THE EFFECT OF CAKE APPLICATION TOWARDS STUDENTS’

VOCABULARY MASTERY

Tzalyta Syalwa

tzalyta@gmail.com

State Islamic University of North Sumatera

INTRODUCTION

In this sophisticated era which technology dominates almost all life aspects, proven with
the use of mobile phones used by everyone nowadays, despite of all ages, in order to
communicate with others effortlessly and as well as to finish their tasks in daily basis (Burston,
2014). Education is one of those aspects which implemented technology in teaching and learning
process. Its implementation has such an important role in education field nowadays. Hamalik
(2000:18) stated that every tools that can be used to show information, such as audio-visual
media (television, computer, etc) that is intended for education and assessment is considered as
technology in education. Based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that audio-visual
media such as smartphone that is intended for learning is categorized as the example of
technology in education.

Cake as English learning media in form smartphone application is one of the

implementation of technology in education, specifically in EFL context. It is an easy to use
application intended for English learner to improve their skills; listening, speaking, writing, and
vocabulary. Despite of its usefulness as English learning media, there are only few studies that
investigate this application. A qualitative study conducted by Yanthi (2020) aimed to investigate
the use of Cake Application in teaching speaking to senior high school’s students. It revealed that
Cake Application brings some influence both for students and learning nuance, such as making
the learning process enjoyable, boost students’ motivation in learning English, speaking skill,
and as well as confidence.

In mastering a language, one of the skills the languange learner must have is vocabulary
because it is the key component in languange learning (Guaqeta, 2018). Furthermore, Nunan
(2003) mentioned that vocabulary is considered as an important thing in learning a languange.
It's importance is undebateable because without having a proper knowledge of vocabulary in
target languange, it is impossible to understand, to communicate, or even to make a proper
sentence. . Therefore, mastering vocabulary is needed for any languange learner in learning any
languange.
 Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested to conduct a research about
Cake Application as English learning media further, especially its’ effect on students’ vocabulary
mastery. Therefore, this paper is entited The Effect of Cake Application towards Students’
Vocabulary Mastery.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Vocabulary

Thornbury (2002) states that what Vocabulary means is words that have their own
meanings. In studying a language, Vocabulary is very important to be mastered by language
learners. If knowledge of vocabulary learners is low, this will definitely have an impact on the
overall language skills, such as listening, reading, writing and speaking. Conversely, if language
learners can master Vocabulary, the ability to communicate in the target of Languange will be
better. This does not only apply to communication orally such as conducting conversations, but
also writing such as writing and reading. Someone's knowledge must also increase when he can
master a foreign language like English because almost all sciences use English as an
international language to be accessed by all people in the world.

Regardless of the importance of mastering the vocabulary, it became a challenge for

language learners. Swan and Walter (1984) Claimed that the hardest and challenging thing faced
by language learners is Vocabulary. This is because studying vocabulary cannot only be per
word, but also know how to apply it in the intact sentence and meaning of a sentence. What's
more, sometimes the word has many meanings. This will make language learners increasingly
confused when studying the Languange target.

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that studying vocabulary is very
important to be mastered by English learners. Not only for conversations but also the overall
language skills such as writing reading and accessing knowledge in target languages. Without
knowing the meaning of a word it might not happen a good communication and the purpose of
someone will not be achieved properly. Vocabulary is also a fundamental thing to master to be
able to master other language skills. Therefore it is fitting for Vocabulary to be one of the
important things that must be mastered by language learners.

Types of Vocabulary

Ellis and Tomlinson (1980) state that there are two types of vocabulary, namely
passive/receptive vocabulary and active/productive vocabulary. The differences between these
two vocabularies are as follows.
Passive / receptive vocabulary

This type of vocabulary can be recognized from passive language skills, namely listening and
reading. By mastering this type of vocabulary, language learners can understand the written
language of various kinds of texts and spoken language produced by other people. This type of
vocabulary is most studied in both academic and non-academic settings. In addition, this type of
vocabulary becomes the most basic thing for someone to learn to learn a language.

Active / productive vocabulary

This type of vocabulary is an advanced ability from passive vocabulary. After someone has
good knowledge of passive vocabulary, it will also have an impact on how he applies active
vocabulary in active language skills, such as writing and speaking, in which we are required to
produce language.

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that the difference between passive and active
vocabulary is passive vocabulary emphasizes understanding meaning, while active vocabulary is
a person's ability to use vocabulary into active language skills, namely writing and speaking.

Vocabulary Learning

After knowing the importance of vocabulary in language skills, the next thing that must be
known by language learners is a strategy to study Vocabulary. Brown and Payne (1995)
mentioned there are five important steps that must be taken in studying Vocabulary:

1. New Words Discoveries

The number of vocabulary someone will increase when he encountered new words when
studying a The discovery of new words can be done by interacting directly with the source of
language itself, such as reading reading text, watching TV shows, listening to podcasts, and so
on.

2. Recognizing the Word Form

The next important thing is to recognize how words are represented with letters and how a word
is said.

3. Recognizing the meaning of word

meaning is what is meant by a word. Learning Vocabulary is closely associated with knowing
the meaning of a word.

4. Strengthen memory about the Word and Its meaning

in order to not easily forget the vocabulary that has been learn, it is important to always review
in any occasion.

5. Implementing the words

Undoubtedly said, The Implementing Words Both in Written Words Such As Listening and Oral
Words Such As Speaking Is The Prove That Someone Is Success In Learning Vocabulary.

Vocabulary Teaching

Teaching is an act to direct, guide, and facilitate students in the teaching and learning process
that is done by a teacher. Good and quality teaching will produce good output as well. No
exception in learning any language, a language teacher must be able to carry out good learning
so that students can communicate in language targets well.

Vocabulary is a basic thing that must be mastered by a language learner. This is because all
language skills ranging from speaking, writing, reading, and listening require adequate
vocabulary knowledge so that the main purpose of language, namely communication, can run
smoothly. Therefore, how to teach vocabulary is also an important thing for language teachers to
pay attention to. Teachers are required to be able to conduct innovative and varied teaching.
This applies to all matters relating to learning, both strategies, methods, and learning media.
This is done so that students can understand learning well.

One of the innovative learning media that can be applied in language learning is to use a mobile
pedagogy approach. The use of this approach can be done in various ways, as proposed by
Agnes, Lucy, and Donohue (2015) as follows.

1. Make sure to design the learning process adjusting with the needs of students in languange
learning.

2. Give students an insight that language is a dynamic set of rules.

3. Four language skills; speaking, writing, listening, and reading are integrated.

4. Provide constructive responses to students.

5. Encourage students to be confident in having social interaction, both with locals and native
using target languange.
6. Conducting lessons that enable them to be active and creative, such as making speeches or
writing.

7. Help the students to be able in developing mindfulness in learning process.

8. Creating a democratic classroom atmosphere by giving them the choice what must be learned
and how to learn it.

9. Appreciate students for their learning process and their achievements so that they feel
confident that they have done their best.

Techniques in Vocabulary Teaching

Teachers who apply various methods and different strategies in teaching vocabulary, such as
involving indirect and explicit instructions, assessed Scott J will be able to help students improve
their language skills.

Making variations in teaching vocabulary by involving indirect or explicit instructions is

considered effective in improving students' abilities. The explanation of the two instructions is
as follows.

1. Indirect Instruction

Indirect Instruction is a language teaching with an indirect method. This method is done by
teaching students to find the meaning of a word by guessing its meaning based on a context, such
as looking at a word root, or adjusting from the context of the entire sentence.

2. Explicit Instruction

This method is done by finding the meaning of a word directly, such as finding the meaning of
the word you want through a dictionary.

Mobile-Assisted Languange Learning (MALL)

Technology has become an inseparable part of human life, one of which is the use of
smartphones which is a mandatory requirement for everyone in this century. The sophistication
of this object is because it can do various things, from communicating, providing entertainment,
shopping, online payment to education, which can be accessed easily. Everything that is
effective and easy can be done in the hands of everyone.

One of the innovations in the implementation of technology in education is the Mobile Assisted
Language Learning (MALL). Kukulska-Hulme (2013) proposed the definition of MALL as an
effective and easy form of language learning by utilizing technology as the medium. The use of
MALL in language learning is very useful, because this tool can make it easier for language
learners to learn whatever language they want, including English because it can be accessed
anywhere and anytime. In addition, MALL is also very effective and flexible, because those
who use this tool can learn languages by adjusting their schedule and needs. Unlike the
conventional learning process, where the schedule and material have been determined from the
language institution.

Cake Application

Cake is a smartphone application for learning English developed by Playlist Corporation. This
application, which can be downloaded on the Play Store, is one of the most popular applications
for learning English, as evidenced by its achievement in reaching 6th place in the free education
category, scoring 4.8 out of 5 stars, with 592 thousand reviews and 50 million total of download.

This application was made to be able to learn speaking, listening, and add vocabulary. This
application's way of making vocabulary learning interesting is very unique. With a design
similar to the YouTube application, the characteristic of this application is a short video that has
been specially designed for learning English. Learning speaking, listening, and adding
vocabulary can be done easily. The trick is to select the desired video. Then, the video will be
displayed with English and Indonesian subtitles. In each video, there is a keyword which is the
title of the video which is repeated 3 times. We can save the vocabulary we want by pressing
plus button in the video.

The vocabulary that we have saved will be saved in the 'review' section, precisely in the 'my
sentences' section. There will be listed all the words we have stored, complete with their
meanings and pronunciation. The number of words that can be stored is as many as 22, but the
storage can be increased to 100 by adding the keys we have. You do this by sharing the link
provided by the application with our friends. When our friends use the link we sent to learn to
use the cake application, both of the sender and the receiver get 1 key.

Apart from looking at the list of vocabulary we have saved, we can also see the history of the
videos we have watched. What's interesting is that we can hone our memory about the
vocabulaty that we have stored by selecting the option "complete random review". This option
will display questions from the video history in our application. This will sharpen our memory
about the new vocabulary that we got so we don't forget.

Previous Literature
Previous Literature was conducted by Yanthi (2020). Her paper was aimed to investigate the the
utilize of cake application in teaching senior high school's students and their attitudes toward the
application. The resesarch used qualitative approach and the instruments used were observation,
questionnaire, and interview. It reveals that Cake Application gives good impacts, such as
making enjoyable learning nuance, motivation in learning english and speaking are improved,
and boosts student's confidence.

Research Hypothesis

Based on the explanation above, the research hypothesis is: there is a significant effect of Cake
Application towards students' vocabulary mastery.

METHODS

Research Design

An experimental design with only post test will be applied in this study because the researcher
wants to find out whether Cake Application gives significance effect towards students'
vocabulary mastery.

Research Participant

Third semester students of English Education in State Islamic University of North Sumatera are
the participants involved in this research. There are two classes that willbe used; TBI-1 as the
control group and TBI-2 as the experimental group.

Research Instrument

The instrument that will be used in this research is a test with multiple choices consisting 20
questions. The questions is derived from Cake Application itself. The test is conducted as a
media to measure the effect of the treatment given to both control group and experimental group.

Research Procedure

Before the treatment is given to both control group and experimental group, Analysis of
Variance (ANOVA) using SPSS will be used to conduct a homogenity test. This is conducted to
find out whether the population used in this research homogenous or not.

After analyzing the population, the treatment will be given to both groups. Control group will be
taught vocabulary lesson with a conventional teaching, such as memorizing the vocabularies
given by the researcher. Meanwhile, the experimental group will learn vocabulary by using Cake
Application.
The next procedure is administering post- test to both groups, to see how the result of the
treatments will affect to students' vocabulary mastery. Then, the results will be analyzed by using
t-test in SPSS to investigate whether the difference in mean is significant or not. The last
procedure of this research is to make a discussion and conclusion in data analysis to answer the
hypothesis.

Data Collection and Analysis Method

The data is collected from the post test in form vocabulary test. There are two different types of
questions in the test, such to choose the meaning of the word and to choose the correct word to
use based on the context of written in the questions. In order to find out the result, an statistical
analysis computar program, SPSS, will be used to calculate the result with using t-test.

REFERENCES

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Evelyn Hatch and Cheryl Brown (1995). Vocabulary, Semantics, and Language Education.
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Guaqueta, C. A., & Castro-Garces, A. Y. (2018). The Use of Language Learning Applications as
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Hulme, Agnes, Norris, Lucy, & Donohue, Jim, “Mobile Pedagogy for English Language
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