THE EFFECT OF USING GUESSING WORD GAME ON THE STUDENTS’

VOCABULARY MASTERY
(A STUDY WILL BE CONDUCTED AT MADRASAH ALIYAH MUHAMMADIYAH O1 MEDAN )

By :
MUHAMMAD ILHAM
2002050063

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF NORTH SUMATRA
2023
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Learning English is very important because English has become an
international language, used by most communities around the world. Many countries
use English as a second language. Despite the difficulties in learning English,
learning this language is well worth doing as it plays a very important role in almost
all areas of life such as: media, commerce, economy, politics, education, science,
technology, etc.
In Indonesia, English is not considered a second language, but English is a
foreign language. English is also considered as the target language taught in schools
according to the Indonesian curriculum today. Therefore, students hope to improve
their English ability. In order to improve students' English proficiency, teachers need
to think about how English proficient students can serve their own needs. There are
many approaches, methods, and techniques that teachers can use. One technique
that has been used by teachers to improve students' English ability is games.
Through the game brings a lot of benefits to students and teachers in the learning
process. Students can be more motivated and stimulated. The game provides
language practice in different speaking, listening, writing and reading skills. Games
also encourage students to interact and communicate.
This study tested students' vocabulary proficiency through games, as games
have been shown to be beneficial and effective in vocabulary learning in a variety of
ways. Therefore, the role of games in teaching and learning vocabulary cannot be
denied. However, to get the most out vocabulary games, it is essential to choose the
right games. Whenever it is necessary to host a game, the number of students, skill
level, cultural context, time, learning subject and classroom setting are all factors
that need to be considered.
One of the goals of teaching English is to help students understand the
English words they may find in their environment. In fact, students often have
difficulty learning words. Therefore, teachers need to pay more attention to make the
vocabulary transfer process easier to grasp and more enjoyable to learn. To make
this difficult work, teachers must be resourceful in teaching using whatever kind of
teaching aids are already in their environment. One of these supports is the use of
games. The writer chooses the game because the game helps and encourages many
learners to maintain interest and work. With games, children can have fun and dispel
fatigue in class.
Building on the foregoing, a study titled The Effect of Using Guessing Game
on Students’ Vocabulary Mastery will be conducted to see if games can improve
mastery of vocabulary.
2. RESEARCH PROBLEM
The students are not fluent in English, because of lack of vocabulary, because
of lack of motivation. Games are an effective and enjoyable technique that can
motivate and stimulate students' interest to improve their communication capacity.
Games can improve students' vocabulary mastery, since vocabulary is one of the
language components that must be taught to students when learning a foreign
language.

3.  REASON FOR CHOOSING THE TOPIC

There are several reasons for choosing the topic, they are:
 Making the teaching and learning process interesting in class so it's not
boring.
 The researcher interested using games when teaching in the classroom.

4. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study is done under the following purpose :
  To find out whether the using games can improve the students mastering of
vocabulary.

5. BASIC ASSUMPTION
 Games activities can increase the students’ mastering of vocabulary.
 Mastery of vocabulary is very important because without mastery of
vocabulary, student cannot increase their English competence in listening,
speaking, writing, and reading.

6.  RESEARCH QUESTION
Is using game media in teaching and learning process effective?

7. HYPOTHESIS
In teaching and learning vocabulary through games can improve students’ mastery
of vocabulary.
8. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is expected to get the result that will be useful for readers, in terms of:
 As an input data for the English teachers about the using games in the
classroom and the importance of vocabulary in teaching English.
 To motivate students to increase their vocabulary.
 Directly, the writer’s knowledge can be developed by investigating the topic.

9. SCOPE DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

This study is delimited of the use of  games in improving the students’ mastery of
vocabulary. Clearly the writer will only discuss the role of game in helping students
learn vocabulary. The writer delimited games into english games such as guess the
word.

10. DEFINITION OF TERMS

 Game activities : The student learning process becomes more interactive. By
incorporating games into learning, students not only listen to the teacher, but
after they see and hear they can interact with the games through questions
and answers and simulations.
 Vocabulary : acording to Huyen and Nga (2003)  : “In order to communicate well
in a foreign language, students should acquire an adequate number of words and
should know how to use them accurately
 CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Theoretical Framework
1. Teaching
Teachers play an important role in the teaching process. When teaching English
as a foreign language, teachers must change their teaching methods to attract
students' attention and interest in the lesson. In the teaching process, a number of
factors can affect the school's goal of success. These are curriculum, materials,
methods, teachers, students, and techniques.
Richey (1912:1) stated that : “teaching may be considered to be basic to all the
other professions are made possible through the work of teachers in elementary and
secondary school, college, and university.”
Furthermore Brown (1980:7) stated that : “teaching is showing or helping
someone how to do something, given instruction, guiding in the study of something
providing with knowledge, causing to know or to understand. Teaching is building
and facilitating learning, enabling the learner to learn, setting the conditions for
learning.”
This means that teaching is a systematic method, the teacher as an organizer
must be creative to encourage learners to follow the topic. It can be said that
teaching includes not only activities that direct students' activities but also activities
to help students develop and adapt to the group to which they belong. After teaching,
the students must be able to care about their group. They learn to think, feel, and act
in harmony through the social groups to which they belong.
2. Vocabulary
Vocabulary is very important because learning vocabulary is the main capital for
learning sentence construction and other skills in language. Mastering a lot of
vocabulary will make it easier for someone to read, write, listen and speak English.
Vocabulary plays important roles in mastering English. Rivers in Nunan(1992: 17)
stated that vocabulary is essential for successful study on the secondlanguage.
Wilkins in Thornbury (2002: 13) summed up that without vocabularynothing can be
conveyed. Vocabulary refers to all words in the whole languageused in a particular
variety.
According to Harimukti Kridalaksana, vocabulary is a component of a language
that maintains all of information about meaning and using word in a language.
3. Games
Games also help the teacher to create contexts in which the language is useful
and meaningful. The learners want to take part and in order to do so must
understand what others are saying or have written, and they must speak or write in
order to express their own point of view or give information.
Game means “an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun” Hadfield,
(1996). In addition, game is “an activity in which the learners play and usually interact
with others” Wright et al., (2006). They added that in order to express their own point
of view or give information, the learners must speak or write as in getting the
meaning from others, they have to understand what people are saying or have
written Gate, (2003). “A game is an activity carried out by cooperating or competing
decision-makers, seeking to achieve, within a set of rules, their objectives” Rixon
(1981). A game is an activity that both the teacher and students enjoy doing. It is
student-centered and as appealing as playing in the playground
In the game students must know and understand the rules of the game, and
must be clear about what is done or said in the language, and more importantly, they
must take some action to do or say something, to complete in the team. By doing
that, they can practice their skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as a
whole, and especially they get more practice in listening and speaking, which is good
in conventional teaching method.
4. The Types of Games
a. Hang Man Games
Hang Man Games is game that the student played on groups. Before start the
games, teacher explain how to play the game. The student must memorise the word
about everything. For Example about Animal, the student must memorise the name
of animal. After that, teacher devided rthe student into two groups, the student must
guess the word. “ Is that A,I,U, etc” and if the word they guess false, teacher make on
the board the picture people hang.
b. Word-Focus Games
Games that using word to see how many other words they can make from them. For
example, the following words can be made from the word teacher: ear, her, teach,
reach, cheer, each, hear, here, arch, tea, eat, and so forth.

c. Treasure Hunts Games

Student must move along the connecting lines without skipping any letters. A
single letter cannot be used twice in succession but can be returned to if there is an
intervening letter. For example, regret is acceptable but great is not.
d. Guessing
Guessing games can be painless ways to develop or reinforce any number of
concepts. “Guess What I am” or “Guess Who I am” for example, can be used to teach
about animals, professions, or people in different age groups (baby, child, teenagers,
young adult, middle-age adult, elderly person). “Guess What I’m doing” can be used
to teach recognition in the target language of activities such as taking a bath, go
finishing, doing homework, and so forth.
Various sources for game ideas are mentioned, but teachers are reminded that
one of the best sources is the students themselves.

 Benefit
By using the guessing game method the benefits are:
1. Students feel more relaxed in following the lesson so that it will be easy for
them to enter the lesson.
2. Using games will stimulate students to speak English.
3. Using games will be more fun for students.
4. Enrich students' English vocabulary.

Using games in learning English, students get their own interest in learning.
Games have an influence on increasing students' interest and motivation to learn
English. As well as stimulating students to speak English so that it will improve the
ability to speak English.

5. Why game activities

There is some reasons why activities in teaching learning process game are very
important in teaching English as a foreign language.
According to Andrew Wright, David Betteridge and Michael Buckby in their books
‘Games for language learning’ Cambridge University Press, 1984 : 'Language learning
is hard work, Effort is required at every moment and must be maintained over a long
period of time. Games help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest
and work.'
The need for meaning in language learning has been accepted for a number of
years. A useful interpretation of 'meaning' is that learners react to content in a
definite way. Whether they're amused, angry, curious, or surprised, content clearly
means something to them. As a result, the meaning of the language they hear, read,
speak and write will be experienced more vividly and, therefore, better remembered.
 If it is accepted that games can provide powerful and meaningful language
practice, they should be considered essential to a teacher's repertoire. Therefore,
they are not only used on rainy days and at the end of the semester!
Aydan Ersoz stated in TESL Internet Journal, Vol. VI, no. 6, June 2000 that
“Learning a language is a difficult task that can be frustrating at times. Continuous
effort is required to understand, produce and manipulate the target language. Well-
chosen games are invaluable as they give students a break while allowing them to
practice their language skills. Games are fun because they are both fun and
challenging. In addition, they use language that makes sense and is useful in a real-
life context. They also encourage and strengthen cooperation.
Games are fun because they are fun and exciting. They can be used to practice
all language skills and are used to practice many types of communication.

6. The use of game in developing mastering of Vocabulary

Many experienced textbook and methodology manuals writers have argued that
games are not just time-filling activities but have a great educational value. W. R. Lee
holds that ‘most language games make learners use the language instead of
thinking about learning the correct forms’ (1979:2). He also says that games should
be treated as central not peripheral to the foreign language teaching programmed. A
similar opinion is expressed by Richard-Amato, who believes games to be fun but
warns against overlooking their pedagogical value, particularly in foreign language
teaching. There are many advantages of using games. "Games can lower anxiety,
thus making the acquisition of input more likely" (Richard-Amato 1988:147). They are
highly motivating and entertaining, and they can give shy students more opportunity
to express their opinions and feelings (Hansen 1994:118).
It means that Games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. If not for
any of these reasons, they should be used just because they help students see
beauty in a foreign language and not just problems that at times seem overwhelming.
 CHAPTER III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
1. Research Design
In this research, the writer would like to collect; process; analyzes the data to get
conclusion of the research. This research is called quantitative research because it
will use numbers or statistics. In this research pre-experimental design with one
group pre-test and post-test design will be used. Pre-test is the test which given to
the students’, before the treatment. The post-test is given to the student’s after the
treatment to find out the student’s achievement.
Butler (1985;65) stated that “experimental studies are those in which the
investigator deliberately manipulates some factors or circumstances in order to test
the effect on some other phenomenon”.
So there are two test: T1- the pre-test and T2- the post test. X is used to
symbolize the treatment in the representation of the design:

T1 X T2
The design above means that the teacher gives them pre-test before using
games then gives them post-test after teaching several times using games.
2. Population and Sample
Population
Population is the area in which you are trying to get information from. According
to Burns (1990 : 62) “Population is an entire group of people or objects or events
which all have at least one characteristics one common, and must be defined
specially and unambiguously”.
In this study, the population is the students of MA Muhammadiyah 01 Medan
Sample
Sample is a section of your population that you are actually going to survey.
McMillan and Schumacher (1984:32) say that: “Sample is a group of subjects
selected from the population.” The sample of this research is the second grade
students at MTs Tarbiyah Tondano. They consist of 21 students.
3. Data Collection
The writer gives the students the pre-test and post-test used to test the two
groups of student. Pre-test and post-test are the same in form as well as its content
but the time and aim are different.
Firstly, both the experiment class and controlled class were given the pre-test
before the lesson is begun to know the students knowledge of the material that will
be taught. Secondly, both the experiment class and control class were given the
same materials but with the different techniques of presentation. The experiment
class was given the games technique and the control class without games. The last
step in the experiment is giving the post-test to the two classes, class A and class B.
post-test giving after the lesson is finished, to know students taught
4. Instrument
The data will be collected through a test. The test will be in form of written test,
they are objective and essay test. There are pre-test and post-test. The test is
arranged according to the material given.
5. Data analysis
In analyzing the obtained data, the writer will use mean score formula : Hatch
and Farhady (1082 : 30) stated that ;
= Mean score
= All score of the sample
N = Total number of students
The data presented in frequency distribution, computation or mean score X and
standard deviation and the entire test can be presented on frequency polygon.