Enhancing students’ receptive vocabulary mastery by using word mapping strategy: the quasi-experimental study of second grade students at SMPN 41 Bandung

Vocabulary is an essential part of a language. Therefore, it cannot be separated from language learning. Without sufficient amount of vocabulary, students have difficulty in mastering the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The objective of the research is to know: 1) the result of enhancing students’ receptive vocabulary by using word mapping strategy 2) the result of enhancing students’ receptive vocabulary by using conventional technique; and 3) the significant difference between enhancing students’ receptive vocabulary taught by using word mapping strategy and by using memorizing technique. This research uses the quasi-experimental method, with pre-test and post-test. The samples are two classes of second-grade students at SMPN 41 Bandung. An experimental and a control classes. In the experimental class, vocabulary was taught with word mapping strategy. On the other hand, in the control class, vocabulary was taught with the conventional technique. The data were collected from administering multiple-choice tests before and after the treatments The findings indicate that teaching receptive vocabulary by using the word mapping strategy significantly increases students’ receptive vocabulary. The result of t-test shows that the significance value is lower than the level of significance. tcount is 4 and ttable is 2.64.Refers to (Subana, 2005) that (Ho) is rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Ha) is accepted which means there is a significant difference between teaching receptive vocabulary with word mapping strategy and teaching receptive vocabulary with the conventional technique. In addition, the gain data of experimental class is 0.5 (medium) and control class is 0.16 (low). It means that the difference in the score is significant. From the result, it is known that students are enjoyable in learning vocabulary because the process of learning is comfortable and easy to understand. In addition, they can memorize the vocabularies well by using the word mapping strategy. It can be concluded that word mapping strategy is an effective strategy in teaching vocabulary to learners. Word mapping strategy may be used by the English teachers in teaching English especially teaching vocabulary in Junior High School level