IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY ON NARRATIVE TEXT THROUGH MNEMONIC METHOD AT THE SEVENTH GRADE OF SMP 1 HURUNA

This research was motivated by the researcher found many students still lack of vocabulary and difficult to memorize vocabulary. This research aimed to improving the students’ vocabulary mastery through Mnemonic Method at the Seventh Grade of SMP Negeri 1 Huruna.The research was designed in classroom action research (CAR). Observation paper of the researchers’ activities and students’ activities, and test were used as the instrument to collect the data needed. The research did action research in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of two meetings. The result of this action research was that the percentage of researchers done activities in meeting I of cycle I was 73 %, meanwhile in meeting II of cycle I was 83 %. Next, the percentage of students’ done activities in meeting I of cycle I was 69.9 %, meanwhile in meeting II of cycle I was 87.2 %. The average of students’ score in cycle I was 67.3. Furthemore, the percentage of researchers done activites in meeting I of cycle II was 93 %, meanwhile in meeting II in cycle II was 100 %. Next, the percentage of the students’ done activities in meeting I of cycle II 93.6 %, meanwhile in meeting II of cycle II was 94.8 %. The average students’ score in cycle II was 88.1. It was concluded that there was improvement of students’ vocabulary through Mnemonic


A. Introduction
Language is a system of communication that used by human being to interacting to other peoples to convey their ideas, feelings, and experience.According to Jordan (1999:39), "A language is asignalling system which operates with symbolic vocal sounds, and which is used by group of people for the purpose of the communication".From the statement above, it can be concluded that language is a tool that very important for humans being to communicate, language can also be said the most important thing in human life to build communication to others.
English as international language is spoken almost all over the word.In Indonesia, English is foreign language or second language.It is taught formally from elementary school up to university level.In other words, English is really needed in Indonesia.Therefore, English is an important subject to study in schools in Indonesia.In addition, to master the language well, people need to learn four skills in the language, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing.
From these skills, vocabulary becomes one of the important aspects in English teaching learning process, the teaching vocabulary in the classroom should be appropriate in order to avoid problems related to the students' vocabularymastery.
According to Richards at all (2009:185) state that vocabulary relevant to all sub-skills, therefore the concept of general language proficiency can perhaps be reinterpreted, at least to some extent, as vocabulary knowledge.Vocabulary is all about words in the certain language that are owned and used by the language user to communicate and share the information.
In reality, based on the researcher observationthe researcher found many students still lack of vocabulary and difficult to memorize vocabulary, when the researcher gave some questions to the students but they did not say anything.The students just keep quiet and they did not know how to answer.The problem is caused by some reasons: the first is teacher only focuses on the learning process but not pay attention to students who are still taut and difficult to follow learning process in the classroom.Second is the teacher teaching method which only prioritizes material without know that the students understood or not the material that delivered by the teacher.
The texts which learn by studentssuch as Descriptive text, recount text, narrative text, and procedural text.However, this research will be focuse on the narrative text.In narrative text, the students should have a good mastery of vocabulary.In reality many of the students cannot understand narrative text caused they lack of vocabulary.
Therefore, to overcome the problem the researcher will apply one of strategies to improve students' competence in predicting information in vocabulary.Teacher can use many ways in teaching learning process.The best way to help the students' understand and comprehend the content of the text or messange by using the mnemonic method.According to Foster (2009:123) "Mnemonic is a way of organizing information to make it easier to remember-typically by using codes, visual imagery, or rhymes (something in combination)".It means that mnemonic method is the strategy that can help students memorize words and make easier to get information from the text.
Based on the statement above, researcher use mnemonic method to help students improve their vocabulary skill because this method tries to make students easier to memorize and make students become effectively and more motivated to following learning process.
Based on the explanation above, the researcher inspired to conduct a researcher proposal entitled "Improving Students' Vocabulary Mastery on Narrative Text through Mnemonic Method at the Seventh Grade of SMP Negeri 1 Huruna".
Vocabulary is a collection of words usually alphabetically arranged and explained or defined.Vocabulary is a basic to arrange sentences, paragraph, easy and text.Vocabulary is very important to learn in English, it can be used in doing communication both spoken and written.Furthermore, vocabulary can be measurement of the students' quality and capability to communicate the meaningful information to others and support the students to comprehend the language well.In learning English language, vocabulary becomes the first component that should be acquired by the students in doing interaction either orally or written form and affects the four skills; speaking, listening, reading, and listening.According to Hiebert and Kamil (2005:3), "Vocabulary is the knowledge of meanings of words".Knowing a meaning of words is one way to understand the whole meaning of sentence or paragraphs.
Based on the explaination above, it can be concluded that vocabulary refers to all words regarding to their forms and meanings that are useaccurately in the context to deliver and receive the information in oral and written communication.Therefore, teaching and learning vocabulary is a continuously process in learning English language which gives the opportunity to the students to improve their ability in using the language for communication.
To mastering vocabulary students must know types of vocabulary and how to use them.The knowledge of knowing vocabulary types is very important to be well understood in order to facilitate the students in recognizing those words.Hiebert and Kamil (2002:3) stated that productive vocabularyis the set of words that an individual can use when writing or speaking.They are words that are wellknown, familiar, and used frequently.Conversely, receptive, or recognition, vocabularyis that set of words for which an individual can assign meanings when listening or reading.So that, Productive vocabulary is a type of vocabulary that requires speakers or writers to convey their own vocabulary choices in accordance with the message they want to convey to others.While Receptive vocabulary is a type of vocabulary which is a type of vocabulary that has a relationship with someone's understanding of the language used by the other person.Furthermore, another types of vocabulary also can be categorized into active and passive vocabulary as Haycraft (1978:44) Learning vocabulary is an important instructional aim for teachers in all content areas in middle grades schools.Vocabulary is one of master in English.By mastering it, students will be able to improve their knowledge, especially English language.People use vocabulary to arrange into sentences to express their opinions, thinking and ideas.
Wilkins in Thornbury (2002:13) state that without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.Vocabulary has often been viewed as a basic element in language teaching, it is considered to be the most important aspect because it can widen the student intellectual development.In learning a foreign language the students have to know what words mean.To get the meaning of words, the students should learn vocabulary.
Mnemonic is assisting or intended to assist memory.It is important to remember that mnemonics technique is a memory-enhancing strategy and is not designed specifically to enhance comprehension.According to Joyce at all (2009:33), "Mnemonic merupakan strategi-strategi menghafal dan mengasimilasikan informasi."It means that the mnemonic here is about a way to help us to remember something more easier especially for the students to follow the teaching and learning process in the classroom.In teaching and learning process, Mnemonic method involves students' participation to beactive during the teaching and learning activities begin.
As inference, mnemonic is memory enhancing strategy in which in its implication, these strategies are always accompanied by certain formula and pattern used to organize information into the familiar and meaningful associated information and connect it with the previous information have been stored in memory, so that the information can be memorized and recalled easily.
There are five principles of using mnemonic (Higbee, 1977: 102-103) They are: meaningfulness, organization, association, visualization, and attention.1. Meaningfullness.The most powerful example is the phonetic system that gives meaning from the most abstract, meaningless, and kinds of material numbers.So that the phonetic system will be easier to learn.2. Organization.As mental filling system, it gives a systematic way to record and retrieve the material.And then, mnemonics are not needed for material that already has an inherent logic and structure.3. Association.In associating items to each other, the link system fits to this strategy.
In the loci, peg, and phonetic systems are easily remembered material as filing system.The use of filing system is by associating the new material that is wanted to learn with the material that has been previously memorized.4. Visualization.Visualization is probably the most unusual aspect of mnemonicand is also probably the most misunderstood.Not all mnemonic involve visual imagery.For example, to associate the words "cats" and "rats" the teacher could either form a mental picture of cats eating rats as a visual mediator, or the teacher could form a sentence, "Cats like to eat rats" as a verbal mediator.5. Attention.Mnemonic forces the students to concentrate on the material to form pictures and associate them.They tend to be interesting, it is because they make the material meaningful and involve visual imagery.

B. Research Method
This research used classroom action research design(CAR) to improve the students' vocabulary mastery to support English language skills by using Mnemonic method.Classroom action research is an action research conducted by teachers in the classroom.Classroom action research aim to improve the quality or solving problem of learning process.According to Goodnough (2011:4), "Action research is any systematic inqury conducted by teacher researchers, principles, school, counsellor, or other stakeholder in the teaching/learning enviroment to gather information about how their particular school operated, how they teach, and how well their students learn".The information was gathered with the goals of gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school environment (and on educational practices in general) and improving students outcomes and the lives of those involved.In addition, Stringer (2010:8) state that action research is often used to investigate specific issues or problem assosiated with clasroom or school life.Based on explanation above, action reserch is a study to improve the process of teaching and learning with take an investigated very ordinary problem and issues in situation and condition educational environment.In addition, there some benefits of CAR stated by Kemmis and Taggart in Burn (1999:16-17) as follows: (1) Thinking systematically about what happens in the school or classroom.( 2) Implementing action where improvements are tought to be possible.(3) monitoring and evalueting the effect of the action with a view to contiuning improvement.( 4) Monitoring complex situation critically and pratically.( 5) Implementing a flexibble approach to school or classroom improvement through action and reflection.
This research was be conducted in SMP Negeri 1 Huruna, which is located in Soliga street of South Nias Regency.There were three classes of seventh grade students, they are VII-A, VII-B and VII-C.The subject of this research is the seventh grade of Cclass at SMP Negeri 1 Huruna that consist of 24 students.This research was conducted by using classroom action research (CAR), there were four stages of the implementation of classroom action research which was: (1) Planning, (2) Action, (3) Observation, and (4) Reflection.Furthemore, the prosedure of research carried out in two cycle and each cycle consist of two meeting.Cycle I aim to determine students' ability in vocabulary mastery and cycle II aim to know the improvement of students' vocabulary mastery after teaching and learning process.1. Planning.Planning is the process of thinking about the activities that should prepares that are needed in teaching and learning process in the classroon, such as Syllabus, lesson plan, English book, boardmarker, work sheet, and observation paper.2. Action.Action is the realization of theory and teaching strategy and also the treatment that have been planned before.
It is aimed to increase the students' ability.

Observation. Observation is the process
to observe the activity from first stages until the last stages.The form of observation prepared by the researcher, it has own purpose to notice the weekness and to inform about any information which has been passed while in process implementing the teaching.4. Reflection.Reflection is an activity of analyzing all of the information get from observation and evaluation of what have been done in the action.In reflection the researcher will take the conclusion to know whether the problem has been overcome or not after used Mnemonic method.
This study used two kinds of data, there are qualitative and quantitative data.Qualitative data is the data from observation paper which used to be explain.Quantitave data is the data consist of number that reffered to the the students' test result will analyzing or students score.

C. Research Finding and Discussion
The researcher did the research in two cycle.Each cycle consisted of two meetings.After the researcher applied the Mnemonic method in the teaching and lerning process in each cycle, the researcher did the test to the students.

Cycle I
The result of observation paper of the researcher activities observed during conducting this research in cycle I.There were 15 activities in first meeting and there were 12 in second meeting activities were observed by teacher collaborator.Based on the table 4.1 above,it showed thatthe result researcher activities in first meetingwere done 11 or 73.0 %.While the activities undone by the researcher in the meeting was 4 or 27.0 % from the total activity in meeting I of cycle I.Furthermore,at the second meeting in the first cycle, it was seen that there was aslight improvement in the activities done by the researcher.This could be seen from the increase of the percentage for the activities done about 10 or 83.0%, while the percentage for the undone activities decreases about 2 or 17.0% from the total activity.

Cycle II
The result of observation paper of the researcher activities observed during conducting this research in cycle II.There were 15 activities in first meeting and there were 12 in second meeting activities were observed by teacher collaborator.The result of this observation activity was presented in following table 4.4.Based on the table 4.4 above,it showed thatthe result researcher activities in first meetingwere done 14 or 93.0 %.While the activities undone by the researcher in the meeting was 1 or 7.0 % from the total activity in meeting I of cycle II.Furthermore,at the second meeting of cycle II, there were 12 or 100% activities done by the researcher from the totel activity, and no undone activity.therefore, in meeting II cycle II, the researcher did all activities in the teaching and learning process in applying Mnemonic Method to the students' achievement in mastering vocabulary.
The result indicated that there was an increasing on the students' vocabulary mastery by using Mnemonic method.The researcher conducted a classroom action research by applying Mnemonic method to improve students' vocabulary mastery at the seventh grade students.The research conducted by the researcher was done into two cycles.The significant improvement could be seen before and after doing action research for this subject of research.In the following graphic, it was provided the

Table 3 .1 The condition at the Seventh Grade Students of SMP Negeri 1 Huruna
Researcher 2021 This research was be conducted in two months, It was started on June 2021 and have ended on July 2021.The schedule of doing research was base on the teaching and learning schedule provided at the school. https://jurnal.uniraya.ac.id/index.php/RelationSource: