Teaching Vocabulary Through Games To Elementary Students
CHAPTER I – INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Language is a means of communication. People can communicate with each other by using
language. It brings idea, opinions, thoughts, and feelings. English is the first foreign language in
Indonesia which is important to transfer and gain knowledge, science and technology, art and
culture, and establish international relationship.
Pei quoted by H. Doughlas Brown explains “Language is a system of communication by sound,
operating through the organ of speech and hearing among members of a given community and
using vocal symbol possessing arbitrary conventional meaning.” It is clearly stated that language
is used to communicate with each other by our organ of speech.
In Indonesia, English is regarded as the first foreign language. That is learned from Elementary
School to University, even in kindergarten they have started to study English. It needs teacher
skills. The teacher should be able to create an interesting method and technique in order to obtain
a good result and avoid the student boredom.
Introducing a foreign language to children is challenging and is not as giving a toy to the crying
child. It happens because children are unique in their characteristics and have a special way of
learning a new thing. They acquire knowledge by asking, listening to people around them and
also experienced things. Through these acquiring children develop their vocabulary.
Vocabulary is one important aspect in learning a foreign language. Without a proportional
amount of vocabulary anyone will get trouble in her speaking, reading, listening, and writing.
Without a shred of doubt, the writer said that the acquisition of vocabulary would help people in
gaining, understanding, and also enhancing the process of knowledgeable transfered for a better
life. Indisputably the chances for progress or success in any kind of fields, like computers,
technology, economy, politics, tourism, and educational increase with the size and applications
of vocabulary.
CHAPTER II – THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
A. Vocabulary
In the past, vocabulary teaching and learning were often given little priority in second language
programs, but recently there has been a renewed interest in the nature of vocabulary and its role
in learning and teaching.
According to Kruse, vocabulary, like grammar is an essential component of all uses of language.
She also adds:
“The skill needed to be able to guess the meaning of words from context, and discusses exercise
that can be used to help students recognize prefixes, suffixes, and roots; read diagram and charts
