NAME : ANDI ERINA FAQIHA ASNAWI

NIM : 1652042003

USING MEMRISE TO IMPROVE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

MASTERY FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The communication is a message being transmitted from speakers to listeners,

both speakers and listeners must have same language to make a communication well.
Language as a means of communication cannot be separated from human life.
Language can be used in written and oral communication. One of the languages is
English. English is international language that people can use to communicate in
around the world. People can use it to communicate with another from other nations,
such as: when doing transaction (order or request), looking for a job, or going abroad.
Generally, communication can be dividing into two forms, verbal and non-verbal
communication.

Using English as a communication tools in the present day is people needs who
want to make communication and cooperation with other people in another country.
Most of people start to learn English to be a special language. Especially for students,
employees and governments must know how to communicate with English.

In English, there are two types of ability that people can be master, such as
language skills and language elements. There are four English language skills, four of
them are listening, speaking, reading and writing. Language elements are vocabulary,
grammar, spelling and phonology.

Vocabulary is the basic unit of language and has an important role in learning a
language, especially in the foreign language learning. In fact, good command of
vocabulary can make someone express his ideas effectively. Vocabulary must be
reached by students in order to get other competencies like reading, writing, listening,
and speaking. It is difficult to master the other competences without knowing and
understanding the vocabulary.

According to Ahmad (2012:31) reports that some factors may cause students’
lacking vocabulary: low motivation, low interest, insufficient practice and lack of
assignments and poor techniques & strategies instructed by the teacher. Aisyah
(2012:2) states that the low mastery of English vocabulary was caused by many
factors. One of them is the lack of teaching techniques and strategies from the
teachers. The lack of teachers, techniques and strategies in presenting the materials
will fail to gain the object of the teaching process. If students lack of vocabulary, the
students are also difficult to deliver their ideas because of their limitation of
vocabulary. On the other hand, some students do not have self-confidence in speaking
using that vocabulary. As a consequence, students will be difficult to communicate to
each other or share their opinion. It means that in the learning process, the students
will not get what the meaning of the language or they cannot use the language to
communicate. Some students can improve their vocabulary by reading, analyzing,
translating, identifying and memorizing words.

The students must have the strategies of learning language English as foreign
language that can make easily to learn by using ICT. In present day, most of people
can use technology as their helper to do anything. We can use it to help people who
want to learn English, communicate with other people, and express our idea or
feeling by using social media or play games. Wiki media project (2013) considers
ICTs as “diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate,
create, disseminate, store, and manage information.” Varied kinds the way people
learn foreign language, especially in English. We can learn English by using
application, television, radio, website, games and other part of technology.
Applications give an impact of how human communicate with other people and doing
their activities. If they use application to learn English, they can combine sounds,
pictures/images and texts which draw the learners’ attention or to force them to
watch, listen and become engaged in the lesson. Similarly, if technology used in
classroom will provide the learners with opportunity for interacting with diverse texts
that give students a background in the tasks and content English language courses
designed improve their proficiency in English and interaction with learning texts. The
application of multimedia in the learning and teaching of English creates opportunity
for the teacher to bring almost real life situation in to the classroom.

A. Problem statement
Based on the background described above, the writer formulates the problem
statement are:
1. Can the use of MEMRISE improve the vocabulary of students?
2. What can MEMRISE make the students interest in learning Vocabulary?

B. Objective of the study

Based on the background, the writer formulates the objectives of this paper are:
1. To explain the use of MEMRISE improves the vocabulary of students.
2. To explain the uses of MEMRISE make the students interest in learning
vocabulary.
 CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Previous Related Reasearch Findings

There are some researchers who conduct research by using some methods and
techniques in teaching vocabulary. These researches find methods and techniques that
are more efficient and easy in learning process:
1. Sriwahyuni (2014) concluded that the related word game can improve the
student’s vocabulary. She found that the vocabulary of the second year
students of SMPN I Sinjai selatan was improved. It was shown by the result
of pretest mean score is 5.14 which significantly different with posttest mean
score that is 7.36.
2. Jumiati (2013) in her research “improving the students’ vocabulary mastery
by using pocket cards” found that vocabulary of the second year students of
SLTPN 21 Makassar in academic year 2002/2003 was increased.
3. Tappi’ (2010) concluded that the Kinesthetic Method can improve the
student’s vocabulary. He found that the vocabulary of the third year students
of SMP Muhammadiyah Limbung Gowa was improved.

Based on the previous explanations above, the writer can give conclusion that
the researchers have similar skill. On the other hands, the method was used by the
researcher and writer is different. The writer provides context clues to teach and
develop the students’ vocabulary achievement.

B. Some Partinent Ideas

1. Concept of Vocabulary
a. Definition

Good (1959:642) says that vocabulary is (1) either the content or the
funftion words of language which are learned so thoroughly that they become
a part of child’s understanding, spelling and later reading and writing; (2) the
 words heaving meaning when heard or seen even though not produced by the
individual himself. We can infer form this definition that vocabulary is any
words. Either content words or funcation words, used by the speaker or writer
to convey meaning to heaters or readers.

Inayah (2010:15) states vocabulary is a fundamental requirement that

influence students’achiviement in studying English . without vocabulary there
is no communicate, read, write can be conveyed so that, it is important to
know that the vocabulary.

Brown, H.D (2011:7) assumes that (1) vocabulary is a content and

function words language which are learned so thoroughly, that they become a
part of the child’s understanding , speaking, and later reading and writing, (2)
vocabulary is word having meaning whil heard or seen and produced
individual in social interaction. The first definition is likely to be related to
psychlonguistics because it is sometimes in connection with the child
language development. While, he second seems to reveal the presence of
passive or receptive vocabulary.

From the definition above, the writer takes conclusion that Vocabulary
is a simply of the words of a language which have meaning and function.
Vocabulary is the basic of the word that have different meaning when it word
stand alone and join with other word. vocabulary is a list of words in language
that have meaning and are used communication and vocabulary is the words
that a person knows or uses in particular language and all the words have
meaning funcation in language.

b. Type of Vocabulary

For more specific meaning, Good (2014) divides vocabulary into

four kinds, they are:
 1) Oral vocabulary refers to words that a person employs them in
expressing ideas orally and actively.
2) Writing vocabulary refers to words that commonly used in writing.
3) Listening vocabulary refers to words that a person can understand when
they are heard.
4) Reading vocabulary refers to words that someone can recognize them
when he finds them in written form.
5) General vocabulary is a v

Some experts have suggested the classification of vocabulary as cited

below (harmer, 1991: 159) distinguished two type of vocabulary namely
active and passive. Active vocabulary refers to vocabulary that students have
been though and learnt, and which they expected to be able to use. And
passive vocabulary refers to the words which the students will recognized
when they meet them but they will probably not able to produce it.

Thomas in Darmawati (2006) divides vocabulary into four kinds

namely:

1) Oral vocabulary consist of word actively use in speech. The significant

character of oral vocabulary is that the speaker in rehearsed situation
actively used it.
2) Writing vocabulary consist of words, which are actively used in writing.
Since it is not under constrain of time, it may have substantially wider
range than the vocabulary or unrehearsed speech.
3) Listening vocabulary is the stock of word to which one response with
meaning and understanding in the speech or others

Based on description above, we can get the point of explanation

about active and passive vocabularies. Using both vocabularies is very
important. Active vocabulary is used for speaking and writing, and passive
vocabulary is all the words that understand when listening or reading.
c. The Classification of the words

According to Ba’dulu, (2008:15) point out that there are two

classifications of the words.

1) Traditional of the words classification

There are eight parts of speech, namely:
a) Noun, A noun is the word or word group that names a person, a place,
an idea or a thing (object, activity, quality, and condition).
b) Pronoun, A pronoun is a word that functions a noun substitute.
c) Verb, A verb is word group that expresses action
d) Adjective, An adjective is a word group is word that tell a characteristic
or quality of noun or pronoun
e) Adverb, An adverb is word or word group the modifies (characterizes)
a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
f) Preposition, A proposition is a word group that functions to show
meaning relationship between the object (the nominal which normally
follow the preposition) and some other words in the sentence.
g) Conjunction, A conjunction is a word or word group that connects two
sentence components’.
h) Interjection, An interjection is a word or word group that ‘interrupts’
2) New Word Classification
Fries in Ba’dulu, (2016:19) Have classified all English into two divisions:
a) Class word (Parts of speech)
The class words consist of four classes; they are:
i. Class 1 word (noun),
ii. Class 2 word (verb),
iii. Class 3 word (adjective),
iv. Class 4 on word (adverb).
b) Function word
 Based on the parts of speech they occur with, the function words can be
subdivided into the following groups:
i. Determiners,
ii. Auxiliaries,
iii. Intensifiers,
iv. Preposition,
v. Conjunction, and
vi. Question words.

The determiners are function words covering the articles,

numerals, demonstratives, and possessive pronouns. These determiners
always occur with nouns to form noun phrases. The auxiliaries are the
function words which always occur with verb to form verbs phrases. The
intensifiers are function words which always occur with adjectives and
adverbs to form adjective phrases and adverb phrases. The prepositions
are function word which always precedes nouns or noun phrases to form
the prepositional phrases or the relater-axis. The conjunctions are
function words which always connect words, phrases or clauses to form
coordinate conjunction. The question words are function words used to
form questions, particularly information questions, namely, question
giving further information to listeners.

d. The Strategies to Develop Vocabulary

There are many strategies can assist to develop their vocabulary. Each
uses different strategies in learning new words. Each uses different strategies in
learning new words. Ellis and Sindari in Nurmiaty (2018) suggest that:

Strategies that can help learners become more conscious of their own
lerning strategies and those of other members of class.
 1) Provide the learner with nine words that they unlikely to know already,
give the five minutes to learn these words. Here is a list of words that has
been used with adult learners at intermediate level.
2) After five minutes, distract the learners’ attention for a short time byu
discussing something different in order to disturb their short term
memory. They task your learners to write down as many of words as they
can remember and to consider the strategies they used for learning them.
3) Find out who has able to remember the must words. As they can
remember and consider the strategies they used for learning them.
4) Find out who has able to remember the most words emphasize to learners
then in this activity that main focus is on learning strategies, rather than on
the words themselves.
The other strategies they could use that may be effective and help them to the
following.
1) Mime ar gesture

Mime ar gesture is useful for explaining word like “to form” ect or
indicating the past is being talked about (the teacher gesture backwards over
his shoulder).

2) Sound effects

They may also use especially through sound effects; suggest the
context of use but this chiefly to the advanced learner who is able to follow
radio plays.

3) Pointing to the word in a dictionary

In the reading material sometimes the students find some difficult

words and they don’t understand what the passage means. The teacher then
can help them by giving clues for understanding the words meaning, the
students are expected to understand new words in passages. This way can
help the students to guess the unfamiliar words.
 4) Drawing the object

The students can improve their vocabulary by using many kinds

drawing the object. The students can understand the meaning of words after.

e. The principle of teaching and learning Vocabulary

Wallance in jumriah (2006:6-8) indicates nine principles of teaching
and learning vocabularies follow:
1) Aims
In teaching vocabulary we have be clear about our aim or many of
vocabulary listed we expected veneer to be able to do. If it is not clear at
this point, if will be difficult to assess how success full the vocabulary
learninghas been.
2) Quantity
Having decided what are involved in vocabulary learning. We may them
then decide on the quantity to be taught the number of fewstudent can
learn. If we expect the words that will be taugh become part of students’
active vocabulary, the fut number of factors varying from class to class
and from learner to learn. When there are too many new words, the
students may be confused, discouraged and frustrated.
3) Need
To know or to select what will taught to the student is based on frequency
and usefulness of the various meaning of words, students’ background and
language need.
4) Frequent exposure and repetition
In teaching and learning vocabulary, there has to be certain amount
repetition until ther is evidence that the students learn to get words.
5) Meaning full presentation
When introduce new words, the teacher must know the students situation
or athmosphere of the class so that they know when the students are ready
to accept the material
 6) Presentation in context
Words very seldom occur in isolation, so it is important for the students to
know the students to know the useful communication that a occurs in so
from the very beginning the word must appear in it is natural environment
as it were among the it normally collates with.
7) Guessing procedures in vocabulary learning
Guessing is one way of learning vocabulary by asking the students to
think the meaning of new words taught. Students’ guesses the meaning of
the words by hearing them using them certain in a situation or something
reading them in certain context.
f. What do the students need to know?

Harmer, (1991:156) elaborates about what the students need to know in

term of vocabulary achievemet:

1) Word Meaning
The first thing to realize about vocabulary is that they often have more one
meaning. Then we often have to look at the context in which the words is
used.
2) Word use
Word meaning is frequently strechd through the use of metaphor and
idim. It is also governed by collocation that is which words go with each
other. We also often use words only in certain social and topical context.
3) Words information
Word can change their save and their grammatical value too. Thus, the’
run’ has participle’running’ and ran. The participle’ranning’ is as adjective
and ‘ran’ as a noun.
4) Word grammar
Word change according to their grammatical meaning. So , the use of
cartain words can trigger the use of cartain grammar. We make distictio
behavior that student need to know.
g. Definition of Noun and Verb
1) Definition of Noun

Marish William defines nouns as a word that is use to name a person,

place, thing, quality or action can function as the subject of a verb. Beside that
William drive defines that noun is one of the classes or part of speech which
is, commonly used to name people, place, thing, or action and can be fuction
either as the subject or object of the sentences.

Jackson H (1982) state that nouns generally refers to things in the

broadest sense. If we have a nouns for something, it implies that we view it as
thing ( a process know as reification) for example : in English we have nouns
for thunder and lightening, where as in hope, a north American Indian
Language, these concept can only expressed by verb.

In addition Emolyn (1950) assert that nouns is name of anything. It

maybe the name of the person Joseph, Boy, and object (Bo, boy), a quantity of
something (Pound, ounce, pint) a measure (yard, rod) an action (involvement,
performance), a state (death) an accordance (accident), a since impression
(sound, hoist) and a great many another of things.

Word book Encyclopedia seems to have similar tones as the other

expert that noun is a part if speech that identifies people, place, object,action,
qualities and ideas (Word Book Encyclopedia;558)

2) Kind of Noun
a) Proper Noun
Proper nouns is the noun which refer to unique things such as
people, place, institution, the name of days of the week, months,
historical, document.
Example :
 Afika
 Halifax
  Sunday
 Beltance
 Juny
b) Common Noun
Common nouns is a noun referencing to a person, people, place,
or thing a general sense usually it should be written by using capital letter
only when it beings a sentence a common noun is the opposite of a proper
noun.
Example :
 Town
 Sign
 Miles an
 Garden
c) Concrete Noun
Concrete noun is nouns which names anything (anyone) that you
can perceive through your physical, sense, sight, taste, hearing and smell.
Example :
 Table
 Files
 Dog
 Flower
d) Abstract Noun
Abstract noun is noun which names is anything you can not
perceive through your five physical sense, and it is the opposite of the
concrete noun.
Example :
 Freedom
 Childhood
 Justice
  Happiness
e) Countable Noun
Countable nouns (count noun) is noun with both a singular and
plural from, and it names anything (anyone) that you can count, you can
make a countable noun can be made plural and attach it to aplural verb in
a sentence.
Example :
 Weekend
 Table
 Books
f) Uncountable Noun
Uncountable nouns (mass noun) is a noun which does not have a
plural form, and which refers to something that you could not usually
count an uncountable noun always takes a singular verb in a sentence.
Example :
 Flour
 Milk
 Sugar
 Air
g) Collective Noun
Collective nouns is a noun which a naming group of things
animals or person, we can count the individual members of the group. But
usually think of the group as a whole is generally as one unit, you need to
be able to recognize collective nouns in order to mountain subject verb
agreement.
Example :
 a class
 a committee
 a team
 a gang
  a group

3) Definition of Verb

Jackson (1982) states that verb generally refers to action events and
process such as: given, happen and become they typically have a number of
distinct forms; infinitive (to walk), third person singular present tense (walks),
past tense (walked), present participle (walking) and past participle (walked).

4) Kind of Verb

Golden Berg G (1998) state there are various kinds of verb those are :

a) Transitive verb

Transitive verb are verbs which need an object to make the perpect
meaning.

Example :
 The dog bits the men
 I push the door
 She stuck the board
b) Intransitive verb

Intransitive verb are the verb which have perpect meaning without
an object.

Example :
 The cat sleep
 The sun shines
 The water boils
c) Auxiliary verb
 Auxiliary verb is a close subclass verb and it has a mainly
grammatical function.

Example :
 To be : being, been, am, is, are, was and were
 To do : do, does, and did (to make negative and interrogative)
d) Regular verb

Regular verb are the verbs that can be influenced by the tense
form, and the changing are regularly.

Example :
 Received – received – received
 Kill – killed – killed
 Walk – walked – walked
e) Irregular verb

Irregular verb are the verbs that can be influenced by tenses form
but changing is not regulary.

Example :
 Sleep – slept – slept
 Think – thought – thought
 Cut – cut – cut
 Drink – drank – drunk
2. Interest
a. Definition of Interest

According to Oxford Learners’ Pocket Dictionary (2008:232), interest is

desire to learn about somebody or something. The other definition of interest
from Sukardi (1988). He stated that interest is a positive feeling or attitude
toward experiences, activities, people, or others. Ariza (2008) said that interest is
an attitude that accompanies one’s attention in choosing an interesting object,
continuously. In other words, interest is a certain motivation that leads one
behavior to particular aims.

b. Kind of Interest

According to Hansen et al (1982:479), there are 4 kind of interest as

follow:

1) Expressed interest
Expressed interest is a verbal linking expression or disliking something.
This interest is express with certain words.
2) Manifest interest
In this kind of interest, a person does not express his or her interest
through words but through action. It is observable because of the
individual participations in a given activity.
3) Tested interest
This is a kind of interest that can measured by objective test which is
based on the subjective self estimate or it can be uncertain by measuring
the knowledge of vocabulary.
4) Inventoried interest
Inventoried interest is the interest that determine by an interest checklist.
The interest of someone is measure by asking someone to answer a
particular question or to choose the activities that have been prepared and
put in sequence. He or she then asked to check whether she or he likes or
dislikes certain activities or situation pattern of high or low interest
normally result.

In this research, the writer will measure the inventoried interest of the
students in order to know whether or not they are interested in learning English
through MEMRISE.

c. The Relationship between Interest and Learning

 Interest and learning have strong relation. It flesh out that learning is
depending upon interest. In other words, learning cannot be occurred unless the
person is interested in learning (Rosmayasari: 2010). Besides, Wang et al
(1998:5) in Syatir also stated that “one of the important factors in teaching and
learning process is interest. That is because if someone interest to something that
he learn, he will has a strong attention, more concentration, easy to remember,
and will not easy to be bored to what he learn.

According to Safari (2003) there are four indicators of interest in

learning, as follows:

1) Afterglow

A student, who has feelings of pleasure in learning a particular subject,

then he or she should continue to learn everything dealing with the subject.
For example, a student who fells pleasure in learning English, she or he
should learn everything related to English. There is absolutely no forced to
learn it.

2) Student’s interest

In this case, students’ interest is something that deals with the

motivation power that encourage the students tend feel to feel attracted to
something, activities, people, or can be effectively stimulated by the
experience or the activities itself.

3) Student’s Attention

Attention is a concentration or soul activity of the the observation and

understanding by disregarding the other from it.

4) Student’s Involvement

Involvement is something that leads someone like or interest to do

activities on the object.
 d. How to measure the Interest

One way to measure the interest of the students is by using scale. There
are five basic types of scale; one of them is Likert Scale. Gay, (2006:130) stated
that likert scale is a scale that asks an individual to response to a series of
statements by indicating whether he or she strongly agrees (SA), agree (A),
undecided (U), disagree (D), or strongly disagree (SD). Each response of the
individual is assigned a point value based on the statement (positive or negative
statement). The point value for the positive statements: SA= 5. A=4, U=3, D=2,
SD=1. While for the negative statements, the point values are: SA=1, A=2, U=3,
D=4, and SD=5.

3. MEMRISE
a. What is MEMRISE?

Memrise is a free language learning website that uses its community of

users to teach and improve language learning for everyone involved. It uses
audio, images, and memory techniques to help you associate words with one
another for easier recall, as well as regular tests to ensure you're remembering
the concepts.

Memrise uses what's called "elaborate encoding" to help you remember

different concepts. Instead of having you just read through words and their
translations, and trying to memorize them in their raw form, it creates an
association between the translation and words you are already familiar with. 

There are different ways Memrise tests you. For example, you may get a
question/answer problem to solve and then a multiple choice question later on,
though they both are testing you on the same concept. This keeps the questions
unique but also serves as a quick way to ensure you're retaining what you're
learning.
 Memrise utilizes whats called "spaced repetition" to regularly review
you. It does so more often in the beginning with easier tests as you're learning
new words, and then less often, but with harder tests, as they're committed to
long term memory. These automatically precisely spaced reviews keep you
learning and remembering but without overdoing it.