Students Strategies in Learning Vocabularies of The 8th Grade Students at Madrasah Tsanawiyah Zainul Hasan Genggong

Abstract

This research aims to know about student strategies in learning vocabulary and to know how high and low achievers use strategies to solve the possible problems. The research design of the study employed mix method. The population of this research was the eighth graders students of MTs. Zainul Hasan Genggong which consist of twenty-five students. The instruments of this research were questionnaire and interview. The researcher used closed-ended questionnaire which contained 50 statements about vocabulary learning strategy. The interview used to know how high and low achiever used strategies to solve problems in learning vocabulary. The researcher used purposive sampling to determine the interviewee. In this case, the researcher determined two high achivers and two low achivers as an interviewee based their grades. To analyze the data of the intensity of the strategies used by students, the researcher used descriptive statistic method to calculate the data through SPSS 24. On the other hand, to analyze how high and low achievers used strategies to solve problem in learning vocabulary, the researcher recorded transcribed the data from the interview, and presented them descriptively. The finding of this study showed that the intensity of the use of the overall strategy is at moderate level (M = 3.10). Social strategies were taken at the most frequent (M = 3.22), followed by the Determination strategies (M = 3.21), Memory strategies (M = 3.11), Cognitive strategies (M = 3.08) and the least frequent strategies is Metacognitive (M = 2.89). In relation to the strategies used by high and low achievers, the finding indicated that there are differences between high and low achievers to solve the problems in learning vocabulary. The high achiever used cognitive strategy, and the low achiever chose memory strategy. On the other hand, another high and low achiever used the same strategy, social strategy. Based on the finding of the study, it is addressed to the EFL learner to better understand their learning processes and strengthen their areas of weakness. It is important for students to comprehend how they learn best and how to facilitate their vocabulary strategy. The teacher can motivate students to pinpoint the reason behind their actions and evaluate their approaches in order to effectively handle the effort. Further, for the next researcher can properly extend to a much larger population and reinforce theories about vocabulary learning strategies for EFL created by the experts.

Keywords: Learning Strategies, Vocabulary Skill, High and Low Achievers.