CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background English is one of the most important foreign languages in Indonesia.

It is used by people to communicate with others from various countries for various purposes. Furthermore, English is used as an international language that relates some countries in the world. Therefore, Indonesian government has decided that English is one of the core programs in formal education, like senior high school, junior high school and even elementary school. There are four skills in English; speaking, reading, writing and listening. In mastering these skills, students have to learn vocabulary which is useful for communication. In addition, they should have enough vocabulary so that they might find it is easy to understand someones speak. In contrast, students may have problems to understand someones speak if they do not have many vocabularies. It can be said that, vocabulary is an important parts of language ability to make communication runs effectively. Vocabulary is also seen as the aspect of language learning that influences students when they use a language. Mastering vocabulary in this case can be studied from teaching and learning process in the class activity through an interactive activity like games. In order to get successful in teaching vocabulary, teachers need to find out an appropriate technique in which they can facilitate their students with interesting materials. It is necessary for teacher to carry on reviewing words systematically through many ways. For example, teachers can make a certain language scene in teaching such as a word game. In this way, thematic dominoes can be applied as a media for teacher to enrich students vocabulary.

Thematic Dominoes Technique is one of strategies to develop students skill especially in mastering vocabulary. It is a way like a game of dominoes but it has a theme and the theme comes from the English text book. In Thematic Dominoes Technique, the students are encouraged to learn vocabulary with fun and they might not feel bored with English subject. Thematic Dominoes can be played in a group. It is like playing a dominoes game, but in this game, the students find the answer from dominoes card in vocabulary form. In addition, this game will encourage the students more active by competing with others to be a winner. Based on the observation at grade VII in MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi, it was found that, English was taught by using a method called GTM (Grammar Translation Method). According to Richard and Rodger in Novianti (2003:2), in GTM, vocabulary is taught through bilingual word list, dictionary and memorization. In this way, the students find the difficult words and then the teacher asks them to find the meaning of word in a dictionary. Moreover, the teacher sometimes has to translate the word without giving an effort at first to the students to find the meaning of word. This method seems to lead students to be more passive and follow the class inactively. To cope with this problem, Thematic Dominoes is implemented as a solution to improve the students vocabulary. This technique encourages students to be more active to compete each other to find new vocabularies. Moreover, domino card can be used as a media in teaching learning process in the classroom activities. From the explanation above, the researcher is interested to conduct a research to find out whether there is significant effect or not of using a technique called thematic dominoes in teaching vocabulary to the first grade students at MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi.

1.2 Formulation of the Problem

Based on the background stated above, the problems in this research can be formulated as: Is there any significant effect or not of using Thematic Dominoes Technique in teaching vocabulary to the first grade students at MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi?

1.3. Definition of Variables Operational definition of the variable X : Thematic Dominoes Technique is a way like dominoes game which has a theme. The shape of this cards are small like the domino card that usually used to play. There is eight theme with 168 cards for this research.

Operational definition of the variable Y : Teaching Vocabulary is the way of teacher in making students understand and master the vocabulary skill

1.4. Limitation of the Problem The problem of this research is limited on the discussion of the vocabulary which is related to the School Life, Family Life, Profession, Hobbies, Things Around Us, and Shopping. The students in this research are the students of MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi at Grade VII.

1.5. Objective of the Research

The objective of this research is to find out whether there is the significant effect or not of using Thematic Dominoes Technique in teaching vocabulary to the first grade students at MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi.

1.6. Benefits of the Research There are some benefits of the research in this case. The first benefit is this research may be used as a constructive information and knowledge for the junior high school especially MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi or other readers. Beside that, this research is useful for English teachers to apply a technique for developing students vocabulary. And the last, this research is also important for students of junior high school especially students of MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi to learn vocabulary with fun and they might not feel bored with English.

1.7. Hypothesis There are two hypotheses to be tested in this study. They are null hypothesis (H0) and research hypothesis (H1). H0 = There is no significant effect of using Thematic Dominoes Technique in teaching vocabulary to the first grade students at MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi. H1 = There is significant effect of using Thematic Dominoes Technique in teaching vocabulary to the first grade students at MTS Nurul Falah Kota Jambi