The Use of Context-Clue and Read Aloud Instruction to Enhance Junior High School Students’ Vocabulary Ability Through Literature (Comparative Study at SMPN 1 Cisarua, Bandung Barat) Rindu Bintang Damayanti P, Nelson Balisar Panjaitan, & Caroline V. Katemba, [email protected] Universitas Advent Indonesia Abstract The aim of this research is to find out the better method between context-clue and read aloud instruction to enhance students’ vocabulary. This research is quantitative research with comparative design. The research was conducted in SMPN 1 Cisarua, Bandung Barat. Population on this research was 8 grader of Junior High School and the sample was 8A grader that contain 30 students and 8B grader contain 32 students. 8A was given Context-Clue Instruction treatment and 8B was given Read Aloud Instruction Treatment. Statistic test that researcher used was Mann-Whitney Test. The result of this research showed there is no significant difference in enhancing vocabulary ability between students who are taught through context-clue instruction and students who are taught through read aloud instruction. Keywords: Vocabulary ability, Context-Clue Instruction, Read Aloud Instruction Introduction “English, as a world language, is taught among others in schools. Schools in abroad use English to become their language to communicate in school. And in Indonesia, English is a foreign language. That is, it is taught in schools, often widely, but it does not play an essential role in national or social life” (Broughton, 1980, p. 6). “Nowadays, English is an official language around the world. Many people have problem for communicating because they do not know English. To exceed the problem, it is important to study English more” (Katemba et al 2011). English has become a compulsory subject in school. Every level from elementary through university has English subject and becomes a requirement. So according to Ramelan (1992:3) the Indonesian government has made English as the first foreign language to be taught in schools. Permendiknas No. 22 of 2006 about Content Standards and Permendiknas No. 23 of 2006 about Graduates Competency Standards stated that English become a local content subject that can start to be taught from first grade until six grade. Government regulation No. 19 of 2005 about National Education Standards in chapter III of article 7, paragraph 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 discussed about language activities in elementary school, junior high school and senior high school. And also in chapter III of article 9, paragraph 2 stated that higher education must include English language courses. Darwanto (2007:1) stated that communication is a social event that can occur anywhere without knowing the place and time. Most people feel stress and difficult to speak English because they do not know or lack of the vocabulary. And because of that, the confidence of the person will be decrease and they do not want to speak out. According to Joklova (2009), vocabulary is generally a matter of remembering, unlike learning grammar, which is a system based mainly on rules. Vocabulary in English is many and it always develops to a new vocabulary. That is a big reason for people to memorize the vocabulary. But memorizing also becomes a big problem to some people because most of the words they memorize will be forgotten soon and it will happen if people do not use the words in their daily life. Indonesian people have same problem with that, especially English is a foreign language. It means that we have a lot of problem in learning English and the problem of vocabulary is one of them. Students have a difficult time to learn vocabulary because they lack of motivation and less variety of teaching English. Those happened because they had limited span of attention to study and it was found in all students especially young learners (Broughton, p. 168-169). “In communication, students need vocabulary which can support them to produce and use meaningful sentences. That is why vocabulary is very important to be mastered. Students sometimes experience difficulties in using vocabulary which have been studied for some reasons” (Katemba & Tampubolon2011). Mokashi as cited by Pratiwi (2013) stated that students with poor vocabulary including those from diverse cultures and economic levels and those with learning disabilities need strong and systematic educational support to become successful, independent word learners. That is why, nowadays schools ask their teacher to be more creative to present the lesson. The teachers are recommended to make interactive activity to keep students’ attention during learning English, so they will not feel burdened while learning English in school. This problem appeared at eight graders of SMPN 3 Parongpong. Based on practice teaching study on 11 September 2015, the researcher found the fact that most of the students in the class only had a few vocabulary. The students did not know many vocabularies except the vocabulary that the teacher taught them from elementary school. It is because teacher teach new vocabulary to them by writing the word in white board or black board. As previous researcher, Pratiwi (2013) had preliminary study in MTs Nahdlatul Ulama, Malang, she found that the students get difficulties in learning vocabulary. Huda (2011) stated that vocabulary mastery is the fundamental thing that need to be mastered by somebody in learning English because it will support the achievement of the four skills. It will be difficult for students to achieve those skills if they do not have many vocabulary. And because of the limitation of the vocabulary, students cannot interact with teacher and do not understand what teacher says. It can be concluded that vocabulary is the total number of words in a language that is known and understood by the users so that they can use it for an effective communication as cited from Thornbury (2004). When people communicate with other people in proper and correct way, they can say or tell the aim and meaning or express their ideas. A study was conducted in the Southern United States entitled “Teaching Vocabulary through Literature: Effects of Context-Clue Instruction on Tenth-Grade Students” and was done by Rogers (2005). He stated that students showed a higher usage rate for words learned through context-clue instruction than word-list instruction. It was proven by the results of vocabulary tests, student observation checklists, and student surveys. The students prefer learning English with context clue instruction. In Indonesia, a study conducted by Nuraisha, dkk (2013) at Pontianak with the title “Teaching Vocabulary by Using Inference Contextual Clues” showed that context clue instruction was an effective strategy that can be used by the English teachers as an alternative to teach vocabulary comprehension in the classroom. It was proven by the results of pre-test and post-test that the researcher has given to them. Kuhn & Stahl (1998, p. 120) mentioned that one approach for helping children increase their store of word meanings is to teach them to use context clues (or cues) in text more efficiently. Children can try to guess the closest meaning from the text by using their previous knowledge. They can try to find the closest meaning without opening a dictionary. Pratiwi (2013) conducted a research about read-aloud at Malang entitled “Improving Vocabulary Mastery through Reading Aloud”. She said that the implementation of reading- aloud can improve the vocabulary mastery and the students enjoyed learning English and mastering vocabulary easily. It was shown in increasing of student’s score and student’s responds in answering the question. They showed that read-aloud was effective for students to improve vocabulary mastery. With that technique, the students were interested in studying English. Student especially young learners do not have long span of attention, so teacher should teach them with any kinds of activity, such as reading them a story. Reading them a story make the atmosphere in the class become more relax. The students can give the attention because they will listen to a story. By reading-aloud to students, they learn more vocabulary, grammar, and information and how stories and written language works (Wadsworth, 2008, p. 2). They will feel more comfortable with the method because the students can discuss the story together with the teacher. And the teacher can use an interesting story for her or his material so the students will feel attractive and interesting with the story, and finally they will feel wondering about learning English. Kindle (2009) mentioned that the read aloud context has proven to be an effective instruction. Considering this case, the researcher decides to carry out a study on “The Use of Context Clue and Read Aloud Instruction to Enhance Junior High School Students’ Vocabulary Achievement through Literature”, and by using these methods students are expected to enhance their vocabulary achievement. Vocabulary is an important part in learning English. Learners can understand or comprehend what they read or hear if they know about the vocabulary. And because of that, a learner who knows about the vocabulary can master or comprehend four skills in English; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Anisha (2011) states that words are like bricks in building a small house or a big building. If the brick is not strong, how could the house of the building stand up properly? It also happens with the vocabulary. If a person does not have strong vocabulary, how could a person speak well? Without a sufficient vocabulary or having a limited vocabulary will make a person cannot communicate effectively and also it becomes a barrier that prevents students from learning a foreign language (Shankar, 2003) Acquiring the vocabulary of our first language is complicated. Acquiring the vocabulary of a second language is even more complicated (Nunan, 2011). Because vocabulary is more complex than knowledge of words and words meanings in both oral and print language and it is related to their reading comprehension and academic success (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003). According to Brown (1995) as cited by Cameron (2001), there are essential steps of learning vocabulary: 1) Having source for encountering new words, 2) Getting a clear image for the form of new words, 3) Learning the meaning of new words, 4) Making a strong memory connection between the form and the meaning of the words, 5) Using the words. In the assessment of vocabulary mastery according to Allen (1999), she mentioned that the indicators of students’ vocabulary mastery that can be used are: 1) An increased sense of word play, 2) A heightened awareness of how words sound (rhyme, repetitive language patterns), 3) An inquisitiveness about word meaning and etymologies, 4) A more diverse and richer use of language in speech and writing, and 5) An ability to construct semantic maps to extend an understanding of words and concepts To increase more vocabulary in students, a teacher should be creative to find other ways to teach vocabulary. Using context clue instruction and read-aloud instruction are two of the techniques that teachers usually use in previous times but no longer it is used again. Teachers usually ask the students to bring their dictionary and find the meaning from it. Teachers rarely use those techniques, whereas if the teacher teaches the students to find the meaning from the context, it will help the students to train their brain. Kuhn and Stahl (1998, p.120) mentioned that one approach for helping children increase their store of word meanings is to teach them to use context clue (or cues) in text more efficiently. Context Clue Instruction is the process of using the surrounding context to guess the meaning of unknown words, phrases, and concepts (Nunan, 2011, p. 160). One way to support word recognition and meaning is through the use of context clues (Hibbard, 2009). Shankar (2003) stated that too much dictionary work can kill all interest in reading and even interfere with comprehension, because readers become more concerned with individual words and less aware of the context which gives them meaning. It also results in very slow and inefficient reading. Linse (2005, p. 123-127) stated that there are six principles for teaching vocabulary and one of them is teach to use context clue appropriately which means using context to figure out meaning is an important strategy, and one that is used by independent learners. Looking at the context in which the word appears seems to be the best way of learning vocabulary and guessing vocabulary from context is the most frequent way to discover the meaning of new words (Shankar, 2003). According to Stanovich (1986), this difficulty can be explained by an interaction between vocabulary knowledge and reading ability. Because in reading, students will learn about repetition and they will be familiar with the words so they will have vocabulary knowledge from that reading. And also students can learn to define the correct meaning based on the text. Stahl and Shiel (1992) stated that one productive approach is to teach children how to be more proficient at figuring out a word’s meaning from context. A student who usually read passage will have good and many vocabularies knowledge. Without realizing it, the student already familiar with the word, the meaning, and the structure of those words. A good knowledge of the language, with a lively sense of the various shades of meaning words, is needed for the appreciation of literature (Thompson and Wyatt, 2003 p. 9) When you are reading something in English do not look up every new word or expression or you will soon get fed up. Only look up something that is really important for understanding the text. When you have finished reading, look back at you have read and then perhaps look up some extra words and write down new expression that interest you (McCarthy and O’Dell, 2001 p.3) If most words are learned from context and there are vast individual differences in vocabulary, it would seem that to increase the amount of new words that children learn each year, one would have to (a) increase the volume of reading that children do, (b) increase their efficiency in learning new words, or preferably both (Kuhn & Stahl, 1998). McCarthy and O’Dell (2001) mentioned that when you read or listen to English it is sometimes possible to guess the meaning of a word you do not know before you look up or ask its meaning. Decide first what part of speech the word is and then look for clues in its context of form. The initial approaches to teaching children to use context more efficiently involved the development and direct teaching of taxonomies of context clues (Kuhn & Stahl, 1998). Goerss et al.’s (1994) stated that they taught their students that it was not necessary to derive full definitions, but to get whatever information was available about a word from that context. Because sometimes we do not need to know all of the meaning in that sentence and usually some words in the sentence already become a phrase which means that those words cannot be translated word by word. There are some advantages of context clue instruction that become consideration of the researcher to use this method in the research. (1) It helps readers not only learn words but also know how to use them in context, (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 task much more active and challenging than direct explanation of words, (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 (Shankar, 2003, p. 107-108) Nowadays many teachers use this read-aloud method in their classroom strategy to increase the interest in reading. Especially in Indonesia, students come to us with a wide range of background knowledge (Wadsworth, 2008). The students are coming from many places with different background and those factors make them become not interested to read anything. Harvey and Goudvis (2005) as cited in Wadsworth (2008) wrote that everything we read and learn is colored by our background knowledge. Read-aloud gives teachers a wonderful opportunity to directly scaffold learning for all students who lack the background for deep understanding of topic before we move them into more complex subject matter. And students do learn words from books that teacher reading aloud to them (Elley, 1989). While read-aloud provide the perfect opportunity to support and stimulate learning, they also offer another element that is far too important for children to miss. Read-aloud also stimulate curiosity in children as they are invited into a safe environment to marvel at the concepts being represent (Harvey, 1998 as cited in Wadsworth, 2008) There has been many nationally-known literacy consultants suggested to the teachers about the importance of read-aloud. Recent research has established that effective read-aloud which contribute to students’ comprehension development (Fisher, Flood, Lapp, & Frey, 2004; Hickman, Pollard-Durodola, & Vaughn, 2004). Anderson et all (1985) in their report “Becoming a Nation of Readers” stated that the read-aloud was the single most important thing we could do for building the knowledge required for future success in reading. And also according to Routman (2003) found that reading aloud to children enables them to hear the rich language of stories and texts they cannot yet read on their own, and by reading aloud to students, they learn new vocabulary, grammar, and information and how stories and written language works. Read-aloud also provide an ideal opportunity to teach expository, or information, text structure (Melissa, 2008) Melissa (2008) considered using more read-aloud opportunities to teach vocabulary and comprehension. Sometimes read-aloud is used without instructional interruption for the purpose of enjoying and listening to a story. And with this method also we as a teacher can build the background knowledge, language, and listening comprehension skill of students together (Beck and McKeown, 2001). The advantages of read aloud instruction are (1) Student learns to read properly, (2) Student develops the skill of speech and learn elocution, (3) However mistakes in pronunciation, articulation, stress are corrected at an early stage, (4) The various ensure organs such as ears, eyes, mouth were trained simultaneously, (5) and the student learns by imitation which is a natural method of learning (Shankar, 2003). In this research, there are some terms that the researcher used to help the readers understand this research. The researcher will give the definition of those terms, so the reader can easily understand and can get the meaning and the idea of this research. a) Vocabulary achievement The state or condition of having achieved or accomplished vocabulary that a person have learned. b) Vocabulary Total number of words in a language (Oxford Dictionary, 1980). The word that make up a language (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) Indicator: Spelling, Meaning, Grammar  Spelling The forming of words from letters according to accepted usage; a sequence of letters composing a word (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1828)  Meaning The idea that is represented by a word (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1828).  Grammar The set of rules that explain how words are used in a language (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 1828). c) Context clue Hints to help define a difficult or unusual word. Information that appears near a word or phrase and offers direct or indirect suggestions about its meaning. A source of information about a word that helps readers understand the word. d) Read-aloud In a way that reading can be clearly heard; in a voice that can be heard. Research Methodology This research was conducted by using quantitative method with comparative design. This comparative design compared the enhancement of student’s vocabulary ability between context clue instruction group and read-aloud instruction group. Table 3.1 Research Design Group Pre-Test Treatment Post-Test Context Clue A X A 1 Instruction Read-Aloud B X B 2 Instruction Where: A: Student’s vocabulary score in pre-test and post-test of Context Clue group B: Student’s vocabulary score in pre-test and post-test of Read Aloud group X : Context Clue Instruction method 1 X : Read-Aloud Instruction method 2 Participants This research was conducted at SMPN 1 Cisarua. The population of this research is grade 8. The researcher taught Grade 8A by using Context Clue Instruction and taught grade 8B by using Read-Aloud Instruction as the sample. Group 8A consisted of 30 students and group 8B consisted of 32 students Instrument of the Research The researcher used some stories for reading material in using context clue instruction and read-aloud instruction based on the school’s English textbook. And to measure the ability of the student’s vocabulary mastery, the researcher conducted a pilot test to find the right instrument that can be used to measure the ability of the student’s vocabulary mastery. After that, the researcher gave pre-test to the students to find out the maximum ability in student’s vocabulary achievement, and post-test to find out the result of the treatment that the researcher has given in student’s vocabulary mastery. Procedures The two experimental groups had been given different treatment. The first experimental group was treated using context clue instruction while the other experimental group was treated using read-aloud instruction. The researcher used 8 meetings to do these treatments and the duration of every meeting was 80 minutes which consisted of pre-activity, main activity, and post-activity. For both groups, the researcher used the same material taken from the school’s English textbook. In the first experimental group the researcher applied the context clue instruction and the procedures as described below: 1. The students were grouped in pairs with his or her seatmate. During the treatment, they had to be in pairs. 2. Before starting the treatment, the researcher gave some explanation about the treatment. 3. The researcher gave a story to be read by the students. 4. From that story the researcher asked one of the students to mention a difficult word. 5. After finding a difficult word, the researcher led and directed the students to analyze the meaning of that word by using the previous word in that sentence. 6. Students were trained to guess the closest meaning only using the clue from those words. Read Aloud Procedures For the second experimental group, the researcher applied the read-aloud instruction and the procedures as described below: 1. Before starting the treatment, the researcher gave explanation about read-aloud first. 2. In this treatment, the student worked individually. 3. The researcher read a story and told the students to pay attention because the researcher did not give them the story in written text. So, they had to listen it carefully. 4. In the process of reading the story, the researcher asked the students several questions to make them think. 5. The researcher also explained some words that students did not understand by using English words and gestures. 6. The students had to take notes, so they would not forget the word. 7. After reading the story, the researcher made a small discussion to discuss about the story. 8. In the discussion, the researcher dug the vocabulary’s knowledge of the students by asking them several questions according the story. 9. To see the result of the discussion, the students had to retell the story by writing the story using their own words. Result In processing the data, the researcher used statistical program SPSS 16. Table 4.1 Students’ Result of Vocabulary Ability Context-Clue Instruction Read Aloud Instruction Mean Std. Deviation Mean Std. Deviation Pre-test 69.5333 14.84572 67.0000 16.07442 Post-test 70.4333 15.38849 69.7187 10.16710 N-Gain -0.0540 0.51049 -0.0847 0.61901 According to the result of the mean and standard deviation in Context-Clue Instruction group and Read Aloud Instruction group was resulted in a little enhancement in vocabulary ability. The result of N-gain showed that normalized gain from both strategies were in low category. Discussion of the Research Finding The achievement of vocabulary that both Context-Clues Instruction group and Read Aloud Instruction group were had a little enhancement. The researcher stated that the cause of little enhancement of the data result were because these clues do not always work and sometimes are actually distracting (Douglas & Nancy, 2014). ESL or EFL learners, not being in an English speaking environment, have fewer opportunities of such exposures (Mokhtar & Rawian, 2012). So students only know limited vocabulary and the students only studied those vocabularies in the school. Most of them did not really pay attention during the teaching and learning process. Schatz and Baldwin (1986) stated that even high school students were not successful in guessing meaning. Because of that, the students did not have an interest to learn English. The students could not motivate themselves to build passion to learn English. Most of the students do not care about English lesson. The students tend to be passive when the researcher asked them about the meaning of the vocabulary that had been discussed before. Most language learners recognize only a percentage of a spoken conversation, so during the reading process of a story, they might miss the ideas and concepts (Marrapodi, 2013). When the researcher communicated and asked the students with English, students prefer to reply with Sundanese. Although for simple instruction or simple command, they had difficulty to identify the meaning. Only a few students that could really follow the lesson and understand what the researcher said in English. The researcher dug the knowledge that students had by asking the question about the reading passage that students had learned, helped them to use their critical thinking to know the meaning of the hard word by using context clue and closest meanings, recalled their memory about the prior knowledge and gave students more motivation to learn English. The students’ intention to learn English was still low. Because of that, they lacked of motivation to learn English by themselves and they also tend to assume English subject as the same as other subjects. Especially English a local content subject in Indonesia. In order to understand a story that is read aloud, the learner must have enough receptive aural language to construct meaning (Marrapodi, 2013) and it sisted of knowledge about phonic, spelling, sound, and phoneme. Without those aspect, it will be hard to identify new words that appear in the story. The teacher does not really care about with the ability of the students in the class. So, it makes some students who are not very good in English become not confident with their ability, jealous with friends who are good in English and even be indifferent in the subject. Because the mean gain of Context-Clues Instruction group and Read Aloud Instruction group were not significantly different, it can be concluded that both treatment did not enhance the vocabulary ability of the students. Folse (2004) stated that the use of context-clue is undoubtedly a good method to reading improvement not a vocabulary improvement. Conclusion The enhancement of students’ vocabulary ability of Context-Clue Instruction and Read Aloud Instruction are in the low category. There is no significant difference in enhancing vocabulary ability between students who are taught through context-clue instruction and students who are taught through read aloud instruction.