VOCABULARY JOURNAL AS A LEARNING TOOL FOR STUDENTS

IN LEARNING VOCABULARY THROUGH READING

AT JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

A. Background of the Problem

Education is a learning that can increase knowledge and skills. However, education also
deals with the habits of a group of people who are passed down from one generation to the next
through teaching on some aspects around, then through training, or doing research in some
cases. As it progresses, education in some countries, especially Indonesia, has undergone many
changes significantly based on the thinking of each individual educator that greatly influences
the education. The goal of education is to create someone who is qualified and has their inner
character, so they can have a broad view of the future to achieve a goal that is expected and they
will be able to adapt quickly and precisely doing things in various environments they have
understood. Because education itself motivated us to change things for the better in all aspects
of life that will make us to be intelligent people in the future that can master the world.

Students have learned English 10 years in their education. All of us know that English is

a primary subject which is required to be learned by Indonesian students in junior and senior

high school. This language is an international language which is very useful to be mastered in

this global era. English is being learned to make the students able to use the language fluently.

Specifically, the students are expected to master the communicative competence in order to be

able to listen, speak, read and write using English. Therefore, English become one of the

primary subjects for students in the school.

In fact, English is not only being learned in the school but also in students’ daily life.

Students also study this language from games, music, movies, social media, and another

media. It is mostly found in written form because this language is not familiar in spoken form.

That is to say, this language has already become part of students’ education and life. In other
words, learning English is primary and valuable for students, especially for junior high school

students who learn English as beginner level.

As English language learners, junior high school students need to master four language

skills. The skills are listening, speaking, reading and writing. These language skills are

integrated one to another in teaching and learning process. As a matter of fact, there is one

component which has great influence on the skills that is called vocabulary. Vocabulary is the

base component that students need to master in order to be able in those language skills.

However, vocabulary is not specially taught in teaching English in the classroom.

Consequently, students have lack knowledge about words and it impacts their language skills.

For instance, students find difficulty in recognizing words on listening and reading lesson and

students are not able to speak fluently and write using English.

Compared with three other skills, reading is a basic skill which is useful for language

acquisition. In addition, reading will let the students deal with many texts and many words.

That is to say that reading will allow students facing words and gaining them will be good for

their language competence. However, students often find unknown words in reading. It is

because the language or vocabulary they encounter in the English text is often completely

new to them. As a result, they tend to look up the word in the dictionary or ask the teacher

directly rather than to find the meaning by them self. Besides, students often look up a word

in their dictionary and select the first entry, without considering the context related to the

unknown word they read(Smith, 2004). Therefore, students need strategies to help them

understand vocabulary through reading.

There are many strategies to help students learning vocabulary. These strategies are

Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy, Word Mapping, Graphic Morphemic Analysis,

Interactive Word Walls, and Vocabulary Journals (O’Callaghan & Antonacci, 2012).The first

strategy that can be used is Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy. It is an interactive strategy

since it involves students as a teamwork. But, in its implementation, students choose an

interesting word by his/her opinion then share it with other students. However, students’ word

preference is not similar. It could be an interesting word for student A, but it may not be

interesting for student B since he/she has already known about it. So, this strategy is not

suitable for students who has different needs.

The second strategy is Word Mappingstrategy which focuses on engaging students’

awareness in thinking about word relationships. This strategy allows students to develop their

conceptual knowledge related to words. Researchers suggest that the activities in this strategy

that is mapping the words, lead the students to understand the concept of the words deeper.

Then, Graphic Morphemic Analysisis a strategy for learning vocabulary by asking students to

analyze word morpheme. Meanwhile, beginner level students have not learned about this yet.

Hence, this strategy is suitable for intermediate levels such as senior high school and college

students.

Next, Interactive Word Walls strategy is also an interactive strategy which is involved

students’ interactivity. However, in implementing this strategy, the teacher needs to teach the

word first. Thus, this would be a teacher autonomy, not learner autonomy, though students

will be better exploring words by them self. The last learning strategy that can be used is

Vocabulary Journal. This journal is considered as a suitable tool for beginner level students.

Due to its implementation, students can learn new vocabulary by recording words into the

journal by their own preference, get knowledge based on their level, and improve their

autonomy in learning.
 These strategies are mentioned above definitely have its own focus in a different

situation. Therefore, related to the problem above, which students lack vocabulary knowledge

in reading, the writer suggests one of the learning strategies that involves note taking format

in recording words and promotes learners’ autonomy. The learning strategy is using

vocabulary journal.

The learning strategy by using vocabulary journal is not a single learning strategy because it can
combine other strategies. It means that teacher can offer the students variations of learning
strategy. For instance, Bone (2000) integrates the strategy with “Making Connections” and
“Concept Ladder” in shared reading. Thus, this journal is flexible to be used. Moreover, it
enhances students long-term memory in remembering words(Centenario, 2013:4). The
implementation requires a journal to collect difficult/unknown vocabulary that students find
while they are reading. In addition, this journal is used to explore the words’ meaning, make
connections between the new words and their own experiences and ideas, so that students
produce rich definitions about the word. Furthermore, it will help students to remember the
words if they find it in other texts. By using this strategy, the students are expected not only to
know the translation of the word but also know the meaning and how to put the word to the
context. (O’Callaghan & Antonacci, 2012:110