Factors causing difficulties in learning vocabulary by the fifth year students of ngringo 02 Elementary School Karanganyar in the Academic Year of 2005/2006�

This thesis is intended to 1) analyze the process of teaching and learning vocabulary at the fifth year students of Ngringo 02 elementary school, 2) identify difficulties faced by the students in vocabulary learning, 3) identify and formulate factors causing vocabulary learning difficulties, 4) investigate strategies used by the teacher to solve difficulties in vocabulary learning. This study of which population is all of the 28 of the fifth year students, uses a descriptive qualitative method and purposive random sampling technique. In collecting the data, this study uses observation, questionnaire, interview, and document to elicit the data from the process of teaching and learning vocabulary. The technique of analyzing the data is the Interactive- Analysis Model, which is proposed by Miles and Huberman. The results of the study show that 1) the process of teaching and learning vocabulary at the fifth class is conducted appropriately. However, there are many weaknesses which come from the students who have simple strategies, limited sources and lack of readiness in their vocabulary learning. Meanwhile, another weakness comes from the English teacher who employs simple techniques and limited media in the process of vocabulary teaching, 2) there are four difficulties faced by the students in vocabulary learning, the percentages of which are 86% in translation, 93% in pronunciation, 85% in writing, and 86% in differentiating word classification. In the average, there are 87.5% students who find difficulties in vocabulary learning, 3) there are two factors causing vocabulary-learning difficulties. They are the internal factor, which comes from the students and the external one which includes the family environment and the aspects of school such as the teacher, teaching techniques, the materials, and instructional media, 4) there are many strategies used by the teacher to solve problems in vocabulary. In translation, she translated the words directly without consulting to the English dictionary. In pronunciation, she pronounced the words and followed by the students. In word classification, she refreshed their memories by asking the classification of word in teaching and learning process. In addition, she always tries to improve her knowledge to find new innovation in English teaching. Unfortunately, she didn�t pay close attention to solve the spelling problem. The reason is that they will accustom to study spelling in the following class and they will study by themselves. It is suggested that besides motivating and preparing students� readiness, hopefully, the teacher also uses various teaching techniques and various media in the process of teaching and learning vocabulary to improve their understanding in achieving better English learning