Improving The Students' Vocabulary By Using “Go Fish” Game

The present study aims at explaining how to improve the students' vocabulary mastery by using “Go Fish” game. The study belongs to classroom action research. The participants of the study are one hundred and twenty-two junior high school students of the seventh grade. To measure the improvement of students' vocabulary mastery, the study used test. The finding showed that the mean score, 92,41 in the second Cycle had met the criteria of success. It means that the use of Go Fish game in teaching vocabulary can improve the students' vocabulary mastery.


INTRODUCTION
9RFDEXODU\ LV GHILQHG DV ³DOO ZRUGV LQ D SDUWLFXODU ODQJXDJH´ :HKPHLHU et al., 2005: 1707 cited in Cahyono &Widiati, 2011: 107). Vocabulary is important to support mastery of language skills. Vocabulary, in addition to grammar and pronunciation, is one of language elements considered necessary for language mastery. Vocabulary teaching aims at enabling learners to understand the concepts unfamiliar words gain a greater number of words, and use words successfully for communicative purpose. Generically, vocabulary is the knowledge of meanings of words (Kamil, 2005: 3).
Widiati (2011) states that good vocabulary mastery supports mastery of each of the language skills, both receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing). Learning vocabulary is one of the first steps in learning a second language or a foreign language, but a learner never finishes YRFDEXODU\ DFTXLVLWLRQ :KHWKHU LQ RQH ¶V native language or a second language, the acquisition of new vocabulary is an ongoing process. There are many techniques which can help one acquire new vocabulary memorization.
Most educators believe that vocabulary instruction is critical in any classroom. The issue is not whether we should have vocabulary instruction, but how to make that vocabulary instruction have meaning beyond assigned word lists. Most of us have struggled and continue to puzzle over how to teach vocabulary in meaningful and memorable ways so our students have access to the words in their reading, writing, and thinking (Allen, 2007: 3).
Learning strategies can play important role in development because WKH\ HQFRXUDJH WKH OHDUQHU ¶V DFWLYH involvement in the learning process. Hunt and Beglar (2002) as cited in Cahyono and Widiati (2011: 110) describe three approaches to vocabulary teaching and learning, those are, incidental learning, explicit instruction, and independent strategy development. Incidental learning is learning vocabulary by product of doing other language activities, for example, reading and writing. As reviewed by Hunt and Beglar (2002), several studies gave Journal of English Language Teaching Volume 5 Nomor 2, Desember 2018http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt e-ISSN: 2548 confirmed that extensive reading and listening contribute to the incidental vocabulary learning. In contrast, explicit instruction refers to intentional learning of vocabulary through instruction, which is essential for beginning students whose lack of vocabulary limits their reading ability.
To teach vocabulary, teachers should be creative to make the students not bored and feel interested in learning vocabulary in other that their vocabulary mastery can be improved. One of the strategy can be used to improve the VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ mastery is game. Game is a contest between the players who interact each other by following certain rules to achieve the purpose of examination-specific (Sadiman, 2010: 75). According to Pribadi (2009: 43), game is competitive and directs students to be able to reach certain achievement or learning outcomes. The game should be fun for students. In general, the core of game is there are winners and losers. The winning party will get a reward, while the losers have to train harder to win the game.
Go Fish game as a vocabulary learning method. According to Mukarto (1989) as cited in Cahyono and Widiati (2011: ³*R )LVK´ JDPH SURYHG WR EH one of the best solutions. It can help students overcome their poor mastery of vocabulary. In this game, all of the students have an important role in the English class. From this game, we can LPSURYH VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ Go Fish game makes students feel enjoy to follow vocabulary class. The use of this method for teaching vocabulary is hoped to be able to LPSURYH WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ DELOLW\ LQ VWXG\LQJ about vocabulary more.

RESEARCH METHOD
The primary goal of this study is to LPSURYH VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXlary mastery of seventh grade atMTs Putra Putri Lamonganby using Go Fish game. This present study belongs to Classroom Action Research (CAR). The participants of the study were all of the students of seventh grade it about one hundred and twenty-two in the 2016/2017 academic year. In this study, the researcher acted as teacher in English class. This classroom action research will be conducted through the stages of planning, implementing, observing, and reflecting. The stages will be preceded by a preliminary study. In the preliminary study, the researcher gives test to know the stuGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ mastery. The test consisted of 40 questions about vocabulary. The result of the test shows that all of students score still under KKM.
After the preliminary study, the next step concerned with the planning of developing VWXGHQWV ¶ vocabulary mastery by using Go Fish game method in the English class. This step covers preparing the teaching strategy that will be applied, preparing the lesson plan for the English class, designing research instruments and setting up the criteria of the success. To measure the improvement of the VWXGHQWV ¶ vocabulary mastery, this study used test. Additionally, to determine whether the study had been successful or not, the study used the following criteria. The students are considered to be successful if they are able to achieve a final score 75. II • % students of the class achieved the score greater than or equal to 75, it means that the study was successful. The consideration of the score 75 is based on minimum standard of English success as stated in the minimum of completion After planning the action, the next step is implementing the action. In this step, all procedures of Go Fish game method designed in planning the action. In this research there are some steps which students have done in learning vocabulary by using Go Fish game, those are: (1) the students look for kinds of professions and the duties based on the white board, (2) the students find the meaning and make simple sentence, (3) the students fill in the blank with correct professions, (4) the students arrange the sentences into a good paragraph.
After implementing the action, the next step is observation. At this stage, the researcher will observe the whole aspects of the implementation of the action covering thH WHDFKHUV ¶ DFWLYLWLHV GXULQJ WKH English class and the improvement of the VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ PDVWHU\ 7KH term may also refer to any data collected during this activity. Reflecting is the last method of this study. It includes the discussion of how far the strategy solves the problem and the factors that might cause the strategy applied are not successful. To know the result of students test, the researcher using formula at figure 1.

Figure 1. Formula of Test
Next, the researcher gave some tests to know the improvement of VWXGHQWV ¶ ability after using Go Fish game as a method in each Cycle.

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
For the first time, the use of go fish game as a method made the students confused and did not make them interest and active in teaching learning process. They thought that the game was very difficult. This condition made the result of the VWXGHQW ¶V test in this Cycle was still bad because some students get score under the criteria. Therefore, it needs to revise the activities in the next cycle because the criterion of success was not achieved. In second cycle there are improvements of VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ PDVWHU\ DIWHU XVLQJ Go Fish game method.
7R NQRZ WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ mastery achievement in the first cycle until the second cycle, the researcher gave test about vocabulary. In the preliminary test, the VWXGHQWV ¶ VFRUHV PRVWO\ ZHUH under the criteria. The lowest score was 5, while the highest score was 75. The mean score of the test in preliminary study was 48,10. $IWHU WKH UHVHDUFKHU JLYHV ³*R )LVK JDPH´ as a method to improve their vocabulary in the first Cycle, there was little LPSURYHPHQW RI VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ DOWKRXJK VRPH VWXGHQWV ¶ VWLOO JHW score under the criteria. In this Cycle, the lowest score was 45, while the highest score was 90. The mean score of the test in Cycle I was 65,17. It means that the result of Cycle I did not met with the criteria of success. It happened since there were some problems, such as the students were very confused about implementation of Go Fish game. The students were very noisy. They Sum of the right answer Sum of questions X 100 Journal of English Language Teaching Volume 5 Nomor 2, Desember 2018http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt e-ISSN: 2548 thought that the game was not important for them. In the second Cycle, there was significant improvement of the VWXGHQWV ¶ VFRUHV 7KH VWXGHQWV ¶ ORZHVW VFRUH ZDV while the highest score was 100. The mean score was 92,41. It means that all of the VWXGHQWV ¶ scores were greater than the criteria. In brief, it can be summed up that the implementation of Go Fish game can imprRYH WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ YRFDEXODU\ PDVWHU\ of the seventh grade at MTs Putra Putri Lamongan in the academic year of 2016/2017.
The findings were in line with 0XNDUWR ¶V YLHZ WKDW ³*R )LVK´ game proved to be one of the best solutions. It can help students overcome their poor mastery of vocabulary. Go Fish game is a game in which students play cards and ask each other for cards to make pairs and hangman. Students then think of a word and write a number of lines indicating the number of letters of the words that other students should guess (Mukarto, 1989 as cited in Cahyono &Widiati, 2011: 115). In this research there are some steps which students have done in learning vocabulary by using Go Fish game, those are: (1) the students look for kinds of professions and the duties based on the white board, (2) the students find the meaning and make simple sentence, (3) the students fill in the blank with correct professions, (4) the students arrange the sentences into a good paragraph.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I can say that the use of Go )LVK JDPH FDQ LPSURYH WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ vocabulary mastery of the seventh grade at MTs Putra Putri Lamongan in the academic year of 2016/2017. The procedures of implementing the strategy are as follows. First, the students look for kinds of professions and the duties based on the white board. The second, the students find the meaning and make simple sentence. The third, the students fill in the blank with correct professions. The fourth, the students arrange the sentences into a good paragraph.