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Mustika Ramadhani Journal
Mustika Ramadhani Journal
Abstract
Vocabulary is an important part in Learning English because it gives big
contribution to master the language. As a result, it is important for students to
have and to understand the meaning of English vocabulary. Action verbs are one
of vocabulary components that are needed to learn and to understand by
elementary school students. However, knowing and understanding the meaning of
action verbs are difficult for them because action verbs are abstract which is
different from nouns frequently seen around by the students. Therefore, teacher
should find a suitable technique for helping them to understand the verbs easily.
One of the interesting techniques that can be applied by the teacher is Charades
Game which is an acting and guessing game that requires students to play as an
actor to describe words or phrases with silent actions while the rest of the students
are required to guess the words being acted by the actor.
1
Student of English Language Teaching Program of FBS UNP Graduated on September 2017.
2
Advisor, the Lecturer of FBS Padang State University
have a reference how to teach English well because of lack of training provided
by the Department of Education. As a result, the teachers don’t prepare the
material and don’t select suitable teaching method and teaching technique.
When teaching elementary school students, the very first component that
needs to be taught is vocabulary. The vocabulary learning starts with noun, verbs,
and adjective. However, not all teachers know how to teach English vocabulary
and not all teachers are able to use suitable teaching technique and media to teach
vocabulary. Then, they also teach elementary school students as if they teach
junior high school students. For example, they teach the students the meaning of
the words by translating them literally or write them on the blackboard. As a
result, the process of teaching and learning becomes ineffective which students
don’t get the meaning of the words being taught to them successfully.
In elementary school, action verb is one of aspects that should be learned
and understood by the students. However, there are some factors that make verbs
difficult to be learned. According to Gentner in Avcu (2014), verb is harder to
learn than noun because noun is basic conceptually and Rosch in Avcu (2014)
adds that the meaning of verbs depend on abstract concepts. Similarly, Childers &
Tomasselo (2002), Kersten & Smith (2002), Tarditf (1996) in Razak and Yunus
(2016) states that verbs acquisition are more difficult than noun acquisition. Real
object or realia also can’t be used in teaching verbs because it is mostly used for
teaching nouns. Hence, teacher should find a technique that makes students master
the words easily.
One of the interesting techniques that can be used is Charades Game. It is
an acting and guessing game in which each member tries to communicate to the
others a particular word or phrase that they have been given, by expressing each
syllable or word using silent actions. In this game, a student is asked to be an actor
to act out words or phrases silently and the others guess the word that is being
acted by the actor. This game uses pantomime style where someone does an
action without talking. This game is believed to improve students’ vocabulary
mastery because it requires students to visualize the meaning of the words by
doing an action. It will be easy for students to remember the words because they
know the meaning of the words by acting out the words.
The writer proposes Charades Games to teach action verbs to young
learners because the key point of the game is performing an action. This game is
student-centered where students becomes the main actors in this game. It will be
easier for the students to remember the words because they will remember how
they act the verbs and how their friends act it. The writer will explain how to use
charades game in classroom based on Indonesian students’ characters and the
situation.
B. DISCUSSION
Having vocabulary knowledge is very essential because vocabulary is the
central part of the language. Vocabulary is the major factors to be successful in
learning the four skills of English known as listening, speaking, reading, and
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Four to five words of the title – Author1 , Author2, Author3
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DRINKING
SLEEPING
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/JUMPING/ /DRINKING/
/READING/ /WRITING/
/RUNNING/ /DANCING/
/EATING/ /WALKING/
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To make students more familiar with the words, teacher will do story
telling with the action verbs. While doing the story telling, teacher can act
out the words in the story, so students become more familiar with the words
that are being taught. This activity can take about 10-15 minutes
Hobbies
One day, there was a rabbit and a monkey talking each other. The
rabbit said, “Hey, monkey! What is your hobbies?” Then, the monkey
replied, “hhmm, I like jumping.” Then, the monkey was jumping. “I also
like dancing”. Then, the monkey was dancing and asked the rabbit to
dance with him. “I like running too, I am a good runner”. Then, the
monkey was running to show the rabbit that he was a good runner. After
running, the monkey said, “I am so thirsty and hungry now”. Then, the
monkey was drinking and eating banana from the tree. After eating, the
monkey asked the rabbit, “How about you rabbit?” Then, the rabbit said,
“I like reading a book and I also like writing a letter to my friend”.
“Wow, you must be smart, rabbit”, said the monkey. It was almost night,
then the monkey asked rabbit to go home together. Finally, they walked
together.
After learning all of the words, students will play Charades game to
reinforce their vocabulary, so they will master the words that have been
taught to them.
Before playing Charades Game, the teacher will divide students
into four groups. Because the amount of students in Indonesia are usually
around 30 people in each class, it will be good to divide them into four
teams rather than two teams, so there will be more participation of students
in this game. Teacher then tells students that there will be three rounds in
this game. The first round is the competition between A and B, and the
second round is C and D. The groups that win the first and second round,
they will compete in the third round or final round.
Here is the illustration.
Teacher: We are going to play a game called Charades Game. Now
make a group of four, A, B, C, and D.
Students: Yes, mam!
Teacher: There will be three rounds in this game. The first round is
between A and B, the second round is between C and D. The group
who win in the first and second round will compete in the third round.
Students: Yes Ma’am!
After that, teacher explains about the game. Teacher will model how
to play the game first. Teacher will act as an actor and the students will
shout any answer that come to their mind. After showing how the game
works and making sure that the students understand, teacher chooses one
representative for each group.
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Next, the game is played. In the first round, teacher will ask group A
and B to compete. The representative of group A will be the actor, and the
members of team B will be the ones who shout the word is being acted. For
example, teacher asks the actor to choose index cards randomly in the box,
and he gets jumping index cards.
Teacher: Now, come to the front the actor of the Group A! Choose
this card randomly!
Students: (get the jumping cards, for example)
JUMPING
jj
Then, he must act out the words and the members of team B will guess
the word being acted within a minute. If they answer correctly, they get 1
point. If they don’t, they don’t get any point.
Teacher: act out the words in the card! The member of group B
must shout out the word correctly in a minute. Any sounds are
JUMPING
forbidden!
Students: Yes, Mam!
After the actor of group A finishes the game, it’s time for the
representative or actor of team B to act the words in Index cards in the
same way. After the first round ends, the groups of second round, C and D
will play the game in the same way like in the first round.
After getting the winner of the first and the second round, they will
compete each other in the third round. The third round is a little bit
different from the previous ones. In the third round, teacher chooses the
representative to be the actor, then the winner groups will compete to guess
the words acted by the chosen actor. The group who answers the word
correctly first, they will get a point.
After the game ends, the group who gets more points will win. Then
teacher discuss about the words with the students. The teacher can ask
students what words that are most difficult to guess and why it is hard to
guess.
At the end of the lesson, teacher can review the words that have
been learned by the students by asking the meaning of the words that have
been learned literally.
Teacher makes sure that most students participate in answering the
questions.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Avcu, E. 2014. Nouns-first, verbs-first, and computationally-easier first: A
preliminary design to test the order of the acquisition. Unpublished Thesis.
Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching languages to young learners. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Hadfield, J. 2001. Elementary grammar games: A collection of grammar games
and activities for elementary students of English. Longman.
Harmer, J. 2002. The practice of English language teaching. New York:
Longman.
Kumar, B.I.D & Vasanth, G. 2013. Active learning through dumb charades: a
game method for technical education. International journal of Research in
Engineering & Advanced Technology, Volume I, Issue 5, pp. 1-6.
Mardhatillah & Ratmanida. 2016. Using ‘mime game’ to teach vocabulary to
young learners. Journal of English Language Teaching, 5 (1) Serie B, 128-
136.
Nation, I. S. P. 2001. Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Philips, S. 1993. Teaching English a foreign language to young learner. Oxford:
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Razak, A.N.A. & Yunus, M.M. 2016. Using action songs in teaching action words
to young esl learners. International Journal of Language Education and
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(2016) 15-24.
Schmitt, N. 1997. Vocabulary learning strategies. In Schmitt, N. and McCarthy,
M. (eds.) Vocabulary: Descriptive, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Scrivener, J. 1994. Learning teaching. Oxford: Heinemann.
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