IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY IN READING COMPREHENSION THROUGH DEDUCING MEANING OF UNFAMILIAR WORDS FROM THE CONTEXT AND VOCABULARY BUILDING IN CLASS VII G OF SMPN 2

摘要

This study is action research aimed to improve the students’ reading comprehension through deducing meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and vocabulary building in Class VIIG of SMPN 2 Pleret in the academic year of 2010/2011. Based on the preliminary observation in Class VIIG of SMPN 2 Pleret, there was main problem related to the students’ reading comprehension. The students find it difficult to understand the meanings of the unfamiliar words in the text. Therefore, they could not comprehend the text well.udThis research consisted of two cycles and used qualitative and quantitative data. The researcher worked collaboratively with the English teacher and the students. The subjects of this research were 24 students of VIIG class of SMPN 2 Pleret in the academic year of 2010/2011. The data of this study were qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were obtained by observing the teaching and learning process during the implementation of the actions and interviewing the students of Class VIIG and the collaborator about the implemented actions. The data were in the form of field notes and interview transcripts. The quantitative data were gained through assessing students’ reading comprehension via a pre-test and post-test and students’ reading tasks. In other words, the data were in the forms of students’ reading scores as performed in the pre-test and post-test.udThe results of Cycle I show that the implementation of deducing meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and vocabulary building are not very successful in improving the students’ reading comprehension since there is only a little improvement of students’ reading comprehension. Some students still get confused in comprehending the text. Therefore, Cycle II is further conducted to maximize the implementation of deducing meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and vocabulary building. The results of Cycle II show that the use of deducing meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and vocabulary building are effective to improve the students’ reading comprehension. The findings are supported by the qualitative data of students’responses in the form of field notes and interview transcripts. Those findings are also supported by the quantitative data in the form of the gain score of the pre-test and post-test, obtained by deducting the mean score of post-test (8.5) from pre-test (6.4) which was 2.1. The standard deviations (SD) were 1.1 in the pre-test and 0.7 in the post-test.