APPLIED LINGUISTICS

YOUTUBE AS AUDIO-VISUAL LEARNING MEDIA TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’

PRONUNCIATION IN LEARNING VOCABULARY

F CLASS
GROUP 10

PUTU ENIK KRISTIANI (2129081052)

KOMANG BELA PRADNYA SARI (2129081057)

ENGLISH LANGUAGEEDUCATION
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE PROGRAM
UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN GANESHA

2021
 YOUTUBE AS AUDIO-VISUAL LEARNING MEDIA TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’
PRONUNCIATION IN LEARNING VOCABULARY

ABSTRACT
This paper aims to improve students’ pronunciation in learning vocabulary by using
audio-visual learning media. A study of literatures was used to collect the data. The problem that
was raised in this paper was the students’ difficulties in vocabulary mastery because of the
problem in pronouncing the word itself. The result showed that YouTube as the audio-visual
learning media is an effective learning media to improve students’ pronunciation in learning
vocabulary. There are also several advantages of audio-visual learning media in students’
vocabulary learning.

A. INTRODUCTION
Vocabulary is one of the most important language components that should be considered
in language learning. Komachali & Khodareza (2012) define vocabulary as a set of words that is
used to express someone’s ideas, both in oral and written communication. According to Crookall
as cited in Komachali & Khodareza (2012), vocabulary is the capability of expressing the target
language words and able to use that word in the four language skills. Susanto (2017) also states
that students’ vocabulary mastery gives impacts to the four language skills such as listening skill,
speaking skill, reading skill, and writing skill. Thornbury as cited in Alqahtani (2015)
emphasizes that teaching vocabulary is the most important aspect in language teaching because
languages are based on words. Viera (2017) also states that vocabulary knowledge helps the
students to contribute their understanding of spoken and written text. So it can be said that
Students cannot communicate effectively without enough vocabulary knowledge. They will find
difficulties in expressing their ideas if they do not have enough vocabulary.
There are also several problems that can be faced by the students in learning vocabulary.
Students’ problems in learning vocabulary also can affect the development of the four language
skills because as it is stated before that vocabulary is the basic aspect of the language skills. In
learning vocabulary the students can face the difficulties such as the spelling of vocabulary, the
pronunciation of vocabulary, the meaning of the vocabulary itself, etc. Susanto (2017) states that
the most common problem that is faced by the students in learning vocabulary is how to
pronounce the vocabulary correctly because of the variations between spoken and written in
English. For example, once the students pronounce the word muscle, listen, write, and honest,
some words that contain silent letters are significantly problematic particularly for Indonesian
students. Rohmatillah (2014) also found that pronunciation was one of the students’ problems in
learning vocabulary because the written form is different from the spoken form in English.
Therefore, teaching vocabulary by using various instructional media will be able to help
the students in faced this problem. In this digital era, the instructional media can involve
modern technology, such as audio-visual learning media. Brigss as cited in Andriani (2016)
argues that audio-visual or recorded audio is able to improve students’ vocabulary mastery, such
as the spelling, words pronunciation, and the use of words. Moreover, Hartono (2016) also found
that audio-visual effectively increase students’ vocabulary through the video that was given by
the teacher. One of the technologies that can be used as the audiovisual learning media is
YouTube. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to improve students’ pronunciation in learning
vocabulary by using YouTube as the audio-visual learning media.

B. LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of Vocabulary
Farjami (2013) defines vocabulary as a list of words which have meaning that build a
language and uses by person to convey their ideas. (Alqahtani, 2015) states that Vocabulary is a
set of words which uses by the speaker to convey their opinion, ideas, and argument in verbal
and non-verbal communication. Abbasian & Ghorbanpour (2016) convey that vocabulary is the
fundamental of the four language skills development which means that learning language can be
easier for the students when they are able to mastery the vocabulary. Laufer (1997, as cited in
Abbasian & Ghorbanpour, 2016) also believes that vocabulary is the most important aspect in
language learning because without vocabulary, it is difficult to understand both spoken and
written texts. It is also supported by Komachali & Khodareza (2012),vocabulary is a useful and
fundamental tool for spoken and written communication and acquiring knowledge. Further,
Susanto (2017)states that there are several aspects that should be taught in teaching vocabulary
namely, pronunciation, spelling, aspect of meaning, and grammar. Therefore, it means that
vocabulary is one of the important aspects in learning foreign language because vocabulary is the
basic of language that helps the students to master the four language skills.
Vocabulary Knowledge
Vocabulary knowledge is the ability of the students to know the words of the other
languages. It is supported by Wahyudi (2019) that vocabulary knowledge is the ability of
knowing the target language’s words and able to use them in four language skills. Shen as cited
in Taghizadeh et al. (2018) states that there are two dimensions of vocabulary knowledge
namely, vocabulary breadth and vocabulary depth. Vocabulary breadth means ability of the
students to know the vocabulary in superficially. And vocabulary depth means the level
knowledge of the students of identifying the variation aspects of the vocabulary itself. Humber as
cited in Maskor & Baharudin (2016)conveys that there are two types of the vocabulary
knowledge based on the learners, namely active vocabulary and passive vocabulary. Active
vocabulary means the students are able to recognize and understand the vocabulary itself and use
it orally. Meanwhile, passive vocabulary refers to the students know the vocabulary of second
language through recognize it, but they cannot produce through writing
Vocabulary Problems
According to Tornbury as cited in Rohmatillah (2014), there are six factors that influence
the difficulties in vocabulary learning. The first one is pronunciation. Many studies showed that
the words that are difficult to be pronounced are more difficult to be learnt and remembered. The
second one is spelling. Sounds-spelling mismatch often causes errors for the vocabulary learners.
The third one is length and complexity. Long words are more difficult to be learnt than the short
ones and influenced the difficulties of its pronunciations and spelling, especially for the
beginner. The fourth one is grammar. Grammar is associated with the words particularly it is
difference with the L1 equivalent. For examples, the verbs enjoy, love, or hope is followed by
infinitive(to study) or an –ing form (studying) can add to vocabulary learning’s difficulty. The
fifth one is meaning. In English, there are several two words that have same meaning which
make the learners confused. For example the words “make” and “do” such as “you make
breakfast” and “you do the homework”. This case often causes the difficulties in vocabulary
learning. The sixth one is range, connotation, and idiomaticity.
Gower, Philips and Walter (1995:143,as cited in Rohmatillah, 2014)propose seven
factors that influence whether the vocabulary can be easy or difficult. Those are:
1. Similarity to L1
The difficulty of vocabulary item is depends on how similar the item is in the form and
meaning to the students’ first language.
2. Similarity to English words already known
When the students find the word that is related to the word that they are already familiar
with, they will be easier to learn that vocabulary than the word that is not related with other
words that they already know. For instance, if the students already know the word “friendly”
and its meaning, then they will be easier to guess the meaning of “unfriendly”.
3. Connotation
In this part, the students’ are difficult to indentify whether a certain word will have a positive
or negative connotation for the native speaker.
4. Spelling and pronunciation
The particular spelling patterns can also make the students confused where the pronunciation
is concerned.
5. Multi-word items
A lexical item may consist of more than one word, as in a compound noun such as “tennis
shoes”, or phrasal verb such as “to put someone up”.
6. Collocation
How a lexical item collocate (goes with other items) can also confuses the students. For
example, people are injured but things are damaged.
7. Appropriate use
When to use vocabulary appropriately is another cause of the vocabulary learning
difficulties. Several words and expressions are restricted to use in particular context.

C. EMPIRICAL REVIEW
There are several previous studies about the use of audio-visual as the learning media in
improving students’ vocabulary and pronunciation of words. First, Çalışkan (2019) conducted
the study in order to compare the strategy in teaching vocabulary by using YouTube clips as an
audio-visual media versus traditional ways. The subjects of the study were 36 students studying
at a public Secondary School in Bursa. The data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.
There were two results found in this study. First, the quantitative data showed that 78% students
agree that using audio-visual increase students’ attendance to the lesson, and the post-test score
showed that the groups which was taught by using-audio visual materials gained higher scores
that the group which was taught in traditional way by using vocabulary poster. Second, the
qualitative data showed that most of the students agreed that learning vocabulary through audio-
visual was more interesting and motivating than using vocabulary poster, audio-visual supported
the students to memorize the words better than using vocabulary poster, audio-visual improved
their pronunciation towards the vocabulary that they heard and learnt, and the audio-visual
transcription helped the students to improve the students’ ability in spelling the vocabulary.
Second,Wahyudi (2019)conducted a study to investigate the impact of audio-visual in
improving students’ vocabulary mastery. The method that was used in the study is mixed method
analysis involved qualitative and quantitative method. The study involved all of the VIIIb
students of SMP Negeri 2 Unaaha which consisted of 22 students who registered in the academic
year 2016/2017. The design of this study was action research which was carried out in two
cycles containing of four steps namely planning, action, observation, and reflection. The data
were collected by using three instruments namely vocabulary test, observation sheet, and filed
note. There were two finding that were explained in this study. First, the quantitative data
showed that by giving audio-visual as the media in learning vocabulary was able to improve
students’ vocabulary mastery significantly. It could be seen from the preliminary data the
percentage of students’ vocabulary mastery was 27%, after the action of cycle one the result of
students increased to 54%, and increased to 81% after the cycle two. Second, the qualitative data
showed that the students agreed that audio-visual was an interesting learning media. Most of the
students’ stated that audio-visual was not only improved their vocabulary mastery in form of
how to pronounce the words properly but also helped them to memorize the vocabulary that they
heard for several times.
Third,Fauziah et al. (2018) conducted a study to find out the students’ perception on the
use of audio-visual in learning vocabulary, and how the audio-visual aids help students in
improving their vocabulary mastery. The study involved 19 students at tenth grade in one of
senior high school in Ciamis. The data were collected through questionnaire, interview, and
observation. The collected data were analyzed qualitatively. First, the questionnaire data showed
that most of the students answered that audio-visual was an interesting and helpful learning
media, audio-visual was effective to improve their speaking ability because they got a lot of new
vocabulary, audio-visual helped them to be more focus in learning, and helped them to learn the
vocabulary easily. Second, the interview data showed that most of the students conveyed that
audio-visual was a fun and interesting learning media which makes them more comfortable in
learning vocabulary. However, some students also stated that the vocabulary was difficult to be
heard and understood if the sound was unclear. Third, the observation data showed that the
students were able to get several new vocabularies from the video showed by the teacher. The
students also pronounced some vocabularies well, because they heard directly from the video
how they should pronounce the vocabulary. Therefore, the researcher concluded that the students
had positive perception toward learning vocabulary by using audio-visual.
Fourth, the study which was conducted by Karami (2019) that aimed to investigate the
effect of audio-visual on the students’ vocabulary enrichment. This study was a literature review.
Three 2018 research studies from different international, peer-reviewed journals - Computer
Assisted Language Learning, Language Learning & Technology, and Studies in Second
Language Acquisition - were selected and discussed. The result of the study showed that audio-
visual materials were able to help the students in improving their vocabulary knowledge of the
target language. Students vocabulary knowledge of the second/foreign language can be enhanced
incidentally through watching videos. Student’ ability in pronouncing the vocabulary was also
improved through hearing the word in the video provided.

D. METHOD
This study was a library research. Lin (2019) states library research is a research which is
conducted by reading, analyzing, and sorting related literatures in order to identify the important
attributes of materials. There were four steps in this study. The first step was collecting the data
from primary and secondary resources. In primary resources, the data were gained by studying
the research paper that related to the use of audio-visual as a teaching media in teaching
vocabulary. In secondary resources, the data were collected from several articles and books that
were relevant for this study. The second step was classifying the data based on the topic. The
third step was analyzing the collected data. The fourth step was drawing the conclusion based on
the analyzed data.

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