Nowadays, English is the international language that is used worldwide. In this era of globalization, you cannot afford to be left out by not mastering English. (Novik, 2010). Therefore the Indonesian people should master English because as we know the people who mastered in English have a better chance to get a better opportunity in global competition.
As we know English is taught as a foreign language in Indonesia which is taught from elementary school until college or university. However, it is still believed that English is difficult to master. Teaching learning process of English is very difficult for the Indonesian students because they are so many differences between the students’ first language and English. In spite of there are many differences that make the students face difficulties in learning English, the important factor that make it difficult is come from the language that they use in daily activity. Almost all Indonesian students use Indonesian language rather than English in their daily activity. As we know, it is stated in 2006 English Curriculum there are four language skills that should be mastered by the students’: reading, speaking, writing, and listening and the language components: grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation (BSNP, 2006:2). Therefore in learning English, it is very important for the students to understand the meaning of vocabulary or words, because with understanding the meaning of vocabulary or words, it will enable them communicate in the target language, which results in supporting all aspects of the language skills. Vocabulary is important for learning English because vocabulary is the basic for the students to studying all aspects of English and it is impossible for the students to understand what the speaker and the writer mean without understanding the vocabulary that includes in the utterance or writing.
Vocabulary is important in learning English as the foreign language because learning English can be useless if the students do not understand the meaning of the vocabulary so make them difficult to learn. Without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed (Thornbury, 2002:13). Therefore the students have to enlarge or enrich their knowledge of vocabulary.
Generally vocabulary is considered difficult by the students. It is very difficult for the students to enlarge or enrich their vocabulary because the students sometimes forget with the vocabulary material that have been taught by the teacher and they are seldom memorizing them well. Occasionally, the students feel afraid in following the teaching learning process of English because they often do not know the meaning of the utterances that are being used in the teaching learning process of English. To avoid that situation and to motivate the students, the teacher should make the classroom more and more interesting and the teacher needs some challenging teaching techniques.
Before conducting the research, a preliminary study was done by interviewing the English teacher of SMA 2 Genteng at August 23, 2010. Based on the interview, it was revealed that vocabulary was taught integratively with the other language skills, such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking, but mostly the English teacher teaches vocabulary integratively with reading skill. Further, she said that she teaches vocabulary by asking the students to find the difficult words in the text then finding the meaning of these difficult words from dictionary. Besides, according to the English teacher, most of the tenth year students still have difficulties in mastering vocabulary. They still face problem in memorizing word, writing the correct word, and finding the meaning of word. Students particularly make mistakes that are obviously related to confusions of the form of one word with the form of other words (Hatch and Brown 1995: 378). Considering the condition above, the researcher suggest to the teacher to apply various technique in the teaching learning vocabulary activities to make the students actively in teaching learning process.
One of the techniques that can be applied by the teacher in teaching learning process is game. Formal educational environments are very different to the informal contexts in which games are usually played, and bring with them many constraints that make introducing games as learning tools more of a challenge than might be thought (Richard Sandford and Ben Williamson, 2005:11). However, it is noted that games can create many activities which involve students in the process of learning. In the teaching learning process of vocabulary using games make students more relax and is recreational as well. Although it is a recreational activities that the main purpose of it is for enjoyment, in the language learning process the purpose of game is to reinforce what has already been taught. The course of a game, students are involved in an enjoyable and challenging activity with a clear goal. Sometimes, students unconscious that they have been practicing a language when they are playing a game. Games help and encourage many students to sustain their interest and work (Wright et al, 1996:1). One kind of the game that can be used in teaching vocabulary is Crossword Puzzle. With Crossword Puzzle students are trained to think and looking for the relationship with their knowledge to fill in the Crossword Puzzle (Karim and Hasbullah, 1986:2.36).
The previous research conducted by Rahmawati (2004) proved that there was a significant effect of using Crossword Puzzle on the eight year students’ vocabulary achievement at SLTPN 6 Jember with the degree of relative effectiveness 6.163. Therefore it was proved that Crossword Puzzle was more effective technique that can be used in teaching learning activity especially in teaching vocabulary. As compared to the teaching vocabulary using Crossword Puzzle technique another previous research conducted by Mariyati (2001) proved that the use of Crossword Puzzle could improve the reading comprehension achievement of the first year students at SLTP 2 Balung in the academic year 1999/2000 while the standard score of the school is 65 and it is proved by the increasing point from the first cycle implementation to the second cycle implementation. In the first implementation the mean score is 65, 21 and in the second implementation the mean score of the reading comprehension of the students is 69, 39. Furthermore, there is an increase of 4, 15 point from the first implementation to the second implementation. In brief, there is evidence that the use of games is useful in teaching vocabulary
According to the descriptions above, a thesis entitled “The Effect of Using Crossword Puzzle on the Tenth Year Students’ Vocabulary Achievement at SMAN 2 Genteng” will be conducted.
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