in a limited time From the definitions above, we conclude that vocabulary refers to all words of the language 1 Realia One way of presenting words is to bring the things they represent into the classroom by bringing realia into the room Words like postcards, ruler, pen, ball, etc can obviously be presented in this way The teacher holds up the object (or points to it), says the word and then gets students to repeat it 2 Pictures Bringing a pen into the classroom is not a problem Bringing in a car, however, is One solution is the use of pictures Pictures can be board drawings, wall pictures, and charts, flashcards, magazine pictures and any other non-technical visual Representation Pictures can be used to explain the meaning of vocabulary items: teachers can draw things on the board or bring inpictures They can illustrate concepts such as above and opposite just as easily hats, coats, walking, sticks, cars, smiles, frown, etc 3 Mime, Action, Gesture It is often impossible to explain the meaning of words and grammar either through the use of realia or in pictures Actions, in particular, are probably better explained by mime Concepts like running or jumping are easy to present in this way; so are ways of walking, expressions, prepositions and times 4 Contract We saw how words exist because of their sense relations and this can be used to teach meaning We can present the meaning of empty by contrasting it with full, cold by contrasting it with hot A Testing Vocabulary Tests are useful to know the ability and the progress of the students Even, it can make the students keep motivated There are many techniques can be used in testing vocabulary (Jesness, 2004:73) the techniques are: 1 Dictation- Translation We testing vocabulary, translation is fast and efficient You can dictate the word, use it in a sentence, and have the students write both the word in English and its meaning in their native language 2 Using pictures When testing concrete vocabulary, you can test with pictures You can provide answer sheets on which three drawings are offered as answer choices for each item After you say a word or a sentence, have the students mark the correct picture 3 Using games 2

3 A game is a form of play that contains rules that we have to obey to that rules Many teachers use games to help and encouraged students to sustain the effort Games are helpful because they can make students feel certain words are important and necessary, because without those words, the object of the game cannot be achieved and a vocabulary game is one in which the learners attention is focused mainly in words Meanwhile, Byrne in his book Teaching Oral English (1976:100) states that there are special reasons for two main ways of games: a Games can be used to improve the learners command of particular item or item of language: sound, vocabulary, spelling, grammatical item, or function These games are concern with accuracy, their purpose is to reinforce, and possibility extend what has already been taught b Games can be used to provide the learners with opportunities touse language rather than simply practice it Based on that theory above, it can be concluded that games is form of play that contain rules that we have to obey to that rules Games can be useful for the children to learn English, for example: 1) Surprise Box 2) Hang Man 3) Puzzle D The Direct Method The principal feature of the direct method is characterized, above all, by the use of the target language as a means of instruction and communication in the language classroom, and by the avoidance of the useof the first language and of the translation as a technique According to Richards and Rodgers (1986:9-10) the principles of Direct Method are: 1 Classroom instructions are conducted exclusively in the target language 2 Only everyday vocabulary and sentences are taught 3 Oral communication skills are built up in a carefully traded progression organized around question-andanswer exchanges between teachers and student in small intensiveclass 4 Grammar taught inductively 5 New teaching points are taught through modeling and practice 6 Concrete vocabulary is taught through demonstration, objects, andpictures; abstract vocabulary was taught through association of ideas 7 Both speech and listening comprehension are taught 8 Correct pronunciation and grammar are emphasized Lesson begins with dialogs by using a modern conversational style In this method, the teacher uses pictures and actions to present the lessons Literary texts are read for pleasure and are not analyzed grammatically The target culture is taught inductively It is very well known that children (from ages 5-12) are very much orientated in their minds around the here and now and directly visible/perceivable Grammatical rules/ explanations are usually lost on them, as are some what adult notions of what is correct and what isn t They develop well when given plenty of examples and patterns to follow They tend to have a much shorter attention span and need activities that capture their immediate interest They also need much in the way of sensory input - that is, they need to have many or all of their five senses stimulated at once While generally less inhibited than adults in terms of experimenting with new language, they tend to have more fragile egos and can be very sensitive to their peers E Research Methodology In doing the research the writer applied one of most commonly used pre-experimental design that is the one group pretest-posttest She realized that this design is not the best to be applied, as Hatch and farhady (1982,p19) say: pre-experimental designs are not really considered model experiments because they do not account for extraneous variables which may have influenced the result However, the writer kept using this design because she conducted the research on a small class of the kindergarten students So, it was not possible to have a control group or to assign the subjects randomly In this case Nunan (1992:40) says: I pointed out that it was not always feasible to carry out a true experiment that circumstances such as the possibility of randomly assigning subjects to experimental and groups sometimes dictated that a quasi or pre-experimental rather than a true experiment be conducted One group pretest-posttest design is represented as follows: T1 X T2 Where T 1 the pretest and T 2 the posttest X is used to symbolize the treatment (or instruction) 1 Research Method In conducting the research, the writer uses a preexperimental method It has pretest-posttest, but it lacks a control group The writer has only one class for observation 2 Research Instrument 3

4 To get the data for her research, the writer firstly gave the pretest then she did a treatment, that was teaching vocabulary using direct method, and finally she gave a posttest 3 Population and Sample The population of the research was the students of Kuntum Cemerlang school of kindergarten in academic year There were 15 students in the research and the sample was entire population a Data Collection procedures To get the data accurately, the writer: gave pretest, with 10 test items to the students counted the total score and the average of the pretest gave the posttest to the students The items was the same as that of pretest counted the total score and the average of the posttest b Procedure for analyzing the data After collecting the data, the following procedures were taken for analyzing the data: Computing the difference between the score of posttest-pretest Computing the degree of freedom Computing the standard deviation Computing the standard error Computing t-observed Computing t-observed As it has stated in the procedure of analyzing the data, the first step the writer did was computing the difference between the scores of pretest-posttest And the formula used was: D T 2 - T 1 D the amount of posttest minus pretest T2 Posttest T1 Pretest The degree of freedom (df) and the level of significance The formula of the degree of freedom (df) was: df n-1 For computing the standard deviation, the formula used was: ( )( ) h (Hatch and Farhady:1982) h The next step was computing error standard: Error Standard h The last step was computing t-observed: t-observed X 1 The average of pretest X 2 The average of posttest If the value of t-observe is greater than t-table It means that there is significant difference between the score of pretest and the score of posttest although the value of t-observed is negative F Research Findings and Discussions Table 41 The data of Pretest-Posttest score Of students of Kuntum Cemerlang school of kindergarten No Name T1 T2 ( T2 - T1) 1 DD RB JV MK LT AW YK BT AG NY KL AT FY FR ZS Mean Computing the Standard Deviation SD ( ) ( ) / 4

5 SD ( / )( ) ( )( ) So, The Standard Deviation is Computing the Standard error 021 So, the standard error is Computing the t observed t-obs -824 So, t-observed is Determining t table The writer finds 14 for the degrees of freedom and then checks across to where 14 intersects with the column labeled one tailed 05 The t value at the intersection is 1761 So: df 14 α 005 t-table 1761 t-observed 824 t-observed > t-table, therefore the null hypothesis stating that there is not any improvement of students vocabulary mastery through Direct Method is rejected It means that teaching English vocabulary using Direct Method is effective F Conclusions and Suggestions 1 Conclusion After observing, collecting, analyzing and computing the data, the writer concludes: Vocabulary is important to teach, because without having many vocabularies we cannot understand what people say In teaching vocabulary through Direct method the students are able to understand various English words The students were joyful in learning vocabulary through Direct method So, they can find the new words asked by the teacher Teaching English through Direct method has been proved effective in improving students vocabulary mastery 2 Suggestions For Teachers a Teachers can try using the Direct Method as a means to help children optimize the child's vocabulary skills, especially English b Using the media in accordance with the pleasure of children c Motivate children with the simple new words and continue with the simple sentence For the next researcers this research is not a perfect research so that other researchers are expected to conduct a research by lifting the problems that exist with different methods or techniques which are better than previous researcher, to give updates, improvements, or input the new findings in improving English vocabulary skills of the child BIBLIOGRAPHY Khrasen, S D 1981 Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning Oxford Pengamon Press Brumfit, C J 1995 The Communicative Approach To Language Teaching Oxford: Oxford University Press Brown, H D (1994) Language Assessment, Principles and Classroom Practice New York: Long Man Yaxley 1982 Cooperative Learning in the Classroom Virginia ASCD Richards and Rodgers 1986 English for Primary Teacher: a Hand Book of Activities and Classroom Language New York: Oxford University Press 5

6 Nasr s book (1975) Teaching Vocabulary New York: Long Man Jesness, 2004 Technique Teaching Vocabulary New York: Oxford University Press 6