Improving Students’ Vocabulary Achievement Through PVN (Personal Vocabulary Note)

Abstract

The lack of English vocabulary mastery becomes a problem faced by the students of the eight grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Mempawah Timur. By the vocabulary problems faced by the students, they find it difficult to learn English. This research aimed to solve the vocabulary problems faced by the students. To solve the problems, the researcher chose a learning technique called PVN (Personal Vocabulary Note). It is a technique that encourage the students to write in their native language when they did not know how to say it in English. The researcher chose Classroom Action Research (CAR) by conducting two cycles and three meetings of each cycle. The data were collected from 21 students consisted of 10 female and 11 male students of the eighth grade students at SMP Negeri 1 Mempawah Hilir. In collecting the data, the researcher used vocabulary test, observation checklist and field notes. The data were analyzed by using triangulation. Based on the findings of the investigation done in this action research, the use of PVN could help the students memorized the vocabulary easily, motivated students and make them more interested in learning English. This can be seen from the improvements after each cycles. It can be concluded based on the result of the study that PVN better improved the students’ ability in vocabulary mastery at the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Mempawah Timur in Academic Year 2019/2020. Keywords: personal vocabulary note, teaching vocabulary