CHAPTER II
THEORITICAL REVIEW
A. Nature of Vocabulary 1. Definition of Vocabulary
Vocabulary is one of the language components that should be
mastered by learners. Students‟ vocabulary mastery is very important
to support their communication process. According to Nurgiyantoro
(2001) in order to able to communicate in language, one needs to
master the vocabulary in adequate numbers. Vocabulary mastery
enables a person to receive and transfer the information. Besides that,
it will be capital for the students to learn other language skills in the
next step such as: speaking, writing, reading and listening. It can be
said that vocabulary should be taught first because it is the basic
elements of language which has crucial role in language learning.
In short, vocabulary is one of the important language aspects which
should be learned by language learners in order to be able to
communicate. Besides that, the more vocabulary the learners have, it is
the easier for them to develop and learn English as the foreign
2. The Importance of learning vocabulary
In communication, language is one of important thing that should
be had by someone. Vocabulary is central to English language
teaching, because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot
understand others or express their own ideas. By having rich
vocabulary, students can master listening, speaking, reading and
writing skills.
According to Yuksel (2009) vocabulary mastery is one of the
central components of developing successful communication and
literary skills and has been seen as integral part of language.
3. Types of vocabulary
Vocabulary can be classified into oral and print form (Hibert and
Kamil, (2005:3). The form of vocabulary when someone speaks orally
or reads orally belongs to oral form. Conversely, when someone reads
silently or writes something, vocabulary will be seen in print form.
Furthermore, Hibert and Kamil (2005:3) also stated that vocabulary
can be classified into two types; productive and receptive vocabulary.
Those types will be explained bellow:
a. Productive Vocabulary
Productive vocabulary is usually used when someone share their
ideas when they speaks or writes. When someone speaks in public,
him or her usuallu uses the words which are familiar in order to
or someone write something. This kind of words belongs to
productive vocabulary. According to Hiebert and Kamil (2005:3)
productive vocabulary is the set of words that an individual can use
when writing or speaking. They are words that are well-known,
familiar, and used frequently because people uses them
continuously. While Haycraft in Hacth and Brown (1995:370)
stated that productive vocabulary is words which the student
understands, pronounce correctly and use constructively in
speaking and writing.
b. Receptive Vocabulary
Receptive vocabulary is that set of words for which an individual
can assign meanings when listening or reading. These are words
that are often less well known to students and less frequent in use
(Hiebert and Kamil, 2005:3). Receptive vocabulary is words that
the students recognize and understand when they occur in context,
but which he cannot produce correctly. (Haycraft in Hacth and
Brown, 1995:370).
4. The scope of vocabulary
According to Brown (1995:219), word class is important
feature in semantic feature analysis and definition of each part is as
a. Noun
Noun can be referred to a person, place or thing. Noun can have the
position of object and subject.
b. Verb
Verbs are words that denote action. Verbs have principal parts,
such as: the infinitive, like to drink, past drank, and participle
drunk.
c. Adjectives
Adjectives are used to highlight qualities or attributes. It is also
used to describe particular noun, such as: sad, happy, light,
handsome, etc.
d. Adverbs
Adverbs can be divided into some parts such as adverds of time,
like now, then, etc, adverbs of place like there, here, etc, adverbs of
manner like slowly, quickly, etc, and for frequency adverbs like
seldom, never, etc.
5. Teaching of Vocabulary
Teaching is showing or helping someone to learn how to do
something, give instruction, guide, in the study of something, provide
with knowledge, cause to know or understand (Brown,2007: 8).
According to Nunan (1991: 74) teaching vocabulary for the
beginner needs many appropriate ways. The teacher should know the
Finochiaro in Sastriana (2010: 9) draws some premises and
comments related to the vocabulary teaching:
a. Not all words a students hears during any lesson need to
become a part of his „active‟ vocabulary during that lesson or
even in later lesson.
b. Vocabulary should always be taught in normal utterances.
c. New vocabulary item should always be introduced in known
structure.
d. Vocabulary items should be taught in the same way that we
teach anything else.
e. Students should be encouraged to learn and use nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverb.
From the explanantion above, the teacher should choose
appropriate way to teach vocabulary based on students‟ skill. The
teacher also should consider many things such as the advanteges and
disadvantages of the method, time managment, instruction, and the
vocabulary that will be delivered students.
6. Learning of Vocabulary A. Methods of Vocabulary
Words are very essential in learning language. Without words,
they cannot make good sentences to express our feeling. In learning a
language, people always try any ways. Lado in Satriana (2010: 11)
a. Dictionary
Obviously, a language learner has to have a good vocabulary.
Dictionaries can be used effectively to find a quick definition.
According to Harmer (1991: 188), there are two kinds of
dictionary: paper dictionary and electronic pocket dictiionary.
Paper dictionaries can be either bilingual or monolingual.
However, many students like to carry around small electronnic
dictionaries which fit into their pocket because it is easier and more
simple to carry around than paper dictionary.
b. Note book
One of the effective ways to control the learning of new words is to
keep a notebook. We may want to keep a small one in our pocket
so that we can write down the word whenever we hear or see them.
c. Guessing the Meaning
There are some meaning of words in English. Often, especially in
reading lesson, the students will find many words whose exact
meaning is not absolutely necessary for them to know in order to
understand the sentences. Therefore, the students do not have look
up into the dictionary to translate the meaning, but they can see
B. The aspect of Vocabulary
According to Lado (1972:1) as cited in Mardianawati (2012:11),
there are several vocabulary aspects that students need to know and
learn, they are: meaning, spelling, pronunciation, word classes.
1. Meaning
Meaning to the students, teachers should teach their students that a
word may have more than one meaning when used in different
contexts. In order to discover the meaning, the teacher can use
ways such as guided discovery, contextual guesswork and using
dictionaries.
2. Spelling
Spelling is important because it aids in reading. It helps cement the
connection that is shared between sounds and letter. Many letters
can represent more than one sound. For example the letter (I) is not
always pronounce /I/, so an English teacher should keep student‟s
pronounce and spell English word correctly.
3. Pronunciation
Pronunciation is the act or manner of pronouncing words. Most of
words have only one pronunciation, but sometimes a word has two
or more pronunciation. English pronunciation is difficult to be
learnt because it is not related to the spelling of words. Good
pronunciation avoids misunderstanding in communication, thus it
4. Word classes
Word classes are categories of word. The classification of the
words of a language in this way depends on their function in
communication. The word classes can be in the form of noun,
adjective, adverb and verb. However, the word classes that be used
in this research are only noun and adjective.
5. Word use
Word use is the way a word, phrase, or concept is used in a
language. Word use may also involve grammar and thus be the
subject of profound analysis.
In this case, the aspects of vocabulary that will be taught to
the students are meaning, pronunciation, spelling and word classes.
The reasons for choosing those aspects is it is appropriate with the
material being taught in the class using change chairs.
B. The Nature of Game
1. Definition of Change ChairsGame
Change Chairs Game is kind of fun game to teach vocabulary
for students, because they have to change their position based on the
clues. According to Redjeki, Agoestywati Change Chairs
Game(2010:125) states that Change Chairs Game can be implemented
to give instruction based on the clue wordsof real condition. It is one of
movement activities from certain instruction that can make the students
vocabulary. It is fun game to teach vocabulary to the students. This
game is a game where the students can add their vocabulary based on
the clues. The students are usuallyinterested in the game and the
teachercan usethisgameto teachanddetermine the extent ofvocabulary
skillsof students.
This game is very challenging because in this game the
students should give the instruction in form sentence by the clues.
Playing this game can also makes the students feel fun when
theylearnvocabulary because this is a very lively activity that can give
the student new experience in learning vocabulary.
In conducting this game, there is a part when the students have
to replacethe students who standing in the center of circle. This is a fun
game, so the students can add a lot of vocabulary based on the clues
that including with the material. In completing the task, the students
are devided into a big circle.
2. The Advantages of Change Chairs Game
There are some advantages usingChange ChairsGame, such as :
1. This game encourage the students to their interest to study
English.
2. It makes the meaning of the material clearly, so the students
will understand the material.
4. This game is easy for the teacher to deliver the vocabulary of
the material to the students.
3. The Steps of Change Chairs Game
The first step is preparation. The teacher should prepare
some clues that relation with the material that will be teach to the
students before conducting the game. Then the teacher make some
clues based on the material which is teach.
The second step is procedure. The following are the procedure to
do the game :
a. Dividing the class intoa big circle.
b. Giving the example and rules to the students.
c. Choosing one of student to standing in the center of circleby
attendance list.
d. Giving instruction in form sentences based on the clue which is
given by the teacher. For example the clue is trouser.
e. Changing their position with the other students based on the same
condition. For example “If you are wearing blue trousers change chairs”.
f. Then some students who are wearing blue trousers have to stand up
and move their seat.
g. Giving explanation about vocabulary that have been played by the
h. The students who doesn‟t know the meaning of sentence have to replace with the student who stands in the center of circle.
i. The teacher give the time for play the game around 30-35 minutes.
C. Basic Assumption
Using Change Chairs Game in classroom is an interestingtechnique
for students to learn English vocabulary. The writer believes that language
teaching-learning by game will make the students easy by getting and
remembering the vocabulary.When students are interested in joining the
lesson, it will be easier for them to understand the material and students
will be highly motivated.
D. Hypothesis
In line with the basic assumption above, the hypothesis of the
research is Change Chairs Game technique is effective for teaching
