Name : Triana Dewi

Class : A1 English Education

NIM : 16220054
Subject : Writing for Academic Purposes

THE MIRACLE OF “WORD LINK” GAME APPLICATIONS TO

INCREASE VOCABULARY

1.1 Background

Vocabulary of foreign languages is very important to learn, because if you

don't learn the basic vocabulary of a foreign language it will make it difficult for

people to speak in a foreign language. If the learners can use the basic vocabulary and

realize that function, the learners may have learned it for comprehensible

communication. Further, Spears (2000: 25) states that if the students do not know the

meaning of many words a writer uses, the students can not understand very well what

the speaker is saying. From the quotation above, the student can says that words are

essential, if the students do not know many words, the students are very poor to

understand what the speaker said. From the quote above, it can be said that words are

important, if students do not know a lot of vocabulary, it will be difficult to

understand what the speaker is saying. To develop students language skill in reading,

listening, speaking, and writing, the student must master the vocabulary.

If the student wants to learn to speak English, however the student’s

vocabulary has only a little is that it will hamper for fast English speaking. Allen

(1983) says that to master over a language, the students must learn thousands of
words. It means that the students should have many vocabularies to support their

ability in mastering English. To increase vocabulary are expected to create various

teaching strategy and need the correctness of teaching methods. The great teaching

strategy is very important to make teaching and learning process in the class work

fluently and to make a condition in the class more conducive.

Mobile devices with robust internet connections have proliferated in

educational use since 2010. The new mobile device ecosystems led to the rise of

thousands of free or almost free applications, which refer to computer programs

designed to run exclusively on mobile devices. Which has the potential to help

learners do direct learning in ways that never happened before. For example,

empirical studies reported that iPad apps support the development of speaking,

reading, and writing skills (Harmon et al, 2012; Lys, 2013) and the enhancement of

learning motivation (Kinash, Brand, & Mathew, 2012).

Based on the researcher’s experience while doing learning English language it

was found that most of the students have low vocabulary in English because some

teachers thought that teaching vocabulary items can be done in the same way while

doing a teaching-learning process. The teacher gives the students a list of words that

the students should memorize it. The teacher gives many assignments every time they

learn English. It can case the students think that English is very difficult, not

enjoyable and make them bored. At the end this technique is not effective and

efficient to the students to develop their vocabulary.

 Therefore the teacher must have other ways to attract students' interest in

learning and adding vocabulary. Using games in learning can attract students'

enthusiasm in vocabulary learning and also an effective strategy for teaching

vocabulary. Then researchers try to use Word Link games applications to help

students learn more vocabulary, because if students use the Word Link game

applications it can help student to find out a lot of vocabulary by matching one letters

with other letters so that it can be a word. Game helps the teacher to maximize each

students’ learning potential (Sugar, S & Sugar, 2002).

1.2 Research Question and Hyphothesis

a. Research Question

Based on background of the researcher, the research question can be

concluding as following “As the effect of Word Link applications for

students to find out new vocabulary?”.

b. Hypothesis

Word Link applications are quite influential for students to add vocabulary

because students can find the new vocabulary that is known by playing the

Word Link application.

1.3 Objective of the Research

 According to formulation of the research question, the objective of the research is

as following “To find out if a Word Link application can make students know

more vocabulary or not?”.

1.4 Limitation of the Research

This research is limited only to discuss and increase the knowledge of vocabulary

using an application that Word Links application at….. in SMA ….. In addition

to limited research time only ......

http://bubbleblues90.blogspot.com/2012/03/contoh-proposal-bahasa-

inggris.html

http://repository.uinsu.ac.id/2598/1/SKRIPSI%20IKA%20RAHMADANI%

20LUBIS.pdf

http://repository.uinsu.ac.id/2620/1/SKRIPSI.pdf

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ VOCABULARY MASTERY BY USING TEXT TWIST GAME AT

PRIVATE ISLAMIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL AL – HIJRAH 2 LAU DENDANG2016 / 2017

ACADEMIC YEAR