Runninghead : Vocabulary Achievement Using Contextual Clues Technique 1

Chapter 1
Introduction

Background of the Study

Vocabulary is one of the most important components

of English. It is considered as the most important one for
students in learning English as a foreign language. Because of
their limited vocabulary, they cannot communicate their ideas
transmitted to them (Kufaishi, 1988). Vocabulary mastery must
be acquired by students in order to get other competencies like
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In other words,
vocabulary mastery takes an important role in mastering the
four basic skills of English.
In relation to the teaching-learning of the four skills of
English, vocabulary is an inseparable part of any language
learning, for example: in reading. It would be impossible to
learn a language without vocabulary. It should be presented,
explained, included in all kinds of language learning activities
and must be learnt by students. Vocabulary mastery would be
very helpful for the students in learning English, especially in
reading skill.
Reading is one of the most important skills to master
by students as foreign language learners. The students read
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when they need some information or to entertain themselves.

Most of current information has been found through electronic
or printed media, such as: internet, books, journals, articles,
newspapers and etc. It means the students should read from
many kinds of sources to get more information in every field of
study.
The process of reading comprehension and vocabulary
mastery learning activities in the classroom depends much on
the printed materials such as textbooks, magazines, newspaper,
articles, and etc. It means that the students should have good
ability in reading in order to comprehend what they read. To
comprehend the content of the text or passage they should have
good vocabulary mastery. That’s why reading comprehension
skill and vocabulary mastery is often connected one to another.
In addition, as stated in the School-Based Curriculum
of junior high school of 2006, reading becomes one of the
skills tested in the final exam. This shows that reading should
be given more emphasis than the other skills and has to be
taught well by teachers. Because of this, the students must be
able to comprehend the text early on their education stage.
However, teaching-learning reading and vocabulary
mastery at the school are still a problem for both students and
teachers. One of the existing problems in the vocabulary
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mastery is the number of new/unknown words appearing in

textbooks or other supporting obstacles in reading
comprehension. Those words still becomes one of the
significant obstacles in reading comprehension skill and
vocabulary mastery especially, probably due to the insufficient
vocabulary knowledge of the students as foreign language
learners of English. When the researcher had the students read
and understand the content of a text, most of them said that the
text was difficult to comprehend since there were many
unknown words found in the passage. They could not
understand the new words appearing in sentences or passage.
They did not try to think of how to understand the meanings of
the words and started to make noises by asking one another.
They even did not want to answer questions related to the
passage. Whenever the students were asked to understand the
unknown words found in sentences or text, they always looked
up the words in their dictionaries, got help from friends, and or
asked teachers.
Through direct observation done by the researcher, it
was found out that most of teachers there taught language
components, especially vocabulary, using improper methods or
techniques of teaching vocabulary. They just frequently follow
up the instruction in the students sheets, such as; giving the
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students explanations about the components they taught, then

giving them some examples, after that, asking them to do the
tasks in the worksheets. For example; some English teachers
tended to apply translation method during the learning process.
They asked the students to translate the reading passage from
English into Indonesian. And then the teachers discussed the
results of the students’ translation with the whole class. These
activities made the students feel bored and less challenged in
learning English. Consequently, their vocabulary mastery was
low. Such situation often made the students feel bored so that
they were not interested in learning English.
As a matter of fact, most students, especially, the
second graders students of SMPN 1 Labang found it difficult to
guess the meanings of new words. The students felt difficult to
understand the meanings of the unknown words appearing in
sentences or text. When the teacher had the students guess the
meanings of the underlined words of two sentences; there is a
book on the table, and my father has booked a room in the
hotel. They looked confused and did not know the appropriate
meaning of those words. All of them said that the meaning of
the word is buku. These all that caused the students’
vocabulary achievement was very low. It was below the
minimum passing grade of the school (70).
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In relation to the teaching-learning reading skill and

vocabulary mastery, teachers should motivate their students to
study English texts by using appropriate strategy or technique
in order to make them are able to comprehend what they read
in the target language. The appropriate strategy or technique in
teaching reading comprehension and vocabulary mastery
especially should be implemented by teachers in teaching-
learning process because applying good strategies and
technique in the classroom activities can improve their
vocabulary mastery and reading comprehension skill at once.
There are many strategies or techniques that can be
applied by both teachers and students in the teaching-learning
vocabulary integrate with reading skill. One of them is
Contextual Clues Technique (CCT). It is a good strategy or
technique used by students to find the meanings of new words
in sentences or passage by relating them to their contexts; the
context here can be a word, a phrase, or the whole sentences of
the contexts that come before or after the new word. This
technique can improve the students’ vocabulary mastery that is
always used or integrated with reading passage, with the result
that the readers know that the meanings of the words without
depending on the teacher’s translation. This technique is often
applied in the form of the textbooks or reading skill because it
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needs some clues to help the students or readers in guessing the

new/unknown words by relating them to their contexts.
Understanding the context of the text can help the
students to improve their reading skill as well their vocabulary
mastery, whereas it can make them easier to find out contains,
messages and details information. The context can be identified
through some clues words such as: synonyms, antonyms,
definitions, restatements, explanations, and etc. Based on the
clue words, the students can identify the context directly. And
then, when they understand the context, they can guess the
meanings of the unknown words and hopefully can catch the
ideas, news, message or information from the text.
The teaching of vocabulary integrated with reading
skill is not a simple matter, it involves far more than looking up
words in a dictionary and using the words in sentence.
Instruction in vocabulary should be integrated with reading
skill. Vocabulary should be acquired by students incidentally
through indirect exposure to words and intentionally through
explicit instruction in a specific words and word-learning
strategies.
Based on the explanation above and also the strong
desire to solve the problems faced by the second graders
students of SMPN I Labang Bangkalan of the academic year
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2013/2014, this present study is aimed at improving the

students’ achievement on vocabulary through Contextual Clues
Technique (CCT) in three cycles of treatments. In this study,
the researcher taught vocabulary integrated with reading
comprehension skill where the new/unknown words found in
the texts then added/equipped with clues in the modified texts
by the hope the students are able to find and understand the
meanings of the words by relating them to their contexts. The
CCT is chosen and applied by the researcher because it has
some advantages for the students in learning English as a
foreign language. The technique can improve their intention in
vocabulary acquisition, stimulate critical thinking of reader.
The students also do not need longer time than opening
dictionary, can be useful for them to define meanings of
new/unknown words by relating them to their contexts as well
as improve their reading comprehension skill by using the
technique.
Since one of the factors that determine the success of
students in learning vocabulary is the teaching technique, this
study focuses on improving the students’ vocabulary
achievement through the CCT. It is selected to be used because
of its advantages. Gains, R. and S. Redman (1986) state that
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there are several advantages to use the CCT in learning

vocabulary. They are:
1. It helps readers not only learn words but also know how to
use them in context. Guessing the meaning of a word from
its use in context requires an understanding of semantic
properties, register, and collocation. It makes readers aware
of one important feature of vocabulary, namely, that context
determines the meaning of words,
2. Training students to infer meaning from context gives them
a powerful aid to comprehension and will speed up their
reading,
3. This approach allows the learners to make intelligent,
meaningful guesses. This will make the learning activities
much more active and challenging than direct explanation of
words. It has a problem-solving characteristic that appeals to
most people and challenges them to make use of their
intelligence to an extent that is not always common in
language classes,
4. It helps readers develop a holistic approach toward reading.
Because the context of a new word may be drawn from a
group of sentences, a paragraph, or even the entire text, they
learn to direct their attention to language units larger than
the sentence while they are looking for context clues.
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The writer tries to apply the CCT to improve the

students’ vocabulary achievement above the minimum passing
grade (70) and could reach of the school decision criteria (75).

Statement of the Problems

In line with the title of this thesis and the background

of the study, two research questions are formulated as follows:
1. To what extent can CCT improve the students’ achievement
on vocabulary?
2. How can the students’ achievement on vocabulary be
improved through CCT?
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Purpose of the Study

In line with the above research questions, this study

aims at finding out: to what extent contextual clues technique
can improve the students’ achievement on vocabulary and how
contextual clues technique can improve the students
‘achievement on vocabulary.

Scope of the Study

As reflected in the title of the study, the scope of the

study was to improve the students’ vocabulary achievement
using CCT. The participants were SMPN 1 Labang Bangkalan
students of academic year 2013/2014. For the sake of data
sufficiency and conformability, this study carries out three
cycles of treatments.

Significance of the Study

The results of the research are expected to be beneficial

for the following group of people.

a. School
The results of the research are expected to give some
theoretical contributions to the school to develop the quality of
education.
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b. Teachers
The results of the research are useful for English
teachers as information to know his/her students’ reading
ability and it can be used as a consideration to improve the
teaching quality and the students’ reading ability.
c. Students
The results of the research are useful for the students as
information to know their vocabulary mastery, so they can
improve it because of its importance to be mastered to support
the improvement of their English reading comprehension skill.
d. Researchers
The result of this research are expected to become a
reference for other researchers who want to conduct a further
research on the similar problems, by using another design,
such as an experimental research to develop the students’
reading ability, especially vocabulary achievement.

Hypothesis

Based on the problem above, the hypothesis is

formulated as follows: CCT can improve the vocabulary
achievement of the second graders of SMPN I Labang
Bangkalan if it is properly implemented.
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Theoretical Framework

To support this study, some theories are needed. The

first theory is concerned with some aspects of vocabulary
teaching. Traditionally, the teaching of vocabulary above
elementary levels was mostly incidental, limited to presenting
new items as they appeared in reading or sometimes listening
texts. This indirect teaching of vocabulary assumes that
vocabulary expansion will happen through the practice of other
language skills, which has been proved not enough to ensure
vocabulary expansion.
Nowadays it is widely accepted that vocabulary
teaching should be included based on the syllabus, and taught
in a well-planned and regular basis. Some authors, led by
Lewis (1997), argue that vocabulary should be at the center of
language teaching, because language consists of grammatical
lexis, not lexicalized grammar. There are several aspects of
lexis that need to be taken into account when teaching
vocabulary. The list below is based on the work of Gains and
Redman (1986):
- Boundaries between conceptual meanings: to know
not only what lexis refers to, but also where the
boundaries are that separate it from words of related
meaning (e.g. cup, mug, and bowl).
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- Polysemy: to distinguish between the various

meaning of a single word form with several and
closely related meanings (head: of a person, of a pin,
of an organization).
- Homonymy: to distinguish between the various
meaning of a single word form which has several
meanings which are not closely related (e.g. a file:
used to put papers in or a tool).
- Homophony: to understand word that has the same
pronunciation but different spellings and meanings (e.g.
flour, flower).
- Synonymy: to distinguish between the different shades
of meaning that synonymous words have (e.g. extends,
increase, expand).
- Affective meaning: to distinguish between the
attitudinal and emotional factors (denotation and
connotation), which depend on the speakers attitude or
the situation. Socio-cultural associations of lexical
items are another important factor.
- Style, register, dialect: to distinguish between different
levels of formality, the effect of different contexts and
topics, as well as differences in geographical variation.
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- Translation: awareness of certain differences and

similarities between the native and the foreign language
(e.g. false cognates).
- Chunks of language: multi-word verbs, idioms, strong
and weak collocations, lexical phrases.
- Grammar of vocabulary: learning the rules that enable
students to build up different forms of the word or even
different words from that word (e.g. sleep, slept,
sleeping; able, unable; disability).
- Pronunciation: ability to recognize and reproduce
items in speech.
The implication of the aspects just mentioned in
teaching is that the goals of vocabulary teaching must be more
than simply covering a certain number of words on a word list.
Teachers must use teaching techniques that can help realize
this global concept of what it means to know a lexical item.
And we must also go beyond that, giving learner opportunities
to use the items learnt and also helping them to use effective
written storage systems.
The second theory is concerned with the methods of
teaching English as a foreign language, that is: Contextual
Teaching Learning (CTL) which helps teachers relate subject
matter content to real world situations; and motivates students
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to make connections between knowledge and its applications to

their lives as family members, citizens, and workers and
engage in the hard work that learning requires. Thus, CTL
helps students connect the content they are learning to the life
contexts in which that content could be used. Students then
find meaning in the learning process. As they strive to attain
learning goals, they draw upon their previous experiences and
build upon existing knowledge. By learning subjects in an
integrated, multidisciplinary manner and in appropriate
contexts, they are able to use the acquired knowledge and skills
in applicable contexts (Bern’s and Erickson, 2001).
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Assumption

This study is carried out under assumption that the

students’ vocabulary achievement can be improved through the
use of particular teaching technique.

Definition of Key Terms

To avoid misunderstanding of the key terms used in

this study, the key terms are defined as follows:
1. Contextual Clues refers to clues or hints that appear in a
sentence or a text that can help students find the meanings
of new/unknown words by relating them to their contexts;
the contexts can be before or after the word itself (Hartman
and Blass, 2007).
2. Vocabulary achievement is the increasing score that
indicates the progress made by the students on the
achievement test (Hughes, 1941).In this study, the
vocabulary achievement refers to the score obtained by the
students on the vocabulary achievement test given by the
teacher.
3. Contextual Clues Technique refers to strategies or technique
to find the meanings of new/unknown words in sentences or
passages by relating them to their contexts.